The BHF London to Brighton

I skipped the start line, rode down to tooting and joined there.. much better.

The first two hills were gridlocked (narrow roads), impossible to keep momentum, essentially twice as tiring as they should have been. By the time I got to Ditchling the crowd had thinned out a lot. The descents were FUN!

Fell asleep on the beach, got sunburned, not fun.

The coach and truck system was fast and efficient, very impressed.

I only saw one other person riding fixed, black bike possibly deep V wheels. Anyone here?

I saw a few single speed* riders on the way, and a couple in Brighton that decided that they were fed up of being penned in, and wanted to play in the outside lane of traffic, and slalom around the stationary cars, which was interesting.

*I say single speed, as they all had two brakes, but they could well have been fixed.

I only saw one other person riding fixed, black bike possibly deep V wheels. Anyone here?

Possibly me....Black fixed with H+N rims. Will second your thoughts on interrupted momentum on the hills, had to stop so many times when the road was blocked by walkers in a horizontal line, not single file. Heard many calls by riders trying to cycle uphill of 'walkers stay to the left' or similar.

First time L2B, will do again but on a geared bike so can take advantage of the downhills. Pedaling the whole way does bite towards the end. Overall a lovely scenic country ride.

If you had a pisspot helmet then yes it was you. Belated 'DAS'.
True, downhill was pretty shit spinning at the max but uphill climbs on fixed are so much quicker, it was quite fun overtaking the lycra brigade sprinting uphill! I'm definitely gonna try it geared next time but it won't feel as much of a challenge, the number of comments from people when they realised I was riding fixed was hilarious, "You're mental" etc.

unicyclist, storm troopers, cruisers and bmxers got my respect..

Unicycle with tri bars! Ruler.

Really nice ride but I agree with TooTallTim, people stopping in front of you or walking on the right hand side broke a lot of my momentum. It was the first time I did this kind of distance, let alone on a SS but I managed to keep up with my friends & did it in under 5 hours. Although we left at 6:30 I think I'll want to do it earlier still next time, just to avoid the slow pokes. The wind was a right old bitch too but overall, a really enjoyable experience. Also saw a few SS riders and one Fixed guy walking with me up Beacons.
Kudos to the street skaters too!

Had plenty of beers & burgers afterwards at Volks :)

Anyone else doing this on Sunday?

I won't be, for the first time in years- I might try to do it the weekend afterward just to get it on the books as it were.

Dammit, why you no Ditchling Devil yesterday? I thought it would be your thing.

@Jwleggett I'm doing it!

I'm doing it this year too...Just in 2 minds whether to stick mudgards on the bike depending on the weather.

No harm in doing so.

Is there an official route map or garmin map for this?

I did it for the first time this year, with a group of colleagues from work. Two of us were riding fixed, me on my On One Macinato and one of my clerks on a Dolan Pre Cursa. I made it up Ditchling Beacon without walking, he didn't. Mwahahahaha...

The congestion was appalling though. Out of London it was bad (a 20 minute wait at one set of lights) but at one of the sets of lights they'd installed for the ride there was a 40 minute traffic jam of bicycles, stretching as far as the eye could see, with riders shuffling forwards 10 feet at a time. If I do it again I'm setting off in an earlier group.

Or go on a different days, you'd enjoy that a lots more.

TBH, if I wasn't doing the BHF ride, I'd probably also chose a different route. With different start and finish points. I actually rather enjoyed the atmosphere though, even if it was a bit Noddergeddon. The sound of graunching gears at the beginning of every climb, as badly-indexed gears were forced into ill-timed changes was deafening. And one chap did ask why I wasn't freewheeling downhill, in tone which suggested he thought I needed to learn how to ride a bike.

Still, the Girl Guides' cakes were rather good, and the restaurant at the Brighton Grand was very good.

I did it for the first time fixed this year and only saw one other guy on a fixie (he was on a Cinelli and we had a brief chat as we went along) and one other guy on a SS. Unfortunately Ditchling did get the better of me this time so that's something to aim for next year. What tickled me most were the comments from people behind me going all "he's only got one gear, oh and it's fixed, WOW!"

What gear ratio were you running, Frizzer?

I've started earlier every year that I've done it.

Last year (it would appear from looking at the file) I started at 6.47- which was still too late, as the first 20 miles was a slow congested crawl.

I'll aim for 6am next year.

I was running 42:16 so I guess that's 70 gear inches. I did get part of the way up the Beacon but then lost all momentum and decided to swallow my pride and walk the rest of it. I tried to convince myself that if I was on a lighter bike I would have been fine (I have a Plug) but I was just kidding myself :-) I think a big part of it was that I didn't expect to get up it this time round so didn't go at it hard enough. Next time though......

Ah, right. I was running a 48:18, but I think I was lucky in having a fairly clear run up the Beacon, albeit with quite a lot of 'On your right' shouting.

48/18 is the same as 42/16 (well, a tiny bit more), that remind me to order a 19t cogs, as 48/18 is a fairly hard gear.

I'm doing the over-night version of this hoping for a less congested event. Fixed but with breaks and a geared mate. Looks like they are doing staggered timed starts for the night event (ie. you get a number and a time at which to start). Any ideas if this is rigorously enforced?