WRC Riders take on the Spring Lambs Cycle Sportive

5 April 2016 - By James Montgomery

On Sunday 3rd April, 8 members of WRC tackled the Essex Roads Spring Lambs Cycle Sportive. This year, to broaden appeal, there were two distances on offer of 100kms (appx 62 miles) and for the brave and bonkers the longer distance of 150 kms (appx 94 miles). Opinion was equally divided, with Alex and Liz Stuckey along with Tony Wallen and Stuart Mills taking on the 100kms event (Stuart with a good excuse for having run a very muddy Orion 15 just the day before) with myself, Rachel Pearsons, Trevor Johnson and new member John Le Seve taking on the longer distance event.

Heavy overnight rain had cleared to make way for glorious sunshine, if a little on the chilly side making choice of correct attire a difficult one but thankfully the full winter woolies could at last be shed aside! However, the rain had also made for some tricky conditions, with a lot of grit washed down, and given the dreadful state many of the roads were in from successive winters of inadequate or no repair, many were suffering punctures and it was more a case of being lucky not to puncture. Unfortunately, Liz suffered such a fate at around 20 miles.

Tony and Stuart pressed on at a blistering pace and having no issues finished in a shade over 3 hours 33 minutes, though Stuart did later admit that he didn’t have the best view that Essex had to offer since he was taking the draft off Tony for most of the way around, still having “Orion 15 Legs”. With Alex suffering a mechanical en route, either that or a polterghiest was playing around with his gears, he and Liz finished in a still very respectable 3 hours 51 minutes.

It was a slightly longer day for those of us tackling the 150kms event and thankfully one without any incident. A nagging wind made it hard going in some places and having to tackle North Hill at 59 miles only added to the fun and games.

Rachel started to suffer a tight hamstring late in the ride but hung in there, even half-wheeling at times and my bike developed a creak which drove everyone nuts, despite having every conceivable part cleaned and greased the day before!! We shared the pace in the closing stages with a couple of Spanish riders, who’d clearly been enjoying more sunshine than us lately and at the end we were all pleased to have completed with Trevor going into attack mode in the final miles posting 6 hours 6  minutes with myself and Rachel a couple of minutes back in 6 hours 8 minutes and John, just drifting slightly off the pace, with 6 hours and 12 minutes but still with Snickers bars intact being securely taped to the crossbar of his old-school retro steel classic complete with toe-clips and straps and downtube levers. Who needs carbon fiber when you have the legs?

James

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