Pedal for Parkinsons 2014 - Stratford on Avon - June 8th

Update 14 June 2014 - Pictures Added 
Update March 2015 (belated) - a video was posted to Youtube and myself and my son are in it - here's a link: Pedal for Parkinsons Stratford 2015, and its embedded at the end of this page.

Pedal for Parkinsons in Stratford on Avon has been running for 4 years now - it first ran in 2011 and this is the 4th year its been run. I rode it in 2011 (and came first), rode it again in 2012 (and came first again). In 2012 my son also rode (the shorter route) and came first as well. I wrote about it here. So up to that point I had a good record on the ride (even though its not a race!).

I was going to ride again in 2013 but there were a number of personal issues and I left it quite late to enter only then to find the entry closed - I was quite disappointed! It's a different sort of event - its quite small - the first 2 years were probably 60 riders max, although I believe that Parkinsons are trying to be more professional and get more publicity out of all the events they run and hence there were more riders in 2013

However I was keen to ride again this year on June 8 and my son was also keen to join as well as he was back from university in time - although he was doing a triathlon event the day before so was not 100% sure how fit he'd feel.

We were all ready to go on the Sunday morning (its quite a civilised start time at 9am) and set off from home. Within less than 1/4 mile the car felt really strange so I stopped and found the nearside rear tyre flat and running on the rim. Disaster!!!. A quick U turn and race back home finished the tyre of completely and we had to take the bikes off the roof, get the bike rear wheels off and squeeze them into our second car - a Fiesta. As a result my wife was now unable to come so she was very disappointed. It also meant that instead of a nice leisurely drive to Stratford-upon-Avon we were now on quite a tight schedule to get to the racecourse to sign on by 8.30. We made it with about 10 minutes to spare.

We'd received an email in the week before stating that there were 197 riders signed up - obviously this was a mix of people doing the 20 mile route (probably the majority) and the 60 mile route. On arrival it was clear that since 2012 the even had grown- there was a marquee as a central focus, a number of portaloos around (rather than the 2 previously) and a marked out car park. We went over to the marquee to sign on and then got ready. There were quite a lot of people milling around. There were 2 colours for the numbers - red and blue, ours were blue so we assumed that the red were for the 20 mile people. It looked about 50-50 red and blue numbers. We were keen to be near the front for the start so we went over with about 15 minutes to go and were hence right on the front of the start. I chatted to a woman on a nice (men's) Trek 4.7 Domane bike (with the decoupled seat tube design) and sporting a new Garmin 1000 on the out front mount - this was bigger than I expected although the screen was not quite as big as I thought, but the map looked good so its obviously much higher resolution than my 800 unit. There was a general gathering of the other riders after us, then a small (token) safety briefing, some photos and then we were off just after 9.05am.

Inspecting My Bike!

Listening to the briefing

And we're off

 My son went off like a rocket. I had some clipping in problems and by the time I'd got clipped in he was 50-60m away and I had to push quite hard. I looked behind after the 1st mile or so and saw the nearest person about 2-300m behind - I was stunned as I thought people would be a lot closer. The high pace my son was setting had got my heart rate right up and I was getting concerned. By mile 3 there was no one in sight behind us!. We turned towards Long Marston and into a strong headwind that we had most of the way to Admington which is just on the northern edge of the Cotswolds. This saw the biggest climb of the ride up Camden/Nebsworth Hill. This is quite tough - steep at the bottom (~10%), plateau for a while in the middle and a kick up again at the end - about 1.5 miles and 400ft of climb at an average of 5%. This was where I blew the people with me in 2012 away. I managed an improved time up the hill this year compared to 2012 mainly as I was trying to live with my son who pulled out probably 30s by the top. There's then a quick flat section before a drop down to a level crossing. As in 2012 it was down again although for less time this year and a wait for only one train. I took the opportunity and ate half a cereal bar.

Somewhere around here (I think) we caught a lot of the 20 mile riders - they were all over the road (but having a nice ride) but we were riding over 50% faster than them and raced through. It felt like great fun but they weren't really expecting other cyclists to be passing them with such a speed differential.

There was then a rolling ride to Chipping Camden and then a short sharp climb to get to the top of Dovers Hill. Fortunately we were going down. My age shows as my son pulled out a big lead here that I was not prepared to match on the descent. At the bottom the route pulled onto the road down to Bidford on Avon with a dead tailwind. The slog south earlier was worth it as I was riding at over 25mph in a high gear without too much effort. I managed to catch my son as he was thwarted by the traffic lights at the single carriageway railway bridge. We didn't follow the road all the way to Bidford as we turned eastwards to Pebworth for the middle check point. I think we were earlier than they were expecting but with some water bottles topped up, another cereal bar for me and a banana for my son we were off again. Once past Bidford we worked our way towards Spernal which marked the general turn east and then south for the route. Again a favourable tailwind was helpful. The final checkpoint was at Great Alne Village hall and we definitely caught them out as not being expected. Another banana for my son and a couple of cereal bars for me and we were off again.

The final third through Wooton Wawen, Aston Cantlow etc was familiar territory and although there was a headwind again it seemed nothing like as strong as at the start - possibly the route was more sheltered. There was a not very picturesque run through NW Stratford past Anne Hathaway's cottage and then we were back at the start.

My son, who'd done probably more than 50% on the front (although we did share the load) pulled away in the last mile or so and there was no way I could live with him at that pace. He crossed the line about 20-30 seconds in front of me, a well deserved winner. However we were again too fast for the organisers who missed the pictures and video. So we got presented with the medal and some photos and then we rode back off site to ride back in so they could get some publicity material. Then they asked if we'd be ok to be on Video so we then did a sort of video interview for something they are planning to use to publicise the rides a little later in the year. So we did that. Then there was a small chat to camera and that was it - no one else had arrived back even by then - some 20 minutes or so since we had. We rode across the field and started to get ready to go home - it was not for a further 10 minutes or so before we saw anyone else return - so we were about 30 minutes faster than anyone else

The "Winners"

We had planned to try and go out and win - we thought it would be good publicity for Parkinsons for a father and son to do well and we had some "history" with me winning in 2011 & 2012 and my son winning the 20 mile route in 2012.

My son started a JustGiving page once we'd signed up - its here: http://www.justgiving.com/Jack-Bristow with a target of £100. With some support from the family he got to around £200-250 and I sent a begging email around work and managed to get another £250 or so, so on the day we were at £520 which was really well done. Part of the pitch at work was that 60 miles was not a challenge so we'd set ourselves the target of winning. This put on a level of pressure that I haven't felt before, hence why the puncture on the Sunday morning was especially unwanted.

Given that pressure, we tried pretty hard. The ride statistics were 57.8 miles in 3:14:36 - average speed 17.9 (was hoping for 18.0), height gain 2870ft (so about 50ft/mile). Given the gap to the other riders we were in the region of 30s/mile faster!

Here's a link to the ride on Strava: Pedal for Parkinsons Stratford 2014

So a great ride - really good weather (tan top up), great pace and a good achievement all round:

Here's the route and profile:

There were some photo's on Flicker and I have now posted some in the blog.

A video was also made and its on YouTube: