LEL 2005 : a Vole's tale

[border-rider]

July 28, 2005

Well OK.  Sitting here at home, having finished LEL.  I guess I'd better write about it...

Day 1

I started from Thorne, near Doncaster because I did it from London last time.  So my route to the first control was over toward Goole, across the flatlands of the Humber and then hit the first hills at Castle Howard before dropping down for food at Hovingham.  Should be OK.

I had an 8:45 start, right at at the back, but got into a fast group to make up a bit of time.  Two German riders and our very own Dave Lewis and Jim Churton were pulling us along at close to 40 kph and I was spinning like a loon to keep up on 69" fixed.  We pretty soon caught 8:30 start riders and even one or two 8:00 starters.  There was the usual banter in the peloton, but when it turned to  discussion of the possibilities of erotic liaison between one of our group and  another (same gender) acquaintance of ours, I managed to lose concentration a bit.  Not good.  I touched the wheel of the rider in front and went flying.  Being a fixie, the pedals kept going round as I skidded along the ground, still clipped in.  I didn't take anyone else with me but I was pretty convinced that this was the end of my LEL.

Good old Mr Carradice.  The ridiculously oversized cotton duck saddlebag and the handlebars saved me.  I got off with bruising and the loss of some quite large bits of skin.  The On-One  got a radical new shape to its drops.  But that was all.  I was OK to go, it seemed.  I waved the rest of the group- on as I didn't want to delay them and I doubted they could help anyay.  Pete Marshall insisted on staying with me - I think he thought I might be a bit shocked.  I think he was right.  It was a kind move.


I cleaned myself up as best I could and applied antiseptic.  It was messy and hurt like hell, but I was mobile.  As I rode, it eased, though my knee was bleeding profusely and my sock had gone all pink...

We made it through the lanes to Castle Howard - the array of obelisks and follies on the road there just seems like one big FU to the peasantry - and the Howardian Hills (not enough to have a castle and follies ?  Lets name the hills after ourselves too !).  I was running on adrenlin still, and we picked up riders all the way to the Hovingham village hall control.  Much sympathy there, but more importantly much tea and food.  [It was a feature of this ride that ones stomach got stuffed to capacity with fine veggie cycling food every 3 hours or so.  Going to be a hard habit to break, that]

Pete and I staggered out of Hovingham into more hills around Coxwold, and got on an official photo.  Bet they don’t use that in Arrivee – my right leg was not a good advert for Audax UK.  At this point it was still pouring blood into my sock.

The route then headed through Thirsk and the scenery calmed down a bit, but remained very, well, scenic, as the next control in a village hall at Etterby near Scotch Corner approached.  The controls on LEL are 65-85 km apart, so at this point we were a little over 10% in.  Time for lunch !  Pete and I seemed to be riding at a similar pace, and my adrenaline poisoning had subsided now, so after a very fine pasta meal we settled into a steady pace though Richmondshire to Barnards Castle.  We knew what was to come….

Barnards Castle is a very pretty town, and the pharmacy there is highly recommended should you ever need 5 days’ supply of bandages.  We whizzed down to Middleton-in-Teesdale and started the long climb over Yad Moss.  The pretty wooded landscape dropped away to moorland as we climbed and climbed up to the Youth Hostel at Langdon Beck – the highest in England, and one of which I have very fond memories from LEL 2001.  I spent a  pleasant afternoon sleeping there, having failed to be anywhere with a bed during the hours of darkness. Not a good strategy.  LEL 2005 would be better !

This time we had the option to control either at Langdon Beck or Alston Hostel, about 25 km further, and, most importantly, the other side of Yad Moss.  It made sense to carry on past Langdon, up to the summit and down before stopping.  So we did.  We caught several more riders on the climb and I felt good.  Until the very top, when I got the most horrendous stomach cramp.  Maybe I’d overdone it.  I took it easy by trying to keep up with a fully-faired recumbent on the descent to Alston, but halfway down I knew I had to divert into a quiet spot or explode.  Oh dear.  Break out the Immodium.  Maybe it was just delayed nerves from the accident, but not worth the risk.  Pete went on to Alston and I caught him there.  After more food, we left for the lumpy-but-mainly-downhill leg to Cannonbie.  It was very beautiful indeed in  the early evening sun, but I had misgivings about the gradients for the return leg, and also about my digestive system.  Two more emergency stops, three more Immodiums (!) and it seemed to be under control.  I was still going well though, and rolled into Scotland at dusk in the company of  a local fixie rider on a vintage Flying Scott.

The Cannonbie control was running at maximum efficiency and the food and reception were superb.  The problem was that this was 291 km from Thorne, and it was another 96 very hilly km to the next designated sleep control at Dalkieth, outside Edinburgh.   It was dark now, and it would make no sense at all to go on.  So nearly all the Thorne starters overnighted at Cannonbie.  There were bodies everywhere, and I spent a bad night on a pile of towels in a cold, draughty and noisy corridor. One guy slept in the shower room, someone else in the disabled loo.   

We sleep perchance to dream ? No chance.

[border-rider]

Day 2

I woke in a better frame of mind, and with calm intestines, and after hearty breakfasts the condemned set off for what was likely to be the hardest day.  Pete and I were tired but rolling fairly well up through Eskdale and past the amazing Samii Ling Temple. I discarded my leg bandages in a Buddhist bin as they made climbing very painful indeed.  It was cold and just a touch misty, with the promise cof some sun.  Eskdale was spectacular.  And hilly. Up, up, up and down to the intermediate basic control at Etterick.  This was friendly, if compact, but had been invaded by The Midge.  We stopped, but not for too long.

The next stage has already blurred into a memory of an infinite number of long climbs and long descents on quiet moorland roads. Great cycling, but very, very tough.  We popped into a corner shop at Innerleithen for some essential veggie jelly beans, and the owner gave us cups of tea.  In exchange, we pointed other riders toward his shop.  We saw the first returning Thorne starters here, about 70 km up on us.  Down to Edinburgh, and more food at 400 km.  The return to Etterick was into a headwind, but I already have real problems sorting the memories of these Scottish hills into “out” and “back”.  Etterick had cheered up in the sun, the midges had gone to bed and there was a cosmopolitan flow of riders in both directions and from both start points through the control.  This section was the last time we saw the Devon CTC push-me-pull-you back-to-back recumbent trike.  Hard to explain unless you meet it, but the stoker faces backwards, it is very low to the ground and has three wheels.  Oh, and an inexplicable transmission.

Back down top Cannonbie, seeing many of the London starters going the other way, and meeting lots more friends back at the control.  Mmm…Vegetable Biriani….mmmm.  The plan is to push on to Alton or Langdon Beck for the night.  Both are hostels, with real beds !

But that headwind.  What an epic struggle back to Alston: very hilly, very, very, tough.  Two highpoints: the first when I said to Pete “you know, for a horrible moment I thought that was our road all the way up there….oh”.  And the other was our first sighting of FWN heading North.  We finally got back to Alston and had left behind a lot of other riders we’d seen at Cannonbie.  It was still light, so we decided to go on to Langdon Back and get Yad Moss out of the way.  I walked the Alston cobbles: the combination of gradient and surface was too much for safety on fixed.  We powered up to reach the top of the 11 km climb as the light failed and I flagged with it.  The 13 km descent was absolutely freezing, and I was pleased that  I was generating heat as my little legs spun and spun.   We got to Langdon in good time and the hard push from Cannonbie had paid off: real beds were available !  As I showered, Jim Churton came in suffering from hyperthermia and was shoved in to the adjacent cubicle to defrost.  He and Dave had made the mistake of going to the pub in Langdon and then completing the descent.

We aimed for about 6 hours sleep, but we had the world’s best/worst snorer in our room and I’d left my earplugs in the car in Thorne.  There’s snoring, and there’s SNORING and only tired cyclists can really snore, but this guy sounded like a trombone soloist, complete with little musical flourishes and the odd shouted Tourette-type word.  About 2 am an exasperated Jim shouted out “Will you shut up !” and woke up anyone who wasn’t.  But we felt good in the morning, and the damn cold descent to Ettrerick woke us up.

[border-rider]

Day 3

The early mistiness on Yad Moss gave way to a bright warm Monday as we headed back down through North Yorkshire and the Coxwold Alps.  These were a real struggle – perhaps the hardest climbs of the ride for tired legs.  I was holding back a little on the descents to avoid pounding my @rse – all seemed OK in that department and the strategy seemed to be paying off.

We were in pretty good spirits at Hovingham, knowing we had only the Howardian Hills to go and than it would all be flat to Thorne, and indeed (as we thought) for the rest of the ride.  We left with Dave and Jim and caught the Willsden tandem en route.  We felt it would be useful on the flatlands of East Yorkshire, and it was.  We got pulled back to Thorne, but I had to drop out of the pack about 20 k out as my feet and bum couldn’t take the pace.  Pete and I trundled in early-afternoon and met some local kids on low-rider bikes.

“Where you goin’ ?”
“London”
“Where you bin ?”
“Edinburgh”
”How many weeks ?”

Then, from his low-rider seat,  he saw the LEL frame number with the dates: 23-28 July.  I’ve never seen a speechless Yorkshire teenager before. 

I remembered to collect the earplugs from the car, swapped my smelly sets of clothes for enough clean ones for the final loop:  only 600 km left !

Out across interminable flat lands.  Roundabouts were eagerly awaited; I educated Pete on the names and capabilites of all the power stations we saw in the Yorkshire and Notts [ex]coalfields.  He tried to educate me about the Grateful Dead, literature in general and the Marshall family cats.  Eventually we got onto the lanes around Lincoln and sneaked into the city.  The routesheet was idiosyncratic here, but we made it in good time and went to bed before 9 pm. It was the same deal:  the hostel had beds, it was as yet empty and it was nearly 90 km to the next control – which was a school hall with no beds.  If we pressed on into the night we’d have to travel slowly as the navigation on this stretch is the most tricky even in daylight, we’d most likely get attacks of the dozies and crawl into Thurlby in the early hours to find nowhere to sleep.  No contest.  To bed, for a good seven hours.  Woken only by Tony Pember at about midnight shouting “It’s like the dawn chorus, soon as one snorer stops the next starts”.  I thanked my earplugs and went back to snoring.

[border-rider]

Day 4

Cyclist’s lung.  Funny thing.  It affects me on very long, very tough rides – I get a productive cough with a very specific and very hard type of phlegm – like grains of rice.  I think it’s a histamine-moderated response to lung damage caused by the huge gasps a fixer makes on hills.  If I carry on I get  a runny nose and blocked sinuses.  And boy does it make me snore.  Antihistamines fix it, but they make me drowsy – even the non-drowsy ones.  Not good on a 1400 km ride.

Anyway, it had been bad the day before and was no better  now.  We hacked and spluttered our way through pretty little hills to Thurlby, collecting Richard Leon just outside Lincoln.  Richard is  a very famous French rider who is far, far faster than us. But he’d already ridden an immense event in Spain that week, plus he was on his way to finish in London so was a good 300 km up on us.  But he had real problems following the routesheet, so we had the honour of escorting him all the way back to Lea Valley.  He must have been very frustrated by the pace, but he is so tiny that there was no point him going on the front.  Pete pulled us along, mile after mile.

More Vegetable Biriani at Thurlby, and the most welcome fresh fruit salad.  The schoolkids had been told about us and had produced the most amazing paintings of our exploits, some of which (those of the younger children) almost capturing the Munchian surreality of a 1400 km audax. One of them had a passing driver saying “Get on the path” and the cyclist replying “There’s no path to Edinburgh”.  The educators of Thurlby would get my vote.

Thurlby to Gamlingay is lost in a blur of fairly boring rolling B roads and headwinds.  Ho hum.  This was long distance riding at its most mundane.  Conversation flagged, we slogged on.  Gamlingay came and went, we slogged on.  This was meant to be a fairly tame run-in to London.  In fact the southern terminus was at Cheshunt and it must have been a real struggle to find a cyclist-friendly way in.  The organisers did it: the route was very quiet, very beautiful but really quite hilly.   Not too bad going South, but North was going to be hilly.

The route went through Hertford to Cheshunt.  Going in and coming back, we were hassled by aggressive and threatening drivers.  It was a real contrast with the low car density and courteous driving of the rest of the route.    I have to say that I have come away with a very low opinion of many of the people of those towns, at least those who drive.  Navigation  to the Lea Valley hostel was tricky and Richard was grateful to be delivered safe.

We signed in, did a radio interview (as you do) and left quite quickly. This was much more of a commercial control than the others, with a cafeteria rather than the happy AUK amateurs, and although the controllers were friendly the place just didn’t feel so welcoming.  We were pleased we’d opted for the Thorne start and finish.

We had a pub stop en route for Gamlingay and the severity of those hills was moderated by a tailwind.  We saw lots of riders coming in as we headed out.  I was still not going too well and Pete pulled us along apace.

We got to the control before 7 pm and planned to head back to Thurlby with misgivings: Thurlby was likely to be packed with riders going both ways and we were going to have sleeping problems.  We decided to have a 10 minute rest before heading off, but we both woke after an hour and decided that it made a lot more sense to stop here where we could at least sleep for a while, until it got hectic.  So, off to the shower.  Let me set the scene: Pete wasn’t wearing his glasses in the shower, of course; the showers at Thurlby are four elderly electric power showers in a row but with an open shower area rather than cubicles.  Pete was already showering and had taken the leftmost shower.  I took the rightmost one, as you do.  I did feel that the atmosphere was a bit thick, maybe  a bit acrid.
“Pete, what’s on fire…Pete,  why’s there smoke coming out of the shower unit…Pete….GET OUT OF THE SHOWER NOW !”

So, two naked soaking wet people standing in a pool of water with a faulty electric power shower still spraying water.  Didn’t seem like a good plan to touch it to turn it off.  So I donned a towel and grabbed a controller.  He went off to make a phone call to find out what to do.  We stood there, dripping, and after a few minutes he returned to tell us where the circuit breakers were.  At that point we decided Someone should Do Something, so we flipped the breaker for the left hand shower, and went to bed.

[border-rider]

Day 5

A very good night’s sleep: nearly 7 hours. Not bad.  Would have been 8 if I had left my watch in the correct time zone.  Pete was too polite to mention it until after I’d dragged him  up and into breakfast.

I mentioned the cyclist’s lung and snoring; out of pity for my friends I use those BreatheRight nasal strips when overnighting on audaxes.  They keep my nasal passageways open and lessen the snoring considerably. I used one that night, but the pressure must have blocked my sinuses and I awoke with completely closed-up puffy eyes.  I could barely see.  Removing the strip and washing my eyes with cold water for ten minutes reduced the swelling from elephant man to merely kicked-in-the-face levels.

We left Gamlingay in the dark, because I can’t tell the time.  This was the only real nightriding we did and it was a very straightforward route.  It was also the only rain: it stopped as day broke after an hour or so.  There’s not much to tell of this stage – like the outward one it was pretty mundane.

At Thurlby, more Biriani !  More fresh fruit salad ! Our spirits were rising now as we only had two stages to go – less than 200 km.  The ride to Lincoln was lovely, through splendid rolling countryside with the sun peeping out.  We saw FWN again, going the other way, and Vorsprung sitting at the back of a group and looking very drowsy just behind him.  We celebrated the last hill after Acaster: the route is as flat as a flat thing all the way back from here.

We arrived at Lincoln at 11:30 am – the cut-off time for London starters going South.  Mark Brooking and the second Willesden Tandem were still there, as were Mark Beauchamp, Ivo Miesen and a few other overseas riders.  I really would not fancy playing with the time limits like that, but they seemed relaxed.

We girded our loins for the flatlands: this territory is hard on the feet and @rse.  I’d resisted using ibuprofen until now as it tends to make me nauseous on long rides, but I risked a couple now and it paid dividends.  My bottom and legs stopped aching, and we flew along with a tailwind.  This is probably the most tedious stage unless you are a power station spotter, but since I am I quite enjoyed it. ?

We rolled over the finish line exactly simultaneously with about 15 hours in hand, to a cheer from the Thorne crew and already-finished riders.  Lots of food and a beer was followed by a wash and brush-up at the hotel and then more celebration as the rest of the Thorne starters finished.  It all turned into a nice social event….

The score:

1420 km
More than 10,000 m of climbing
About 102 hours in total
About 23 hours sleep
About 2 ½  hours night riding
About 2 hours of rain
Feet, hands and @rse all in good order
No punctures
No mechanicals
One crash

Secrets:

plenty of sleep
lots of food
use the available time, there’s plenty of it
clean shorts, shirt, socks & gloves every day