Flatout in the Fens 2015

June 28th 2015

112 mile ride from Peterborough

A well organised but uninspiring route around the Fens. Very flat but quite exposed - the headwind for the last 25 miles was demoralising, even if nowhere near as strong as the winds on the Haydon Hundred. Pleased to cover the full Iron distance in the saddle (even if my bum wasn't too impressed!). In the words of my cycling companion, who kindly let me draft him for what must have been the first 90 or so miles:

"Flash in the Fens is a sportive held, as you might have guessed, in the fenland country, starting and finishing in Peterborough. Being all down south, and in the middle of June, you’d expect the main weather hazards to be heatstroke and sunburn. Not at all! The weather was wet, and windy. We had a nice day the day before though - it was sunny and warm, and we did the parkrun in the morning (finally I was back down to sub 20 minutes, I have no idea what’s happened to my running these days). The start slot was 7 to 8am - fairly early, but we were aiming for 112 miles, so we didn’t want to be too late starting.

Fortunately it wasn’t raining when we started, and we had I think about 20 miles under our wheels before it did. The first 20 or 30 miles were surprisingly hilly actually, much more than I’d expected: in total, we must have climbed a good 10 metres by the time we were at the first food stop. We didn’t stop for long as we were pushing on: there was a tight cut-off time to avoid being shunted onto the short course, and my calculations gave us about 7 minutes for the three food stops combined. A refil of water bottles, a couple of wolfed slices of flapjack and we were on out way again. The rain started in earnest soon after the food stop (hmm - this seems to be a pattern with sportives recently!), and we briefly stopped again to pull on jackets.

By now, we were most definitely into flat-as-a-pancake land, with most of the route made up of long, flat straight sections. The scenery altered: some sections were along the top of dykes, one of the prettiest stretches along a road lined with gardens and flowers. The second food point provided some very welcome refreshment, but again we didn’t hang around. After the second food point the roads opened out, with trees and houses giving way to open fields, in many cases lower than the road, and I’m guessing they often flood in winter (I remember passing not so very far away when travelling to and from uni, and some journeys in winter felt almost mystical, when I looked out of the carriage and saw only water on either side merging with the mist, with not a scrap of land to be seen).

The final stretch after the third and final food point was much the same as the previous 40 miles, except that this time we were heading more into the wind rather than away from it. We made it to the cut-off point in time, though it didn’t seem to be enforced, and from there on a back it was a steady grind into the wind, or fighting with a crosswind along the exposed roads.

The general flatness made for a fast ride despite the weather conditions. All in all, a challenging event given the weather conditions, though perhaps not one with the most inspiring scenery(!)"

Results

Distance: 112 miles

Climbing: 294 m

Time: 7:44:14
Moving time: 7:14:08
Pace: 15.5 mph
Gender: 12/36