News — Sportive

Wind, rain, sleet, snow, hail… oh and lots of sun… all the weathers, it must be spring. Sunday the 17th March can certainly be counted as an incredible early spring day and ticked all the boxes for an event in the ‘Classics’ season. Whilst the pros were taking a well earned rest from the cobbles and crosswinds of Flanders, I joined over 300 brave riders on the quickly growing flandarian styled Cotswold Cyclo - a spectacular event which shows off, I believe, some of England's best cycling roads (come at me Yorkshire). Climbing like a mountain goat? Or a Cotswold...

Passo Giau (2236m), Passo Falzarego (2105m), Passo Pordoi (2239m) Passo Costalunga (1745m)   Waking up in the mountains for the first time on the trip put a bit of a spring in everyone’s step. Any remaining grappa-induced fuzziness was gone after an all-to-brief 4km descent to the bottom of the first climb of the day. Passo Giau is a tough but lovely and relatively short climb. The 10km climb averages 9.8% with peaks of 14% and is placed late on in the Maratona Dolomites which leads to it having a killer reputation. Although this was our first real 'high' mountain...

I’m having a bit of a moment. At 4.45am in a dark, chilly car park in Les Saisies, high in the French Alps, I’m getting ready to descend to Megeve with 500 odd other riders and I have a broken zip on my jacket. Any hopes at remaining “tranquilo” before I begin the world’s toughest one day bike race look to be scuppered as I struggle with the stubborn little piece of metal and unfairly growl at my girlfriend. A couple of deep breaths, some brute force applied to the zip and I recover my senses and make my way...