Stage: Prologue
Distance: 40km
Climbing: 935m
After a really enjoyable race at Iron Bike, which was my first ever stage race I find myself at Builth Wells ready for my second stage race within the space of a month! Although the difficulty of TransWales won’t be the same as Iron Bike it is still a 8-day event, covering about 600km. Kicking off with an optional prologue marathon, which was a 40km loop from Builth Wells. The riding was fun, with open moorland tracks and some trails that were new to me, despite riding several events in the area before. The prologue was not part of the results and was seen as a “warm up” for the main event, although it was open to people not riding the TransWales at all. Some of the one-day riders were keen to push the pace, but with another 7 days of riding ahead I was happy to let them go and just enjoyed the riding at my own pace instead. It was a chance to see how the legs were doing and get used to riding in the slippery Welsh mud again! After 2hrs 20min I finished and was feeling fairly good, although I was definitely lacking a bit of top end.
Stage 1
Distance: 63km
Climbing: 1650m
Sunday was Day 1 and the proper start, leaving Builth at 9am we had a nice sheep track singletrack section that took us to Forest Fields where the first timed special stage of the event would be. The special stage was a simple 1km climb up the forest fields quarry climb, which anyone who has ridden there will know well. As the whole of TransWales is decided on these short special stages I gave it everything and despite my legs feeling a bit rubbish I managed to win, but only by 12 seconds, with less than a minute separating the top 10. After a brief rest to get my breath back to the un-timed linking section. We rode along some nice open moorland trails with a couple of fast descents and also a section in Radnor forest, which was short but fun. I found myself riding with Simon Burgess and Scott Cornish and we set a sensible pace but were able to enjoy the nice scenery. From there is was a mixture of doubletrack and moorland tracks to the finish of day 1 in Knighton. Overall time for the stage, which doesn’t count towards anything was 3hrs 55min.
Stage 2
Distance: 63km
Climbing: 1500m
Today I was lucky enough to start in the leaders jersey and we left the start town of Knighton under a clear blue sky and taken straight up a really steep grassy climb. It was hard work, but rideable for the majority of the climb. Then we went downhill pretty sharply as well and after a while hit some mellower farm tracks which took us to the start of the special stage, about 12km in. This stage started with a run on a marked downhill course and then onto a fireroad climb back to the start. I have never ridden the area, so I was riding the stage blind. I decided to take it easy on the descent, which was easy enough to ride on XC bikes, but there were lots of roots which made it tricky to get into the right line. The descent was less steep than yesterday but it felt longer. I know I wasn’t the fastest on the stage, but I think the times were really close and hopefully I have did enough to keep the leaders jersey, but I won’t find out until later tonight. After the special stage the linking stage was really nice, with plenty of woodland singletrack, some double track and very little in the way of roads which was great. The last climb was a steep one and it was followed by a nice little descent which brought us out just 2 miles from the finish in Clun, which is just inside England. Riding time for today was 3 hours 50 minutes.