My cycle buddy entered the Carten100 on Saturday - luckily I was on holiday so couldn't make it 
Anyway, his brother's friend got friends to pledge pints of blood and emailed through this great write-up which you might enjoy...
Anyway, his brother's friend got friends to pledge pints of blood and emailed through this great write-up which you might enjoy...
Subject: The Blood, The Bag and The Ugly
Dear All,
Well... I made it, and it was (mainly) tremendous. Anyway, a deal’s a deal, and now you’ve got to donate a pint of blood. Part of my plan has been to make you find the most convenient place for you to donate, so that you might end up doing it more than once. In Wales, have a look at www.welsh-blood.org.uk/. Across the UK, try www.blood.co.uk/. To those of you further afield, I recommend Google, but do get back to me if that doesn’t work.
There are details below for anyone who wants to check that it was properly earned, but before I lose any of you, a very sincere thanks. Over a hundred of you pledged pints, and others gave lots of moral support and good advice. The blood is obviously the main and very good thing, but also you have been completely inspiring.
Suggestions for the next one are now welcome.
In the meantime, thank you.
Will
The gory so far
All right then: you might remember I was going to try and do the CarTen, a 100 mile bike ride from Cardiff to Tenby, on a sub-optimal bike with value-free background knowledge and experience. The route was changed by the police to make it a 107 mile, and the weather forecast was also for a headwind of around 20mph or more, all the way...
Now bleed on
I had realised that pretty much the remainder of the 1000 riders would be on “road” bikes, razor thin, feather-light, speed structures set to warp factor, and they were. I thought at least I would try and do away with the pannier I’d gone on training rides with, and so I bought a water bottle and cage to fit to my bike. This is easy to do. The bike has two little screws which marry up with the carrying cage. I got round to this job the afternoon before the ride. Unfortunately, I must have misaligned one of the screws because when I tightened it up the top sheared off leaving the rest in the bike frame. I hesitate to tell you this as it may give the impression that I am complete moron, but it was how I spent some of the evening before, taking a drill to my bike to try and extract the broken screw and fit another one that I’d had to go out and buy. I was in fact quite proud of the fact that I’d managed to get a bottle on the bike in the end, then turned up to the ride and noticed that everyone else seemed to have at least two.
I did the ride with Huw, who was terrific company almost throughout. The headwind made it hard work from the outset, but a good trick was to try and catch up a big bloke and cycle just behind them for as long as possible. There was a small moment of concern around 28 miles when my chain developed a death’s head rattle but Huw spotted what was doing it and after bending some metal it was possible to sneak up on big blokes again. Breakfast at 30 miles gave some people I knew the opportunity to laugh out loud at my bike, and all was good.
The wind, however, was getting stronger. From about 55 miles, there was a 5 mile open stretch before Pembrey which was like trying to go through a wind tunnel turned up to 11. Someone told me the wind there was 30mph. We had to pedal to keep going forward even on the slight downslopes. I could feel myself grimacing throughout this, and I did start to wonder if I was going to be able to make it all the way. It didn’t help that just before it I had met my neighbour Jeremy who said that he had had a bike like mine, but reckoned that with his new road bike, he was using 30% less effort than he had before. Still, we made the second drinks station and Huw laid out some treats next to the nasty burger and chips we bought: some ibuprofen tablets.
From then on, the thing most on my mind was The Hill. The organisation for the ride was first class, but for some reason I hadn’t been getting the emails, so was picking up information somewhat second hand. Everyone seemed to be talking about the 2 ½ mile monster hill up to Tavernspite, after which, it was said, the last 12 miles were all downhill to Tenby. So the hill to Tavernspite loomed large as being (a) monstrous, and (b) at the 95 mile mark, likely at a point at which one might feel like one didn’t really want to cycle up an enormous hill. What was particularly troubling was that on the way to Carmarthen we seemed to keep going up quite a few hills, which I found really hard work, but no one said very much about them. What did that say for The Hill?
There was one steep slope, that almost everyone had to push their bikes up it. But a curious thing was that my bike must have lower gearing than the road bikes, or something, as I was able – albeit at enormous strain on my heart and lungs – to cycle all the way up it. (This is not just a minor boast, but a plot point.)
Eventually we did come to a long slow climb and pushed ourselves all the way up it. At that stage, it felt brutal. At least, I said to Huw - although not quite in these words - that was The Hill. Only the drinks station said to be at the top didn’t materialise and as we went down another slope, slowly it dawned on us that that wasn’t The Hill. That was next.
I ground my way to the top, and, fantastically, the small crowd that were clapping people in. It was hard, but at least that was it. I took a moment to fill my bottle, eat the Snickers bar that one of you had sent me, and savour the pause while I waited for Huw to catch up. He was on a road bike, and I’d gone past him when he’d got off to push, so I knew I had a little time.
What I didn’t know was that shortly after I’d left him, he’d got back on and cracked on. Somehow we missed each other at the drinks station and he carried straight on to Tenby, thinking he was trying to catch me up.
Well, I waited. Obviously we had phones. But at the beginning of the ride I had started the app which shows how far you’ve gone, average speed, elevation, etc. etc. And obviously after over 10 hours of GPS monitoring the battery was completely flat. After 15 minutes I was cold. I walked down the hill a bit to see if I could see him coming. After about 30 minutes I was shivering. We had arranged a fall back meeting place in Tenby, so I thought I could just carry on. But of course I thought Huw might not just be taking a long time to walk up the hill, he might have hit a real problem. And he had once told me this terrible story about how he’d done a group bike ride from Brecon to Cardiff. He kept getting punctures and his group just cycled off and left him. He’d had to go to Merthyr where there was a Halfords open on a Sunday to buy a new inner tube; he’d been 50p short but they were so sorry for him they let him off.
So I didn’t really have a choice - I went back down The Hill. There were now not many riders around. At the bottom I realised that, no, he must have gone on. I turned round to do the Hill again. This was a low point. Somewhere on the way back up it started to rain. When I eventually did make it back Taversnspite the second time, the small crowd had gone.
And the “all downhill to Tenby” turned out to be a Big Fat Lie. There were loads of uphill bits. But actually, then a good thing happened. I knew now for a fact that I was going to make it. I felt invincible. In the film version, the music started to swell. In relation to each new slope I thought: yeah, whatever. Wind too, is that the best you’ve got? Rain, wind and slope? Love it.
So I was pretty late on arriving, and I have apologised for the concern to my kind and forgiving wife who saw some pretty wrecked old people come in before I got there. But I did love it, and highly recommend it to any of you out there who have been at all diverted by this nonsense. If you do it, let me know as the first pint will be on me.
Thank you again.
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