You are reading a single comment by @LightningPesto and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
LightningPesto
We three kings (and temporarily 4) of LFGSS fame set off from Hackney Fields in a flurry of well… a shit ton of the usual traffic.
Bikes were a rather flashy blue Canyon with di2 and discs (beautiful colour), an equally flashy Cervelo R3, and a less flashy 18kg Gravé Commuter with more add-ons and luggage than apparently everyone else put together (snug smugness to follow).
Dashing to get out of London, the newly built cycle superhighway was ironically ignored by most - we whirred out into the heartlands of Essex.
Riding was very nice on the way out with subtle but omnipresent tailwind, we were going like a shit of a shovel - I felt particularly aware that the kingdom was going to come crashing down eventually.
We finally happened upon a couple of pubs that felt distinctly un-London. Feeling clever, we went to the second one. What was un-London was not the incredible lack of any badly-named bitters and ales - but the distinct lack of crappers. I mean, really? After ordering drinks and explaining what cleats were and that mid-ride pints meant it wasn’t a proper 120 mile race, we continued into dwindling sunlight.
As halfway drew near, a coffee and midnight snack session was imminent at the newly renamed “The Cyclist” in Sudbury. Here, there was a thinly veiled vision of chaos with ten, nay - a million different queues for payment, coffee and nosh. Yuppie packed lunches were grabbed and gobbled.
As we pushed on through the tiny villages and hovels, the locals came out in their dressing gowns in droves to cheers us on. Diversions took us outside of village clubs which made us want to get on some jagerbombs and get jiggy to the classy sound of 2008’s Taio Cruz.
Every now and then, we happened upon a train of riders that we could sit on the back off to try and keep up manageable pace. Unfortunately we also happened upon the occasional competitive urgency that made us want to ‘beat’ them, in what is still not a race.
Sometime around 3am was my cracking point. No longer filled with the enthusiasm that only Stella gives you, hills and consciousness became a struggle.
After only a single puncture between the 3 of us (and only 8km from the end) we got to the beach just after 5, where I promptly collapsed into terrible-when-awake, luxurious-when-tired sleeping bag.
Before I knew it, one of our number was making his way back to Ipswich for the train, and our other compatriot took off some time after that (I was blissfully unaware of any time passing due to the soft embrace of the pebble beach).
Coach and lorry loading wasn’t as easy as previous years, but managed to get into good chat with a guy from Temple bikes and Blaze bike lights in the queue.
Excellent night as usual, DD has another participant for next year.