Tuesday 23 September 2014

The Tour De Ben Nevis 2014, weather outstanding, event outstanding, my time amazing (for me)!

Cycling along Fort William High Street to join the other 300+ nutters who'd entered the event 

The view as we waited in a queue to risk life and limb on the descent to Kinlochleven!

A photo of me nervously going down the descent, this would be the only easy bit all the way down!

The last descent of the event and its on the track used by the Ten Under The Ben racers earlier in the year, after this there wasn't much left to do which was just as well as the legs were completely gone!

The Tour De Ben Nevis has come and gone and once again the weather gods smiled. You just could not have got better weather for an event like this, sunshine the whole day but not hot enough to make it really difficult, in fact I only used one bottle of juice the whole of the ride, but then I'm notorious for not drinking a lot of liquid! Baz set off like a man possessed after declaring he was going to take it easy, Mark controlled himself for about another two minutes and then was off himself, while me , the old  head plodded along at my own speed with  the only stop all the way round an enforced one in a queue at the top of the Kinlochleven descent. I eventually caught up with Mark at the river crossing where he was looking decidedly the worse for wear and never saw him again till the finish when he came in about 25 minutes after me. Baz surprised everyone with an amazing 4 hours 24 minutes and I managed 5 hours 27 minutes which is over an hour better than my previous best. Mark beat the target of 6 hours as well which was what we'd aimed for before the start. I cycled the last stretch back into Fort William beside a guy who'd come up with his mate from London on the train to do the Tour and couldn't help laughing as he told me he'd never seen so many rocks in his life before, he said the hardest surface they bike on down south is mud! A great day and a great event!

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