Audax rides

Firstly, sorry KTBee. I didn't see your last post! Were you the one in the LFGSS Ladies jersey, blonde hair? I saw you at the start but didn't want to introduce myself due to shyness/pre-ride fear. My apologies if you thought I was being standoffish.

Anyway, this was another ride in my "furthest I've ever ridden in one go" series. Starting with 22 miles in January I've worked up to this, with the hope of a 300 by Christmas. Left home at 5:30 to get the train from Liverpool St. and was one of only half a dozen passengers, along with other audaxers! I plonked myself alone at the front because I was in no mood to talk. Here's why:

Since Dunwich I've had this niggling knee thing which kicks in after about 40 minutes of riding. I'm finally seeing a physio about it and am on the mend but I knew today was going to hurt, and there would be a strong possibility of DNF. Added to that my general fears about arse pain (steady) I was not feeling positive.

The Shaftesbury CC clubhouse is a wonderful little hut with walls covered in cycling memorabilia from 1888 to the present. The friendliness of the other riders and organisers and a 50p cup of tea were enough to put my fears at ease for the time being as we set off at 8.

The first hour was mental anguish as I kept listening for my knee to go, and go it did after about 1 hour. It started as a feeling, developed into a niggle after two hours and by the control at around three hours had become a certified pain. I began scrounging for ibuprofen just for the swelling but apparently canalside tearooms don't have a pharmacy section. I'd also picked up a co-rider in the form of Martin. Martin was only a tiny bit more experienced than me and kept me...entertained is too strong a word...distracted by just talking about every minute detail of his life.

We met by both taking a wrong turn somewhere mid-morning and helping each other back on route.

"Oho I'll not make this mistake on my ride next week!" beamed Martin. "Nope, the route for that goes left out of the start, then left, then right on the A900, then left - no right, then a quick left..." and so on until he'd described the whole route. Sometimes you appreciate the company.

By four hours my knee hadn't got any worse and I'd got used to the shooting pain so I decided to battle on to half way and re-assess there.

After some miserable mizzle (mist+drizzle) We made it to lunch at 116km at the clubhouse and I inhaled a ham baguette (£1.50), a piece of plum cake (50p) and a banana (20p) which was a distinct improvement on my unripe Tesco jobbies I'd bought with me. It's like eating a raw potato at times.

I'd decided to plough on through the pain, which had plateaud nicely, although I suspected my right leg was doing 70% of the pulling, while the left just rotated meekly, strapped into its pedal.

The predicted third-quarter blues kicked in and Martin's commentary was beginning to grate. As we both got tired our route reading got sloppy and we kept going wrong, or, even worse, going right but thinking we'd gone wrong and retracing our steps.

Martin also developed the habit of slowly reading our route sheet instructions AFTER we'd done them.

"Bear. Left. At. Green. Triangle. Singposted. Stansted. Mountfitchet."

"Yeah we've done that already."

"Left. Turn. At. Bridge. No. Sign."

"YES WE DID THAT WHEN WE TURNED LEFT AT THAT FUCKING BRIDGE TWO MINUTES AGO!!!!!"

I was ratty and my knee was killing me. I was crawling by this point and full kudos to Martin for sticking with me. Our three-quarter point control was a Sainsbury's where we stocked up on cookies and the sun finally came out, as did my sunny side. I'd now decided I had to finish so the arm warmers came off and we zipped through the next 17 and 20 miles stages which the organiser had cruelly inserted several hills in. We knew we'd be well outside our target time (10 hours) but there would be apple pie and custard at the clubhouse (£2.00).

We came in at 11h38 and I had a good hour's sit down before my train home with a cool bloke called Gordon. A remarkably pain free warm-down ride from Liverpool Street brought me to a round 240km for the day and into the flat by 11pm.

I think 200 is the max I can do until my knee is sorted so I'll not be trying a 300 until next year at the earliest. I'm also questioning whether I want to spend a load of money on a geared audax bike if I don't actually enjoy audaxing that much. However I get the impression nobody enjoys audaxes when you're on them - you just think you enjoyed it afterwards!