Guest post from Sarah Broscombe – Welcome to Team Half as Good!
“Women, you have 37 minutes and 35 seconds to cycle 14.5km. An average of 23.2km/hr.”
I have never been on a road bike. I really wanted to give this half as good challenge a go. On my mountain bike I generally average around 15kmh, though to be fair that usually includes a significant hill or two and with bits of knobbly off-road. So I had NO idea whether I could a) stay on a road bike, which to me looks like doing the Luge on a razor blade, and b) average anything over a laughable 17kmh or so. The women’s half-as-good Olympic challenge is 23.2kmh- 14.5km in 37m35.
Lake Annecy, then, the Greenway, about 29C and getting windy. A hired comp bike (skinny tyres but straight handlebars with recognisable gears). I’ve got no speedo so B comes with me, which is fantastic for road crossings as well as information. First thing I notice is that it’s a firm ride, on skinny tyres with a saddle that looks like a prehistoric pelvis fossil and feels penitential.
Second thing I notice is, it should be called the GreenGATES, not the Greenway. Entry and exit pairs of gates across each road, farm track, entryway or path. The gates are slanted so you lose a lot of speed approaching as well as going through unless you can whizz through diagonally at speed. Which I can’t on my wheelie razor blade. As you can see from this chart, I had to slow down considerably 7 times, plus a further 4 complete stops for traffic passing. Clobbers your average, that.
Third thing I notice is that after 3km I’m knackered and really, really dehydrated. No bottle cage, but on this wafer I’m riding I daren’t let go of the handlebars anyway. Problem solved when B starts spraying bits of water in my mouth from his water bottle. Now THAT’s chivalry!
From 5km to 10km the path rises gradually but steadily. After 8km I reckon I can’t finish. I’m just not used to maintaining speed like this. After 10km when it stops ascending I reckon I can do it- but the last 2km is just gate after gate, and all the sudden deceleration and fierce acceleration after re-starting is taking it out of me. My head is bobbing like a ducked apple by the time I get to the last km.
We pull up in the shade. B reads from his speedo- I’ve done the 14.5km in 32 minutes 7 seconds, an average of 27.1kmh, taking 5 minutes 28 seconds off the goal time. I’m so happy I get all sniffly. Can’t quite believe it. We ride the 18km back into the wind rather slower (19kmh, though, still not bad), but I’m getting steadily more excited. I think I might be the first woman to join Team Half as Good, and it’s very nice to feel as though I did indeed earn it. The buzz lasted for about 3 days!
The 'Half as Good' Olympic Decathlon 