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The 'White Horse Challenge' Sportive
AKA 'pretend racing'
Report by Mark, 29/04/07
This sportive was in a part of the country I have not visited (at least I can't remember) and is named after the giant white horses that are enpicted in white chalk on hillsides in the Wiltshire/Oxfordshire region.
As it was based near Swindon, Matt and I took the opportunity to visit relatives nearby the day before and we agreed to meet up on the Sunday morning. I headed to my sister Helen and husband Gary in Keynsham near Bristol. A couple of beers over dinner (delicious lasagne) and we discussed various topics including the July (tour time) birth of my first neice. Some things are almost as important as cycling.
During the dinner conversation Helen enquired if as well as the white horses, I would be seeing the famous Cerne Abbas giant in Dorset. This figure is a little more risqué as it depicts a male figure in a fairly advanced state of undress and the rather dubious emphasis captured by the artist(s) allegedly promotes fertility. Helen's somewhat fanciful approximations of the figure's 'proportions' caused some ongoing amusement.
Anyway, moving on, I went to sleep sharing the spare room with our ever friendly Border Collie 'Holly' who was on a weekend break at Helen's. I tried to ignore the pain in my back which I had managed to 'pull' when doing some DIY earlier in the day. At this point cycling 90 miles didn't seem that sensible.
The next morning Matt was waiting in the small village of Shrivenham when I arrived at 8am, and we quickly assembled our bikes, collected our timing chips and set off in a group of around 15. I soon discovered that my bottle cages had worked loose and stopped Matt briefly to borrow his rather weighty multi-tool. Just a 20 second delay meant that Matt had to work hard for around 20 minutes to work his way back to the group, I could see him dangling in no-man's land as I pedalled behind in a catch-up group.
A new group remained intact until the first hill of any real note and the first selection began. I found myself at the front and looking around saw just one other rider (name turned out to be Jack). The bunch was nowhere to be seen round a corner and after a quick discussion we decided to attempt to break away, taking turns to lead to see how much time we could put into the pack. Although hardly the Tour de France (and it wasn't even offcially a race) it was quite fun powering away knowing that a hungry peloton was somewhere behind trying to catch us up. The first feed station arrived and somewhat disappointingly we discovered we had built a lead of 60 seconds max. Oh well, we decided to go again.
The next 40 miles or so involved the two of us riding as a pair, passing numerous individuals and some groups as we attempted to ride at a fast enough pace to get a Gold finishing time, under 5 hours.
The scenery was lovely as we headed up a broad valley to Marlborough (home of the Marlborough college) and the the Lambourne area, the 'Valley of the Racehorse'.
We also rode through
Avebury, home of the Avebury Stones (bit like a poor man's Stonhenge, but still good). They are thought to have been constructed in neolithic times (2700 BC to 2400 BC), in other words: mind bogglingly ancient.
After a slightly extended stay at the second feed, one of the groups we'd escaped from caught us up and Jack and I sat in with them for most of the remainder.
The selections were not over though, a stiff and longish climb up to the White Horse at Uffington caused some splintering and the 5 or so survivors re-grouped for the last run back into Shrivenham.
.....Avebury Stone Circle
The sight of seeing our destination on a road sign spurred us on and some team time trialling at pace ensured we would finish within the five hours required for Gold. The high finishing pace still caused some problems and my impromptu partner Jack popped off in the last mile.
Matt came in around 35 mins later, easily within the Silver time category which was his aim. As we walked his bike back to the car the front tyre decided it was the moment to punture with a loud bang - strange as there was no pressure on it. A quick interview with the people filming the event, deposit of the timing chip, a cheeky ice cream and I was heading back to Nottingham. We left behind a local village hall with tired and happy riders lounging around on the grass outside, a very well organised event, largely traffic free lanes, beautiful scenery and perfect weather. Great training.
Postscript
The only slightly worrying note (as I write this) is how tired and hungry I get after these rides. How I will be able to do anything other than curl up into a useless ball after each stage of the tour in July I am not quite sure at the moment. Recovery is going to have to be impressive to get me through three weeks of harder stages than the White Horse Challenge.