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ElGonzo
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I've mostly retired from audaxes, but a while ago I was feeling nostalgic for overnight riding + awkward conversations in village halls and beige food, so I signed up to do Fairies Flattest 300. It's a 2am start 300 so you get the night riding but without having to actually ride through the whole night. Plus as the name suggests, it's really flat and was comfortably expecting to be done by mid-afternoon-ish and was hoping to have a relaxed time eating ice cream and taking photos.
Decided (correctly) at last minute to take bike with mudguards rather than fast road bike, which
meant last minute saddle/seatpost installation. As a result I spent first 100km adjusting stuff and getting knee pain in process. Then at around 200k a guy came off his bike on one of the downhills so got involved helping with ambulance stuff, finding someone to take his bike, etc. This set me back quite a bit meaning the cafe (and everything else) in Dungeness was closed by the time I got there. Then hit massive pothole immediately after that, proper snake bite puncture in tubeless tyre. At that point huge thunderstorm started. Trying to cram myself and bike into a phonebox (the only shelter I could find) and sticking plugs in a tyre was fairly miserable - managed to get it to hold about 20psi and limped along intermittently pumping up tyre and keeping weight over front of bike. Some hours later I realised there was actually another puncture altogether in the tyre and all I needed to do plug that one as well - something I'd have probably realised straight away if I'd had more sleep.
Eventually made it back to the end at nearly 10pm - felt bad as was literally last rider in and suspect everyone else had finished several hours before.
Highlight of the ride was probably eating a Magnum in the rain at about 9pm. Plus some of the night riding was quite fun. Actually overall it wasn't too bad and have some sense of achievement from not DNFing. Plus despite being totally soaked for about 4 hours, at least it wasn't cold. At one point a car splashed a huge puddle over me and it literally felt like having a bucket of lukewarm water thrown over me.
(at risk of starting a tubeless discussion, would have been far worse if I'd had tubes - pretty sure I'd have given up/lost will to live if I'd had similar amount of punctures with tubes).