This year's Tour combines some the most challenging mountain climbs and spectacular panoramas with idyllic villages and picturesque coastal scenery. There is a choice of three routes, 63 miles; 82 miles; and the well known 117 miles.

...and a lot of vertical water!

I spent Saturday night and most of Sunday over in Pembrokeshire (South Wales), taking part in the Tour of Pembrokeshire sportive. What's a sportive? An organised cycle event, billed as a personal challenge rather than as a race (because it's held on public roads I guess) but reasonably competetive none the less (at least at the level of challenging oneself to do a course that it longer or faster than one has done before). Typically, sportives are held over two distances, 100km and 100miles, catering to a range of abilities. The Tour of Pembrokeshire takes this further, offering 3 routes of 63 miles, 82 miles and 117 miles.

Last year I completed the 82 mile route in what was called a bronze time, I can't remember the details, but I do remember finding it quite a challenge (with strong memories of fairly stiff headwinds on the stretch out to Freshwater West and a slog of a hill coming up from Freshwater East a few miles later).

This year, I planned to repeat the same route, hoping for a silver time in my class (M51). If nothing else, I now ride a much lighter 'cross' bike than the heavy mountain bike that I was on last year, so my chances of improvement were reasonable.

I spent Saturday night on my own in the Travelodge at Pembroke Dock. Hey... I know how to enjoy myself! But at least it was a fine afternoon and evening.

On the day itself, the weather was awful and as I parked the car in the car park on the sea-front at Saundersfoot, the rain was very heavy with gusting strong southerly winds coming in off the sea. It really was quite unpleasant. It didn't seem to have put people off mind you (though looking at the results I'm guessing that the total number of people who completed event was significantly down on last year). There were plenty of cyclists in the car park, opting for a variety of dress codes from relatively light cycling lycra to full waterproofs and most things in between.

I opted for lycra shorts and my hi-viz yellow cycling waterproof jacket, waterproof overshoes and my thicker pair of gloves. I figured that my legs would get wet anyway, but keeping my hands, body and feet warm for the 6 or so hours that I'd be on the road would make the experience slightly more pleasant. I put as many thin layers as I had (3 as it happens) under the waterproof. As it turned out, the choice of clothing made relatively little difference - after 10 minutes everything was completely wet thru anyway. Even my waterproof overshoes made no difference. To cap it all, my choice of thicker, full-fingered, cycling gloves, which rapidly got wet and impossible to take off without a struggle, meant that I couldn't easily reach into my back pockets for energy bars as I went round. With hindsight, this was a bit of a mistake I think.

I headed over to the start line. The advertised plan was to set people off in mini mass-starts of about 100. By the time I got there this didn't seem to be happening - I checked my timing device (all sportives give you a timing device of some kind which has to be 'clocked' at the start and finish and one or two other points round the route) and set off. I dunno if the full mass start didn't happen or if I just missed it because I took too long getting ready in the carpark. Whatever, it meant that I started the event in a realtively small group of other cyclists.

I don't do that many sportives (this one was only my third I think) but a 'pattern of participation' seems to be emerging, at least as I see it from the perspective of a lone rider. (Note that I do nearly all my cycling solo). Routes are typically split into 3 parts - with two feeding stations (effectively short rest opportunities) along the route. From the mass start, a grouping of similar-speed cyclists usually emerges. This is not arranged as such - it just tends to happen naturally as the faster riders disappear into the distance and the slower ones get left behind.

As a lone rider, this is great. In my experience, riding with a group of cyclists can improve your performance by at least 10%, often whilst actually feeling easier! This is particularly true in bad conditions, where heavy wind or rain (both in the case of the ride on Sunday) can leave you quite demoralised. Because I started in a relatively small group, I ended up being left with only one other rider of a similar speed as me for the first section of the ride. To make matters worse, we weren't that well matched, him going up and down hills faster than me, me better on the flat. Nonetheless, we pretty much stuck together for the first section, chatting about various things and helping each other along until the first feeding station. As a result, the ride to that point was surprisingly good in spite of the weather conditions.

The second feature of my emerging 'pattern of participation' is that because you are riding in an informal group for the first section of the ride (in this case a group of only two!), no arrangements are made about leaving the first feeding station together. People disappear to eat or piss or rest or whatever and you end up leaving the feeding station much more spread out than you were.

On Sunday, I didn't see my first section 'partner' again until part-way through the third section and by that time he seemed to haver slowed a bit so I went on without him.

To cut a long story short, I completed the rest of the ride on my own, a much harder experience than I really wanted tbh. Mentally, I found it very tough, especially the second section heading directly into the southerly winds between Broad Haven and Pembroke. At Pembroke, where the 64 and 82 mile routres split, I chose the shorter route, opting for the quick way back to hot showers, warm food and my car. Looking at the results, I note that I wasn't alone in this. As it happened, I finished 1 minute and 30 seconds outside a silver time. Somewhat frustrated at neither having completed the same length route as last year nor having got a better time, I headed for the showers, ate the welcome hot food that was on offer and went home (suffering a pretty miserable route along the M4 into the bargain).

Ah, well... I'll do better next year. And I'm sure I'll enjoy it more... well, assuming that the sportive gods can drum up some better weather that is.

My biggest disappointment... the lack of a view (any view!) as we came off the high ground above Broad Haven and dropped down to sea level. My memories of last year rate this as one of the most stunning sections of the ride.

It's a great event, even with the crap weather, it's a great event. It has a really strong community feel to it and the organisers do a great job. What I'd really like though would be for there to be some specific riders, perhaps wearing specially coloured shirts or something, who agree to ride at a particular pace. "Keep up with the ride in the bright red top and you'll get a silver time on the 82 mile route" kind of thing. This would really help novice riders like myself who want to do more than simply get round in one piece. I dunno how feasible that is? I think that running events sometimes try and do something similar but I appreciate that the logistics are somewhat different in that case. Does doing something like this sound possible?

Anyway... the real reason for writing this post is because I had a brief conversation with one of the event organisers about the use of social media at events like this and I promised to write up my thoughts (not that they amount to much). The following is what has sprung to mind so far. Not much I'm afraid but I'd welcome any comments.

• Firstly, think about what you are trying to achieve through use of social media... more sign-ups, better community feel at the event, wider disemmination, more people returning next year, promoting any sponsors... whatever. These aren't critical, but they might help steer when and where and social media engagement happens.
• Secondly, try and get someone, preferably someone very close to the organisers, dedicated to social media engagement. Every question asked should get a response, every activity in the run up should be shared, every comment taken note of. Online social communities don't emerge by magic in my experience... someone has to work at creating them.
• Thirdly, make sure that all publicity material mentions the social media - the Facebook page, Twitter account an/or the Twitter hashtag and so on. Organisers typically have about 3 points of contact (often by email) with participants before the event, and each message needs to remind people about the key social media contact points. Decide on the Twitter hashtag in advance - for this event I would suggest #top11, #top12, etc. (though #pembstour seems to have emerged as the prefered hashtag for this year's event) - and make sure people know about it.
• Finally, embed any social media into your own event pages at appropriate points. Don't simply link to your Twitter account, embed it into your own pages. Better still, don't simply embed your own tweets - create a search for your hashtag and then embed the search results live into your pages - it's easy to do this. That way, people will see the conversation, not just what you are saying. Also, don't forget to include your own hashtag in any tweets you make about your own event.

As it happens, the Tour of Pembroke already has a Facebook page and is making use of Twitter, so I think they are pretty doing what needs to be done anyway. On that basis, my only real suggestion in this case is to decide on, and share, the Twitter hashtag well before the event rather than leaving it to emerge naturally.

My thanks go to all the people who did the organisation on Sunday. I know there were a lot of people helping out in pretty bad conditions. It is very much appreciated.