Once again,
@gavgav has beaten me to it and covered the salient points so I'll just givve a bit of an account from my point of view:
I rode down to his place for about 9, meeting up with Gav and Doug (who'd taken the bike over in the car) and we then rode to tthe Sports Village which conveniently is that side of town. Compared to the BHF ride (my only other sportive to date) the atmosphere was really relaxed and the organisers made everyone feel welcome personally. The advantage of it being a completely new event I suppose.
Once signed in and allocated event numbers we were good to go and Gav, Doug and I got off in the first wave. This very quickly split into two groups thanks to a couple of busy traffic islands so I ended up ahead. I stuck with this group for a bit but soon realised that with the pace they were setting (they were cruising at between 22 and 28 mph and I was keeping up
) I'd soon lose Doug and Gav, so I dropped away and tookt the chance to grab a couple of action photos when the next group came through.
We cruised along pretty well - Shawbury and Wem came and went and I had to suggest a stop for a bit to eat, knowing how hard the going can be if you don't keep the energy levels up. Welshampton was where we stopped and where we found out about the one group having missed the turn at Roden and gone on to High Ercall.
Pressing on again, I had warned about the hill between Welshampton and Ellesmere being a bit of a pig. Fortunately it didn't seem as bad as I remembered it (I think I had a strong headwind as well when I last rode it) and we took the chance to pause by The Mere.
The next section all seems to blur into one - lots of gentle cruising on mostly flat roads, until we turned off onto the road to St. Martin's which was rather more undulating. As mentioned by Gav, one of our fellows was having to walk the hills by this point. Fortunately it wasn't long to the refreshment stop where a welcome break was taken.
Pressing on again, the directions were confusing in St. Martins itself, but we got the right junctions. It was somewhere around here that the Corsa blasted past us.
Around Whittington one of the other riders we'd left at the food stop caught and passed us. We were quite near the back as it was and didn't want to be last home.
The section on lanes after West Felton was quite nice as there was hardly any traffic, before we were back onto the B roads through Ruyton XI Towns, Baschurch and Myddle (where there is a nasty little bank to climb up to the main road). Here we were caught by the last two runners in the event: Pete, who we'd seen walking the hills earlier and Bill, the organiser who was staying back to help Pete make it home.
We pressed on again and despite Doug and Gav being really tired at this point we made quite reasonable progress. The road through Harmer Hill and Albrighton was quite busy and many of the drivers didn't give a lot of room so we were glad to get off this road, however the last section along Harlescott Lane and Featherbed lane was worse with several close passes (oh, and the "cycle lane" on Featherbed Lane is a joke).
Making it back to the Sports Village we were greeted by more people than I expected to be still there and applause fo having made it. Just the lap of the track to do and we were finished.
Pete did make it - to widespread applause
and Doug and Gav now have their first Metric Century in the bag.
Well done chaps!
It seems that this event is likely to be run again next year so I shall be keeping an eye out for it.
Hopefully they'll get a good crowd next time.
After riding back to Gav's I headed for an uneventful trip home making a total of 74.1 miles for the day at 13.1 mph average.
Gav and Doug ready for the off.
Catching me up at Roden......
....along with the rest of their group.
The Mere at Ellesmere.
We are plied with cake, drink and bananas.
Across the finish line back at Shrewsbury.
Oh, did I mention my race number?
