Ross tiger 100

So fellow triathlete Scot, cyclist Ben and myself decided on taking on the Ross Tiger 100mile cyclosportive route at the weekend, we found the route on
http://www.sportivehq.com/ross-tiger-100.html
We downloaded the gpx file onto scots Garmin 310xt and set about organising times to head out.
We decided on half5am to set out, why so bloody early?  Its dark an cold?!. Well it frees up the rest of the day for family dutys for all of us so it keeps everyone happy,  if we had been real mean, Scot and myself would of set off at 5 but we gave ben half an hours grace as he had to drive in from grimsby. I will admit I wondered what the hell I was doing when the alarm went off.

Our first mistake was poor lighting, from myself and scot  as we headed out towards Yarbough it was soon apparent our front lights weren't up to scratch we had choosen some lightweight lights that would make us visible to other motorists but not enough to light the way, this decision was made as we knew that it would be light in a hours time and what we had with us we would have to carry for the entire journey.  Ben however had a decent enough light to light the way for all3 of us so problem averted.

The route would take us towards grimsby and Waltham then briefly through the wolds out of Caistor then back towards market raisen where the route would re enter the lincolnshire wolds where the route would eventually flatten out after Burwell and head into carlton manby and back to Alvingham. The official sportive route will start from Waltham however with the route circling our home town it seemed daft to start anywhere else! ,

Lincolnshire is rumoured to be flat but in the wolds we are quite lucky and have some nice climbs, some are rolling some are short but sharp some are a mix of both, this route managed to have both and fited in a good 2000ft of climbing all of which make for a good training ride, it is however a good 6000ft off our ride in Wales at the autumn epic.

All was going smoothly for the first 40 or so miles with the route keeping us away from the main roads we were tapping out a good rhythm and morale  quite high with everyones legs still feeling quite fresh, however we came across a few obstacles around North Kelsey and again at Waddingham, the route took us off road down a briddle path, we ummed an arred for a few breif seconds before we thought sod it and carried on, full road bikes with slicks down a gravel laiden pot holled dirt track alongside the river ancholme , nothing that the riders of paris-robaux don't encounter, We however didnt have a full support crew with spare wheels tagging along beside us.
To be fair we did take it pretty steady and had to walk over the wood lined bridge, with holes big enough to swallow tires it was hard enough walking over the bridge in cleats,  even if bikeing down the unkempt gravel bridle way was a bad idea walking over the bridge was certainly one of the few wise choices that day.

On our second encountering of yet another bridal path we took advantage of the full uk road mapping installed on Bens garmin 800, we took a few minutes and figured out how best to avoid the off road section and took a 3mile detour to miss the field trek out, technology wins once again, im sure if one of us had bought a map with us we could of figured it out but we have become so reliant on technology these days. Mile 60 saw our only puncture of the day which gave us some time for a bit of banter, surprisingly it was Ben and not myseld, mt tires have done a fair few miles this year and are probably due a change.

At around 70miles we hit Wragby,  we stopped at the local shops here to refuel for the final leg of our ride, I still felt fairly fresh at this point and the average speed was still fairly good but it was becoming apparent that legs were tiring at this point. With a last sneaky climb snuck in at Rowford we got our heads down for a fairly uneventful final 20miles.

With this probably being the last 100 of the year for myself I was soon planning on my first 100 of next year,  with Scot and Ben penciled in to accompany me once again its a toss up between trying the trent valley 100 or a revised Ross tiger 100 ears to the ground to see which one we deside on.

Finally a quick thanks to Scot and Ben for coming along on the ride, with Ben completing his first century ride of many, without them the ride would of never happened as individually we would of all struggled for motivation but collectively we worked as a team and had a good day.

A second thanks to Matt from sportive hq for making the gpx file for the rides readily avaliable and responding quickly to emails thanks all. Keep those miles rolling in!.