This is also pubiished on my blog site. Please allow me to introduce
this site <http://spaces.msn.com/members/mseries>, it will be used to
record my progress when I ride LEL as I can sent SMS updates using my
mobile phone.
Anyway heres the ride report.
Set off in the drizzle at just after 6am from my friends house, riding
through Leeds I noticed my rear tyre felt ‘lumpy’ stopped to see if
something had stuck to it, nothing has but we noticed it was quite
deformed, definitely lumpy and not good for 600km. I had some spare
tyres at home so we rode to my house, not much of a detour and fitted a
new tyre. Off again at about 07:15, so much for an early start !
The new start point made the route out of Leeds easier in fact, we had a
stop at the bus station in Cas. in true AUK tradition, a virtual control
if you like. Rolled on to Thorne to pick up the LEL route. Our intention
was to follow this for about 200km to familiarise myself with it. Took
us about 50 miles to get to the start of the route instead of the
predicted 30, was going to be a long day. North Lincolnshire, Notts, and
across the Trent to Lincolnshire. Not been in these parts before and the
scenery didn’t do much to make me feel like coming back. Some ugly power
stations and agriculture. Even the big power stations in South and East
Yorks seem prettier than these ones !!! – still some more material for
my Killer Watts rides I am think of organising based on an idea provided
by ‘Legs’ Larrington (Potatoes and Power Stations).
Skirting around Lincoln we were treated to a fly past by the Red Arrows
and a Lancaster bomber, RAF Waddington had their show on the same day,
made a nice distraction. The weather was good thankfully as the riding
around here would be very depressing otherwise. Woo hoo a hill, best we
are going to get around here, dreaming of The Pennines I got out of the
saddle and made the most of it – was that it ?
The trouble with the LEL route is that it doesn’t seem to go through
anywhere, very rural which is OK if the controls will supply
ravatiallement. Today of course we weren’t going to visit the controls
so we had to make do with what we found and what we were carrying. We
did do OK on the ride, no worse than any other but a big, that should
read BIG hot meal would have been nice. We stopped and Rosies (near
Gainsborough) for beans on toast at about midday but it really wasn’t
enough. Onward forever onward we pedalled away, the landscape changed to
rolling green fields, the wind was light and we were traveling at a
reasonable pace. A teatime stop in Bourne and off again.
Peterborough. Why. It really gets in the way, after riding down King
Street a roman road I presume, we skirted around Peterborough, but had
to go several miles west to Wansbeck to find a crossing point over the
river, I think east would have added even further to our journey and my
map showed only dual carriage ways passing through the city. Going
through Yaxley on the edge of The Fens we couldn’t find the unclassified
road to Holme, I asked some paramedics who were having their supper at
about 21:30, they gave us some directions and we set off again. I guess
being helpful comes naturally to those in the caring professions as
later we were stopped by a roundabout in the dark checking the map and
an ambulance stopped to ask us if we needed help. Finding routes in the
myriad of roads across The Fens as darkness dropped was quite difficult,
I knew that many roads were dead ends as the land drains blocked their
path so I was careful to make sure we didn’t take wrong turns. It was
getting late and we really didn’t want to go too far wrong. Of course
stopping often and slowing to see the signs cost us time. A water stop
in Ramsey at a kebab shop and off again.
The final road in Cambridge seemed to take ages, eventually we crossed
the ring road and started to enter the city. Finding the YH was the next
challenge, near the station. After one loop we asked some pedestrians
who didn’t look too drunk, the directed us and we rode right through the
city centre at 01:00. It was nice to see so many people around and many
of those on bikes. Would all of these use helmets if they were
mandatory, I think not. We ate all of our food but it was too late and
we were too tired to cook our spaghetti that we’d brought with us.
Finally got to bed at about 01:45 I guess. Several hours later than
planned. 205 miles on the clock.
Wasn’t a bad ride, dull scenery, easy terrain, good weather. I felt
good. The false start and my friends puncture delayed us a bit and our
eating pattern was not ideal.
Sundays ride was much slower, we had intended to ride home but since
we’d only covered 40 miles by midday we elected to get the train home
from Peterborough, not until we’d rode into the city on the motorway
like A15 ! My friend was slower than me, I think the lack of sleep, lack
of food, a virus the previous week had taken their toll.