[LEL] My volunteering experience

[LittleWheelsandBig]

While I was fitting a tyre from my drop bag to my bike in the stand at Thirsk, I trued a wheel and adjusted the front indexing for different riders.

Clever dick.

My name isn't Richard.

[Nuncio]

Alec?

[Chris N]

I feel a bit of a fraud - I did help out, but standing around in the sun chatting to fresh riders for a few hours at St Ives on Sunday doesn't really feel like much*.  Still, I had a nice time. 

* I did lug water around, point people in the right direction, help fix bikes and GPSs and I served lunch for 2 hours too, honest.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Alec?

If only I were smart enough...

[mattc]

While I was fitting a tyre from my drop bag to my bike in the stand at Thirsk, I trued a wheel and adjusted the front indexing for different riders.

Clever dick.

My name isn't Richard.

I'm hijacking an old joke - if you really don't know what I'm talking about, remind me to tell you the joke sometime ...

[LittleWheelsandBig]

I'm hijacking an old joke - if you really don't know what I'm talking about, remind me to tell you the joke sometime ...

Consider yourself reminded for next time we meet on the road.

[Wild Rover]

I really enjoyed the volunteering at Loughton, but my one regret was not meeting more of you - I was stuck in the back room (the left luggage one) with Martin, doing the electronic registration of riders/bag drops etc. It was pretty much full on all the time, so I only really got out intermittently to collect the signing-on forms. Managed to have a brief chat with Feline, simonp, Chuffy and STMS; for those I didn't manage to chat with, I was the short, grey haired, bespectacled, ancient-Harry Potter lookalike scuttling to the registration area & back across the dining hall with sheafs of paper.

Well done to all riders and volunteers, it was a pleasure to be part of it. Dare I ride it next time? Hmm, I'll be 62 by then........

[CrinklyLion]

I might have made you tea WR! I did a couple of tea runs for the guys on the gates and for the back room boys

[jogler]

Dare I ride it next time? Hmm, I'll be 62 by then........

I'll be 65 & not surrendering my ambition to ride it.

[Wild Rover]

Cheers CrinklyLion, 'twas much appreciated 

Jogler - l was sort of thinking out loud that I might have more spare time to train/prepare by then; it's most definitely on the radar. Providing I don't win a lot of money and run off with a glamour model before then, of course.

[jefmcg]

My worst lack of experience was trying to sort a rear gear problem at midnight with 4 hours to the control closing.
I'd got a  gear cable but have never used anything but down tube shifters and couldn't fathom this STI thingy.
I pulled Martin Sigrist out of the brew room and he sussed it, went back and emerged with a safety pin
to ease the old nipple out of the shifter!
We couldn't sort out the hit and miss shifting but sent Joan (V22) on her way in the hope that Brampton could
do some fine tuning. How did you go on?
Don.

Don did a great job.  i was able to find most of my gears and get out of the valley without too much problem.    The mechanic at Brampton was very happy with his work too.

Level of care at that control excellent all around - even after I tipped over an entire cup of coffee into a plastic chair; a cup of coffee that I had cooled down already with some orange squash.  I did not cover myself with glory, but I did say please/thanks/sorry an awful lot.

[Peter]

I think I may have mopped that chair!

[Peter]

I've just stuck my report over on Ride Reports; it seemed like the most appropriate place.

https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=74726.0

[arvid]

I spent most of my time doing mechanics duties at Brampton, see my blog post on "Common Mechanical Problems" if you'd like to know how to avoid seeing a mechanic on a long distance ride.

I wasn't looking for you and your filthy high-five hand! How many tired riders did you trick into that?

Cables don't break because of rain, they break because they're old and haven't be changed for yonks.

Oh please explain to me how my shifter cables got stuck in 2009 after about 1250km when I had this bike for less than 6 months? No mechanic could help me back then, and I managed by shifting my Rohloff at the axle. (I agree with most of your ramblings though, but even if you've gotten a new bike in March and did an SR on it this is no guarantee against these kind of problems)

[Von Broad]

Oh please explain to me how my shifter cables got stuck in 2009 after about 1250km when I had this bike for less than 6 months? No mechanic could help me back then, and I managed by shifting my Rohloff at the axle. (I agree with most of your ramblings though, but even if you've gotten a new bike in March and did an SR on it this is no guarantee against these kind of problems)

Guarantees? Blimey no, save our old trusted friends of death and taxes, as we all know, life offers little guarantee of anything. That established though, probably still worth riding with [what you know are] new[ish] cables before a 1400.

As for your Rohloff - 2009 you say - well, I wasn't there then, and it's a bit difficult to offer a solutioon in 2013, but the little I know about Rohloffs [which is not a little, but in fact absolutely nothing], chances are, regrettably, I couldn't have helped you at all. But equally, there's no guarantee of that either.

[matthew]

Here is the small write up I put together for the weekly cyclists email that is sent out at work from our Glasgow office.

Well by the time you read this all of the 1000 riders on this year’s LEL (London – Edinburgh – London) should be on their way south again.
LEL is the blue ribbon UK Audax and runs every four years, last time ~600 riders started and the event has grown substantially to accommodate the growth in long distance cyclists. Many nations are represented from UK based riders, European riders (French, German, Spanish, Italian, Danish, Dutch, Finish, Belarusian …), Asian (Indian, Japanese, Chinese), Australian, American, Canadian and South African. Riding all types of bikes from normal road bikes, tourers and Moultons to the oddities of the Eliptigos, Recumbents, Velomobiles and trikes. There was even a Cargo Bike and one rider is riding a 1900’s two speed bike where you pedal forwards for one gear and backwards for the other!
Riders left Loughton in north east London in groups between 05:30 and 10:30 on Sunday morning, a large number chose to participate in a Prologue and started at 6:00 am from Buckingham Palace before riding out to Loughton for another breakfast and to then start at their allocated times.
For an indication of where to find the riders here are the control opening and closing times for a rider who started at 7am Sunday:

Direction	Control	Distance	Opening Time	Closing Time
NORTH	Loughton	0	Sunday 07:00	---
	St Ives	99	Sunday 10:19	Sunday 15:11
	Kirton	180	Sunday 13:01	Sunday 21:50
	Market Rasen	248	Sunday 15:18	Monday 03:28
	Pocklington	333	Sunday 18:07	Monday 10:26
	Thirsk	398	Sunday 20:17	Monday 15:47
	Barnard Castle	465	Sunday 22:31	Monday 21:17
	Brampton	547	Monday 01:15	Tuesday 04:00
	Moffat	622	Monday 03:44	Tuesday 10:08
	Edinburgh	703	Monday 06:26	Tuesday 16:47
SOUTH	Traquair	745	Monday 07:51	Tuesday 20:17
	Eskdalemuir	791	Monday 09:22	Wednesday 00:03
	Brampton	849	Monday 11:19	Wednesday 04:50
	Barnard Castle	933	Monday 14:06	Wednesday 11:42
	Thirsk	1000	Monday 16:19	Wednesday 17:10
	Pocklington	1065	Monday 18:30	Wednesday 22:34
	Market Rasen	1150	Monday 21:20	Thursday 05:32
	Kirton	1218	Monday 23:37	Thursday 11:10
	St Ives	1299	Tuesday 02:18	Thursday 17:49
	Great Easton	1373	Tuesday 04:47	Thursday 23:55
	Loughton	1419	Tuesday 06:18	Friday 03:40

And My role, well I went to Loughton on Friday morning, pitched two marquees, and assisted in setting up the site ready for Registration. On Saturday all the riders came in between 9am and 5pm to register, collect their frame numbers and brevet cards and to drop off the luggage they wanted to send ahead. I was in the drop bag tent distributing the colour coded bags for the locations the riders had booked to send bags ahead to and receiving them back with their 2.5kg of changes of cloths, drinks powders, batteries etc. In all I think we took in about 1800 bags between the riders, some choosing to be fully self-sufficient and others only sending one bag up ahead. Then on Sunday it was up at 03:30 to open up so that we could provide breakfast to the earliest starters who arrived from 04:00 onwards. The it was gathering the riders into their start pens from about 15 minutes before their allocated start, Riders A left at 05:30, B at 06:00 and then at 15 minute intervals until riders X started at 10:30. In total I think we had about 70 people for the start control, to register, feed and look after the bike park. Subsequent controls will be feeding, stamping the Brevet Cards (proof of passage), providing sleep points and access to drop bags.

Finally the last riders must be back in Loughton by 07:10 to finish in time, otherwise they will have ridden all that distance and not get their badge.

I really enjoyed my time, particularly on Sunday when I was back at the bag drop tent and my main task was directing riders down to the start pen and reassuring them that we weren't stramping brevet cards at Loughton north bound, stamps would be applied when riders returned.