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What's it like riding a bike with a small child in a child seat on the back ? I'd have though it would feel a bit dodgy if the kid starts squirming around.

We have a 2.5 year old staying with us ATM, and we're trying to choose between child seat and trailer for transporting him by bike.

It was a fantastic atmosphere, I especially liked the kids (and a few adults) offering high fives to riders. That almost went very wrong at one point when I lined up for what looked like a high five but was actually a biscuit being passed up. Slapping it out of his hand wouldn't have gone down well, I suspect.

The roadside supporters were quite into the international nature of the event: One group had a large world map for riders to sign where they were from, and another was giving out their address for postcards.

I slept fitfully for 3 hours in the fart barn at Loudéac on the way out, almost got back to Loudéac on the way back but 3km short I was suddenly too sleepy to ride, so a quick bivvy. About 90 minutes of solid sleep I think. From then on it was just a quick roadside bivvy of about an hour every time I started to doze off on the bike, which was half way through each of last two legs. In the end I came in at 74 hours something, a couple of minutes ahead of 3 Brasilians on a triplet.

I also actually put on weight and finished with a few of the SIS bars I set off with. Taking the eating competition thing a little too seriously.

I only ate 2 family-sized trifles this year, which is up from 0 last year but still makes me a bit of a lightweight in the TAW eating competition. I was down about 1kg this morning vs pre-race, but that could easily be a random fluctuation. I wasn't absurdly hungry afterwards.

Lesson learnt: when coughing up flem and spitting it into a bush, first check that you're not still wearing your midge headnet.

It went pretty well until I ran out of food on the second to last peninsula in the early evening, with no resupply options. I put on a bit of speed to try to get to Durrus while something was open, but no. I pushed on as best I could, rationing my last morsel to last until morning. By around midnight I had the severe dozies, so I stopped for a 20 minute hedge kip. It didn't help enough though, I still couldn't safely ride a bike. That left no option but to stop for a proper sleep.

I got my head down at about 0100, woke at 0400 and was rolling again by 0425. It was already starting to get light and I felt much better. Two caffeine pills and my last little bit of chocolate for breakfast. A town, everything shut. Another town, ditto. A garage, also shut. More empty road. By now it's late enough that things will be open, and I see a sign for Clonakilty 12k. This makes me happy until I realise that it isn't 12k for me, because I'm going there via a long diversion up and down a stupid fucking hill.

Finally I get to Spar in Clonakilty and load up on food. Another 20k on survival mode and then the food has kicked in and I'm ready to race. The tracker shows that I only lost one place overnight, but someone is one hill behind me. I don't know if he's chasing me or just surviving, but for some motivation I choose to believe that he's chasing me hard and give it everything for the last 40k.

I'm in again this year, Lesley recons last year was too sunny to count as a "proper" TAW.

I use a very lightweight cafe lock, it's no good against anyone with tools (even a decent pair of scissors I expect) but maybe it'll be good enough for a drunk idiot who decides to try doing wheelies on my bike while I'm in the shop.

On a recent audax it also enabled me to beat the cafe control bike parking congestion, by allowing me to park on a steep slope that no one else could use without their bikes rolling away.

Perhaps he feared a repeat of the alliston debacle

and was therefore following this advice: https://road.cc/content/blog/228327-involved-crash-heres-modest-proposal

(I don't agree with the advice btw)

hedge

Mine are here, filter by LEL on route name

http://ridewithgps.com/users/129240/routes

Finally got the bastard uploaded: https://www.strava.com/activities/1650740432

Very strong very sweet cold instant coffee. I carry caffeine pills as a backup, but I find I don't absorb caffeine from them very well, the coffee works better for me. Also, the taste alone can keep you awake.

Kenmare

That was the best Centra, customer toilet with shower, and a track pump locked to the bike rack.

I finished on Thursday afternoon, and have mostly been sleeping since. On that last night I tried to camp a couple of times but the Cork ground was too stony for my pegs, so in the end I grabbed an hour under my tarp looped over my bike lent up against a gate and then pressed on. At that point I expected to finish mid morning, not realising just how slow and windblown those last two peninsulas would be. By 7am I had the dozies, but a quick roadside nap reset that. I slowed down throughout the day though as lack of proper sleep caught up with me. I think lack of sleep contribuited to me forgetting to take any caffeine until Clonakilty and letting myself get dehydrated in the afternoon, so there was a bit of a snowball effect.

I'm still in

Privacy settings changed, I think it'll work now

I re-LELed as a training ride and equipment shakedown for Trans-Atalantic Way, sticking to the suggested route the whole way this time, so I no-longer feel like I have unfinished LEL business.

https://www.strava.com/activities/1555350273

Many equipment failures were indeed shaken out: I have 2 dented rims to tackle, a puncture-prone badly rimtaped wheel identified, a headset problem fixed, a much better designed extended rear rack thanks to an overhaul in a meadow in the Lincolnshire Wolds, and a long list of other minor tweaks to make.

I've also discovered that it is possible to try too hard to do without much sleep. If I'd slept a bit more I probably wouldn't have lost so much time to being dazed and confused. Sprinting up hills and trying to cost down flats in the final stages probably didn't help my overall time. I'd not realized how much lack of sleep would effect my ability to judge the gradient I was on.

I saw stoats scurry across the road in front of me a couple of times, I don't remember seeing any of those on actual LEL.

You might be able to ride a bike around the outside of your spaceship, with magnets.

I applied for life insurance today with Legal and General. They asked if I ride a motorbike or moped on the road, but nothing about bicycling on the road.

Insurance companies are strongly motivated to take an objective and unbiased view of risk, and they don't think cycling is dangerous enough to ask about.

Solar panel ?

If it weighs less than 1kg and saves more than 3 minutes per day of plugging and unplugging things and/or opening packets of AAs then Chris White's calculations suggest it's a win.

I think Ibbett said he will not, but has some other races planned.

He's on the list for Transatlantic Way

office slippers?

Yesterday when I got home and unpacked my office clothes, there was a pair of underpants missing. Strange. This morning after my shower I got dressed as usual (re-using the jeans from Yesterday but clean everything else) and got on with my day.

Just now I changed out of my office slippers into trainers for a lunchtime walk, and found Yesterday's pants in the bottom of one leg of the jeans I'm wearing, where they've been happily coexisting with my shin for the last 4 hours.

Are these 140mm any use to you?

Those will do nicely sir, PMed

Just out of curiosity are you saying you'd be happy to ride around with two different length cranks

Ha, no, I'd be looking at replacing both cranks if I can't get a new 125mm NDS

Where can I get a replacement 125mm NDS square taper crank arm in (preferably west) London today ?

Failing 125mm, I'll accept any shorter than standard crankset, the shorter the better while not shorter than 125mm.