I too had a great day out!
Excellently organised and the controls were all at well thought of distances and at the tops of hills! The first control was quite a cute little place and did excellent tea and cakes. I wasn't too fond of the garden centre, luckily it was dry, but imagine having to sit outside waiting for food if it was raining? Far too busy, inevitably get a lot of old people having roast dinners at a garden centre on a Sunday. Can't say I was too impressed with the food either, Beans on Toast was only served til 11.30am, so had sausage, chips and beans which was far too much for a mid ride meal. Spent about an hour at this control as well! The final control at the pub was excellent, good atmosphere and the pint of coke and snickers bar went down a treat.
As for the route, quite superb if i'm honest, decent fast first 30km. As it was my first 200km event I was determined to not get sucked into tagging along with the fast groups at the start, so inevitably I got passed quite a few times, then another chap called Jon (Like me!) who also; like me rode a Focus started chatting, nice bloke from Rugby and we paired up together til the first control where we were in a random group of about 15. The hill just before the first control was meant to be the steepest, but was actually quite a nice ascent. I felt really good and arrived there about 10am I think. Spent half an hour there and got chatting to some of the lads and lasses from Derby Mercury CC.
We all set off together for the second stretch and again, nice rolling cotswold terrain and in general I was impressed with the road surface all round. The day before I tinkered my ride height and rose my seatpost up by 3/4 of a cm and my god did it make a difference. Before I knew it we were at the second control. Made good time and was there by 1.
Ended up chatting and eating away at the garden centre and before I knew it, it was 2PM. I generally only like to spend 30 mins at a control max, but my food took 25 minutes to be served and I spent 10 minutes queueing so meh, I've already had my moan about this control.
Cracked on the next 40km which was good, some lovely little hamlets and villages and it was quite a lumpy section. I wouldn't say it was a hilly ride, but it was rarely "flat". I was still riding along with Derby Mercury at this point and we was all getting along really well. A couple of people did appear to start struggling though, but I suppose 150km in, it is to be expected.
Had a good rest at the 3rd control and set off again. I now faced a bit of a personal dilemma, I ended up being first up to the tops of hills most of the time and freewheeling away of everyone, but because I'd built up such decent rapport with everyone in our little group of 8 and mindful that I was in unchartered distance territory after about 160km, I didn't want to run the risk of riding alone for the last 60km, so I stuck along with them and it was still fantastic, my only disappointment was getting back to the control at 7.15pm (I think we were nearly last back!)
All in all though, a fantastic day out, 200km wasn't as hard as I imagined, The fairy didn't visit me, but I think it visited a fair few other people and to be fair I looked at my tyres just now and I do have a stone stuck in the rubber! I am now officially a randoneé! My legs feel fine today as well, if for a bit of pain behind my right knee! Gutted I didn't see anybody from here, I was wearing team katusha pro kit, so thought I might stand out lol.
