Today seven reckless riders joined my ride to Alice Holt. Judging by the number of questions I got I came to the conclusion that people expected me to know the route. I was even asked how many more kilometers to the coffee stop.
Every time I was asked I had no idea of the answer. Too arrogant to admit my ignorance, I made up my answer every single time. For the space of 30 minutes I gave the answer “about 20 kms more” the three times I was asked about the coffee stop.
I’m sure the group came to the conclusion I was not as reliable as my confident answers looked. It didn’t help that we got out of route a couple of times and the coffee stop was at the 90 km point when I thought it was at km 72.
So, let me be completely open on how this works in my case.
I select routes based on distance. I normally don’t look at the amount of climbing.
I always know the name of the place where the coffee stop is. I usually have no idea of what kilometer it is.
In fact, for half of the coffee stops out there, I know the name we give the coffee stop but I only recognise the place when I get there.
Even for routes I’ve ridden many, many times I don’t know where I am 80% of the time. Even when I know where I am, half of the time I’m wrong.
I consider a successful ride if I made it home and didn’t see a “Welcome to Scotland” sign.
What I now check in every single route is what is the sprint at the finish (too many sprints missed for not checking this basic fact).
Today was not an exception.
Knowing exactly what line we were sprinting for contributed to my win.
The fact that none of the others knew where the line was contributed a little bit too.
So you now know. Don’t ask me anything about the route that is not what is the sprint at the end. Don’t expect an accurate answer in either case.
The ride in Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/10000457039/
Take care
Javier Arias González
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