A wet sportive...

Some impressive times there. I am not quite sure of my precise time a I had accidentally restarted my Garmin. Something like 5hrs including stops.

Got stopped twice to allow ambulances through and was one of the 100s who got a puncture so 4h 19mins all things considered isn't too bad.

Couple of nasty accidents, rider who one of the ambulances was for, looked a mess and another really nasty one heading down from Wimbledon and another on the Embankment.

Worst conditions I've ever ridden in bar none. Country roads in Surrey were awful.

3hr42

Heh, it was fun! Not cold, which was what I was fearing. Some great riders out early doors, really fun to work with them.
Managed 3h42 in the end, sadly lost my fast group for the last 20 or so miles - not sure how... lapse in concentration and suddenly the two chaps I was behind had fallen off the back of the group. Bunched up with a smaller group for the last 10 miles to the finish, and smashed it across the line.
Then waited about an hour for the biblical rain to subside before going home.

Absolutely soaked after mile 20 floods rivers hundred of punctures and a few injured An experience

My boots felt like lead boots with the amount of water I was carrying inside

Not really sure the word "wet" does justice to that...
A canoe would have been more suitable at times! Good fun though, riding in weather that wet is actually more enjoyable than it just being drizzly and minging. At least you get to enjoy the sense of the ridiculous!

Without wanting to start another thread, as it is relevant to the Prudential. What variety of food is there at the hubs?

Wild and radical thought here but you could always try, I dunno..."riding to the conditions" maybe...?

Maybe you'll get stuck behind an accident caused by some idiot trying to descend too fast and be stuck there for 30 minutes while the ambulance gets through. In which case all the hypothetical scenarios above are rendered useless.

Maybe you'll have 12 punctures.

Maybe it'll be a lovely dry day and won't start raining until you get back.

Trying to work out tactics is pointless - you ride to the conditions. If there are 300 others around you all mincing gingerly down a wet descent, you've got no choice but to do the same no matter how awesome a rider you are. If there's a pack of 30 riders all caning it along and you can use that then you're in luck.

Accept it for what it is, try your best and have fun.

You will hit your max speed for such a short amount of time that it is almost totally irrelevant to your average speed. Put another way, if you only manage max 63km/h for a nanosecond on the downhill rather than 73km/h it won't make a difference. On the other hand if you can push out an extra 1.5km/h for 45kms it will make a big difference.

'Actually your comment was that ' everyone else can go...' So your original point was the exact opposite to what you now seem to be saying. '

ah. The 'everyone else' was related to the 'causing trouble for everyone else' thing. Which clearly was an exaggeration as it really wouldn't cause trouble for everyone else, just for a few numpties who like to believe that they were riding the Tour de France rather than a non-competitive event. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

If there are guys who possess the bike skills to go quicker - they still need to appreciate that others don't. It's not up to the slower rider to try to get up to their standard in the space of a single ride/descent. It's up to the rider with the skills to give the slower/less confident one space. Closing the road only means that the 'skilled' riders have even more room to go around the 'unskilled' ones, it doesn't take out the fact that they shouldn't be pressurising the 'unskilled' ones.

'Everyone needs to co-operate and be aware of others around them'

My point exactly. On a sportive, ride as though the person beside/behind/in front is a newbie. They might not know how to descend in the wet. They might not be expecting someone to overtake them on the inside of a turn. Being aware of others around you doesn't mean just charge ahead and hope the other person moves.

In a cat 1 race, you'd expect a higher level of skill. But it isn't a race.
There might be a lot of experienced riders riding. Equally there will be a lot of inexperienced riders.

The road surface on the way down Leith hill is terrible in places. There's no way I'd want to do 74km/hr in the dry let alone the wet down there. If it is wet I'd be pretty annoyed with someone thumping into me if they lost control on a decent.

This year I'm looking to up my pace by making the most of the flatish long stretches:

Stratford to Richmond.
The section along to Newlands corner.
The section from Newlands corner to Arb Hammer
The section along the Thames towards Wimbledon.
The last stretch up the embankment.

The forcast is for rain after Late morning with a bit of luck on a 6.22 start I'll miss it. Bet the forcast changes though.

'Anyone descending on the brakes i.e with their brakes on all the way down is just causing trouble for everyone else. '

Agreed it's not the wisest of strategies - but everyone else can go f*ck themselves. It's not up to them how someone wants to ride. IT'S NOT A RACE.

riding in the wet tends to chew up break pads nice quick - all the grit on the roads will stick to the wheels, which will 'sandpaper' the pads down when you hit the breaks.

If its going to be doing 100miles wet - I would definitely fit new pads beforehand.

(Downhill? I thought it was a flat course?)

The thing to remember about annual events is that the weather often is different. It will clear your mind to imagine yourself setting a 'wet' time (like Top Gear I guess) rather than trying to beat a dry one. Ride smoothly, safely and leave every last ounce of fitness you've got on the hills and you might still be surprised.

Oh and I'd have loved a place so be grateful

If you're looking to improve on your 3h30 record, then yes, the rain will spoil your day

However, if you're like me, you'll looking at 6h30 hours for a reasonably solo 100 miler. With some training under my belt, I'd be after a 5h30 time, so even if it was chucking it down, I still feel I would have 40-45 minutes in my pocket to improve on my time by being quicker on the flat and uphill sections, which is where you spend most of your time.

If you've got a track of last year's ride, see if you can work out your averages on the downhill bits and then imagine how much you might trim that for the conditions. It won't be as much as you fear, I reckon.

A simple example:

Disclaimer - never ridden the route, don't know the roads, and just reviewed the profile of the route on someone's upload at RideWithGps. From a really simple mouse-over of the profile, I reckon there's about 30km of downhill section spread across the route. Feel free to correct.

You say you topped out at 73kmh, and are concerned about that sort of speed in the wet, so let's say you limit your top speed to 40kmh. For that one hill, at maybe 4km in length, that is a time difference of a whole 2'43" if you compare doing 73km to 40kmh ALL THE WAY DOWN.

Now you're not going to be doing that speed down all 30km. Let's compare averages of 55kmh to 35kmh. That's only 18'40" slower for the downhill bits over the whole 100miles.

At my level, it's a fun day out. I've seen the skidmarks and enough ripped lycra on sportives to know that some folk have more enthusiasm than talent. Don't risk your day out trying to stay ahead of such people.

It is only Tuesday, nobody really knows what the weather will be like in London on Sunday. My guess is that it will be lovely and sunny with a strong tailwind back to London.

There's no point paying for a closed road event then having to descend on the brakes... no point at all.

I did the Etape du Tour in brutal conditions this year and bought an ArseSaver under saddle plastic stuby mudguard the day before which is the best 10 euros I've ever spent. Best part is it stopped that wet strip feeling when you're behind is getting a soaking from the rear wheel spray.

Consider a mucky nutz butt fender, not sure how much help it will offer to riders in your wake, but it will help keep your back-side drier than it otherwise would be.

Grips/clips itself on to your seat rails, weighs next to nothing and can slip in to your back pocket if you're worried about how it looks when it's not raining. Mine is white, I think you can get clear also.

http://www.velodromeshop.net/index.php?p=product&id=2222&gclid=CjwKEAjwg...

Other sources are available...