Forest of Dean Spring Classic Cyclosportive

‘Race’ Report by Alex Ilyat

A cyclosportive is not really a race, it is more of a challenge. In this case the challenge was 85miles and 2370m of climbing (thats more than twice the height of snowdon). The start is staggered so you can start anytime between 8am and 9.30am and times are recorded, for interest more than anything, by stamping your timing card.

Anyway, back to 5.30am when Steve P, Rhiannon and I were loading up Rhi’s car with every bit of bike kit we could think of – long sleeve tops, short sleeve tops, over shoes, shorts, leggings etc. I had spent a few hours over the previous couple of days carefully working out a nutrition strategy based on Carb and fluid requirements. Steve had done this many times before and was well rehearsed and Rhi had her cereal bars and a large packet of jelly babies picked up from the service station on the way.

We arrived in a nice warm and sunny Monmouth (shorts and short sleeve tops weather) although the forecast had mentioned the chance of the odd shower or two (rain jacket, just in case). We loaded up our pockets and were ready to hit the road. We were joined by Neil, one of Steve’s mates who happens to be a very good cyclist and set us off on a fairly keen pace.

The nice thing about cyclosportives is that you can draft. That means that you have to be aware of who’s around you but it is quite a social way to ride. It also means that you tend to gather other cyclists or get sucked into groups, every time you hit a hill then the group spreads out and a new group slowly reforms. We stuck together quite well, Rhi had the edge on the uphill bits especially after 60miles. We were climbing one of the hills when the rain set in, there was no chance to put on a waterproof jacket and by the time we hit the top it was too late. The rain carried on and was actually quite spirit sapping.

There were 3 feed/water stations on the route, after the first one we decided not to stop for too long as we found that we got cold quite quickly and our legs took time to warm up again. In fact, Rhi and Neil didn’t stop at the last station and set off at a blistering pace. I obviously would have joined them although I didn’t want to leave Steve on his own :)

As well as going up there was a lot of going down – this was not as easy as it sounds. The decents were steep and twisty with a few hairpin bends. This is where the real cyclists were streets ahead with Steve and Neil flying down whilst Rhi and I were on the brakes. There is a lot of time to be made up by having good bike handling skills and balls of steel (or maybe slight madness).

The final hill of the day was a killer, a very steep climb into Symonds Yat after 80miles. Someone was having a laugh when they came up with this course. The last 3 miles were down hill back into sunny Monmouth. We were muddy wet and very very tired but also quite satisfied at our days work – around 6hours work in fact. The aches and pains felt very different to triathlon aches and pains and there was a different type of tiredness too. However, there was a definite sense of achievement without the need to beat a time or another competitor. I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to get a good day’s training doing something slightly different.