On the skive: Andy rides the Work From Home sportive

Many have done it - sneaked out for a cheeky ride while we're supposed to be 'working from home'. It's just too tempting to say you've had a power cut or your laptop is on the fritz. Just remember not to share your Strava KOMs with your boss...

I've done a few mid-week organised rides, mainly the invitation-only Garmin Ride Out that precedes the Tour of Britain, sharing the road with guys from the pro peloton, stretching their legs and unintentionally showing us up in our own back yard while never breaking sweat. Tapping into this, Wiggle and UK Cycling Events have launched a bona fide 'Work From Home' ride, a late starting, mid-week sportive in the Surrey hills. Lauded as the first of many events to come, I was interested to see how it went and, more interestingly, who went.

The three shorter routes (15, 32 and 66 miles) on the event started out of Denbies Vineyard in the shadow of Box Hill, and took in a climb of the zig-zags with barely a mile in the legs to warm you up. Looping back to Westhumble and then going straight into a RideLondon favourite, Ranmore Common, the course then splits up and those on the shortest adventure head for home.

Others less (or more) fortunate take in a smorgasbord of the Surrey Hills, weaving around favourite descents such as Crocknorth and Coombe Bottom and the climbs around Winterfold (for the Epic amongst us) and Leith Hill. The ride culminates in everyone's favourite gravity challenge, White Down Lane. I was doing the Standard course, and - shockingly - sharing a day off with my wife who was a White Down newbie. They say that ignorance is bliss, and as she never wants to know what's coming up, I tried to keep her as blissful as possible.

I have bad memories of the dreaded White Down climb, 18% of misery on winding narrow lanes. The first time I rode it, I overestimated my awesome and came a cropper, not being able to remount and having to do the Walk of Shame. Although I was not alone that day, it didn't make me feel any better.

 Anyway - back to the ride. The initial loop around Box Hill and Headley Common meant that early starters came into conflict with cyclists who'd started a little later. The subway between the Stepping Stones Pub and the Ryker's Cafe is a woeful piece of infrastructure at the best of times, and to have a dozen or so cyclists trying to use it in both directions was a recipe for disaster. The subway was marshalled, as were many of the potentially hazardous junctions, but only on the west side, causing some cyclists to ignore the directions and take to the main road. A controlled crossing closer to the start would have elimated the need for the double crossing and cut out much of the stress.

After this initial hiccup, the route was very familiar to anyone who has done the Ups and Downs or Surrey Cyclone sportives, and at a level that was challenging without being impossible (White Down Lane notwithstanding). There were plenty of people out on the ride - a good range of cycles and cyclists, with many using it as a taster for the RideLondon 100 which was due the following weekend. I noticed many parent-child duos, mums and sons, dads and daughters, which was a refreshing change from the usual sportive crowd (not that there's anything wrong with that - I AM the Usual Sportive Crowd).

The diverse clientele may've been due to the timing of the ride, coming as it did just as the school holidays started, or the length of the routes on offer - the longest route to ride on the day was 'only' 66 miles, the same as a 'Standard' in these days of high sportive inflation. Some people are intimidated by the length of some sportives and this, if it is to be a feature of more 'Work From Home' events, is a welcome move. What I found disappointing is that, unlike Evans RideIt events, the price of these shorter routes was the same as their full day rides. Admittedly I have little idea of how much such a sportive costs to set up and run, but it would be nice to see shorter events run with a lower tariff to reflect their compact nature.

  As we approached the last challenge of the day, we began to see more riders joining us from the Epic course, mustering their efforts to tackle White Down. I was experiencing rear derailleur problems and couldn't escape to my lowest cog. Klaxons started sounding in my head as the climb approached; I had visions of running out of talent halfway up and having to wobble off once more. But, thankfully, I found I could power up - maybe the result of hitting the climb with only 45km in the legs as opposed to the normal 98km. As for the missus, she practically aced it, even giving me a thumbs up as I chivalrously waited for her at the top. She didn't even threaten to push me in a ditch, as she promised to do last time I took her anywhere near a gradient over 15%.   All in all, Work From Home was a lovely day out and it would be great to see the love spread out over the country with more events like this in the future. It would be even nicer to see the price of the ride scaled down a touch to reflect to shorter routes and encourage more novice cyclists to take part. After all, it's all about getting bums on saddles and seeing the countryside on two wheels. People like to see they're getting value for money, and Wiggle sportives are brilliantly run - what better way to encourage people to take on greater challenges by easing them in with a ride like this?

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