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Five Go To Dial Post
Apologies for the Enid Blyton title, but it
is something of a mystery why five grown men of apparently sound mind
should pay good money to spend a hot morning in Sussex riding 100 miles as
fast as they can, with no more than a theoretical chance of winning back
their entry fee. It must have been years since there were five Addiscombe
riders in the same 100 mile time trial. Step forward Richard Claridge,
Mark Cole, Chris Colford (aka myself), Nick Mann and Paul Tunnell, the
last two of whom should certainly have known better, having done this kind
of thing before.
The 2001 Southern Counties CA 100 took
place on 29 July, as was very loosely based on the A24. At least we kept
ending up back on the A24 after numerous attempts to get us lost going up
and down various side roads. Up and down. Down and up. Yes, there were
some hills. It seemed unfair that we should have to ride 100 miles AND do
hills. But it would, apparently, have been inconvenient to move them.
HQ for the race was a scout hut in Dial
Post. Someone had entertainingly put up a sign outside bearing the legend
"Village Hall", but it was clearly a scout hut nonetheless. Dial
Post, if you're interested in scout huts, is a small village just off the
A24, about 10 miles south of Horsham. For those of you with a poor sense
of direction, that means you go down the A24 past Horsham and KEEP GOING
for about 10 miles. For those of you with a very poor sense of direction,
it means you go down the A24 past Horsham and keep going IN THE SAME
DIRECTION for about 10 miles. For those of you called Robert Wilson, it
means you get a lift.
The weather forecast for 29 July said it
would be 29 degrees celsius, but it was only 14 degrees when I arrived at
the scout hut. This was because it was still 5.30 am. Richard and Nick
were already there. Nick was staring at a map, trying to learn the route.
He had no chance. I was reminded of my schooldays, trying to learn 80
French irregular verbs on the bus on the morning of the exam. You'd cram
two or three of them into your head and find you could no longer remember
your name. If only they had marshals in 'O' level French. I watched Nick
tracing his finger along the map, his lips moving silently, for some
minutes. Then I asked him his name. He looked at me blankly. Point proved.
Joyce Smith was also at the scout hut by
5.30 am. Eddie Mundy arrived soon afterwards with Mark Dancer. They were
going to hand up food, drinks and sponges at various points on the route.
Eddie explained that I should ride through the feed stations no-handed, so
that I could take a bottle in one hand and some food in the other. I had
been worrying about this for less than an hour, when he admitted that he
was joking. I later found out that this was EXACTLY what some Addiscombe
riders (including Eddie) used to do at feeding stations in the 1960s,
attracting criticism from other clubs on the (utterly far fetched) basis
that it was rather dangerous. Of course in those days Addiscombe was the
UK's top long distance time trialling club, and the Agreeables would go to
some lengths to shave seconds off their times, because national records
were within reach.
Nowadays it is rather different, and three
of the five Agreeables were riding our first 100. You could tell. Mark,
Richard and I had no idea how fast to go, how much to eat and drink, what
to eat and drink, or when to eat and drink. Eating and drinking was a big
issue. Richard had jam sandwiches and energy drink. I had fig biscuits and
grapefruit juice. I think Mark had a banana and energy bars. Paul had
ridden lots of 100s before, but I didn't even ask what he was eating. I
take Paul's advice on all aspects of cycling except for diet. He does 50s
with a single half litre bottle of "Dunn's River Nurishment",
which is basically a mixture of milk and sugar (about 50:50). It seems to
be aimed at hyperactive children. That is to say, it appears intended to
make children hyperactive. Is your child too docile and well-behaved? Give
them Dunn's River Nurishment. It would be on the UCI banned list, if there
was any chance that it made you go faster. But because it is milk-based,
it is impossible to digest on the bike, unless you are Paul. My guess is
that he was planning to get round the course on two bottles of this muck,
with a Big Mac (no sauce) in his back pocket in case of emergency.
More of eating and drinking shortly. But
first, a brief bit of advice on actually riding. The best advice for a
novice doing a 100 is don't go out too fast. Unfortunately it is
impossible to follow this advice, because everybody else seems to be going
faster than you. I went out too fast, and suffered a bad patch at about
the 60 mile mark, which lasted until about 99 miles. Coley hadn't been on
his racing bike for four weeks, went out far too fast, and had a bad patch
to rival mine, except that it lasted about a mile longer. Serves him right
for going on holiday. Richard went out too fast, and kept on going too
fast until the end. I put it down to the jam sandwiches.
Which brings me back to food. I had fig
biscuits. Richard had ruled these out, because he thought they were rather
dry, and would be difficult to get down on such a hot day. That just shows
how little he knows. By the time I'd been going for two hours I'd sweated
right through my back pocket, and the fig biscuits were nice and moist, if
a little salty. My real problem was that I only had grapefruit juice to
drink (diluted half and half with water). The hotter it got, the stickier
it tasted. I wanted WATER. I got so desperate by 60 miles that I tried to
wring out my undervest, but most of it went down my chin. By 70 miles I
got so desperate that I took a bottle from one of the neutral helpers. We
hadn't even been introduced. The bottle turned out to contain concentrated
lemon flavoured energy drink. At least it took away the taste of the
grapefruit. At 80 miles I finally got a bottle of WATER from another
neutral helper. I was by then seriously considering drinking water from
the sponge Joyce handed up (God bless her) from the roadside. By now the
ambient temperature was about 30 degrees, and the water about the same,
but it was wet, did not contain grapefruit, went down my neck without
causing pains in my gut, and (in short) helped get me home.
So that's about it really. 100 miles. I've
never been so tired in my life. If it hadn't been for Eddie and Joyce and
Mark Dancer and Chris and John Watts and Stan and Joan Brown and Ruth and
Ian and (later) Paul Tunnell, handing up drinks and sponges (the first
three) and shouting encouragement (all of them), I would have climbed off
after 60 miles. Anyway, these are the results of the famous five (plus the
winner):
1. Keith Coffey (Bec CC) 3-37-23 18.
Richard Claridge (Addisombe CC) 4-38-35 22. Chris Colford (Addisombe CC)
4-50-48 24. Mark Cole (Addisombe CC) 4-53-28 30. Nick Mann (Addisombe CC)
4-59-09 DNF* Paul Tunnell (Addisombe CC)
* knee pain (probably brought on by Dunn's
River Nurishment)
Finally, a word of thanks to Eddie, Mark
and Joyce. Having bottles and sponges handed up was definitely the best
part of the day. It made you feel like a serious rider, and made you
determined to finish as quickly as you could, even when you were
suffering. We all really appreciated your help.
Chris Colford 5 August 2001
PS Next Sunday, Five go to Dial Post again,
this time for a 12 hour time trial. The cast is slightly different.
Richard, Nick and myself will be joined by Robert Wilson and Steve Dennis.
There is nothing I can add to the email Nick Mann just sent me on this
subject. I am sure that he will have no objection to its being put on the
website. I've copied him in, so he can correct me if I am wrong. The
relevant part reads as follows.
"At the moment I'm going through a
looking forward to Sunday. It will last for about 10 to 15 minutes and
then it all becomes daunting again for the next 8 to 9 hours and then I'll
be looking forward to it for 10 to 15 minutes and so it goes on.
I haven't yet found anyone who hasn't used
words like mad, crazy, barmy, nutty, nuts, round the bend, absurd, madcap,
ridiculous, ludicrous, wacky, misguided, illogical, crazy, foolish, and
when are the men in white coats going to pick you up, when I've mentioned
that a group of us are doing a 12 hour ride. I'm just beginning to wonder
if in fact I have lost a grip of reality and I'm a wheel short of a full
wheelset.
Maybe see you Wednesday if not Sunday.
Absolute
MADNESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!
Agreeably yours
Nick"
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