Hell of the Ashdown
Posted on Thursday 5 February 2009 by Stephen Taylor
If you’re going to put “Hell” in the name of a bike ride then you’re probably not planning on making it a picnic. And so it was for the Hell of the Ashdown sportive at the beginning of February
This was the first time I had done the event and in the past it used to be a rawer reliablility ride with minimal facilities. Now it is a full blown sportive with timing chips and photographers on the roadside capturing the event. However the terrain and, on this occasion, the weather combined to make it a uniquely hard experience. And the photographers were usually halfway up a steep climb ready to record my pain.
We rolled out in small groups in an orderly fashion and within a few minutes we were dropping and climbing – a routine that would last for much of the event. The route signing early on was a little awry which meant that some of us ended up adding a bit to the ride but once back on route the rest of the signing and marshalling was excellent.
Halfway round came “The Wall” – a climb through Ashdown Forest. It wasn’t quite the same as the “walls” I have experienced on the Tour of Flanders sportive. At that event they really do seem like walls and they have the added fun of quite often being cobbled. This time the climb was tarmacced and it did not go straight up. Nevertheless it was a challenge especially for legs that haven’t quite realised the cycling season has started again. The control at the top was a welcome break!
The weather in the morning had been reasonable. As I climbed the Wall the sun was shining. As the day wore on though, things began to go downhill very dramatically as the snow began to descend. As a fellow cyclist commented as he passed me on a snowy woodland lane, “This is getting surreal!”
Miles from home, my only option was to plough on through the driving snow. Surprisingly my main motivation now was the fact that I had paid a ten pound deposit for the timing chip and if I abandoned now I thought I wouldn’t get my money back!!!! Vanity also meant that I kept wiping the snow off my ride number on the front of the bike. If a photographer appeared now I wanted to make sure that my heroic efforts were recognised!
Eventually, after much more climbing (and on one climb I even succumbed to pushing the bike – or “cross training” as I like to describe it!), and as my legs were turning to jelly, I rumbled over the finishing line. I wanted to do the event in about five hours. In the end I managed five hours and fifty nine minutes. After some warming soup and communal recollections about the day’s ride I headed back to the nearest train station for the journey home.
For those of you who missed the experience, the Hell of the Ashdown will no doubt be back again next year. And if you cannot wait that long I believe Roger Fretwell will be leading a ride that covers some of the route in May. Hopefully by then the weather will be a lot better!