THE DAVE LLOYD MEGA CHALLENGE (Midi version)

Sunday morning I awoke in north Wales to glorious weather and the daunting task of cycling the Dave Lloyd mega challenge as my last training event before the Etape.
Vary wary of how I would do on the big steep climbs, I set of conservatively to make sure that I could last the distance, achieve the goal of finishing and without injury and to enjoy the day.
The super lithe and speedy riders soon flew past and I settled into a sustainable pace for me. Climb after climb came and after 20 miles completed, I looked at the Garmin and was shocked to see it show over two hours had gone already and I started to doubt if I could maintain a 100 miles of this constant climbing.

Finally we reached the top and what should have been a time to recover, turned into a frightening buttock clenching 6 mile descent which when at the bottom, I was glad to get climbing again as my back, neck, arms and fingers were killing me after clinging on to the bike so tightly.

Luckily we then got a nice easier rolling section to the first feed stop at 45 miles, and after refuelling I felt OK again, then it started again climbing, climbing, climbing, but other than a savage section at 17% plus for what seemed like a mile, it was more even and enjoyable.

Another section of long downhill, which was enjoyable led us to the next feed station at 80 miles before we set off again to the stingers! A series of hard but short climbs which sapped the last energy from tired legs, before a nice 5 mile downhill to the start point at the local school.

But this challenge does not finish there, as the hardest climb is still to come, up Bwlch Pen Barras, a savage long steep climb of hideous proportions which make doing the Winnats pass seem very very easy by comparison.

A chequered flag greeted me at the top, where I was informed that I had to then cycle the 3 miles down the way I had just climbed to get back to the school!

Overall a course of 102 miles with 11000ft of climbing with a finish time of 9:09 and a ride time of 8:30hrs.
A hard hard challenge which hopefully will help me come the 18th July.