50 miles – in one go!

If you’ve read this blog before, you’ll probably know by now that I do a fair bit of cycling. Not as much as I’d like but more than many!

Today I did my longest single ride! I’ve done 80 miles in a day on more than one occasion, but this has always been part of an organised charity ride like London to Paris or Coast to Coast, and there are plenty of stops along the way.

This morning, I did the Peter Hinchcliffe Memorial Ride from Tickhill. Organised by the Dinnington Racing Club, it is now in it’s 2nd year. I’d never ridden with Dinnington RC (or any other cycling club for that matter) and I’m ashamed to say I’ve no idea who Peter Hinchcliffe was. However, posters went up in the village a couple of weeks ago and Nikki suggested I do it, as I haven’t got church this morning!

By longest ride, I mean the longest single stint on my bike without stopping for breaks (except for one quick road side comfort break!!!)

There were loads of people from different bike clubs there for the 9.30am start, all meeting at the Cricket Club in Tickhill. I reckon somewhere between 50 & 100! To see this peloton of riders going out of the village and into the countryside was something else.

And they were quick! We were averaging over 17 mph for the first 10 miles which isn’t too quick, but when Stuart & I stopped for a wee-wee, we couldn’t catch them back up! At some points, Stuart was pulling into a head wind at 19mph but the main group still stayed out ahead of us. They must have been bombing along in the middle part of the ride! There were lots of other riders spread out along the route, who we tagged onto from time to time, but the MadDog is a bloomin’ machine and kept going the whole way round!

50 miles in less than 3 hours was pretty good for me. Although, it would probably have taken longer, if I hadn’t been riding with Stuart (AKA Mad-dog) who did most of the pulling! He didn’t drop me until the 48th mile coming up the final hill into Bircotes, but because I stayed on his wheel for all of the second half of the ride, I got round a lot quicker than I otherwise would have!

Cheesr mate!

The next big challenge has to be to do 100 miles in one day. I’m sure I couldn’t it in one go, but with a couple of cake stops along the way, I’m sure it’s do-able!

And thanks to Peter Hinchcliffe – whoever you were?!?!