Rides worth doing: The Tour Rides

For those of who have been keeping tabs on this blog would have seen that The Prostate Cancer Charity in the UK are trying to become the charity name behind cycling. Just the same as running is for breast cancer, they would like to make cycling the sport for prostate cancer. A natural association if you like.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men and as a result, one man dies every hour from this horrid disease, not to mention the 35000 men that are diagnosed with it every year. So it’s not something to shy away from. But rather a disease that we need to fight against.

With that, the Charity has teamed up with The Tour of Britain to offer cyclists of all abilities the chance to ride a stage of The Tour, in The Tour Rides. Taking place in September, cyclists can try out the same routes that the pro’s get to race on in the Tour.

The same attention to detail and event planning is put into delivering a Tour Ride as staging The Tour of Britain. With extensive route signage, marshals, motorcycle support, official cars on route and neutral service, the Tour Rides offer a unique full-support experience.

Plus, there are carefully located and well stocked feed and drink stations along the route as well as hot drinks and sandwiches. I’ve been informed that this year’s Tour Rides will also incorporate timing splits and timed King of the Mountains sections (Pro Tour Ride).

The neutral service is being provided by the team at Saddleback Ltd who bring to the UK market those awesome racing machines, FELT – as currently used by the Garmin Transitions cycling team the Tour de France, as well as Lance’s groupset of choice, SRAM.

So on Tuesday 22 June, I was lucky enough to be invited by the Charity to go and try out the Stoke route of the Tour Ride. This route forms as Stage 2 of The 2010 Tour of Britain. It was a clear hot day – 22 degrees celcius. A perfect day to go out for the ride – as you will see from the pictures below. I had been looking forward to doing the ride for a whole week running up to it, especially as it was time out of the hectic schedule we were on for The Tour Series, plus I got to have my last ride on the Felt FC.

As it was a media ride, we weren’t going to do the full day’s worth of riding (ie. Pro Ride). We were only aiming to do 60+ km’s. However, we were going to take in the hilliest part of the route. Our day started off in Rocester, the home of JCB. From there we made our way to Leek taking in the stunning views of the Staffordshire Moorlands.  On the ride we took a short break in the village of Longnor, where we were welcomed with open arms by the owner of the local coffee shop called Cobbles. A true cycling fan, he offered us teas, coffees and sandwiches on the house. How could we say no to that? So if you ever in the village, make sure you stop by Cobbles.

From Longnor we made our way towards Leek, not before taking in plenty of 10% climbs and the well known, Gun Hill. I felt great at the start of the ride but the climbs were relentless and they began taking their toll. I have to say that Gun Hill was not easy at all and I can see why people gather along it when the Tour races over. There were some great downhills too (not too many of these unfortunately), but did manage to get up to speeds of 80km/h.

It was a great day out and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. If you’re on the fence about whether to take part, I would urge you to go for it. Sign up for The Tour Rides, you will not be sorry. And feel good in knowing that you are also putting money to a good cause.

I would also like to say a HUGE thanks to Andrew and team at Saddleback for providing me with the Felt FC to use on the ride! I loved riding it so much, I am now looking to buy it.

And last but not least, below are pictures taken on the day of our ride. These were taken by Joolze Dymond who is also the official photographer for The Tour of Britain and The Tour Series. If you get a chance, make sure you check out her website: www.joolzedymond.com

Remember, there are three routes to choose from and three rides at each, for the exception of London, which offers only one ride. For more details on all the Rides on offer (dates, distances, etc) in The Tour Rides, check out my previous posting on The Tour Rides.

Enjoy the pics and sign up!

Starting out in Rocester where our ride began

A beautiful day to be out riding the bike

Making the most of my last day on the Felt FC

The start of many many climbs to come

Easy for some, others not

The scenery was just spectacular

Riding on roads that were virtually clear of traffic. Made for a superb day out

You can almost see the heat come off the road

Some more uphills

Working the Felt. Plus, enjoyed the SRAM groupset. Definitely a convert to its style

How can you say no to that?

Peter and Liz helping us out on the ride, a day after the Chester round of The Tour Series

Some more ups

Peter trying the typical 'fan with water bottle' you see in the Tour de France

He was loving it

...and the fact that I was getting wet

Mind you, afterwards it did feel quite refreshing

Then just for the camera decided to do a typical rider 'response' to getting wet

Maybe over doing it a little 🙂

Watch out for the BIG hand! Getting a fresh bottle from Liz

Seriously enjoying my day out on the Felt. I think I should keep it!!

And there were some downhills too

But what goes down must go up

Liz and Peter enjoying their day out of the office

Quiet roads

Coffee stop in the village of Longnor. Check out Cobbles if you are ever there

Making our way towards Gun Hill

But before we get there, a few more clims to negotiate

Boy it was hot out there

There were loads of these too - 10 per cent climbs

Doing some close ups for the Charity

Taking the mick out of Joolze who's sitting in the boot of the CRV

Suffering on the first killer section of Gun Hill

Really thankful that Paul was there to encourage me along

My legs were hurting big time

Finished the second killer section

Enjoying the fact that Gun Hill levels out towards the top

Almost there

Joolze making us sprint for the top. She loves to see us suffer

Freewheeling into Leek

Enjoying the post ride chat with Paul...

...and laugh

The Great Tour Recce

The Great Tour route map

Late on Friday 7 May myself and a colleague from work, Kathryn and her boyfriend Gavin, made our way down from Weybridge in Surrey to Seaton in Devon.

Now Seaton is a small seaside town on the South West coastline of Devon England. It has also been described as the gateway to the 95-mile Jurassic Coast of the Dorset and East Devon Coast World Heritage Coastline.

However, the reason for our drive down to Seaton was  so that we could do a recce of the first two stages of The Great Tour. Not on our own of course, but with a group from our office that have put together this challenging event.

So what is The Great Tour? Well, in short, it’s a circumnavigation of the outer edge of the UK coastline by bicycle.

The Great Tour itself will take place on 3 July when a group of cyclists drawn from the world of sport, celebrity, charity, politics, science and the arts will gather in Seaton to embark on one of Britain’s last great sporting challenges. Keeping the sea to their right for 64 days, the riders will never lose the sight, smell or sound of the sea during their epic 6600km pedal for charity.

The ride will be hosted by well known athletes who will be joined by a wide variety of guests and charity riders to create a colourful and inspirational sporting celebration of the British coastline.

The 2010 event will be the inaugural Great Tour, which will become an annual charity bike ride. This is most probably the most important thing to remember about the event. Its purpose is to help raise money for a charity of your choice. You take on an incredible challenge while helping to raise money for a good cause.

So this ride we embarked upon took in the first two stages of The Great Tour. Stage 1 saw us riding from Seaton to Swanage. Expected total ride distance is 128km with 2483m of ascent.

Stage two took us from Swanage to Ryde with an expected total ride distance of 114km and 1236m of ascent.

On Saturday 8 May after a great fry up breakfast at our guest house, we made our way to the Seaton sea front to await the rest of our team that were going to join us on this ride. Also joining us on the ride was Alistair Cope, a Devon local who would guide us on our way. Alistair is also one of the main guides on The Great Tour itself and is himself raising money for The Prostate Cancer Charity while taking on this 64 day challenge.

Now the weather wasn’t great. It was not too cold, but it was damp and there was intermittent drizzle about. Not something I was looking forward to.

Here  are some pictures, taken by Gavin(or Kathryn) of our ride over the two days:

Gavin Morton (our photograher) and myself outside our guest house in Seaton

Getting the bikes and ourselves ready before we set off

Discussing the road ahead

The group before our depart on stage 1 of The Great Tour

On our way out of Seaton

Wating for the group to catch up after our first climb

Gavin joining us

Road bikes to continue left on the road. Hybrids to go straight along onto the gravel roads

Appreciating why they call it the jurrasic coastline

Loving the climb, but I really do need a new bike

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Alistair going up one the many many climbs on this stage

Graeme and Kevin, Great Tour route leaders

Graeme and Kevin

Graeme and Kevin with Mick Bennett, former Olympic medallist

Taking in the scenery

Enjoying myself

I'm lovin it!

The scenery is just beautiful

Riding with Alistair and admiring how the climb just keeps going up

Taking a mini break in one of the many villages along the way

For any would be bike sponsor - Your bike could be in the picture instead of the Trek. Think about it!

We visited some interesting roads and places

Spectacular views once again

I love this picture

Feeling the pain

Graeme, Kevin and myself glad that we're coming to the end of stage 1

Packing the cars before makin our way to our local accommodation

Now we didn’t quite make the full stage. After all the stops and starts, we managed only to get to Weymouth, just over half the distance we were expecting to do for that day. But that was the whole purpose of the recce – to find out what challenges could stand in  our way when the main event takes place.

It’s at this point where I have to say that The Great Tour is not the ideal challenge to take on with a road bike. The best bike for this challenge is a hybrid. With a relaxed frame geometry and slick MTB tyres makes it easier to ride over the varying terrain than what a road bike could handle. I did manage it on my road bike, but my tyres did take a huge hammering.

But more importantly, the hybrid offers you the aditional gears you would need to climb over some of the steep sections of this ride. I have to be honest and say that I did run out of gears and some of the road surfaces were so wet that I wasn’t able to stand going up the climbs. This really did test the strength in my legs and arms. However, the road bike was great for some of the descents as we reached up to 80km/h without pedalling. Not for the feint-hearted!

Oh, before I forget, stage 1 is the hardest stage of the entire Great Tour.

Stage 2: Swanage to Ryde

After a good night’s rest, we all made our way into Swanage for our early morning start of 8:00am. Not before getting in a good breakfast though.

Our early morning breakfast stop

Running through the details of the route

Our group photo

Maing our way along the Swanage coastline

A group of men on their way to Studland - haha!

Going to Foreland (or Handfast) Point

The Foreland (or Handfast) Point

Enjoying my way along Newto Heath to catch the short ferry to Sandbanks

On the ferry to Sandbanks

Doing our bit for Mulebar - well, trying to at least

Felt Bicycles taking full advantage of the sponsorship areas I posses. Just need to get a bike from them next 🙂

Making our way along the Bournemouth coastline

The group

and in black & white

Stopping for pies in Lymington

Lymington. Well, that’s as far as I got to on day two of the ride with another 60+ km’s in the bag.  It was at this point that I joined Kathryn and Gavin as they made their way back home to Surrey. From Lymington the rest of the group made their way onto the Isle of Wight to complete the rest of their journey for stage two.

From speaking to guys afterwards, I understand that it was quite hilly too once on the Isle of Wight. So I’m glad I didn’t go the whole way as my legs were competely knackered by the time I made it home that afternoon.

I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed myself over the two days we were out there. The riding was great, the scenery spectacular and the company was excellent.

In summary, The Great Tour offers 64 days of riding, 6600 km’s, 87,500m of ascent and 500 hours in the saddle. So if you feel like taking up a new challenge and want to see the beautiful coastline that the UK offers, then why not sign up for The Great Tour.

*All photographs thanks to Gavin Morton