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Here is a guest blog written by Chris Hill, a new friend of KGF who rode the Dragon Ride this month and shared his experiences with us. He also raised a lot of money for KGF and we are absolutely thrilled and delighted with his involvement.

Thanks very much Chris!

‘What Goes Up, Must Come Down’ read the sign as I approached the steepest climb on the Dragon Ride, ‘Devil’s Elbow’, a climb about a mile in length, a height gain of 550+ feet and maximum gradient of 20%. Halfway up the climb I turned to one of the riders and said “I can’t believe I actually paid money to do this.”

Rewind 9 months to October when I signed up to the Wiggle Dragon Ride thinking ‘140 miles and 10,000 feet of climbing in a day, sounds tough but will it really be that tough?’ Having spent the last week taking in what I actually achieved on Sunday June 8th the answer is without a single doubt, YES!!

The rest week leading up to the ride was spent getting steadily excited about the ride, a number of people I work with had been kind enough to sponsor me so most days were filled with questions like “Are your legs ready?”, “How long do you think it will take you?” and “Do you think you will make it to the end?” My responses to each of these being “As ready as they’ll ever be”, ‘Between 10 and 11 hours” and “Of course I will, quitting is not an option.”

I travelled down to Wales with a friend, Justin on the afternoon before the ride took place, as you can imagine most of the journey talk was about hills, weather and our biggest fear, mechanical failure. Thankfully we shouldn’t have been concerned about the second two as it didn’t rain and we both finished without mechanical incidents. I’ll come to the hills later.

The night before and our meal choice was a simple one, pasta. We chose a restaurant called Mamma Mia which under normal circumstances would have been filled with couples out for a romantic meal, on this particular evening it was filled with huge groups of cyclists taking in as many carbs as they could manage, quite an amusing sight.

Sleeping that night was surprisingly easy given how excited I was, England were playing in their final friendly before flying to Brazil, the match was dull enough to send me to sleep in minutes!

Sunday morning, Dragon Ride Day! We both woke early to make sure we had plenty of time for the usual pre-ride rituals, porridge, fluids etc. Then in no time the bikes were in the car and we were on our way to the start point. This was it, Dragon Ride time!!

We were at the start line and off within moments of arriving, the organisers made the sensible decision to start riders off in waves. We had also agreed before setting off that although we would start together we shouldn’t try to stick together, I lost sight of Justin around 5 miles in which was great news as I knew that he’d have to get the first beer in at the finish line.

Mentally I had approached the ride by breaking down the gaps between feed stations, 5 shortish rides are easier to cope with than one big ride of 140 miles. This strategy worked perfectly.

As for the hills? Well there was no avoiding them but each 4 mile climb was inevitably followed by a breathtaking 4 mile descent. I won’t go into the detail of each hill but one followed the rule of climb, climb, climb then descend as fast as you dare. All but three of the climbs were listed with their Welsh names, the sinister ones were translated for our ‘enjoyment’, Devil’s Elbow and Black Mountain which we had the pleasure of climbing twice. The second ascent of Black Mountain was probably my darkest moment of the ride, it seemed to be a never ending climb and arrived with 110 miles already in the legs. A few glances of my Karen Green Foundation wristband were needed to get me to the top.

For any of you that have taken part in an endurance event such as the Dragon Ride you will know that taking on fluids and carbs are essential for your survival. You will also know that before long the taste of gels and sweet energy bars become too much and you crave for something savoury. I had reached this moment just before the second feed station at the 70 mile mark, thankfully Wiggle had been smart enough to realise this and waiting for the riders were buckets of potatoes coated in salt, so wrong but so good under the circumstances. Feed stations 3 and 4 were spent hunting out the salty potatoes but as with the sweet stuff the taste of salt became hard to take in after a while.

Take my word for it when I say that between each of the feed stations there were climbs, descents and spectacular views of the Brecon Beacons.

The story now moves on to the final feed station just 23 short miles from the finish line. When asked the feed station marshall assured riders that there was just one bit of climbing left and that 15 out of the 23 miles remaining were predominantly downhill. Brilliant!

I set off from the feed station with a new burst of energy built from salty potatoes, gels, bars, electrolyte drink and the news that the final section of the ride should be relatively easy. The first few miles were great, downhill as promised, then I encountered a few more climbs followed by more downhill and then a climb that I considered to be lengthy, the final climb!

Ah but the Dragon had a sting in it’s tail, after a bit more downhill the route entered a small town by the name of Cimla. At the first junction the route took a left turn onto Cimla Mountain, 2 miles of climbing with an average gradient of 6% peaking at 17%, with almost 130 miles in the legs this almost destroyed me mentally. A few long and steady looks at the Karen Green Foundation wristband soon got my mind back to where it should be and I began the long climb. I’m pleased to say that really was the final climb and the rest of the route was downhill, the final two miles or so were through a soulless industrial estate but that didn’t bother me as I’d beaten the Dragon!

After 10 hours and 41 bottom numbing minutes in the saddle I crossed the finish line and there waiting for me was Justin carrying two pints of beer, one for each of us and for the time being that is the best pint of beer I have ever tasted.

I’ve mentioned the Karen Green Foundation during my story of the Dragon Ride, this was my chosen charity for the event and at the time of writing I’m pleased to say that I’ve raised a total of £580.