Tour of Wessex

Toblerone1978

Anybody doing this at the end of May. Or have anyone done it before. Any tips...

I've signed up for it, got the tip from Esroh - cheers. It's my Tour of Ireland replacement for 2010

Toblerone1978

This seems to be my solo thread, so I'm going to finish it off with a quick review on the Tour of Wessex, with very sore, tired but satisfied legs.

For anyone who don't know, this a three day sportif that starts and finish each day in an English village called Somerton, just south of Bristol. At the name suggest, it's a tour of the Wessex area in the UK. The routes distances are approx 163km, 181km and 171km.

This was a tough event but I'm very glad to have done it. The routes overall were very, very good and challenging. Very nice roads, some great descents, all type of abiliites doing it and some very tough climbs, including one on the third day exceeding a 1,000 ft (very similar to Mt Ventoux, just on a smaller scale). Giving it that it's a multi day event, the average cyclist is probably a bit stronger than an average cyclist from a one day sportive but still the range of abilities was very wide.

The first day was very tough, as the weather was miserable, coupled with the fact there was very little groups going, everyone seems to be working off their own individual agenda and therefore unless you were with a group going over, it hurted, big time. It's a long time since I had such a miserable day on the bike. Missing signs at one junction and doing an extra 10km didn't help either.

However on the second day, people seemed to learn from the previous day mistakes, grouped together alot easier and I also learned from another of my mistakes the previous day, to drink!. That and also getting use to the very annoying mistake of forgetting my computer and growing stronger meant the second day was very enjoyable. Of course, good weather (despite heavy headwind on the way home) contributed to making it more enjoyable. I got in with a good group (for me!) with 80km to go, nice pace, sharing the workload up front, nice people and turned out to be my near neighbours at the campsite.

The third day was my highlight. While I was hurting, so was a lot of other people so that made it okay! Yet it was the most enjoyable. I felt I rode well, not having a computer didn't bother me much (it was very irrating the first day) and finish strongly with a nice tail wind, which is always nice. There was also a lot of people who signed up just to do this as a one-day, more so than the others as it was the hardest (by far) of the three.

The most similar thing I've done to this is Tour of Ireland, but to be honest, the organisation is not near as good. Even though the ToW is a good event and is recommended, I suppose it wasn't until I did another multi-sportif did I realise how good the TOI was. If both came up next year, I might consider doing both but if I had to choose one, it would be TOI without doubt. The reason is that TOW is a real commercial operation and it shows where the TOI wouldn't e.g. when the event finish the first day and I got myself a cup of tea and two cupcakes buns, I nearly flipped it when they charged me £3.50 for it! After battling rain and wind for seven hours.

Good routes, very challenging, it's probably the only 3 day sportive available that doesn't involve a plane at the moment, relatively cheap if camping but comes with a W200 type of mentality (cut costs wherever possible, and it shows on numerous occassions). I was talking to the organiser and he told me that 611 signed up to do the 3 days, but by day 3 only 396 started all three days - and I even know of another guy who started the third but couldn't finish due to injury. So it is challenging but far from impossible and anyone who can do the W200 this year should be well able to do the TOW next year. Just a certain type of mentally needed .

Captain Havoc

Fair play to you Toblerone, you don't believe in doing things by half do you?