Thanks Liam and helpers for a great event.
My ride went very well. From the start, I let the first, very quick group go, and got picked up by the second one, and then did the first 50km with them, which made for a very fast start. I dropped off that group when the pace wound up in the lanes passing Oxford, and rolled into the control after a few minutes of drizzle. The control was well-placed for me as, when I left it had stopped raining.
I was then on my own for a bit, and felt some of the headwind on the exposed sections before the right turn towards Stow. Around here I was caught by Hippy and chatted for half an hour, before he upped his pace back to (his) normal levels and was soon well out of sight.
I had a bit of a tough time in Tewkesbury as there just didn't seem to be any food shops. Eventually I spotted a Tesco towards the end of the high street. I couldn't find my lock, so went for the tactic of making the bike look too messy to steal, by drapping dirty gloves and hat over it, hanging a dirty waterproof over the crossbar and putting various plastic bags beside it.
Yat Rock was less tough than I remembered it from before - most likely because I'd paced myself a bit better. Then the long roll down to Chepstow was, as always, welcome.
Met Shu and CET at Chepstow and chatted about the prospects of 200km of tailwind. Leaving Chepstow at just before 4, I caught CET, who it turned out was suffering from badly from hay fever, hence was riding a bit below normal pace. I bowled along, enjoying the tailwind and keeping up a good speed. The tailwind made the route back seem much flatter and more benign than I remembered it, although there were the couple of slow climbs up to Membury to grind up.
Last year I got to Membury just as the sun was going down and this had been my objective this time. But the tailwind meant I was well ahead. I still put on more layers there, and left just before 8, to take the A4 option. At this point I thought I might even make Chalfont before midnight, which I'd never expected. Things continued to go well, I found a decent route through Reading, and opted for the 3-Down finish (rather than the A404 which I tried last year and found to be very busy).
Getting to Chalfont at 11:20 - over an hour quicker than last year and easily my fastest 400 - I wondered what to do; whether to wait for Liam at midnight or just get an ATM receipt and post in my card. But as I rolled down the main street looking to see what was open, I spotted a bike in Dominos. I went in to see that it was Zigzag - who had been back for an hour and a half - and who kindly gave me a bit of pizza as they had stopped serving.
They did let us wait in the warm, though, which was very welcome, so we chatted for a while, before rolling down the hill for one of Liam's finest ham and cheese toasties!