Anyone who's been tracking the Twitter and Facebook updates I've been making probably has most of this, but I thought I'd put it all down in one place for my own reference purposes...
Motivation
Since Patricia did the L2B day ride in 2011, we've had a bit of a family thing going for supporting the BHF London 2 Brighton rides. I did the day ride in 2012 (and
wrote it up here), we both did the day ride in 2013 with friends (and didn't really enjoy it due to the traffic), and I did the Night Ride last year with a friend and really enjoyed it.
So I was keen to do it again - so keen, in fact, that I signed up last September, although that was after a couple of beers and enthusiastic blather in a hotel bar with friends and colleagues. Take it as a sign of my enthusiasm and not poor judgement.
I was initially hopeful to get a crowd doing it this year, but for various reasons that never happened. This wasn't really a spirit damper but it did change the character of the ride for me.
Preparation
I've got two modes of preparation for bike rides: Just Sufficient (2012) and Far Too Much (2013). This year fell somewhere in the middle, due to the nasty weather at the start of the year, some minor illness and one or two bouts of laziness on my part. But for the last couple of months I've been out at least once a week, I've done a couple of 50-mile rides to prepare (never quite satisfactorily; they were very tiring and at the limits of my endurance), and thanks to a good friend's encouragement I've even done some off-road cross training.
I've also gotten off the fence and made a couple of investments in the bike. The first was to get some SPD clip-on pedals. These things are fantastic - just as everyone has been telling me for years - and if you've never tried a ride without tying your feet to the bike you don't know what you're missing. Hills become easier and faster to climb, power can be put down more evenly around the pedal stroke, and you run the risk of collapsing in a heap every time you come to a stop thanks to forgetting to unclip. They're great!
The second change was to get some better lights. I've dithered between the light-of-a-thousand-suns offroad type and just something sensible and long-lived. Since I've done and hope to do a bit more commuting on the bike, being sensible won out and I got a nice set of LED USB-rechargeable lights that throw out a decent beam at the front and blink forever on the back.
Finally, as a bit of a last-minute change, I bought a new seat for the bike last Tuesday. I've had trouble with my seat for years, it's not so much the ho-ho-ho razor-blade-not-saddle effect as that the geometry caused cramp and numbness in various parts of my thighs and...other areas... after a long ride. I dithered in the bike shop for quite a while wondering whether to go big on a hi-fallutin' gel seat, but in the absence of any advice or ability to try out, I went for another cheapo seat with a noticeably thinner profile on the grounds that a *change* is as good as an *improvement*.
Pre-Start
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| Gary the Gerbil smiles for the camera |
One of the things that I find hard to grapple with is that you've got a whole normal day before you start your preparation for the ride. So I took youngest swimming (as normal), then we all went out to see her perform in the local Dance School's show, then I came back and had a bit of a lie down, we played with the gerbils a bit, all had dinner, then they went out to a party and I got on with packing my stuff. I didn't leave home until 21:00, which frankly is about the time I'd be looking for a bit of telly before bed on most nights.
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| This year's pre-departure shot |
I got the train up to Waterloo, as before, with the bike and as before I was joined at Woking by another couple heading to the start line. It was their first time at it and they seemed nervous. We didn't talk a huge amount but we shared some concerns about the weather forecast and wished each other well.
I was also astonished and delighted to find I'd gotten some responses to my initial tweets from the train from my old friend John who couldn't ride this year but was spending the weekend in London, with a bike. He offered to see me at the start line - south side of Tower Bridge, an offer I couldn't and wouldn't want to refuse.
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| Start-Line Selfies |
The ride from Waterloo to Tower Bridge was as odd as I expected, although there was more (vehicular) traffic than I was hoping for. I'm not a fan of city riding and at night it's not a favourite thing to do. I have respect (some) for those that do it regularly but even on that short 2.5Mile trip I came across red-light jumpers, and one memorable girl on a bike with no helmet and no lights weaving between the buses and taxis. We don't do ourselves any favours on the roads with this sort of thing, do we?
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| John at the Start Line |
Got to Tower Bridge OK and eventually rendezvoused with John. Fantastic to see him and have a catch up - we last met at Xmas and he's had a lot going on in his life. Even better to have someone to distract me from the pre-start nerves. It's not that it's a particularly sporting or high-tension event, but there's always an element of excitement and no matter how well organised there's always going to be some confusion and chaos at the start line. Having someone to share it with was a big help and I'm very grateful.
First Section
John snuck around the side of the start line as I crossed it at about 23:45 and met me on the main road, so we cycled together north over Tower Bridge and across to Southwick Bridge. We said goodbye there and he headed off to Islington, while we went over the bridge and headed south.
This whole section was new to the ride this year - last year we started at Clapham Common - and I have to say I thought it was a mixed success. It's a much nicer start and gives a grand sense of occasion - how much closer to central London could you get? and riding over Tower Bridge was an experience, but they don't stop the traffic so (for my part) it was spoilt a bit by dicing with buses heading up to Tower Gateway and beyond. It was also here that I realised what everyone else knows about clips - you'll spend a hell of a lot of time getting your feet into and out of them in traffic, sometimes in a hurry.
Once we turned South the navigation settled down a bit but the traffic didn't, and the section between Southwick Bridge and Clapham Common was too full of riders and traffic, with each slowing the other down, to be too much fun. At the Common, though, we picked up last year's route which took us off the main road and down some quieter residential areas which provided some relief. By the time we rejoined the bigger roads we'd spread out some and weren't interfering with traffic so much which made the ride much more relaxing. When it's pub chucking out time in London Town this is a blessing. And the cheers - some no doubt heartfelt - from revellers heading home after a good night out was at least entertaining.
There's not a lot to say about the first section beyond this, although I've only really described the first 1/2 of it (to about 10 miles). The second part is through suburbia and is well lit on roads getting quieter as the night progresses. There's a bit of a sting near the end, as the last 3-4 miles are fairly constantly uphill. As with previous events I'm amazed how quickly people start getting off and pushing even at this fairly early stage. There's nothing steep that requires a Granny Gear, but having spent a bit of time recently looking at bike options and gearing I'm beginning to see it's possible for a fairly average person to be persuaded into purchasing something only a fully-enhanced Lance Armstrong could get up a serious hill, so my previous scorn for such sights is abating a bit. Anyway, be that as it may, there ought to be some satisfaction in knowing that by the time the first rest stop is reached at the 20 mile point you've climbed to the highest point on the route and, logically, it's all downhill from here....
The weather had held out so far, but as I put in a 20-minute water, coffee and (why not?) hot dog stop the drizzle started to fall. It was hard to tell the effects at first, because I'm a prolific sweater and it was also quite humid, but my clear specs misted up very quickly on the stop and everything got too damp to use for cleaning.
Luckily, after only 90 minutes or so riding, I was fairly fresh (as fresh as one can be at 01:30), so instead of sticking it out and getting cold, I cut my losses and pressed on. Plenty of other people had the same idea so we headed out to the second section in a bit of a peloton.
Second Section
The second section's the part of the ride where bits are put between teeth, knuckles are down, and Serious Business is engaged. In theory it's an easy drag without many hills, but in practice it's where England's Green and Pleasant Rolling Countryside starts to show. This year, however, it was totally overshadowed by a nasty accident at the bottom of a hill. I can only speculate on cause, but at the bottom a long descent to a T-junction where we needed to turn right, someone had had a very nasty fall, and when I got there the Ambulance and Police were in attendance. I caught the second half of a 30-minute road closure while they scraped the chap off the road. It's an odd and slightly de-humanising feeling: along with 2-300 other riders, you're feeling sorry for the fellow while at the same time wondering whether they're going to get a move on so we can get riding again. It's not a nice thing.
It also changed the character of the section completely, because when they re-opened the road it was like a second mass start, and the rest of the section was spent in crowded company with a bunch of riders all trying to re-group with their friends, break free from the masses in a sprint, or just generally remain oblivious to all that's going on around them and act like a rolling road-block. It would be great to say this mass riding represents the best of cycling - common spirit and purpose, all united in a single goal - but as on other rides I've done it's quite the opposite; it seems to bring out the worst in everyone. I did manage to keep my mouth shut and not express these Grumpy Old Man feelings, but it had an effect.
Still, the advantage of this section is that the roads are as quiet as they'll ever get, and meeting traffic in either direction is a rarity and not a hazard. This together with the constant pacing effect of other riders meant progress to the second stop at 35 miles felt fairly rapid. I got there at about 03:10, which was roughly as expected once the stoppage is taken into account.
Last year's ride was saved, for me, at this point by John's bringing out of some pre-made sandwiches.
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| Second Service Area - Cheese & Marmite Sandwiches can do this to a man... |
It's the worst time of the night - it's been dark forever and there's no sign of morning, you're only just over 1/2 way, and fatigue's kicking in. So this year I prepared by making myself some sandwiches to bring, and had the John Ford Memorial Cheese & Marmite Sandwich of Hope washed down with another large gulp of water and some flapjack. I also got chatting to some fellow riders - one chap had just left a group of 4 who'd spent an hour correcting a navigational mistake which saw them get as far as Redhill before finding a friendly taxi-driver to put them back on the right track (that'll count big on the total mileage front but won't help their finish time!), and I had a very fun chat with a lady who'd only agreed to do the ride again to help out her friends who were practicing for the Ride London 100 and, at the time of our meeting, were no-where to be seen somewhere behind her clearly not quite as prepared as they'd thought...
She also said something quite insightful which I'd only unconsciously noticed - the riders this year (although there appeared to be far more of them) seemed more serious, and there was a distinct absence of novelty bikes like we've seen on previous rides. Maybe it was the weather (which, once again, decided to wait until I'd stopped before starting to rain), maybe the start-venue change, but the ride had a more serious character than before.
Third Section
The lady also vocalised what I was feeling, which was that the 3rd section ahead of us is the worst of the night, what with the timing, the fatigue and the fact that there's so many miles still to go. But it was clear that we'd never manage it stood around at a rest stop so I packed up my things and decided better behind me than in front...
In terms of height profile, there's only one half-decent hill on this section and it's reasonably close to the start when one ought to be freshest (for locals: it's the hill heading out of Crawley towards Balcombe past the M23). At that time of day it takes more epic proportions, though, and there were a fair number of walkers. I could tell I was feeling it too, because I hit bottom gear for part of it, and there's no way that hill is less than a 3rd gear climb on a normal day.
The rest of the section features more of that lovely Rolling English Countryside posh southern poets love to write about; they should try riding it in the pre-dawn dampness of a sunday morning after 40-odd miles of roads before they wax so lyrical is all I want to say, as the constant shifting up and down gears to slog up one slight rise whilst taking maximum advantage of the downslope on the other side gets very waring. Just once I'd like to do a ride that's *actually* flat for a good distance, rather than just appearing to be so on a profile map in relation to everything else on the journey...
Thanks to the 6-7 miles added to the front of the ride, this was also the point in the ride where I started to feel a bit down about progress. Last year, John & I got to the final service area at 04:00 just as it was starting to get light. This time around, I was out on the roads as this happened and it ought to have been joyful to ride into daylight but I couldn't help feeling I was letting the side down by being slow. Rational thought was hard to come by, partly because I knew what was coming ahead of me and wasn't feeling up to the challenge, and partly because it'd become wet enough to warrant removal of my clear glasses which really weren't helping with seeing anything.
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| Still another 17 miles to go, and fairly knackered |
I rolled in to the 3rd Service Area outside Burgess Hill at the 50-mile point at about 04:40 to find a large crowd of people all looking like I felt, and there's some consolation to be taken in shared misery! A cup of hot coffee, a sit-down, a mars-bar, some flapjack and a good long ponder of the world passing me by helped recover my body and spirits somewhat.
Final Section
However, we all knew what was coming either by reputation (for the first-timers) or from bitter experience for those of us who'd done it before. So after a good 1/2 hour break, back onto the bike to join a noticeably slower-moving, more tired group heading onto the final section. I was a bit disconcerted at this point, because I'd worked out the ride distance as 60 miles, meaning we should have had 10 to go, but the marshals were cheerily shouting "Only 17 miles to go!" at us. Time would prove they were right and I was wrong, so serves me right for reading straight-line distances off a Garmin route as definitive, I suppose.
Dawn's joys were dampened by the weather. I'd been hoping for an earlier start, reasoning that if I'd got away at 22:30 I'd arrive at the hill either while it was still dark (and I wouldn't see it), or I'd catch sunrise at the summit. In the event, I could barely see where I was going thanks to the mist and rain so I guess I got part of my wish.
I should probably explain better. The (day) London to Brighton ride is (in)famous for being fairly easy for the first 50 miles, then throwing everyone over a long, steep hill (Ditching Beacon) only 10 miles from the end when you're nice and tired. It's a proper Nemesis of a hill, the highest point of *that* ride, and a genuine excuse for a slow walk and push of the bike up for about 1/2 the riders of that event.
The Night Ride doesn't go up Ditchling Beacon (it'd be an accident blackspot if the road's aren't closed to other traffic like they are on the day ride), instead it finds another way over the South Downs about 5 miles further west, up a peak called the Devil's Dyke. It's not as high as Ditchling (as I've mentioned: peak altitude for the night ride actually comes at the 20 mile mark, over the North Downs well inside the M25), but it's a lot longer and a lot sneakier, coming in 3 distinct sections with a bit of downhill between each. Last year I knew nothing of this, so put my all into each of them thinking their sub-peaks were the heights. It's not helped by the fact that there's about a mile of descent (about 1/3 of the total so far climbed) between the 2nd and 3rd sections, and the final climb back up to the peak is the steepest bit.
It was nice in the run-up to the hill to find that there were people out already to support; the bell-ringers and shouts of encouragement from the sparsely-spread cars were really appreciated. But they didn't help with my mental state, which (this time around) knew what was coming. As with last year, it was around the 3rd stop that we also started to see the first returners - those for whom a night-ride TO Brighton isn't enough and who are now well into their return journey. I respect and admire these people for their stamina and spirit, but I wish they'd chose a different route back for their effect on my morale.
So I arrived at the hill with legs of lead, a bum on fire, and dripping wet. Not the best mental state to be in. Resigned as I was to my fate, I couldn't get upset with those passing me on the right even though I envied every one of them their legs. For my part, I passed but one rider on the hill, and plenty of walkers. As mentioned, I'd say 50% of day riders walk Ditchling Beacon but either the hill's easier (and I'm making a scene of it) or the riders are hardier on the night ride and the proportion is much lower - no more than 20% of people were pushing up the hill (although plenty stopped for a break at each mini-summit). Some of these look at you - as I would - with pity or envy in their eyes as I huffed, puffed, dribbled and swore my way past them, but most smile and offer words or shouts of encouragement and represent all that is good in people. Thus I reached the bottom of the 3rd climb in no good state, and with my head firmly DOWN to avoid seeing what was ahead of me. I reached bottom gear in the quickest time I've ever managed, and plugged at it. I really, truly, felt I couldn't make it despite being shouted at not only by those walkers I past but also by the riders passing me, and I was making more noise panting for breath than the Flying Scotsman made on it's record-breaking run. But, bit by bit, I got up the hill. I can distinctly remember looking up ahead of me at my lowest point, thinking perhaps to find a spot I could dis-engage feet and dismount, to find I was at least 3/4 of the way up and in sight of the summit, uttering an unprintable stream of self-encouragement and vowing to make it. And I did, and it was glorious. I'll win no prizes for my ascent, not even "most shabby rider to make it" as I'm mediocre in all things, but a funny thing happened to me immediately I recognised I'd made it to the top.
The summit of Devil's Dyke is at the 60-mile marker on the ride, and my GPS tells me I got there at 06:20. Last year's ride was about 60 miles total, and John & I finished at 06:11 after starting at 23:55. So this needs to be the definitive reckoning: I was slower this year than last. But my
Strava Trace of the event shows a slightly different picture, as I was faster over the first half of the event and tapering off badly towards the end. This matches my feeling of the event; I was struggling quite hard towards the end and much closer to being out of reserves than I remember feeling last year. Having said that, Strava tells me I was only 39 seconds slower up the hill than last year, which is a surprise; I'd have expected minutes.
It probably also explains my behaviour from the summit on the long, long winding descent to the finish, where waves of relief and emotion kept washing over me, causing the disturbing sight (to anyone close by) of a middle-aged man riding a bike at 20MPH down residential streets whilst intermittently bawling and sobbing uncontrollably. It persisted past the finish line, and accounts for my appearance in the obligatory finish-line selfie:
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| Bit of a mess at the finish line |
Apres-Ride
There was a cracking spirit at the finish line - I've got nothing but respect for the DJ who'd been at it for hours and yet whose encouragement made every last one of the finishers feel great about what they'd done. And there was a surprisingly big turn out - at 06:45 - of people there to wave and cheer. That, too, was appreciated by everyone cycling along Madeira Drive.
I had a brief chat with a lass heading back to the train station. She'd found it tough going and she'd previously been a sporting rider winning events. Mind you, she admitted she'd done little preparation and was relying on previous experience and fitness to get through it. I could have told her from my 2012 experience that this wouldn't be good enough, but we all learn these lessons the hard way.
Plan A for the post-ride had been to crash out on the beach for an hour or two, perhaps a little snooze to recharge the batteries, and then leisurely ride home. Plan A was toast, and I'm going to blame the weather which was wet and surprisingly windy. So instead I opted for a sit-down at a cafe, a full English, and a re-think. I've never enjoyed a meal more and it disappeared far too quickly. Unfortunately, in my post-bacon daze I'd failed to consider that I was sheltered from the worst of the elements and so I made the decision to try a little ride to Worthing and see how I felt.
So, an hour after finishing the night ride, I saddled up and started to head west. And, as it turned out, straight back into the wind which I'd not noticed had provided a big boost to the final sprint along the seafront towards the finish-line. So while I quite enjoyed the first few miles into wind - smiling and waving and enjoying the disbelieving can't-believe-I've-done-it looks on the faces of the riders still heading towards the finish - I can tell you that in that state a full english breakfast with tea wears off at Shoreham-by-Sea, pretty much going past the airport. Any thoughts of making it further home than that disappeared at that point, and I must have looked a strange sight to those bikers who were just getting out for their sunday constitutionals as I rather slowly made heavy work of a seafront ride to Worthing.
I got the train from there, and ended up sharing a carriage with 3 other riders of the event who'd done it for the first time and were heading back to Portsmouth. I greatly enjoyed sharing the experience and swapping tales with them, and getting a second insight into the event. They hadn't done a BHF ride before but had plenty of experience on other rides, and the tales of organisation and relative enjoyment of the various organisers gave me much to think about.
After a very long wait at Havant for a connecting train, which tested my abilities to remain conscious, I finally rolled up to my front door just after 10:00. To find a normal common-or-garden Sunday under way; youngest lounging about reading the Beano in her pyjamas, eldest still in bed, and my Dearly Beloved slowly going out of her mind trying to herd the offspring into doing *anything* with the day. I didn't help - I dismounted, discharged the contents of my various pockets and rucksack, disrobed and collapsed in bed for a couple hours longer than I'd planned. I'd like to say that sorted me out, but frankly the rest of the day was a wash-out, for which I'd like to apologise to my long-suffering family.
Thanks
And on that note, it only remains to say thank-you to everyone who's sponsored me, to everyone who's commented or sent their kind words of support, and to my friends and family who once again have put up with my distraction and obsession with preparing for and riding in this event.
The sponsorship page for the ride will remain open for a little longer, so try
Clicking Here if you'd like to see it.
