Well, I wasn’t going to write a ride report for my London-Edinburgh-London (“LEL”) bike ride, but everybody keeps inquiring so here goes. LEL is a little shy of 900 miles. The time limit is 116 hours; a little less than 5 days. My plan was to do roughly 200 miles per day for 4 days and 100 miles the 5th day. The actual plan distances were dictated by where there were official “controls” where food and sleeping facilities were provided. (The actual numbers were: 209, 180, 190, 177, 124). My goal was to ride mostly during daylight, and sleep as much as time would allow as long as I achieved my daily plan mileage. Everything went according to plan for the first 2 ½ days. Day One 6:45 am to 11:30pm 209 miles Starting Sunday morning, about 75 of us set off bright and early. Every 15 minutes another similar group started, and about 1000 riders from all over the world were eventually on the road. It was never congested, but there was usually another rider in sight. As we got away from London it was neat to ride through all these tiny little villages Sunday morning as their their church bells clamored noisily. There’s very little flat terrain in the UK, it seemed like I was always chugging uphill or braking on downhills because the roads were not suitable for high speeds. Oh, and the road surface quality, um, let’s say leaves something to be desired. Especially if you’re riding on skinny tires at 115psi. Between potholes, some poorly patched and others not all, and rough chip seal, I thought that my fillings might shake loose. More on this later. Navigation was challenging. There were a million turns. I had the course loaded into my Garmin gps, but it was still not easy. For one thing the course shows up on Garmin as a thick colored line on the tiny screen, not unlike other major roads. So a typical round-about consisted of taking my best guess at which exit to take – kind of a Russian roulette game where half of the time I’d be wrong, and either another rider would holler at me or else I’d ride 50-100 yards down the wrong road until my Garmin would beep at me and signal I was off course. A couple of times I made significant progress down the wrong road (for a variety of bad reasons – like following other off-course riders instead of believing my Garmin), and probably rode 10 “bonus miles” over 3 days. At least I never got badly off course. Anyway, the controls were well staffed by lots of helpful and friendly volunteers, had good food and were fun for “faffing about” as they say. I spent far too long (about an hour?) at each control. Nevertheless I made better time than I envisioned, and reached my first night’s destination well before midnight. I planned to leave by 7 am, so I had an hour to eat and shower, 5 hours of glorious sleep, an hour to repack and eat breakfast and get back on the road. I had correctly forecasted that the Pocklington control where I planned to sleep would be overrun with sleepy cyclists. I had booked a hotel a ½ mile away, and this turned out to be the best plan imaginable. I heard stories of delirious riders standing in lines for hours waiting for a spot to sleep, and even then were limited to 3 hours use of a bed. I started day 2 well rested, but with rather weary leg muscles. Day 2 6:30 am to 11:30 pm 180 miles Monday morning about 6:30 I was back on the bike. Today was remarkable in a number of ways. I have never seen such skinny roads; no not 1 ½ lane, but barely 1 lane wide. With thick vegetation on both sides that they have to cut back to keep the road open. Out in the boondocks. Crazy! And then you’d come to a village and think “do these folks really drive such tiny roads all the time to get to and from home?” And steep? Holy cow batman! One notable gully involved burning my brakes downhill, to cross over a muddy section of pavement where the flooded road had recently subsided, only to come upon a hill so steep that the handful of riders already walking up it were keeping pace with the one rider barely succeeding in riding up it. I walked. Then later several of the low water crossings were still flooded with standing water. Luckily on every such occasion I was able to follow another rider through so I had confidence they were only 3-4 inches deep and ride-able. The long climb up over Yad Moss was beautiful; wide open vistas of rolling grassy fields and 10 sheep on the road for every 1 car. One funny incident that evening. As I left my penultimate control for the day, Brampton, we had the longest flat stretch of road the entire ride. I was feeling good and flying along at about 20- 22mph. A guy pulls up alongside and says “you can really move on that recumbent,” and slowly pulls ahead. He was just fast enough that I thought to myself “I could probably draft behind him and go a couple mph faster without working any harder.” So for the next 10 miles we traded pulls at 24-26mph and I was having a ball. Until he pulled alongside and asked where my destination was. “Say what? Moffat of course, that’s where we’re all going.” Until I looked closely at his bike and realized there was no frame number indicating he was part of LEL. “Oh Spit” I’m thinking. I’ve just followed a non-LEL rider lord only knows how far off course. Sure enough, I could see the Atlantic Ocean off in the distance, and we weren’t supposed to get that close. Well, a quick check of Garmin and I figured out a route back to the course. Several miles later I rejoined some of the cyclists I’d flown by a half hour earlier, so no harm no foul. As the sun went down I rode by a convenience store when I heard my name, and I hooked up with Susan and Lesli from Oregon to ride on into Moffat. Again I was off the bike before midnight, got a shower, dinner and 5 hours sleep. This was too easy. Day 3 6:30 am to 9:30 pm 141 miles Tuesday morning I ate a good breakfast and got on the road about 6:30. Pea soup fog all the way up “the Devil’s Beef Tub” (whatever the hack that is) granny gear climb for an hour. Then a beautiful ride all the way to Edinburgh. Well, almost. A mile or two out I was flying down a steep hill, cars coming up behind me so I’m hugging the shoulder, and ahead I can see potholes and broken pavement. I braked hard and slowed to about 10 mph before riding through it. Coming out the other side I hear this metallic jingle. “Oh spit, that doesn’t sound good.” Sure enough I’ve busted a spoke in my rear wheel. I rode to the control, fixed the broken spoke with my one spare metal spoke, and on I go. 50 miles later, leaving the quaint little village of Eskdalemuir I was riding on ugly rough chipseal when I again heard the metallic jingling sound indicating I’d broken another spoke. Well, all I had for repairs now is this little Kevlar string repair kit called a “fiberfix”. I had never used one before but, an hour’s repair later it had gone on just fine and worked well. Of course for the second time today my rear wheel had to be taken apart and put back together, so I’d spent several unplanned hours on mechanicals. But I was doing fine on time. I just didn’t have any more spoke repair supplies and I was 30 miles from the next control. And if I made it there I still had some 300 miles of rough roads ahead, including the long climb back over Yad Moss. I told myself, “if I can’t get some more spare spokes in Brampton I probably shouldn’t head up over Yad Moss. It’s out in the boondocks, and smaller British cars couldn’t haul your bike if you needed a rescue.” Sure enough, with my 650c wheel size the volunteer bike mechanic didn’t have anything that would fit. With two spoke failures in 50 miles, and knowing how rough the roads were for the next 300 miles, I thought about it and decided that instead of continuing on I’d ride 10 miles into Carlisle and take the train back to London rather than risk getting stranded out in the boonies (google road B6277 between Alston and Barnard Castle). Day 4+ I slept in until about 7am, had breakfast, called and left a message for Susan at the hotel about my wheel situation and train plan. Then I rode 10 miles to the train station in Carlisle. The train to London was a breeze. When I got to the hotel Susan had left a note that she was going to see Shakespeare at the Globe Theatre that evening, and hoped I’d make it to the hotel by the time she returned. Well, it was early enough (mid-afternoon) that I showered, took the Tube downtown, and surprised her at the play. We spent the next couple of days playing tourist in London. Epilogue In retrospect I realize I totally screwed up in my wheel selection. I’ve never had spoke breakage problems before and hence never paid much attention to the issue. My rear wheel was radially spoked; it should have been 3 cross. It had aluminum spoke nipples; it should have had brass. I probably should also carry more than one spare spoke (plus the fiberfix). Oh, and the weather. It was, as they say “variable.” Generally mild and a little muggy. Every day there were intermittent showers. And several times a day nasty thunderstorms would blow through. I’d see ominous black clouds heading my way and in short order the heavens would open up and it would pour on me. For all of about 10 minutes usually. After the first few times I didn’t bother to stop to put my raincoat on. I just figured it was a good “rinse” for all the sweat and road grime I’d collected since my last rinse. The day after I abandoned it got horribly hot – high 90’s but I missed it. (Instead I sweltered in downtown London.) Despite my DNF I had a great ride. I saw most all of the course, rode 850k and met lots of nice folks, especially the tremendous volunteers at the controls. I had never been to UK before and this was a good exposure to it. I’d certainly recommend it. Just make sure you have stout wheels and tires!
Posted on: Thu, 22 Aug 2013 17:19:26 +0000
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