LEL Day 2

Pocklington control dorm - sometime after 4am

"Beep beep beep."

Sod it, I'd failed to get my alarm onto vibrate and had ended up being anti-social despite all best intentions. I scrabbled for the phone, and after an age silenced the intrusive beeping.  Rather embarrassed, I swept up my belongings and crept out of the dorm. The single toilet by the dorm door was predictably unpleasant after such a heavy load of visiting sleepers, but at least there was paper and the floor was reasonably dry.

Stumbling out of the door, somewhat bleary eyed, I made my way back to the control to grab a towel for a shower. The volunteer I met with mentioned something about towel suppliers letting them down - so I took what he offered gratefully without complaint. In the small hours of the morning, the last thing he needed was someone moaning at him. What I returned back to the showers with could at best be described as a large dishcloth, but at least they'd been generous enough to give me three of them.

The showers were at least fairly warm. It felt good to wash the sweat and grime off from the day before, get some fresh contact lenses in and clean my teeth. I was soon heading back to the control for breakfast. I passed Susan and Leslie on the way - their control skills were clearly still more efficient than mine, and they were getting ready to mount up by around 5am, just as the dawn was breaking. I needed sustenance before contemplating riding, and made for the canteen. A couple of bacon rolls and some sweet coffee later and I was also kitting up, and getting ready to start off again on day 2 of my LEL adventure. In my vague pre-ride plan, I'd be aiming for Moffat this evening, but a lot of riding lay ahead before. We were heading into the much hillier northern sections of the route, plus the small matter of legs which had covered my longest ever ride the day before. It was impossible to have any clear idea how far I might get.


Time of departure from Pocklington: 05:30 - just after first light. Plenty of time in hand, my "control close time" for Pock was not for another four hours.

It felt great to be riding through the quiet streets and out of the town in the early morning light. I'd actually planned to start my second day around dawn, and here I was doing just that. For a couple of kilometers I rode alongside a Welsh guy called Di, who was riding a fixed gear bike. I forget the exact nature of our conversation, probably something about how glorious the morning was. I do remember talking with him about choices of gearing for riding LEL on a fixed, but that was later in the morning when our paths crossed again.

The road took a U shaped loop around a pretty little village called Buttercrambe. On the exit of this loop the lanes became very narrow, and strewn with potholes, gravel and mud. I was immediately glad to have ended the previous day at Pocklington. Riding these lanes at night could have been treacherous, risking a fall or damaging a wheel in some unseen hazard. Soon after the poor surfaces came to an end, I found myself at the busy A64 crossing, together with a handful of other rides. Much had been made of the danger of this crossing on the forums in the weeks leading up to the ride, but the reality ended up a lot less fearsome. The traffic was moving fast, but at this hour of the morning the gaps were more than big enough get across safely.

With the A64 negotiated, a stone sign to the left of the road announced a section of the ride I had been greatly looking forward too: The Howardian Hills, an area of outstanding natural beauty (as noted on the sign). Riding through the grounds of Castle Howard in daylight was another good reason not to have pushed on the night before. I recognised the obelisk, it's peak glinting gold at the top of a hill ahead. I knew from visiting this area with my parents that beyond the obelisk the road dipped before rising up a stunning gated drive towards the stately home. The ride through the grounds was wonderful: I noticed the garden center that I'd visited with my Mum the last time we came here; and soon after the trees opened out and to the right were the lake and lawns where Mum, Dad and I had gone to a Jools Holland concert for Mum's 75th birthday.

Prettiness and memories aside, the countryside was living up to the second part of it's name: "hills". The road was now a long succession of short steep uphills, followed by racing descents. Through one dip, the gradient was marked as 17% - 1 in 6 in old money. At the bottom of the descent was a treacherous bend. The mud and gravel covering made it impossible (for me at least) to safely carry enough speed through the dip to make any dent on the equally steep climb out of the other side. I really wasn't in any mood to risk stalling out and failing to uncleat, and decided to give my legs a break and walk the short climb. To be honest, I barely took any more time to reach the top than if I'd spun up in my granny gear. I bumped into Kerri-Anne and Michael again on this stretch. It transpired they had stayed in a B&B close to here the night before, and commented on what a severe start to the morning's ride this was.

The rises and dips continued, including a delightful ride through the lovely village of Coxwold - another place I'd visited often with family. Soon after, the road started a long descent, flanked by a manor house wall and woodland to the right hand side, and open views across farmland and down into valleys on the left hand side. Based on the time,  I judged we were dropping down towards Thirsk, although not being a town I really knew I didn't recognise the scenery leading to it. At some stage, I recall catching the edge of the storm once again, the roads going from just being wet to actually riding along in light rain. By the time we joined the busy A19 for a short stretch, I was already wearing my rain jacket again.

It was a relief to be turning left away from the trucks and the traffic of the busy road, and very soon after swinging onto quiet roads again, the countdown signs began again: control 3km, 2km, 1km, and there it was. Thirsk School, the first control of day 2.


Thirsk- 08:48, distance ridden: 401km

Early signs were promising - a volunteer was posted out front of the school with a friendly welcome as a group of us rode in. Kerri-Anne and Michael were also in the bike park as I pulled up. We all made our way in to the control. The first thing I noticed was an extremely long line for food. Having eating at Pocklington, I wasn't desperately hungry, but I definitely fancied something to eat. Ignoring the queue for now, I turned through the doors to the right of the canteen to get my card stamped at the control. More friendly greetings and a "well done" accompanied the formalities.

As lovely as all the hospitality was, the food line was still there when I returned to the canteen, only now even longer. I really didn't fancy a long wait so early in the morning. Michael was also standing surveying the likely wait, and I commented that a tea room en route seemed a much better plan. I grabbed a coke from the machine for now, to supplement the couple of snack bars I still had left over in my jersey and bar bag, and headed back out to the bike.

To save time, I rode the bike to the water tables and filled up my bottles, topping the front one off with what remained of the can of coke after a couple of quick swigs to get me going for now. Before leaving, I remembered that I hadn't lubed my chain and the gears were still not quite indexing properly. I grabbed the dry lube and some wipes from my bag. I'd loved to have had time to clean it properly, but a quick once over would have to do. Also great would have been a mechanic or a free bike stand to trim the gears - but despite more friendly assistance, I couldn't find either at the control. Repeating the procedure from St Ives, I manually tweaked the barrel adjuster by eye to line up with the cassette cog, rode it twice around the circle, and satisfied it was marginally better, headed out of the control.


Time of departure from Thirsk: 09:07. Top marks for control efficiency, a big fat zero for leaving well fed and with bike serviced.

Just to compound my lack of supplies and not eating at the control, with my concentration to navigate through the town and traffic, I immediately managed to miss the Tesco store in the middle of Thirsk. For a couple of moments I thought about turning back, but riding solo again and with no lock to secure my bike I figured that plenty of water and limited snacks was a better position to be starting the leg, than wandering around swearing because some git had nicked the bike and ended my LEL.

The lanes wound, rose and fell, and my snacks soon dwindled with the exertion. First up was a pack of dried mangos, which were a delicious change from the usual snack bars, all of which were now gone. I was soon scrabbling around in my jersey for a small pack of peanuts, left over from the snacks on the way out of the Kirton control the day earlier. I made a mental note to make sure in future that at all times I had plenty to eat in my bar bag and jersey pockets. I wasn't especially feeling like heading into a tea room, sweaty and grimy as I was, but with no shops in sight it was beginning to look like that was my only option.

My dilemma was answered on an L bend through the next village. Pulled over on a small green patch to the side of the road were Susan and Leslie. They'd stopped to put sun cream on. It seemed like a very sensible idea with the storm clouds gone and sun out in full force, so I swung off the road and joined them. Also stopped with them was a fellow American rider, Vicke, on a rather splendid blue Bacchetta recumbent. We swapped stories about the amazing views that we would have missed  had we ridden on from Pock, and how busy the Thirsk control had been. The girls had stopped at the Tesco that I had missed, and as soon as she heard my woes of food supplies, Susan insisted I took a snack bar from her supplies to keep me going.

We rode as a group along the next section. One stretch of road near Richmond was closed, ironically it had been scheduled for resurfacing because of the ride, but the works were delayed and had yet to re-open. The upshot was that the diversion was onto an even narrower road, but still carried the same weight of traffic, making for some rather nasty incidents of trucks and cars passing close by at speed, with high hedgerows and blind bends ahead. It was rather odd to pass a blue velomobile on that stretch coming the other way. I did a double take at first, surely no one could be on their way back already. But there were no LEL signs evident on the sleek machine, so I presumed it was just someone out for a ride. I later discovered that it was in fact an LEL rider who had abandoned and was on his way back to Thirsk.

Our route passed under the A1M, and the signs northward to Darlington reminded me just how far we had come over the last day and a half. I'd just begun to hear about Vicke's former profession as a rodeo trick horseback rider, when we found ourselves alongside a training ring for horse races. We paused briefly so that the girls could get pictures of the horses training. The villages beyond all seemed to be built on the side of short steep hills, with broad swathes of green either side of the high street and babbling streams running along or across them.

Bouncing along a rough stretch of road through one of these villages, I started hearing an ominous sounding rattle somewhere on the bike. At first I couldn't trace it - there being no apparent synchronisation with my pedaling, or other movement on the bike. And then I noticed the front right mudguard stay was flapping loose. I called across to the girls that I had a minor mechanical, but was fine and they shouldn't wait.

I pulled over and rooted through the saddle bag  for my multi-tool. It was hardly worth the effort, the bolt's thread was stripped and was clearly going to be no more use at holding the stay in place. A childish grin spread over my face, and my next step was to send a gleeful message Yolandi. I was about to fix my first mechanical with a zip tie - the mark of a proper LEL rider. I might only be on day 2, but I was undertaking one of the rites of passage to becoming an official randonneur. I was cursing my packing though, the zip ties were scattered all over the place, and none of the smallest size found my hand as I groped around blindly in the bottom of the bag. In the end I made do with brute force, and simply hauled through a rather too large size with the pliers on my Leatherman.


It was rather a stop for such a simple fix but I was back on my way eventually, riding solo again. Shortly after, I came upon the next treat of the day: the "wooden bridge", made famous as an LEL landmark in Andy Allsop's book Barring Mechanicals. For some reason, I had it in mind that this was on the way up Yad Moss, but clearly I was confused over this part of the route. I stopped to snap a couple of pictures.

From here the road swung left and then right through a hairpin bend to climb sharply up from the river valley. It was a steep climb that had me spinning in my lowest rings up to the little village of Whorton at the top. I was tempted to stop again and send Yoli a picture of the town sign with a "hears a who?" tag line. Shame the spelling wasn't quite deserving of this.

The wind on this last stretch towards Barnard Castle was a tad too harsh for weary legs, and it was a slow grind into the outskirts of the town. A grand house appeared on our right, which the sign indicated was the Bowes Musuem. I later found out that it housed an art collection. Being something of a philistine, it explained why I'd never heard of it.

Barnard Castle was a picturesque and busy market town. It was something of a challenge negotiating the lunchtime traffic - I was eager to get to the control, and weaving through shoppers looking for parking places was both an unwanted and potentially hazardous delay. I'm afraid I rather missed out on the town's loveliness in my haste to get safely to the control out of the other side of the town. Up the last short hill I was passing riders coming back the other way. Clearly the next leg, and the turn towards Yad Moss, was back behind me somewhere.  For now though, that could wait, a left turn at the top of the hill brought the control and food into view. There might as well have been a McDonalds sign outside, I was starving.


Barnard Castle - 13:05, distance ridden: 468km

A day and a half in, and the routine of controls was already becoming automatic: fish out essential items from bar bag; switch off Garmin; shoes off in the entrance; get brevet card stamped at control desk; and then depending on order of needs, food and toilet. In this case, the urgency was to fill the void in my tummy. I forget exactly what I loaded onto my plate, I'm sure pasta was in there somewhere. I do remember vividly the volunteer telling me to try the rice and vegetables, "It's delicious". At least I think it was rice, although now I'm questioning my memory and wondering if it was couscous. Either way the volunteer was right, it was delicious, and along with the rest of the mountain on my plate it vanished faster than if you'd painted it pink and labelled it Somebody Else's Problem.

I was feeling pretty good considering the growing weight of kilometers behind me, and was eager to push on to a brace of LEL treats waiting on the next leg - Yad Moss and the cobbled main street at Alston. So for once I didn't linger, but headed straight out, stopping by the canteen again to scout for snacks for the road. Sadly, all hints of mobile food had been picked bare, but I was told about a Co-Op shop at the BP garage on the way out. I vaguely recalled seeing it on the way in. The water taps at this control were conveniently located under cover, near to the mechanics area, making it quick and easy to fill bottles and pay a visit to get my gears adjusted for the climbs ahead. The mechanics had a long queue of repairs, but were more than happy to let me use a bike stand for a few minutes to tweak the indexing. I'm no expert in this area, but I'm handy enough to get them reasonably well adjusted using the barrel adjusters. After a few shifts up and down the rear cassette, I was comfortable the shifting on both blades was good enough to tackle some hills. A quick wipe of the chain and the job was done.

As I was manouvering myself and bike out of the service area, I witnessed a simply jaw dropping act of generosity, and an enduring memory of LEL and Barnard Castle. One of the other riders had suffered a misfortune that he must have known was almost certainly ride ending: the lugs or welds of his down-tube had broken and it was swinging free, detached from the head-tube. It didn't take a mechanic to tell there was simply no way this was going to be repairable. But it did take a mechanic to solve the problem - one awesome individual mechanic. With barely a hesitation, he looked the chap up and down and said "You look about the same size as me, you can borrow my bike. I can manage without for a few days, just return it to Danial when you get to Louhgton". As if that weren't enough, the mechanic also proceeded to transfer the rider's seatpost, saddle and bags, using zip ties of course to secure the latter to the bike rack. After a few minutes getting the saddle height and ride position properly adjusted, the rider's LEL was back on track. I pedaled out of the control feeling privileged to be part of an event that inspired such acts of kindness.

Time of departure from Barnard Castle: 13:40. Better efficiency thanks to a much quieter control. I must be behind or ahead of everyone else, the latter seemed more likely!

Sure enough, the Co-Op was by the roundabout where I had vaguely recalled seeing it. Despite casting me a faintly disapproving look, a women I took to be the manageress allowed me to prop my bike up inside against the dairy counter whilst I shopped for bottles of coke, bananas, and snack bars. The checkout girl was rather more friendly, almost laughing at the state of me - and presumably the other customers she'd served today. At least that's how I recall it, although in reality she may have just been turning her nose up at the sight and smell of me. On the way out a guy nabbed me, and enquired whether I was "one of those crazy guys riding to Edinburgh". After a brief chat containing various expressions of admiration and incredulity, he hopped into an open topped black MGB and the classic engine sputtered and roared into life. I followed him off the forecourt and started out with anticipation on the next leg.

The first part of the leg was dominated with one thing - Yad Moss, another famous LEL landmark I had been looking forward too since reading Andy's book. Each time the road pitched upward, I wondered if we were starting the climb. But each time, the road rolled downwards again, until we reached another absurdly picturesque town, Middleton-in-Teesdale. My memory jogged by the name, I recalled from the book that once we left the town we'd start out towards High Force, and the slow climb up Yad Moss proper. Despite stuffing my face at Barnard Castle, I was still hungry. I decided to stop for a snack, and sat for a few minutes on a bench enjoying the sunshine and the bustle of life in the pretty town. The black MGB pulled up as I was stuffing my face with banana, snack bar, and swigs of coke. The driver smiled and nodded to me in recognition as he was parking and I was saddling up, to tackle the highest point on the LEL ride.

True to my recollection, a gradual steady climb rose up as we left the town, with the Garmin reading 20Km to the next marker. At this point, I should say mention that there was one distance indicator I hadn't bothered to disable, which was "Distance to Next", showing top right on the map display. Since these were largely random points on each leg and not specific Waypoints I had created, it didn't really affect my use of time to judge the next control. I never really knew what "Next" was at any given time, and so it remained irrelevant to me. This measurement had me intrigued - it was a long way off. It was too close to be the end of the stage, was it the distance to Alston perhaps? That also seemed unlikely. Surely it couldn't be the distance to the top of Yad Moss - all of the climbs back home were shorter than this, and most climbed considerably higher than the 598m we were aiming at. Franschhoek pass must be almost double that, and the climb is only around 7Km.

The road was initially tree lined, the River Tees falling away into the valley on our left as we climbed through a succession of hamlets: Newbiggin; High Force, so named because of an impressive waterfall; Langdon Beck and finally Harwood. At some stage, I think after Langdon Beck, we left the trees behind and rode up onto a stunningly serene and vast expanse of open moorland. We soon passed a very well known sight - the whitewashed barn - which had been photographed and posted on the LEL Facebook page. It suddenly felt strange to actually be here, riding past something that only weeks before I had been looking at and commenting on pictures of. Sheep grazed on the open moor, occasionally darting across the road, sometimes frighteningly close to other riders. The roadside also held a grim indication that not all motorists took heed of the large red Slow Down signposts, as we passed numerous ovine carcasses in varying states of decay along this scenic stretch of road.

The road was never steep, but the climb was almost continual. I was just beginning to work out that the Next marker must actually be the peak of the climb, when I spied the familiar bikes and orange jackets of Susan and Leslie up ahead. I forget whether I caught up with Vicke before or after that, but over the next few hundred meters we all came together as a group again. With our different climbing speeds, we each made our own way to the top of the moor, but were never more than a few hundred meters apart during the rest of the climb. Rather disappointingly, there was no sign or cairn marking the actual top, so we picked the closest marker pole to Next reading 0m, and declared our own summit. We had crested Yad Moss, and both the climb and views had totally lived up to expectations. Despite a fresh breeze, we'd also only had a brief if fairly heavy rain shower to contend with.

As I took out my phone for photographs and to message Yoli, I noticed a worrying sight. The phone battery was very low, and the buffer battery had just a single light blinking indicating a very low state of charge. I'd already noticed the phone was getting low back in Barnard Castle, and had dispensed with running Endomondo. Clearly that had not been enough, and I was still losing charge faster than the dynamo was replacing it. I spun the wheel a few times to check the buffer battery lights showed it was charging - they did, but clearly the amount going in was not enough. This didn't make sense - it had all worked perfectly on preparation rides. The only cause I could think of was that the buffer battery had failed. Whatever the cause, at this rate I'd be unlikely to have enough charge left for a call home that evening. I looked at the long downhill to Alston. It occurred to me that it could well be long enough to charge the phone if I fed it direct from the eWerk voltage converter. The USB voltage was the same as the buffer battery, but I knew from forum accounts that phones did not like the stop/start charging direct from the converter. There was a significant chance I might fry my phone battery. I made a snap decision, the phone was old and I'd been planning replacing it. The risk was worth it for a call home. I sent Yoli a message warning her I might be about to destroy my phone, but would call home if my emergency hack worked.

The buffer battery now removed from the circuit, the bike and I picked up speed as we descended towards Alston. I forget exactly where our group split up again. I was a much slower descender than the girls, and remember saying I'd keep going as they would be bound to catch up with me again. I'd guess they stayed for more photographs or some-such. The run down towards Alston must have been around 15km of wonderful free-wheeling, a perfectly timed break after the climb up. At the entrance to Alston, a sign indicated 14% gradient. Initially this was on tarmac, and then through the centre of the old town it ran onto the famous cobbles. Luckily, my tyre pressures were not especially high, but even so it was jarring on tired elbows. I should probably have been braver and sped through, instead I picked my way down gingerly. In hindsight, I should probably have ridden on the pavement, or better still stopped and joined the other riders sitting under the Market Cross in the middle of the town enjoying ice cream.

I didn't stop though, I rode on. And although I missed out on ice cream, the upside was that I did manage to get that call home. Shortly after the right turn towards Brampton, I pulled to the side of the road and was delighted to see the phone had indeed picked up charge nicely. It was great to hear Yoli's voice, and chat to Ben before bedtime and wish him a good night. There was a telecom engineer parked close to where I had stopped, and once again I had the now familiar "where are you guys going" conversation before setting off again.

Aside from a couple of short climbs immediately after Alston, and a short uphill stretch towards the end, the road to Brampton continued to be predominantly downhill, and fast. It wasn't just fast for those of us riding LEL. It was frighteningly fast for the drivers also using the lane, presumably going home after work judging by the hour. I lost count of the number of times a car flashed past at speeds well above the limit, and braked hard as they came up on a bunch of riders ahead, sometimes passing them on a blind bend without even slowing. I was certain we were going to witness an accident, or worse be involved in one. I thought of Yoli, and Ben, and for the first time since the start the risks of the ride occurred to me and I wondered if they were worth it. As if to confirm my fears, around the next corner was a broken down stone wall festooned in accident tape, with a car on it's roof deep down in the stream bed beyond. Despite the glorious weather and sublime scenery, I wanted this section to be over, safely, soon. Fortunately, our riding speed was such that rush hour ended well before we reached the control, and we had a peaceful road to ourselves again as we climbed up and over the last small climb before Brampton.

In one long downhill rush, I was at the control, just in time for dinner. As well as cycling and scenery, food was starting to dominate my LEL.


Brampton - 18:27, distance ridden: 550km

Parking the bike, I began to wonder about my provisional target for the day at Moffat. Time wise it certainly seemed possible, but I was now rather tired after the hills and really had no idea how tough the riding over the next leg would be. I quizzed the control volunteer who stamped my brevet card, and the canteen volunteers about the terrain to come. Reasonably flat, fast, and not that interesting seemed to be the consensus. That sounded like an almost perfect combination for riding at night, and I resolved to push on after sustenance and a visit to rummage my "northern" drop bag for supplies and treats.

By this stage I had begun to share the "LEL slow sit"  with many of my fellow riders. This basically consists of applying both hands firmly to the side of your chair, and lowering yourself slowly towards the chair seat so as to avoid any hint of impact when tenderised bum meets the hardness of canteen chair. It was like watching a human version of Lunar Lander - too much speed would end in disaster. As if we had exchanged a secret masonic handshake, a smile of recognition spread across the face of the other chap at my table, and riders nearby. I'm sure at least one of us said something along the lines of "remind me why we are doing this to ourselves?"

I simply have no clue what I ate at the control - but I am certain at least some part of it involved pasta. I think the pudding part may have been a chocolate muffin. Whatever it was, it was definitely covered in custard. And, with the next stage being a night time one, I would definitely have enjoyed at least two cups of hot, sweet, coffee. I'm also pretty certain I sat there sated for a few minutes, whilst the food and caffeine worked their way into my system, replacing some of the reserves used climbing over The Pennines.

Leaving the canteen, I visited the vending machine for coke, and a magnificent array of bananas and snacks, many of which got stuffed into my jersey pockets. With my desire to get to Moffat and actually sleep, and my new found interest in control efficiency, I wasted no time on niceties with the drop bag. It's contents were disgorged onto the tarmac next to my bike, and rapidly picked over. The partially depleted Lezyne light battery from the night before was replaced, a clean shirt went on, and clean shorts went into my saddle bag for later. The dirty shirt and the shorts from yesterday went back in the drop bag, sealed into a plastic bag to protect the remaining contents from their rather special odour. Coming rather too close to a strong whiff of Camembert, I realised the socks I was wearing also belonged in the plastic bag, and a fresh pair went on. Saving the best until last, the final order of business was the envelope marked Drop Bag 2 - another wonderful treat reminding me of my support back home.

After returning the drop bag, and filling water bottles (once again one with half coke to keep the night time noddies at bay), I struck out towards Scotland.


Time of departure from Brampton: 19:15. Not too bad at all really.


The volunteers hadn't misled me. The stretch from Brampton to Longtown was largely flat, straight and fast. It wasn't the most scenic stretch we had ridden by a long way, but it was pleasant and  the riding was easy, aside from a couple of close encounters with yet more lunatics in cars. I considered pulling over to the parked police car I was passing to inquire if they wouldn't mind finishing up their donuts and, I don't know, maybe doing something crazy like apprehending speeding motorists and saving a few lives. I decided they might not take the suggestion with the humour it was intended, and so rode on, leaving them to enjoy their peaceful evening picnic.

We joined the A7 briefly to wind through Longtown, and cross the River Esk. I knew from childhood holidays that we were now deep into border country, the Esk rising high on Scottish moors that we would be traversing tomorrow on our return southbound. Sure enough, as we exited the town a road sign to Gretna Green confirmed my instincts - there were no more towns between us and the border. Sure enough a few kilometers later, a large stone post announced our entry into Scotland. It suddenly felt an immense achievement - just yesterday morning I had ridden out from London, and here I was riding into Scotland in the last rays of daylight. On childhood holidays, my father would take two or three days to drive this far. I guess his reason for taking the journey slowly had more to do with the pain of driving long distance with alternately bored, hyperactive, or vomiting kids on the back seat.

I couldn't resist stopping for an obligatory photograph, along with pretty much every LEL rider who passed. In my case, it seemed quite apt that Vicke, having just finished having her photo taken, returned the favour and took mine. Riding off, she commented it was my turn now to photograph the next riders through. I also couldn't resist a message home with the photo, followed by a call. I was feeling on top of the world and going great, and I wanted Yoli to know that so she'd sleep well and not worry about my progress or spirits. I also asked her to post the photo and share it to William - it seemed appropriate I'd reach this milestone in his bike shop jersey.


Not far down the road I caught up with Vicke again, and explained to her the significance of Gretna Green - a border town made famous for runaway marriages in the days when parental permission for marriage was required under the age of 21, and was far from a certainty.  We rode together for a while as evening turned to dusk. We chatted about the vagaries of different Garmin models, the change or architecture since the border, recumbents, and I'm sure a range of other subjects. A significant topic of our conversation though was a fairly severe pain which was starting to spread through my shoulders and neck. Vicke commented that neck injury and pain was something she had battled, and which had prompted her switch to riding a 'bent. She also suggested I avoid staying static in one position too long, and make an effort to turn and look left and right even though at night time there was no real scenery to look at.

As the pain grew, I asked if she minded if I pushed on. My gentlemanly instincts told me I ought to ride along with her, but common sense dictated that with strong legs and a failing neck, I should use the former to power me through this leg and get to the control quickly to lessen the strain on the latter. Vicke was fine with that, and I charged ahead. Although the road occasionally rolled gently upwards, it was mostly flat, and I raced on - pushing my speed harder than I had at any stage of the ride so far. It occurred to me that my legs may complain about the exertion at some point ahead, but for now they obeyed, and the caffeine and adrenaline powered me onwards.

The town of Lockerbie came and went. I can still remember the news footage of the downed Pan Am flight 103. The images seemed totally at odds to the serenity of the peaceful town I was passing through in the dark of the night. Our route followed the path of the A74(M) for the rest of the leg to Moffat, crossing over the busy road repeatedly along the way. I guessed that the road we were on had been the original road before the multi-lane motorway had been built. It had all the hallmarks of being a former main road - wide and largely straight, and a road surface no longer receiving the same level of attention it's stature appeared to deserve. In a few places, it was worse than Alston's cobble stones. At the speed I was now traveling, I had to alternate between looking down the road for bends and other distant hazards, and looking directly in front of my wheels for potholes. At times I rode directly on the white line at the edge of the road, it being the smoothest part. I had the sensation of being a lone time trial rider, blasting my way towards the finish against the clock. It was exhilarating, and nicely diverted attention from the pain in my neck.

I seemed to alternate position with a couple of groups of riders. At times they were ahead of me, at other times I passed them again. Night time riding does funny things to your concentration, and speeds tend to wander in a way they wouldn't during the day with a speedo readout in front of you. Rather surprisingly, just outside Moffat I caught up with Susan and Leslie again. Vicke and I had commented we didn't expect to see them again today, and I hoped it didn't mean they'd had a mechanical. It transpired they hadn't, just a stop in one of the towns we had passed. We rode on together through the town of Moffat and into the control.


Moffat - 23:31, distance ridden: 624km

Over the past two days, I had covered more than double any previous training ride, and tomorrow morning I'd be in Edinburgh. I was stoked with my progress. Even with a few aches and the shoulder and neck pain acquired on the leg just completed, I'd hardly had a low point all ride. For such a mammoth challenge, it was going rather well. I wheeled into the bike park with an immense sense of satisfaction.

No sooner inside than I almost lost my shoes - a near disastrous outcome with more than half the ride ahead. I'd handed them to a volunteer, in the bizarre notion he would remember me and the shoes amidst the hundreds of others. And needless to say, on returning from having my brevet card stamped, I was confronted with a blank stare. What had I been thinking? Luckily, he did remember the last few pairs of shoes he had found niches for, and one of them was mine. I put the numbered ticket handed to me at the control in them - a remarkably ordered system compared to the "dump them somewhere vaguely memorable" approach from previous controls.

After my third or fourth hot meal of the day (I forget exactly how many), I approached the dormitory in the hope that this time there would be space. There was, and after noting down my wakeup time, I was squeaking and shuffling myself comfortable on the blow up mattress. Half a meter to three sides of me were the prostrate carcasses of fellow riders, and their cacophonous snoring and farting. I wondered how an earth I'd get to sleep. I also couldn't get comfortable initially, until I noticed that pretty much every other body was lying straight out. As someone who normally sleeps curled on their side, this did not seem especially likely to be successful, but the relief was almost immediate. Apparently after two days hunched over a handlebar, the chance to stretch out overrides any concept of normal sleeping posture. I was asleep in moments, presumably adding my snores and farts to the chorus around me.


Click here to continue to Day 3

All photos by author.

LEL Day 1

Forest Gate B&B, Bell Common - around 05:00

The beers had helped me sleep, a little, but I'd still woken a couple of times in the night, each time listening to the tropical storm lashing down outside exactly as forecast. I was lying staring up at the ceiling. I had very little to do: throw my cycling gear on; lug the already packed rucksack across the gravel drive to drop it in the garage, fetch my bike, eat some breakfast and cycle 15 minutes to the start. I could easily have stayed in bed another 15 minutes and not even been close to late, but the pre-ride nerves were jumping in my stomach. With enormous reluctance I left the last comfortable bed I would be likely to enjoy for the next five nights, and made a start.


I vaguely remember eating some breakfast, and I'm sure I checked my bike and bags a number of times, the rest is largely a blur though. The nerves had escalated to such an extent that I even managed to ignore Michael saying good morning to me from the door of their room above the garage opposite the main B&B building. If Emmerentia hadn't chided me, we could well have parted on the misunderstanding that I'd deliberately snubbed him, not ideal with the likelihood of our paths crossing on the ride to come.

As the clock ticked around to 5:50am I just had to get on the road. I still had plenty of time, and Emmerentia would have been literally 5 minutes behind me, but I just couldn't wait around any longer. I charged down the lane towards the start, mild panic starting to set in as my watch approached 6am. How strict were they going to be on need to be there 15 minutes ahead of our start time, which was rapidly approaching? Luckily the side gate to Davenant School was still open, and after stopping just before it at totally the wrong gate, I found the correct entrance and avoided the detour loop around the housing estate. Needless to say, I was there in plenty of time, my 06:15 start group were only half assembled.

I'd just had time to visit registration and learn that we didn't actually need to have our brevet cards stamped on the way out, when Emmerentia also arrived. Her cousin had arrived to see her off, and hadn't even finished asking me if I knew where she was before she pulled up to where we were standing. He'd clearly spotted my South Africa cycling jersey, and figured I might know her. By now my start group were assembled and looking ready to go, but I was all over the place. My bike and kit were ready, but I just wasn't. I quickly asked the marshals if I could drop back to 6:30am and start with Emmerentia. Starting the ride with a friend seemed exactly what I needed to calm my nerves and work me into the ride. I was told it was no problem, as long as I didn't mind effectively losing 15 minutes before I'd even started. To be honest, it hardly seemed to matter - riding with Emmerentia, a significantly faster rider than me, we'd make that back over the opening stage anyhow.

After a last sip of coffee from her cousin's flask, Emmerentia and I rolled off to the start. I'd parked my bike right under a bird's roost, and now had a copious dollop of bird crap sprayed over my Garmin and bar bag. Remembering that it's supposed to be lucky to have a bird anoint your hat, I took this as a good omen - a white dove had sent me on my way with a small blessing on my navigation and luggage. I did wipe it off though - the next few days would be tough enough without a bout of bird flu. I messaged Yoli with something along the lines of "here we go", and started Endomondo so that the live tracking feature would let her follow my progress.

All of a sudden things became much more familiar - we were funneling into a start chute system, much like any other bike ride. At the entrance to this, two girls noted down the rider numbers from our frames. I was told I could head off immediately, since my start group had already gone - and there was a look of some surprise when I explained I was going to drop back and start in group D with Emmerentia. I knew I'd kick myself if I missed my finish time by the 15 minute margin I had already given up, but it seemed so remote and unlikely I waved the thought from my mind. As we pushed bikes to the front of the D chute, a video camera appeared in my face, and a voice said something like "you must be Rob Walker, I'm Exit Stage Left" (his user name from the YACF forums - ESL for short, real name Damon). I forget exactly what words I spoke into the lens, but I do seem to recall ESL also commenting about my decision to start in a later group, and also that my accent sounded more British than South African. As he moved on to film other riders, the marshals opened our start chute, and waved us through to begin our ride. This was it, the months of dreaming about LEL were over, it was finally here, the clock had started and we were on our way. In no more than 116 hours we would need to be back at this same spot, or be logged as a DNF. That was not a prospect I wanted to dwell on.

Loughton - 06:30, distance ridden: 0Km

We hadn't even reached the front gates of the school before I heard something rattle onto the tarmac behind me, and voices from the riders behind calling out that I had dropped something. Emmerentia's cousin sprinted up carrying my lock, which had bounced off as we crossed the kerb onto the school drive. I started to fiddle with putting it back in place, and then realized it was just going to become an annoyance and eventually get lost. I handed it back to him, muttered something about him scoring it off me, swung around and pedaled quickly up to where Emmerentia was waiting so we could get our ride underway properly. I'm not sure how I figured a lock with no keys would be of use to him, but LEL was waiting and it was time to get riding.

The route went back past our B&B at Bell Common, before swinging right into Epping high street, and soon after turning off left somewhere before we reached the centre of town and the restaurant we'd eaten at the night before. From here on in, we were into uncharted territory - albeit I was sure I would recognize some parts of the route from living and traveling around the UK. Over those early kilometers we saw a good cross section of the weird and wonderful machines taking part: recumbents, with their riders casually laid back as if pedaling from a sofa; fully enclosed velomobiles rumbling noisily along, sometimes at great speed on the descents, their drivers keen for the slightest breeze wafting through their sweaty fiberglass boxes. Even some of the bicycles didn't exactly seem suited to such a ride: small wheeled, folding Bromptons; and later on we'd encounter at least a couple of tricycles. Oddest of all though were three riders on EliptoGo machines - basically a gym stepping machine with gears and wheels. We passed them stopped on a hill no more than 20 or 30km from the start, and Emmerentia and I commented on how brave they were - and how tough it would be to complete the full 1,400 kilometers standing up with no saddle to sit on. Stopped by the side of the road already with some issue or other, it seemed improbable they would make it all. Their brave endeavour made my challenge seem positively ordinary.

A lot of the lanes we were now traveling were fairly narrow, and traffic often passed quite close. It seemed we both felt more comfortable safely out of the way of any incidents by leading the head of our small bunch, and we sat there comfortably pacing along through a steady succession of left and right turns, as we wove through small villages and towns. Emmerentia mentioned she was starting to feel nervous about not having a GPS, with the route involving so much navigation and little in the way of signage. For now though, my GPS seemed to be keeping us on track perfectly.

At 99km, this leg of the ride was the longest. Even without a mild dehydration from the beer the night before, I knew it would be a struggle for me to make that distance on two bidons of water with the heat forecast for the day. So I was fairly sure we'd need a mid way stop at a shop or petrol station to top up. For now though, we were motoring nicely, pushed along by a friendly tailwind which at time saw our speed up around the 30Km/h mark without really requiring any effort. With typical sod's law, I emptied the last bottle just after we'd passed one of the few shops so far on the ride, in an insanely picturesque village which I seem to recall was Barrington. I was left hot and parched for a few kilometers. We stumbled across a campsite attached to a mini-golf course. The latter seemed rather closed down - no signs of a clubhouse, shop, or fridge full of nice cold drinks. At least being a campsite though, it had drinking water and toilets, both very welcome by this stage.

Just prior to the campsite stop one of the "trains" of faster riders had blasted by us, accompanied by a resonant bass drone from their deep section wheels. Once again I was amazed by how lightly equipped some of the bikes were. These riders were on light carbon race machines, and none of them had more than a tiny under seat bag for spares or supplies. At least a couple of them only had a single bidon. They had to be one of the groups with a support crew following, or else extremely confident. For a short distance they broke up our group. Emmerentia stuck with them for a few corners, as did the two German guys we'd been riding along with since pretty much the start. I was beginning to blow a bit, and there was no way I wanted to try and stick with a fast pace so early on. So I'd already dropped off, and soon after Emmerentia fell back to stay with me.

And here I'm afraid, my recollections of that first leg start to get patchy. I remember Emmerentia and I rode together for the rest of the leg, but aside from that only a couple of little details come back to me. Somewhere we went down a descent called Chapel Hill, and through a lovely little village with a shop on the corner. In fact, I think this was before the campsite stop because I remember looking at the shop wondering if they had water, but it looked still closed at this hour on a Sunday. We also crossed over the London to Cambridge bike ride along the way too, although being an early group all we saw were the marshals and none of the riders. I read some of the later guys enjoyed hearing the marshals calling out "Edinburgh riders go left, Cambridge riders stay right". What must those folks on their fun ride have thought of this bunch of mad cyclists riding to Edinburgh. I'm sad to have missed out on that potentially wonderful bit of humour.

One other view I vaguely remember from the early section of the ride is looking out at beautiful old buildings either side of water - I remember commenting that it looked like a mini Bruges. I think this may have been on the approach to St Ives, which is built on the banks of the River Ouse, although I could also have confused this with Spalding on the next leg, which is also built around waterways.

Apart from crossing a few trunk roads, for most of the first leg we had been riding relatively quiet lanes. As we reached St Ives though, we turned onto busier roads on the outskirts of town. We wound around the town a fair bit, until finally the Garmin track started showing the waypoint flag marking our destination. We turned left into a housing estate, and at the top of a gentle rise was St Ivo School - not only the first control of LEL, but my first ever Audax control.

St Ives - 10:35, distance ridden: 99km

As we dismounted, I recovered the brevet card from my bar bag. It was exciting to be about to receive my first ever control stamp. There was no queue, and it was all done rather quickly, a smile and a cheery greeting, and we moved on to scout for food. I may have missed it, but I didn't spot any hot food - it was probably there, but for now a couple of cheese and tomato sandwiches, some snacks, juice, and a cup of sweet tea actually seemed to fit my appetite. At this stage, the experienced audaxer in Emmerentia showed through. I had barely sat down to eat, whilst she was already finished and keen to get going again. I've read many times about efficiency at controls, and clearly this was something Emmerentia had learned, and I had yet to master. Our very different riding speeds were starting to show on the approach to St Ives too - and it was clear this was a perfect natural break where we should start to ride at our own pace. Emmerentia double checked I was OK with this, which I certainly was - I'd never really expected us to ride together at all, so it had been an unexpected pleasure to travel the whole of the first leg together. The German guys we had ridden with were getting up to leave, and Emmerentia grabbed her chance - asking if it would be OK for her to ride with them. It was a good choice, they rode a similar pace, and at least one of them had a GPS for navigation. We bade farewell, and set about our own individual LEL adventures.

Mine started by relaxing in the canteen - I knew it wasn't good form to linger at controls, but I was enjoying the break and some time to update Yoli on my progress. Eventually I hauled myself up, grabbed a banana and some snacks for my jersey pockets, and headed back to my bike to top up the water bottles. Having trained the last few months without energy drinks, I had a simple plan for hydration: one bottle plain water; the other alternating between Rehidrat Sport and High Five zero tabs. Both of these being basically just electrolytes, although the Rehidrat has a very small amount of sugars in it too.

I also quickly visited the mechanic, who did a crude on the spot adjustment to my rear shifter indexing - it hadn't been changing cleanly on the way up from Loughton, despite having been perfect the previous day. My guess was it must have got knocked somewhere, perhaps when parked for registration or at the B&B. I switched the Garmin back on, selected N2 on the menu of tracks, and mounted up. I did a couple of test loops of the circle at the school entrance, stopping for a minor additional tweak. Satisfied the shifting was serviceable, I rode out to start my second ever leg of an Audax ride.

Time of departure from St Ives: 11:02.

The second leg to Kirton was slightly shorter at 81km. Being almost dead flat across the Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire fens, and with a tailwind, it looked likely that we would continue to make good time. There was, however, the rather worrying thought that we might have to battle back along these same lines into a headwind, and with 1,200km in our legs. Unfortunately that was exactly what the current weather forecast was predicting. Whilst the terrain may be flat, it would be merciless in a strong headwind. There would be nowhere to hide. By this stage I was riding solo - and enjoying the freedom of making my own pace. When I'd left St Ives control I couldn't shake the feeling that I had left something behind. I realised as I pedaled my way into this leg what that something was - I was riding lighter and feeling easier. I had literally left a behind a weight that had been on my shoulders - the pressure of trying to ride at someone else's pace. I know Emmerentia will understand that feeling and hopefully not take offence. It had been great to ride together, but there's nothing tougher than riding above or below your own natural pace for any distance. I could now plod along at my own steady pace without fear of holding anyone back.

I may have been riding at my own speed, but it was pleasing to see that it was still way ahead of any average speeds I had been basing my calculations on. I wasn't pushing myself either - I could easily chat with a number of groups of riders when we joined up for short stretches along the way. A procession of Fenland towns came and went: Ramsey St Mary's; Whittlesey; Thorney. A few of the names seemed familiar, perhaps from holidays with my parents. Shortly after Thorney, a large building loomed up from the surrounding flatness. It wasn't immediately obvious what it was - logic said it was an old church, but from the angle we were approaching it looked like a giant masonic spaceship. As we approached the town of Crowland, the angles sorted themselves out and it was clear it was the ruins of what a signpost announced as
Crowland Abbey. I briefly tried to find a photogenic view of it from our road, but it was partly obscured. In the middle of the town were the ruins of a beautiful old bridge, and this time I did manage to snap a quick picture.

My sightseeing had split me from the guy I had been riding with, so I pedaled slowly through and out of the other side of the pretty little town. The road crossed a narrow bridge, and a sharp right turn after the bridge deposited us into Holland. We were now riding a very narrow road along the banks of a dike. I guess "navigation" would probably be the more correct word, since the waterway was actually a man made channel for the River Welland. It was simply lovely, although the road was so narrow that cars had to drive on the grass verge to pass us. Luckily the cars were few, making it easy to enjoy the serenity of the setting - ducks, geese and swans on the water, and an occasional barge chugging along.

The wind continued to push us along, at times even meandering along solo I think my Sigma was reading over 30Km/h. And that was without raising my effort levels into anything close to the red zone. The banks of the Welland swung away to the right, and our route carried on straight into the town of Spalding. We were still in Holland, only this time it was Amsterdam with a canal for a main street. Or maybe it was more like those Cotswold villages with streams through the middle of the town: Bibury; Bourton on the Water; or one of the Slaughters. Whichever it was, it was very quaint.

There is not much I remember in detail about the stretch from Spalding to the approach of the next control. Not that the rest of the leg wasn't pretty - I recall green lanes along field side dikes, and greeting the occasional person out cutting their lawn or walking their dog. But no real features stood out to me compared to the previous stretches. It was fast and easy riding though, and the control came up in no time: Middlecott Schoool in Kirton. My second ever audax control - not quite the same level excitement as St Ives, but still a milestone to be savoured.

Kirton - 14:23, distance ridden: 180km

If my control efficiency had been lacking at St Ives, I was now positively dithering. There was quite a queue for tea and food as well, slowing things down even more. A wonderfully friendly volunteer actually went and refilled our cups of tea whilst we were in the food line, the first cup having disappeared without trace. Despite loading my tray with a hot main course, and pudding with custard, I didn't feel hungry at all. I knew this was a very bad sign for an audax rider, and something which I simply had to overcome. With no energy drinks in my bottles, the food in front of me was the only fuel I would have to meet my energy needs. Luckily, Yoli back home knew the importance of this too, and continued her encouraging text messages of "Eat, Eat, Eat" on my phone. I took a couple of small bites, and washed it down with some blackcurrent juice. It didn't help that the school hall was hot as well. I quickly shed my UV arm protectors, and at the same time someone opened a door and a lovely breeze wafted in. My mood and appetite started to pick up.

What happened next, as I attacked my plate with a renewed interest, was truly surreal - the sound of Dancing Queen wafted over us from the stage . A school hall on a Sunday afternoon, filled with cyclists sweaty from the first 180km of a colossal ride, stuffing their faces with lashings of food, were now being treated to the brass band's ABBA set. It worked though. It made me smile, and then laugh out loud, and then turn to the riders seated near me and check this was really happening. Before long, the whole table was laughing, and we were all taking pictures, and messaging back home. Being efficient at controls might be important, but this was priceless, and the boost to my spirits was worth way more than the extra minutes I'd spent there. I think Yoli enjoyed the moment back home too - a brief if somewhat bizarre experience to connect her with my ride.

Finishing up, I located my shoes in the piles outside the school hall, and headed outside. A quick check over the bike, and bottles filled, I struggled for a moment to find get a cell signal so I could let Yoli know I was on my way again. The Garmin sprang back into life, and my third ever Audax leg began. I could feel the steady routine of riding, controls, and eating slowly working it's way into my psyche.






Time of departure from Kirton: 15:25. Control efficiency getting worse, enjoyment factor growing.

My memories of the leg to Market Rasen are very sketchy. I remember chatting with another rider about possible sleep strategies. It looked like the next control was going to be way too early for a proper sleep stop, but Pocklington was another 90km beyond that control. One possibility was a short sleep stop, and then push on. Another option might be a Travelodge or B&B. Happening to pass one seemed quite unlikely, although on one of the long straight Fenland roads we did ride past just such a low cost, no frills hotel. I was getting ahead of myself though - a golden rule of audaxing is don't think beyond the next control, so I refocused my mind on the leg at hand.

The wind continued to blow, mostly from behind, but occasionally from the left as the roads swung slightly westward, tracing our arcing path up the country. On the early stretches of the leg, we traveled a long straight section of road following the line of the River Witham a couple of fields away to our right hand side. At the end of this straight the road and river met, and we were in Holland again, once more riding along the banks of a dike, barges motoring along the waterway beside us. A tranquil scene which would have made a perfect backdrop for a relaxing summer holiday, if only we'd had the time to stop and enjoy it.

Riding along the river, we had started to catch up the remnants of the storm clouds from the night before. Left, right and ahead were small patches of darkened sky, a few of which showed tell tale blurs of rain sheeting down from them. It seemed inevitable that we would collide with one of these showers before long and get our first LEL drenching. The road swung left away from the river and then back right, onto a main road for a brief stretch to cross back over the river. As it did so, as if by magic a garage forecourt appeared over the bridge. With the first drops of rain falling, I pulled under it, joining half a dozen or so other riders who had also decided to take shelter. The little shop beckoned, so I tucked in to a bag of cheese biscuits and topped my front water bottle up with coke as the shower blew over. Noticing the time, I made a quick call home - I wanted to make sure I spoke to Yoli and our young son Ben before his bed time, which would probably be past when I reached the next control. It was wonderful to hear his and Yoli's encouraging voices on the end of the phone, even for just a few brief minutes. They were rooting for me to keep going. It's not that I hadn't been enjoying myself up to this stage, but something had been missing - maybe a mild hangover from the beers, or just early ride nerves. Either way, the call home and the caffeine in the coke perked me up and I was eager to be riding again.

Mounting up, we pushed on - through Woodhall Spa, and the lanes afterwards gradually became more winding, with slight gradients. We were starting to leave the flatness of the fens behind us. I wondered if we would be heading towards the Linconshire Wolds. I remembered my father talking about them being on the south eastern border of Yorkshire, which was definitely the next county we would be entering somewhere after the next control.

Whilst riding, I had been keeping all distance indicators switched off on my GPS and Sigma bike computer. Instead, I had adopted a routine of making a rough estimate of my arrival time at the next control based on distance and expected average speed. Having done this, I tried to forget about distance and just enjoy the scenery and riding for the rest of the leg. So far it had worked superbly, giving me a remarkably accurate idea of when to expect the next control, but at the same time keeping my mind off how far we were riding. So it was very welcome, but not exactly surprising when the signboards started to count down our arrival: 3Km, 2Km, 1Km, and we were there. Market Rasen - my third ever Audax control, and a perfect time to stop for dinner.

Market Rasen - 18:37, distance ridden: 246km

The debate from earlier was answered even before I'd dismounted and headed in to get my brevet card stamped. Not only was it way too early to be considering a sleep stop, but I wasn't even remotely tired. So, I followed another of the golden rules of audaxing - I wasn't riding or sleeping, which meant I should be eating. I headed to the canteen line, and loaded my tray with roast dinner and pudding with custard. Despite having a similarly large hot meal three hours ago, I was starving. At the drinks station, I opted for coffee and sugar. The next leg would see us riding into the dark, so it seemed sensible to go with the caffeine option.

"Eat eat eat" read the text from Yoli, which as luck would have it was exactly what I was doing at the time the message came in. A second cup of sweet coffee was needed to help the wonderfully stodgy pudding down though. With 3 legs down it struck  me that I was now close to the distance of my longest preparation ride. The next leg would see me head off into unknown territory fitness wise.

Fully fed, I sought out the drop bag room. So early in the ride, it was quiet. In truth, most of my bag contents were spares or contingencies more likely to be needed on the the journey home. On the way back from the drop bag room, I was accosted by two girls who had spotted my South Africa flag jersey. It was Gillian and Michelle, who excitedly introduced themselves and diverted me to a table to where the other SA riders were sitting. It was great to meet them, and there were clearly no hard feelings from my failing to meet up with them the day before. It was also an amazingly fortunate piece of timing - in a few more minutes my jersey would have been changed, and I would be a much more anonymous and hard to spot figure.

Greetings and summaries exchanged on our rides so far, I made my excuses and headed for a quiet corner to root around in the drop bag. First on the agenda were the practicalities of a clean shirt and shorts. The shirt could go on now, but the shorts would just about cram into my saddle pack with the space left by removing the leg and arm warmers. I'd been cautioned about the dangers of riding a second day in the same shorts - sweat turns to chaffing salt crystals, a lethal combination on a saddle sore backside. Also, there was a chance of rain on the next leg, and sleeping in wet shorts really did not appeal. The top I could deal with, since I had a thermal vest in the saddle pack that would do for sleeping in if needed.

The second, and infinitely more interesting item buried in the drop bag was an envelope from Yoli marked Drop Bag 1. I was excited to see what delight lurked inside. The envelope contained a card with a stack of mice holding a TA-DAAAH sign, and inside were words to congratulate me on finishing my first day (and a note that Ben had chosen the card). The message may have been a little early, but I had at some stage debated sleeping here, so the confusion was understandable. It was a precious and motivating message from home either way, and in around 90km the words would be true hopefully. I called Yoli to thank her for the card and let her know I'd soon be on way to Pocklington.


I returned the drop bag for the southward journey through here, refitted my saddle bag, topped up my bottles, sparked up the Garmin and headed out for my fourth ever audax stage, and the last of today.


Time of departure from Market Rasen: 19:53. Seriously, an hour and sixteen minutes? If my control efficiency got any worse that fifteen minutes late starting wouldn't matter because I'd need an extra week to get around!

During the early part of the leg, we wound through a town - I think it may even have been Market Rasen as we set off. I heard a "Not another Rob!" comment from a group of riders alongside me. I forget the exact exchange, but it was along the lines that they'd already got one of those and he was grumpy enough. It transpired that he was a Robin rather than a Robert, and he was riding with his daughter Georgina. I'd often wondered if Ben and I had a cycling adventure at some stage in our future, and the thought came back to me now.

The roads were wet and we were splashing through puddles as the lanes wound onwards. The showers had clearly continued to fall whilst I was at the control. The smell of damp woodland enveloped us as we rode through a tunnel of trees. It was magical. The terrain continued to become more rolling, every now and then the road became steep enough to push me down onto the small blade and granny rings. With each rise, the shadows grew longer as the fields each side of the road became bathed in the deep orange glow of the evening sun.

A little before dusk we caught up with two American riders, with "Oregon" written on their jerseys. After introducing myself, one of the girls told me her name was Susan.

"Wait, you're not Susan Otcenas are you?"  I asked, a little amazed. It turned out she was. We'd swapped a number of Facebook messages over the preceding months. I knew from reading her entries that Susan was a seasoned randonneur, as it turned out was her riding companion Leslie. It was great to meet up and ride with someone I'd bantered with online. We chatted and swapped stories about our riding, our bikes, some of the routes we rode back home. At some stage, I shared my guilty secret - that despite some decent training, at that very moment I was now officially on my longest ever ride, and heading towards my first ever imperial double century.  I'm not sure if they were surprised or shocked, but I suspect somewhere inside they must have wondered if I would have the legs to finish this ride. Somewhere deep inside, I wondered if I would have the legs to finish this ride.

As we rode along we were joined by a recumbent rider. I think his name was Graham, although I confess in the excitement of the day I may have got that wrong. Emmerentia and I had actually ridden with him right at the start of the day too (at that stage he gave me his YACF name, gone from memory now). Just ahead, occasionally obscured by hills or trees, were three sets of red lights in the sky. One of these was clearly a pylon or mast on the distant horizon. It took me a moment or two to figure out the first two sets though. And then it came to me, we were closing in on the Humber Bridge. My heart jumped, and I immediately mentioned it to Susan and Leslie. Graham confirmed it, the bridge was just a couple of kilometers ahead. I was excited - crossing the bridge in the last of the daylight would be magical, and it also meant we were already almost half way to Pocklington. 

The residential streets leading to the bridge were quiet, but on the side lane leading to the bridge we had a small greeting committee of volunteers directing us up onto the east cycle path of the bridge. The moment was too cool to waste, and we all stopped to grab a photo.

Graham had said something about there being a big climb the other side of the bridge, an option being to risk a possibly busy bypass to avoid it. Not really being sure of this, Susan, Leslie and I stuck to the official track, which wound back on itself under the bridge and through a sort of bridge-side park. It was dark and deserted, and faintly eerie. Oddly, I don't think we ever found the steep climb which Graham had mentioned, and we didn't see Graham for the rest of the leg either - we held back for a while, but eventually presumed he had taken his bypass option.

After a few kilometers of suburbs we headed out onto country lanes again, only this time it was fully dark. I'd lit my dynamo powered front and rear lights quite a bit earlier, and at some stage just before the bridge I had powered up the Lezyne front light too. Both came into their own now, and together with the lights from Susan and Leslie's bikes the road was positively floodlit. None of us had problems making out the road ahead, which was very good news since at times it became a risky mix of potholes, gravel, puddles and mud. Using brakes or carrying too much speed through any one of those sections could have easily ended in a nasty fall.

Villages came and went, each progressively quieter than the last as evening turned to night time. Pubs closed and people retired to their homes. The lanes rose and fell progressively as we pushed into Yorkshire and our destination ahead. I was enjoying my first night time audax riding.

"Pffftt ... darn it"

I was close enough to hear the air leak out as Susan's tire punctured. Dumb luck, we were less than 10km from the control. Another American rider, I think his name was Jonathan from California, was stopped at that very spot, I think also dealing with a puncture, or perhaps just having a snack break. It seemed all the debris on the road must have hidden some glass or other puncture inducing sharps. Susan insisted I push on to the control. I checked several times before doing so - it felt wrong to be leaving them at this stage, but Jonathan was already setting about helping change the tube.


Pocklington - 00:17, distance ridden: 336km

Very soon afterwards I was at the control getting my brevet card stamped, and once again filling my tray with food. Jonathan must have been quick because I'd barely lifted a fork before I saw Susan and Leslie also sitting down to eat. The board for beds was in the middle of the canteen, and the situation did not look optimistic. Some riders were already sleeping on the floor of the canteen. There didn't seem much point worrying, so I went and got a couple of glasses of milk, and washed an Ibruprofen down with them. I wasn't in any huge amount of pain anywhere, but I knew tomorrow would be a different story and anything to help keep inflammation down was worthwhile.

Even though it was past midnight, I'd already messaged Yoli when I'd arrived. I took out my phone again, closed down Endomondo and recorded a few highlights in the notes for the ride. It was nice to think they would be automatically posted to Facebook, keeping friends and club mates back home updated with how I was doing. And I was doing great. I sat in the canteen for a few minutes with a stupidly smug expression on my face. I had a few aches sure, but nothing significantly worse than my preparation rides. I'd completed my first day of LEL, ridden my furthest ride ever, and made it to the control I had been aiming at despite some serious concerns about the distance from the last control. Time for bed.

Bed as it happened, was a blanket on a wooden floor and my rolled up rain jacket for a pillow. No mattress, as all of those were booked. I was disorganised - I'd brought way too much stuff into the dorm, and it was scattered all around my sleeping space. There was a serious risk of me not gathering up some essential item the morning after, so I tried to rationalise where things were stashed, the two main locations ending up being my helmet, and the back pocket of my jacket. I would definitely need to refine this process at the next sleep stop.  There was no wake up system, so I set an alarm on my phone. I realised how anti-social this would be, and so set the phone to silent assuming this would also include the alarm. With that I tried to sleep. It took a lot of tossing and turning until it suddenly dawned on me that the most comfortable position was with all my sore parts directly on the floor. The pressure seemed to almost have a massaging effect, and despite being on a hard and bare wooden floor, I surprised myself by drifting off to sleep.


Click here to continue to Day 2

All photos by author.

LEL - DIY Pre-Prologue

Mansell Street, E1 - Saturday AM - the calm before the storm!

Predictably, the excitement of LEL being almost here meant I woke ages before my alarm, and was checked out of my apartment and in our company's office at least a couple of hours earlier than planned. The bike was still there, which was a good start - I'd assembled and test ridden it earlier in the week, and aside from a minor mistake mounting the mudguards, all seemed well. Despite the office being alarmed and having a heavy steel door, I couldn't shake the idea that maybe it might get stolen and my ride would be over before it started. Of course the bike wasn't stolen, and a far more mundane but significant problem plagued my preparations - the backpack when filled with the kit for my drop bags, and overnight items for the B&B felt way too heavy to cycle with. I unpacked and repacked it several times, each time pairing down the contents. Finally having ascertained that the few removed items made little real difference, I stuffed everything back in, hitched it on to my back, made one last check over bags and fittings, and wheeled Jolly out of the office.

Climbing the stairs it was impossible not to notice the gleaming new red headset cap that Yoli had had custom made for me. It had been a wonderful surprise sitting on my desk when I'd arrived a few days earlier, and was the start of a theme that would run through my whole LEL: the silent, unceasing support from family and friends back home, willing me to succeed in my big adventure. An adventure that, having been months in the planning, was now just hours away from beginning. Even though I was alone, I could feel them all with me.

In the few meters from the front door to across the street, I nearly over balanced several times - and that was just pushing the bike. I was beginning to think I should ride or walk the bike up to Liverpool Street Station and get the train to Chigwell, not far from LEL registration at Davenant School, Loughton. I resolved to at least try and ride to the top of the street and see how it went. Another problem surfaced immediately. The last minute decision to add a lock would need a revised location. In it's current place wrapped around my seatpost it banged against the back of my legs on each of the first few pedal strokes. I unwound it and stuffed it under the webbing of my seatpost bag, giving it a few prods. Satisfied that it seemed secure, I set off again - safely in the shelter of a bus lane and able to wobble without fear of cars.

The wobbling died down surprisingly quickly, and whilst the backpack was heavy and uncomfortable, it didn't seem to be affecting my bike handling to any significant degree. Reaching the junction at the top of Mansell Street, I made my decision, swung right onto Whitechapel High Street, and headed out towards registration by bike, as planned. Tomorrow, the proper LEL Prologue would follow this same route, so I had the double advantage of following a ready made route on the Garmin, and also refreshing my skills at riding whilst following a GPS track on the little screen mounted on my handlebar extender. The morning was already a little hot to be riding with such heavy kit, but at least the traffic was relatively light and well mannered. I made quick progress, and soon rode past my dad's alma mater, Queen Mary College. A poignant reminder of both him, and his cycling stories which inspired me as I built up to riding longer and longer distances. It was getting crowded on the bike with so many people along for the ride - at least it would help share the effort of the hundreds of thousands of pedal strokes to come.

Before long I was passing through Stratford and past the Olympic Stadium. The previous evening I'd looked out this way. The stadium, floodlit under a stormy sky, had been hosting an athletics meet celebrating the anniversary of the Olympics. For now, the clouds had gone, but the forecast was that they would return later bringing heavy rain. I pedaled on determined to get there, complete registration, and be at the B&B before the storm broke. The remainder of the ride was largely uneventful: a moment's lapse of attention sent me into Tesco's car park somewhere near Leytonstone; navigating a frightening roundabout at the North Circular junction near South Woodford. With those safely out of the way, I was soon in Loughton dodging buses and taxis on the last of the suburban streets to the school. For some crazy reason I was wondering about how it would be to ride back to the office on the following Friday with work day traffic - I seemed to have blocked out the small matter of 1,418km that needed to be ridden before then.

Registration was a multi-step smorgas board which took me some moments to figure out. First up, we wound our way to a hall at the back of the school to collect our registration bags and be logged in as having registered. In the bags were our brevet cards, tags for drop bags, bike number plate, water bottle, ear plugs, and some other paraphernalia which escapes me now.

The bag-drop process was also two step - collecting empty bags on one side of a tent outside the school, and returning them filled on the other. I took my bags - yellow for Market Rasen, turquoise for Brampton - and deposited myself and back pack on the end of one of the tables in the canteen. Slowly and deliberately, I shifted the contents of the already packed carrier bags from the backpack into each drop bag, checking them a few times in the process. I'd already lightened my saddle bag load by taking out leg and arm warmers and putting them in the northern drop bag, Brampton. The weather forecast really did not make it look like I would need either of them, and so I felt reasonably comfortable with this - especially as I also had some new Adidas UV arm protectors which seemed to be managing a magical trick of cooling in the sun, and warming in the shade. After an obligatory recheck of each bag, I lugged them to the return side of the tent. I was praying that the volunteers wouldn't weigh them as they felt somewhat borderline for the weight limit. It was hard to ignore the scales on the bag drop table, but the volunteers seemed happy with the feel of the bags, happily avoiding any inspection of their exact mass.

The last tent to be visited was to collect the LEL jersey which I had ordered. I'd already decided that wearing it during the event was just asking to jinx my ride, so it would go in the backpack as a souvenir of my participation. I had mixed feelings though as to whether I would want to wear it if I didn't finish the ride. That problem could wait for later though. For now, with all the administration done, I decided that the rain was still sufficiently distant to allow me time for a quick raid on the canteen before making for the B&B. Opting for sweet tea, and ham baguettes, I sat and quietly munched away, savoring the busy atmosphere of the canteen. All around, other riders were chatting excitedly, eating with friends and family, stuffing their drop bags, and a steady stream of new arrivals were wandering in to start their registration process. It seemed a little surreal - the months of preparation were done. I was here, at LEL, and before long we would all be back again, kitted out and ready to start our ride.

The ride to the B&B was lovely - leafy lanes, a couple of short sharp climbs, and in no time I was at Bell Common and the Forest Gate pub came into view. Jane spotted me before I'd dismounted, and had me organized and checked in quickly. Emmerentia's bike was propped up outside too - she'd had several trips to registration already, rather more than planned due to a lost room key. The B&B was perfect, exactly what I'd hoped for, having two essential attributes: clean comfortable rooms with nice beds; and a location just minutes from the start. Feeling very smug with my choice, I parked my bike in the safety of the garage, and went to the pub for a beer. Two beers in fact, as I was joined by Emmerentia.

I must confess to feeling slightly selfish sitting at the pub . By getting to the B&B early to avoid the rain, I had missed out on meeting Phil Whitehurst for a beer or two, albeit I hadn't actually got any details of which pub they were meeting at, or Phil's phone number. We had swapped many messages on YACF and Facebook regarding various aspects of our preparation. Phil's advice had been particularly helpful in learning to use my GPS effectively. Whilst sinking my beer, I also got an SMS from Gillian and Michelle, two fellow riders from South Africa who were at registration looking to connect with with the rest of our group. It wasn't the best of starts to the social side of LEL and I resolved to  make more of an effort from this point on.

Beers consumed and pub closed for the afternoon, we retired to our rooms for a nap - or in my case, a call home (I've never been much of a daytime sleeper). Yoli reminded me to open the first of the cards she had prepared for me - this one marked Open Before You Start. She'd outdone herself, and a lump formed in my throat. Inside the envelope was a picture of her and Ben from our recent holiday with words of inspiration on the front, and a handwritten note on the back saying "Look at this every time you wonder why you are here!". It was laminated too, so I could carry it with me on the whole ride even if it rained. I felt sad that they weren't here to see me start tomorrow, but it was wonderful that they were with me in spirit - and would now be only a reach into my jersey away when I hit low spots on the ride.


We reconvened at the pub later that afternoon, and a couple more beers slid slide down all too easily as we sat debating what food option to go for that evening. Our B&B was full with other riders, and Michael and Kerri-Anne who'd traveled over from Australia for LEL joined us for the evening drinks. It transpired they were extremely seasoned audaxers, and had already cycled around 1,800km touring the UK in the weeks leading up to LEL. Suddenly I felt rather under-prepared, with my grand ambitions and handful of 260km training rides. I had to remind myself that with around 10,000Km of training over the last 18 months or so, I had plenty of distance in my legs to compensate for my lack of experience. I could do this. I had to do this - everyone back home was rooting for me.

Emmerentia and I decided that Jane's recommendation of The George in Epping sounded pretty good, and we grabbed a taxi there to feed up before the big day. The food was good, as was the beer that  washed it down. By the time we taxi'd back the storm had arrived in earnest, and we dashed through sleeting rain to our rooms - making a plan to meet around 5:30 for breakfast, and ride to the start around 5:45am. It did occur to me that five pints was rather more than the "just one", which Penny's text had sternly instructed me, and was perhaps a few too many the day before a long ride in hot weather. Oh well, too late now, at least I would sleep well!


Click here to continue to Day 1


All photos by author.

Packing

I'm hoping that in just under two weeks time I won't be writing another entry with the same title, but used in a cycling sense - "to pack", meaning to quit, to bail, DNF (did not finish). Banishing such thoughts from mind, I'll quickly sum up my last weekend of preparation, which largely consisted of piling tons of stuff onto our dining room table, dismantling my bike into it's box, and then shovelling said piles into the spaces around the frame.

In fact, the whole process took far less time and was much easier than I'd expected - much to Yoli's amusement, as she'd predicted I was being my usual overly pessimistic self about the scale of the task. Ben was also quite pleased that his pleas of "come play Daddy" got a result in a couple of short hours rather than taking the whole weekend.

First task on the agenda was the all important process of shirt selection, pictured above. The shirt for each day being carefully chosen to represent a key aspect of my preparation:

• South Africa - goes without saying really, my adopted home and the place all this madness started.
• Hildebrand Pebbles - one of the two charities I have been riding for, and the shirt which has been on my back for all of the longer training rides.
• William's Bike Shop - built, advised on, and serviced Jolly and the wheels, and generally kept me on the road
• Wannabees - my awesome club mates who've supported, and sometimes quite literally pushed me through all the training rides
• SufferFest - need I say more. I'm sure by the time this shirt goes on, I will reached the required level of self inflicted pain to be called a true Sufferlandrian.

 That job done, photographed, and posted to Facebook, next up was getting all the kit out and double checking it against my list. It seems bizarre that despite covering the whole of our dining room table, by conventional Audax standards I am actually travelling pretty light. For all those who have seen me riding these last months and asked (or joked) about whether I had beers, coffees, or bricks in my saddle and bar bags, at the foot of this article is the complete kit list which can be seen laid in the photo.




The final task was the one most concerning me - disassembling Jolly and packing her into the box. My fears were unfounded though, the step-by-step video offered by BikeBox Alan really was just that. Aside from one small panic where the handlebars seemed like they wouldn't come off, it all came apart and packed in a dream. Predictably the mudguards wouldn't really go in the box safely, so those went in my suitcase. But even with my odd arrangements of bag mounts and bar extenders, the handlebars didn't seem to foul anything as the case closed up. Of course the proof of my packing will be in a few hours time when this flight to London lands and I see whether anything shook loose or broke in transit.

And all of a sudden, I find I have little more to say. The preparation is done, and the ride is less than a week away. After a tearful farewell to Yoli and Ben at the airport, I'm sitting here with complimentary drink and snack in hand. I'm nervous and excited all at the same time, and I'm missing them both like crazy. I realise I've already forgotten to take the first of the "en route" photos for this blog, which was meant to be me at the airport checking in my lurid greeen bike box - the colour specifically chosen so that I wouldn't miss it, and no one could sneak off with it (I did mention I'm a pessimist). Hopefully it's a few feet below me somewhere and I can at least snap a picture arriving at the other end. Jolly has picked up something like 10,000km in her inaugural year and a bit. Despite being probably five times what Merry did in each of the preceding five years, it now doesn't feel like nearly enough. In truth though, it's only short by 1,418 kilometres. And for those final few, it will up to my legs to do the talking now.

Click here to move on to the pre-prologue - the day before the big day!

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Lights
Primary front - dynamo on fork crown
Backup front - Lezyne, with handlebar mount on X-tender

Rear Dynamo on mudguard
Rear AA powered on rear stay

Navigation
Handlebar mounted Garmin - eTrex 30
Printed routeshet on bar with Sigma for interval distances

Bar Bag
Phone
Money / cards
Control card
Voltaic battery + cables
2x AA and AAAs

2x spare 18650s
2x Rehydrate sport
1x PeptoPro

On FramePump
2x bottles

In Pockets

Snacks

Saddle Bag

Clothing:
Rainproof jacket (on top)
Boot covers
Leggings
Arm warmers
Sealskinz socks & Cap
Thermal vest

Sanitary/Medical:

Tissues & small pack baby wipes
Toothpaste & Brush (floss?)
Sun lotion
Daily pills
Sudocreme
Spare lenses solutions & case

Razor & deodorant?

Spares/Tools:
Garage valve adapter
Spare cleat & screws
2x inner tubes
1x spare tyre
1x patch kit
tyre levers
multi-tool - Alien II and Leatherman
chain links
spare brake cable
plenty zip ties!
spare spokes & nipples
fibre spoke
2 of each spoke
dry lube

Drop Bag
2x AA & 6xAAA bats
2x inner tubes
2x shorts and jerseys
Long jersey
1x thermals
2x socks
4x PeptoPro
6x Rehydrate Sport
spare lenses

End of the Road

It was a remarkably fitting end to the weeks and months of training. The last of the rollers lay behind me, and ahead was one long straight run down to the end of the road where the R315 meets the sea in the small coastal town of Yzerfontein. For the first time in the last fifty or so kilometers since parting company with Emmerentia and Henri on the outskirts of Malmesbury I could sit up and enjoy the stunning west coast scenery, bathed orange in the rays of the late afternoon sun dipping towards the watery horizon ahead.

We had made a much faster time to Malmesbury, our 11:30am arrival was two hours sooner than I had predicted to Yoli. The strong northwester that was forecast had only materialized after our coffee stop in Hermon as we crested Bothmaskloof - perhaps we'd been sheltered by the low line of hills, or maybe it had just been slow to blow up. Either way, as a group of riders we'd been largely untroubled by the headwind we were expecting. But, as if to throw me down one last test before LEL, by the time we said our goodbyes and Henri and Emmerentia turned back towards Somerset West, the wind was now in full force.

It was hard to enjoy the glorious rolling landscape when every rise of the road combined with the headwind to drag my pace back to a crawl, at times barely making 10 Km/h. Not knowing the road, and with nowhere to hide from the wind it would have been all to easy to become dispirited and simply stop - especially with the temptation of Yoli somewhere behind me in the car. Fortunately, the overriding lesson learned from the past long rides was how to keep going, one crank turn after the next. And sure enough, despite the slow pace, eventually the town of Darling came into view.

Tired and sore from hunching over the handlebars, I slumped down and drained two quick coffees in succession - even adding sugar for extra energy, even though I don't normally take it in coffee. It was a great relief to see Yoli's smiling face as the last of the second cup went down. With just 25km or so to go, there was no way I was going to accept the offer of a lift - although I did welcome the offer of some supplies grabbed from the nearby Spa.

Initially, the road after Darling was much like the stretch before, except even more undulating and potholed without the wide and smooth new tarmac surface. But after a couple of big rollers, there it was, the sea, the setting sun, and the end of my training for LEL. In Yzerfontein I swung left towards Pearl Bay and the beach house we were staying in. For one all too short kilometer I enjoyed the tailwind that Henri and Emmerentia would have enjoyed surfing all the way back to Somerset West.


The final distance for the ride was around 180km, although it had felt much further. With the Sunday and Wednesday rides, the total for my last week of training was a rewarding 420km. It felt good to be able to relax as I sat soaking in the bath, beer in hand, and reflect on the great rides we had done, and the truly amazing winter weather and scenery we had been blessed with.


All photos by author.