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@arup
Well done. I was also on that one but had my first DNF. Quite annoyed about it as I was on good form.
Here's what happened. A friend who has just finished building his first bike wanted to come along. He offered to give me a lift in his van when I said I was going to get the train from Clapham. So I arranged to meet him at 08:30 near East Croydon. I texted to say that I'd arrived at the appointed time and he replied that he'd lost track of time and hadn't left his house. Got there half an hour later. Still determined to have a good ride I shrugged it off but wasn't happy.
Stuck in traffic we arrived at the start about 10: 15, 45 minutes after the appointed start time. My brevet card had been left for me and I phoned Bill to let him know that I was starting late and that my friend didn't have a booking. My friend then spent some time fitting the toe straps he had asked me to bring but didn't have clips.
Soon after we actually got started he removed the toe straps as they weren't helping. When we finally got to Hammersmith he noticed that his crank bolt was loose so we wandered up King Street and found a bike shop on Shepherd's Bush Road. Really nice guy who fixed it for free and also tightened up his also loose chainring bolts. Surprised by this rare friendly bike shop experience we continued with me smiling with gritted teeth. We got to Notting Hill the other crank bolt was loose so we popped into Evans on Westbourne Grove. He was feeling very guilty and suggested that I continue on alone but I didn't want to leave him stranded just to get my points.
Got to Island Gardens at 3:30 and was so looking forward to that goat curry that I didn't have last year because the queue was too long. My friend said he was too tired to continue but another friend had joined at Kensington gardens so we continued on together. It was after 6.00 when we got to 70k and I had work at 7.00 so I decided that rent had a higher priority than audax points so had to pull out.
Still, the weather was nice and I got some miles in.