Farnborough & Camberley Cycling Club

Through work, I’ve been lucky enough to be invited a few times by Garmin for their annual ride out around the time of The Tour of Britain. 

In 2007, there were 40 amateur riders meeting with the Pro Team in the Garmin company car park; this year there was 500 riders, helicopters, Mavic support vehicles and the duo from The Real Peleton podcast doing a Q&A session.  All in all, this year was a lot of fun.

Whilst waiting for the off, I managed to have a chat with Matt Rendall and Ned Boulting - mainly about why ITV, despite having the rights, did not televise the Spring Classics.  Apparently, the ITV Spring sports schedule is too full.  But as the recent Tour of Britain coverage was getting as many as 400,000 viewers a night – then they suspected that we would see more cycling on ITV next year.  

The riders were split into 4 groups of 100 riders or so - I went out with Red 2 group.  It was supposed to be 18mph - but I think I didn’t go below 40kph for the first 10 km!  I think the buzz of riding with pros, helicopters following overhead and all the whole razzamatazz makes everyone pretty jumpy, and the pace was race pace for me.
 
We had the Lucy Martin and Roger Hammond in our group. Despite the significant cross winds, and the wandering donkeys/cows/ponies on the road - I managed to stay with the front group of 20 riders. But I was seriously on the rivet. After one hill at about 20km, I am afraid I got spat out the back of the group with a few others.  
 
Next thing I knew, Roger Hammond had come back and physically gave us all a shove on our backsides and we were back with the main group. What a star!  Maybe the better FCCC riders could do the same on the club run!  The power and strength of the pros is unbelievable.  It felt like a Madison slingshot!       
 
Anyway after 30 km, I had enough of the pace and fell off the back.  About 6 of us carried on in a ‘through and off’ chain gang, and then we realised we had taken a wrong turn a few miles back - and had to track back.  Maybe the lack of a signage was a ploy to sell a few more Sat Navs.  So a 60km ride in all for me.   I didn’t take any gels, food or any liquid than 1 bottle of water - so I was drained at the end.

Afterwards, I saw that all the pros were all having a canteen lunch with the riders, and all were very approachable and chatty.  Due to time constraints, I had to get back to my day job, so I had my photo taken with the Aviva Premiership Rugby Cup instead.  As a London Irish fan I feel it will be the closest I get to it for sometime.