Tour of Cambridgeshire

The Grand Depart

On a sunny 9th of June an intrepid bunch from Horsham Cycling set out from the East of England Showground to conquer the mostly flat roads south of Peterborough in the never-to-be-repeated final 'Tour of Cambridgeshire'.

HCC shows a fine set of legs

The last time we managed to stay together...

The sportive had several options, with our folk divided between those riding the 66 mile route and some adding an extra loop to make up the full 100 miles. With our characteristic lack of forward planning, we hadn't really discussed who was doing which route and whether they would stop at the feed breaks, so following the usual start of ride enthusiastic pressing on from all involved, our little band soon fragmented - only to meet up eventually for the telling of tall tales of derring-do in the prestigious Premier Inn bar...

So far so good... but some are already up the road!

As the course was relatively flat, we all made pretty good progress until we hit the strength sapping headwinds in the latter stages of the ride. The conspicuous team kit made us stand out, and attracted lots of 'come on Horsham' encouragement from the spectators, along with the occasional 'you're far from home, did you get lost?'. For once we didn't find the hills too daunting, with the steepest being around 5% and most of them closer to 3% - hardly noticeable by Sussex and Surrey standards - and so we tended to ease past many of the local riders when things turned ever so slightly uphill, rather nice for the ego!

The route was mostly on closed roads, well signposted and with well organised and stocked feed stops - combined with the sunshine and generally joyful atmosphere it made the whole day thoroughly enjoyable. The only downer, aside from those pesky headwinds, was having to ride more than once past large groups of jolly folk spending the day outside their pubs, knocking back beer and burgers and cheering on the sweaty, straining cyclists from the comfort of their deckchairs...

Nevertheless, after several hours of satisfying toil we all made it safe and well back to the Showground to receive our medals and (if we arrived early enough) the cheers of our adoring fanbase...

Stephen, Debbie and Chris make it over the line

Illy breaks his 100 mile record with Ian and Lisa in tow

By all accounts it was an excellent weekend of fun - with great weather, good hotel and food and Peterborough turning out to be a much more attractive and interesting place than we had ignorantly given it credit for... it's only a shame that this year is to be the last year in which this ride will be staged.

Yet another clutch of well deserved medals for HCC

Kudos to all on the ride - Lisa and Debbie, Jim, Chris, Stephen, Illy and Kevin with me tagging along. Also many thanks to Sue for joining us on the trip to add some intellectual firepower and common sense - and Colin for his ever entertaining stream of consciousness. Special credit also goes to Jim for his magnificent organisation, Kevin for the fastest ride, Stephen for soldiering on while mildly injured, ditto Debbie despite the onset of a prolapsed disc... Illy for riding over 100 miles for the very first time and Lisa for casually chucking in yet another hundred miles after a bonkers 400k just the day before!