Audax rides

http://www.centcols.org/rando_perm/sav/index.htm

Talking about inspiration.

I'm goanna DIY a CC next year if you're up for it.

I'm thinking of doing the Dolomites.

Could be, depends when you go and time off obvs.

My brief version of what happened on BCM...

Had an unexpectedly good first few hours - Kept up quite a high pace, pleasantly surprised to find the climbs were of a gradient where I could manage to stay with groups. By the first control I was surprised to find I was making pretty good time and started to imagine actually getting a reasonable amount of sleep.

About 120km in I was going up a long-ish hill and my garmin speed reading started stopping and starting repeatedly and the back of the bike felt a bit wobbly. After a bit of examination I discovered the driveside dropout had become detached from the chainstay... at this point my mood turned rather dark (I apologise to anyone that stopped to talk to me at this point). Had no mobile reception. One of the riders who stopped to talk to me mentioned a bike shop in the next town. I knew the chances of them having anything that could fix this were minimal, but short of any other options I could think of, I rigged up a cable tie between the chainstay cable stop and dropout and started riding again. This actually felt pretty solid, but I knew it wouldn't stop me having to abandon ride. I got to Rhayader and found the bike shop. They were sympathetic, but could only suggest a taxi to the nearest station, which they proceeded to help arrange. It was sounding like it would be an expensive and depressing end to my ride. In between phone calls I asked the shop owner if he knew of anywhere with welding equipment in town. He said there was a 4x4 garage up the road. This is what happened next... (apologies for large photos, have embedded from facebook and can't work out how to size them)

After roughly 1.5 hours I was back on the road. Realised I was now at the back of the field and it wasn't until the evening that I started to catch up with people again.
I'd love to say everything was great from this point on. Actually I spent an unnecessary amount of time worrying about the weld holding; mostly avoided riding in groups in case someone failed to point out a pothole or my frame collapsed and I took someone else out with me and got particularly stressed around Snowdonia as would have been a long cold walk to civilisation if something had gone wrong. But, I'd have been a lot more miserable if I'd had to abandon the ride. In the end I was finished by 8 on Sunday and got an hour or so's sleep, so can't complain. I actually completed it quicker than my last 600 where I didn't break anything (but wasted a load of time failing to sleep).

I do wonder if I could have made it round with cable ties and jubilee clips and avoided what's now going to require the whole chainstay to be replaced. However I don't think I'd have risked the more remote bits of the ride with that.

Anyway, it's a valuable lesson in not giving up.
Or alternately, a lesson in always carefully checking your frame after you hit a massive pothole the week before doing a 600k. I'm not sure which.

Steel is real!

So is aluminium...

Wye Wednesday last year required strategic zip tie use to make sure the front of the bike didn't leave the back of the bike too fast.

How far did you ride like that? Much more terrifying accident potential with front end going...

One of the reasons i really want to do bcm again is to do some of the descents with less fear of my frame suddenly collapsing. Took everything a little slower than i wanted to. At least up until the later stages when the desire to finish took over.

I've got nothing but admiration for folks who complete BCM - but for people who have the option to bale and don't and struggle through - that should be on the 6 o'clock news.

I'm riding Mr Pickwick in search of dragons and legends 600km on the June 11th

BTW I'm the Bristol rider you had a chat with at Menai and briefly at Kings.

Thank you. But to be honest it might just be down to me being too mean to want to pay for taxis, trains + waste my non-refundable Sunday night at the Travelodge... if I could have bailed for free it might have been a different story.

Incidentally, Severn View travelodge is great. Lovely staff and no problem to leave a car there over the weekend.

Top spirit ad441! The route is so isolated the option to bail is really daunting, and to carry on riding with the potential for a critical bike failure. Awesome job to overcome it mentally, I'm sure you must be pleased now you got to complete the route in perfect conditions. I think we passed you when it had just happened, someone said at our 2nd stop at Kings you weren't just trimming the gears and relayed the whole story. ....I thought to myself it doesn't really get any more audax as I tried to find my dropbag amongst the sleeping bodies laid on the floor.

This picture sums up the weekend for me, and was certainly my favourite part of the ride. It was the most stunning route I have ever ridden. I actually enjoyed all of it, didn't feel like I was struggling at any point, the scenery just kept me going.

This year is my first SR and was about me stepping up the distances and seeing if I could physically do it and whether I would enjoy it, the rides couldn't have gone better and I'm already considering The Pendle for next year ahead of LEL.

1 Attachment

Yes. Different Marcus for the Maniac.

It is on the 'to do' list.

Suppose I better think about the pennine 1000 sometime soon. Been focused on next week's adventure of London-Manche-Med-Manche-London. I suspect if I get that done okay, then the pennine ride will take care of itself.

~320k that day. It's ok, I'm like totally like indestructible.

Wanna buy a baggie? :)

I'm undecided. I need a big ride so either will work. The Pickwick is a lot closer but I could turn the Tan Hills one into a bit of a holiday and it's also different scenery, but there's 8hrs of driving to/from involved.

Seeing your crack was one of the many highlights :p

I'm told Mr Pickwicks is similar to BCM but with steeper climbs so if your looking for variation Tan Hills is probably a better bet. You could also further test your sleeping kit?

You're not the first to say that :)

I'll definitely be testing a different version of it - probably keep jacket, add in sleeping bag, lose the silk liner and maybe swap the Hunka for the smaller sleeping bag cover. Still not sure about sleep pad - maybe for audax but not racing.

Swap in the hot water bottle!

Can't tell if serious...

I could fill bidons with hot water to heat up the bivvy before going to sleep lying freezing for an hour.

I've never ridden an audax so all of this might be a bit noob, but how hard is an event like LEL? Or more specifically, what sort of mileages are typical riders riding to prepare for such an event?

Following this thread as well as the PBP/TransAm/TransCon threads has really piqued my interest for long, multi day events and I can't get the idea of riding LEL out of my mind but I'm worried about preparation etc. I'm not new to endurance stuff (I've done plenty of 9-24hr type events e.g. ironman, ultra marathons etc.) but 5days feels like a big step up. Currently my longest ride is only a touch over 200km, although I want to do a Godwin (/Abraham/Searvogel) later this summer.

Currently I'd like to do a marathon in October, a 50mile ultra in April, and then ideally LEL in July. Sound do-able? I'm just feeling nervous.

Andy Corless rides are very challenging. He's a top bloke too.

Go for it.
Similarly, I've an ultra running background, the key skill is the same- keep moving.

I've never ridden an audax so all of this might be a bit noob, but how hard is an event like LEL?

Not really (in the context of what you've done), it's just 4 or 5 long days but of much lower intensity riding. A lot of it is the mental side of waking up on days 2, 3 and 4 and realising that you're going to be cycling all day again.

300-320km a day, so 14-15 hours riding (10-12 hours for the faster lot), a couple of hours of eating and then whatever is left as rest/sleep.

I was doing ~120km a week (mostly commuting) in prep for LEL'09, but I also did 5000km of Audaxes (including the 1400km of LEL) that year so every 2nd or 3rd weekend was a 200km ride with a few 300/400/600 rides thrown in.

For PBP'11 I did the bare minimum to qualify (200, 300, 400, 600) and probably not much more than 80km a week.

If you can complete a 600km Audax (of which there are plenty to try between now and July 2017) comfortably then you'd be fine with something like LEL. The other one would be to do back to back 300km rides.

Currently I'd like to do a marathon in October, a 50mile ultra in April, and then ideally LEL in July. Sound do-able? I'm just feeling nervous.

Yep, doable. Sounds roughly what I intend to do (although a shorter ultra maybe) and I'm probably going to take 15 hours for IM Wales in September.

In many strange ways, the longer an event is, the easier it is.

The dropping bottom speed means you need to ride less distance each day.

LEL has the big advantage of dropping even further than PBP as it goes above the 1300km threshold, so you can go even slower!

Often, a 600 is a challenge due to the high(ish) minimum speed compared to a 1200 or 1400 - weird I know.

Riding a long way at a moderate pace is not ever so difficult if you are comfy on the bike and have good mental fortitude.

What hurt at 200k mark?

Resolve it
Ride 300k
What hurts?
Resolve it
Ride 400k, what hurts?
Resolve it.
Ride 600k...

Repeat until maximum distance you're satisfied with is achieved. If you've done ultra-running then it should be relatively easy, you'll just find different parts of you hurt and you'll need to deal with those. Toenails tend not to fall off in cycling events, for example, but your gooch might not speak to you for a while.

DIY 1000 booked for 10th-12th of June. SR2500 here I come... theoretically, of course.