Mmmm - 3 AWOL's. Perhaps I should call now to check they're OK. 
I didn’t realise there were 3 of us; assumed I was the only one. So I’m not guaranteed the Laterne Rouge then, the competition is still on? Despite being out of time from control 1 onwards I finished at about 23:15 with an overall average speed of 14.1kph and visited all the controls. ‘Out of time at control 1’? – well besides the lanterne rouge, Pat has promised to get me a tee-shirt bearing the legend, ‘please point at me and laugh!’ (not really); on the morning I arrived at Sparsholt at 7am but was bemused to find no sign of bicycles or auks and although I was at the church with a spire and village hall opposite the lie of the land didn’t really match the map Pat had emailed us. So, yes, I was at the wrong Sparsholt (careless use of Tomtom) and hence I didn’t get to the right Sparsholt until about 08:15 and started an hour after the field.
It was a solitary ride, I only saw the peloton going the opposite direction; once in Lambourn from my car and again between Imber and Gore Cross (yes it was me in the red and white AUK England top).
My overall speed really suffered from the gravel roads, especially Salisbury Plain (I was going to do the alternate but was conned by the very ridable first several hundred metres) where I had to walk the worst bits and the Ridgeway in the dark (very slooow), I kept upright but very bumpy and I don’t like braking on lots of loose gravel (fortunately, besides my normal son hub with a supernova front light I had brought my commuting spare – a thing designed for off road mountain biking; think WWII anti-aircraft search light). I have never ridden gravel before and the day was a real education on Conti GP 4 season 28mm tyres, never fell off so I was impressed with my balancing, and I applied what I heard in a mountain biking youtube – do not focus on the obstacle inches from your front wheel, just concentrate on where you want to go to and trust your bike, and DO NOT USE YOUR FRONT BRAKE ON LOOSE GRAVEL.
Other reasons for overall slowness – totally untrained for all the verticality (but only had to walk up the steepest bit of the climb from Clyffe Pypard), spent a lot of time on the granny ring of my Hewitt Cheviot SE which is fitted with a mountain bike chain set, AND overprepared for all eventualities – I had enough food to feed everyone as if we were already in the post-hard-brexit times of no-food-on-the-shelves, mechanicals etc, so my rack-pack was the weight of a small child. Oh, and my only puncture was just 1km from the end of the Ridgeway gravel, could have cried, putting Stan’s sealant in my tubes hadn’t worked – I did check for flints in the tyre re-inflate the tyre once and thought it was fixed, but it went flat again. Will discuss on facebook audax tech stuff. I replaced the tube on the first tarmac road I got to; heartening that the only car to drive past stopped, reversed and asked if all was ok. Was not OTOH impressed by the dick who close-passed me at about 60mph as I grovelled up the A3102 out of Melksham, but that was a single incident.
All in all I really enjoyed what was a proper day out, thanks Pat, sad I missed the cake. Great views, great route, history and a new experience on gravel roads. A real challenge (for me anyway) and sense of achievement to finish – as the anciens I met in the Wetherspoons control said, go at your own pace and enjoy it. I think everyone should do this ride at least once.
PS my wife thinks my over-preparedness and taking too much is some sort of medical condition that I suffer from. Definitely not compatible with AUK success.
