Long distance cycling is hard

Last weekend I completed Cycle the Wight for the British Heart Foundation.

The route around the island is almost exactly 70 miles; to this I had to add the 7.5 miles to the docks from my house, and the 7.5 miles back. Getting to the docks was, as I had anticipated, very easy: I cover more distance than that every day that I cycle to work; and of course it is more downhill than uphill.

At the docks I met up with Russell, Pete and Andy of OpenCycleTeam guys, and endurance specialist Mark Halliday. The ferry to the island takes 55 minutes, and bicycles are carried free: you just pay for your foot-passenger ticket.

The start point for our ride was in the ferry car park in East Cowes. There are 4 checkpoints around the island and you could start the ride at any of them. East Cowes to Ryde was fairly hilly, but nothing too long or too steep, so it passed without major incident. We were expecting to meet Ben at Ryde but he was suffering from a severe cold and rightly felt that a 70 mile cycle ride wasn’t going to help with that.

From Ryde we headed to the checkpoint overlooking Blackgang. This stage included a continuous 3km climb averaging 3%. During this stage I started to suffer on the hills: my bike came with hard man gear ratios with a low gear of 39:25 and a high gear of 53:11. My colleagues with more sensible gears were able to drop down a few more ratios and spin up the steep bits, whereas I had to choose between a heavy slog to go at that pace or the energetic option of sprinting up the hills. I mostly took the heavy slog option, as sprinting only really works when you know where the summit is: on the one occasion I decided to sprint for the summit it turned out to be a very minor peak with another climb around the corner. I sprinted the second climb as well but I really felt it for the next 5 or 6 miles. After Ryde I was getting dropped by the others on most of the ascents: special thanks to Mark for waiting around for me and pacing me back so often.

After the long ascent to the Blackgang checkpoint there is a nice downhill section, a mostly flat bit with some rolling hills and then two severe ascents near Freshwater Bay. I stopped twice on each ascent; unfortunately on the first stop I sprained my foot trying to disengage from the pedal, which didn’t help matters. I tightened the shoes and the pedal engagement mechanism before setting off again but it was still difficult to disengage that side for the rest of the ride. The pedal had fixed itself by this Thursday – I think it’s just that cheap MTB pedals aren’t tested for smooth operation after 50 miles of continuous load (I’ve bought XTR pedals to replace them today, so hopefully they’ll be better). From Freshwater it’s a short run to the Yarmouth checkpoint. I chose the gravel path option whereas the others went by road which was in theory longer, but they beat me to the checkpoint anyway.

From Yarmouth to just outside Cowes is fairly flat: we kept together and picked up a few other stragglers on the same journey to form a fairly respectable peloton. On this stage I noticed that my neck was starting to ache from being in the bum-up shoulders-down looking-up pose road bikes generally force you into.

The area near Cowes however has a lot of steep climbs, which after 70 miles cycling I didn’t have the legs for. I ended up walking two of them just to use a different set of muscles and give my neck a rest. The ride essentially ends with the downhill run to the chain ferry; once you get off at the other side you’re 30 yards from the finish line checkpoint.

At the finish you get a medal, and if you’ve been slow (as I had) you need to grab that then get a move on to get the ferry home. At this point I thought I would never survive the 7.5 mile (gentle) climb back home from the docks, so I vaguely tried to find someone to give me a lift. I didn’t have much success with that endeavour, but it turns out that 55 minutes rest and stretching does wonders for recovery: I felt better when we got off the ferry than at any stop since the Blackgang checkpoint.

Pete and I took the same route to the top of the avenue, so I had someone to chase up the main hill. The rest, up over the M3, down past ASDA and then through Valley Park to our house seemed to involve less climbing than I remembered. Cerys said I was grey when I arrived home, but I looked and felt considerably better after a shower and a huge plate of sausages and mash.

I’d probably do it again, although I might prefer to start from another point so that I tackle the Cowes hills earlier on. I’d also probably change my gear ratios before making another attempt: 50/34 and 12-27 is a much better proposition than 53/39 and 11-25 for that route. I’ll probably get a new groupset before next season, probably an SRAM one as I like the under-bar-tape cable routing and reach-adjustment features they have. If SRAM did a triple I might even prefer that to a compact chainset for the Isle of Wight: I’ll let you know next year.