Audax ride from hell

[marcus]

Chris Crossland has recently made several of his rides available as permanents including one - the Old 240 - that really appealed to me. A nice hilly 400 km ride taking in some great scenery in northern England. I was really looking forward to this & set off from Mytholmroyd near Hebden Bridge on Saturday morning in good spirits. Here is what happened.

1. Start ride at 8.10 am just as it begins raining. Rain carries on without pause for the next 12 hours.

2. Effect of rain enhanced by blustery winds until Saturday afternoon (although thankfully this was a tailwind at times).

3. Saturday afternoon - route sheet resembles wet blotting paper & becomes unusable. Never mind, I have the route programmed into my GPS.

4. Top part of my GPS somehow falls off & I lose the data card containing the base maps. Never mind, I can still use it without the base maps.

5. Saturday evening - GPS gives up completely, probably thanks to 1 above.

6. Descending Hartside to Alston I discover that my brake pads have become dangerously worn down.

7. Reach Alston (after 198 km) & decide that because of 1-6 above I will pack.

8. Discover that all accommodation in Alston is fully booked because of a party in the townhall. Am briefly amused by the sight of numerous huge leeks on display in one hotel.

9. Go to the youth hostel. Door is open but nobody is about - no warden, no 'guests', nobody. Notice a sign on reception saying 'full'. Decide to wait in the lounge until warden emerges & ask if I can spend the night on a sofa.

10. 2 hours later & still nobody has turned up. Decide to fix brakes & carry on with ride. Will navigate using maps.

11. Remember that a side effect of some medication I took after I had made the decision to pack is severe drowsiness (I don't normally take this medication on night-time rides). Spend next few hours fighting off the urge to doze off on my bike and snatching brief periods of fitful, shivery sleep in phone boxes, bus shelters, etc.

12. Reach Scotch Corner service station at 4.30 in the morning. Drink 2 large coffees. Doze off while drinking one and spill it all over my leg when I awake with a start.

13. Almost begin to enjoy myself as dawn breaks and my GPS miraculously starts to work again.

14. Stop enjoying myself as I have to cycle through 2 sections of road flooded to about 10-15 cm deep.

15. The end is in sight as I ascend Cock Hill and prepare for the final descent to Hebden Bridge. Nothing more can go wrong now, surely.

16. Hear a loud bang as my back tyre explodes (the side of the tyre had completely worn through).

17. After a fruitless attempt to fix the tyre decide to cycle the last 8 km very slowly on the rim.

18. Reach Mytholmroyd at 11.59 - 27 hours 49 mins after setting off & just 26 mins inside the time limit.

The perverse thing is that now I'm back home I'm already beginning to look back on the ride with affection.

[Ian H]

I'm now even more impressed by the ones you did manage to finish.

[Noodley]

Well done marcus, that's a bit of an adventure....

[rogerzilla]

Gosh.

I've seen someone break a crank and another split a worn-out rim, but never such a litany of appalling luck as that.  Chapeau (yours must be the one with the Black Widow spider hiding in it).

[teethgrinder]

Oh, do stop whinging!

Sounds like good practice for a winter 600 to me.

Well done

[rogerzilla]

Yebbut Teethgrinder's so hard he doesn't even use a saddle.

[teethgrinder]

Yebbut Teethgrinder's so hard he doesn't even use a saddle.

Only when climbing hills in a big gear though. Or climbing big hills.
I wore my Brookes out last year.

[D0m1n1c Burford]

Well done Marcus - sounds like a real adventure.  I see you are already wearing your rose tinted glasses 

[marcus]

Oh, do stop whinging!

Just the kind of response I was expecting! (and quite right too)

[frere yacker]

Suck it up, buttercup 

[tonyh]

Just brilliant, and thanks for writing it up.
(Hysterical laughter suppressed.)

[dkahn400]

The true Audax ride. Fantastic stuff, Marcus!

[iddu]

Snork - you're supposed to start on a owd' hack, not make one as you go round! 

Chapeau

[Andrij]

Very impressive! 

Thanks for writing it up - your words help affirm my sanity. 

[Ian H]

I confess, Mr Yeo, I'm puzzled. You made no mention of a paper trail of lost receipts and brevet cards. Such being your signature disaster.

[clarion]

Character-building.

[rogerzilla]

I can see a Four Yorkshiremen-style thread emerging.

"When I did audax, we rode 800,000km to t'Moon and back without oxygen, and when we got there they'd run out of orange juice."

[Ian H]

I can see a Four Yorkshiremen-style thread emerging.

"When I did audax, we rode 800,000km to t'Moon and back without oxygen, and when we got there they'd run out of orange juice."

It's already been done: "One ended up in hospital*, another has never ridden his bike since." True story. Guess the eminent AUK personage whose story it was.

*Frostbite or exposure, I can't remember which.

[marcus]

I confess, Mr Yeo, I'm puzzled. You made no mention of a paper trail of lost receipts and brevet cards. Such being your signature disaster.

Not this time. However, I have to confess that despite my best efforts to try & remember to keep pockets zipped up etc I did lose my brevet card last month on a 200 km ride in Durham. Luckily someone spotted that it had dropped out of my pocket before I had gone too far down the road. When will I learn?

[marcus]

I can see a Four Yorkshiremen-style thread emerging.

"When I did audax, we rode 800,000km to t'Moon and back without oxygen, and when we got there they'd run out of orange juice."

It's already been done: "One ended up in hospital*, another has never ridden his bike since." True story. Guess the eminent AUK personage whose story it was.

*Frostbite or exposure, I can't remember which.

Hmm. I've ended up in hospital A&E departments 3 times in the last year following 'incidents' on audax rides. A total of 5 or 6 broken bones & 3 stitches in a head wound.

[teethgrinder]

I can see a Four Yorkshiremen-style thread emerging.

"When I did audax, we rode 800,000km to t'Moon and back without oxygen, and when we got there they'd run out of orange juice."

It's already been done: "One ended up in hospital*, another has never ridden his bike since." True story. Guess the eminent AUK personage whose story it was.

*Frostbite or exposure, I can't remember which.

Was that Jim Hopper riding the High Peak Trial?
His fingers hurt for a week or so after the ride, so he saw his doctor, who told him that he had frostbite in his fingertips.

That were when the High Peak Trial were in February, not September.
I remember seeing a photo of the car used as a control in the Peak District, covered in snow.

[rogerzilla]

And you tell the young people today that, and you know what?  They don't believe you.

[teethgrinder]

And you tell the young people today that, and you know what?  They don't believe you.

I think they do believe those stories.
That's why they don't ride

[Ian H]

Was that Jim Hopper riding the High Peak Trial?
His fingers hurt for a week or so after the ride, so he saw his doctor, who told him that he had frostbite in his fingertips.

That were when the High Peak Trial were in February, not September.
I remember seeing a photo of the car used as a control in the Peak District, covered in snow.

It was the venerable Mr H, but about a French ride. I can't offhand remember which, but buttonhole him and he'll doubtless tell you.

[teethgrinder]

It was the venerable Mr H, but about a French ride. I can't offhand remember which, but buttonhole him and he'll doubtless tell you.

Well, there were two very obvious clues pointing at Jim.
Yorkshireman.
And tales of hard times in the old days.
Us youngsters* don't know we're born.
Apparently

*No, not you Ian