I rode the Dartmoor Demon Sportive on 5 May 2018. I have ridden very few Sportives over the past few years but this was a Christmas present from my sons.
In theory the 88 mile distance did not look too daunting but the 8800ft of ascent did so I was wary and thought I might opt for the medium route at the split depending how I felt.
However I felt good at the split and carried on. All was well until ~70 miles. Two signed 20% climbs in quick succession basically almost finished me, so discretion being the better part of valour I started to (because I needed to) walk some of the steeper hills, although I don't think I could have ridden many of them by that distance anyway.
I needed to stop and the village of Widecombe on the Moor appeared, so I had a can of full fat Coke and then rode on - a few hundred yards further was yet another climb that I walked - uploading to Strava later identified it as #10 - Widecombe - which is the other ascent of Haytor (in turn #9 - Haytor Vale) which I have also climbed
I was disappointed that I didn't know it was there but even if I had known and I tried, I would never have been able to ride up it given how tired I was by that point
However we had a long weekend in Exeter and circumstances combined that meant we ended up at the top of Haytor and hence had the opportunity to try the climb again.
I rode from the Haytor summit car park to Widecombe - it is about 3 miles with over two miles of "flat" so I tried to get my heart rate up. A free wheel descent to Widecombe, slight push up the climb to the village green and a turn in front of the church and straight back to the climb was the order of the day.
Despite knowing what to expect it. was still a beast - I was just about warmed up and could grind up the hill - on the 34-32 gearing only though. It was tough but I felt OK. It's almost a straight climb with just a small left-right dogleg. I pushed on back to the top of Haytor and then over and down to the visitor centre where my wife picked me up
On the first walking attempt I did the following:
Time: 13:59
Speed 3.7mph
On the second riding attempt I did the following:
Time: 9:25
Speed 5.5mph
According to Strava my power meter registered an average power of 232W and a peak of 427W which was probably near the bottom. Here's the same data from Veloviewer
The Veloviewer screenshot above shows a mighty 4.5mph pace at some points
This time put me about 1487th of 4424 (as of 7 May 2018) so just outside the top 1/3 - which is where I have been typically - assuming that I have not not already ridden 75 miles!
According to Strava it's 0.85mile long and 530ft of ascent at an average 12%
In the book the "recommended" time is 9 minutes so I ended up reasonably pleased with the effort on this ride
Haytor Vale (#9) is a 5/10 and Widecombe a 7/10 - there is no doubt that Widecombe is a much harder climb.
I have updated the page on this blog that collates all the efforts I have made on the 100 Climbs series - this is here: https://midlandscyclist.blogspot.co.uk/p/100-gr.html
I used my Garmin Virb to make a video here:
And at the top of Haytor my wife took a few photos as I passed by:
Doccomb was part of the Dartmoor Demon and I had my Virb running for this climb as well:
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