LEL 2021 / London - Edinburgh - London Audax

Hello, currently at Debden as a volunteer.

The majority of the riders will be arriving tomorrow and on Friday.

If any of you can spare time to help with stewarding then you would be more than welcome.
Unlimited coffee, cakes, etc are available to all volunteers.

Honestly I find fewer and fewer dunno, 'trad audax bikes' like Steel Mercians with mudguards on audaxes as the years go by.

At least 25%-50% of the calendar events I've done in the past few years have featured 'non audax' bikes like Cervelo R5s with aerobars and whooshy wheels, a bunch of Apidura bags etc

Blame the 'ultra' scene I would say, people have bikes and kit to sell

and this from TrekGuy™

title of the article is fundamentally wrong

Hippy's Laws of Media:
Never read the headlines.
Never read the comments.
Never read the Daily Mail.

No I don't! I need a 52

Where do you do most of your audaxes? Around London it's definitely carbon race bikes and a few old boys. Even quite a lot of the traditional guys are realising that you don't need something that can be welded up on the roadside and lighter, faster bikes means more chance of getting around in time.

Says the guy that is buying all steel bikes now.

Mostly London tbh - true, I did one of the KWCC 300s a few years back and someone rode it on a Dogma

Good, obviously quiet so far, but I'm on van driving duties too so few more things to do for me.

Ivan's done a great job organising the control, but we wont likely see the bulge until tomorrow.

Sponzorz maybe?

Maybe they were trying to "out-ugly" my bike.

West Midlands (at least on those couple of AUDAX I did last year) were predominantly middle-aged/senior gents and women with alu/steel mudguarded bikes.

London is a cliche' (?)

Volunteers still welcome at Debden.
You can also see whose riding steel and whose on carbon.

Doesn't that mean northerners are the cliche? "Don't need no carbon, boy, this 'ere will get over something and dale"

Which group looks happier?

perhaps im wrong but cheap bikes and strong legs >>> exp bikes and chicken legs :P

Too small a sample.
Only 4 riders have arrived.
Should be a more representative group tomorrow when the majority of riders are expected.

I have cheap bikes, expensive bikes and could kick a fully grown man into space. Where's my prize?

LFGSS celebrity

Looks so nice outside atm, wish I was riding );
Good luck to all the lfgss'ers out there!

Anco was first back, last time.

Any back up of that? Last time there was a support vehicle following the rider behind Anco.

Last time I know of one person that did LEL on a pompino fixed and one that did it on a brompton.

There are at least two Bromptons this time.

I got back this morning in 93 hrs something. I think I was the 36th person in and I'm more than a little broken this morning.

That was a tough ride, the route was brutal this year and the headwind out was fierce. Choosing to do it in 100 hrs was stupid and made in unnecessarily hard. Also not looking at the forecast and taking off 600g of mudguards was foolish.

Credit to the volunteers though for all their cheery faces.

Well done, we must have crossed paths en route. Apparently scenes of absolute scenes carnage all around the route. We were back in about 02:35