Mine was almost an accidental SR. I'd had a few years of steady 200s but for some reason, 2009 found me on a wild fling of a 300k ride, and it felt good. After a brief internet flirtation and some grunting in the dark a 400 followed and then came the awful realisation … I was only one ride away from an SR series. It was time to start planning for the big day. I pored over the literature, marking rides as 'wrong time', 'wrong place' or 'mega hills'. Eventually, I came to the awful realisation that the only suitable ride was the Spa Trek, running over the August bank holiday weekend. Damn, I had plans for the bank holiday. Were these also to be sacrificed to my fast-growing cycling obsession?
It had to be. A week spent volunteering on an LEL control showed me what a 60 year old could do and well, if some of those old codgers could ride 1400km, I wasn't about to let my youth and manhood be tarnished by wussing out of a measly 600. I sacrificed the prospect of a weekend's music, fun and friends, and sent off the email to the organiser Gavin.
Plans fell into place and all too soon, I was boarding the train south. Even better, there were other cyclists on the platform, so the guard actually bothered to open the door for us. My counterparts were a couple going on tour round Cornwall, so we made polite chatter. “What are you doing then?” “I'm doing an Audax – Audax UK are the long distance riding association.” “So how long is this 'long distance ride' you're doing?” The guy sounded quite inspired by the time I left the train, so Audax may have a new convert. Later, shopping for food in Droitwich, the shop attendant felt the need to give me a weather forecast. “It's gonna rain tomorrow, are you camping?” “Tonight I'm camping, but tomorrow, not really.” “You're mad” … and I hadn't even told her I was riding 600km.
A late train and a cold night meant that neither I nor fellow rider/camper Yannig got much sleep. Saturday, however, spurned the shop attendant's predictions by dawning bright and sunny. Strapping my lightweight sleeping bag to my saddlepack as recommended after LEL by (I think) Greenbank of this parish, we rode into the start and proceeded to make the first control before it opened, a sure sign of headwinds for the second hundred kilometers. I found myself riding with a German called Werner, who'd packed on the Invicta 600 that year and was making his second attempt. Nonetheless, he ignored my efforts at slowing us down by 1 or 2 kph during my turns on the lead by taking the lead himself, and all 13 riders arrived back at Droitwich within an hour of each other. 200 down, 400km to go. I was wary of tiring myself out, so I intended to let 'my' group depart and follow in my own time, but was persuaded otherwise and jumped on their tail as they set off. How lucky I was.
I've only ever once skid-stopped a fixed gear bike, when my shorts caught on part of the bike, my other foot left the pedal and I suddenly fount myself sliding to a halt in the middle of the road. I was riding gears here but at Gavin's insistence, I'd bought and fitted a pair of race blades. You don't see a connection? When my sleeping bag became unstrapped, jammed inside my rear mudguard, locked the wheel and forced a skid stop, I saw the connection very well. Worse was to come: the skid had worn straight through my tyre, a Schwalbe Blizzard Sport, which had itself been bought two months earlier in Peterborough, an emergency replacement for my exploded Vittoria Zaffiro. Fixie riders of the world, don't skid on Blizzards.
On the previous occasion, I'd been forced to use masking tape to repair my tyre and limp to the bike shop. Since then I'd carried tyre boots, and was about to use them in anger when someone stopped me. Out of Werner's bag, a folding tyre had appeared. Joy of joys, it was a Gatorskin, so my undertreads now matched. With that mess sorted out, we continued to Membury services, two stops down the line.
At Membury, Yannig and I wanted some sleep, the rest didn't. As they were busy leaving, we found a nice warm, dark, quiet(ish) corner to get 90 minutes. Not according to an attendant, we hadn't. “Sorry sirs, you can't go to sleep there, there's a hotel across the road.” “We'll only be here 90 minutes, we really don't have time to visit the hotel.” “You can't stay here, lots of people want to use the machines.” “It's 3 in the morning, nobody's using the machines and we'll only be here 90 minutes.” “Sorry, you can't sleep here.” At this point, we called his bluff and went to sleep, with the next thing to wake us thankfully being my alarm, 90 minutes later. When the attendant saw us, he was quite pleased we hadn't slept for 5 hours – he was obviously not familiar with the ways of randoneurring. What a poor, benighted soul.
Control followed control and we got to the hilliest part of the ride. The hills had been quite enough already, my energy bars wouldn't go down, my right knee had been giving me grief since 220k and I was paying for my fried breakfast at Sutton Scotby, struggling for air as if I was 10,000 feet above sea level. I was maxing on Ibuprofen and was about to break open my Pro Plus. It was at this point that Yannig made a concerted effort to get back in time for an evening train, so there was nothing for it. Lock onto his back wheel, hang on for grim death, spend absolutely no time at the front and pass up my chance of finishing with any sort of style. Then again, since when has audax been stylish? It's about sweat and grit, and grit got us back to Membury for a 10 minute doze while our coffees kicked in (no staff trouble this time) and through to Whitney, 90k from the end. Drugs were consumed, dogs were out-sprinted and finishing started to look reasonable. Yannig, ever the Frenchman, wanted to finish with a BRM time. I just wanted to get round. As we started riding on familiar roads again, karma decided to repay me for speeding up and nearly burning people in the final 30k of the Arrows last June, as Yannig did the same to me. It was probably for the best: After my midnight fixie tricks I'd ditched my sleeping bag's patent Marks & Spencer waterproofing in order to attach it more securely, now the rain was about to start. Once more I gritted my teeth and felt the burn, and all of a sudden it was over. A downhill brought us to Gavin's house and my ride and my first SR were complete. All that was left was to eat food, shiver in my clammy lycra, find my way across a few A roads to my tent, and then to sleep, sleep, sleep.
