London-Edinburgh-London 2017

I took the Ferry to Holyhead on Friday night, and got to my AirBnB  in Holyhead about 1am.  I had a good sleep, and then headed down to London on Saturday morning.  The traffic was slow, and the drive took about 7 hours, but I got to Loughton, and got signed on and left my drop bags, and met up with some of the other riders.  I then headed off to the Fulbourne Road to find my second AirBnB, which turned out to be further from the start than I thought, about 14kms, and no obvious direct route to get between them by bike.  The room was very nice, and the owners were extremely helpful.  I went out again to meet up with some of the other riders in Theydon Bois for dinner, and had very nice grub and a bottle of cider in the Queen Victoria Pub.  I also decided to pay the £35 for the on-site parking for the week, as I didn’t fancy leaving the car parked on the street for a week, or having to cycle back to the accommodation after the finish.

Then it was back to the AirBnB to sort out the bike and get ready for the start.  I had picked a leisurely 11.30am start, which meant there was no rush in the morning. Some of our riders had gone for the 5am fastest group, and others had picked times between 6am and 8am, which meant they were on the faster 100 hour time limit, as opposed to the full 116 hours for the rest of the mortals.

On Sunday I headed down to the Start about 8.30am, had some breakfast, and chatted to the other riders and watched the previous starts, with about 50 to 70 riders heading off every 15 minutes.

Then it was time for our start, and together with Paul Burchmore and Mark Palmer we headed off on our journey.  I stayed fairly near the front of our group for a while with about 10 others.  Then in a small village we came on a parked car on the left, and an approaching vehicle.  The lead rider braked hard to go left into a very tight cycle lane on the far side of the parked car, and everyone behind had to jam on in a panic to avoid a pile-up.  I decided there was potential for an accident, and pulled out of the group and let them continue on.

We all rode on through the various Control towns of St. Ives, Spalding and Louth, stopping for food and to get our Brevet Cards stamped.  Although it was only around 11.20pm when I finished eating and showering in Louth, I decided to try to get some sleep as it was another 96kms/5 hours to Pocklington.  I got a mattress and blankets OK, but the adrenalin was still pumping and I couldn’t get to sleep.  I was up again at 2.30am (now Monday 1st August), and headed off after some “breakfast” at 3.20am.  I rode on through Pocklington (where I changed into fresh kit from one of my “drop bags”), Thirsk and Barnard Castle to my next sleep stop at Brampton, which I again reached around midnight.  After another warm rest, but no sleep, it was time hit the road again for the Scottish leg.  I left Brampton at 3.20am (Tuesday 2nd) and rode through Moffat, Edinburgh, Innerleithen, Eskdalemuir and back to Brampton.  This was the hilliest section of the ride, including “The Devils Beeftub” out of Moffat, and about 5 long climbs after Edinburgh, and many other smaller climbs, interspersed with some rain showers.  A few of us took shelter under trees for one of the worst showers, but it only lasted 10 minutes, and then we were off again, most of the others weren’t too heavy, or were short.  It was nice to meet Brian McCool briefly on the approach to Edinburgh, he was in the area for work, and came out to see who he could spot.  After a long and tough day in the saddle I got back to Brampton around midnight and had the luxury of 4 hours solid sleep !

No time to waste, after some breakfast I headed off again after 5am (Wednesday 3rd) and rode through Barnard Castle and Thirsk to arrive in Pocklington after 8pm.  The choice was to continue for another 100kms to Louth, or have an early sleep, and get back on the road even earlier than usual.  I went for the second option after it started to rain again, and after a shower and some food I had a good couple of hours sleep, but got up and left Pocklington at 1.30am on Thursday.  The organisers had advised us that the GPS file for this section was incorrect, and I asked them to copy the correct file to my Garmin.  However when I got south to the Humber Bridge just before dawn, the track went wrong, and just lead in a straight line to the end of the stage.  Luckily a stronger English rider was also there at the time, and he was able to follow the GPS file from the northbound section of the route, but in reverse.  I had already deleted this section from my Garmin to make it easier to select the next needed files.  He slowed down to my pace for several hours, but then when we met up with a few others he pushed on at his own faster pace, and I went on with them, including our own Dan Flavin for a while, and we got to Pocklington around 7am.  This was now the last day, and we pushed on through Louth, Spalding and St. Ives.  This area covers the flatlands of “the Fens”, but it was extremely windy, with headwind or crosswind depending on which way you were pointing at the time.  Luckily we got into a small group led by two strong English riders riding the event on “fixed wheel” bikes, with just 1 gear, and no freewheel !  They towed us along for a couple of hours, which was a huge help.  It was very difficult to ride in the wind, with the constant thought that you might be blown right off the road, or come to a complete stop.  After St. Ives there was a choice of 2 routes, one which went through Cambridge.  We chose that one, and it was fantastic.  On the way in to the city we followed a cycle path which runs for a long way alongside the unusual guided bus sytem, which initially looks disused, with plants growing along the route, but then an electric bus comes flying past with the driver sitting there with his arms folded with nothing to do.  Cambridge is a very cycling-friendly city, with bikes all over the place, and we followed an excellent bike lane right through the centre of the city and out the other side.  It was a lovely warm evening as the sun was setting, and it was one of the highlights of the route.  After Cambridge the route started to climb, but only very gradually, and we pushed on until we eventually got to Great Easton at about 11.30pm.  The last 10kms or more had felt very slow, on small country lanes, in the dark, and I thought we would never get to the control, but we did eventually.  Officially I had until 7.30 next morning to get to the finish, but I wanted to get in on Thursday night if possible as I had a ferry (optimistically) booked for the Friday night.  I headed off again at midnight for the last leg, in company with Mark Palmer who I had been riding with for a couple of days since Paul Burchmore had to pull out.  This final leg was only 48kms, but it seemed to go on for ever.  I was feeling tired within a few minutes, and felt like I was riding around in circles on the same little lanes.  I found the overhanging trees oppressive, and had a feeling of riding through tunnels all the time. I had to keep looking up at the trees to convince myself that there wasn’t a roof overhead.  I was surprised to hear from Mark he gets the same feeling, I had thought it was just me.  I had a couple of close calls with the dozies, and was just about to drift left onto what I thought was a wider section of road, when I realised it was a footpath with a kerb, and I jammed on the brakes and stopped just in time.  We stopped for a few minutes, and Mark force-fed me some Wine Gums, but we were still only about halfway home.  Soon afterwards we joined a group of 3 fairly fast-moving riders (who seemed to be Germans speaking English, but maybe I was hallucinating), and with Marks help I managed to get myself focussed to try and stay with them, and we flew through the last 15kms or so.  We finally got to the finish at 3am, to be met by Paul Burchmore, Senan and Seamus (I think).  My limit time for the max of 116 hours was 7.30am, so I had finished with 4 ½ hours to spare in the end.

I had some more food, and then a quick shower.  As I came out after the shower I found the “bedroom” full of mattresses and exhausted bodies, and I grabbed a couple of blankets and lay down for a good sleep without even saying goodnight to the others.  I set my alarm for 10am, but everyone was up and about by about 7am and it was impossible to sleep so I joined them, and went back to the canteen for yet more food.  Then it was time to head for home, and after saying goodbye I headed off.  After getting some money, Diesel and screen-wash in Loughton I hit the road for Holyhead.  I was still tired but not too bad, and had a couple of short stops along the way to refresh myself, and finally got back to Holyhead around 6pm, after more traffic delays.  I was joined by Seamus, Bernard and Eamon who were on the same ferry, and we had a good chat about LEL on the way back.  I was home before midnight, and fell into bed, leaving the car to be sorted out the next day.

The general trends of the route were smaller hills for the first 100kms, then flat Fens for the next 100kms, then more short, sharp climbing through the Howardian Hills, North Yorkshire Moors, and bigger climbs in the Pennines and Cheviot Hills at the Northern end of the route.  The return route follows almost the same in reverse, with a couple of variations at each end.  I didn’t mind the bigger climbs too much, although I would like to improve my climbing in order to get through them either faster, or with less effort, but the constant short sharp ascents in many parts of the route were exhausting, both physically and mentally, particularly at night-time.

Things that worked well, or I should have done differently:

The bike – worked perfectly all the way through, just 2 punctures were the only issues I had.

The body – mostly worked well, apart from some moderate saddle-soreness.  I had no issues with indigestion, hands, feet or knees, all of which gave trouble in previous rides.  I stayed away from all acidic foods and drinks, and from spicy foods as much as I could.  I stuck to food that was easy to digest, such as Pasta, Rice Krispies, Cornflakes, Toast, Beans, Eggs, Sausages, Bacon (good for maintaining salt levels), Fruit Cocktail, Creamed Rice, Bread and Jam, and drank Milk mostly, with the odd cup of tea.  Only 2 Controls had good salads on offer, more of those would have been great.  I think I managed to drink a good bit more water while riding than I did before, and stuck to plain water without additives.  I did have some Nuun tablets (for additional Electrolytes) in water while stopped at controls, as I found it easier to drink then, than while riding.

Despite the lack of sleep for the week, tiredness was only an issue for the last short leg to the finish.  Phil Whitehurst had suggested carrying some eye-drops to use when this happens, and I’ll certainly try that in future, it felt like it would have been a big help. I should probably have worn clear lens glasses in the darkness instead of none, this would also have reduced the eye tiredness caused by the wind.

I should have arrived earlier, and got a “practice” ride in along the finishing 20kms or so.  It would have been a big help mentally to know the terrain in advance.

I should also have spent more time in advance of the event studying the route and noting where the climbing was, and the general direction of the route, so I would be able to know that I was heading for the finish, and not riding around in circles as I felt, even though it wasn’t really a rational thought, it felt rational at the time !

I should have spent more time with my new Garmin getting it set up right, and should have checked all the GPS routes to ensure they made sense, and to see where the major areas of climbing were.

Anyway, as POD says, every day cycling is a schoolday, and hopefully I’ll read back over these notes next time, and be a bit better prepared.

Congratulations to all who took part, and commiserations to those who didn’t get to finish for various reasons (overall 34% DNF rate) – unfinished business for the next event in 2021 !

Thanks to all those who I rode with at various times, and to all the hundreds of volunteers who worked around the clock to look after all the riders, especially our super-volunteer David Finnigan, who popped up all over the route, doing trojan work in every capacity. Time to start thinking about PBP 2019 …..


Long-distance cycling in Ireland