More Than A Bike Ride - LEL Control at Eskdalemuir July 30 – August 2nd 2017
“There'll be room for your bike,” Mike had said. This was so important because I still find it makes me twitchy to be helping on an event, rather than riding it, whether it's a 50k or 1500. For LEL this is the second time running. I'd hoped to ride it in 2013 but circumstances had prevented me – as they had this time. However, I'd had such a good experience of helping with the control in 2013 that I had no hesitation in volunteering for this one. I'd not only be meeting so many of my friends who were actually riding but working with Denise and Tim Hughes and substantially the same team as previously. Ropes were known.
In fact, there was only just room for the bike as it turned out, because Mike had a van full of blankets, airbeds and sundry other equipment. But we wedged it in early on Sunday morning and sped up the motorway from Manchester to Scotland, arriving not long after noon. Eskdalemuir control is in the local community “hub”. This has been devoloped to rescue the village (population 250) from complete disappearance. It has lost its bus service, school and shop over recent years and the hub has been created to maintain a sense of community in what is really a loose collection of scattered houses and farms. The largest single feature in the village is the cemetery, by a long way, and this was so even before LEL came through. In 2013, the control was pretty much just the old school hall, but now this has been extended and the kitchen moved and enlarged. The catering was in the hands of the local community and they already had impressive shift-rotas up when we got there.
Mike and I set to immediately, blowing up the airbeds and allocating a blanket to each. We were only intended to have 30 sleep places, being not that far from more substantial provision either side, at Innerliethen and Brampton. This turned out to be wishful thinking, as we shall see. Next we arranged thirty or forty railings across the car park for bike parking. Then a gazebo was erected to give some protection from the elements for the mechanic. We took the precaution of attaching it with twine and cable-ties to a substantial generator shed as the wind was already quite strong. Finally, we drove two kilometres further up the valley to the servicemens' hall to set up the remaining air beds for an overflow dormitory.
Eskdalemuir is beautiful – but wet. It gets three times as much rain as Manchester. It was raining. But in a short break between showers, I persuaded Mike that we should ride out at least to the Buddhist monastery a couple of miles north where there was a café. We managed this just as the rain set in and enjoyed tea and beautiful chocolate cake. Things were well in hand. It was about four o'clock and we didn't expect our first riders through for another twenty four hours. Plenty of time for me to indulge my thirst for adventure and push on up the valley along roads I've never ridden and with the ghost of the great John Buchan whispering at my ear. We rode north towards Ettrick, home of another of the Borders's literary giants, James Hogg. We got well and truly soaked but it was warm and I was just thrilled to be riding somewhere new, where we pretty much had the narrow road to ourselves and could concentrate on the rolling scenery, with its monoculture of pine forest, mercifully free of the huge logging lorries which the morrow would bring. Between the road and the trees, the verges were brightened with the taller flowers of late summer, particularly meadowsweet and willowherb, with plentiful harebells, the Scottish bluebell. Presumably meadowsweet and willowherb like the same conditions because the Esk valley is almost smothered in them. A century previously, their juxtaposition further south was immortalised by Edward Thomas in his poem Adlestrop :-
And willows, willowherb and grass
And meadowsweet.......
By the stream that runs past the hub into the White Esk there are also the orchid-like meadow woundwort and the bright red and yellow of bird's foot trefoil, but the overwhelming carpet of willowherb and frothy cream meadowsweet is what the mention of Eskdalemuir conjures up for me.
Turning at Ettrick, we rode back up to about 1000 feet before the long drop to the hub. We dried out in the warm air, though we were moistened again lightly just before we arrived, which is commonly the way with bike rides.
Alison Brind, a stalwart of Macclesfield Wheelers, and Neil and Gerry Goldsmith were also on the team of volunteers. Alison was putting in a couple of days with us before heading north on a cycling holiday and Gerry and Neil are very experienced leaders of European cycle tours and Neil was designated as chief mechanic (He refused to be zip-tied to the generator shed, though). And there was Jane Sigrist, whose husband Martin was riding. Our initial complement also included Denise and Tim's granddaughters, who were great fun. There were also several other helpers during the course of the event, including some from Germany. Once Tim had sorted out some of the communications glitches, we were pretty much ready for business by Sunday evening. With no riders expected till the next day, we relaxed throughout the evening with pizzas and wine and a sing-song and a string of jokes that had been around since before humour was invented.
Mike and I were lucky enough to have been allocated sleeping quarters in a local self-catering “motel” and it was excellent. After several hours sleep, we rode back to the hub keen to be about our business. Late breakfast merged into dinner as Tim contacted Innerleithen to see when we might expect our first riders. As there was only a couple anywhere near us, our labour wouldn't be missed and Mike and I set off up the road to meet the approaching pair and hopefully ride down to the control with them. Once again, I was relishing the chance to ride but after about three-quarters of an hour there was no sign of the promised riders. Mike suggested we turn at the cattle grid at the top of the hill. When we got there, I asked him to wait while I dropped to the next bend to see if I could see round it. Within seconds, two powerful cyclists appeared. I smiled and greeted them, but by the time I'd turned my bike round to follow, they were a hundred yards away and starting the descent. Mike, who was on his Brompton and who has a better grasp of reality than I, urged me to go on, while he made a more leisurely return.
Reader, for several seconds I was within 200 yards of the legend that is The Flying Dutchman, Anco de Jong, and his shadow Gerd Ebner of Austria. I, too, was flying but, after a mile or so, I didn't see a trace of them until I arrived at the hub, where their smoking bikes were propped up against the wall. It was no competition – I only had a forty-six tooth chainwheel and they'd been warming up for five hundred miles.
The next rider in was Jasmijn Muller, who had recently beaten all but two of the men in the Mersey Roads 24 hour Time trial and so was also warmed up. After those three, it was hours before more riders began to trickle in. The work was light and I was pleased to help out a rider who had a slow puncture by discovering and removing a thorn from his tyre. Denise and Tim were in regular contact with Innerleithen back along the route and it seemed unlikely that we would get a bulge before Tuesday afternoon and so at about midnight Mike and I took the opportunity to ride down to our motel, where we again managed a few hours sleep before going back up to the hub for breakfast at about six in the morning. Eskdalemuir is a fabulous spot at any time but the morning is especially ethereal.
Things were busier than they had been on the previous evening but it was clear that the generally poor weather was causing difficulties for the riders and that if the “bulge” didn't hit us soon it was likely that a lot of riders had already dropped out or would be out of time before they reached us. I was doing a bit of most things during the day: a bit of clearing tables, greeting riders and trying to persuade them to remove their shoes in the foyer, oiling chains and filling bottles (with water mostly, though I dare say some of them got oil). But mostly I was outside in the rain, guiding riders into the control, Denise taking advantage of my ability to wave my arms in several different languages, including braille. The rain wasn't actually such a big issue for me because Mike had pitched a pop-up tent on the verge, so we could sit in there with a good view up the road and pop out when riders appeared. In between riders, I took the opportunity for a little song-writing and taught a couple of bits and pieces to Denise and Tim's grandchildren, who are going to be good guitarists, I think. They will certainly be good at playing at a jaunty angle because the tent sloped at about thirty degrees. This will fit them well for gigs in The Black Swan in York, if my memory serves.
By the middle of the afternoon, things were starting to buzz nicely and I began to see lots of my friends, such as Terry from Bury (should be able to work that into a song) and especially the posse of VC167 riders from the north-east, all of whom were looking good and in high spirits. Dean in particular struck the right note, I think, slouching his way past the aero wheels and tri-bars to lean against the wall in his Beano jersey for a roll-up. Surrounded by friends, I couldn't resist giving them the “benefit” of my songwriting efforts of earlier.
To the tune of The Long And Winding Road by Paulie:-
The long and winding road
That leads o'er Eskdalemuir
Is almost over now
But my backside's so-o-o-ore
If you have Sudocrem
Give me more, more ,more....
Every time the pedals turn
My backside burns like fire
I had a sneaky feel of it
It's like a knobbly tyre
But still I'm going back
To the long, winding road....
That's as far as I got and I'm sure everone was grateful – that that was as far as I'd got. Anyway I was pleased to be able speed the passage through the control. The recently-ordained Graeme (ViCar167) gave me absolution and then they were on their way south to Brampton, then Alston and the notionally glorious crossing of Yad Moss into County Durham, though it looked as if it might be grim rather than glorious. Weather notwithstanding, I was envious of them. I've ridden with many of them often and, as I've said, this was the second LEL I'd volunteered on, when I had hoped I might be riding. Ah well.
Sometime in the evening, I received a deputation from Chris Crossland, Chairman of Audax and Mike Wigley, Membership Secretary of same. The bearings on a German rider's dynamo wheel had failed. This was not the kind of repair easily effected in our circumstances and, in any case, it was a new wheel so the rider wanted to send it back to the manufacturer – in Germany. I had a wheel. It was on my bike. Soon it wasn't and I had attached it to his machine and off he went gratefully. I didn't get his name, so I can only hope he finished. At this stage I was down one wheel, one Garmin charger, which I had lent and which couldn't be found after the user had departed, and one phone, which had presumably flown out of my jacket during my headlong/strong pursuit of Anco.
As the dark drew in, earlier than it might have done because of the weather, it was very atmospheric to be sitting in the tent or standing in the road, watching out for the bright white lights approaching. I'd also worked out where there was a section on the route south where the red tail lights (“heading for Spai-ai-ai-ain”) could be seen briefly before they disappeared again towards Langholm on the leg to Brampton.
At some stage in the late evening my feet worked out that I'd been on them for about twelve hours, give or take the odd few minutes at thirty degrees. I didn't want to miss the nightshift, when things would be most hectic, but I thought a couple of hours sleep, or at least a lie-down, would help me make it through the night. Having agreed this with Denise, I went to the racks for my Harry Hall. I'd forgotten completely about lending the wheel. The bike hung forlornly on the rack, almost reproachfully, I felt, the front fork giving me an inverted two fingers. No matter, it was an easy enough walk to the motel. Then Mike suggested I take the Brompton and in a few minutes I was failing to get to sleep for an hour or so. But the break did me good and I was soon back ready for the fray. I was enjoying clearing tables and taking in the impressions of riders in various states of decomposition but invariably grateful and courteous. But within a few minutes, I was cast into outer darkness. Our thirty beds were already full and Denise asked me to go up the road to open the emergency hall. So it was back on the Brommie again and up the rolling road.
The building is an ex-serviceman's hall with a stage at one end. Mike had commented earlier that now that the school had been enlarged into the community hub, the village was almost over-blessed with facilities. On the Sunday, we'd set out about thirty airbeds, but some of these had deflated terminally, so we were down to about twenty four spaces when I arrived. I'd barely got there when riders began arriving and I was filling in my “map” of when people wanted waking. The trouble was that very quickly we had run out of the seven blankets we had. Then the beds were full and we magicked up a bit accommodation with a few yoga mats. I started to feel very awkward indeed, because, in addition to its rainfall, Eskdalemuir is noted for its coolness and some of the arriving riders were in a very sorry state indeed. I was embarrassed the whole night and felt I'd let people down. It was only after the last rider had left in the morning, that I remembered that we were only expected to provide the 30 beds down in the hub and that the riders could have known that. But who knows anything when they are wet and miserable and in Scotland? When two riders from Thailand arrived, adamant that they could go no further, not even the two kilometres to register at the control, where by that time in the night there might have been (but almost certainly wasn't) a free bed, I covered the sorriest one with my jacket and spent the rest of the night in my T-shirt. It's interesting to ponder that if you tell a rider he must ride 62 kilometres to a control, he can do it, but in certain circumstances if you tell him to ride 60 kilometres he can do that but is incapable of then riding two further than his expectation. Discuss.
I have to say that one or two riders were still shivering after three or four hours on the floor but the Thais, whom I'd have said were closest to death on arrival, thanked me with smiles and rode off into the misty morning. I don't know if I was looking cold but I enjoyed the nip of malt that Gordon and Debs offered me.
It was a fabulous night. For the first few hours the sky curruscated with stars and the Milky Way. It almost vibrated, with the kind of clarity that makes the constellations difficult to identify, unlike in the urban areas where only the defining ones are bright enough. I spent as much time as I could outside until the midges forced me back in. Even then, I had to go out every time I saw a light on the forecourt. The problem was that all the bikes were parked along the wall of the hall, and riders desperately seeking a control will always heave to where they see bikes gathered together. It was hard work and not a little embarrasing to have to keep saying, no, you need to ride on to the control, check in and see if there are any beds there and if not they will send you up here....oh, and by the way, we're full! I'm sure this could be handled better but it is a problem when you have an obvious facility the “wrong side” of the official control. Still, although some riders were pretty near collapse and limited in their ability to either comprehend or respond, no-one was rude and nobody died (I don't think). But I can't deny that each time I tiptoed in to wake someone at their appointed time, the stertorous breathing and twisted limbs of those who were sleeping where they had fallen, reminded me of a field hospital.
On reflection, I think many of the riders I tried to help that night in the overflow might have been better going down to the hub and just sitting in the warm, where there was at least hot food and drink. I suggested this in some cases but people make their own decisions! At least I have the satisfaction of knowing that the last two to leave the hall, having apparently not slept, completed the ride with time to spare in spite of being slightly out of time on leaving me.
At about four in the morning, when the brightening sky was clouding over from the south – and I'd got my jacket back - I only had three late sleepers to wake. Such riders as were on the road were not stopping, presumably having slept earlier and just now starting their day's work. When I only had two left to wake and time to spare, I got on the Brompton and rode up and down past the Buddhist monastery. These “laps” made me all the more impressed with Mike's ability on our rides on the previous two days. A Brompton is an ingenious and very useful machine but it is to road riding what a brick is to space flight.
I also had a short walk along the path that leads between the Buddhist accommodation and the monastery, along which I had seen several distictly non-Tibetan monks materialising in the hours around dawn. With the aniseed smell of the meadowsweet and the purple of willowherb shot through with the russet sorrel it must be one of the best walks to work imaginable.
To some, mine might have seemed a lonely vigil but I was never bored for a minute. And I was never completely alone. Mike and Tim and Neil all popped in on separate occasions, bringing warm food or just to be companionable. And creatures are always with us. I had to move a couple of huge leopard slugs just to get the door shut a couple of times – and they weren't for shifting.
By the time Mike came back in the van at about seven o'clock I had pretty much got the beds deflated and rolled up and it didn't take us long to get the hall tidy and drive back to the main control at the hub. In a way I was sorry to have missed more friends and the hectic excitement of the hub during the overnight bulge but I was satisfied at having done what I hoped was a good job. And the night sky and the sensations of dawn and monks in the mist were more than adequate compensation.
When I went to collect my bike (fearing that in my sleepy state I might forget it) I was thrilled to find that, in addition to the front wheel, I had also donated the bolts fastening the front mudguard stays. The things we do for love.
After a quick breakfast I did a bit more road duty, though most people were already through, as we were only an hour or two away from the control closing time. But people were still arriving sporadically well after we were “shut”, in some cases to continue to the finish, even though they were out of time. Two “late” riders in particular impressed me and both arrived long after Mike and I had finished loading beds and equipment into his van for the journey south to The North. The first was a phlegmatic Frenchman, who informed us that this was his third consecutive LEL and he had failed to finish each one. Then he sighed resignedly (it's a very Gallic thing and they really do do it just like in the films) and said, “Ah, but I'm 78.” I was stunned. This meant he had done his first LEL at the age of 70, packed, then come back for more – twice. And at 78 he had done the first 500 miles. Incroyable.
Much younger was the chap who arrived looking fresh as a daisy and had dinner with us before setting off back to London on his bike. This was his first year of Audaxing. His previous two Audaxes had been a 300k (packed) and a 400k (also packed), yet he'd still had a go at the big one. I find this impossible to criticise. I don't think it's fair to suggest that with his limited experience his entry blocked someone else from having a ride. Hundreds, yes hundreds of riders with decades of experience, packed before he did. And he wasn't that much out of time and he didn't look in the least distressed. It was also great to meet Audax stalwart Dick McTaggart, who I think had guided the rider to us.
A lovely thing about the Eskdalemuir control, apart from the friendliness of Denise and Tim and the team they have accrued, is that the local community, who did the catering for us, seemed inordinately grateful for the custom we had given their hub. I was genuinely sorry to be leaving them and their beautiful valley. I'm really determined to get up for a couple of days riding and camping as soon as possible.
This event is surreal in every way, jolting one out of usual rhythms and forcing sensations into the consciousness. This is the second time I've done the Eskdalemuir Protocol and on both occasions the whole stint has been exciting in an undefinable way. I'd love to have been riding, of course; but that wouldn't have been better, just different. A thing I particularly love about LEL (and I know not everyone agrees with me – there's a surprise) is that it goes virtually unnoticed. One and a half thousand cyclists do one and a half thousand kilometres and if you don't live on, or happen to be driving on the secretive route, you are not going to know about it. Many of the riders and helpers are known to each other. But many aren't - until they take part in this event for which they've travelled from all over the globe. It's a priviege to have the chance to practise pathetic bits of school French and German (going to learn Dutch, Italian and Spag Nol, next) and to shrug and nod in everything from Australian to Thai. And no, no Thais died......
I can't help thinking that if we could get more and more people cycling, the world would be a lot friendlier place. Except for Anco, of course; he'd still be on his own.