Author Archives: traumfahrrad

About traumfahrrad

i am based in Bristol and i cycle a lot. I'm generally quite an effective time triallist but like it best when the road starts to go uphill. i enjoy writing about cycling and the thoughts and feelings that prevail following time spent on the bike.

Westbury Wheelers 24 Mile Hilly TT

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It was a busy weekend. Generally this season I’ve done one race a weekend, if that. This weekend i pencilled in two. It was the same double header as last year when I somehow contrived to win both the BSCC 10 and the Westbury Hilly.

The Westbury event starts on the edge of Warminster before heading off on a loop out and around the edges of the military bits of Salisbury Plain, via Chitterne, Lavington and other such places. there’s a long section that has frequent ‘tank crossings’. The road is reinforced with concrete and there’s a warning sign. It would be quite something to be ‘baulked’ by a hulking great weapon of war. I think i’d slow down if that were the case and not try any flash-harry TT moves to slip through or round the side.

The minor road up and out of Chitterne; tank post thing on the right

It finishes beneath the White Horse after 24 miles  of undulating roads.

There’s always a degree of anxiety following a race the previous day, but it’s not often a problem if you’ve tapered a bit in the run up to both events. At times like this it’s worth remembering that the Giro D’Italia is currently serving up 150+ miles per day, for 21 days, through some of the highest mountain passes of the Alps and Dolomites. 34 miles ridden at pace over 2 days isn’t all that bad, or strenuous, no matter how much effort you think you’ve put it. It’s arguably about the recovery, but even then, a 20 minute effort shouldn’t compromise another effort the next morning. And so it proved.

I was in ‘have it’ mode this weekend. It’s that weird alignment where you have a sense of form and the ability to ride ridiculously hard, almost at full pelt, and for some strange reason it feels right and proper and vaguely exciting. It happened at Falfield on Saturday and the same again on Sunday. The course starts quickly with a slight descent and I got straight into the big ring and smallest cog. I reined it in ever so slightly on the climbs, barely though, and absolutely thrashed it on the descents, hitting a maximum at one point of 49mph. I think i was probably still on the poles at that point, the road surface was good and there was no traffic. I had the usual conversation with people back at the HQ afterwards, a club member was saying how he used the 39:25 heading up Chitterne. I don’t know what i used but it was definitely the 54, it was a big ring course for the duration, i might have cross-chained it a bit in the 20 or something, but i just sat back and gave it some welly. He looked a bit horrified. Power to weight is a glorious thing when you’re riding up hill at speed and weigh 67kg. I think I averaged 21mph on the drag up Anstey Hill. It was fun.

taken on Saturday, accelerating out of the roundabout

There were some classy riders on the startsheet, including Tavis Walker and Derek Smetham. Tavis has mostly been installing large farm machinery and working, taking time out to take a kicking from the other Elite roadmen at Castle Combe from time to time. Derek seems to be on a hot streak of form and he owed me 6 seconds from the Dursley mega-hilly a few weeks back. I got back to the HQ and Derek had done a 52.35, Tav a 52.40. My garmin was telling me i’d done a 52.34 but I kept it to myself. I normally start it a bit early and it’s about 10 seconds slower that the official time, which was confirmed after an agonising wait as being 52.28. It was a close contest, the best sort. It’s great to bag a win this year, I feel as though the pressure has lifted a little bit and I didn’t fancy another second place.

I also think, pending confirmation, that i nabbed the course record. It was previously set by Rob Lyne and I sliced about 10 seconds from his time. I’m quite pleased about this, Rob Lyne is super quick and I very much looked up to him in my first few seasons as the kind of chap I would never ever get anywhere near. A few years back he was a professional roadman who rode the Tour of Britain and won the Severn Bridge road race. It’s a vicarious encounter with greater glory. I’ll take it.

Rob in Amore & Vita colours

A distinct lack of inclemental impedence

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Today was the Bristol South CC 10 mile open time trial, taking place on the U7b, or as it’s affectionately known, ‘the graveyard’. Generally, it lives up to its moniker, burying any hopes or dreams of a fast time with all the clinical brutality of the grim reaper. The usual high-score combo is a lovely tailwind out, lulling you into throwing everything at the tarmac in the hope of a fast time, only to find the turn gives way to a wall of wind; all souplesse disappears as riders slip down through the cogs, trying to get over the three lumpy bits (including the mythical Col de Gossington Bridge) and somehow make it across the line without hæmorrhaging too much time.

Last year I won the event, but this year I was under no illusion that the feat might be repeated. Several extraordinarily fast men had decided to make the pilgrimage to the West’s fifth fastest 10 course, including Kieron Davies, Jon Wynn, Ben Anstie and Robin Coomber, all of whom have hefty 19s to their name and a clutch of 49 minute 25s. I decided that the best strategy was one i occasionally employ: PLF.

About fifteen minutes prior to the start, the wind dropped almost completely and a heartwarming stillness descended. I felt good, and continued to feel good all the way to the turn, scratching out a 29mph average. I took the roundabout at a decent pace, trying not to think about rolling a tub and grateful for the absence of any cars, then headed back for the home leg. It took me about 400 metres to realise that the return leg was going to be equally fast. As soon as i’d got over the three short climbs i whacked it into the 11 and completely mullered it, turning over the big gear with a sense of rhythm and circularity. I scraped home in 20.43, slicing a marginal 3 seconds from my PB on this course, set on a balmy and warm September morning last year. I was also only 5 and 8 seconds respectively behind two fellow competitors who normally eke out much larger margins.

It’s quite pleasing to set a PB. It means that whatever else happens – or whatever times other people turn in – you can rest assured that you have produced the best ride you could. It’s sometimes interesting on fast days (and it was clearly a fast day) to see how other people cope. I find it surprising that other riders don’t always put in a rapid time, but you never can tell what sort of form or fatigue people have brought with them. My form seems to be on an upward trend, I’ve been relatively focused and working hard and my weight has dropped to around the magical 67kg mark. This is important, the last 2 or so kilos of weight loss take time and come with the right kind of riding and structure. I place quite a lot of stock on the idea of ‘racing weight’, partly because i know that when i’m just a bit lighter i climb with much more freedom and pace. I did a couple of very hilly rides at the weekend and assaulted several climbs in and around the Mendips, enjoying them rather than toiling to the top. Keeping an eye on the bigger picture is always important in the early part of the season; hard work pays off in the long run.

The social side of time trials was very much in evidence today, it was great to catch up with others and talk at random. In the white heat of the post-race endorphin and caffeine mania i heard myself saying, ‘there was a distinct absence of inclemental impedance’. The person on the receiving end of this slab of pseudogibber looked at me and edged slowly away towards the results board.

It’s always good to lambast a few triantelopes as well. I met a rider I hadn’t seen for some time who had been spending some time amongst the triathlopeds. He seemed happy to pile in with the general ribbing of the tritard world and their shonky bike handling skills. I recounted a story of how i passed a group doing a 4up at a Castle Combe TT one evening last year. I found the experience unsettling; they were doing a 4up and yet still contrived to be riding at around 5mph slower than me. And i wasn’t going very fast. I think that same evening i saw one of the tripods do his 5 laps at around 19mph, then drop his bike and start running around the edge of the track in his sleeveless top and armwarmers. I resolved never to return. 

Recently I ended up having to overtake a triaptoplod on a full TT bike, head down, going across the downs the other morning. I held off for ages but in the end had no choice. His pace was fluctuating oddly, occasionally going up about a mile per hour or so, then dropping two. I was on a 65″ gear with a carradice saddlebag full of heavy things like fruit and sandwiches and books and shoes. I gave him a puzzled look and as i came through asked what he was doing. He said, through stuttered breaths and out of the salt-stained corner of his mouth;

“Intervals”

I was rendered speechless. Tritards: the turducken of cycling.

oh yeah i’m gonna put my inside pedal down and tame that corner in my groovy tritard hotpants with utility girdle drink station yeah yeah

Tomorrow is the Westbury Hilly. I shall have to see what the legs feel like.

…the waves shape themselves symmetrically from the cliff top

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i’ve been much troubled of late with the issue of the wave. Whilst out riding this weekend I saw several groups of cyclists and the occasional lone wolf. It’s generally seen as appropriate to acknowledge the existence of a fellow cyclist.

The sport is experiencing an exponential growth in popularity, and whilst i don’t expect many of the newcomers to be fully conversant in the arcane and complex etiquette of cycling, i do expect them to be civil and lift a finger from the bars to acknowledge a comrade and the wider fellowship of the road. In days of yore, simply seeing another cyclist was an event worthy of celebration. These days I can’t escape the nagging feeling that cyclists are less welcoming than in the past. It’s hard enough coping with the reckless animosity from car drivers without drawing a blank from those sharing enjoying the limitless freedom of the bicycle.

I tend to nod, wave, or speak to any other cyclists I see. This even includes mountain bikers, although I have to be sharp and get the hello in early because the difference in speed is so big as to make the encounter fleeting and ephemeral. I sometimes vary the wave depending on how i feel, but it’s always there.

Yesterday and today I saw several groups out on the road. Many of these gave a nod. I even had a chat with a chap at the bottom of Cleeve Hill. However, several riders ghosted past, looked, but made no gesture of recognition or welcome. The main culprits have been those wearing the red and black of Bristol and District Triantelopes. If you’re wearing club kit then there’s even more of an imperative to wave and present the club in a positive light. I can give BAD Tri the benefit of the doubt. Triantelopes don’t wave. This is because they have to concentrate very hard on the various things connected with riding a bike and especially trying not to crash by pointing the bike in the right direction. Lifting a hand from the bars, even momentarily – may cause a catastrophic wipe out.  It’s probably best they don’t wave.

Fabian told him not to wave, but Gustav couldn’t resist showboating his new skills by lifting one finger off the bars.

It’s nice to see a triantelope attempting a new kind of dismount:

Or attempting to help one wounded triantelope back onto his bike with a gentle shove:

Anyway, from my inconclusive straw poll, Bad Tri need to wave more. It’s OK though, because triantelopes tend to contravene so many of the rules in such a spectacular  fashion that waving is the least of their worries.

the lofty heights of triantelope chic

Zone of Proximal Development

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I was chatting to Mike Strada and Jez Strada the other day. Somehow we ended up discussing our encounters with famous cyclists. None of us could top Jez’s encounter with the big beast himself:

Legendary cycling champion and figure of notoriety – and some chump in a replica jersey

I once had a brief encounter with Axel, son of Eddy…

Me and Axel, son of Eddy.

A furtive back-turning from the son of a legend, played out in a rain and wind swept car park in Bradford is not quite a story to tell the grandchildren about. And i have been comprehensively outdone in the “Cycling Legends Top Trumps” by Mike.

Eddy recognises raw power when he sees it; the handshake speaks of the fellowship of the road, of two brothers joined in adversity and separated only by 11 grand tour wins.

The Welsh Championship 25

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It sounds slightly more glamourous than it actually was. Today I trekked to Wales for their 25 mile championship event. In truth, it wasn’t that different to any other event on the R25, it’s a course that attracts the strongest, fastest and scariest riders in the principality, and from over the border.

It was my first run at the Glynneath bank this year. I try to head over there a few times a year because there is always the tantalising promise of at least a personal best, and possibly a 30mph ride. For a slower rider like me it’s subject to the vagaries and whims of the weather, and especially the wind direction. Today wasn’t too bad, a headwind out and tailwind back is the preferred option. It was a bit too windy so I bore this in mind and moderated my ambitions. I wanted to beat my old PB and come in under 52 minutes. If i got close to 50 minutes then that would be a bonus. I was riding blind, entirely on feel. I couldn’t find my garmin this morning. I used my wristwatch instead to get a sense of where I was. This ended up being a little bit confusing, i kept thinking i was off on a 10, when I was a 1, which skewed my calculations. I realised eventually. I also recognised belatedly that i shouldn’t go by the ‘real time’, because my watch is set to ‘work time’, which is very different to ‘garmin time’. I turned it off after about 15 miles.

There were some luminaries on the startline, including Andy Wilkinson. 25 miles is a bit on the short side for Andy who has ridden 547 miles in 24 hours and done the End to End on a recumbent thingy in 41 hours. He also managed a paltry 317 miles for the 12 hour. That’s 20mph for 875 miles, 23mph for 24 hours and a ridiculous 26.5mph for 12 hours. He proved today that he can also ride 25 miles at 31mph. He is unquestionably one of the legendary figures of time trialling in the UK.

Andy en route to the 12 hour record

I felt quite good, held a reasonable speed going out and chased it hard coming back. I managed a 51.36, which is a minute or so down on my best time, but still works out at a 29mph ride. I think there is a 30mph ride in there somewhere, but I’m more reliant on the conditions than some of the other super strong men. Jeff Jones won the race with a mid 48, with Wilkinson second. I’m not sure what position i managed; perhaps grazing the outside of the top ten.

It was nice to be racing in vaguely mild temperatures, without knee warmers or arm warmers. I used my new disc wheel which i got second hand from Mike at Strada. It came with some interesting new decals so I left these on. The bearings on the new wheel are smoother than the proverbial codpiece made of cashmere and it was a psychosomatic dream.

i love hooters: matches the colourway so had to stay.

Allen Janes came along for the day out and did a bit of riding around Rhigos whilst me and Danny got to grips with the fast tarmac. We talked racing and club things on the journey over and Allen came up with some startling statistics: he has ridden over 1300 open time trials. This includes nearly 800 25 mile races. He has calculated that his average speed for the 800 is 24 miles per hour.

Allen pauses for a moment to contemplate every minute of every single time trial, all 1300 of them.

Allen with his dad Ernie in the late 1950s.

It’s always grand to catch up with Allen.

21 days of one day races

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The TIVO box is primed and cleared, ready to engorge on 100+ hours of bongo. It’s Giro time. Of the three grand tours it’s arguably he most anarchic, terrifying, and captivating. Things happen in the Giro that don’t happen in the Tour; epic splits, absurdly steep climbs and savage accumulations of mountains, day after day. It also has its fair share of mythology and heroism. The clichés regarding cycling are probably accurate; it’s a race that reflects the cultural background and psyche of a nation. For further reading I recommend John Foot’s Pedalare! Pedalare!

Fiorenzo Magni using bar-tape as leverage to counteract a broken collarbone. Really.

The story of the 1973 Giro is beautifully told in Jorgen Leth’s film, Stars and Their Watercarriers. It depicts the epic struggle between Eddy Merckx and the Spanish mountain goat, José Manuel Fuente.

The film is a precursor to Leth’s more famous documentary, A Sunday in Hell.

In recent years, a couple of stages stand out, but especially the Strade Bianche in 2010 when Evans emerged from the grey primordial soup of Northern Italy to take the win

Evans and Vinokourov. I think.

This year the race makes an excursion into France to tackle the Galibier, before heading back across the border. It’s very exciting when a race heads over a climb you’ve ridden yourself, it emphasises the extreme difference between the amateur dilettante and the hardened Grand Tour rider.

From an anglophone perspective, this year’s race is all about Sir Bradley of Wigginshire. I imagine that the strategy will be Indurain-esque in its simplicity: limit the losses on the really steep stuff and then absolutely muller it in the time trials and everywhere else. It should make for amazing viewing.

Training Through

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Wednesday night is generally seen as club time trial evening up and down the land. It’s good training, providing the opportunity to blast out an interval prior to the weekend. Over the past few seasons I’ve generally been fairly refreshed and race-ready, but that’s changed this year. Different times and circumstances mean that I’ve made some adaptations to my training. I am racing less and probably training a bit more consistently, this includes training through the midweek races and saving my energy almost resolutely for the weekend.

After Sunday’s horrible hilly i took it fairly steady on Monday, only doing 14 miles. Tuesday was a busier day, a hilly ride on a 68″ gear, about 25 miles for the day. Yesterday I rode to work on the bongo-weapon – Wednesday has become the day of bongo commuting. The 10 mile race ended up being sandwiched with about 60 miles of riding at 21mph. as a result, i felt a little bit off the pace and really struggled to crank it up on the way out. I dribbled back into Bristol a while later, my legs in bits.

bongo commuting

I was kimmaged (famously angry anti-drugs campaigner who blew spectacularly in a Tour stage up the Galibier and was overtaken by a bearded tourist with full panniers) twice today on the way into work; scalped by a fully-laden nodder and some chap on a hybrid. I felt weak and overdone. The only consolation was overtaking a triathlete on his full bongo-weapon on the downs. I was spinning a 65″ gear at about 17mph, replete with Carradice. He had his head down and his shoulders were rolling like a tumultuous sea. I found it strange. I asked him what he was doing. He said ‘intervals’. He rounded the corner and got out of the saddle, churning out the power and pushing up to a blistering 20mph.

The interesting thing about racing less is you tend to get more time to train. I think it’s an approach that should work, but I can’t really tell for sure. We shall see. I’m now taking things very steady in anticipation of the Welsh Championships at the weekend.

Megahilly vs Frightened Cyclists

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This weekend I organised a race in the Cotswolds. I use the term ‘race’ quite loosely; it’s been described as an exercise in unremitting nastiness, the 5 hills of hell and the hilliest hilly ever. It used to be organised by Mike Hallgarth, a local luminary in the TT scene, but of late the event has been lying dormant. After a bit of back and forth we agreed to resurrect it during a conversation one balmy evening at a hill climb on Stouts Hill, under the assumption that if you keep talking about it, it might never happen, whereas if you stick it in the handbook then that’s that.

Organising an event is a considerable undertaking, especially a hilly time trial with a complicated parcours. It requires a lot of willing marshalls and all sorts of other people to help. To this end i was indebted to the support of the Dursley Road Club and Bristol South. The important task of providing the cakes was taken up by Belle, with a selection of delicious chocolate brownies, mini banana muffins and flapjacks various.

Prior to an event I tend to hope for a couple of things: a dry day with not much breeze, but primarily a dry day, and an event run without any accidents or injuries. It is always in the back of my mind when organising any kind of race on public roads that there is an element of risk involved; it’s inescapable, i guess the aim is to do everything you can to minimise the level of risk and ensure that everybody rides quickly, but safely. This is magnified on certain courses like dual carriageways, but also hilly courses where there can be blind corners, or sleepy villagers meandering into the road at 9am possibly not expecting to see some bongo-clad bongorider hurtling through the sticks at 36mph, or several extremely fast descents.

Steve Green in the new kit

The race took in the gentle climbs of Wotton-Under-Edge, Crawley, Frocester, Selsey and Stouts, totalling 1000 metres of climbing in 28 miles. The Little Mountain Time Trial, a classic and long standing event viewed as seriously lumpy, manages to pack in slightly less climbing over 11 more miles. This puts things into perspective. On the day most competitors, bar about 4 (myself included) turned up on road bikes, it simply wasn’t seen as a TT bike course. To be fair, any race where you’re averaging between 15 and 18mph isn’t really one that rewards slipperiness. At the last minute i opted to take the TT bike and just left it as it normally is, heavyweight disc wheel and trispoke, the works. I could have saved around 1500g if i’d switched wheels, but couldn’t be bothered to change the brake blocks. I was also more worried about making sure all the preparations were made for the event than fine-tuning my assault on the course record.

The course starts on a 6 minute climb which doesn’t help matters. I caught my minute man very quickly. After a fast descent and a savage climb up through Uley it turns left to Frocester. Things get interesting here because you have to descend a very long hill at speed whilst contemplating the creeping awareness that you have to return from whence you came; uphill. It’s made worse by the sight of other riders struggling horribly to ascend; a harbinger of doom. The same happens on the descent of Selsey, you get to see your comrades gripping the handlebars and hear the death-rattle of hill-blasted lungs long before they come past at 2mph.

After Selsey there’s only the one climb left. Finishing on a climb is particularly horrible, you can’t really get everything out, you just have to cling on for dear life, pedalling squares from bottom to top. Strange things happen as time and space collapses in on itself; i could see Graham Douchebag up ahead through the tree canopy – i’d caught him for fifteen minutes, but couldn’t summon up the energy to get across the last 30 yards. At this point i harboured deep regrets over my smallest gear ratio of 44:25. By the time i limped across the lane i was ready to vomit. I felt ready to vomit for the rest of the day, and probably most of Monday.

home-made steampunk results board

I came second to Derek Smetham by a slender 6 seconds. I’ll settle for that, you can’t win your own event after all and I descended like a fretful grandmother on a raleigh 20. Derek rode fast and fearlessly with only a cloth cap and skin suit for company.

Derek: power to weight writ small

After the event I broke my Strava embargo because i wanted to see the split times for the ups and downs. I gave away hours on the descents but made up slabs of time going uphill and on the flat. Several other people uploaded their data from the race to Strava. I imagine somewhere there’s a keen cyclist who has been sitting proudly on the KOM for Selsey, Wotton, Stouts, Frocester and other such climbs for about a year or so, feeling invulnerable and the king of all the Cotswolds, only to turn on their computer on Sunday and find they’d slipped from 1st to 13th in the blink of an eye. In the space of 28 miles i managed to notch up 16 KOMS, most by around 20-30 seconds and some by as much as a minute. I think there’s probably some very suspicious Cotswold riders out there now wandering what the hell just happened to their digitised high score table. The odd thing is at the time it didn’t feel super-fast, i wasn’t in hill climb mode and was trying to moderate my efforts slightly to avoid blowing up spectacularly. I also know that although i did a 5.54 or so on Stouts, i’ve managed close to 5 minutes in a hill climb. It’s interesting to suddenly see the comparisons with other riders again, and a bit of an ego boost if i’m honest. Nevertheless, my hatred of Strava remains entrenched; it’s a part of the inexorable digitisation of the outside world.

One last thing – the HQ i used was the Scout Hut at Conygres, up above Wotton. It’s got a certain rustic charm insofar as it’s not much more than a cowshed. As Steve pointed out, it’s fast become the West DC’s answer to the Roubaix Showers.

conygres cowshed

Roubaix showers

I’ll be running the event again next year. People were universally positive about the race, despite – or in spite of –  it being ridiculously hard. Well done to everyone who rode; it’s rare that races can afford such a sense of achievement amidst the pain.

Um Bongo, Um Bongo, they drink it in the Congo

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Today i went full aerobongo for the commute to work: skinsuit, space helmet, disc wheel, trispoke, shoecovers, everything. I mistimed my commute and ended up over ten minutes early, sat outside on a kerb in my spangly new BSCC skinsuit waiting for the site to open and ignoring the bemused gaze of passers-by. I scraped a 20mph average for the hilly 15 miles.

#bongocommute #bongoweaponry #startledfellowcyclists #slightlyembarassinghackbike

The reason for my aero commute (or lessons in using a crane to squash a fly) was that the last Aust classic league was taking place after work. In a couple of weeks the action shifts to the lake. I needed to have a ‘bit of a dig’ before this weekend’s race and also wanted one last go at the course record for this year. Tonight’s race consisted of 2 separated 5.3 mile races with an aggregate time and individual times recorded for posterity.

It was grand to catch up with people, most of the club-mates were looking utterly resplendent in their new team kit – many thanks to Ade Ridley for a sterling design that captures everything that is important about the club. One chap was sat on the grass getting things ready; he had the dreaded 13 on his back. I told him it was upside down, trying to imply that he needed to turn it the wrong way up in order to escape the curse, but he looked at me blankly and it suddenly seemed a bit complicated to explain so i left it. After my first circuit i saw him wrestling with a puncture and felt bad, as though somehow I’d created the situation by drawing attention to the number error.

Number wrong way up.

It was a fairly balmy evening and I even went so far as to shed my kneewarmers; but there was just enough of a headwind on the way back to dent my ambitions. Nonetheless, i decided to absolutely shank it for the first 5.3 mile circuit in a sort of ‘shit of bust’ (another thing my dad used to say) attempt at the CR, then see what happened on the second 5.3 mile circuit. In the end I came agonisingly close, turning in a 10.46, with the course record being 10.42. It suggests that on the right day the record should be within reach, perhaps even fairly straightforward. Unfortunately that day never seems to come and the window on this course opens and closes very quickly. it’s now closed for another year. The second lap was a formality, I was a busted flush and knew it from the very first second. I coasted round about 30 seconds slower.

This weekend sees the mega-hilly, a truly horrible event in the Cotswolds. I’m organising it and riding. Should be a blast, if a very slow and painful one.