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Tour of Ayrshire - Gran Fondo World Qualifier
Wore the club colours at the Tour of Ayrshire Gran Fondo event on Sunday. A hilly, and very windy, 112km ride around the roads of Kilmarnock. Closed roads and very good organization, although road surfaces were a bit suspect in several places. Overall a challenging race with the majority of entrants being Brits, but a fair few Europeans thrown into the mix aiming for qualification for the Amateur World Champs in France (Albi) later this year.
Managed to bridge a gap near the start and then rode at the front end of 30+ group for around 80km. On the penultimate bigger hill a group of 8 of us manage to pull away, then reducing to a final 6, which led to a very fast final 15km and a sprint for the finish, which believe it or not I actually won! So, finished 17th overall in my age group and successfully qualified for team GB at the Worlds. So, guess I'll have to take the training a bit more seriously now.
Also entered for the Tour of Cambridge - be good to know how many of us are going to that one - looks a lot less hilly but with a little further to ride and I hear it's a decent event (as long as you start from the race gates).
Simon
Managed to bridge a gap near the start and then rode at the front end of 30+ group for around 80km. On the penultimate bigger hill a group of 8 of us manage to pull away, then reducing to a final 6, which led to a very fast final 15km and a sprint for the finish, which believe it or not I actually won! So, finished 17th overall in my age group and successfully qualified for team GB at the Worlds. So, guess I'll have to take the training a bit more seriously now.
Also entered for the Tour of Cambridge - be good to know how many of us are going to that one - looks a lot less hilly but with a little further to ride and I hear it's a decent event (as long as you start from the race gates).
Simon
Comments
Albi course looks interesting - largely flat all round with a massive climb at the end. The overall winner at Perth last year won our category at the Tour of Malta this year - some seriously quick competition...!
It's pretty similar to the London 100 ride: but for me beats it as it's logistically easier to get to, a more civilised start time and the closed road route is interesting enough; going through the villages and people waving etc is good hoopla.
I was lucky enough to keep with the main bunch last year. A massive group. I'd say it was a road race in effort terms and we averaged 25.0mph. The organisers messed up though in the starting gates: allowing riders in my age group to sneakily start with the yoof; giving them a stronger bunch to tag along with. So it skewed the results and there was a fair bit of grumpiness on the social media afterwards and they tried but failed to correct everything. They were apologetic and I suspect they will be more militant at the starting gates this year. I'm not sure gating the event by age group is the best idea really. But they want to stop a mass 6,000 strong brawl from the gun. A shame: sounds like mad fun!
The trick will be to go like a rocket from the start and weave through to find where the main bunch for your group is forming up.
The Gran Fondo is Sunday 4th June 12pm kick off. Peterborough. Just off the A1. Enter here;
Top tip: I avoided all the issues of parking by putting the car in Elton village a few miles away and riding over to the start. Easy.
Be nice to see if there are a few of us racing ToC, see what age groups we are in and where we are starting from...be looking out for the CCA Blue jerseys to latch onto!
Having realised how fast ToC is approaching, and that I haven't ridden more than about 20 miles recently, Dave and I are signed up to the Evans Hatfield sportive on 21st May. Hoping to make it round at a decent pace in preparation for ToC, if anyone else fancies it?
https://www.evanscycles.com/evans-cycles-hatfield-road-sportive-sunday-21st-may-2017-EV292070