Sunday 26th September 2010
A sunny autumn morning and we’ve signed up for an 80km cycle challenge ride in Stoke on Trent in aid of Prostate Cancer.
6am start on a sunday morning! We arrived in plenty of time at Longton Park and it was all very well organised. There was a mechanic on site, so we topped up with air, fitted our champion chips (to record our times) and crossed the start line around 9am. Despite our initial reservations of cycling in Stoke (City Centre, busy dual carriageways on the Barmouth-Yarmouth ride), the country lanes and rambling countryside was actually very nice! The roads were relatively traffic free and we stopped after 20 miles for free flapjack and water, there were a few sharp hills but nothing we couldn’t handle. The next food station was another 10 miles, so we bypassed this and stopped for a banana and nuts snack at 40 miles. The last 10 miles flew by and we found ourselves back in the park, racing along the finishing stretch, spectators cheering us to the finish lines for our medals. We collected our goody bags (sure the shaving gel will be very handy!) and had our complimentary pasta meal and hot drinks watching the other competitors finishing in the sunshine.
Total riding time was 4 hours, average speed 12.2 mph.
A very worthwhile event!