Sodbury Sportive

An early start for the Apache Brave Racing team saw them take a 2 hour drive down to the beautiful area of the south Cotswold's to take on the challenge of the Sodbury Sportive, a hilly 65 mile cycle ride through the beauty that the Cotswold is renowned for.

The weather was perfect, clear sky's, little wind and a warming temperature for the start, an easy level first few miles saw the riders keep together along small country lanes and through farmers fields. After several miles the hills approached, rising up ahead the summit covered with trees, a sign appeared "steep hill ahead", and it wasn't wrong.

After pushing an easy 20 mph on the flats the first hill put the brakes on slowing right down to below 10 mph with a challenging 20 degree climb, pushing hard down on the pedals and swaying the bike side to side battling the steepness of each degree, it was a full on 1 mile push to the top, thankfully a short decent to help recovery before the next hill.

After battling through the hilly tree lined lanes the roads leveled off which allowed the burning legs to recover a little and the lungs to grab some much need oxygen. A long 10 mile down hill section was a welcome relief and allowed the riders to view the picturesque area of the Sodbury Sportive route.

 Two feed stations allowed the riders to refuel with much needed energy bars and to refill the water bottles before the final couple of hill challenges, with the legs now loosing the will to live the steep hills were not showing any mercy, a quick squirt of a caffeine gel down the throat gave our riders that extra push over the hills and to the finish line where a welcome hot meal and a fantastic trophy awaited our riders.

A superb sportive and beautiful countryside made for a great day, now all we needed was a sports massage when we arrived back in to Coventry.