My write up of yesterday's Brazier's 100 and ECE up to 200km
A day in the company of Storm Dennis
As I lay there at 3am, I could hear the wind howling through the vents and the rain lashing the glass of the windows. In just over two hours I’d be getting up for breakfast, then leaving around 6am to ride over to the start of Brazier’s 100.
The Brazier’s is probably my second most ridden audax event after the Stevenage Start of Summertime 200. Like in previous years I’d opted to ECE (ride to and from event to bring it up to the next audax distance) the event. I’d submitted my route late on Thursday once I knew the weather forecast.
There was a yellow warning for wind out, 35 mph gusting to 50mph decreasing over the day. There was also heavy rain in the forecast, reducing to light rain by lunchtime. Some say you are mad heading out on a bike in those kind of conditions, risking your life. But the truth is, you don’t really know what it is like out there on a bike, sat in your nice warm house. It always seems worse when you are in that warm cozy environment. 50mph gusts certainly aren’t the strongest winds I’ve been out in. That wind speed is not strong enough to blow you off your feet. That wind speed for that is around 70 mph gusting to 100 mph, now that is scary to be out in. But the forecast was nowhere near that level.
Some would say you are mad or foolhardy to insist on doing a 100km audax in the forecast conditions. Even madder to ECE it up to 200km. But you can’t really find out what conditions are really like on a bike from your keyboard in a warm house. You head out with the premise that you may need to abandon or turn round at any point. It’s a risk assessment. The advantage of the ECE is that you find out pretty soon whether the conditions are beyond your clothing and experience. The main thing for me was how the wind affected bike handling. If the bike handles fine even with the strongest gusts, then it’ll be tough but not dangerous. If it turns out to be too much, and you are getting blown all over the road, you turn around whilst not very far from home. Most debris will already be down from Ciara the weekend before or Dennis the night before. The ride wasn’t through forestry where you’re in constant danger of something falling. So pretty early on I realised the wind was just fine, and as long as the clothing handled the wind and rain it’d be fine. Indeed it was. It was a grand day out.
I put the bike out on the patio, it didn’t seem desperately windy. Sure you could hear the wind rushing about. But it wasn’t buffeting me from side to side, and things weren’t flying around the garden. There was a light rain not the heavy rain forecast. A large bush had come down in our garden. So the winds had been strong overnight. But the bush was old, thought it was a tree, and was rotten in places. Breakfast and a couple of cups of tea and I was ready to go. I told my wife, Helen, I’d be back between 6-7pm.
First impressions were that the wind gusts were not upsetting the bike and I. We were maintaining a perfect line as I carved through the turns on my recumbent. My front dynamo light had got knocked so I stopped in the local park and readjusted light so the beam was focused 10 metres ahead once more.
There was a lot of small debris, small branches and twigs, in the park. So it was necessary to weave a little around them least I come a cropper. After about 2km I left the boundaries of town and headed out into the countryside. Here it was more exposed and the gusts stronger, but it had zero effect on the bike and I. Holding the handlebars one handed whilst I drank from a water bottle was a perfectly relaxed affair.
I’d opted for the longer leg to the start, so my ride to the start was 58km. It was initially dark, so paying attention to the road ahead, and not going too fast downhill was crucial to avoid running into the debris on the road.
I crossed Barwick Ford overflowing with water, via the footbridge. Riding through that would have been a recipe for disaster. The route is quite choppy so I was keeping warm, too warm in fact, and wondered if I was overdressed in the wind and rain. I passed 14 trees that had come down, whether Ciara or Dennis I didn’t know. But they’d all fallen on the south side of the road and on the north side where I was riding I could generally keep riding. Just after I’d passed on, a land rover drove into the tree on the other side of the road. Maybe he'd been concentrating on the sight of me, and not so much on what was in front of him. At least on a bike you will generally go slow enough to react to anything in the road. Oh well, it’ll bash out.
I turned north east at the Hadhams and this should have meant a stonking south west tailwind. But instead I found myself in a whirlpool as the heavens opened and the wind came from all directions, the road a river. In a few mins the rain resumed its previous lighter state, but I was now completely soaked and no longer thought I was over dressed.
The tailwind didn’t materialise, in fact a headwind blew from the north. The road said closed but I pushed on, in the hope I’d be able to get through on a bike, I could. The wind continued to blow from unexpected directions, from the north, south, and west. Only east was left out in its quest to confuse me. So I got headwind, tailwind, cross wind.
I arrived at the Victoria huts, start of the Brazier’s rides at 8:40am. Perfect for the 9am start. The wind had been ok, the gusts had not affected the bike and I in any way. Even the strongest did not affect the line of the bike or force me to grip the steering. Today was going to be fine, if not a difficult and energy sapping day.
Kieron gave me my card and after writing in my emergency contact details I settled down to a second breakfast. That consisted of a large chocolate brownie and two cups of tea. I was still eating and drinking when 9.00am ticked over and I let the small field set off without me. There were 15 riders altogether out of 60 entrants.
I got going about 20 mins later, together with the Straggler and Geoff. They very generously let me set off down the road first. I found out soon enough they wanted to see me ride through the first flood of the day, before they tried it. Thanks guys.
The rain got steady heavier till it was properly coming down. The forecast heavy rain had arrived a few hours late. There were a couple of infos on the first loop of 50km, but I committed the answers to memory. I didn’t want to stop in the conditions and assumed a pen on a wet brevet card wouldn’t work, and the brevet card would soon be mush. As expected after the second info at the Sampfords it was back into the headwind till just beyond Thaxted. Again wind strong but gusts not affecting the bike and I.
The chocolate brownie almost got me back to the hut but at Boxted End, around 46km of the first loop the energy ran out, so I stopped on a corner to have a flapjack. Jan and the two doing their first audax rode past. We exchanged greeting as they checked I was alright. I was, but it wasn’t really conditions for stopping. So as soon as retrieved the flapjack from my seat bag and unwrapped it I got going again. I stuffed the wrapper in my jacket pocket, as I rode, that was fun in the wind. I saw Tomsk heading back out on the second loop just as I was rolling in to the hut. We exchanged smiles in thw wind and rain.
I joined the wet dripping bodies in the huts. Hot black bean soup, a ham roll, and more chocolate brownie. Water bottles topped up. Everyone was dripping but smiling like me. I handed my brevet card to Keiron and called out the answers I’d memorised. The first loop had been surprisingly debris free for the most part, what about the second loop.
The second loop headed south towards Stansted Airport before turning left and executing a loop via High Easter and the Rodings. The rain continued to be heavy and you chilled if you stopped for any length of time. The wind remained strong. The second loop was full of debris and flooded in a lot of places. Your pace had to be slow and steady, not because of the wind but because of ensuring you did not collide with debris and hit a hole in the floods. I lost count of the floods but maybe anything up to a dozen or so bits to ride through. My feet on the recumbent were above the floods but I worried about my front wheel dynamo hub. It survived. I’d left my lights on all day in the conditions and could see it still working. Again two infos and I opted to memorize them, as getting the brevet card out wasn’t really an option. Like the first loop about 3km short, I ran low on energy. So stopped and once again had a flapjack. That saw me to the finish of the event.
Back at the hut with the others dripping away. I sat by the fire, gloves on top dripping away. I was a little chilled and a dry base layer would have been nice right then. Something to bring next time I ECE maybe? I still had another 39km to ride home whilst everyone else, apart from Jan, was mostly finished or had a short ride to a train station or home.
Was an epic day out, we’d all remember the conditions today. More rain than Noah’s Ark, flippers and a snorkel may have been more appropriate for the floods. More soup, ham sandwiches and chocolate brownie.
One by one riders began to depart and after a suitable break from conditions it was time to head home. My ECE home was directly west in to the wind. But it did at least use more maybe B roads and A roads so hopefully they’d be less debris and flooding to contend with.
It was slow but steady progress against the headwind, and the rolling terrain soon warmed me up again. The weather had kept many inside and so I had the roads mostly to myself. The rain had finally stopped and I quickly dried out with the wind drying my garments and drawing the water away.
Closing on Buntingford the sun began to set and there was a beautiful low sun illuminating the clouds in pinks and reds. I took a picture but no sure how well it would come out. Through Buntingford, across the A10, and onto the A507 before turning left in Cottered, past the windmill through Walkden. My final climb up to Stevenage, a funny loop through town to hit the distance and home.
Bike away, hot shower, and tea then food, then finally a beer. What a day out.