at LWaB
+1
I did get the impression that they'd done their sums wrong regarding time as well. I know myself from being close to time on Audax while on extra long permanents, where you don't have a brevet card with closing times of controls, how confusing it can be working out timings.
I remember riding a series of 1000km permanents in 2000, counting with my fingers, trying to work out how much time I had in hand. This sometimes took me about 10 miles to confirm my maths. Sleep deprivation didn't help much, which they would have also had.
Even when I tried to work out how much time he had to get the record it took me 2 goes.
Some of their tweets said that they were "only on day 2" but over 48 hours had elapsed IIRC. All the way up to Inverness they gave the impression that they thought the record was still possible and were tweeting that they're still in with a chance, which I was curious about.
I wonder if they got to JOG, sat down and did their sums, which would make a lot of sense to me for psychological reasons, and realised it was over. They stopped for at least 20 minutes before they announced they were calling it a day.