Stressing over the Mille Cymru

It is now less than a month to go until the start of the Mille Cymru

When I first learnt about this 1000km ride around Wales my immediate childish response was “Wales! Lots of it! I want to go”.
As well as featuring lots of loverly Wales, the organiser is John Hamilton, who had been behind the Irish Mail 400. The Irish Mail 400 in 2009 has to be one of the best bike rides I’ve ever done.

To be honest I was more excited about this than London-Edinburgh-London in 2009

The ride goes around Wales. Wales has mountains. I looked at the climbing profile briefly, saw it was difficult. But hey how tough can it be? I think I looked at it a bit more than briefly as I discussed it on yacf

I looked again and tried doing a detailed plan. Not to slavishly follow but to see what sort of ride I might have. Oh dear, wish I hadn’t done that. In reality this is a very difficult ride

The problem is the amount of ascent. 13,500m. For comparisons sake, Mount Everest is 8848m. Hopefully the Mille Cymru has no “Death Zone”.

Initially I thought that loosing a load of weight would help.
Then I did the maths. Well, the Analytical Cycling web page did. Loosing 3Kg (which is a realistic expectation) would gain me 45 minutes. Which is not a lot for the effort.

Anyway, while the weight had come off for the audax “season” back in May, when I checked the other day I was back again to 81Kg. So it’s tins of tuna, rice cakes and no beer until July now, for the sake of 45 minutes.
Actually, probably less than that as I am not going to loose 3Kg between now and the end of July.

The only equipment improvements I’ve made are to get a new coat that is 300g lighter and leg warmers instead of bib tights – which saves 200g. I might use my favourite Michelin Pro Race tyres too. These two together might save 15 minutes.

So it looks like I will be right on the time limit all the way round the Mille Cymru. To put a positive spin on it- this will certainly be a challenge….

postscript: I am not the only one stressing 🙂