It's 8.59 am on a Sunday morning, I'm in a sports hall in Ditchling being served a plastic cup of piping hot tea by a 10 year old girl. The girl's father, it transpires, is Morgan Lewis, the organiser of the Puncheur Sportive, aka the architect of my destruction.
It's funny how, in the space of a few hours on the road, perceptions can mutate beyond all recognition. What seems like an exciting challenge on paper - a summit finish after a 65-mile winter sportive, say - can turn out to be a hellish nightmare while you're in the middle of it...and then transform again, just hours later, into an "epic" ride to savour.
But first, a hot drink. I ask the young girl pouring the tea if she cycles.
"Well, yes..." she replies thoughtfully. "But not the way you cycle. I just cycle for fun."
"This kind of cycling is fun too," I reply with a patronising smile.
The Puncheur is fun, even if you only realise it afterwards. It's scheduled as an early season warm-up to test fitness levels, but that doesn't mean it's easy. It mightn't sound much at 65 miles, but the sting is in the tail with a finish line perched inconveniently at the summit of Ditchling Beacon.
The Beacon is what passes for a decent hill down here in the south: a 248m, mile-long climb at an average gradient of 10%. It is the bogey man under the bed on the annual London to Brighton charity sportive, when by all accounts most participants walk up it to catch their first sight of the sea at the summit. On a cold and blowy March morning, it's fair to say the Beacon is not an enticing prospect even if you are sent on your way with a cuppa.
Setting off late from the village of Ditchling though, the few stragglers I encountered seemed in good spirits and I soon warmed up as the route rolled east through Plumpton, skirting Lewes and then turning north towards Ashdown Forest, home of Winnie the Pooh and friends.
It is a beautiful part of the country here, the rolling grasslands of the Downs giving way to occasional flooded fields, woods, quiet country lanes and exposed heathland where perfect road surfaces and some thrilling descents compensate for the regular punchy climbs. Credit to the organisers, all cyclists and it shows in their eye for a route - the first half in particular was a treat and flowed by.
The sun came out briefly near Fletching, its only appearance of the day almost moving me to poetry: "...fletching time's arrow with golden feather / er...oh look, there's some heather" (finish that one for me Keats, would you).
The roads were littered in sections with mud and winter's shrapnel, my white bike was soon filthy - but on the heaths we were treated to some fantastic smooth stretches and downhill blasts. The descent from Chuck Hatch stands out, my speedo tipped 72kph - uncharted territory, apart from that time I forgot to switch my Garmin off in the car. In the 33 miles to the feed stop I only had to unclip once momentarily at a junction.
The feed stop, when it came, turned out to be located within musette-throwing distance of Scientology's modest Sussex HQ at Saint Hill Manor. L Ron Hubbard made his home here back in the day, and I approached the feed station shaking with something like religious zeal. I'd been on the road just under two hours on a bowl of cereal, and was more than ready to tuck into a tempting array of treats, evenly balanced between good (chunks of dried fruit) and evil (chocolate cookies and brownies) supplied, fittingly, by Infinity Foods.
I wolfed down a banana, grabbed a flapjack and brownie for laters and hit the road again, swerving around a posse of trackstanding roadies waiting en masse for their mate to polish off his mango. I still had hopes of cracking the 4-hour gold standard - no time to hang about, out of my way pilgrims!
We were now just south of East Grinstead heading west along the 'top' part of the course. The wind, which to this point had been helping out, turned nasty as the course turned south towards Balcombe and Warninglid.
The next stretch was a struggle. Usually, knowing you're on the home straight lends an extra few watts of power - or maybe it's the finish line and prospect of a hot shower exerting a magnetic pull - but in this case any such positive effects were negated by the knowledge that Ditchling Beacon lay between me and the promised pasta party back at HQ.
And therein lies the evil genius of the Puncheur and the twisted masterminds behind it. It is impossible to relax in the second half of the ride; all mental energy is dedicated to the challenge ahead, a challenge which grows in magnitude with each passing mile; this in turn has a physical effect, sapping the legs and sharpening the sting of lactate in every muscle.
I don't know, maybe I just need to work on the psychological side of my game. Either way, those final 20 miles were tough - it was just after midday, but the thermometer had, like me, stalled at 49 fahrenheit and was now sinking slowly; with the effect of the chill wind my feet were now two blocks of ice crammed into shoes. I had only encountered two other riders in the past hour, and was long since bored of talking to myself.
Finally, with 60 miles on the clock, I pulled over into a layby at the entrance to a private forest. My morale was at a low ebb, and I remembered with a hollow smile what I'd said a few hours earlier about cycling being fun. Lies! And now I was being punished. I sat on a felled tree trunk to stretch out my legs and gather my reserves for the summit finish.
Ah! I remembered the flapjack in my pocket, tackled the wrapper with clumsy cold fingers and began to eat greedily. The bar had an interesting texture. It was like chewing chocolate-flavoured grit. I squinted at the ingredients. Grit wasn't listed. But what's this, "Soya protein crunchies, 14%".
Mystery solved, I kept chewing. I was facing the road as I ate, and now and then small knots of riders, some solo, would pass by. I recognised some I had overtaken long before at the feed stop. They didn't look full of energy, but they looked determined. Gritty, even. I thought, I could learn something from this flapjack. I got back on the bike and rode after them towards the Beacon.
The clock had ticked past the 4-hour mark while I was sitting on my tree stump, and with 5 miles still to go I had lowered my sights to achieving a silver time. It should be well within reach, I thought - but then I realised that the last mile alone could easily take 10 minutes. It was going to be tight.
Finally the long-awaited slopes arrived and I shifted down to my lowest gear to grind it out. There was a moment of panic almost immediately, as my right thigh began to cramp on the first bend. I slowed right down to a crawl and took the strain on my left leg while rubbing my right vigorously - I've never walked the Beacon, and didn't want to start now. After a few minutes the twinges subsided and I focused on just getting up there.
The clock slowly ticked towards 4:30 as I approached what seemed to be the top - was I going to make it? But I'd forgotten about the Beacon's false summits. Another bend, another stint out of the saddle, and still it went on. The time ticked away, and still the hill continued. Every few seconds a cyclist would zip downhill on the other side of the road, wide grins, their work done as they sped back to HQ in Ditchling.
At last I rounded a bend to a welcome sight. It was Craig, an associate of sportive photographer extraordinaire Phil O'Connor, crouched at the side of the road pointing a long lense at me. Another sadist. I grimaced obligingly for the camera - "Well done" he said as I panted past him.
To the left across the road was the finish at the car park; a staff member scanned my timing chip and I sat for a few minutes to take in the view. Green countryside stretched out into the distance to the north, all capped with a bank of menacing cloud. Around me were a smattering of cheery finishers, some chatting (I heard the words "hog roast" mentioned), others sprawled in recovery positions on the grass, and an optimistic ice cream van doing slow trade.
Rider times were being printed out by a cheerful fellow (maybe even Morgan himself) sitting cross-legged in the boot of an estate car. I went to collect my slip of truth: 4:34, a solid bronze time.
Back at sea level, over complimentary bowls of pasta at HQ, I overheard a couple of other riders. "You really have to be going some to get a gold in that," one commented.
"Yeah," his mate agreed, "Although, if you got the weather, I reckon..."
I left them to it and focused on my pasta. The Puncheur had done its job - I now know where my fitness is, and also what to improve on ahead of my next outing, a quiet little affair in Flanders. It's going to take a lot more miles. And, perhaps, a little more grit.
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