Tag Archives: #ridelondon100

+24 hours: for us, we can cycle another day; it’s just a goal that we have not yet achieved

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Firstly, Wayne and I are fine – but we did not manage to complete the 100 miles route, as we we got diverted to the shorter, 46 mile course.

24 hours on, we are still gutted but also we are happy to be safe. And we are very thankful for the wonderful support and generosity of all our family and friends – and the money going to Marie Curie is just wonderful – £1,300+ – thank you so much!

This is how the weekend played out:

We drove up to London on Saturday as we had early starts the next day from the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. As with all mass participation events, there was lots of waiting around to get to the start line and we were part of 27,000 people doing the ride. We left the hotel at 7am but were due to start at 8:48 (Wayne) and 8:59 (me). (We realise now that we should have put the same estimated finishing times into our applications to have a better chance of being in the same start group). We were both very nervous, but it was better when we were actually cycling. The mood in the starting pens was very good, people were friendly and chatty. After lots of nervous energy, waiting, threats of the start line DJ/Techie playing that Techies’ favourite track 😉 Tina Tuner: Simply The Best … all of a sudden it was 10 seconds to go: 9, 8 (clip in shoes…) 7, 6, 5, 4, 3 , 2, 1 …. we were off!

Wayne and I had agreed to meet at the first drinks station on The Mall at mile 11. The first miles went really quickly and London looked beautiful (even Wayne had to admit it!). We met up as planned. We agreed that it was a lot quicker than we had been doing in training, but we’d be warned not too go off too fast, and then have nothing to draw on later on… a 100 miles is a 100 miles after all.

We paced ourselves really well, ahead of schedule and keeping to a 15 mph pace. We passed the first big hub at Hampton Court Bridge and kept going. All good so far. We heard the Marshalls shouting “everyone go straight on” “go straight on”. After about half a mile we realised we had been diverted. We couldn’t believe it; saying that we were gutted would be an understatement. We cycled the rest of the route in a daze. We finished only 46 miles and felt absolutely fine physically.

After all the anticipation it was really difficult to process what had happened. We decided to go straight back to the hotel and generally be miserable together, until a very nice man from Marie Curie stopped us on the way out of St James’s Park and asked us if we were going back to their hospitality area for food and showers. He was so pleasant, gave us a map, we just decided to go with it and maybe we could find out what had happened. Lots of questions were in our minds.

When we got to the Marie Curie place, they were lovely. We were a bit emotional to be honest. They told us that they had heard that there had been some big accidents and someone had hit a tree and the air ambulance was in attendance. A little more digging and we found out that there had been two serious crashes, and that riders ahead of us on the course had been stopped on Leith Hill. Diversions were put in place. That put things in perspective. We were well and safe, but some people were having a much, much worse day than we were.

Today, Ride London have just posted that a charity cyclist passed away after a heart attack at around mile 25 – so very, very sad. Although we are still disappointed and my first reaction was put the bike on eBay and go back to the sofa. But our disappointment is nothing, just nothing in comparison to that tragic news. Our hearts go out to his family and loved ones.

For us, we can cycle another day; it’s just a goal that we have not yet achieved – raising money for a fantastic cause and a ‘century’ on the bike. The first part is done (thank you), just not the second. We have decided that we will make up the miles somehow for everyone who supported us and also, for ourselves. Not sure when and how, but we will.

In closing we would just like to say a MASSIVE thanks again to everyone who supported us – emotionally and financially – and for your messages yesterday before and after – you are all awesome. Thank you so much from us both xx

 

 

All I can hear is ‘click, click, click’ as he is free-wheeling behind me; I am pedalling and getting nowhere

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So now training had now begun in earnest and our thoughts turned to our bikes. Wayne has a heavy mountain bike – not really ideal for 100 miles on the road. He started to look at bikes – hybrid ones (but no suspension) with flat bars rather than drop ones. He’s the King of eBay. No really, he is. It’s truly impressive. I think he could make a living at it. In no time at all he had found an amazing carbon fibre bargain – in mint condition. Lightweight and pretty. He did some tactical last-few-seconds bidding and Bingo, it was his! Not one to hang around, he drove straight away to pick it up and less than 5 hours since bidding he was back home with his new ‘pretty’.

Actual bikes aside, we need all the advantages we can get in order to do this crazy ride so clip-in pedals are recommended, because they increase your speed. Oh boy, with my balance? I have managed to topple over at a traffic light in London for no apparent reason on normal pedals. And managed to damage a finger coming down a slope in Portugal after I fell off and the bike fell on top of me – so badly I had to have 2 rings cut off as the finger had swollen so much. How on earth was I going to survive being clipped in to pedals on my bike? Anyway, my friend, the lovely Tania, was having a clear out at home and donated me some cycle shoes, which miraculously fitted me, and so I just needed to buy the pedals. Also I needed to try to work out how to make my hybrid bike lighter so I could ride it for the actual event.

So to Halfords. Found the pedals. Now time to chat to another Wayne (not my Wayne) in Halfords. So how can I make my bike lighter/go faster? Halfords Wayne suggested smoother tyres and other things. Then he asked my how long the ride was.

Me: 100 miles

Him: (Pulls face… silence… then…) Umm, honestly, that bike is not the kind of bike you should be using for cycling 100 miles. 50 maybe, but 100? No.

Me: Silence as it dawns on me I will really HAVE to change my bike. I had kind of thought I could get away with riding my existing bike.

He suggested that I go for an endurance road bike – which has drop handlebars and all. Eek. I had one of those when I was 15  – a long, long, long time ago! Back then it was called a racing bike and it had a massive 7 gears!

I go home to contemplate what to do and where to buy it from. Putting it out of my head for a bit, (my) Wayne has kindly fitted my new pedals to the current bike and we are off to try the silly shoes and pedals (spods or SPDs). Remarkably, I don’t fall off, but I am the slowest, most cautious cyclist you have ever seen. Wayne rides his new pretty, finds it a bit weird but the blooming thing is so fast, on the roads… all I can hear is the ‘click, click, click’ of the chain [correction: click, click, click of the crank – what is a crank anyway?] as he is free-wheeling behind me while I am pedalling and getting nowhere fast. Grrr.

Training continues and so does the research for a bike, I can’t leave it too late as a new one will need to be run in (seriously!) and I need to get used to it. Evans Cycles have a good range so we head to the Central Milton Keynes branch. Long story short, I settle on a bike. Pay the deposit. It will be here in a week. Perfect – we are now 5 weeks before the ride, I will have 4 weeks to get used to it.

But for some reason I don’t have a good feeling. A couple of days later, I call Evans to check on delivery. “Ah, I was just about to call you – there’s a problem” Turns out there are no more bikes available and they cannot fulfill my order. So now I am really running out of time.

I start researching all over again. The King of eBay helps me and sends me more bikes listings. Some like his (not sure I can be so matchy, matchy, even though the bike is so pretty!) and we see a decent bike for sale near us. The bike is not due to sell for another 10 days. Too late. I contact the seller to see if they will do a ‘buy it now’. But he never gets back to me. Sigh. Is this ride not meant to be?

I start researching the same bike from bike shops, and thank you, Google, find a local bike shop with really good reviews selling similar bikes. I call them, speak to a guy called Andy, who seems to know his stuff and says he has stock. I have hope again! Now I just need to get into see them asap as I am running out of time!

Good news. I manage to get to the shop, get measured and look at the bike they suggest. They have an Aladdin’s cave of bikes and bits – the perfect bike shop! I wait overnight to make sure I am making the right decision – which turns out to be the best idea as the next day, the manufacturer is offering a 20% discount now! Yay. Things are going okay now. So I get fitted for the bike and take it home. The next day will be interesting as Wayne and I planned to cycle more than 40 miles, as per the training plan. Scary stuff: Clip in pedals, different riding position, drop bars, different gears and brakes. I can do it, right?

PS We preparing to cycle for Marie Curie in the Ride London Surrey 100 … here:

https://justgiving.com/fundraising/waynejackson2016