Audax returns: The first ride back

I had planned to make a few videos of the first few rides back after the season recommenced. Indeed I even filmed the first 200 I did around the Malverns on August 1st. The trouble is that the last few weeks I have been super busy with work, as well as having a short break away with my girl friend and honestly I just couldn’t face sitting at the computer to do the editing. On top of this, as much I do enjoy sharing the stories in video, it does affect the experience on the day. Some days I just don’t want to have to think about trying to remember to get footage at well spaced intervals, or of significant land marks on the route. It’s somehow more burdensome to film, than it is to grab a quick picture and there are some days I just want to ride, clear my mind and enjoy it for what it is.

I have been thinking about a slight format change to what I’m doing with the YouTube channel. I’m thinking that for my 2nd Audax season I might commit to only doing 1 ride video a month and one video a month in a new series called “The Cafe Stop” which although will be cycling related won’t be an actual ride. I’m thinking it would probably be things like my gear setups and reviews of kit, kit lists from trips etc. I think a mix of things like this might be genuinely useful and more interesting. I will probably return to doing my blog write ups as well. The more considered nature of the format appeals to me and allows me to do something different to what I can achieve with video.

As such I thought I would do a short write up instead. As a quick reminder my target is to do 9x200km rides by September 30th to achieve the R5000 award. By the way I decided not to film rides 2 or 3 either, here’s the write up.

The Enigma 200 – August 1st 2020

It was already warm when I started out from the Enigma Fountain in the centre of Malvern. It stayed sunny and hot pretty much all day which was enjoyable to ride in but somewhat attritional as the day wore on. I did try to keep up with my fluids but got a little behind in the early stages and it’s always difficult to catch up.

I had planned to drop into a small cafe in Bromyard that I frequented on the Kings, Castles, Priests and Churches event back in December for an early coffee but as I entered the town I noticed a petrol station and decided that a shorter stop was probably more in order at this point in the ride. I’m glad I took this decision as they had a selection of baked goods from the local butcher that really hit the mark. The sausage rolls and bacon and cheese turn overs were very good and somewhat more suitable to be stuffed into my bar bag than a couple of sandwiches would have been.

There were somewhat less natural stopping points on this route than I normally plan for. That was because the route was far more focused on picking up all the Explorer Squares I could in the area. This meant I was carrying more food than I might under other circumstances, but the bonus this gave me was a certain level of flexibility. There were quite a few times I pushed on a few more kms before finally finding that perfect spot for lunch in Longley Green. It wasn’t long after this that I hit the two hardest climbs of the day at West Malvern. I feared I might be seeing my lunch again sometime soon but as it turned out, putting the big cassette on for this ride (it was roughly 3500m of ascent after all) was the right thing to do. They really weren’t as tough as the elevation profile suggested.

The next noticeable challenge was also the only part of the route that I had thought was a little risky to put into a mandatory route based DIY. Not only were there a couple of squares I wanted to get but I also wanted to get up to Somers Obelisk near Eastnor. The route was risky because there was potentially 3km or so that I wasn’t confident was ridable as it looked like footpath. As it turned out more of it was ridable than I thought it might be. When I say that, what I mean is that there was a tarmac road, whether I should be have been riding it or not is another matter. When the track turned into an obvious footpath, I decided to jump off and walk up the hill and not push my luck too much. It was quite busy and as much as I’m not adverse to jumping over a locked gate or riding places I shouldn’t, I felt this was slightly different to those deserted footpaths in the middle of no where. I pushed up the steep rocky double track, past the Obelisk and down through the woods on the other side. I chatted with the lady at the snack hut for a bit, while tucking into a large Chocolate Orange cookie and a can of Coke.

Whilst none of the climbs were really that difficult on their own, the hills had come thick and fast and consistently. As you might expect this took its toll over the course of that first 160km and I was starting to get tired. Fortunately there was little in the way of hills left and being able to finally just crank out a few kilometres, without the relentless hill climbing, was a big pick me up at the time. It was a good job actually as the route did have one last sting in the tail. Just beyond Pipers End I turned off a quiet lane onto a road that was clearly marked as “Private”. I wasn’t expecting this at all and ultimately was a failure of my route planning. However, I don’t normally let that sort of sign bother me so I pushed on and tried my luck as always. Unfortunately it turns out this drive way runs into a very well to do looking private school with big locked gates. After consulting the map there was no other option than retracing my route some way back and taking a detour to join the route the other side of the school. In total I missed about 2km of the route as planned but put an extra 12km on to get there! It didn’t help that I overshot my intended turn off as well and had to double back once again…

The final unexpected event of the day happened just as I turned through Welland, heading to Little Malvern with only 10km or so left. I suddenly found myself feeling very light headed and seeing stars every time I blinked. It began to be very difficult to even just turn the peddles and I was really having a bad moment. In any long distance ride I would always expect to have 1 or 2 bad patches but I have never experienced anything like this before. I ended up sat on a grass verge for 10 mins trying to get fluids in me and finishing off the last of the snacks that I had left. I managed to clear my head a little and got underway although I still seemed to have nothing left in my legs. I’m still not really sure what happened. Dehydration? Low blood sugar? As I finished the last climb into Little Malvern I began to feel much better suddenly and was able to finish the last few kilometres relatively comfortably. Back at the Enigma fountain I filled my bottle and guzzled down the cool fresh water before rolling back to the car park.

I had been planning to ride another very flat 200 the next day, but after the episode at the end and the realisation that overall this route had actually been somewhat harder than I thought it might be I decided to rest up instead. Sure I’m on a schedule to get the points I need, but ultimately I want to make sure that I enjoy getting them.