This is my second time riding in the Ride London-Surrey 100 having done it in 2018 with my mate Phil.

So two weeks ago I took part in the CHESHIRE 100 SPORTIVE which is comparable in terms of distance and elevation but not in scale. Ride 100 has around 30,000 cyclists, whereas the Cheshire 100 was 300, maybe 400.

My target two weeks ago was to ride 100 miles under 5hrs 30mins, but I suffered from fatigue late on and finished in 5:51.15.

The target for Ride London 100 was the same, complete the 100 miles under 5hrs 30mins, or worst case beat the time from the Cheshire 100.

On paper the Ride London route is easier, although it has similar elevation, the hills are not as long or steep. The problem I encountered in 2018 was the volume of cyclists on the roads made it difficult to ride at my pace, the hills were congested and there were a lot of accidents which resulted in holding us back or diverting around them.

This year, I had an early start time. My wave went off at 06:24 with loading opening at 05:05 and closing at 05:44. Those times look and sound terrible, the 04:15 alarm felt as bad as it looked, but the good thing about starting early and before the vast majority of riders meant that I was ahead of the crowds and could push on at my pace.

Saturday – Travel & Registration:

I traveled down to London Saturday afternoon, getting into Euston at 1pm. Cycled across London to my hotel in Brick Lane. I was staying at the Hub by Premier Inn Spitalfields which cost me £49 for the night. Ideal for a quick overnighter in the city.

Once checked into the hotel and unpacked, I went to the Cycle Show at the ExCel to collect my stuff for the ride. Rather than take the tube I decided to use the 4.5-mile journey as my Easy Paced Run for the day.

As you can imagine, going to an expo to register the Saturday before race day, it was crowded. I just picked up my race pack and left, I didn’t want to spend time pushing through the crowds to look around.

I did see the 6 times Olympic gold medalist, Chris Hoy, doing a talk on my way out, but just got this photo and went.

I did take the tube back to the hotel this time, a little less sweaty but no quicker than the run in the end.

Once back in the room I killed half an hour by putting all of the various stickers on my bike, helmet, bag and jersey. Sorted out all of my food for the ride, put the gear out ready to go and measured up the drinks bottles. This routine is something I do every day, not just for races.

As they say, failing to prepare is preparing to fail.

Dinner was the traditional pre-race pizza. Something that has treated me well over the past 12 months. Then back to the hotel to get an early night ready for that early start.

Sunday – Race Day:

The alarm went off and I didn’t feel too bad, sometimes you get that burst of adrenaline when the race day alarm goes off.

Quick wash and got into my cycle gear. I had taken my travel kettle and two pots of ready mix porridge for breakfast (another part of the race day routine when traveling).

That was it, I checked out, got on the bike and cycled the 4.8 miles to the Olympic Park.

I was a little worried that it would take a long time to get through to the start pens, but the bag drop was quick and easy, as was the walk to the holding area.

I was in the pen by 05:40 eating a Starbucks cinnamon swirl I picked up last night. A few extra carbs to fuel the early stages.

We spent 30 mins in this holding area before being moved out to the start line proper.

My plan for the ride was to go out hard from the get-go and see how long I can hold that pace, when I reach the surrey hills, take them steady so not to spike the heart rate, blast the downhills and big push to the finish.

I was going to stop at the feed station at Mile 47 and 71 to re-fill the bottles, however, I felt like I needed a pee whilst waiting in the start pen so thought maybe the mile 36 stop would be better, see how it goes.

The first mile of the ride was pretty steady going, just finding my pace and way through some of the slower riders. Once we got through the tunnel I was able to hold the wheel of a couple of guys going around my pace.

The first 20 miles went by in a flash, not much to write home about just hard graft and jumping from wheel to wheel in search of a good bunch to ride with. I do remember looking at the Garmin and seeing I had done bang on 22 miles in that first hour.

One thing I do in all of my training rides is try to pace then based off an average speed of 20mph, that makes it easy to calculate times and splits. 1 mile every 3 minutes. 5 miles every 15 minutes, 20 miles in an hour etc, so riding the first hour at 22mph made me wonder whether that was too fast, could I keep that going, would the hills later on blow me up.

Nevertheless, I pressed on at that pace.

The next hour of riding took me from Richmond Park to just before Newlands Corner. I hit the 2 hour mark at 43.5 miles, still over that 20mph mark but slightly slower than the first hour. There were a few small hills in this hour so thats understandable.

I did ride straight past the feed station at mile 36, I decided I didn’t need a pee now or had sweated it out. My original plan was to stop at 47 miles at Newlands Corner and refill but I still had a bottle & half of fluids and plenty of food so I scrapped that idea and would push on to Box Hill and refill there.

The next hour was going to be a big deciding point in how my ride would go. Up until now I had been comfortable and going above the pace target. In fact, I was going at sub 5 hour pace. This next 20 miles included three climbs, one of which is the biggest on the route, Leith Hill.

I had thought that Box Hill came before Leith Hill and that my Box Hill water stop would be around 55 miles. That turned out to be way off the mark. Leith Hill came first and right at that moment the sun came out and it felt so hot and humid riding up there.

The hill itself wasn’t a problem, the toughest part was fighting my way through those who were finding it more of a challenge. I managed to pick my way through and set a new fastest speed of 43.9mph coming down the other side.

Right on the 3 hour mark at 61.3 miles I saw a fairly quiet water stop so I used that to fill the bottles and would now go to the end. 61 miles in 3 hours though!! two thirds of the way through and still going at over 20mph despite the three hills. Right at that moment, I knew that sub 5 was on, if I pushed hard for the next 20 miles (1 hour) that would set me up for a good crack at a really fast time.

The 3-miles after that water stop were downhill, that gave me a good chance at riding at high cadence to get the legs spinning again after the stop. Then we hit the last big climb at Box Hill. As famous as this hill is, its not much of a climb, not steep and short. I was up and over that in a flash, trying not to fall too far before 20mph, that was going to be my goal for the next 20 miles. Keep above 20mph.

At the 4 hour mark I hit 79 miles on my Garmin but just passed the 80 mile marker. I guess I must have lost a bit of distance going through the tunnels where GPS dropped out. Still on pace for around 5 hours now. 80 miles in 4 hours is something I didn’t think I would be able to do, certainly not when my calf is still recovering from a grade 2 tear from three months ago.

That left me 1 hour to ride from Esher, through Kingston & Wimbledon to the finish. I could recall one hill in Wimbledon from last year that was of note but other than that it was mostly flat.

The challenge was on and very much accepted. I was pushing as hard as I could now to stay above 20mph.

The crowds in Kingston were amazing, so many people out cheering and really giving us such an energy boost. The hill in Wimbledon on tired legs did feel more tricky than I remembered but it was only short and there was also good support there too.

Before I knew it, I was riding along the river in Chelsea. The 97 mile marker went passed and I just put the hammer down, there was a group of 10 just in front so I caught them for a tow through to Westminster then I dropped them, sprinting through to the finish.

Those last 20 miles went down in just over 49 minutes. It took a big effort to push that hard late on but having missed out on a sub 3 hour marathon by 69 seconds during the TOKYO MARATHON I wasn’t willing to let a sub 5 hour 100 mile bike ride slip like that.

My target today was to go sub 5:30 which I did do. I ended up finish in 4:49.06 (4:56.58 elapsed time), having wanted to not spike my heart rate on the hills I was pleased to see that for 91% of that ride my heart rate was in Zone 1 or 2.

Super proud to have gone under 5 hours for the first time, now we up the training and push on for a sub 4:30 at some stage.

The next sportive for me is currently the Etape du Tour in July 2020 which is going to be a whole different ball game.