I Rode The World s FASTEST Gran Fondo

Oh, man. 96km in less than two hours. That's 60 miles in about two hours. Unbelievable. How did I do that? How did I get here? Two days ago, I flew out to Abu Dhabi to cover the UAE tour. Two days before that, I discovered there was a Gran Fondo taking place in neighboring Dubai. Along with the Abu Dhabi Gran Fondo, which takes place in December, it's the fastest in the world. To race the fastest Gran Fondo in the world, I would need the fastest equipment. Unfortunately, I did not have that equipment, so I resorted to my usual trick of stealing it. Ollie's Pinarello Dogma F, complete with head-to-toe ceramic speed bearings and fairings. Yes, I'll be having that. Thank you very much. Alex's Princeton Carbon Works 80mm deep aero wheels with Pirelli tires. Yes, I think I'll borrow them without asking as well. I also took a look at Conor's desk to see what I could nick from him, but I decided to leave his gubbins alone. Here I am in Dubai on a blinged-up bike for a blinged-up event. This is a bike that even pro riders would be jealous of. I'll talk you through it in more detail just a little bit later on, but first up, I'd better get myself mentally prepared because I'm in the starting pen in the elite invitational category for the Spinneys Dubai 92 Cycle Challenge. This year, the event is 96 kilometers long starting at the Expo City Dubai just before dawn. We will head east initially down the wide straight roads of Hesa Street and Al Asail. The route then loops through Jamira Village, and then the only real test from an elevation standpoint comes at kilometer 82. It's the final highway flyover. A flyover might not be everyone's definition of a climb, but I've got a sneaky feeling it's going to feel like one by that point. After that, there's a reasonably technical run back into Expo City and then a flat-out sprint to the line. Whether or not I am involved in that sprint is a different matter because whilst I am quite confident in my bunch positioning skills, I'm a little bit less confident in my current form. I have been riding on Zwift twice per week throughout the winter, but a total of only an hour and a half a week, so I think this is going to be a real challenge for me today. Anyway, I have plugged the route into my Wahoo Rhone V3, and I'll be looking at that for all of the main corners and that flyover to make sure I can position myself towards the front because I think I'm going to need some drifting room to sleep in the bunch today. Right then, it is 10 to 6 in the morning. It's not even light yet, but I've only got 15 minutes to the off. Wish me luck. At the start, I was actually quite nervous. It's been quite a while since I've done a road event in a proper bunch. I'd seen the speeds from previous years, and they're high. Last year, it was 45 kilometers per hour average. Obviously, at parts then, you must be getting up to over 50Ks an hour. I'd heard that there was some not very good bike-handling skills within that group. First and foremost, I was thinking, just stay upright. Secondly, I was a bit worried as to whether or not I'd keep up, and it was neutralized for the first part of the event. I managed to get towards the front, and I was settled in there, but it was a little bit sketchy at points because we didn't have lights on. It wasn't light. We just followed that lead car, and soon we got to the part where it opened out, and not long after that, you hit kilometer zero. From kilometer zero, as you get in every race, the speed just went up massively. I would say it only took about five minutes before the nerves went. Firstly, by that point, after five minutes, I was more confident I was going to be able to keep up because whilst the speed was high, whilst it was over 50Ks per hour, going through the bunch, my power wasn't super high, somewhere over 200 watts, but nothing major. I was like, okay, well, I'll definitely be able to sit in this bunch. Secondly, after five minutes, I already got the sense that the bike-handling was pretty blooming good, actually. I was already starting to enjoy it after the first five minutes. There was this point, I would say, about a quarter of the way through the event where we did a U-turn, and before we got to the U-turn, there was a group coming in the other direction. I realized there were five guys up the road by quite some margin, actually. They must have been riding impressively well with a lot of power because I reckon it was about two minutes up the road. I did have to fight some sort of instincts because my brain still tells me my legs should be able to respond as they used to. My legs tell me that my brain is talking rubbish and they're not going to be able to do that for me. There were a couple of points where I was getting towards the front, and when there were attacks going, I was like, you know what, I might go with that. Then my brain realized I couldn't go with it, so let's just sit in. That was an interesting thought and feeling that I had throughout it as well. Quick interlude so I can talk you through the absolute beast of a bike that I am using today. Genuinely, the best bike I have ever had the privilege of riding. I'm pretty sure a few of you will recognize this because Ollie's used it in quite a few GCN videos in the past, although obviously, it'll be ridden to the next level using my power and legs today. Anyway, it's a Pinarello top-of-the-range Dogma F frameset in this absolutely magnificent color. Hope it comes out on the camera. It's a sort of bluey-purple color that changes shade depending on where you're looking at it from and what light you've got it in. Absolutely magnificent. Up front, I've got the Pinarello stem and bar cockpit there. Quite narrow, perfect for my knees today where I need to be as slippery through the air as I possibly can be. The wheelset comes from Princeton Carbonworks. These are their Max 7580 Evolutions. Internal rim width is 22-millimeter. They are hooked and they are tubeless ready. Rim depth varies between 75 and 80 millimeters. These things don't just look fast, they are fast, especially with these tires that I've got on here. These are the Pirelli P Zero Race RS tubeless tires in a size 30 millimeters. Rolling resistance? What rolling resistance? Meanwhile, up front, I've also got the Bolt V3 Roam. That's got the roots plugged into it, which I'll be using today. Underneath that, you can see on the mount, I've got an Insta360 mount there so that I can bring you coverage from the entire race or at least highlights of it. At the top here, I've got a Selle Italia SLR boost saddle. No doubt, I'll be perched on the nose of that throughout much of today's race as I grovel on the wheels. Groupset is full Shimano Dura-Ace Di2. At the front, I've got a 54-tooth chainring. I will not be using the smaller one, but the 54-tooth will no doubt help me in the speeds that I'm going today. It's got a wax chain. Of course, it has. I even did it myself last night using our new Ciclo wax kit, and it was very easy indeed. Whilst we're on the subject of drivetrain friction or lack thereof, our Ceramic Speed have provided us with their bottom bracket here and also the oversized pulley on the Dura-Ace rear derailleur. Cranks, just 170 millimeters. Obviously, over the last couple of years, we finally realized that shorter is indeed better. Not the size of the cranks, it's what you do with them. On top of the bike itself, there's a few finishing touches to me. I have got some brand new Shimano S-Fire white shoes. They will stay white whilst they remain in the UAE. I've also got a brand new HJC helmet. I've shaved my legs for extra speed. I've shaved my chest in case I need to unzip my jersey. I've even shaved my ass to make it easier to breathe out of when I'm on my limit. I'm good to go. The climb or the flyover, you know what? It actually did genuinely feel like a climb because the rest of the course is so pan-flat that even though it's a shallow gradient for probably a kilometer, maybe even less, just the inertia feels different. I wouldn't say I wasn't at my limit, but it was harder than the rest of the event that I was doing. I had managed to get towards the front before because someone warned me it was coming up. I don't know if anyone got dropped out the back, but we still had a pretty big bunch after that. Then on the run into the finish, the speed did go up again. In part, there was a downhill after that climb. I saw somebody attack on the downhill. I thought that was silly. Anyway, the speed was quite high from there towards the finish, but actually another group got clear. It was another one of those points where I thought, I should have gone with that. Then I had to remind myself, no, Dan, you couldn't go with that, or at least you couldn't contribute once you got there. There was no real chase behind. It was one of those things where the gap opened up to a point where the people behind in my group thought, we can't jump across to that in one effort. The gap started to open up. I was like, this wind's going out the window. Coming towards the finish, it went from the wider roads down to somewhat narrow roads, not too narrow, but a little bit more technical as well. That did start to make positioning more important. I got myself into a deep, decent position. It didn't feel too sketchy either. I thought, yes, I'm going to go for the sprint. We came down. I'm up towards the front. I'm making positions up. Then we go around this U-turn on a roundabout. We start to pick up speed coming back towards the finish line. The problem that I had was that although I'd got into a good position, the effort to get there, even though I'd hidden quite well, was enough to put me up towards my limit before we got to the sprint. What that meant was that when I saw the 500 and then 200 meters to go sign, I was already out or over my limit and I couldn't get out of the saddle to sprint. What happened was I just sat in the saddle and I span as quickly as I could to the finish line whilst a lot of people came back around me. Anyway, it was enjoyable. I didn't get to any more than 700 watts today, but I crossed the line safe and sound and somewhere towards the front, which felt like an achievement. Then you go in where everybody else is, rack your bikes up, have a chat about the race, and then eventually find out your result. Somebody else had theirs. They'd actually won my category, so I said, can you see where I came? 49th overall, but third in my category of 45 to 49. I was due a visit to the podium. I'd like to thank everyone who's helped me to get to this place. All my fans, my family, probably too many people to thank really for getting here. It was a wonderful event. There's genuinely such a good cycling community here. It's been a pleasure to meet so many people. Thoroughly enjoyed today. Thoroughly enjoyed. I've got to say that the bit after the race was also great because they've managed to build over here a really great cycling community. Obviously, a lot of people doing the Gran Fondo were from abroad and they'd come in for it, but the majority live locally and went to do that event. The atmosphere and the cycling community post-event was amazing. It was great to see. Obviously, the greatest bit was the fact I got to go onto the podium at the end of it. Didn't get one of those big checks which I was hoping for as prize money, but nevertheless, I got a couple more medals. I have qualified for the World Gran Fondo Championships which take place in Japan later on this year. Oh, you want the stats? I thought you might want the stats. Handily, on my phone here, I've got them all for you. Not including the neutralized zone, the event was 90 kilometers exactly. It took me, courtesy of the group that I've sheltered behind, one hour, 57 minutes, and 46 seconds, which is an average speed of 45.9 kilometers per hour. It was faster than last year's event. To do that, my average power was 177 watts. I actually don't think the power meter was under reading. That was just how easy it was to sit in the wheels. Even normalized, it was only 203 watts. My average cadence was 87, so I was spinning pretty well. Then my average heart rate was 131. Maybe I could have put more effort in, but the thing is, you're going to hide into nothing because, like I said, if I tried to go off the front, I would have run out of power. I'd have ended up back in the peloton. As I said before, great event, I would recommend it. I had a thoroughly enjoyable day. I'd better repeat that in case the viewers didn't hear. You think I'm the only GCN presenter who's won a UCI medal at a UCI event. I think you might be right on that one. I think the others have probably got quite a lot of work to do, a bit of inward looking to see where they've gone wrong in life compared to me. Yes. No, I'll take that. I'll take that.