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Agree on the Black Downs, especially coming back over them on the third day!
As well as Ivan there was another guy (Julian?) riding a Cinelli single speed, which is also pretty impressive over that distance. Forget what ratio he was riding but it was very spinny - I passed him around 1am Saturday morning in the Black Downs and I think he finished too.
Must be challenging doing a hilly route like this as a pair as everyone climbs / gets tired quite differently, I was in quite a fast group over the first night which fell apart as soon as the climbing began properly.
honk-
We road with Julian on the outbound leg through the Black Downs before he cracked on ahead. He was riding really well and was about the 3rd finisher I believe. Within the first 100km his front brake caliper's spring broke and it wouldn't release off the rim, so he had to rig up some rubber bands to get it working again.
It was good to meet you briefly in the first 5km before you went to chase down Jas and the fast riders. Well done! I had a similar experience where I constantly felt like we were last on the road and had to speed up to catch up with phantom riders ahead, only to then get passed by said phantom riders who were in fact behind as they'd had later starts from the sleep stops.
motoko
I riode LLEL too and finished with 2.5 hours in hand. It was a lot more challenging to me than expected and the last day I felt the ever present stress of the time limit.
I had a false sense of confidence after a very smooth going 600 up here in Scotland. The 12.5 AAA points should have been a hint... For me the surprisingly hard hills were the Black Downs between Exeter and Langport, steep and relatively long in comparison to most of the stuff in Devon and Cornwall.
I agree with @honk that the level of traffic and driving in Cornwall on the A roads was diabolical. I pulled over at one point to let the back up of traffic pass and had to wait 5 minutes to get a gap to get going again.
I was shocked by the DNF rate on the ride when finishing. My riding partner Anne and I finished at 10.30 and were mid-pack of a total of only 12 potential finishers out of 33 starters.
A big chapeau to everyone who finished, and especially to Ivan for riding the route fixed.
If I was to do it again I'd not ride as a pair over such a long distance, it introduced a lot of challenges but on the other hand did make the travelodges half the price!