I can remember a lot of detail from my first 600. It was 'Bernies Long Flat One' in 1998. I set out a bit late, and picked up Ian H, who was on fixed. We then caught the main group into a headwind that was channeled by the banks of the Trent from Goole to Gainsborough. We turned at Trent Bridge, I remember Dave Yates being in the group. I was working to a heart-rate monitor, and sustained the same output with a following wind, so I rode off the front, and got lost.
I found the group again at Caneby Corner, as they emerged from the Little Chef. I set off with them, but 'bonked'. I revived myself with some Fish and Chips, and made off towards Hatfield Woodhouse. Mick Potts was leading a group which picked me up. I recovered, and started riding off the front. Mick reprimanded me soundly, and insisted I rode Tempo.
I was a bit more disciplined on the second leg to Great Gonerby, where I experienced sleeping in a service station for the first time. A Scot cased Jamie broke his seat pin to saddle bolt on the only hill of note on the way back, he died young. There was a rider with one of those early LED position front lights with no beam overnight, and he was held captive behind us on the return to Hatfield.
The third leg was up to York, and I rode that in company with a bloke who had kidney problems. The whole ride seems like a dream now. But aspects of it have been filed away and given a distinct value. The ride into the wind from Goole to Gainsborough rated about 8 for headwind misery, and made me decide never to ride fixed. Doing that would be a waste of my locomotive ability.
Riding off the front and getting lost was about 6, and was an important lesson. Not stopping to eat because a group was leaving when I was arriving, also rated 6 in terms of learning when to eat.
Being torn off a strip by Mick Potts was annoying at the time, but was of long-term value. I saw him at the car park at the end of that leg, and he was searching for Ibuprofen. His achilles was playing up, as he'd probably been leading the group I was disrupting for a long time. I now know the value of trying to keep hold of someone big, strong and willing, into the wind.
I learned more on that apparently tedious, flat 600 than on any other ride, and it set me up for PBP and LEL.
Mental depletion comes from banging your head against a brick wall when you don't have to. PBP and LEL suited me, as I could be useful to others, and deploy group-riding skills. I can see that if you're a natural climber, you might spend a lot of time staring at some big bloke's back wheel, and that might get wearing. But I'd suggest that they look for rides that aren't aimed at rouleurs. That way we might not get continuous climbing inflation, and ever-rising DNF figures.