Words by Howard Johnson
Photos by Joolze Dymond
This September, cycling fans across the UK will have the chance to "take part" in The Tour of Britain as The Prostate Cancer Charity aim to deliver a unique cycling experience for you to ride in the tyre tracks of the world’s best professionals.
Howard Johnson rides a preview of the course, allowing the Charity Sportivers to see what they're letting themselves in for, and giving the Tour of Britain spectators an idea of what to expect from Stage 2 of the race.
Tour of Britain, Stage 2: Stoke to Stoke
Meeting at the JCB Parts Centre in Rocester, the Tour route will pass right outside the front door, and being on a Sunday, this stage should have thousands of supporters lining the route. We picked up the stage at approximately 30 miles in, and followed the road from Rocester on the B5030 through Doveleys to Ellastone, where it turns left to Wootton.
Climbing up though Ramshorn and crossing the A52, the drag continues up Ellastone Road to join the A523 before turning right onto the B5053 at Bottomhouse.
This year there is an opportunity to ride three of the Tour of Britain stages; one is in London, the second is from Minehead to Teignmouth. There are two 1st Category climbs early on after leaving Minehead, and then the renowned climb of Peak Hill out of Sidmouth will split things up with only 40km to go.
The route traces the coastline through Dawlish and onto Teignmouth, but even so, there are still some lumps to tackle before the seafront finish.
And there is the Stoke to Stoke stage, of 161kms. For us mortals it will be a long day out, for the professional riders in the big ring for most of the day, it is going to be a fast hard stage.
The descent into Onecote is quick; I managed 44mph, so what can the fast boys do? Staying on the B5053 the road has some steeper descents and, what looks like, rises you can easily take your speed into and ride over. Oh no you can’t. These are deceptive at 15%, and soon become a wall - for a mere sportive rider anyway.
If you are looking for a good vantage point to watch this stage, I can highly recommend the little village of Longnor. You can see the riders coming down the quick descent and then watch them grind up to the village before they turn left onto climb out towards Flash.
With a severe 20% gradient at the bottom, it slowly reduces in severity to a mere 7% for the rest of the climb. The scenery in this part of the world will offer an impressive backdrop to the action, and if the wind blows, as it can here, there could be a few guys out the back of the peloton who are suffering.
At this point of our sojourn, it was now very hot. So hot, there were gritting wagons out. We found out that they were out to grit the roads as the tar was melting. And once we stopped for some “artistic shots” I couldn’t clip back in. The tar had melted into my cleats, and was sticking in lumps to the tyres.
The short preview we had of the stage was great. You can experience the whole stage by riding the sportive version on 26th September, a week after the actual stage.
I will be there, in white, struggling up the climbs, again!
For more information, or to register, visit http://www.tourride.co.uk/stoke-on-trent.asp
Find all the details on Cyclosport.org: http://www.cyclosport.org/eventdetails.aspx?eventid=2551