Tour of Britain- East Anglia Stage

On the 24th July I arrived at the start line for a gentle 62 mile ride across a flat landscape. Myself and Andy were driven over to Diss for a 9am start. The weather was pretty good- some blue sky beginning to peep through BUT- head wind and with this not being a circular route, it was going to be a head wind for the full distance. First half of the ride went well. For the first hour, Andy and I led the way and eventually we were caught by a small group with which we tagged on to and took some shelter- slipstreaming at this point was very welcome as we were beginning to tire (or at least I was!) so some energy was save there. At the feed station half the group stopped and this is where my mistake was made. I should have stopped too. I didn't know it, but I was running low on fuel and should have topped up. Foolishly I carried on and by the 3 hr mark I was starting to tire....badly. Andy is a pretty good cyclist. No, actually he's an extremely good cyclist and he tolerates my pace. I could tell he was holding back (let's face it, he had from the starting line) so I said I was happy to go it alone and for him to go at his speed. Within a few miles I began to regret this - I was in the middle of no-where riding into the wind... no other riders in sight (which always makes me think I've manage to get lost!) and I was low on water and getting mardy because I knew I should have stopped earlier. Only got myself to blame, so I plodded on.

As you can see from this picture, I'd got my GoPro camera on my head- this was beginning to get heavy. You will also note it's angle and you'll see the results shortly...

By now, I was watching the miles on my cyclometer. 100kms...approx 62 miles...fantastic...only 2 more miles to Sandringham... or so I thought. When you're tired and getting, a'hem, 'fed up' the last thing you need is for the course to be longer than you thought. And it was. It turned out to be 68.5 miles and whilst I'm (now) happy with that achievement, at the time I was cursing every revolution of my pedals under my breath. I was absolutely wrecked. No water, no energy and no sign of the finish.

At last the turn into Sandringham appeared- a massive stately driveway which led to a fabulous finish line as used by the pro riders on the Tour of Britain AND with quite a large and an excitably noisy crowd to cheer all us riders to the finish line. Phew. It was all over.

I collected my medal and found Andy and his family- he'd finished about 25 mins earlier. I was pointed toward the pasta, drinks and...a chair! EXCELLENT- heaven does exist! So, with hindsight (always a good thing) a great day. A lot of lessons learned for me... keep hydrated, don't be a smart arse by not stopping at the feed station and, finally, try to keep within a group to save more energy. These are gonna be important for the ride in Switzerland. With some major climbing, I'm going to have to prepare and pace myself properly. As for the Go Pro, I should have checked its angle before setting off- a short bit of footage below. And I'll need to plan camera positions carefully for the Swiss ride to get the best out of what will be some stunning scenery.

And a final word on this ride below. My time and finish position. Better type it cos it's small in the picture... I came 38th out of 273 with a time of 4hrs 22mins. 

Quite pleased with that even with Andy getting 10th (well done mate)