A belated thanks to Tom and his helpers — Huggie, Mini-Huggie, Mini-Tomsk — mid-sized Tomsk was working on ITV's Le Tour coverage in London. I thoroughly enjoyed it — again.
We had a super quick ride for the first 100 — a cross tail and some lunatic called Matt who wanted to keep riding harder to warm up drove our group northwards at a silly, silly pace. After the turn at Whittlesey it calmed down a little, but, as I was on fixed-gear, as soon as we hit the hills at the edge of the Cambridgeshire Fens then I was dropped and watched forlornly as the group sped off — a distance group of red lights winking on the far horizon
Still, me, my routesheet and a headtorch and I was fine — it's nice to quieten the GPS, put it back in its place, and use the routesheet for navigation instead, which I did for the whole ride.
I rode the rest of the next stage solo in the dark, and it was, as always, a slightly surreal experience. I kept waiting for a group to catch me from behind, but the catch never came. In fact I caught Terry before The Pag, as the group had ruthlessly spat him out as well and left him to suffer on his own. We bumped into them leaving as we turned in.
A quick coffee and scrambled eggs and I was back out within 45 minutes. Alone.
I paced myself along this final 120km leg. The sun was just coming up and the roads were quiet — it's one of the reasons I really like this ride. I kept waiting for the catch and still it never came ...
I always bounce Biggleswade — I'm sure the café's nice enough, but I like long stages, so I paused at the garage for a receipt and got back on it. Likewise the Silver Ball café — just grab a receipt and push on.
By now I thought I might just scrape back inside 14 hours, which for me would be a good time. I put my head down and got on with the job. The route is very familiar to me from here, as this is home-turf, and I barely needed any navigation at all. I caught and passed one single rider, also dumped out of the quick group, and got back with 10 minutes to spare — absolutely knackered and so clearly I won't be riding at that pace on LEL next week!
A welcome sausage and bacon bap from Tomsk and a cup of tea and then back on the bike for the 50km ride home. The hill out of Gt Dunmow that I barely noticed at the start of the ride now felt like a mountain! It was a struggle to maintain any pace, but I did okay, and got home with a 20-hour 400 under my belt — extrapolate that and I'm up for a 70-hour LEL — hahahahaha
I took a few photos. They're a bit motion-blurry, because there wasn't much light about at 9pm at the start.