Final report on the London to Brighton Cycle ride 2010
The weeks of dedication and training finally came to fruition on Sunday as Richard, Graham and your humble correspondent tumbled, blinking like Lycra-clad moles into the hazy Clapham sunshine, hoist our liberally creamed buttocks onto the saddle and set off for Brighton.
Graham, a master of expectation setting, despite all his, "not sure I'll be able to keep up with you chaps" disappeared the instant the traffic bunched up and he spied a tiny gap on the pavement, riding his mountain bike he could afford to be a bit more cavalier than those of us atop the delicate filigree of carbon, alloy and wishful thinking that is the modern road bike.
The ride is huge, thousands of folk, leaving Clapham at 30 minute intervals means that congestion and near collision are the order of the day, it's also astonishing to me the number of people I heard advising their companions how to ride a bike, use gears, how to use the brakes!
You need to be fairly silly to take your first cycling lesson on busy roads for 54 miles surrounded by 26,000 others, some of them trying to go quite quickly, but apparently there's a lot of very silly people out there. Richard's view is that the ride is less about raising funds for the British Heart Foundation and more about targeting donors.
The first 20 miles or so is quite frustrating as tight lanes, and occasional hills mean that too much time is spent trudging pedal to ankle with your co-trudgers. As the field thins out a little and the slow, the halt and the soon-to-be-lame fall back it's possible to put on some pace but there are still many slow-moving wobblers from the earlier start batches. Starting at 7:30 was immeasurably better than last years 8:30 but a 6:00 or 6:30 would be needed to deliver a sub 4 hour time for myself, although young Graham (by dint of cycling through the fields, farms, gardens and hedges to avoid congestion) sailed into Brighton seafront in 3:56, well ridden that man.
With the exception of three or four traffic induced hold-ups we didn't stop (apart from a pee-pee apiece and a quick adjustment of my saddle which suddenly developed a very uncomfortable desire to be vertical) and we sailed past refreshment stops, beautiful Sussex villages and waiting ambulances whilst munching on power bars, by halfway we were enjoying some decent riding.
All too soon The South Downs appeared, looming large on the horizon and we trundled through the village of Ditchling and started the infamous ascent of Ditchling Beacon. I confess that last year I failed to cycle all the way to the top, the pressure of pedestrians and the puffing and panting of myself stopped my climb some 400 metres from the summit but this year with a little encouragement from Richard and with most of those who'd failed to make it keeping out of the way I was delighted to get to the top without putting foot to tarmac.
The remaining 6 miles were an exhilarating dash on Richard's back wheel to bring us to the finish line in four and a half hours, knocking 30 minutes off my time last year. Demonstrating my lack of integrity I secretly planned a last minute sneaky sprint to the finish leaving Richard off-guard in my tracks, However, demonstrating my total lack of cycling skills I failed miserably to out-pace my teammate to the finish line and ran out of puff about halfway down the final straight, my sprint evaporated as the Waterlooville Rocket flashed past me to the medals and the enormous crowd gathered to cheer us home were, in the circumstances, very kind and resisted the opportunity to jeer.
SO..
In summary
- My miles 54
- My time 4:32
- My top speed 46mph (eek!)
- My top heart-rate 175 bpm (eek!)
- My Sponsors, bless you, who made it impossible for me to wimp out by raising £1,295 for the British Heart Foundation (they're all listed on the website click here to see or to add a late contribution)
- My thanks to Graham and Richard for company, support and coaching,to Glenn, Richard, Jim, Sheila and Jack for training rides, to Lee for the loan of his (unused) "scary triathlon bike" thanks to Rob for the gym sessions and to Vicky and Sophie our angels of transport.
- My sympathy to the family of Gary Allen who sadly, collapsed on the Beacon and died later in hospital.
- My plans for next year... We'll see
The Crucible - a reluctant theatregoer recants.
It's no secret that I'm not a big fan of "the theatre darling". I dread sitting for a couple of hours in s
eats designed for the skinny post-war bottom watching a load of self-indulgent luvvies on a stage shouting at each other. Thus,it was with mixed emotions and a very real sense of self-sacrifice that I discovered that ChaCha's set coursework piece, Arthur Miller's The Crucible was playing at the Regents Park open air theatre and receiving very good reviews, so, despite my misgivings, I leapt straight on the web and purchased a couple of tickets.
Saturday dawned, a lovely day, I went for a vigorous bike ride
, came home, cleaned the chickens, fed the cats, checked the bees, did the washing, ironing and cleaning, (Lady Stuffy is currently in Greece trying to resolve the financial crisis by personally injecting huge amounts of cash into the retailers and barkeeps of Santorini) then aroused Cha from her hard earned slumber. We enjoyed a leisurely breakfast then changed and hied ourselves up to town on one of Network SouthEast's finest railway engines for a delightful lunch at Le Pain Quotidien on the South Bank (a favourite stopping off spot for a coffee and comestibles break).
The gardens of Regents Park were delightful on this warm summers day with an eclectic mix of London's finest enjoying the sunshine, two wedding parties, a riot of colour and fun, readers, writers, jugglers, joggers, ipodders, parents, children,picknickers, lovers and strollers, a glorious feast for the people watcher, it's a mystery to me why, within 100 metres of the kaleidoscopic reality of the occasionally delightful melange that London can offer there was a huge queue at Madame Tussauds as sweaty tourists lined up to view plastic replicas of, mostly, plastic people.
We arrived at the open air theatre in plenty of time, I suffer from a condition which means I'd rather be an hour early than a minute late. (notably this is one of the many areas of disconnect with my lovely wife who operates in a parallel universe where time is apparently elastic and punctuality a fictional construct, sadly this doesn't help when she has to interact with deadlines in the real (my) world).
With time to kill we enjoyed glasses of a refreshing beverage called 'pepsi' and drank in the the sylvan atmosphere of the theatre and then, as the crowd swelled, took our distinctly uncomfortable seats for the performance.
Dear reader I was captivated, I've never seen the film but I've read the play and understood the story, and I've read the analysis and can relate to the messages around McCarthyism, (indeed I've had to, simply to avoid my daughter thinking her dad's an ignoramus) but now, I 'get it', really! Great writing, very ingenious staging, some powerful but not OTT performances and a simple but effective presentation in a truly lovely setting mean that I have to, reluctantly, revise my blanket classification that "everything theatrical that doesn't involve attractive ladies in black lingerie (e.g. Chicago) is rubbish.
So, in summary, ChaCha is assured a great result in her exams, I'm less of a thespian philistine than I was and I do heartily commend the Regents Park Theatre of a summer evening to you my gentle readers.
If you need someone to share a jug of Pimms, let me know.
Training update - London to Brighton Bike Ride only one week away
Only a week now until Fathers Day and my second attempt on the epic cycle event that is the London to Brighton ride for the British Heart Foundation.
Most of you have been very kind and rather than just sniggering and muttering “silly old fool”
you’ve, sniggere
d, muttered “silly old fool” AND donated money to a very worthwhile cause,
for this I thank you.
We’re only a few of your English pounds away from £900:00 and that’s really impressive in these times of financial constraint so I and everyone helped by the BHF do thank you all.
If you haven’t felt the need to unload some cash in this very worthwhile direction please feel free to visit my website at
http://original.justgiving.com/stevethomas5
And make a small gesture.
For those who’ve wondered about my training regime, it’s mostly cake but I am allowed one unit of wine per day, the unit I’ve chosen is the standard French 75cl bottle.
I have been getting out on the bike and my thanks to my on-the-day-pace-setter Richard and his unnaturally skinny offspring Jack for destroying the tiny amount of self esteem I’d managed to cling to prior struggling back into the saddle.
One week to go, I’ll let you know how it goes on the day but, really, thank you all for your support...
