Year: 2025

LEL is a 1500km ride held every four years from London to Edinburgh and back again. Each iteration is overscubscribed and I was fortunate enough to get through the lottery this year to have a chance to partake of this adventure with 2500 other “lucky” souls. The event is very well organized with over 1000 volunteers working together to support getting the riders through the long distance and challenging conditions typically faced. This year was to prove exceptionally challenging for the support as the event was turned on it’s head when Storm Floris and it’s associated 100mph gusts rolled in unexpectedly and resulted in the ride being initially suspended and then truncated to half it’s original planned distance due to safety concerns.

It was still an incredible experience despite the dissapointment of not getting to complete the entire planned route. The chance to meet and ride with people from all around the world on new roads while eating good food and crumble every 50 miles or so is a nice change from gas station hotdogs and riding on roads I’ve navigated what feels like hundreds of times before around Washington.

Anyway on to the event.

Pre-ride

I flew over to arrive Friday morning on BA and navigated to train system out to Writtle were I was staying in the college dorms. My bike wasn’t shifting properly after I assembled it so I tracked down a local bike shop in Chelmsford, 3 miles away, were the owner quickly got the rear derailleur engaging correctly again after it had likely been pushed into crash protection mode during travel. He wasn’t happy with my pedals either and took them apart to grease them as we chatted about my forthcoming ride. An absolute rockstar who saw a lot of business over the next two days. My bike, now fully functional, got halfway back to the college before I somehow sliced the rear tire and flatted. I’d put new 32s on before flying over but couldn’t find either a tire boot or replacement 32 in a tour of 6 local bike shops the next day. I ended up putting a spare 28 on the rear for the ride instead as I’d brought that along and decided I was better off starting with an unsliced tire than needing to change it in driving rain on top of some moor over the course of the ride. I had no further mechanical issues over the 4 days I was riding so thankfully got them out of the way up front.

Registration

Saturday was registration day and a chance to set up drop bags, get my number for the bike and catch up with some people I hadn’t seen since PBP in 2011. It was interesting hearing the different range of experience people had coming into this ride which had no qualifying requirements. I talked with one person who had done there first 200k ever a couple of weeks previously. I felt he might be in for a rough time but kept that to myself. It was particularly nice to see Paul O’Donoghue again (Audax Ireland).

The whole process was very well organized and the 2500 people got funneled through efficiently through the course of the day.

I finalized my 4 drop bags with changes of kit, spare food and charging cables for my bike and had an early night to try to get on top of jet lag.

Day 1 – Writtle to Hessle (189 miles, 16 mph)

My start time was at 11:15 so I got up around 9, scoped out the start, and rolled over about 10:50 for staging before the off. The sun was out and I was in short sleeves and shorts, which ironically considering the event was cancelled due to bad weather was pretty much what I wore for the whole ride. Batches of 45 riders were being set off on the narrow country roads every 15 minutes for safety.

I was tweaking my Garmin as we started to get it working so missed a fast group of 5 that started off quickly but settled into the second group and rode with them until some brief climbing started and I found myself off the front. I waited up for a couple people so I’d have company and then rode with this smaller group to Northshore.

I was aiming for 30 minute stops at each control and managed to keep to that throughout. The typical process was take my shoes off, get my card stamped, fill my water bottles and use the loo and then enjoy a meal, which varied for each control, and apple crumble with a cup of tea before hitting the road again. All very civilized and no real delays.

The controls were roughly every 4 hours or so and I didn’t need to eat very much on the bike.

The next two legs went smoothly and I rode with different small groups to shelter from the wind on the fens. In general I felt I was stronger than the majority of riders on the road. All my years of racing and trying to hold the wheel of people half my age is obviously helping.

On the final leg of the day to Hessle night had fallen and I had on all my reflective gear and rolled out somewhat slowly. However once someone passed me I got motivated to follow pace and settled in a couple bike lengths behind his blinking tail light and started ramping it up. It was rolling terrain and I was feeling strong so passed him back and then started hammering for the next couple hours. Probably passed around 50 people and no one passed me so just felt great night riding with my new headlight illuminating the road ahead in a cone of light to focus on. I enjoy riding at night and this was one of my better expereinces doing it. Very reminiscent of my last time at The 508 chasing down rabbits ahead for an entire leg with Bob.

I got to Hessle at 1am or so and was thankful that I had booked a hotel nearby as I examined to people sprawled out on the floor of the control. By 2am I was showered and settled into a comfortable bed for the night. This isn’t my first rodeo.

Day 2 – Hessle to Malton (43 miles, 13.7 mph)

I woke at 8am and was on the road from the control, after returning my drop bag, by 8:45. I donned my rain gear for this stretch as the weather was starting to turn but still no worse than any typical Seattle winter day. The Barrows were a great scenic stretch and I was looking forward to the climbing ahead from Malton.

I had another efficient stop at Malton but just as I was about to leave they announced they were locking down the control and anyone who departed would be disqualified. Next update to come in 4 hours ….

I grabbed an air mattress and decided to get some more rest anticipating needing to ride through the night to get back on schedule if and when we were released. 3:30pm came and another 4 hour wait for the next update. Back to the air mattress I went.

Finally at 7:30 I relinquished my air matress and got ready to ride. Sadly it was not to be, the announcement was made that the ride was cancelled and that we should remain in place until the next morning so they could get southbound controls ready to receive us as we headed back to the start. The incredible effort by the volunteers was spontaneously recognized with a standing ovation as they rose to the occasion to handle overwhelmed resources and controls to accomodate all the riders.

I walked down to the shops with a couple of English lads and got some food as the control had run out and then found another free air mattress for the night in the gym.

Day 3 – Malton to Boston (114 miles, 15.3 mph)

After 16 hours on an airmattress and not much sleep thanks to the range of snoring around me I finally sunk into a deep sleep at 6 am as people started stirring for departure. I must have gone really deep because next thing I knew I work to a completley empty gym bar one volunteer who was finishing deflating the air mattresses. We shared a laugh and I headed over to the cafeteria for some breakfast before departing back southwards.

Now it was just a casual ride so I chatted with Susan on my phone for quite a while all the time towing a string of people along behind me up hill and down dale.

When I rolled into Boston late afternoon after having changed into fresh kit at Louth I decided to call it a day and booked a hotel room in the city center nearby. It was a gorgeous room in a fully automated hotel, not a live person in sight or on site for that matter. I roamed around the town a little but while pleasant to look at it felt run down. Settled in for a good night’s rest with some chips and Grand Designs on the TV.

Day 4 – Boston to Writtle (122 miles, 16.8 mph)

Just 200k to go and ended up being a great day of riding. I initially met up with a fellow US rider who knew some SIR members from riding PBP together in 2015. We chatted for a while before Hitesh joined us on the fens. Hitesh and I picked up the pace a bit as we rode along chatting and made good time into the side wind. We stopped at the popup cafe for a snack and joined up with two UK riders for the rest of the day.

We rode at a decent clip despite some rough roads through Cambridge and enjoyed a huge fully loaded potato at the penultimate control. It was nice to still feel part of a large multinational event as all the controls and roads were still busy with all the southbound riders. The majority of riders, especially the international ones, hadn’t abandoned and were riding back to Writtle.

We got back to Writtle in the late afternoon and collected our medals and enjoyed a beer in the sun to celebrate the conclusion of our truncated event. Not what we’d planned but everyone seemed to have tried to make the best of an unfortunate act of nature.

Pre-ride of the 600k for SIR this past weekend with 4 other intrepid souls started at the usual ungodly hour of 5am at the Redmond Inn. The purpose of the ride is for the volunteers assisting the actual ride in a couple weeks to vet the course and make sure any needed changes are made to keep the route safe and enjoyable. It also allows volunteers to get credit for the ride. This was an opportunity to ride with people I would generally not be riding with as our paces are quite different. Pre-rides are much more similar to a fleche as you generally stick together for the entire ride and the overall pace is dictated by the slowest person in the group. This resulted in a much longer ride than I was expecting but also meant that I had a lot less strain on my body as most of the ride was Zone 1 for me rather than Zone 2/3 endurance pace. I did climb at my own pace for most of the climbing but would then regroup at the top after having a chance to stretch my legs out a bit.

We headed up north for a loop around most of Camano Island and then hitting Bellingham (after a nice pizza lunch in Edison) before a return back to Redmond via the Centennial Trail for a bit of sleep before the second day.

I rode my Serotta on Day 1 as my current main bike’s DI2 shifting had died during the week. The Serotta was my primary bike for a good few years, through PBP 2011, but hasn’t seen much riding in recent years. It still held up well for the day and kept me pretty dry with the heavy rain we had for about 4 hours mid day. As we hit night riding it got progrssively colder and I ended up buying additional gloves and a hat to stay warm. Loads of real food during this ride and I kept my energy levels up pretty well. Main takeaways ahead of LEL are to work out some way to protect my shorts in the rain to avoid chaffing, a lightweight Goretex short seems a likely option. Also I should carry along some small chamois cream packets and a different backup light as the rando 5000 one I had failed (though wasn’t needed). My Garmin battery would have run out as well at this pace so I borrowed a battery pack from Andy and the inride charging worked well.

We started discussing start times for Day 2 as we got closer to the overnight and settled on 8am rollout. This was earlier than I would have liked and just allowed for 5 hours sleep but later than the others might have gone with so compromises were made all around. Was in bed by 2am.

The weather forecast was better for the second day so I shifted bikes to Christian’s old Trek Madone for the excursion out to Middle Fork.

There were some hefty climbs to wake us up out of Redmond. I had to go back to retrieve my keys which I’d left in the car but it meant that riding at my own pace I could catch up to the others by the time they crested the final initial climbs. It was a nice sunny ride on trails out to North Bend and then on to Middle Fork aided by a nice tailwind.

Beautiful views and I thought of Christian as I rode out along this stretch as he used to fish here a lot.The return was into that same wind but downhill so it balanced out.

Then it was just a case of getting it done on familiar roads in a 60 mile loop out to Renton and back via my old office in Factoria.

We finished at 7:30 in the evening, comfortably under the 40 hour time limit at 38:30 with around 28 hours of that actually on the bike.

Another early morning 5 am start from Redmond meant an even earlier alarm to get over to the start in time. Got there with time to spare and chatted with the usual suspects before the off. We rolled out on time and settled into a brisk pace up the initial climbs to get over to the Snoqualmie valley roads. I’m just not light enough to keep up with Yonnel once the road pitches up so I had some work to do to stay attached. I was just off the back of the front group cresting Old Woodinville – Duvall road but chased back on down the hill in time to take adavantage of the draft for another hour until Wood Creek road coming out of Monroe when I said goodbye to Yonell as he launched up the road with a handful of others.

Yonnel, Travis and one other ended up finishing together and I was essentially in the second group for the rest of the day with some other riders playing leapfrog with us in the last 100k once I faded big time.

Anyway, back to our story on Wood Creek road. I rode by myself for a while until Matt and Brian caught up and then chatted with them till Darrington. We had merged with a couple other riders, Matthew, Kolt and a single speeder when everyone scattered to refeult at different places, gas station and local park. I kept riding with Tom and we traded pulls for the next 60 miles or so to Baker Lake. Burpee Hill was as steep as ever but a steady pace got it done.

Baker Lake was the manned control on this ride at we spent a pleasant 30 minutes eating, restocking and waiting for others to join us before heading on for the remaining 150k.

I’d been off my bike with a head cold all week and that in conjunction with a pneumonia vaccine 2 days earlier meant I wasn’t feeling top notch. I fell way behind on my nutrition and hydration as it was hard to eat and drink on the move with a blocked up nose. I only had 1 bottle to drink in the first 7 hours which caught up with me as the ride continued and I tried to play catchup. Ended up stopping a lot more on the way back to try to get more food into me.

It was familiar roads and trails for the return and I rode with Brian and Matt for the rest of the day. They were good sports and willing to accomodate my extra stops for hotdogs and other food cravings.

We ended up finishing in about 16:45, moving time was 15:16 at 16.3mph (identical to the last time I rode this course 3 years ago with Mick so I’m pretty consistent).

For my next long ride I’m going to try to make sure that I follow my nutrition and hydration plan and not dig such a hole for myself.

Still all in all a good day out and a good test of my bike set up itself. The only thing I was missing were knee warmers for once the temperature dropped in the last hour riding back to Redmond. It was fine for an hour but I wouldn’t want to expose my knees like that on the moors in Scotland in August. My legs actually feel worked after this ride in contrast with the 300k.

This years Pacific Raceways race series started up last night. These races are held on a race track down south and are typically flat and fast affairs. I normally double up with two races (roughly an hour each with a 15 minute break between them).

There were big fields down for the first race of the season in both races, 45+ Masters and 35+ Masters. I sat in for the whole race on each one and felt really comfortable. This is a nice contrast to last year when I would often have a tough time sticking with the field for both races. This time my Garmin was actually telling me at the end that the primary benefit of the race was as a recovery ride so I should be able to go a good bit harder and do more in future races. All this while averaging over 26mph for the races

I actually set a personal best for the last 1K and 400m in my second race and seemed to be going at the same speed as the winners but had started towards the back so made no in roads on them in the sprint. It does give me some confidence to try moving up to the front coming up to the finish and see what I can do in future races.

We had a great showing from the team and good squads in all the races.