Today was my second sportive ever, the 75km route of Ride the Reservoir. I heard about it from
@StickyPTFE, and with it being fairly close to home, and an interesting route, I decided to register.
The forecast for this morning along the route had been getting progressively worse, and last night it said heavy rain, aided by a 14mph head breeze. I went to bed thinking that I would skip it if it was chucking down in the morning, I would not go. The weather looked ok at 7, so I had breakfast, put the bike in the car and off I went.
As I drove up the M5 the weather got progressively worse, and by the time I got to the start it was raining steadily, though luckily not hard, and the wind was lighter than it had been forecast. The slight hick-up was that I had forgotten my water bottle, but I had everything else, so no big deal in a cool day like today. Registration was very efficient, and I was off with the second wave shortly after 8:30. With all the excitement I forgot to start my Garmin, and only noticed after a mile or so, easily fixed.
The group I was riding with were taking it a bit too easy, so I went ahead on my own, past Frankley services, over the M5, and down to the bottom of the climb to Romsley. I had to stop to adjust the mudguards a bit, as I was getting some rubbing in both tires, but it was easily fixed, and then I got on with the climb. It wasn't particularly steep overall, but it had a couple of steepish ramps, and at 3 miles long, I had been concerned I may not have a low enough gear in the new bike. At the end it was hard, but I managed to make it all the way without stopping, and I even overtook a few riders.
After the climb there's an equally long descent on the other side, so I just let gravity do the work on the way through Bell End and Bellbroughton. Past Bellbroughton I stopped again as now my rear disc was scraping occasionally. I tried reseating the wheel, but I couldn't get rid of the scraping all together, it didn't seem too serious, so I carried on, but some fettling will be required during the week.
Next destination was Chaddesley Corbett, and then turn towards Wychbold, but route turned North again at the just before the M5 underpass, heading for the food stop at Bournheath. On the way there stopped to try and help a rider who had a puncture. He was riding tubeless, but had a biggish hole from a machine screw, which would not seal. He didn't have a worm to fill the hole, or tyre levers to put a tube in. We tried to take the tire out with my levers, but it wouldn't come out, so he called his wife to come and pick him up, as we were still a few miles away from the pit stop and mechanical support, and he lived locally.
There was a lot of standing water in the lanes, but the mudguards were doing their job, keeping my backside mud free, and the scraping seemed to be gone.
By the time I got to the food stop the rain seemed to be fading, and the day seemed to be getting lighter. My gloves, though, felt rather heavy, and I couldn't believe how much water I wrung out of them. On top of that, water wicked from the gloves up the sleeves of my top under the waterproof, and my arms were wet up to my elbows, otherwise, my waterproof jacket was doing its job.
I had a coffee and some cake, and warmed up my hands, and then I was on the way for the last third of the ride, via Catshill and Barnt Green, up the Lickey Hills for the last climb of the day. I missed a turn just before Rubery, and found myself and another rider who had followed me, trying to work out where we were with respect to the route. We found it thanks to google maps, and soon we were over the A38 heading towards the end.
It had now stopped raining, and I got to the finish in my expected time of four hours from the start, with three and a half hours riding.
Lovely route, and great organisation, shame about the rain.
The map
View attachment 508603
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big grin from owner too, (j’adore greyhounds) 
