Disappointed. Annoyed. Upset. Angry. Pick your favourite, then add you choice of expletive before it, and that's how I'm feeling. And it had all started so well...
The nerves for the sportive from the night before we're still there in the morning, in fact it felt like the resident butterflies had invited the rest of the insect world around for a rave. But it turns out all of that was ill-founded. The first climb, 700-800ft over 4 miles straight out the blocks, passed without incident, and despite the at-times-torrential rain everything was just flowing. My plan had been to latch onto groups going past me and hang on as long as I could, then drop back to the next, but instead I was occasionally jumping to a group in front of the one I was in.
The climb out of Lochcarron added a few more hundred feet to the ascent figures, and then, with 37 miles on the clock, it was time for the Bealach Na Ba. 3rd highest road pass in the country, biggest ascent as it starts from sea level. 2,300ft of 'up'. I concentrated on my breathing pattern and turned the pedals. And here I was going past a couple of people, putting distance on a few behind, and slowly but surely reeling in another couple ahead. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't fast, and some of the properly fast guys went past as if I was standing still, but having got to the bottom of the climb ahead of schedule, I was now well on course to beat the climb in under an hour. I don't think my legs had ever felt so good.
I went last points where 5 years ago I knew I'd stopped for a breather, and simply aimed for points another 100 yards ahead, each time getting there and remarking to myself how in control it all felt. I must have been closing in on 2/3rds of the way up and thinking I was nailed on for non-stopping. And then... Crunch. I was changing down as the road kicked up the gradient for a short spell, and the chain managed to jump past the cog, and get itself jammed between the cassette and the spokes. A good few minutes of cursing and trying to pull or lever the chain out got me nowhere. Time to get creative, and out came the chaintool. Sadly I'd lost about 5 inches of chain and that left me with something far too short to be able to connect up again. I even tried to single speed it, looking for the natural chainline, the magic gear, for such a short chain, but to no avail.
In the end I looked at it and figured that even if I had a spare chain, the little bit of the old, wedged chain that was flapping free, but too close to the wheel to enable me to get the chaintool on, was catching on the rear mech whenever it was in the bottom couple gears and locking the wheel up. Discretion was the better part of valour. The rest of the chain was removed, I shifted the mech away from where it could be caught, and freewheeled down the hill to hand my timing chip into the marshals and await rescue by Mel.
Chatting with them while I waited it seemed like it had been a bad year for 'incidents'. I'd seen another guy freewheeling down, after I'd done about a mile of the climb, with his rear mech completely torn off; but worse were the fallers. A number on wet cattle grids (including one poor sod who went over on the very first one, less than half a mile from the start, and broke his finger); some other guy who had cut up his face quite badly; and a descender from the Bealach coming a cropper.
So I got off lightly, but I'm feeling ridiculously frustrated given that's the best I've ever felt on a bike on a long distance ride, which in itself is remarkable given the ascent. And then there are the people who sponsored me (raising money for a cancer respite home), I just feel like I've almost let the down, only getting to 41 miles. I'll have to be back next year, and might even go for the shorter ride (the Bealach Beag) in May. All to assuage the guilt, and prove that I have actually got myself into decent cycling form of late.
Anyway, silver linings. It meant we could pop by Plockton, as well as Talisker to get some more whisky (inexplicably I forgot to pack some in the bags), we saw a Golden Eagle, got to the cottage before it was dark (we'd be about halfway here by now if I'd ridden to the finish), and I managed to get down to Loch Pooltiel harbour and had a gannet fly right over my head. So not all bad, but it's going to take me a while not to be quite so hacked off about the whole thing.
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