Spring Onion Sportive
Sportive: (noun) A cycling event in which a large number of riders travel a long distance on a marked route on public roads, and the time they take is recorded.
Saturday afternoon I put my bike in the back of a rental car (a Renault SUV with seating for 5) and drove to an AirBnB in Stoke D'Abernon, Surrey, England. The next morning I drove to the Village Hall in Cobham for the 2025 Spring Onion. (Heck if I know why they call it an "onion".) 300 riders had signed up. I didn't get there early enough to park at the Village Hall, but fortunately there was public parking nearby. The event was run by European Cycle Events, and they had set up an inflatable start/finish arch. The ride wasn't a race, but each rider was given a number and your time was recorded when you started and finished. I suspect that there were some who treated it as a race. There was a feed station about halfway through the ride, but the "racers" probably didn't stop there.
The first riders started at 8:30. They were released in bunches so that they didn't overload the roads. By the time I was ready to go, it was 8:45 and most of the riders had left.
It was a great day for a bike ride. There had been some threat of rain, but it didn't come until the ride was over. It was mostly sunny and cool -- in the low 50s. More info about the route:
The country we passed through was beautiful and mostly rural. I'm always grateful for the opportunity to see new parts of the UK. One noteworthy village we went through was Ellen's Green 😄. Cobham, the HQ of the ride, is only 4 miles from Claremont Fan Court School. If I'd had more time, I might have stopped by.
The feed station was roughly halfway and was full of bikers, but there was plenty of food, including bottled water, bananas, and some nutty bars. The rest of the food was pretty sweet. I didn't search too hard, but I did not find a bathroom at the feed station. I would have thought one would be provided. I was also disappointed that there were no bins provided for compostables (such as banana peels) and recyclables. Everything went into the same bin.
I did this ride as part of my training for Chase the Sun. CTS is a ride (not a race) from the east coast of the UK to the west coast on the longest day of the year -- the summer solstice, June 21. The goal is to make the trip between sunrise and sunset. You have almost 17 hours to ride 205 miles, so you need to average (according to my calculations) 12.2 mph. I'm happy to say that my average speed, measured during my workouts, has been inching up. On March 16, it was 12.1 during a 72-mile ride. On April 6, it was 13.1 for a 65-mile ride. More progress: for the Spring Onion, my average speed was 14.7. I'm grateful for the progress, but CTS will 3 times the distance of these rides.
As you can see from the elevation profile above, there were ups and downs the whole ride, but the toughest hill came near the end. A road sign said it was 18%, while Ride with GPS says it was 10.7%. I think it was maybe 14%. If you look at even an 18% slope on a graphic, it looks easy, but in reality, it's not. The hill was about half a mile long, and it was in the back of my head the whole ride. I didn't expect to make it without walking. But I've been working on hills and it paid off. I put the bike in the lowest gear, and slowly motored up the hill without stopping 😅
It was mostly downhill from there (literally, not figuratively). When I got to the finish, there were fewer cars in the parking lot (or "car park" as the Brits say). I went inside to get some food, and there was a table with Chase the Sun info on it. Manning the table was Phil, one of the CTS organizers. He recognized my name from the emails I'd sent to CTS with questions. We had a very nice conversation, covering training for the ride, how many riders complete the ride before sunset (about 60%), how many riders who fail come back to try again (a lot of them), my hopes for getting a CTS ride going in Michigan, what he does (film producer), and more.
The next sportive in the training calendar for CTS is the Hampshire Hilly Hundred. I've registered for it, so watch this space.
I still had to drive home, unfortunately in an unshowered state. I changed out of my clammy, wet top, put the bike in the car, and headed off. Long story short, I made it home, returned the car on time, and went to bed early 🛌. I'm so grateful that Ellen will join me for the Hampshire Hilly 100 and for CTS 😊
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