CX Sportive 100

4th July my 25th wedding anniversary, how best to spend it with the wife, well get her to get up at 4am and drive John Reay and myself(John Davies) to Winchester for the 6.30 start of the inaugural CX Century Imperial and Metric.

150 riders signed up; 140 to take on the the full 100 miles, and 10 to ride the kilometre century. Nearly all had chosen to 'do it right'; on a full on CX, drop bars, skinny(ish) tyres, the works.

We had signed up for the 100km which finished on top of Truleigh Hill, JR took his Chas Roberts road bike with a few minor modifications(wide tyres) and I was on my cx specific Trek Crockett 5 Disc

The first few miles were a slow procession but once out of  Winchester the field thinned out and we ended sharing gate opening duties with 2 South Africans, a guy from Luton and Jo Burt who have we have met in events before. The first 20 were not to difficult and the descents smooth especially the 30mph drop down from the highest point of the SDW, Butser Hill to QE Park.

A quick stop to replenish our bottles and food and we were back on the trail with the first loose descent down to Buriton Car Park survived, we cracked on up the singletrack to Harting Down and on to Pen Hill. Photo shows the nasty drop before the short but steep climb up Pen Hill.

We had some nervous descents especially the drop to the A286 at Cocking but we were enjoying the climbs and grassland flats above Heyshott and Graffham which kept or average speed at a respectable 10mph.  Crossing the A285 and up to Bignor then over the A29. Local knowledge left us a little anxious of the next section the infamous dog leg down to the Arun which we descended with extra care and then everyone's favourite climb Amberley Mount which we managed rather slowly.  We were starting to tire now and were grateful of the relatively flat section to the A24 and then the up Chanctonbury, phew another one down just Truleigh to conquer and the finish. We were pretty relieved to finish at Truleigh we both agreed we wouldn't  have made it to Eastbourne. Respect to those 53 who did and the 19 who got to Truleigh, only 72 of the 150 managed to finish. Next year we will try the 100 mile.