White Horse Challenge
We rode the White Horse Challenge today, almost exactly a year after my last cycling event, the Granfondo. It was a 150km ride in and around the hills of Wiltshire, taking in a number of the white horses and some of the trickier climbs in the area, as close as the UK gets to a Granfondo I suppose.
A 6 am start made me thankful that I had prepared everything in advance so there was no last minute rush when I got picked up for the drive down. 150km later we were unpacking the car to do the same distance on the bikes.
Sign-on was straightforward and we were out on the course very quickly having scanned our timing chips at the start. The first 40km were mostly flat which gave us the chance to put some easy miles behind us and save the legs for the middle section. Gradually the undulations became steeper and I was beginning to feel the lack of early season miles in my legs. Up to about 90km I was doing pretty well but beyond that I had to ride more and more conservatively. Thankfully there were two organised feed stations on the route to refuel, both well stocked with food and drinks. Annoying not long after the second at 105km, I had a puncture but the tyres were easy to remove and a CO2 canister did a cracking job of getting me back on the route.
Not long after we were warned of a crash at the bottom of a descent, by the time the group I was with got there the air ambulance had arrived on the scene. I hope the rider was ok, it looked very nasty.
The final 20km were ok on the flats but I was suffering with terrible cramps on the climbs; I was glad to drop out of the hills for the final 10km into the finish and a "Silver" placing and a ride time of 05:45:00.
All in all it was a really enjoyable day, very well organised, good atmosphere and a great way to mark a return to longer rides. Now I just have to find another event to concentrate on later in the year.
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