ENTER THE DRAGON

It's one of the toughest sportives in the UK, but did climb-loving cycling author Simon Warren have the legs to slay the beast of a sportive route in 2023?

-  Simon Warren

Since my very first sportive, the 2005 edition of the legendary La Marmotte in the Alps, I've been employing my well-honed sportive strategy. It's somewhat rudimentary and goes. something like this: start hard, find a group of strong riders, sit in their wheels, race through feed stations like a Formula 1 car negotiating the pits, share the pace, use their legs and wring them dry until something gives, ideally close to the finish line. Pain is temporary, I repeat to myself, but Strava Kudos are permanent.

The original and best Marmotte, which tackles four classic Alpine cols including the Galibier and Alpe d'Huez, is a blueprint for all mass-participation cycling events, and one that South Wales' Dragon Ride comes pretty close to emulating here in the UK. Everything about the ride is big: the size of the field, the volume and size of the climbs, and the satisfaction for getting round the course. It's an event where you feel at home with your own tribe, a comradeship I first felt back in 1994 at the Reading music festival. Everyone looked just like me, as if society had been pushed through a sieve and only the people with battered old clothes and a love of rock music had made it through. That year, I even sent a postcard home to my mum telling her that I had found my people and didn't ever want to leave. Nearly 30 years on I get that very same feeling on the start line of the Dragon Ride in Margam Park near Port Talbot.