Jan 11 2009 Where were all the bunnies?

This weekend I did the Watership Down Audax. As we crossed Watership Down on the single track road with grass growing in the middle of the road, we saw no sign of the famous bunnies. I reckon they have all emigrated to Hollywood or the Caribbean on the royalties from the film.

Last year the Guilford Peloton did an Etap reccie trip to the Tourmalet and Hautacam at the end of May. It was enjoyed by the ten riders who went. There has been talk about a 2009 trip for some months now. This week we committed to the Guilford Peloton 2009 Etap Reccie. This was prompted when I felt that time was passing so I started researching flights, this quickly developed into a full email dialogue which ended with at least 10 of us committing by booking flights. In addition there are another 6 people who are considering joining us.

As for the rest of the logistics, there is a feint possibility that one of the guys can get the use of a holiday home at the base of the Ventoux. Until this idea becomes a reality or gets dismissed we cannot arrange anything else. If we don’t get the holiday home we shall have to start looking at other accommodation possibilities so any ideas are welcome.

One thing we have got arranged is a support driver. Last year a recently retired colleague of one of the members drove the support van that followed and supported us each day. He has kindly agreed to do so again this year.

My son was off to MK this weekend to go to the theatre (to see Heidi) with his grandparents and cousins and to have a sleepover. He was travelling up to MK with his cousins and so I delivered him to their house in New Malden first thing Saturday morning. My son had a good weekend but was a little too confident and outspoken and upset his granddad. He had to phone up Sunday night to apologise.

My wife has been poorly since Wednesday with the flu. She was still very ill on Saturday so the afternoon walk along the river and dinner was out of the question. Instead we went to Kingston shopping and to the cinema to see the film “Australia”. Whilst this is a girlie film it is very watchable, if a bit long, but is a good way for you lads to earn some easy brownie points.

This week my training was a bit light. I did a 10 K rowing ergo on Tuesday night followed by a bike ride. In the rowing session I managed to knock another 30 seconds off the 10K time I did before Christmas. Looks like I didn’t do too badly over Christmas despite all the good food. On Thursday lunchtime I did a 30 minute row and half hour bike ride. I suffered in the Thursday session and it didn’t go well.

My only ride over the weekend was on Sunday, the Watership Down Audax. I spent Saturday night plotting the route from the route sheet on to photocopies of the OS maps I had bought. Sunday morning I left home at 7:00 AM and drove down to Winchester where I was supposed to meet my mate S and his Team MK team mates. When I met up with S, he told me that the lads from Team MK had all pulled out and it was only me and him. Good job I had plotted the route nd hadn't relied on the Garmin that one of the lads was supposed to have.

The next shock was that the organizers had changed the route to avoid riding some of the back roads early in the morning as there was ice on the roads. This put all my planning to waste and S and I had to plot the new route on my photocopied maps. The new route shortened the ride from 70 miles down to 62 miles.

The ride was restricted to 140 riders and was over-subscribed. In the event there were also a lot of unofficial riders. We all left in one pack at the appointed 9:30 start time. S and I were near the front but he very quickly had a problem with his bike computer and we had to stop. We dropped to near the back so had to work our way back through the field. On the first hill the road was covered with ice and we saw the first rider on the floor where he had fallen on the ice. Many people got off their bikes and walked; we stayed on and picked our way up the hill precariously and slowly. As we approached the first checkpoint at 20 miles we had passed much of the field and could see a group up in front of us. We arrived at he checkpoint just behind them. We got our card stamped and had a cup of coffee and a biscuit.

We weren’t there long as the group remounted to leave. We joined them but it was only a couple of miles further on we came upon a hill. The group broke into two groups very quickly, a small group of fast riders leaving the slower riders behind. We were not fast enough to stay with the faster riders and watched as they slowly drew away from us. On the other hand we soon left the slower riders behind and soon found ourselves alone. Over the next 40 miles we saw other riders from time to time but spent most of the time alone.

Going up the hill before entering Watership Down there is a short sharp bit of road just before the top of the hill. At this point my back wheel carelessly drifted onto the verge beside the tarmac and started to spin. I was lucky to get my foot out of the pedal before I fell over. I had to walk the last 20 yards of the hill as it was too steep to remount.

The route back was against a headwind and we felt it all the way. Whilst first thing it had been bright, as the day went on it clouded over. It was quite a bleak afternoon but at least it didn't rain.

At one point we followed the instructions and turned off a main road up a cross country single track road. The instructions said turn "First Right" off of this small road. The first right was a road down to a farm and obviously was not the correct turn. A couple of miles further on (after riding through a gypsy camp) we stopped to look at the OS map. There was no one behind us, and we hadn't seen anyone for some miles so we were a bit (very) afraid that we were off track. A few minutes later after some deliberation we decided we were on the correct route and, lo and behold, just around the corner from where we stopped we found the turning we were looking for.

We did well and despite being tired we pushed on for the finish against the wind. With a mile to go and looking good disaster struck – a puncture. Despite having a new front tyre and tube I got a puncture. I told S to go on but gentleman he is he waited and helped me. I dug many flints and stones out of the tyre whilst 5 or 6 riders went past us.

We got to the finish in 4 hours 50 minutes against the time of the fastest rider who did 4 hours 20 minutes for the 62 miles with 1100 metres of climb. We were well within the top twenty finishers despite the puncture. We were filthy covered in mud and did look a bit odd as if we had been dragged through the muddy fields. This, even though we had mudguards as they were compulsory on the event, but at least the mudguards meant we didn't have wet bottoms or muddy backs.