et off from Dunmow hoping to form a group, but there were two riders going very fast so found myself in no-mans land. So I sat back and enjoyed the rolling hills and the wonderful sunrise. Unfortunately that German lady Claudia was dominating the weather. The first spits and spots of rain struck as I reached Red Lodge. I'd thought about pushing out to Whittlesey but guessed that this might be my only dry meal of the day so stopped for a first-class bacon butty. By the time I'd eaten this it was properly wet.
The fens were uniformly grim as Claudia launched her super soaker at us with a steady crosswind on the road to Earith. I passed several riders who had taken a shorter stop, but only one organised group. However, I then caught up with Flatlander and we had a good two-up all the way to Kirton Lindsey. The wind got behind us before Whittlesey and we fairly rattled along, so we just got an ATM receipt and carried on. Then the wind stopped helping us and the rain got properly heavy. A little after Spalding the bonk struck me without warning, perhaps aided by the drenching. I fished in my back pocket for an energy bar which kept me going but I knew that I needed proper food.
Boston centre was crowded with market stalls, random pedestrians and slippery cobbles, but somehow in all the melee I spotted the Tea and Toast cafe, which did an excellent lasagne and chips, fortifying us for the long stage to Kirton. When hills as low as the Lincolnshire Wolds are swathed in cloud you know the weather is properly driesh. But it really helped to have company and we joined up with a couple of other riders. Flatlander was keen on making it back to Cambridge, so he carried on whilst I had another feed. It had stopped raining and I was feeling really positive.
The road to Goole took longer and seemed further than I expected, but I passed the 300km mark in 12 hours and felt confident that I could make my booked Travelodge in Sleaford at not-too-silly an hour. I'd been worried about this before the ride, but transferring my aerobars to the yellow bike had helped me to keep my speed on the flat. I stopped in McDonalds as much so that i could still in the warm whilst I got myself ready for the night stages. The coffee was good there (which made up for the rest of the barely-edible food), especially s it turned out that the coffee machine a the Jet cafe was broken.
The first night stage to Gainsborough seemed longer than the route sheet suggested. At first I enjoyed a tailwind, but this disappeared before Eastoft. At least there was a fine sunset to the west. Gradually, village by village this faded as did my legs. I tend to lose more speed than most at night, and as the miles crept by I doubted that I would get to Sleaford by 1am. My plan, like so many other plans this season, seemed to be a bit ambitious. At the Jet station in Gainsborough I noticed that my rear light was fading and so I decided to buy some more batteries. Brain-fade was clearly fully established. I looked at the old battery, sized it up against the new, and bought AA batteries only to realise that they did not fit and I needed AAAs. Then a guardian angel turned up, in the form of Teethgrinder, who was riding the event as part of his HAM'R month attempt.
He was going well and I was afraid that he would rip my legs off, but the presence of another rider was a huge tonic, and as I picked up pace there were a few less spins of his freewheel as he rode alongside. We made it all the way through Lincoln, partly on a route of his choosing and partly by my knowledge of visiting Lincoln in the late 80s which allowed us to find a route to the east of the Cathedral which was cobble and pedestrian free and easy to navigate. He was booked in the same Sleaford Travelodge as me, so we headed down the A15 as the most direct route. He had to stop to reset his GPS at midnight and suggest that I carry on. As my legs were feeling weary and my stomach empty, I took his invitation. None of the road signs gave any indication of distance, but I took heart when I saw a sign indicating clearway for 12 miles and I hoped that was the distance to the A15/A17 junction.
Steve caught me up just as I reached the services. I stopped at the petrol station to buy some food, with a till receipt timed at 00:50, mission accomplished. The lady on the night shift told me that a couple of other riders had asked to stay at the Travelodge but that it was fully booked. I was glad of my pre-booking! It would have been cold trying to sleep in an Audax Hotel after the soaking we had received. A few minutes later I was under the shower, feeling warm and clean for the first time in my working memory. I sat in the bed thinking about eating my food and had a fantastic catatonic stupor, the food left uneaten on my bedside table.
I woke 3.5 hours later with the creature from the Little Shop of Horrors in my stomach and I tucked into the prawn sandwich, salt-and-vinegar crisps and ribena that I'd bought before (with the Doors Roadhouse Blues ringing in my head - "I woke up this morning and I got myself a beer"). I didn't want to set out in the dark and put my head down again, but sleep wouldn't come, so I just relished being comfortable.
It was a beautiful and peaceful morning. The next stage would be over 90km as I had a short distance before the centre of Sleaford where this stage officially begun. I remembered the road to Threekingham from LEL in 2009 (that had been another wet ride). Today it was bathed in low-angle sunshine. There were cycle tyre tracks after some of the puddles and I longed for company. I met two riders in Sleaford who were the culprits; they had ridden through the night. As we talked a rider went passed and I did not think I would catch him up. However, on the long flat roads through Cowbit and towards Crowland I gradually reeled him in, making the junction just after "Peak Hill", which must be the most ironically named place in Britain.
He picked up speed as we rode through and off to Whittlesey; it's amazing what company can do to a tired rider. I was worried that the pace would wear me out. He stopped in Whittlesey to top up with water and I carried on at a lesser pace through the fens to Chatteris and the Green Welly Cafe. The sun had gathered strength and I began to feel cooked in my night-riding gear. I caught up with a group who'd had a brief sleep in McDonalds in Sleaford and felt both guilty and smug about my luxurious night.
The route through Cambridge was wearisome, the road through Girton had pretty much the most shameful tarmac surface I've seen (the gravel sections on the Old Roads and Drove Roads were smoother) and other sections were busy with tourists looking at the sights and not where they were going, or busy with traffic. However, then there were hills, my normal terrain and I was soon happy again. Finishing at a pub was great. A large Caesar salad full of fresh food was a great anti tide to my diet on the rest of the ride. The aerobars worked perfectly on a bike that had done 49700 miles without them (the 50,000 miles for the frame was reached somewhere near Threekingham). The other piece of kit that worked really well was the kidney warmer that kept my stomach warm in the wet weather and helped me to digest my food well. But the biggest part of the success was being able to ride with Flatlander and Teethgrinder for sections of the route and keep my sanity when the going got tough.
