This week is extra special as Lee and I took our long anticipated trip to Plymouth, met with great friends and I tackled the beast that is the Dartmoor Classic.
For me this trip was so special. Firstly we didn't know if Lee would be well enough to make a long journey or have the energy to spend quality time with friends. That infection of a few weeks ago turned out to be food poisoning! It's a total mystery as we eat pretty much the same stuff yet none of the rest of us had any form of illness. It kind of shows the precarious position Lee's health is in! Anyway that has all cleared up and the Queen of Cakes felt fit enough to go to Devon.
Our links to this heavenly county are deep and varied. My Pap (Grandad,) was from Devon, not far from Plymouth. It was 2 years ago that we took a trip to his birth village as he died only a few months earlier at the grand Old age of 91. I still miss my Pap greatly but also realise the tremendous good fortune of getting to 48 years old before losing a maternal grandparent. My Nan is of course still going strong!
Then we have our friends. We stay with Ged, James & Sean, the most splendid hosts. Our weekends with them are filled with laughter, good food and plenty of drink!!!
Lee and Ged used to work together in the Youth Offending Service and along with Sara they formed a trio of great friends. Sara lives across the bridge in Cornwall with her wife Kirsty so when we're down here all three are united!
Here they are on the 2004 London to Brighton bike. Lee's first and last sportive!!! The picture is in Ged's toilet.
Then there's Nigel. He's a born and bred Plymouth boy who spent 14 years in Northampton. For some of that time we lived together in a glorious Men Behaving Badly kind of way. He's moved back down here and lives about 5 minutes away from Ged and James. Nigel and I were supposed to do the Dartmoor Classic together but he's injured himself! It was great to see him though.
It's just lovely down here and Lee has done very well. In her typical fashion she's apologised profusely for getting tired, or being slow or not helping out much! We've banned her from saying sorry and she now has to say "haberdashery," instead. I'm not sure what passers by make of someone saying haberdashery every couple of minutes but hey, it makes us laugh! Lee has ticked all her Devon boxes: cream tea, fish and chips, wander round the Barbican etc.
So with Lee looking okay I set out at 5am on Sunday morning for Newton Abbot and the start of the Dartmoor Classic. I was feeling strangely nervous before the start but made good time and was slightly early for the start!
If this was a club ride at home I wouldn't have started. The moor was covered in thick mist with visibility poor at low levels never mind up above. However my rules are different for organised events. You're surrounded by help so the risks are much reduced.
The Dartmoor Classic has 3 distances. 107 miles, 67 miles and 30 miles. Thankfully we choose the 67 miles Medio distance. That's nothing like my longest ride but its the 6230ft of climbing that make this tough. I felt I'd trained well for this but you can't fully replicate this sort of ride in Northamptonshire. Or can you?
The ride above is the lockdown ride we all did solo instead of a club trip to the peaks. However this ride deliberately went up every hill available and is still 600ft less over a similar distance. The big difference is the length of the climbs. In 2019 I managed okay though.
This year the first hill was a struggle. Then for some reason my rear brake jammed on a descent. After 5 minutes of fiddling it released without me really understanding why and was okay after that. Then I went under the sign for the official King of the Mountains/Queen of the Mountains hill. This is an absolute beast amongst many hard hills and out of nowhere I just couldn't do it! 10 miles in and I was walking up a hill. I walked a bit, cycled as far as I could and walked a bit all the way to the top. Then I had to stop a few times to be sick!!! This has never happened to me before. I felt utterly embarrassed and was pleased that Nigel wasn't with me. I passed a sign that said Newton Abbot 7 miles and nearly took that turn. The mist was getting in my head and I really didn't like the descents without a clear view of the road.
I kept going though with the unglorified tactic of walking the hills. At 29 miles there is a bit where the route doubles back and this would have saved me about 4 miles. I was seriously tempted but a Marshall persuaded me it was only a couple more miles and I'd regret it if I didn't do the full route. So I set back off to great cheers from spectators. I pootled into Princetown and managed a can of coke and a piece of flapjack. That was weird too, I was struggling to eat! However that stop really helped. I set back off and my legs came back. I had a good chat with a fellow "downhill specialist," who told me there was no shame in walking when the hill gets too much. I passed the helpful Marshall and thanked him and the world felt good again. I was then passed by the funniest site. A bloke on a very cheap hybrid with a baguette in his front basket and a squash bottle in his bottle cage whipped past. The bloke himself looked fit as a butcher's dog. I can only think this is a sort of joke and suspect he has a fleet of better bikes for everyday use. I was still going well, I remembered from 2019 that I'd enjoyed this bit of the ride, its rolling moorland rather than horrific hills...then the hills returned. I was still going well though until CRAMP flipping cramp. That was the pattern for the next ten miles, ride until I cramped, walk until it eased. However as I passed 50 miles all my troubles and woes faded away, I knew I could do it now. After a very long hill there's a stunning descent into the valley and then it's flat all the way to the finish.
At the finish we got a nice bag and a medal. Having achieved silver last time and wanting to go for gold I haven't even looked at my bronze medal. Gold was 4hrs 30 or less, silver 5:11 and bronze 7hrs something.
This was not the crowning glory of my cycling life. I really didn't hear people chatting about their results and casually saying: "yeah I got gold..." However chatting with Nigel later helped. He got silver for his first DC, bronze the year after and then a few years of gold. He also said with the year we've had its amazing I made the start line. So reframe: on a day when I felt horrible on a bike, on a really tough route, I didn't give up! Next year, as Nigel said we'll smash it!
After riding through mist and rain I returned to Plymouth and a really nice sunny day! A few beers and fish & chips plus good company sorted me right out.
Happy Pedalling
