Yet Another Cycling Forum
General Category => Audax => Topic started by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 August, 2017, 02:38:25 pm
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To look at it another way, why doesn't it start from London? I'd assumed it originally had a London start but had moved further out as it grew due to the problems of sending huge numbers of riders through the London traffic, as well as finding a suitable start location. And because, perhaps, riding through London isn't such fun. But then I saw this:
2001 was the first time that there was a 'London' start, from Harlow in Essex. It coincided with a start in Thorne.
So I looked around and found:
In the 1989 spring Arrivée, there was no mention of LEL other than a pointer to the entry form in the middle pages. T
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The event started in Doncaster at the Mencap Centre and entry was £10.
http://www.marcusjb.com/lel-1989/
From the list of controls, the ride clearly went into Edinburgh and pretty close to London. So if the idea was to ride from London to Edinburgh and back as a British version of PBP, why did it start in the middle?
???
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Loughton-Edinburgh-Loughton.
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Where do you think PBP starts?
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In a suburb of Paris. That's the impression I've got at least.
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In a suburb of Paris. That's the impression I've got at least.
It starts west of Versailles.
17 miles by google maps walking route from the centre of Paris.
Edit: further from the centre of Paris than LEL starts from the centre of London.
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That's the kind of place, or distance from central Paris, I'd imagined. It doesn't start midway between Paris and Brest. It's also similar to the current start of LEL.
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In a suburb of Paris. That's the impression I've got at least.
It starts west of Versailles.
17 miles by google maps walking route from the centre of Paris.
Edit: further from the centre of Paris than LEL starts from the centre of London.
Has it always been that far out, given that it was first run in 1891 (as Google tells me)?
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Anyway, I'm asking about LEL in 1989 not PBP. I'm sure it would be lovely to have 1500 riders (now) set off from Tower Bridge or Hyde Park Corner, but impractical, hence Essex. Maybe it was already impractical or unattractive for 29 riders in 1989, but what puzzles me is why it started from Doncaster, roughly midway between the two, rather than somewhere near London.
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It was always Berard Mawson's intention to start in London eventually - hence the name - but it was more practical to start the first low-key low-budget edition in South Yorkshire.
For one thing Bernard not only ran the start and finish controls, but also Carterway Heads and Thurlby.
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A practical start to a long term vision. Thank you!
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PBP71 started in La Celle Saint Cloud, north of Versailles and west of Paris. http://www.randonneurs.bc.ca/pbp/stories/brestward-ho/main.html has a good account of PBP71, Barry Parslow's second PBP.
The route has changed quite a bit over the years. In the early days, all brevets would have been on main roads but increases in traffic changed that. PBP swapped off the main roads after fatalities during PBPs in the '60s. Since then, it has hunted out even smaller roads. LEL has done the same sort of thing but a few decades later.
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Has it always been that far out, given that it was first run in 1891 (as Google tells me)?
The 1891 start was outside the newspaper head office here: https://goo.gl/maps/6kBE56nPNy42 (https://goo.gl/maps/6kBE56nPNy42)
It would be a horrific place to start now.
https://flic.kr/p/nQiGed (https://flic.kr/p/nQiGed)
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& Out of interest. Why don't they try a ELE one year just for a nice change?
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& Out of interest. Why don't they try a ELE one year just for a nice change?
Don't want to.
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& Out of interest. Why don't they try a ELE one year just for a nice change?
No-one's stopping you from doing it ;)
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& Out of interest. Why don't they try a ELE one year just for a nice change?
Don't want to.
For foreign riders it's far easier and cheaper to get flights to London than Edinburgh. But Alwyns answer is better
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'To EL and Back' would still be a nice ride. You would get the main hills out of the way in the first half, and a tailwind through the fens to wards the finish. Especially if you started somewhere like York where the Humber Bridge could become a landmark right at the end.
Getting there would be more difficult for most people than to London though.
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Having seen this event up close and personal twice and from both sides, I wouldn't change a thing.
It has a far more exotic and international flavour than PBP which is a very French affair and the clever use of volunteers has created an entire sub-culture of "being an LEL volunteer" that is unique in the world. Some minor fiddles with the route perhaps, orgs always do this.
But it ain't broke. Don't fix it.
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I'm not sure anyone's suggesting alterations. I'm certainly not.
Edit: And if they are, there's a whole thread for that.
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We had a belated party for Heather's 60th on Saturday. Heather has run the North Cumbria/Durham control on 5 occasions. My Dad and step-Mum had helped at her control in 2001, 2005 and 2009. Our friend Jim had volunteered at Brampton in 2013 and 2017.
Sonya Crawford ran the Edinburgh control in 1989, 1993, 1997, 2001, 2005, 2009 and 2013, her husband Colin had helped her out there on many occasions.
My mate Dave had helped film in 2005, 2009, 2013 and 2017.
Heather and I got involved as we'd ridden PBP 1999, and Heather's mother lives in Thorne. That meant that Heather could liaise with Bernard Mawson when she was in Thorne, which was frequently, as she visited Grantham for work. She currently has responsibility for woods in Cumbria, so can visit Brampton as a adjunct to work, which is handy as it's 100 miles away.
Out of all those people with LEL connections at the party, I was the only one to have ridden LEL, twice from Thorne, and once from Lee Valley hostel. Colin and Sonya had checked the route from Edinburgh to Thorne in 2009.
The Southern section of the route up to 2009 used a lot of the remnants of various manifestations of the 'The Great North Road', which is what suggests the idea of London Edinburgh London. Bernard Mawson made use of those sections of road on his other rides. The A1 North of Newcastle is the main East coast road artery, and the A68 is fairly busy, which is what dictates Yad Moss on LEL.
Our first serious filming was in 2005, and we got interviews with Italian, German, French, Japanese, Dutch, Belgian, Russian, US and Canadian riders, with others visible.
The international aspect of LEL is the best bit, but there were still remnants of the pre-2009 arrangements, which were more convenient for riders from the North and Scotland. As volunteers tend to be recruited from friends and family of riders, those volunteers will tend to come from abroad.
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From the list of controls, the ride clearly went into Edinburgh and pretty close to London. So if the idea was to ride from London to Edinburgh and back as a British version of PBP, why did it start in the middle?
???
British eccentricism I guess. (and, I think, down to the fact that the original organiser lived somewhere close to Doncaster).
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How far south did the early editions go?
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How far south did the early editions go?
1989 & 1993 Potters Bar scout hut
1997 Harlow
2001 Epping Forest Youth Hostel
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How far south did the early editions go?
1989 & 1993 Potters Bar scout hut
1997 Harlow
2001 Epping Forest Youth Hostel
I'm sure 2001 was Harlow.
I reckon that a PBP starting in Fougeres, then to Brest, before returning to Fougeres, on towards Paris, turning at the top of the Cote de Gambais, then back to Fougeres, would be an excellent ride.
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It was always Berard Mawson's intention to start in London eventually - hence the name - but it was more practical to start the first low-key low-budget edition in South Yorkshire.
For one thing Bernard not only ran the start and finish controls, but also Carterway Heads and Thurlby.
Anyone have route sheets or even better a gpx for the South Yorkshire start edition?
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How far south did the early editions go?
1989 & 1993 Potters Bar scout hut
1997 Harlow
2001 Epping Forest Youth Hostel
I'm sure 2001 was Harlow.
I may have got 1997 & 2001 the wrong way round.
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1997, was epping forest youth hostel. Rocco was there offering kind words in his own way!!!
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Methinks LEL pre-dates most satnavs...
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I've seen scans of route sheets from that era that were basically a list of towns.
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I've seen scans of route sheets from that era that were basically a list of towns.
Route sheets of that era were usually a tad more detailed (apart from 'Retrace to Mencap' - Gonerby - Doncaster on Bernie's Long FO 600km)
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1997, was epping forest youth hostel. Rocco was there offering kind words in his own way!!!
In 1993 the toilet in Potters Bar scout hut was blocked. Rocco, as AUK chairman, rolled up his sleeves and attempted to shift the blockage. Whatever words were offered to the plumbing, not many were kind.
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It was always Berard Mawson's intention to start in London eventually - hence the name - but it was more practical to start the first low-key low-budget edition in South Yorkshire.
For one thing Bernard not only ran the start and finish controls, but also Carterway Heads and Thurlby.
Anyone have route sheets or even better a gpx for the South Yorkshire start edition?
The routes that LEL has taken over the years have been shaped by the controls. The 'best' route between London and Edinburgh is open to debate, so I'll open a thread on it.
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I live in Sheffield, so the South Yorkshire start interests me as a possible DIY.
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I live in Sheffield, so the South Yorkshire start interests me as a possible DIY.
There'll be a permanent route for LEL, and you can join that at any point.
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There will be, or there is?
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It was always Berard Mawson's intention to start in London eventually - hence the name - but it was more practical to start the first low-key low-budget edition in South Yorkshire.
For one thing Bernard not only ran the start and finish controls, but also Carterway Heads and Thurlby.
Anyone have route sheets or even better a gpx for the South Yorkshire start edition?
The routes that LEL has taken over the years have been shaped by the controls. The 'best' route between London and Edinburgh is open to debate, so I'll open a thread on it.
Be sure to also start one on
"What is the best starting point?"