SWRC May Flyer

[dhague]

I had a great day out on the SWRC May Flyer yesterday - 140km completed in 5:21 - my first gold-standard sportive in the six I've done to date.

The SWRC put on a great event: well staffed & stocked feed stations and a good signage system - yellow signs backed up by direction arrows painted onto the road. Timing was by the good old "bloke with a stopwatch & pencil" method.

The full gory details are here: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/32720243

The slight timing difference is because I forgot to start the computer when we first set off - d'oh!

I was very pleased that I fed & paced myself well throughout, overtaking loads of people in the final third of the course, and still having plenty in the tank for Pitch Hill and Coombe Bottom, both of which were over 16% gradient coming in the last 20km of the ride.

Cheers,
Darren

 

[Aperitif]

Well done Darren! Rubbing noses with the terrain around Lurgeshall I see...

 

[dhague]

Wow - even better, the results for the May Flyer just came out - I came in 23rd from 200 riders!

To give a bit of perspective, the 3 events I did last year and the first one this year, I ranked about a third of the way down the field. Then, in last month's Evans Ride-It (Woking) I came about an eighth down the rankings - I was very pleased with that, and thought it was maybe a bit of a fluke with a lot of first-timers on the ride.

So to improve on last month (top 11.5% up from top 12.5%) was great. And yes, I know that a sportive is not a race, but my overall ranking % is I think a reasonable way for me to measure my progress. At this rate, a top 10% finish is definitely on the cards for my next event.

Cheers,
Darren