Unlike the sportives with massive hills - where you have to save some gas in the tank for the hills - you can work pretty hard all way round on this ride.

The scenery is impressive and the roads are very quiet - except for swarms of other cyclists. There is an advantage, though, in that the average fitness of the cyclists is lower than other events - so even if you're in your mid-forties and slightly squishy round the middle you can feel like you're an ironman.

The Leisure Section also continued its strategy, from the Fred Whitton, of getting a silver status - whilst minimizing effort. The cut off time was
6hr 20 mins. Sven was miles off with 5:42! I got 6:19:15. I thought this was superbly timed. Richard, however, was much more precise. As he mentioned earlier - he even went the wrong way at the end - to get his time in at 6:19:58 - perfection!

Gordon.