Author Topic: LEJOG record attempt.  (Read 32192 times)

Re: LEJOG record attempt.
« Reply #50 on: 16 June, 2018, 08:14:35 pm »
Someone's fetching a neck-brace to keep him going.

Re: LEJOG record attempt.
« Reply #51 on: 16 June, 2018, 08:14:59 pm »
Up/down applies to the 42h42m schedule, not the record, so you can add 1h22m leeway to all up/down times.

Re: LEJOG record attempt.
« Reply #52 on: 16 June, 2018, 08:56:18 pm »
42h42m schedule is to Reiss - 13.54 miles short of JOG.  Schedule to JOG is 43:29 - approx 35 minutes inside record.  Leeway is only 35 minutes

Re: LEJOG record attempt.
« Reply #53 on: 17 June, 2018, 03:58:22 am »
(Jun 17th) 3:26 Michael Broadwith has finished
2:29 Michael Broadwith has arrived at CP52 02:31
1:30 Michael Broadwith has arrived at CP51 01:33
0:19 Michael Broadwith has arrived at CP50 00:31
(Jun 16th) 22:27 Michael Broadwith has arrived at CP49 22:49

3:26 with an 8am start means...

43:25:13. Record b0rken!!!1!!!one!!eleven!!!
"Yes please" said Squirrel "biscuits are our favourite things."

Re: LEJOG record attempt.
« Reply #54 on: 17 June, 2018, 06:11:09 am »
Woop woop. Massive congratulations!

Re: LEJOG record attempt.
« Reply #55 on: 17 June, 2018, 06:49:51 am »
Fantastic achievement

cygnet

  • I'm part of the association
Re: LEJOG record attempt.
« Reply #56 on: 17 June, 2018, 08:11:14 am »
Wow WoF

Congratulations Mike. Who knew Twitter plus a dot on a map could be so gripping.
I Said, I've Got A Big Stick

Re: LEJOG record attempt.
« Reply #57 on: 17 June, 2018, 08:15:39 am »
Amazing.  Congrats!
Cycle and recycle.   SS Wilson

essexian

Re: LEJOG record attempt.
« Reply #58 on: 17 June, 2018, 10:44:10 am »
Wow WoF

Congratulations Mike. Who knew Twitter plus a dot on a map could be so gripping.

This! I got up twice in the night just to check how he was going!

Extremely impressive riding in not the best conditions. Frankly, I don't know how people ride for 24 hours let alone for 43 or so without sleeping/a major stop. Super human  :thumbsup:

Re: LEJOG record attempt.
« Reply #59 on: 17 June, 2018, 02:14:23 pm »
I went out to ride the same a38 Bristol Gloucester leg he did on Friday evening and tried to match pace. He looked calm and collected. I was a sweaty puddle of mess. After 20 miles!

I am suitably awed!

Re: LEJOG record attempt.
« Reply #60 on: 17 June, 2018, 04:17:10 pm »
Phenomenal performance!
Very exciting to follow that. When the weather turned bad and his neck gave up I was certain that it was over. I've experienced Shermer's Neck on a 24. It's no joke, your neck muscles just stop working. It's not a case of digging a bit deeper and overcoming it. You simply can't lift your head up. It's awe inspiring that he managed ride for so long in that state and at that pace.
Kudo's to his support team as well. It seems much like his 24s they ran a slick operation.

Looking forward to Jasmin's next!

rogerzilla

  • When n+1 gets out of hand
Re: LEJOG record attempt.
« Reply #61 on: 17 June, 2018, 05:53:12 pm »
Very well done.  I had to get up early to check Twitter!
Hard work sometimes pays off in the end, but laziness ALWAYS pays off NOW.

Re: LEJOG record attempt.
« Reply #62 on: 17 June, 2018, 06:17:27 pm »
This is fantastic! What an achievement. Chapeau to all concerned!  :thumbsup:

Re: LEJOG record attempt.
« Reply #63 on: 18 June, 2018, 10:20:46 pm »
Some of the video from Shap to Wick, in remembrance of my Dad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LTFDLDE7o4

Re: LEJOG record attempt.
« Reply #64 on: 18 June, 2018, 10:37:10 pm »
Some of the video from Shap to Wick, in remembrance of my Dad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LTFDLDE7o4

Very good.  Notice someone familiar cheering on MB at the end...    :)
Cycle and recycle.   SS Wilson

Re: LEJOG record attempt.
« Reply #65 on: 18 June, 2018, 10:40:47 pm »
Thanks, Damon.  I thought it was going to be a horror film when I heard Bill Medley's attempts to hit some correct notes in the introductory bars!

Re: LEJOG record attempt.
« Reply #66 on: 19 June, 2018, 12:29:57 am »
Thanks, Damon.  I thought it was going to be a horror film when I heard Bill Medley's attempts to hit some correct notes in the introductory bars!

Beyond the lyrics fitting the images, and the presence of a football stadium in the film, I was alerted to some of the deeper themes of 'You'll Never Walk Alone' while listening to Elaine Page's Musicals show on Radio 2 on the journey home. It's also an early example of bitonality, so Bill was probably spot on.


Re: LEJOG record attempt.
« Reply #67 on: 03 July, 2018, 08:56:01 pm »
Jasmijn has just announced that she is going to wait until September.  Too hot and not windy enough for her now (and it seems she can't go during the school holidays).
Seems like a good call as the heat would sap energy. 

Karla

  • car(e) free
    • Lost Byway - around the world by bike
Re: LEJOG record attempt.
« Reply #68 on: 03 July, 2018, 09:04:19 pm »
Jasmijn has just announced that she is going to wait until September.  Too hot and not windy enough for her now (and it seems she can't go during the school holidays).
Seems like a good call as the heat would sap energy.

The school holidays thing is due to extra traffic around e.g. Cornwall and the Lake District afaik.

Re: LEJOG record attempt.
« Reply #69 on: 26 August, 2018, 02:15:43 pm »
I've been struggling to sort out what to do with the footage from the LEJOG record. I wrote a piece shortly after the event, to crystallise my thoughts on what I'd recorded, with a view to that providing the structure of a film.

Michael's record didn't come out of the blue, it was the culmination of a journey towards ever-longer distances. I've got footage of some of the important stops along the way, featuring the last three record holders, Michael Broadwith, Gethin Butler and Andy Wilkinson. I can imagine how that film would fit together, and how it would look.  I'm quite capable of producing it, so in that sense I've got nothing to prove to myself or others.

I'm at the stage where I've got most the components of a film in place, I've got an outline, and a vision of how it would look, but I can't think of any tangible benefit in making the film, other than to get it out of the way. I'd be making the film to please myself, but it already exists in my head, in a  form that will always be better than what I could produce.

The word on the street is that Gethin would like his record back. Meanwhile, here's what I wrote soon after Michael got the record.

Filming LEJOG.

Long distance cycling is something of a family affair. My own involvement with competitive endurance racing was inspired by Cycling Weekly. There was always a double-page spread on the 24 Hour National Championships, and all the finishers were listed. I knew it would impress my Dad if I finished, especially if I was in the top half of the field. So I entered the North Roads 24 Centenary event in 1998.

I’ve ridden the Mersey Roads 24 a few times since then, and I’ve marshalled most years. But I’ve also morphed into the uncle with a video camera, recording the highs and the lows. I’ve witnessed some of the key moments over the years; Andy Wilkinson’s record 542 miles in the East Sussex 24 in 2011 being the highlight. Andy marshals on the Mersey Road 24, and was impressed by the performance of a new name to the 24 in July 2015. Michael Broadwith was emerging as a surprise leader of the event that year.

Michael wasn’t really known  in ’24’ circles, but his 537.35 miles was the second best UK distance ever. I’d met his team boss, Sam Williamson, before, when he’d been going for the Hemel Hempstead 24 hour club record. Broadwith’s team had been impressive, and clearly contributed to his result. Michael’s Arctic Tacx team dominated in 2016 and in 2017, but Michael didn’t get any nearer to Wilko’s outright record. Sam Williamson was diagnosed with prostate cancer in November 2017, and passed away in February 2018.

Michael had expressed interest in the Lands End- John O’ Groats record in 2016, and wondered if I’d like to film it. I Iive in Leyland, 385 miles into the route, so I filed away the thought of filming from home onwards. An attempt on LEJOG is very weather-dependent, and the chances of success or failure would be more obvious at that point of the ride.

The last record had been set by Gethin Butler in 2001. Some of the technology we now take for granted was around, but trackers and power meters were a fair way off.

Contenders for the record submit a schedule to the Road Records Association, who provide the  observers to verify the ride. That schedule is available to spectators, so they can turn out to support on the road. That’s now supplemented by a real time tracker, so we can dot-watch as well. I was fed the tracker information from home, to predict where I could get footage.

I filmed Michael at Bamber Bridge, close to home, edited and uploaded a short film, and drove to Shap Summit, where a short stop was planned. Gethin Butler was there, he’d been helping marshal on the route from Wigan. Michael’s team duly arrived, including his 8 month old daughter Poppy.

It was pretty obvious that no-one had got much rest in the 20 hours or so since the start. One of the main reasons for starting to film from just South of Preston was to try to limit sleep deprivation. Supporting a 24 hour time trial is difficult enough, and anyone who’s done that is more equipped than most to support LEJOG. But it’s almost twice as long, the team is tied to being close to the rider, and the plan was to challenge Gethin Butler’s 1,000 mile record of almost 56 hours.

I’d been riding a lot of long Audaxes in the late 1990s and early 2000’s, and Gethin was doing those as well. He was one of the old school, putting in the miles. I’d read that Michael favoured higher intensity training over short distances, that suited a busy father of four young children. So the question marks were around whether he was sufficiently hardened to withstand the distance, and how well his team would cope with the sleep deprivation.

The weather was relatively kind up to Southern Scotland, but was due to become cold and wet for about 10 hours. Morale had been sustained by setting a new Road Records Association 24 hour record, at 507 miles, beating Gethin’s 505 miles from 2001. But at Beattock, the cold was starting to seep into Michael’s bones. At that point he was 59 minutes forward of the schedule, the most he was ever ahead. The rain was now constant, and it’s hard to film in the rain, so I decided to head for the Forth Road Bridge, and sort out a good location.

At the bridge he was due to be followed by a rider with spare wheels, in case of puncture. I stationed myself below one of the towers, and waited. Michael was now 45 minutes ahead of schedule, in light rain, and was putting his spare wheel carrying companion under some pressure.

I took the M90 and A9 to Perth, where a stop was scheduled. I didn’t meet the crew, as they stopped just short of the lay-by I’d decided to film from. Michael had a bit of an adventure in Cowdenbeath, where he threaded his way through the streets that were closed for the carnival. The wet conditions had taken their toll and only 6 minutes remained of the time cushion over the schedule. Keeping to that schedule would beat the record by 42 minutes, but the hardest part of the ride lay ahead.

The highest, coldest and wettest part of the ride was at the 1,508 feet high Drumochter summit. It looked like a very bad place to try to film, so I drove on to Aviemore. At Drumochter Michael was 9 minutes behind schedule. By Aviemore he’d made up 15 minutes, and was 6 minutes ahead. When I saw him he was propping up his head with his arm resting on the tri-bar rests, that wasn’t a good sign.

There’s a condition called ‘Shermer’s neck’, which afflicts extreme endurance cyclists, it seems to come on at about 1,000 km into a ride. Michael’s lack of long ride training had raised a question mark about Shermer’s. It’s something I’d seen a lot of on Paris-Brest-Paris and London-Edinburgh-London. It would require a lot of determination to push through it, and reach John O’ Groats on time.

I guessed that the team would stop in the lay-by before the Kessock Bridge in Inverness, opposite the Caledonian Thistle stadium. I met Michael’s brother there. He’d been to the local hospital to pick up some immobilisation collars, to try to counter the Shermer’s. I’d seen many attempts to combat the condition over the years, I’d be interested to see if this worked, especially as the time cushion over schedule was only 12 minutes.

Other members of Michael’s family had arrived by plane at Inverness, to cheer him on. I’d seen the A9 to Inverness as the most hazardous part of the ride. It’s a fast arterial route, with no real alternative, and driving conditions had been atrocious,

Traffic had apparently been relatively light, but I was relieved that he was now on the less busy Northern section of the A9. The main risk was now that his morale would collapse, so support was critical.

The weather was now fairly benign, temperature had fallen to about 9 degrees Centigrade over Drumochter, in lashing rain, but beyond Aviemore it had been calm and dry enough for me to fly a drone for the first time since Gretna.

The LEJOG route has been altered the years by road improvements, with bridges over the Forth of Firth in the 1960s, the Beauly Firth at Inverness, and the Cromarty Firth in the 1980s, and the Dornoch Firth in 1991. These are good punctuation marks in a film, so I planned to get some footage at them all. By the time he arrived at the Dornoch Bridge, Michael was 22 minutes up on schedule, and I’d got the pictures I wanted before the light finally faded.

I’d now been filming since 01.30. and tiredness started to show as we went into a new day at Helmsdale. I’d need to find well-lit streets to counter the headlights of the following vehicles, and I found that in Helmsdale. It was also steeply uphill. so I practiced a panning shot on the bend next to the hostel. I was a bit distracted by supporters trying to light sparklers next to me, so I pressed the start button out of sequence, so I wasn’t filming as a supporter ran next to Michael shouting encouragement. At least I checked to see if I’d got that almost perfect moment. I hadn’t, so I would have to be on the lookout for street lights in the tiny settlements up to Wick.

There were a few opportunities, but I was getting frustrated at the problems of filming in pitch darkness punctuated by bright headlights. I did try flying the drone on the Berriedale Braes, a steep climb. but it couldn’t get a lock the GPS satellites which would hold it steady, so it drifted in the wind, while I tried to direct it towards Michael and the following cars.

The trick to success in following these long rides, is to leave enough in the tank for the end, it’s the interesting bit. With about 30 miles to go, I suddenly acquired a passenger. Steve Abraham, who had initiated the revival of the year record, changed vehicles at short notice, and needed a ride to the finish. That entailed shifting all the equipment I was using from the front seat of the car. I was not best pleased.

Steve and I chatted about his year record as we approached Wick, and I spotted a sign indicating 17 miles to John O’ Groats, at the last turn before the end of the End to End. It was raining lightly now, so Steve helped me by holding an umbrella while I sent up the camera. I got a shot of Steve, the one-time year record contender, cheering on Michael, the LEJOG heir apparent. There were now 2 minutes in the bank against the schedule.

We set off into the creeping dawn. I have a long standing affection for the bleak Caithness landscape, a look in the mirrors with 5 miles to go revealed a tempting vista, with just enough light to be viable as a shot. At least I’d be able to locate all four cameras I might use at the finish, so I set up there. It would still leave me about a quarter of an hour to reach J O’ G, and prepare for the big finish.

I did perhaps leave myself with a lot to do as Michael approached the climax of nearly two days of effort. I had just got the drone into position over the finishing point, and was sorting out the main camera I would use, when I was asked if the firework being set off would cause problems. Everyone’s a cameraman these days, me included, so I’m confident I can cobble something together to cover the gaps, from the smartphones and tablets that were wielded.

I’ll admit to being a bit torn by the elitism in such an event. One person spearheads a team, and gets the plaudits. But on the road it’s not like that. the team has to have faith in their rider, and rider has to have faith in their team. I’ve seen a variety of approaches to winning 24s, and now a LEJOG, and I have to acknowledge the existence of ‘The Right Stuff’. That quality revolves around the idea of ‘Grace under Fire’.

Often that concept has a  strong ’macho’ element. In this particular endeavour I was most impressed by Helen Simpson, managing to guide Michael to a new LEJOG record, with 8 month old Poppy in tow. A true ‘Family Affair’, resulting in an improvement of 26 minutes and 6 seconds on the record.

Michael Broadwith now holds the Lands End to John O’ Groats record, and the RRA 24 Hour Record. He was in on condition to challenge Gethin Butler’s 1,000 mile record. Andy Wilkinson still has the fastest time in a Human Powered Vehicle for LEJOG, and the 24 Cycling Time Trial record. As the saying goes; “Come on and have a go, if you think you’re hard enough”.

Re: LEJOG record attempt.
« Reply #70 on: 26 August, 2018, 02:46:04 pm »
a new record attempt has begun!

 https://twitter.com/Elliott_LEJOG

 :thumbsup:

mattc

  • n.b. have grown beard since photo taken
    • Didcot Audaxes
Re: LEJOG record attempt.
« Reply #71 on: 26 August, 2018, 04:27:30 pm »
Has Elltio published his schedule??

If not, anyone fancy making a prediction? :)
Has never ridden RAAM
---------
No.11  Because of the great host of those who dislike the least appearance of "swank " when they travel the roads and lanes. - From Kuklos' 39 Articles

Re: LEJOG record attempt.
« Reply #72 on: 28 August, 2018, 01:28:56 pm »

Re: LEJOG record attempt.
« Reply #73 on: 28 August, 2018, 10:08:17 pm »

Re: LEJOG record attempt.
« Reply #74 on: 30 August, 2018, 04:38:47 pm »
Duracellbunnyonabike is off at 5 am this Saturday 1st September.


I'll be in one of the support vans "looking after" the food... :demon:



Links for live tracker, schedule, route etc

Route: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/28410504
Schedule: https://www.lejogrecord.co.uk/schedule
Tracker: https://www.lejogrecord.co.uk/live
Progress vs current record: https://www.lejogrecord.co.uk/progress
#CRUK: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/lejogrecord