This was my third Audax for the 2011 season and the first I’ve entered without my brother. The start is only a few kilometres from my front door so it is a very convenient event for me to enter. There are 110km and 200km events but I’m not quite ready for the step up to 200km so entered the 110km event. The route heads westwards from Milton in Oxfordshire across the Vale of White Horse to Barbury Castle in Wiltshire on the North Wessex Downs.
I was lucky to have a fellow CTC Wantage member to tag along with. He’s ridden the event several times so knew the route well. This meant I didn’t have to refer to the route description sheet at all. He’s also a very strong rider so we held a quick pace.
The route westwards to Wantage along the A417 is a familiar one and also beyond on the B4507 past White Horse Hill, Ashbury and Bishopstone. This is an undulating road but you can keep a good steady pace.
The weather was pretty grim along here, strong headwind and rain but nothing really terrible.
After Bishopstone I was in new territory so I’m glad I had company so I didn’t miss any turns. After several picturesque villages we arrived at the foot of the climb to Barbury Castle. A narrow and straight road means you can see it from a long way away. This is the first time I had climbed the hill so I wasn’t sure what to expect, or how long it was. It’s steep (about 15%) but not all that long so it wasn’t too tricky. At the top was the control point, cakes and refreshments (the café is currently closed).
After a brief stop we took the descent rather steady due to the wet road and loose gravel and stones. After retracing our steps to Chiseldon, quickly now the wind was behind us, we headed to the next challenge of Snap Hill. I found this one quite a bit harder, it’s longer and steeper (17%) than Barbury Castle but once over the top you are rewarded by a very long and fast descent, we kept a constant 30+ mph for quite a distance to Aldbourne.
The third major hill on the route is Marridge Hill. This one is barely worth a mention, much shallower than the other two, quite long but not a severe test other than the legs are pretty tired by this stage.
Big black clouds threatened to drench us as we headed to Eastbury and Great Shefford where we arrived just before the shop shut to grab a sandwich and provisions. We were pretty lucky and missed the worst of the downpours which effected some of the riders behind us on the event.
The final stretch home via Farnborough and West Ilsley is again familiar territory for me. We passed one of my table tennis venues on the way. The A34 was new to me though, a road I have always avoided cycling along as it is extremely busy and basically a motorway in all but name.
The short link between Chilton and West Ilsley is the only way across the Berkshire Downs at this point though (until a new cycle route is hopefully opened nearby). We cycled fast and hard in the rain to get it done quickly. It’s only about 1km and we encountered no lorries.
I put a spurt on for the last few kilometres but rather annoyingly suffered a puncture on Milton Hill with the finish almost in sight. After cursing my rotten luck I stopped and quickly replaced the innertube hoping no other riders would pass me.
The delay was about 10 minutes and I arrived back at Milton as the 3rd finisher in a total time of around 5h15m (I’ll know what time I’ve been given when I get my card back). It was also my quickest 100km cycled in 4h5m37s.
A really good route and an Audax I’ll be doing again. Hopefully the weather will be a bit nicer next time. Not that rain bothers me too much to be honest, once you are wet you are wet. Battling against a headwind is worse.
I’ll be trying to do another two 100km Audaxes this season for the Brevet 500 award.
