The event started and finished in Peterborough which is the place I was born. Sue Ryder were the charity connected to the event and they have a hospice at Thorpe Hall, this used to be a hospital and was where I was actually born!
So I had entered the event and now I had to actually ride it! I left home about 6 am and drove to the arena, arriving about 8.30 which seemed a good time to register. The queues were non existent and it was straight through very easy.
The only issue was that when I entered one question was if you had a licence, now I checked a few times to see if there was any reference to Full or Provisional, not having found anything I duly answered Yes due to the fact I have a provisional licence.
I obviously wasn't the only person to get this question wrong as the other 2 people registering at the same time as me were also informed we couldn't go on the racing pen.
Anyway having registered I returned to the car and rested prior to heading to the start pen. I joined the back of the queue for Pen 2 at 10.30 and already there were plenty of people in front.
The event didn't start until 12 so there was quite a bit of waiting in the Pen but when I looked back I was glad I had joined the queue when I did.
When we started off it didn't take too long to get going and we were out on the closed roads. Interestingly most of the riders stayed over to the left of the centre line leaving the right hand side of the road quite empty!
I rolled along initially next to the A5 Rangers who had quite a group together, before stretching my legs and passing quite a number of people. About 7 miles later a blue train of A5 Rangers came steaming past!
I spent most of the ride leapfrogging various riders sometimes not realising they had come past me again, I think my speed stayed fairly constant but others around me seemed to jump on wheels for a bit before dropping back.
About 50 miles my computer stopped working so I had no idea how far we had gone or how much further to the finish, so I just had to keep going until I saw some landmarks I recognised.
At one point I was at the back of a small group traveling along at a fair pace and something happens just in front and 2 of the riders hit the road quite hard. I just managed to miss the young lady in the middle of the road.
All of the group stopped to help out I put myself and bike in front of the lady on the floor to guide the oncoming riders around her whilst her friends helped her.
Once her and the other rider were on the side of the road and out of danger the other people with them said they were ok and thanked me for stopping, so I was on my way again.
I was still unsure how far was left to the finish so just had to keep going, eventually as we turned a corner the marshals were shouting encouragement including the fact that there was only 2.5 miles to go!
As we came back into the arena my legs found enough strength to sprint a bit, well it felt like it to me anyway.
So there it was I had finished the Tour of Cambridgeshire!
Thanks must go to all those involved in the organisation of the event, the people out around the course cheering us all on and the various councils for allowing the event to take place on closed roads.
Yes there were things that could have been done differently on the organisation front but it was the first time this type of event had been run in UK. The organisers have said they will take on board all feedback, not that there was much improvement needed.
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