I was just leaving the feed stop at the top of the Tumble as you were making your way up. I think Caerphilly Hill was worse than the Tumble. Well done all.
Highlights of the official race in the afternoon is on ITV4 on next Saturday morning. They had to do Yhe Tumble twice and Caerphilly Mountain three times.
CCA ventured across the border into Wales to tackle the inaugural closed road sportive - Velothon Wales. After a trypical Welsh day on Saturday i.e. rain the weather took a dramatic turn for the better on Sunday with a large yellow ball appearing in the sky :-) The event was amazingly well organised and at 8.05 exactly we rolled out onto the closed roads of Cardiff for a fun and fast 30 mile lead up to the mountains. No idea how the organisers managed it but there wasn't even a small incline all the way to Newport and so we team trialled it and all achieved a pb! This was very misleading as then the road left the coast and it all went uphill from there - 56 miles in fact! The big climb of the day was the Tumble with 4miles at an ave 10% with an evil steep bit at the beginning through the forest - but this didnt stop us having a crack at the Strava KOM/QOM and overtaking all of the locals. After a few Welsh cakes to replenish our stores we bumped into Stevie and Mark and all continued down and up across the valleys to get to big climb number 2 - Caerphilly Mountain. OMG this was tough at 17% in places but loads of crowds lining the streets cheering us up. After another quick regroup we had a speedy descent - which was actually up and into Cardiff where we sprinted for glory in the city centre. An excellent route on closed roads, fantastic scenery and brilliant support along the way. We completed as a group with 4hr 56 mins ride time, 86miles at an ave 17.5mph. It would have been slightly quicker if we hadn't had to carry our bikes for 20mins through 'tack zone' in Caerleon - don't think the golfers at the Celtic Manor were happy thatwe had stopped them playing that day!
Wow, great ride - I'd recommend it to anyone for next year, should it be allowed to run again. Probably the best organised event I've ever ridden in (the good weather edged it past last year's Ride London for me), a slick operation and cracking route - plenty of fast, surprisingly flat roads mixed in with challenging climbs and a couple of frankly terrifying descents (without pushing it too hard, reached probably my highest ever speeds of 48.5mph). Sign me up for next year! Route details here
Comments
Vicky
Caerphilly was definitely steeper than The Tumble, but shorter.
Both fun/nasty in different ways.
Some quality descents as well.
They had to do Yhe Tumble twice and Caerphilly Mountain three times.
The event was amazingly well organised and at 8.05 exactly we rolled out onto the closed roads of Cardiff for a fun and fast 30 mile lead up to the mountains. No idea how the organisers managed it but there wasn't even a small incline all the way to Newport and so we team trialled it and all achieved a pb! This was very misleading as then the road left the coast and it all went uphill from there - 56 miles in fact! The big climb of the day was the Tumble with 4miles at an ave 10% with an evil steep bit at the beginning through the forest - but this didnt stop us having a crack at the Strava KOM/QOM and overtaking all of the locals. After a few Welsh cakes to replenish our stores we bumped into Stevie and Mark and all continued down and up across the valleys to get to big climb number 2 - Caerphilly Mountain. OMG this was tough at 17% in places but loads of crowds lining the streets cheering us up. After another quick regroup we had a speedy descent - which was actually up and into Cardiff where we sprinted for glory in the city centre.
An excellent route on closed roads, fantastic scenery and brilliant support along the way. We completed as a group with 4hr 56 mins ride time, 86miles at an ave 17.5mph. It would have been slightly quicker if we hadn't had to carry our bikes for 20mins through 'tack zone' in Caerleon - don't think the golfers at the Celtic Manor were happy thatwe had stopped them playing that day!
We got a few mims of fame for CCA at the end when we were interviewed for TV (don't know which channel) and photographed for Heart/Capital radio where we made their online gallery (http://www.heart.co.uk/wales/news/local/in-pictures-velothon-wales/velothon-wales-15/).
Brilliant day out and would definitely do it again - thanks everyone for making it such a great ride.
Route details here
And arriving at the top of Caerphilly Mountain:
And after the final sprint:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=xzFv3c0uJq0
Looking good :-)