After finishing Sunday’s sportive, and meeting my family I rode the 15 minutes back to the flat. A bike is the way to travel in London – I showered and changed before my wife arrived by underground.
We had an excellent late lunch at a nearby pub and then drove back to Oxfordshire. No aches or pains but pretty tired after the 3.30am start (and, perhaps, the 100 miles of cycling) and in bed not long after 9pm (what a lightweight)!
Monday was taken gently but again no aches or pains beyond a slightly sore left knee. Even the troublesome Achilles tendons are behaving themselves (relatively speaking).
The ballot for next year’s ride opened on Sunday, just as this year’s finished, and I have applied again. I’m not sure that I will enter many more sportives (other than my club’s sportive, of course, and perhaps something abroad) but the big attraction of the Ride London is the fact that it’s on closed roads – which is a real treat.
It’s not perfect by any means – it gets too crowded in places, it’s a bit expensive, I didn’t like the really early start and it’s not exactly the alps for scenic beauty – but if I’m lucky enough to get a place, I’ll ride if any friends are doing it.
I ran with my wife on Tuesday morning before spending both Wednesday and Thursday mornings at the cycle park doing some training. No – giving the training, not receiving it.
We had perhaps 40 children of different abilities on each day. Some were complete beginners on balance bikes while for more proficient cyclist it was road awareness. We have a waiting list for training and have even been approached by some adult non-cyclists and so will be running another course for them in the near future.
It’s surprisingly hard work – but really worthwhile.
Possible 2020 challenge?
I’ve signed up for info on what is called ‘The Race to the Stones’. It’s a 100km (62 mile) running race along the historic ‘Ridgeway’ (described as Britain’s oldest road) that runs for 87 miles from north west of London to Avebury – the site of a Neolithic henge monument containing three stone circles built somewhere between 2200 and 2850 BC.
It takes place in July and can be done in two days or in one go – but includes a lot of ascent.
Certainly sufficiently challenging (and more), certainly sufficiently mad and it would give me the opportunity to utter the immortal line ‘I can see my house from here’ as I passed the Uffington White Horse.
Transcontinental Race
My congratulations to Fiona Kolbinger who won the Transcontinental Race. Not only the first woman to lead the Transcontinental Race – but she went on to win it by quite a distance – over 10 hours ahead of second place.
3,571km (measured in a straight line – more like 4,000km on the road) and about 40,000m of climbing (2,200 – 2,500 miles and 131,200 feet) in 10 days 2 hours and 48 minutes, with only 2 days and 4 hours and 36 minutes stationary in all that time.
Beyond impressive!
(an Old Man in Lycra) 
Well done on your achievement. I have friends planning on race to the stones. A massive amount of respect to anyone who does this 😊
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Thank you Sarah. The Race to the Stones is at the ‘possible’ level, at the moment. That sort of challenge will be as new to me as 100 miles on the bike was for you. If I have a go at it, I hope I can do as well as you did.
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