I thought I’d bung in a report on the latest club Audax entry. Think we can probably stand a thread per Audax rather than one amporphous 2023.
So Dave said he was going to have a crack at the Malmesbury Mash. About 130 miles from Cardiff to Malmesbury in Wiltshire. Then back to Cardiff.
And I thought well, sort of sounds fun, and if I ride with the fella who broke his back a few months ago at least I’ll have an easy ride. Then Dave suggested that we ride to the start, and home afterwards. Which adds about another 60 miles to the day.
Cardiff start is 7:30am, allow 2.5 hours to get there taking it nice and easy. It’s a long day after all. My easy day now means I have to get up at 3:45am. It rained all the way to Cardiff, but at least there was a decent tail wind. So much so we were there 45 minutes early despite (at this stage) feeling like I was barely turning the pedals.
Audax competitors do not disappoint. Huddled under the entrance at B&Q were the cycling equivalent of Whacky Races. Everything from a Dura Ace clad Cervelo with tri-bars and deep section rims, to more than one rider on a single-speed. One of the single speed riders had ridden to the start from Llanelli, stepping out of his house at midnight. Plenty of old-school, canvas saddle-bags of the type you’d take camping if you lived in the 1950s. But also under the saddle tool bags you’d struggle to squeeze a second tyre lever into.
Just after 7:30 we were moving with a bunch of 15-20 of the 50+ starters. Apparently a number of Ajax riders were using the event as a warm up for their reliability ride series and were pushing on, although on the flat is was a comfortable enough pace with someone else doing the work. Some confusion on the route at traffic lights into Newport split the group up, which needed a reasonable effort for 15-20 minutes to get back on; Dave to the front here. I was trying to eat some breakfast.
Things started to break up again on a couple of long drags before the Severn Bridge but the leading group, with Dave and I mostly attached stopped together at the service station in England. This was a control-point so everyone has to stop and collect evidence they’ve been there. Typically through a receipt for coffee, cake, toasted cheese sandwich, whatever you feel like eating on 5 hours sleep and 60 miles on a bike.
The racey types got going quickly, while we took a little longer over coffee, with the next 30 miles to Malmesbury being on a mixture of lanes and bike paths, and generally a nice ride. Another stop, another receipt (for panini and cake) and it was time to head home. Directly into the 20mph westerly that had helpfully nudged us to the halfway point, and now was doing it’s best to remove our bikes from under us on a few sections. There was one rider a few hundred yards ahead of us it seemed to take an eternity to catch up with, and when we did he had enough luggage for a 3 week trip and was just bashing out the miles on his own. We quickly seemed to drop him before he appeared again a few hundred yards ahead having taken a slightly more direct route. You have to reach each designated control but the route is only advisory. Once more it took a long time chasing him down, every time we lost sight of him round a corner or over a rise he seemed to teleport another 100 yards up the road.
I was pleased to get back to the Severn Bridge services. Strange how it started to feel like we were nearly done. With 60 miles still to go, and 125 or so already covered. Very welcome warm food. Burger King has never tasted so good. And then continued the slog on to Newport. I was definitely feeling it by this stage and it was good to have a wheel to sit on. And good to get off the dual carriage way and onto the lanes near St.Mellons. It was at this stage my Wahoo ran out of battery and I was reminded how long we’d been out. We reached the Toby Carvery / Finnish at around 5:30pm. Handed in our Brevet Cards (recording where we had been), had our free bottle of coke. And then headed back out in the dark to traverse Cardiff.
Riding in the dark at 6am with fresh legs definitely much nicer than 6pm with slightly achy legs, and a headlight flashing for low battery. Luckily Dave being much better prepared than me had a working Wahoo to guide us through some unlit lanes appearing on the Llantrisant road near Radyr. By this stage I was feeling pretty rough, but it’s amazing what a stop in Llanharan for flavoured milk and a sausage roll does for morale. With a spare headlight borrowed from the experienced Dave we got back up the Garw. Always nice to end a ride with a 5 mile climb. About 187 miles in all, although it definitely felt closer to 190. Turns out a few Mondays on the velodrome are not ideal preparation for this sort of thing, but a good day out, and looking forward to another route in March.
