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This was my first HONC, and first ever event of this sort and I had a great time.
I have a friend who lives locally, so we knew in advance that the first climb was going to be a walk.
I managed to miss two turns, the first just up the hill from the ford. I was on my own and in roadie hill climbing mode and just didn't see the turn. The situation was not helped by my being deaf in my right ear, so I was only vaguely aware of the shouts; it was when I realised there were no bikes in front or behind me that the penny dropped. The second missed turn was only by a couple of yards by the bridge just after the feed station, and was actually caused by a lady in an MX5 pulling alongside me to ask the marshal the way to somewhereoranother.
I finished the 50k in 3hrs 20 on my 1992 Roberts and thought the whole event was brilliantly organised, marshalled and run.
With a bit of luck I'll be back there in a couple of weeks to do some of the route again, including the first climb, with my buddy who lives in the town.
"For the signs themselves, they were small (maybe the size limit they are allowed to put up), but why did they have to be yellow like the 100 mile signs for the horse ride?
and if they were camo coloured maybe people would have an excuse for failing to shut the gates....."
I noticed that as well, shutting the gates seemed to be below a number of people!!
Out of interest what's the 100k extra bits like? More of the same?
Someone suggested to me it might not be that much of a leap to go from the 50 to 100 (I'd need a bit of practice though 🙂 )as he reckoned there was more flat stuff on the 100.
As I was riding singlespeed the flats were the worst part for me. Even though it was a grinding effort up some hills I overtook plenty of people on them and kept up with most on the descents, but got sailed past on anything remotely flat whilst I span my arse off 🙂