First Sportive - Tour of the Pennines

[Steve H]

Thinking of doing my first Sportive with the missus.

The Tour of the Pennines looks pretty close to me and is far enough out (18th September) for us to build up our mileage. Anyone done it / doing it? Is this something suitable for a couple of novices to start on - i.e hills not too excessive?

http://www.cyclosport.org/eventdetails.aspx?eventid=2322

Thanks

Steve

 

[peteoc]

Steve,

Have a look at the following links, then click on Summary at the top of the page, it shows you a graph of height/distance.

60KM - http://bikeroutetoaster.com/Course.aspx?course=138540

100KM - http://bikeroutetoaster.com/Course.aspx?course=138537

Looking at those, there be some bloody big hills - for training I'd try ride most of my rides at 40 miles with some very steep hills. Those rides won't kill you on the distance, it's just the hills.

 

[Fiona N]

They're not steep climbs - you're climbing about 250m over 15 km and 200m over 10km on the two major ascents - so while they look fearsome, they're long drags on biggish roads, not 25% killers. Stamina for the distance is likely to be more important than strength and hope for favourable weather - it would be hard with beating gales and rain.

Luckily we're having a drought

 

[Steve H]

Thanks for the responses. Also we are pretty slow at the moment - prob 9-10mph over longer rides. Is this ok for these kinds of events or do we need to wait until we are faster. I see people on here posting avg's between 14 - 20mph and we just don't have the bikes or fitness to do this yet.

I'd really like to start getting stuck in to these kind of things, but don't want to be hours after everyone else with organisers waiting to pack up!