2013-06-09 - London Ditchling Devil 200km Audax

Hi guys, a post to announce this years edition of the London Ditchling Devil 200km Audax on Sunday June 9th, a romp from Wimbledon Common down to the coast and back, lunch included. A few lumps along the way but generally fixer friendly, ~70" will see you round fine. Full details can be found at http://www.paudax.com/ditchlingdevil Tell your friends and help make it a great day!

1. Jake
   

^^ Date in the heading is a day out.

Sounds wicked though.

1. Jake
   
   

You?? Audax? Hell's frozed!

Awesome ride thought, something like 9,000ft of climbing.

Definitely doing this as the last time I did that was in autumn, would be great to go on it in the summer.

Signed up.
Beers at the end?

If it's finished at the same place, yep.

Hmm, my birthday. Another excuse not to organise a party, excellent rubs hands

You?? Audax? Hell's frozed!

Awesome ride thought, something like 9,000ft of climbing.

Definitely doing this as the last time I did that was in autumn, would be great to go on it in the summer.

Whyndomyou think I'm going to buy your genesis? For rides like this!

Entered.

67" fixed for me, but I'll probably be pushing the time limit given my recent levels of inactivity (no Audax since PBP in August 2011).

Can't say no though, the start (and finish) are both less than 2 miles from home.

Whyndomyou think I'm going to buy your genesis? For rides like this!

Incidentally, the Genesis was put together for audax like this.

This might be my first proper audax on the new bike too, I know the route by heart so should able to get under 12 hours (40 minutes wasted doing a lap of Richmond Park with Vesalius before heading back to the last control).

This looks great.

It is, and I'm very excited to do it again.

Signed up

I DNF'd this ride 35km into this ride last year.

Never occured to me to have a quick glance at my tyres to make sure they hadn't worn through... turns out they had.

I'm signed up.

I'm in Ireland this time unfortunately! Was my first audax last year, and was really looking forward to doing it again 1 year on, a sort of trip down memory lane.
(although I've done them perm a few times since)

Last time I did it on a specialised allez, with 23c tyres, and a rack+two panniers on the rear... (Full thermos, d-lock, kitchen sink etc etc)
Not what I'd plan on taking nowadays!

I first set off with good intentions of just me and my housemate, going at our own steady pace, but not far in we got chatting with a solo rider ("matthias"?) and we rode from there on as a trio. Unfortuntely he was a significantly stronger rider than either of us, and we really burned ourselves out trying to set a good pace/keeping up with him, and we eventually let the poor guy go soon after the first control (an awesome fry-up thanks Manotea!).

After all the excitement of the beacon, and grinding back up out of Brighton to Devils Dyke, my housemate had to dropout as he was having real bad knee pain. A pretty low point for both of us, him having to bail half way round, me facing the prospect of heading into the unknown onmy own..
To make matters worse at this point, Ithen went on to miss the turn on the descent down to poynings (after the dyke) and got rather lost and frustrated! The turning is given a clear warning on the routesheet as well!
(I got lost at this same point the next time I did it as a perm, and the most recent time time I did the route, the turning was etched in my memory so no trouble spotting it, but my housemate picked a puncture up at this exact spot! It's cursed I tell ye!)

after getting back on route, just making the next control after devils dyke, fixing a puncture in between, I picked up the pace and arrived at the following control with time to sit down, relax and take stock of the journey so far and what I had left to do.
I seem to remember some lovely rock cakes/jam tarts on offer :)

Drawing closer to London, after being on my own for an age I caught up with one lone fixed rider, grinding around the steep corner near the top of Coombe Lane like a boss. We rolled it back together chatting for a good while after this, me generally in awe of his riding the route in one gear, which was just incomprehensible to me at that point.
To be fair, he was really shattered by this point, and a while together I pressed on ahead of him...

...only to meet up with the infamous Edscoble and his partner en route! The first time I had seen him on the entire ride, and in general for that matter.

We three headed back to the Arrivée together, adding on a bit extra distance in Richmond Park to make sure we got our 200s worth.

Pretty sure we were one of the last riders that day, in around 7pm, and hearing about the first rider getting in about 2pm I also just couldn't comprehend!

I sat in the pub the Arrivée was at until I mustered up the legs to head to the station, the weather pouring it down at this point (it had held off for most of the day fortunately)
But once I was on the train it felt like I was home already. A mixture of exhaustion, euphoria and plain old tiredness, having ridden the furthest I had ever done in a day, up and down some decent bumps, and about half of it solo as well. It was every bit the challenge I was looking for when I signed up to the ride.

Anyone signing up for this, first ride or not, you will have a great time :)

And a couple of pics from when I did the permanent ride afterwards:

This shot doesn't do justice to the absolute wall created by the south downs, the approach to ditchling looks seriously mean.
skirt around to the right for a while before actually beginning the climb.

No introductions necessary...

just before devil's dyke, nice view of the sea!

And if you do the perm after this, you'll be treated to an absolute gem of a control, where you can feed all manner of birds whilst having your beans on toast!

It's also our first one too;

It's not only I and John's first Audax, but also John first Century ride.

I always rode with him a lots and we work pretty well together, so it make sense to go to the Ditchling Devil Audax.

We planned on starting at 7:30 as we didn't want to join the mass start, the simple reason to ride at a comfortable pace rather than keeping up with the group, can be a little tiring on the first couple of hours before getting your legs.

Despite being overtaken quite a handful of time, we were enjoying the ride from Wimbledon to Turner Hill as it was a lovely if cold morning (note to self - buy arm warmer), after the first checkpoint and the breakfast, we joined some of the riders who overtook us, it was actually a lots more sociable than I thought it would be, beside one bloke commenting on I using "balloon" tyres on such ride at the Windmill, it was nice to be able to relax on such ride.

We were really enjoying the ride and John were a little surprised that Ditchling wasn't particularly hard (Tongdean Lane to Devil Dykes after riding down took us by surprise), the calamities of the others grew and the journey back to London doesn't feel like a chores anymore, each checkpoint gave us just enough time to recuperated, make a big difference compared to the forum ride of which tend to be non-stop.

Left Wimbledon at 7:30, got signed at Chiddingfold at half 3, a rather respectful time with just 35 miles to go, John and I like to have a little bit of a challenge by trying to complete it in under 10 hours.

Disaster strike.

John knees, both his dodgy knees blew up, in the metaphorical sense, I dropped out of the main group and rode with John all the way to Richmond, we're in it together, would be rather rude to ditch him at that point.
It took us almost 4 hours to do the mere 35 miles, the fact we thought the pub was on the north side of Richmond Park (on a road also called King's Road) mean we lost 45 minutes having a quick lap of the park before resorting to the pub, as if we decided to do a couple of hill before turning back to the correct road.

it seemed that there's a recurring pattern that after a Century, you're just running on fume trying to get to the destination, food and drink no longer motivate you but the signpost saying "Kingston" does, the last 25 miles seemed to go on forever compared to the first 25 that somehow disappear before we noticed it.

The Ditchling Devil website has a new banner, in glorious technicolour! Thanks for the photo Vesalius.

No problem!

Hopefully goaded a friend into riding.

If he rides I'll be on fixed and I'll subjectively measure how unfit I am.

If he doesn't I'll take the Wilier and the PowerTap wheel and objectively measure how unfit I am.

I had a great time doing this last year. Beautiful scenery and nice people. I couldn't of done it without tagging along with a very nice couple with a Garmin which made navigating a lot easier. It's quite tough but definitely worth it, there is a great sense of achievement after. Try not to add extra miles to the day by getting lost on your way home from Richmond like I did.

May be on this, need to see what my fitness is saying when I get back on the bike on wednesday.

In pending fitness.
If someone else is a little unfit I would gladly ride with you.

I'm not that unfit, but I haven't done a ride this long before so I will not be racing there and back. Just pootling.

Pretty much what audax generally like.