Tour of the Black Mountains July 2010

‘Oh Stephanie, The Tour of the Black Mountains will be waaay to hard for you!’ is what they said to me when I told them the name of the event I would be taking part in, others who didn’t want to insult me just smiled and said ‘oh thats great--good luck with that’. Mmm.

I admit The Tour of the Black Mountains was HAARRD, in fact it was the hardest event I have ever done in my entire life. I mean daaam who tested this route, a horse or did someone just drive the route in a frigging Range Rover?

Either way I am so happy that I opted for the 63 mile route which took me 6h 7m 8s to complete, I was even happier when I finished. One of the best things I love about cycling is descending, but on this particular ride I found that most of my time was spent either climbing or pressing on my brakes because the mountains had a number of blind spots which just made it impossible to see around the bend.

My final thought of this ride is that it should be left to the Pro’s and Elites, as there no place for an armature like me on this type of ride. I will repeat what was said to me if you are reading this considering taking part in the next ride -‘Good Luck with dat!’

A cheeky Sheep that approached me for some of my ceral bar on one of the mountains

When does it end?