[LEL] Nice/funny/strange etc. anecdotes from en route

[αdαmsκι]

On Thursday I was helping at Loughton by handing back the dropbags to the riders. One rider, who'd finished & wanted his bags back, handed me his brevet card to confirm they were his bags. I pointed out to said rider he should hand his brevet card to the team for validation. But he couldn't as he'd ridden from St. Ives back to Loughton via the northbound route, thereby missing out Gt. Easton, so no validation for him. Oops. I guess if he's really wanted the ride validated he could have ridden Loughton > Gt. Easton > Loughton and he'd have still been within time as it wasn't that late.

[Lars]

Two stories with third party idiots staffing the Market Rasen control

On the way up they were doing fish and chips. a yank before me asked a bad tempered and rude 'head chef' if there was any tomato sauce

'are you taking the piss? if you want tomato sauce, go down the road to the shop and fucking buy some'

we met at a later control and yank pointed out that every other control had tomato sauce, even those not serving fish and chips

and Market Rasen South, the same outfit had no hot food at 4.30am, only muesli and bread, a bad tempered second chef grudgingly agreed to cook a plate of scrambled eggs only when asked to and did it one plate at a time when asked, when I was a minute late coming to collect mine he told me he was very busy and didn't have time for time wasters

it was so ludicrous, he was doing nothing other than chat to the other kitchen staff, that I could only solemnly thank him, there were loads of riders still there and they were doing absolutely nothing about making anything for then

MR and Pockington were noticeably substandard regarding food and attitude because they used professional caters at least in part, Pockington had only a sausage and an egg on a side plate, dried under a heat lamp with a dish of dodgy pasta, lukewarm on top and cold at bottom, and their orange squash was rank

no better on the return after getting cold and wet in the rain they served lukewarm food, no pudding and had the aircon for unfathomable reasons

the other controls were all anything between good and splendid with lovely volunteers, Kirton for me, all home cooked food from some very cheerful and encouraging catering students

Also noticed an incident with the MR chef creature. At the point where you picked up a tray there was a permanent sign saying something with pasta. The sign had a LEL-specific one put over the permanent school one. But one could still clearly read pasta. A foreign rider politely asked for pasta. The chef more or less shouted we don't have any f*ing pasta. Only toast. And then he went on and told his fellow volunteer you really must cover that f*ing pasta sign, people are giving me the p*ss about f*cking pasta. Very unfortunate that kind of thing would happen... 

[Salvatore]

The French rider who told me the highlight for him was riding a stage with John Spooner.
He was happy to have ridden it slower than he would otherwise hae done just to be with the legend himself, and was clearly intending to dine out on the tale when he got back to his club mates. 

In all corners of the world do they speak his name with awe...   
 

If it's the same chap, what actually thrilled him was meeting Drew Buck and yours truly on the same day. Otherwise mostly true.

[Chuffy]

I was accompanied on my journey by a Minion (Tom) which was given to me by a friend. This is Tom being scared by the showers in Market Rasen.



En-route I found another Minion by the roadside, so I had to stop to collect him



Together they invaded Scotland.

[Ashaman42]

Ended up in a group of ten or so just as we rolled off the Humber bridge, riding along the first road off the cyclepath we spearated into a seven and a trailing three (I was in the latter group), maybe 10 metres between the two groups at most.

Heard a rolling crack-crack-crack, I thought it was fireworks (at silly o'clock), suddenly a rather large bough of a tree fell down into the road between the two groups, managed to swerve around it without taking out anyone/being taken out but it was rather close, would only had to have fallen a second in either direction to have squished someone. 

We even circled back to check no-one was under it it was that close.

Definitely woke us all up for a bit.

[Chris S]

The exploding deer was amazing - could not have been closer for Chris S and Boab, which would have taken out the tandem train. Equally, was amazing to look around and see Mark, Gadget and Jordan not covered in entrails, given I was showered with headlight and bumper shrapnel.

The exploding deer incident was indeed, bloody scary. We all needed some moments to calm ourselves afterwards.

It was all so fast. I never even made any kind of move to the brake levers - there just wasn't time - one instant, there was road ahead, the next moment there was a bloody great deer - leaping left to right in front of me, close enough to make eye-contact with me. Then

BANG!

as it was hit square on by the oncoming car doing (probably) 40 or 50mph. The carcass then flew past fboab, before skidding along the road narrowly missing the last rider in the train. How none of us was hit by deer, bits of deer, or impaled on bits of flying car-fragments, is anyone's guess.

[Kim]

Was the driver okay?

[jogler]

I bet you got an adrenalin rush from that.
AIUI it's sometimes a brownish colour?

[marcusjb]

The exploding deer was amazing - could not have been closer for Chris S and Boab, which would have taken out the tandem train. Equally, was amazing to look around and see Mark, Gadget and Jordan not covered in entrails, given I was showered with headlight and bumper shrapnel.

The exploding deer incident was indeed, bloody scary. We all needed some moments to calm ourselves afterwards.

It was all so fast. I never even made any kind of move to the brake levers - there just wasn't time - one instant, there was road ahead, the next moment there was a bloody great deer - leaping left to right in front of me, close enough to make eye-contact with me. Then

BANG!

as it was hit square on by the oncoming car doing (probably) 40 or 50mph. The carcass then flew past fboab, before skidding along the road narrowly missing the last rider in the train. How none of us was hit by deer, bits of deer, or impaled on bits of flying car-fragments, is anyone's guess.

From the various descriptions, this does indeed sound like a flipping scary incident. I am sure many of us have had deer leap out in front of us, but to then have the thing obliterated on the other side of the road, it just really doesn't bear thinking about the potential consequences.

Bloody glad you all made it out of that scrape in one piece.

[Chris S]

Was the driver okay?

Undoubtedly. We didn't stop. I thought afterward, "Perhaps we should have stopped." - I even said as much to the others, but we were all so shaken up - we just kind of rode on, on auto-pilot. I said to boab "We've just been involved in an accident, shouldn't we stop?" to which she replied "Involved how?".

Typing this now, I'm once again filled with the thought that we should have stopped. But at the time, all I could think was "Blimey, that was close".

[Dibdib]

I've got that Simpsons jersey too... Although I haven't quite had the courage to wear it out of doors yet!

[jogler]

I am sure many of us have had deer leap out in front of us,

Mine was May,2009: Southbound down Glen Garry.
Close enough to be almost wearing it's horns on my barbag.

[Kim]

Was the driver okay?

Undoubtedly. We didn't stop. I thought afterward, "Perhaps we should have stopped." - I even said as much to the others, but we were all so shaken up - we just kind of rode on, on auto-pilot. I said to boab "We've just been involved in an accident, shouldn't we stop?" to which she replied "Involved how?".

Typing this now, I'm once again filled with the thought that we should have stopped. But at the time, all I could think was "Blimey, that was close".

Adrenaline doing the thinking, no doubt.  Which is probably a good reason for stopping, in itself (at least when there's traffic and stuff to deal with).  Glad it wasn't more serious, anyway.

[iddu]

The exploding deer was amazing - could not have been closer for Chris S and Boab, which would have taken out the tandem train. Equally, was amazing to look around and see Mark, Gadget and Jordan not covered in entrails, given I was showered with headlight and bumper shrapnel.

The exploding deer incident was indeed, bloody scary. We all needed some moments to calm ourselves afterwards.

It was all so fast. I never even made any kind of move to the brake levers - there just wasn't time - one instant, there was road ahead, the next moment there was a bloody great deer - leaping left to right in front of me, close enough to make eye-contact with me. Then

BANG!

as it was hit square on by the oncoming car doing (probably) 40 or 50mph. The carcass then flew past fboab, before skidding along the road narrowly missing the last rider in the train. How none of us was hit by deer, bits of deer, or impaled on bits of flying car-fragments, is anyone's guess.

Gah, you could have taken it to the next control - waste of good food

[Trek5200]

On my return trip I used a washroom reserved for disabled people (at Barnard Castle I think). On entering the room I noticed the previous user had not flushed. I flushed. And then all hell broke loose as a bidet emerged and sprayed a geiser so high it hit the ceiling! I cleaned the toilet seat up and used the toilet while having to endure "rain" dripping on me from above. On my leaving the washroom a Frenchman entered. I told him "Whatever you do, you MUST close the lid when flushing! He kind of brusquely replied with a grunt. And so I repeated the warning, pointed to the dripping ceiling and said BIDET! Then he understood and we shared a laugh.

[Salvatore]

Riding across the border into Scotland with a French rider named Bruno. Nothing remarkable in that, but I couldn't help reminding him that just after the Humber Bridge he'd asked me if we were still in England.

[Ashaman42]

Rode across the border to Scotland with a German chap, Frank I believe. He didn't understand why I started laughing. But the timing of a rainshower exactly as we crossed the border line was just too amusing. Welcome to Scotland eh?

[Veloman]

Two stories with third party idiots staffing the Market Rasen control

On the way up they were doing fish and chips. a yank before me asked a bad tempered and rude 'head chef' if there was any tomato sauce

'are you taking the piss? if you want tomato sauce, go down the road to the shop and fucking buy some'

we met at a later control and yank pointed out that every other control had tomato sauce, even those not serving fish and chips

and Market Rasen South, the same outfit had no hot food at 4.30am, only muesli and bread, a bad tempered second chef grudgingly agreed to cook a plate of scrambled eggs only when asked to and did it one plate at a time when asked, when I was a minute late coming to collect mine he told me he was very busy and didn't have time for time wasters

it was so ludicrous, he was doing nothing other than chat to the other kitchen staff, that I could only solemnly thank him, there were loads of riders still there and they were doing absolutely nothing about making anything for then

MR and Pockington were noticeably substandard regarding food and attitude because they used professional caters at least in part, Pockington had only a sausage and an egg on a side plate, dried under a heat lamp with a dish of dodgy pasta, lukewarm on top and cold at bottom, and their orange squash was rank

no better on the return after getting cold and wet in the rain they served lukewarm food, no pudding and had the aircon for unfathomable reasons

the other controls were all anything between good and splendid with lovely volunteers, Kirton for me, all home cooked food from some very cheerful and encouraging catering students

Also noticed an incident with the MR chef creature. At the point where you picked up a tray there was a permanent sign saying something with pasta. The sign had a LEL-specific one put over the permanent school one. But one could still clearly read pasta. A foreign rider politely asked for pasta. The chef more or less shouted we don't have any f*ing pasta. Only toast. And then he went on and told his fellow volunteer you really must cover that f*ing pasta sign, people are giving me the p*ss about f*cking pasta. Very unfortunate that kind of thing would happen... 

Was it this chap in post 2?

https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=74537.0

[Tynan]

Two stories with third party idiots staffing the Market Rasen control

On the way up they were doing fish and chips. a yank before me asked a bad tempered and rude 'head chef' if there was any tomato sauce

'are you taking the piss? if you want tomato sauce, go down the road to the shop and fucking buy some'

we met at a later control and yank pointed out that every other control had tomato sauce, even those not serving fish and chips

and Market Rasen South, the same outfit had no hot food at 4.30am, only muesli and bread, a bad tempered second chef grudgingly agreed to cook a plate of scrambled eggs only when asked to and did it one plate at a time when asked, when I was a minute late coming to collect mine he told me he was very busy and didn't have time for time wasters

it was so ludicrous, he was doing nothing other than chat to the other kitchen staff, that I could only solemnly thank him, there were loads of riders still there and they were doing absolutely nothing about making anything for then

MR and Pockington were noticeably substandard regarding food and attitude because they used professional caters at least in part, Pockington had only a sausage and an egg on a side plate, dried under a heat lamp with a dish of dodgy pasta, lukewarm on top and cold at bottom, and their orange squash was rank

no better on the return after getting cold and wet in the rain they served lukewarm food, no pudding and had the aircon for unfathomable reasons

the other controls were all anything between good and splendid with lovely volunteers, Kirton for me, all home cooked food from some very cheerful and encouraging catering students

Also noticed an incident with the MR chef creature. At the point where you picked up a tray there was a permanent sign saying something with pasta. The sign had a LEL-specific one put over the permanent school one. But one could still clearly read pasta. A foreign rider politely asked for pasta. The chef more or less shouted we don't have any f*ing pasta. Only toast. And then he went on and told his fellow volunteer you really must cover that f*ing pasta sign, people are giving me the p*ss about f*cking pasta. Very unfortunate that kind of thing would happen... 

Was it this chap in post 2?

https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=74537.0

yep

guys got issues, he's being paid to do a job and he didn't do it, he was standing around doing jack shit while tired and hungry people wanted exactly the thing he'd been hired to do, and all he did was give bad attitude like it was about him and not them

[London Edinburgh London]

Two stories with third party idiots staffing the Market Rasen control

On the way up they were doing fish and chips. a yank before me asked a bad tempered and rude 'head chef' if there was any tomato sauce

'are you taking the piss? if you want tomato sauce, go down the road to the shop and fucking buy some'

we met at a later control and yank pointed out that every other control had tomato sauce, even those not serving fish and chips

and Market Rasen South, the same outfit had no hot food at 4.30am, only muesli and bread, a bad tempered second chef grudgingly agreed to cook a plate of scrambled eggs only when asked to and did it one plate at a time when asked, when I was a minute late coming to collect mine he told me he was very busy and didn't have time for time wasters

it was so ludicrous, he was doing nothing other than chat to the other kitchen staff, that I could only solemnly thank him, there were loads of riders still there and they were doing absolutely nothing about making anything for then

MR and Pockington were noticeably substandard regarding food and attitude because they used professional caters at least in part, Pockington had only a sausage and an egg on a side plate, dried under a heat lamp with a dish of dodgy pasta, lukewarm on top and cold at bottom, and their orange squash was rank

no better on the return after getting cold and wet in the rain they served lukewarm food, no pudding and had the aircon for unfathomable reasons

the other controls were all anything between good and splendid with lovely volunteers, Kirton for me, all home cooked food from some very cheerful and encouraging catering students

Actually we used independent professional caterers at Kirton too.  And St Ives and Brampton. It was actually the school that catered at Pocklington, as they did at Edinburgh, Thirsk and Moffat too.

I completely take on board comments about Vincent at Market Rasen. His behaviour at Market Rasen was totally unacceptable, in particular his treatment of our volunteers and his own staff. We will not be using his services again. Apologies to anyone who was on the receiving end of his abusive language. If it's any consolation, I got a few stroppy stares that I'm sure would have been barrages of abuse if I wasn't the person paying him at the end.

I don't accept your description of the other chef as an 'idiot'. He was an incredibly hard-working and good-natured chap whom I gave a generous tip for enduring a constant barrage of abuse from Vincent. He was also under the cosh because the third chef had to be sent home for drunkenness. Any grumpiness after catering for 850 riders over 18 hours is unfortunate but understandable.

How did it get to this stage? We were let down by the school's caterers. Having originally agreed to cater for us, in April they suddenly became incredibly obstructive, asking for £30-40,000 to manage the event. With no contacts or experience in recruiting freelancers, we had to scramble to pull a team together. What worked at Kirton and Brampton was not as successful here. And while nearly every rider got fed very well (roast dinners, fish and chips), breakfast service could have been much better. I suspect a better chef team would have pulled something better out of the hat.

[mattc]

Tynan,
I'm very sorry for what happened at those controls, and all feedback is welcome, even the bad stuff. But is this the place?
"Nice/funny/strange" ?


Perhaps it was strange because everyone else at MR and Pocklington was so marvellous? 

[wilkyboy]

Was the driver okay?

Undoubtedly. We didn't stop. I thought afterward, "Perhaps we should have stopped." - I even said as much to the others, but we were all so shaken up - we just kind of rode on, on auto-pilot. I said to boab "We've just been involved in an accident, shouldn't we stop?" to which she replied "Involved how?".

Typing this now, I'm once again filled with the thought that we should have stopped. But at the time, all I could think was "Blimey, that was close".

you should stopped and checked. I stopped when Peter and Alan had their accident: i found out today it involved broken ribs and a head wound (which i could see), but the visceral need of both riders to continue was utterly inspiring and had me in tears at the time and then racing off to complete within time in spite of the time spent with them the police and the paramedics!  (both riders will be okay in time, nothing permanent)

[Tynan]

no criticism of the orgs from me, promise, it was all great and I utterly appreciated all the hard work that clearly had gone into everything

I've posted a few things that struck me on the ride, that I think came under strange, nowt as strange as folk and all that

as for 'idiot' he did say what he said to a rider who politely asked for tomato sauce to go with fish and chips, I appreciate he might have had a tough day but that's his job and to say that to a 'customer' that's tired and hungry and perfectly civil would be actionable in most professions

cooks that are rude to hungry people that they're being paid to feed is an odd one for me

anyway, observations not criticisms

[Bairdy]

I was surprised by the owner of the newsagents in the small village in Terrington in the Howardian Hills, when I stopped to get a coke and he asked my cut off time to get back to London.
He had been tweeting photos and comments about the event to others in the village including this one featuring j cloths, marigolds and frozen peas.

I took an identical picture, it was an Irish guy his Achilles were on fire!
He put frozen peas in marigold gloves and bound them to his Achilles with jay cloths and tape.
My left one flared up and he gave me some gel for it later in the ride.

The newsagent was brilliant, he me gave a leaflet detailing the TDF route for next year, boasting that there would be no potholes. He was also talking about putting camp beds in the village hall to accommodate people wishing to watch the Tour as York is completely booked up.
His customers felt miffed they'd not been told about LEL, they loved it and seemed to want to be somehow involved.

[marcusjb]

One of my best moments was just after Thirsk northbound. I had slept and left reasonably early Monday morning.

You climb a short hill and then there is a racetrack next to you.

As I went along the road, 4 beautiful racehorses were being put through their paces.

The noise of horses galloping is something else.