The Great Escape 2015 - 200km audax - [London-Essex]

Good to see you - the crash obviously didn't slow you down that much as you only got in about 10 minutes after us.
Hopefully see you at WCW. Though may not be capable of speech by that point.

Great Escape was a lot of fun though very un-audax. The first control was quite surprised to see I'd been actually filling in the answers on my brevet card.

It was a good ride
Felt more like a sportive than audax.
But still a good day out.
First time in Essex and it was lovely

I sadly missed this after being stuck at work until 04:30 and not getting to bed until 05:00...

Consoled myself with a lovely ride down to Brighton later in the day.

Did you go up Toot Hill and through Ivy Chimneys? There are all in the Essex Alps..

I think you rode out via the Epping new road so may have missed them,, In furture, turn left for Theydon Bois . More hills and less traffic..

Also sadly missed this, developed knee pain after a double centenary the weekend before so took it easy. Looks like it was a great ride

@Peter_Carter I know the area pretty well but thanks for the pointers. Think we had a period of around 90 minutes yesterday seeing no one else and no cars. Was heavenly.

Glad the flapjacks went down well again at Gt. Dunmow. It was great to chat to a few of you too. i hope you had a great ride.

@mustardbeak I believe there were just shy of 270 starters. We sold 400 places (the maximum allowed on our insurance). It always seems a shame that so many people buy a place and then don't show up, especially as there are lots of riders who don't get a spot. Transferring places would be an administrative mountain for our main organisers but i think we might consider other ways to do it next year.

Glad most had a great time yesterday. I helped plan the route, and I have to say finding a suitable route back into London is tough. Agree about Loughton - some guy parked up in his car at the side of the road was shouting abuse at myself and @a'dan along with some riders before us.

Last year I put the route back past North Weald airfield and that was similarly grim with angry traffic. That part of Essex on a Sunday does seem to be a hive for all the anger and hate ever :(

Again, I understand the Lea Bridge Road sucks, but the only other option is Walthamstow and Tottenham. Which also sucks. Go much further south and you hit the A12 and Hackney Marshes which can make planning a direct route home slightly tricky.

I'm not with ICC anymore, but you should deffo send route notes back to the organisers. It's always good to keep tweaking the route as much as possible.

And I had the Rhubarb. Made it back unscathed and will be getting made into a crumble this eve!

Really nice day on the bike, managed to unexpected get rather sunburnt. Thanks to the organisers. Comments:

Finishing by 1 was a bit optimistic....going to need to take food next time!
Going to need to try to find a more comfortable saddle....
Generally really good route....not many cars although the ones I did see tended to treat the lanes like a track.
Good sociable vibe and think I might have said hello to a few on here.....lady with the Titanium Merckx, gent with the carbon Colnago...

I was the one with too much high viz yellow and a Colnago Dream. Will aim to do it again next year.

Essex loves MG convertibles :D

Thanks for all the comments. Not quite the biggest BR event, but we printed more brevet cards than any audax outside of L-E-L. There was a lovely party atmosphere all day, so thank you to everyone who helped create such a great buzz.

There's a ton of pics here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/islingtoncc/sets/72157650639395494

And some more here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/islingtoncc/sets/72157652991397136

We'll be back next year with the third Great Escape and are looking at staging a 100km event (The Escape - geddit?), which will start from a north London park. Maybe June...

@Shannonball @VeloCatso
Quick question - this may have been me forgetting to grab the newest GPS route, but what was with the offroad segments? I managed to get so much mud in my fenders on one of them that the wheels wouldn't turn, had to stop and scrape it all out with a stick. Generally had a great time, but those two segments were a bit awkward.

@h2o when I saw someone's marks left (probably yours) I realised I'm not the one with the old map version :D :D :D Lucky you got fenders meanwhile I was crying :/

2 sections?

Hi @Monster1985, that was me on the Ti Merckx. Nice to talk with you too.

I only encountered one off-road section and it was news to me! I don't know if that was a blip or if the route had been amended after i abandoned my route mistress duties. There was also a weird loop around a junction as well. As far as I know the route sheet was more accurate which is proper Audaxing, right?

But count yourselves lucky as last year I accidently made the route 217km instead of the advertised 200km. This year was much kinder!

I thought the inclusion of the farm track was inspired :)

Yeah, nothing like a bit of tricky pothole dirt to keep things interesting.

Colnago was me, I also found I was inexplicably sunburnt this morning! Nice chatting to you, nothing wrong with having coordinated kit!

Nice to catch up, sitting with you guys for a bit gave me a good lift when I was starting to slow down. Surprised myself with how well I went, but I have been training hard this year which is definately paying off.

I will be looking out for you at the end of WCW, will make sure I have the camera with me :p

I definitely had two - one just before the cafe, after the gravelly section, the other a turn off opposite a church around the 150km mark or thereabouts. Ended up walking most of both.

And yeah, I'll do the printout the next time.

^,,I named the off road bits 'the Eroica Essex'

h2o

@Shannonball @VeloCatso
Quick question - this may have been me forgetting to grab the newest GPS route, but what was with the offroad segments? I managed to get so much mud in my fenders on one of them that the wheels wouldn't turn, had to stop and scrape it all out with a stick. Generally had a great time, but those two segments were a bit awkward.

You had an old GPS. We emailed the latest one out. Where did you get it from?

The first sector stayed. That had potholes. The second was more like a First World War trench. I recced it (and got the 4th fastest time on the Strava segment), but it had to go for sanity sake. Kudos for doing it.

VeloCatso

But count yourselves lucky as last year I accidently made the route 217km instead of the advertised 200km. This year was much kinder!

The official 2014 distance was 215km, which is I think permitted for a 200km audax.