LEL 2017 / London - Edinburgh - London Audax

Ah I'm a 12.30 start

12:15...

11am

12:30 for me too

I'm looking forward to stamping all your cards!

I should get (and wear) a luguss hat

1545 for me.

11am start for me...now just need to get the/some miles in!

6:15am start for me.

I'm either going to see you all on the way back, or blow up spectacuarly somewhere near Leeds.

10:45

9.45am start for me.

7.45am start. I hate myself.

I've just had to drop out due to patella tendinopthy, at least someone on the waiting list will of had a nice surprise :(

Registering interest..

They oversold the event a little and are counting on drop outs to bring it back to 1500 riders so I wouldn't count on an places coming up.

I got a place this morning. See you at 06.15 - I'll be on a black ritchey

Very nice. I'll be on a Ti Kinesis - see you there.

I've ridden the first leg of the route now and it rolls a little at the start. Keeping up with a fast group is going to require some work.

Doing it fixed, any souls? The hills are long-ish but not that steep...

Having done LeJog, I wouldn't want to do this kind of route fixed not least for not being able to take advantage of the descents.

Bah, it's great on fixed. If anything the climbs and descents are the easier bit on fixed, it's both sets of long blats through the flatlands that take their toll on the arse as there is no respite.

how about the good old flipping of the rear wheel?

Personally I don't believe in it. If I'm riding fixed then I'm picking a gear that will see me through the entire ride, that's part of the challenge; low enough to do the majority of climbing but not too low that the descents/flat becomes tortuous. Riding a lower gear helped me spin more which means it's less of a problem anyway.

But part of it is because I'm lazy and could never be arsed to change my fixed setup. I rode 71" for a while and then moved down to 67" for a hilly Audax (Elenith I think) and then just left the bike setup like that. Used to same gear for pan flat commutes in London, long hilly rides like the Bryan Chapman, blatting round Richmond Park, flattish rides up to Cambridge and back, LEL 2009, PBP 2011, etc.

But there's nothing stopping you flipping your wheel, you'll just lose a few nods of appreciation from the hardcore hair-shirt fixed brigade. Up to you whether you give a shit about them or not.

Was going to, then decided to pull out. Rode it in '09 on fixed though. Was a relief to get to Yad Moss and stand up for a bit after 500km of flat. Like Greenbank, ICBA to change ratios on rides.

A forumeanger did it on fixed, on a Langster with baby blue Velocity deep v rear wheel.

Perfectly doable, it's surprisingly less hilly than I expected when I did it in 2013, it's just the usual really steep section every now and then that threw the oversea audaxers off.

May be not deep v but fixed looks quite close to geared on this particular route, from the profile at least, it rarely exceeds 5%... Shall try out some of the hilly bits before deciding

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5am start for me. Trying to figure out how lightly I can load the bike. Is there likely to be portable food at the controls or is it all going to be knife and fork type stuff that requires a sit down?