On the shoulders of giants

Each of the Grand Tours seems to be engaged in an ongoing battle to assert itself as the definitive benchmark by which the others will be judged. Fired up and fuelled with national pride, these tours reflect the best features the hosting countries have to offer.

We are presented with a bespoke three-week cultural and geographic insight into Italy, France and Spain that's better than any tourist board commercial.

This year's Vuelta a España began a fortnight ahead of the Tour of Britain - enough time for it to get firmly engrained into the hearts and souls of an audience still in denial about the last Grand Tour. The Tour of Britain was televised back-to-back with the Vuelta, allowing a direct comparison between two nations. It's always good to see your homeland but the constant sun and jaw-dropping beauty of Spain won every round.

The Giro saw Alberto Contador announce his intention of completing a Giro/Tour de France Grand Tour double. He rode well, winning the race and setting the stage for an intriguing TdF. It was interesting to note the appearance of Fabio Aru and his single day in pink.

For us the Tour de France, although a great race, felt a bit flat this year. Yes it was amazing to see the tactics of Chris Froome and Team Sky pretty much dominate the race but it all began to feel a bit like another era of one-team control. Sorry Chris, you are a great rider but for us the real excitement revolved around who was going to come second. It was the constant attacking of Alejandro Valverde and Nairo Quintana that gave the race its real edge.

The Vuelta is the purest, least spoiled and, in some ways, most innocent of the Grand Tours. The riders come across as being calmer and more relaxed as the season's end draws near. Chris Froome was ready to attempt his own Tour Double, Vincenzo Nibali wanted to another opportunity to shine at a Grand Tour along with a host of riders including Tom Dumoulin, Dan Martin and Tejay van Garderen sidelined by crashes and injury at the previous Tour.

This year's Vuelta was extreme. The climbs, the crashes, the heat, the cheating of Nibali and the spirited performance of one rider... Billed as the best time trialist in the race, Tom Dumoulin was never rated as a contender but as the race unfolded he emerged as one with some inspired, spirited and talented riding. For us, his will to succeed will remain as the defining spectacle of this year's Vuelta. Seemingly out of nowhere he took the red jersey and looked capable of securing overall victory from the likes of Fabio Aru. Dumoulin's ride was the type of performance that dreams are made of. He literally came from nowhere to ride the race of his career (so far).

It's true that everyone loves an underdog - to see a rider excel like Dumoulin, it's easy to see why. He made this year's Vuelta unmissable - we just didn't want it to end! If you missed it first time round we highly recommend you catch it on YouTube

www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9maK3OJ5NA

Saluting lives well lived

There’s something incredibly heartwarming about the way the cycling community can pull together when the chips are down. 

In recent months, Sussex has seen two tragedies that claimed the lives of local cyclists. Two were killed in the Shoreham Airshow disaster - 26 year-old Richard Smith and Dylan Archer, who was 42. Just weeks earlier, Don Lock, a 79 year-old member of Worthing Excelsior Cycling Club, was stabbed to death in a road rage incident on the A24.

All three leave devastated loved ones as well as friends and fellow cyclists left stunned by the random nature of the awful events that took place. All three are being mourned and missed.

There have been many tributes made and events held to mark the three deaths. One of them was a ride organized by Excelsior to celebrate the life of Don Lock, who’d been a member of the club for 50 years.

Around 150 cyclists joined the ride, a gentle meander through the West Sussex countryside, ending at a little village hall in the shadow of the South Downs, where tea and cakes – lots of cakes! – were available.

Standing there admiring the views and devouring the cake, we reflected on how wonderful it was to see so many different club strips in the same place, alongside more casual cyclists on their shoppers and folding bikes and hybrids.

There were no speeches or presentations or great outpourings of emotion. This wasn’t the time or place for any of that. It was just a collection of cyclists enjoying each other’s company and saluting a life well lived – a tribute as pure and simple as the sport we all love.

A tale of the unexpected

However hard you train for that event you've targeted, on the day there are so many variables that nothing can be certain. You can (and should) prepare as meticulously as possible but you should also prepare for the unexpected.

Having identified last weekend's Suffolk-based Crafted Classique 100-miler as 'something to aim for', we spent several months building training frequency and mileage until we finally felt reasonably confident of achieving a respectable time.

That's the thing with time chip technology - a sportive becomes, on one level, a mission to propel a digital chip across the line in the shortest possible time. With these chips now automatically associated with the rider numbers securely attached to your bike, there's no escaping that all-important finishing time.

Part of the fun of these events is in the planning and anticipation of the build-up. Piece by piece, you put in place all the essentials. How are you going to get to the start? Are you travelling there on your own or with a fellow rider? Have you got a kit checklist ready? On the day you must ensure that you get yourself to the sign on in good time and equip yourself with a route map. And then you must plan where to meet with friends after the ride and get yourselves home again.

During this obsessional planning period, you become an avid devotee of the long term weather forecast. There's nothing you can really do about it, of course, apart from taking along the appropriate kit. For some, these events present an opportunity (or excuse) to refresh their cycling wardrobe - 'go on...treat yourself!'

We rode last year's event as an informal team but this year saw us ride as Simpson CC. We actively encouraged our readers to join us for the ride and ended up with a good mix of natural rouleurs, confident clubmen and racing veterans, all eager to devour 100 miles of beautiful Suffolk countryside. These guys could set a good pace and maintain it for the duration.

In the end, we split into two groups from the very start, mainly due to varying arrival times. The faster guys were already on the start line as the others arrived to sign on. The weather was good - maybe too good, with baking heat becoming a hydration factor. With high average speeds being clocked up everything looked set for a quick finishing time until one of our riders was taken ill.

When this happens, you must prioritise. Targets and training clearly take second place to a fellow rider's wellbeing. The race against the clock ended there and the final 40 miles became more of a survival challenge. We eased back on the pedals and started to chat on subjects far removed from our present situation. Reaching the finish line now had a different meaning.

We're pleased to say that everyone did make it back in one piece and the ride was still an amazing experience. But it means that we now have a 2016 ride target already in place - not that any excuse was really necessary.

Rising to the occasion

There are downsides to big, organized bike rides. En masse, us cyclists have an unfortunate tendency to lose our common sense as the occasion gets the better of us. We swerve unpredictably, take risks we’d never normally take, plough into potholes and fail to warn those behind us about hazards. Our impact on the people and places we cycle past can be upsetting, disruptive or even dangerous, reinforcing the views of the anti-bike brigade that we’re nothing but a bunch of testosterone-fuelled Lycra louts. It’s no surprise that many experienced cyclists eschew mass participation events in favour of lower-key, lower impact rides. But to turn your back on all big rides is to deny yourself some rare treats, as we were reminded last weekend on the third Prudential RideLondon 100-miler. Being one of 27,000 cyclists tapping along on central London roads that are usually choked with traffic is a truly uplifting experience. Add cheering crowds, impeccable route marking, logistics management and marshaling and you have an experience that every cyclist should try at least once. Turning into the home straight on The Mall, where thousands lined the route, banging the hoardings and screaming us to the finish line 300 metres away, we allowed ourselves to imagine how it might feel to be involved in the sprint finish of a Grand Tour, as the adrenaline peaks and those weary leg muscles twitch into action for one last superhuman push to the line. Easing out of the saddle for a final big-ring blast, just inches away from all those clapping hands and waving flags, we set our jaw with steely determination and gave it full gas for the first 100 metres…before realizing that both legs were about to cramp and that 300 metres is a lot further than you might think when your muscles are awash with lactic acid. Never mind. It’s good to dream.

Filling the void

The Tour is over! We are bereft! No more afternoon TV watching while we pretend to work. No more desperately avoiding social media until the evening highlights when we’ve missed the day’s action. No more bike rides planned around cake stops at cafés screening the race. What on earth are we supposed to do now? Well, there’s always the Vuelta at the end of August. No, we know it’s not quite the same but it still attracts all the big boys. As we write, Chris Froome is weighing up whether to try and emulate Jacques Anquetil and Bernard Hinault by going for a Tour/Vuelta double. Some of Froome’s competitors may feel they have something to prove after their Tour disappointments too. And just think, once the Vuelta’s finished on 13 September, there will only be 10 months until the next Tour begins! There’s always riding bikes too, of course. We doubt we’re alone in cutting short or postponing rides because the Tour was just too enticing. It’s a curious fact of cycling life that bike fitness often dips at this time of year, just when you think you ought to be peaking after all that off-season hard work. There are various reasons for this – the big summer expedition might now be behind you, the family holiday might have kept you off the bike – but another one might just be because you’ve been neglecting your cycling and choosing instead to sit in front of the telly to watch other riders turn themselves inside out for a few weeks. And then there’s everything else, of course. The garden’s looking a bit neglected. The family probably needs reminding who you are and why you're skulking around the house looking so miserable. And you now have time to pursue all those non-cycling interests you have. You do have some of them, right?