28 March 2010 - Cheshire Cat Sportive

So the weather turned out nice again.  Great.  Crewe on a Sunday morning is a new experience for me.  It was OK.  The signage for parking could've been better - turns out that you just park up at the side of the road on an industrial estate about 1.5 miles from the Crewe Alexander football stadium that was hosting the event.
With 2,600 entries, organisation was required.  And it seemed OK, but there was what appeared to be a longish queue waiting to get over the start line.  To register you had to leave your bike in the car park which I wasn't too keen on, given that I wasn't in a group who could take turns to keep an eye on the security of the bike.  Otherwise it was all smooth and the queue only took about 10-15 minutes to get around to the startline.
Groups of 25 or so bikes started every 3 or 4 mins. You get the usual mix - some blasting away either because they're really quick, some because they think its the thing to do (usually pass them again soon enough), some slower than me etc.  The roads were really rough with potholes and many were at the roadside for the first 15 miles or so, fixing punctures.  It seemed that most of the puncture sufferers were in amongst a group.  I think being in a group probably hides the potholes from view and/or minimises your ability to dodge them as you risk taking out your mates.
I did the 45 miles route and it was pretty flat.  Too
k it steady to the food point (at 20 miles) then decided that everything was going to go OK and gave it some more hammer for the last 15 miles.  Great chunks of flapjack at the feeding stop and some (extra cost) chunky pasta soup at the finish.  A buff type scarf / hat thingy as finishing gift.
Pretty pleased with my time - just over 3 hours and 72nd out of 227 finishers on this route.  Maybe I can go for the longer route next time.