Easter Fleche

mvt

The first ever Irish team to enter this event,run by Audax Club Parisian,have just finished and ran up a score of 440km in 23 and a half hours,The idea behind the event is that you have to do a minimum of 360k in 24 hours.The team consisted of four from the Boards:Andreus.Voight,Lastgasp.Rottenhat and myself.We started in Cork yesterday at 1.50 pm and finished today ,in Dundrum, at 1.30 pm.
More details to follow as soon as I return to planet earth

Chips Lovell

Well done lads. Awesome achievement.

Sorry again for riding right by you today mvt. Didn't recognise you at all with the beard.

The tax man

Congratulations guys.

rottenhat

mvt wrote: »

a score of 440km in 23 and a half hours,

Errr...430km according to my clock. [false modesty]Which is eff all really.[/false modesty]

More when the pain in my shoulders diminishes.

Caroline_ie

That's brilliant guys!!! Nuts though... Congrats on the achievement

rughdh

Chapeau, guys. You should have no problem with a 600 after that achievement.

Captain Havoc

Chapeaux all round, awesome achievement.

Greenman

mvt wrote: »

The first ever Irish team to enter this event,run by Audax Club Parisian,have just finished and ran up a score of 440km in 23 and a half hours,The idea behind the event is that you have to do a minimum of 360k in 24 hours.The team consisted of four from the Boards:Andreus.Voight,Lastgasp.Rottenhat and myself.We started in Cork yesterday at 1.50 pm and finished today ,in Dundrum, at 1.30 pm.
More details to follow as soon as I return to planet earth

Will you be doing the PBP?

IM0

I thought this was going to be a thread about the 'Ronde' with that title

rottenhat

Greenman wrote: »

Will you be doing the PBP?

Counting the days until registration opens...364 to go.

honkjelly

Well done lads!!

rottenhat

OK, beer in hand, settle down, this might be a long one. Obviously I'd been planning this for a while - as early as June last year I'd been chatting with Paul O'Donoghue about doing a Fleche here. The original team of five was whittled down to four when Taxman's knee trouble wrecked his training plans. Blorg was going to sub in but had to work Good Friday - I think he's probably happier to be doing the Gorey Three Day anyway. There was a little bit of consternation when Paul calculated my route (which I was trimming as close to the 360km bone as I could) as being only about 355km last week - he suggested just going with it as it would probably work out longer but I wanted to play it safe and added Nenagh to the itinerary to bring it up to 397km (according to ViaMichelin.)

The team met up at Heuston Station on Friday - LastGasp's wife and children were there to see him off. "Don't take Daddy" wailed one nipper while the other repeatedly tried to punch him in the crotch - I ushered him through the gate before his wife had chance to serve the divorce papers. We made it Cork just before one and looked for a cafe for lunch and a starting control point - Paddy Torrini's were lucky enough to enjoy our presence while we still fresh and comparatively odour-free. emty promised them a big write-up on Boards so I'll let him sing their praises. We rolled out of Cork in sunshine - in fact the rain outside the train window on the way down was the only rain we saw all day. The early stages of the route were pleasant but not exactly striking, with a long stretch paralleling the M8 northwards to Mitchelstown where we controlled at a garage (Topaz were offering free coffee all day and emty was determined to take advantage).

Continuing towards Tipperary we skirted the snowcapped Galtee mountains and decided to detour via the Glen of Aherlow. On the one hand this meant a lovely view. On the other hand, we got the said view going around a hairpin on a lengthy climb on a detour that added 5km to the route...didn't seem like much at the time, of course. From Tipperary town we followed the Rapparee Drive north along some fairly brutal roads - we must have been dragging upwards for quite a while because close to Nenagh we hit a long descent, with the sun descending behind what I'm guessing were the Silvermines. Nenagh didn't offer much in the way of options so it was dinner in Supermacs and an epic faff session as each of us took it in turns to empty our bags, put on more clothes, get out lights etc etc. By the time we left Nenagh it was dark and getting very cold.

With two TK-11s and two Ixon's between us we had plenty of light, even running all four on low beam, and we made good time to Thurles. emty got directions from a local lad that saw us easily across the M8 and onto backroads towards Fethard - in my one navigational cock-up of the ride I managed to direct us back towards Horse & Jockey but it was less than a kilometer out of the way so we retraced and got back on course. We had another break at Fethard for sandwiches and it was clear that people were getting tired. emty did his best to raise morale by telling us just how bad we would feel after 400km but I'm not sure it had the desired effect. At Kilsheelin we figured it was safe enough to take the N24 into Carrick and sure enough I doubt more than three cars passed us along that twelve kilometers. Carrick was a ghost town so we controlled at an ATM, complained about how bitterly cold it was, and pressed on.

I had about enough memory of the REK 400 and the Tour of Kilkenny last year to keep us on course along the backroads between Pilltown and Mullinavat. Riding hills in the dark is tricky - with no visual clues as to how steep the road is or when the climb will end it's hard to gauge your effort - and I don't think I was only one who was burning a bit too much along this section. The consolation was feeling warm for the first time in several hours and for a while I could feel all my fingers and one or two of my toes. New Ross looked haunted when we got there, fog rising off the river. Paul had mentioned a 24 hour petrol station but if it still exists, we didn't find it and didn't have the energy to look. As consolation for going the long way around the town though, we came across a 24 hour Tesco. I can honestly say I've never been quite so happy to see that red and blue sign. We wandered around inside for quite a while, our sleep deprived brains trying to make sense of this enormous supermarket, then sat down on the floor to eat what random assortment of things we'd picked from the shelves. Being a supermarket, it wasn't exactly warm in there and Andreas.Voigt was shaking alarmingly as he was eating the cold pasta ("Try me hot" read the label, taunting us cruelly...no microwave or hot coffee to be had there).

The another main road bash down the N30 to Enniscorthy - the first light was appearing in the sky but a heavy fog was coming off the sea and if anything the cold was intensifying. There was nothing open in Enniscorthy either and communication devolved into inarticulate grunts that sounded vaguely like "coffee". The N11 was a hideous shock to delicate nerves with HGVs thundering past at high velocity but at least when we got to Ferns a petrol station was open. Evidently this petrol station was travelling at close to the speed of light - powerful relativistic effects meant that although only a few minutes had passed inside, close to an hour had gone by outside it, and as we trudged along a teeth-loosening road to Carnew I realized that far from having plenty of time in hand for a leisurely breakfast and a kip in a chair in Aughrim, we were in danger of not getting back to Dundrum within 24 hours.

With the benefit of sleep, I have since grasped that this didn't matter. The over-distance that had crept in over the course of the route meant that we'd have done 360km by the time we hit Aughrim and could then control anywhere at 22 hours before knocking out the final 25km. At the time, though, panic set in and, to catcalls of "slavedriver" and "tyrant", I marshalled the lads into a mini-paceline and we drove hard to Aughrim. Paul was waiting for us there with the press (i.e. his mate Tom with a camera) at the Green Bean where the owner(?) comped us a round of espressos - this was only one of dozens of small acts of kindness we experienced across the journey, but they will have my loyal business whenever I'm in Aughrim again. Still anxious, I made the lads choke down their coffee and push it to Roundwood for the 22 hour control.

Again, befuddled by sleep deprivation I insisted that we take the shorter but much hillier and rougher route through Moneystown instead of Laragh in spite of eminently sensible objections from LastGasp but, by God, we missed the self-appointed deadline by only a minute or two. Paul was there again to sign our cards and cheer us on the final leg. At this point it was in the bag - we had an hour and three-quarters to do 25 kilometers - but my mind was racing, thinking about what would happen if two of us punctured (three have to finish for the ride to be validated). And at that point, burnt out by the stress and the exhaustion and not having eaten enough, I collapsed. I was absolutely whipped as we headed to Enniskerry - couldn't even face a swig of the 12 year old single malt that Paul was passing around. The Poggio was hell, the Scalp was even more humiliating as I crawled along in some piddling gear while the others forged on ahead (no doubt in their own private hells, but that wasn't how it seemed at the time).

We made it to Dundrum with fifteen minutes to spare and 430km on the clock. Looking back now, I know I could have made it easier for all of us if I'd properly understood the implications of the rules of the Fleche. We didn't have to go all out for the last five hours. But at the same time, I'm sort of glad that we did - 430km sets the bar high for future years. We didn't just scrape by, we did it in...well, style would probably not be the word you would choose if you'd seen us at the end, but we did it with conviction.

velo.2010

Thats some effort. I suppose 'Audax' is the ability to chose and ride the most fugly long route whilst still heading in the general direction of where you want to go!

I prefer 'direct' myself.

Again well done!

rottenhat

velo.2010 wrote: »

Thats some effort. I suppose 'Audax' is the ability to chose and ride the most fugly long route whilst still heading in the general direction of where you want to go!

I prefer 'direct' myself.

Heh, no doubt I'd have chosen a better route if I knew the countryside better but you are a bit constrained by the smallness of this island. Fleche riders in bigger countries don't have to get into ridiculous contortions to make a route that's long enough.

velo.2010

If you ever decide to do a more direct route-Cork to Dublin or viceversa, give us a shout. I might 'Just Do It'!

serendip

rottenhat wrote: »

OK, beer in hand, settle down, this might be a long one.

"Thanks" just doesn't seem enough.

Extraordinary effort!
Congratulations to all!

godihatedehills

An absolutely exceptional achievement lads. You really should be proud.

How are you feeling now after a bit of rest?

LastGasp

Thanks for all the posts, and to Rottenhat for the entertaining report !
I've been away with the family for a few days, just back. Felt surprisingly OK during and after the event. I had a lot of pain in my toes early on, but thankfully managed to resolve it by changing to a new pair of "high arch" Footdisc Insoles. Just as well, as I probably wouldn't have got to the end otherwise. Main problem was the cold in the early hours, until well after dawn, and the fact that I "dozed off" several times as the sun came up. It was just as well that my natural "swerve" was to the left, and not into the middle of the road, or the oncoming traffic, as we were riding up the N11 at the time. The swerve, and twitch of the bars woke me up each time before I fell off. I remember nearly taking one of the others out at one stage, but I can't remember who. Once the sun got up properly I woke up again and was grand after that. According to POD it's a fairly regular thing.
I had a pain in the centre of my knee for half an hour or so which cleared up of it's own accord, other than that I felt pretty OK. Not too stiff, and no cramps, even next day. I've been worse after some of the 200's. Right then, when's the 600 ?