To ensure we get an early start we have booked ourselves into a B&B that offers to do breakfasts from 6am.
As usual we set off late to get to Lincoln, so it is dusk as our GPS system is directing us down some completely random country lanes towards the B&B. One upside of this minor detour is that we see a beautiful Barn Owl gracefully gliding ahead of our car along the lane. I'm too stunned to reach for my camera ( a rare event), but if I had had the presence of mind to take a picture it might possibly have looked like this.
We are really lucky with the accommodation we are staying in, a lovely Manor House, Burlingthorpe Manor, with a delightful host Jo, who makes us feel very welcome and doesn't mind that we have arrived late and want to get up crazily early on a Sunday.
We had also booked supper at the Advocat Arms in Market Rasen and are extremely impressed at the restaurant, great service, great ambiance and the food is probably the best we have had since returning to the UK. Crab and samphire risotto to start and spicy hake and clam broth for a main. Will have to go back another time to sample the desserts.
Sunday morning and the weather is lousy and the forecast looks grim too.
We are having our very early breakfast, next to the lovely cosy log burner, and as we look out of the window we have no idea why we are still planning to do this ride.
There are 3 routes on offer today, epic 99 miles, standard 76 miles and short 48 miles. Although we were planning to do the standard ride we had registered for the epic to make sure we could start early.
When we arrive at the start point the rain is lashing down. I really don't want to get out of the car.
I tell Stuart that I will probably do the short ride, that's fine he says, I'll just follow you in the car.
Eventually around 9am the rain stops and we reluctantly depart. The route is very well planned and the majority of the roads are quiet country lanes. The Lincolnshire wolds is a lovely area and if it had been a sunny day it would have been a beautiful ride.
Unfortunately the glum weather is a real dampner, and everyone's spirits are quite low. Although the rain holds off, the sky is always threatening and the winds are quite strong and forecast to get quite bad in the afternoon.
Given the forecast, Stuart and I do opt for the shorter route, a wise move it turns out as the weather does get wild in the afternoon.
We finish the ride just after lunch and declare that we will definitely do this sportive again, we have found a gem of a B&B, a marvellous restaurant and we know this ride has the potential to be great. We will be back!
Footnote - one aspect of taking part in a Sportive is that they record your times and put you into categories depending on the speed which you complete your ride.
We forgot to tell them that although we registered for the epic ride, we did in fact do the short ride, so we were awarded gold class times
And having reviewed the rider lists it seems like we were a good hour quicker than the rest. I wonder if there are other riders out there trying to figure out who these speedy people are. If they use our rider numbers to look up our photos they will be very surprised to see that they were beaten by someone on a touring bike laden down with a heavy pannier!
We probably should fess up and admit that we really need to be in the tin class rather than the gold class. Although I think the finisher medal is of the appropriate quality.
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