One Fine Day

OK, I'll cut straight to the chase: I DID IT! I cycled all the way to Brighton.  Well, apart from the couple of nasty hills I walked up, but then so did loads of other people, so I'm not bothered about it.

We got up in the middle of the night (I mean it this time, 4.45 am), did a few final checks on bikes and kit and wotnot and then spent 10 minutes fighting to get both bikes into the back of a people-mover taxi.  The sun was shining, I was still asleep and James had realised he'd left his cycling waterproof at work.  Awesome.

The taxi driver couldn't quite believe that we were intending to cycle all the way to Brighton (the implication being that if we wanted to go there, he would take us, for a price), and nor could he believe that 27,000 other folk would eschew his services in favour of pedal power.

We arrived at Clapham Common in plenty of time for my 6.30 am start and, after bumping into one of my workmates, James and I went our separate ways to find our respective teams, the intention being that James would meet me after the start so that we could travel together.  While we were waiting in our starting paddock, there was a PA announcement that there had been an accident, presumably among the 6 am starters, and we would be delayed as a result - just what everyone wanted to hear...

We finally got under way and I dutifully checked for James at the first set of traffic lights after the start.  Unless he and his workmates were hiding in the bushes, they were not there (and they should have been by then) so I carried on to the next lights, and then the next, and I still hadn't found them.  I stopped at Marshall Point 7, about 2.5 miles in, to answer my phone - James was at the first set of lights, waiting for me.  They had lost a team member, so had to wait for him and then came to meet me. Twenty minutes later, we actually got on our way properly.  I discovered that there is something quite liberating about following a load of other people blindly without knowing where you are and only having a notion of where you are going.  The first part of the course was typical London suburbia, through Croydon and Mitcham, under the M25 and out into Not London.

Just before the 10-mile refreshment stop, my gears started playing up again, so we had to stop to check them.  They still weren't great, but they held out until the first stop, where we had a chance to give them a proper look.  We had a quick snack of jelly babies and water and then went on our merry way again.  Not long after that stop, there was a very long slow hill that a lot of people had difficulty with, and I came across one of my hapless team mates whose chain kept coming off in spite of having been looked at by the mechanics at the rest stop.  I tried to help her fix it, but in the end she had to call for assistance, and she told me to continue while she waited.

At some place around this point in the journey (I can't remember exactly where) we went past a building with a first floor balcony, on which were stood the Queen and Prince Philip (or at least a man and a woman with the requisite masks on).  I shouted "Good morning Ma'am" up to the Queen and got a royal wave in return.  Indeed, it was incredibly obvious throughout the day that we'd just had a Jubilee celebration and we're about to have some Olympics and Paralympics - everyone was waving Union Flags wherever we went!

The potato and the teaspoon.  Sounds like a fairytale or a
bad New Romantics band.

By the time we reached the next main stop, I was ravenously hungry.  We bumped into some more of my team mates there, one of whom had already been knocked off her bike and had the plasters to prove it (no serious harm done).  James went off to get us some food and came back with a pork sandwich for him and a jacket potato with cheese for me.  The organisers hadn't quite thought the jacket potato through - here is a picture of me eating it with the only available cutlery - a plastic teaspoon.

At this stop, I learnt one of the ways in which long-distance cycling is very different from marathon running (apart from the obvious) - it seems it is perfectly acceptable on a long-distance cycle ride to stop for a fag.  Weird.

We stopped at the Hedgehog Inn at halfway for a quick drink and stretch and James was able to help out one of his team mates with an anti-histamine to combat his hay-fever.  At this stage, my shoulders were really starting to get sore, so the stretch I'd been shown just a few days previously was proving its worth.

We carried on through the rolling countryside, along tree-lined lanes and alongside fields with cows and sheep and horses in them.  Then I saw a rather ominous-looking signpost - Turner's Hill, 2 miles.  Now, I'm just about canny enough to realise that if (a) a place is called Turner's Hill and (b) one reaches the signpost to Turner's Hill after a fairly steep descent, it is likely that in order to get to Turner's Hill one is going to have to go up a mahoosive hill.  I was right.  It was long, tedious and actually quite steep for a large part of the way, and I had to get off and push (like about 70% of the participants).  When I finally got to the top of the hill, there was quite some reward - the local church had set up shop in its car park, giving away free tea, coffee and custard creams to all comers, with a donations box there for an orphanage somewhere distant sounding.  By this point, I needed tea.

It took us quite a while to get out of Turner's Hill.  It seems that all 27,000 participants had stopped there at the same time, and so were all trying to leave at the same time.  The organisers had no choice but to let some motorised traffic through (trying to cross over the route at a crossroads), and we ended up with an almighty bottle neck.  By this point, thirty or so miles into the ride, some tempers were getting a little frayed and I bore the brunt of one particularly objectionable lady's frustrations when she tried to overtake me on the inside while I was trying to get out of the way of the speedy people legitimately overtaking me on the outside.  She'd already had a go at some people behind us, so I mentioned something about how this event wasn't the place for that kind of attitude, she stuck a small number of digits up at me over her shoulder and we went off at our separate speeds.

The best thing about Turner's Hill is that what goes up must come down.  The worst thing about the descent is that it is very steep and all of those participants who consider themselves to be speedy cyclists seem to think it is sensible and safe to go down the hill as fast as possible when most of the road is taken up by cyclists who are much less experienced and much less speedy.  We saw one nasty looking crash on this part of the course and were overtaken by an ambulance with blue lights flashing on the way to another, and the attitude of the speed junkies led us to believe that there should be a separate, early start for those who want to treat the event as a race rather than the fun, fundraising day out it is intended to be.

After Turner's Hill and the following descent, a sense of anticipation set in.  Everyone knew that there was something looming in the distance, something so terrible it didn't bear talking about, but everyone could sense its presence.  The hill that shall not be named.  You know what.  Ditchling Beacon.  There, I said it.  After all, what comes down must go up, right?  We stopped in Wivelsfield at a rest stop run by the Scouts and stocked up on flapjack to see us through the ordeal, then had one last stop immediately before the Beacon itself, where we bumped into the same group of my team mates that we'd been playing tag with for most of the journey.

Me and my Calippo

James and I had swapped bikes for the ascent up Ditchling Beacon.  I had always planned to walk and James' bike only has seven gears, compared with the 21 on mine (which is also fairly lowly geared), so my sturdy steed would give him a better chance of riding the whole way up.  Walking up the Beacon is tough.  I had thought that James would say cycling up was tougher, but he said that although it was painful, it was over more quickly, so was preferable over all.  When I finally made it to the top and finally found James ("I'm by the red ice cream van." "Which one?" "The red one." "Yes, which red one? I can see three.") I had a well deserved Calippo while enjoying the magnificent view over the Downs.

At the top of Ditchling Beacon, we were faithfully promised by an announcer that it was downhill all the way to Brighton.  This was lies.  Codswallop.  Nonsense.  There were several more not very steep hills which felt like mountains after fifty miles of cycling, the worst of which was a slip road onto a dual carriageway.  After that one, though, the going was pretty smooth along straightish flat road into Brighton.  The last obstacle I had to overcome was my old favourite nemesis - a badly behaved bus.  It was trying to get to a bus stop from the inside lane, across a lane full of cyclists.  We won.  Hurrah!

As we went down Madeira Drive, along Brighton seafront, I felt myself welling up.  The people lining the finishing straight, cheering us on, must have thought I was a nutter, bawling my eyes out as I went over the line.  I can't wait for the official photos of me finishing - what a sight!  I couldn't quite believe (and still can't) that I'd actually done it - I'd cycled more than 50 miles, over two marathons, in one day from one city to a whole different other city.

Me and my pint!

After finishing, I had a well deserved pint and then I think I went to sleep.  As we picked up our bikes from the concierge at our hotel yesterday, he told us that he'd had a heart attack a few years ago and when he was in the hospital, a large proportion of the equipment had been provided by British Heart Foundation.  He had previously assumed that the equipment in hospitals was provided by the taxpayer via the NHS, but that turned out not to be the case on the cardiology ward.  He said he was extremely grateful to us (and the rest of the participants) for supporting British Heart Foundation, because it had made a huge difference to his life.  Cue welling up and mild bawling again.  It is fantastic to know that what we did on Sunday really helps real people.

Comedy tan lines

So far, I've raised £721 in total (online and offline, but not including gift aid).  My fundraising page will be open for another three months, so it's certainly not too late to make a donation in the name of my completing the London to Brighton Bike Ride - follow the link to Justgiving in the top right hand corner of this page.  I also have some comedy tan lines from Sunday - guess which wrist my sports watch was on - but they're not as comedy as those on my dear husband's head (sun + cycle helmet air vents = stripy James!)


It's probably about time for some thank yous.  Thanks to BHF for great on the day organisation.  Thanks to Sandee Smith and the rest of the Sidley Flying Hearts for organisation of our work team and support along the way.  Thanks to all the people who have sponsored me, sent messages of support or just asked me how the cycling's going - it's made a real difference to know that people are thinking of me.  And finally, many, many thanks to my husband, James, who has put up with a lot of nerves, tears, tantrums, abuse and non-stop cycle chat for the last couple of months (oh, and he taught me how to ride a bike!) - I really couldn't have done it without him!

The First Aid Unit is not of any particular significance!