Velopace Spring Classic

 
The first part of the ride passes quickly, we drop a rider or two and stop to fix our first puncture, but soon enough we reach the first feed at The Mark Cross Inn. The organisers have set up a marquee in the pub’s garden, where a chef is frying up batches of hot chips and Mulligatawny soup! The smell is amazing and the food goes down a treat, although any nutritionists would probably be shaking their heads. Of course there are all the usual gels, bars and jelly babies on offer, but on a cold wet day what would you prefer?

Riders tuck in to some welcome hot food

Normally I’m not a great advocate of stopping at feed stations, all that hard work getting there as quickly as possible and then stand around for twenty minutes? No thank you. Velopace have allowed for this and all riders have their numbers taken as they enter the feed and five minutes is taken off their time, much more civilised, riders can relax and chat without having to keep an eye on the watch.

Refreshed, we set off. The climbs keep coming, as does the rain, nothing too biblical, but we’re glad to get back up to speed and generate some warmth. Twisty lanes around Eridge take us up to the Ashdown Forest where I must commend the guys manning the feed station on what was the windiest part of the course. Bottles were filled and food quickly grabbed; this was no place to hang around. A quick check of bikes showed that most of us had worn huge amounts of material off of our brake pads. The mix of water and road muck had turned into a grinding paste that was causing a huge amount of wear. One rider had almost no brakes left and had to shorten his cables to get some feel back.

Some surfaces were better than others, this nice little climb had only recently been resurfaced, locals tell us it was almost a farm track!

The descent off of the Ashdown was curtailed by a left turn and a crossing of a ford at Fairwarp; not often you see one of those, but it was still shallow despite all the rain. With the route now heading home, the wind now started to make it’s presence felt a little more. Although we still managed a brief tailwind on the run in to Herstmonceux, but this was only to make us foolishly empty ourselves! The final turn onto the Wartling road and into the finish saw the headwind that we had been dreading all day finally appear.

Conditions were pretty horrible, but the woods and sunken lanes protected us from the worst of the wind

Head down and crawling along, I was grateful for how much cover we had been given by the terrain. Hilly and twisty it may have been, it had kept this killer wind at bay. Rolling across the line was a slightly muted affair. No time standards had been set, as it’s a new event, so there was no checking of time to see whether a gold time had been achieved.

This probably helped keep our group together. With no pressure we were happy to wait for punctures – three altogether and all for the same rider – and one broken rear mech. Fortunately that was within seventeen miles of the start and the broom wagon soon picked him up. Most sportives tend to see riders only briefly forming groups, as different fitness levels and goals mean the group changes constantly. However today’s route had surprisingly kept us together and we only broke apart in the last ten miles, at which point it’s every rider for themselves as we play at being racers!

 
Continued overleaf…
 

Compare prices and buy road bikes from: