The Rough Rides 2006 marathon is in its fourth year and was seamlessly organised. The camping facilities, route markings and post ride grub were all first rate. The ride commences from Kington, Herefordshire and drops over the boarder into Wales on a single moorland loop. The ride is unusual for endurance riding in Wales as no kilometre is in forestry its all bridleways, farm paths and single track.

There was the option to camp on the Saturday night but given memories of the Cape Epic accomodation I booked into a B&B. The CHurch House B&B was perfect only 200m from the camping field.

The stats said this was a 75km ride with 2000m of climbing and was my first proper ride for six weeks. The ride was tougher than I expected with some long drags and the grass trails acting like velcro on my wheels. The sunshine with some limited cloud meant the riding conditions were dry and in the mid-twenties all day. A dark cloud came over at one stage on the home leg but a few drops and it had all passed.

The ride still had its marsh sections and that meant a clean spin was never going to happen. At ten o’clock the race horn sounded and we rode through Kington then got strainght into a 2km climb. Riding up onto the moors the views opened up in front of us. We had a long fast decent a few kilometres in with a top speed of 60kmh. The tone for the ride was set.

My plan was to ride hard and complete this in a unfit man’s five and a half hours - this event marking my return to regular training. I completed the ride in the end in 5:45 with some moments on the way. Cramp got me for a third of the ride with my legs aching between 40km and 65km. A couple of memorable moments were a 10% gradient climb around the 30km mark and a technical decent towards the end with the last killer climb at the bottom.

Overall, great conditions and a good trail that was well marked and varied. I would return to this event in 2007 with an out ride on the Saturday to explore this great MRB terriotry.

http://www.roughride.co.uk

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