Race: Tour de PPA 2025

The start official chirped Breyton Paulse on the start line that he was going to have to pull D batch the whole way. “Why not?” he said. As it was he didn’t, a little group of riders that I think were seeded higher and had a late start came sprinting past us before we got to the first turn and he jumped on the back of them and disappeared.

So much for neutral zone. Not that I blame them – if I had the watts I would have joined. 

D mooched along at a comfy pace. As usual we let ourselves down with careless riding – I think 2 riders went down. I dodged a bottle that the rider in front of me lost on the speedbumps. If I was Geraint I would have hit it and gone down in the neutral zone, if I was MvdPoel, I would have bumped it back into the guy’s bottle cage with my front wheel.

As it is I’m a Mamil so I just thanked my lucky stars, came out of the corner 50 meters behind the wheel and went anaerobic to catch up.

Shook my head and bit my tongue as rider 400 (having sucked wheel for 103,4km) yelled “Go go go” and swung wide onto the right hand side of the road on the last little riser before the finish. Clearly the man needed to pick up 15 places.

Predictably he had to pull back in because there were cars coming down the hill and needed to find room to do so amongst all the anoxic slightly-too-high-BMI dad bods that comprises the bulk of D. And predictably that sent a little mini-concertina back down the bunch. 

Curmudgeonly shaking of my head at my fellow man aside, I enjoyed the ride – expertly marshalled by the motorbikes who I think do a sterling job resisting what I can only imagine is a powerful urge to dish out a p@#klap to the the wannabes who feel the need to risk it all into oncoming traffic.

I don’t think the gentle pace of 33kmph did my seeding any good but hey ho. 

I do enjoy these fun rides despite the fact that I have not ridden in one where there hasn’t been a crash somewhere around me in quite a while now.