I WON!!!!
Look, audaxes aren’t races or sportives. No times are published and there are no medals. You can’t ‘win’ an audax, unless you’re the first rider back, in which case they definitely are a race and you’ve most certainly won. Don’t deny a mediocre chubber his moment of glory, ok?
I’ve ridden this before, back when I was preparing for LEL 2022. It’s a beautiful ride, across areas of the New Forest that I remember fondly from many childhood days out. it’s also pretty flat: 1399m of climbing over 200km is my kind of ride.
Last time I rode I also won, and completed it in under 8hrs. That set a bit of a target, which concerned me slightly. Could I manage that again? Should I manage it again? After all, I peaked too early in 2022 and was on a downward spiral before even starting LEL.
Some of the other riders looked a bit racy, so I relaxed a bit and told myself that winning wasn’t on the cards. Stopping for a pre-audax dump after everyone had left also didn’t help, but needs must. I rolled out alone somewhat lighter and happier, but about 10 minutes behind the rest.
After a much better 10tt last week (26:02) I was feeling good and rolling along comfortably at 30kmh+.
I’d made up 1.5l of Lipton’s Iced tea to go in the backpack. Thanks to a tip from someone on the LEL Facebook page I discovered that Lipton’s make it in powdered form and, glory be, without sweetener! It’s really nice and I now have six five big tubs of the stuff. Now I need to figure out how best to deploy these on LEL. Because I was on my fastest bike (Giant Propel, rigged for TTs) I only had a half a dozen bocadillos, a brace of pocket banananananas and a couple of Amacx drink gels. The latter are a new discovery – they have more water than ordinary gels, like the ones from Torq that I’ve been using, so they’re less harsh on the stomach. They’re significantly heavier, but more useful in an ‘out of food & water’ situation. I’ll certainly use them in long TTs next year.
The backpack is totally part of my standard audax kit now. It’s barely noticeable and make a big difference in terms of how much I drink. The only snag is that the replacement valve is still quite small and sucking down a decent drink takes some effort, especially while riding at speed. At least with bottles you can squeeze out a drink pretty quickly. I won’t go back though.
Had a few flat moments and should have eaten a bit more. Ran out of tea about 20km from the end, which was a bit squeaky. My fault for not making up the full 2l and a spare bottle. My excuse was that I hadn’t brought enough powder with me, but that’s still a mistake.
RWGPS kept recording while I was at the arrivee, which means there’s an additional 13 minutes stopped on the file. Subtracting that brings time stopped down to 35 minutes. That was a little disappointing on initial inspection, but it includes another full value toilet stop (six minutes) and nearly four minutes waiting for a train to cross. I don’t begrudge time stopped for a beer though. The audax pint (or half) is essential for morale.
Total time (allowing for the extra 13 minutes) was 7:41, with 7:06 spent riding at an average of 28.8kmh.
Highlights were the fox cubs peering out of a hedge, racing a hare, the hundreds of fresh little foals and the smell of the forest on a warm day. It was a fantastic day to be out on the bike.
It was a faster ride than 2022 and I finished feeling fairly good. It’s not a sustainable pace for longer rides (long, flat TTs excepted) but it bodes well for Day One of LEL. The fast training rides (plus riding 10tts) have helped. Continuing with those up until LEL should mean I carry on improving, but I need to make sure that I don’t burn out too early. The 10s might give me a way to check that – if my times start to dip it might be time for a short rest.
Well Chuffed Cycling 