Every January is my audax club's annual Pink Ride, a special BRM200 that's usually designed to be newbie-friendly, and ladies get to register for free. However, the route has been becoming a bit less friendly to newcomers of late, with this year featuring a rather lumpy mid section after a relatively flat start but at least it ends with a flat finish also.
Pink Rides typically attract huge crowds and this year was no different. Almost could not find any parking spots available near the starting point, but fortunately I have a small car so I managed to find a little corner that no one wanted to try and fit their car into.
The ride officially starts at 5:00am but the organizer allowed a staggered start to avoid crowds. I noticed some leaving as early as 4:45am but since I had arrived late, I hung back and waited for most of the group to leave, before starting at 5:39am.
The beginning was relatively cool and pleasant with my Garmin Edge 1030 displaying temperatures below 20C but it was a false hope for things to come. Once the sun had risen temperatures went up quickly, up to blistering hot levels. I know the Garmin does not record the same temperatures as reported by weather stations, but rather measures the heat radiated around it, but still it hit the highest point at 41C which was not at all pleasant. The hilly sections, in particular, did not have much cover such as trees to provide any shelter from the heat.
The last 40km presented an additional challenge - relatively strong headwinds coming from the sea. And then with just a little less than 10km from the finish, both calf muscles decided to cramp. I was approaching a red light, unclipped my left leg and I guess the action of unclipping triggered that painful, familiar feeling. I quickly leaned towards the traffic island intending to lay the bike flat and unclip my right leg at the same time, and my right calf decided to go all stiff and painful on me too. Spent a good (10-20? minutes - I wasn't keeping track) just sitting there under the hot sun, stretching and massaging my muscles until I felt like I could get going again.
I completed the remaining distance at low gears, at a slow and steady pace. Finished at 3:00pm, still a pretty decent time all things considered, but could have been better if the situation had been more favourable.
Another issue I've been having are shoe issues. This is my second ride with a new pair of shoes - the Shimano TR-501 - which has been a little bit tight up front, so my two big toes have been suffering for a bit during the ride. The shoes are a replacement for my beat-up Shimano TR5, which is just an older model, so I wasn't expecting the fit to differ that much. Oh well, lesson learnt.
Anyways, with 200, 300 and 400 out of the way, I'm just left with a 600k to complete my SR series this year, and then the 1000k later on for PBP.