Tell us about your weekend ride

Ha, nice one! Needs a proofread, but I'm amazed you're even up.

Does it no longer go via Cheddar and Cheddar Gorge? I didn't realise the route had changed so much with the switch to Bath. We certainly didn't go through Wells. My favourite climb was Burrington Combe, which I guess they don't do any more (streams of water running down as we went up), and I struggled the most with the long gradual drag up to Exmouth, before the disappointingly brief descent.

Like you, I got lucky with local knowledge both times. I rode most of the second time I did it with the vice-chair of a local CTC DA.

Sure there are people on the Forum who'd do it Fixed, turn round and ride back to London, but that ain't me. This was a big un for me.

Not on the forum and not fixed, but in 2009 there was a guy who had ridden to Bristol during the day, then did the EE, and then rode back to London. I ended up riding back from Dunwich with him a couple of weeks later, at least until a mechanical I had in Finchingfield.

Sorry to hear it rained again! I looked at a weather forecast and it didn't show anything, but it wouldn't be a weather forecast if it was accurate.

Done the Dynamo but this is a lot tougher, no pop up cafes every 10 miles, 16 or so people somewhere in darkest Somerset.

I'm also surprised there were so few people; there were at least 100 back then. And the DD of course didn't have those regular food stops ten years ago. No idea if the EE will go the way the DD has gone.

I successfully got round and I remember it as a nice day out. I do hope the Exodus continues perhaps even gets a bit bigger, it does need someone to pick up the burden of making it a bit less Self Supporting and better known if it is to return to how it was years ago. Is that a good thing?

Yes and no. Technology has, of course, made it all less interesting. Navigating by route sheets at night was more fun than having GPS computers. Lights also used to be a lot less powerful. Fewer people would do it if technology hadn't developed, but it is less immersive today.

The DD had only a single food stop for many years, until numbers got such that the local economy got involved, and it's now a nice earner for lots of businesses along the route, which is how it should be, so that's definitely got better. But yes, you win some, you lose some.

Anyway, chapeau!