The Debrief:

With a few more days to reflect, now a longer update on my experience!

I stayed in London the night before, so with heavy early rain forecast, I had packed for all the weather and was certainly glad of that when I woke on Sunday morning with it hammering down outside my window!

I opted for overshoes to keep my feet dry, and a packable jacket for the rest (both orange to accessorise my bike of course!), relying on skin being waterproof and the logic that fewer extra clothes would take less time to dry on the route!

I'm not used to riding on big city roads, so the ride to the start line was pretty bizarre in itself. Huge empty roads at 5am, and as I got closer to the Embankment start, more and more cyclists feeding onto the road from every direction - each with their own solution to the wet roads and now light rain.

By the time I had got to Buckingham Palace - the meet point for my group - the rain had stopped entirely, so soon enough the jacket came off, and I got stuck into the breakfast I had cobbled together the night before to bring with me as I waited for the group to assemble. Soon enough we were all there, and after a customary group photo in front of the Palace, we wound our way into the start queue.

Only there wasn't much of a queue! We had timed it really well for the end of a wave and before the next one, so the start line experience was super smooth, just rolling along and soon enough through the start with the announcer giving us a shout out thanks to the club branding on our sleeves. A great boost to get going with.

And once we were underway it was super hectic!! Fairly steady along Embankment and through Tower Hill, but everything kicked off through the 1.4 mile Limehouse Tunnel, with a fast downhill and a surge of pace at the front of the group, so the rest of the route out of London became a bit of a blur - follow the wheel, avoid the road furniture, stay clear of trouble and try to manage the efforts.

The next bit I remember was the long steady climb to Epping, as the masses started to thin out a little at this point, the roads had more space and interesting to see that even on closed roads, everyone still stays in the left hand lane - so we could make good progress whizzing by on the right. Halfway through Epping Forest (~20 miles) though I had an issue with my glasses - the close woodland cover had led to them steaming up and I needed to adapt, but in taking them off, they started to come apart in my hand and I couldn't cope with that at speed, so lost the wheel and pulled over to correct.

Only a 20 second pause, but enough to put me between the first group of my club and the second one. The sensible thing to do would have been to wait for the next guys, but I wasn't thinking, so got right about chasing back to the front! And this was one of the most fun parts of the ride!

Despite being solo, I was surfing wheels, joining trains, through and off pacelines, all sorts of stuff you normally only see on the TV, and holding my own with those around me. So cool. So by Ongar (~30 miles) I was back with the team, and the 2nd group of us had almost made the connection by that point too!

A quick bathroom break at 38 miles brought everyone back together, and then we were off again heading for Great Dunmow and some picture perfect pacelines as a group on the long straight 5 mile stretch northwards. We had planned to meet a club ride down from Walden in Gt Dunmow, but the early rain had meant message got through that nobody had ridden out to meet us - no issue, so we pushed on through to the welfare stop at Felsted instead. I lost the wheel again on the climbs out of Dunmow, but the same tactic of using other groups, pacing my efforts and surfing wheels got me back to the front team about 200 yards before the stop! (53 miles)

A long stop at Felsted to refill bottles, load up some fuel and regroup the 3 teams we had naturally separated into. We'd made it here in ~2h40m and ignoring the time for our previous break, the average speed was 21mph (!) a lot faster - for a lot longer - than I'm normally capable of! A good chat, some friendly faces, some admiring of other bikes and riders eventually turned into an hour in the neutralised zone before we were on our way again. Probably too long in hindsight - I was starting to get cold!

We left Felsted a little less organised than ideal, but it was nice to ride with others and have a slightly more relaxed feel for a bit as we shook off the welfare stop legs and warmed up again. We got chased by a cameraman on a bike for a bit too, which was nice as we all had our matching jerseys on and looked very pro! Another short stop to regroup at 65 miles - sort a minor mechanical for one of the group and then the run back to London continued - and this is where things started to get a bit more difficult when we passed under the M25 and hit the rollers.

I was managing to keep with the group - now 6 of us on the run home - but each up and down was putting effort in my legs and by this point I'd reached the distance most of my training had topped out at, and on another riser at around 78 miles - I put in one last effort to catch a teammate back to the group, and then I was done and wouldn't see them again until the finish. I think this was Lambourne End, which was apt as it felt a bit like The End for my hopes of finishing together.

The next bit felt really hard - there were 20 miles left, and this took me about 80 minutes in all. A significant drop on the previous 80 miles that had come in at about 4 hours of riding. I found some favourable wheels to follow, but these were all short lived as others were struggling too. The faster wheels were all going past too fast, and the rest of us were slogging away. Then it rained. A short, sharp - and I mean sharp, maybe even hailstones - shower through Chigwell and a really unexpected climb through Buckhurst Hill punctuated by an even more unexpected stop by a marshal who was allowing traffic to cross the road. Which became a common occurrence of the next 10 miles, with 3 or 4 further stops for traffic to pass. I wasn't expecting that on a closed road event, but I guess it's understandable when there is a 10 hour steady stream of cyclists coming through!

With that section out of the way and a bit of downhill relief, we then turned onto the huge A12 at Wanstead - and wow that felt crazy. A massive 3 lane motorway of a road, up in the air, with no protection from the elements at all, and what felt like a raging (though actually about 12mph) headwind blowing the other way. I managed this better than most around me and it seemed that this point we had lots of 60 mile and 30 mile riders amongst us too from their shorter loops, but it was still a tough road to cycle on - pretty soulless with some cold and wet cyclists slogging into a gale.

By this point I mostly zoned out again through Stratford, this time just trying to keep the legs moving and decent forward progress unlike on the way out where the focus was totally different. I did glimpse the Olympic stadium at one point though, which was nice. This stretch otherwise is a blur though, until the return through the Limehouse tunnel which again was fun to zip through. The downhill stretch of a tunnel before the inevitable uphill to get out again I always found fine - it was the unexpected bridges when you didn't carry big momentum that I found hard.

It was at this point, around 95 miles, that I started to see the benefits of the city finish though - cars were beeping encouragement from parallel roads (I assume it was encouragement!) and there were people on the streets going about their days - not come to watch the cyclists, but just happening to be there at the same time. Some stopped to watch, others were keen to get on - leading to some close shaves as pedestrians nipped across roads unaware the cyclists were coming fast!

And then the big finale. It kind of crept up on me actually, until a megaphone voice was shouting "final corner, slow down" and I realised where we were as I'd seen this corner the day before as a pedestrian. But nothing had prepared me for actually coming round the corner to be met with Tower Bridge, well, towering in the background and the road lined with supporters cheering the cyclists home. The emotion flooded through, I was grinning with elation, holding back tears, joy, relief, accomplishment, the whole gamut of feelings and rolled through across the bridge and into the finish to collect my medal.

Ride London done. Completed it. Brilliant.

My Story & The Charity:

After completing my first 100 mile ride last summer as part of a small group, I’ve decided this year to tackle the Ride London event alongside over 20,000 others!

I’ve been riding a bike regularly for about 3 years, after picking it up during the UK COVID19 pandemic lockdown, and while I’m now pretty familiar with riding in groups, and have done this distance (once) before, I’ve never experienced a mass participation event, on closed roads, or anywhere near London (!) so this promises to be some experience!

For this event, I’ve decided to raise money for Saffron Walden Almshouses, a charity local to me which provides affordable homes for local people on low incomes. Almshouses are the oldest form of social housing and there have been almshouses on the King Edward VI site since 1400. The charity currently manages 47 unfurnished units and is about to embark on an ambitious project to build 16 new modern and energy efficient flats.

The ride is on Sunday 26th May, so my training is well underway, with both longer solo rides and extra miles with my local cycling group fitting in whenever I can. I’m loving getting out for extra sessions on my bike, so I’m also keen to raise some money for a great cause at the same time!

Thanks for reading, and I hope you can spare a donation, it will certainly help me to know that it will be worth the effort by the end!

Tim

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