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| On our way out of London, myself & Paul chatting away, Kelly just behind |
PROLOGUE
It's hard to write about the vibe of these weekend without writing about my friendship with Paul O Brien. He studied Architecture in the same place as me in Dublin, but we never formally met there - he graduated a year or two after me - and we only met for the first time when I popped into his family home in Gorey with a fellow and mutual architect cyclist friend, Brian Attley, on a misguided cycle from Wales to Dublin for another friends 30th way back in 2014. He had recently moved to London and I was not long moved to Wales. He was only getting into cycling (and cycling bigger distances) at the time, and we had all be exchanging tips on group chat prior to this. I had told him to feel free to invite himself down to Pembrokeshire whenever and we'd do some cycling. He accepted my invite and was down only 4 months later. We did some big cycling around Pembrokeshire, cycling some roads I hadn't yet cycled, and had a blast.
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| On our first little wekeend jaunt, all the way back in 2014 |
This started an annual tradition of Paul coming down once a year to do a big cycling thing. CarTen (& TenCar) in 2015 & 2016, (he also came down later in 2015 to support me in Ironman Wales), Tour of Pembs in 2017 & 2018, and a weekend cycling trip to Kerry in 2019.
It was at this point also, that I had started to write about these experiences in cycling and triathlon. It had always been intended as a souvenir to myself and I hadn't been sharing these with anyone, but then I started sharing them with Paul as he was getting into cycling, then I started writing in a more informative way (so people new to what I was writing about, would know what the hell I was writing about), and then he encouraged me to share them with more people. So to anyone who thinks "hey Brian's race reports are really overly long and overly detailed", you can either curse or thank Paul - it's all his fault.
Anyways, sufficed to say, we had become good friends. But up to 2019, we only really got in touch maybe twice a year, to start organising the next cycling thing and then doing the cycling thing and carrying on from where we left off. Standard man friend behaviour.
Then 2020 came along. I think it's safe to say it's probably not a year that anyone will look back on with any fondness, but Paul (and his partner Christine) had it worst than most. Christine has a rare illness making her a vulnerable person with respect to Covid, and whatever stir crazy, cabin fever, climb the wall madness we had to experience in those scenarios when we had to self isolate for 2 weeks, Paul and Christine have had to endure that fully since lockdown (over 3 years!!) and had only really been starting to flirt with some normality (relatively speaking) the past 6 months.
With regards to Covid, every cloud has a silver lining. With me trying to keep my training levels up and Paul trying to substitute for his daily cycling commute, we both got into virtual cycling and over the course of 6 months this evolved into a routine of having a virtual social cycle every Sunday while nattering away over discord. We've both had our ups and downs over the last 3 years and this became a staple of both our routines and our mental health. Ironically lockdown had us in touch infinitely more than previously. Over the course of these 3 years I had also became familiar with a number of other people from his cycling club too, through voice only, as they would join the rides and chats too, though would mostly have to listen to myself and Paul talking shite.
And now to my point, (which I think I have arrived pretty concisely by my standards), when Paul invited me to come up in London to stay at their place and for us to do Ride London together it was kind of a big deal. Despite being a pretty epic prospect of 100 miles of closed road cycling, starting and finishing in iconic London City Centre locations, Ride London was not even on my radar or to do list, but in the context of everything mentioned above, I simply had to say yes.
2023 panned out to be a pretty frustrating year for me. I arrived into the year all guns blazing having done the Festive 500 challenge over the Christmas break, but had done a great job of holding onto the fitness I had built over the last 3 years of consistent training. Then I got a cold at the end of January, my first since 2019. This then became a cough, which became a chest infection, which became a chest infection again and then a cough and then some kind of health limbo where I wasn't sure whether I should keep resting or just get on with my life and start training again. All in all, I lost 4 months of training and ultimatley decided to drop out of all my other events for the year. Ride London was going to be a thing knitted into a busy calendar of other things, but now this had become THE thing. During this time, my goals and aspirations for this event varied massively, but in the end it became about one thing - meet up with Paul for first time in 4 years and have a great day out on the bike.
Another friend from the club, Kelly, was also doing ride London, so we travelled up together. It's a testament to the friendships made over the weekly zwift sundays, that another friend that I only knew from zwift, Andrew Jansenn agreed to host Kelly over the weekend on fairly short notice, after Kelly's other arrangments had fallen through.
Anyways, we got to London (Enfield) on the Friday, saw Paul for the first time in years (despite nattering away almost every week on Zwift) and the next day spent the day local sight seeing with Andrew and Kelly. This was the 1st time I had ever met Andrew in person (and in fact Paul & Andrew had only met up in person for the first time 3 weeks previously) and yet the 3 of us carried on like old school friends. It was kind of crazy - I'm not sure Kelly knew what to make of it!
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| Some pics from a glorious pre-raceday spin |
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| Very Organised Raceday Nutrition, in advance of 4am start |
RACE DAY
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| Pre-Event Pasta Dinner |
On Sunday the plan was to rendezvous with other members of Paul & Andrews cycling club, Southgate Cycling Club (SCC) in Enfield and head into the city centre together, a 25km or so Pre-Ride London warm-up. Unfortunatley this was at 5AM(!!!) which meant getting up at 4am to slowly faff ourselves ready. I confirm that putting contacts lenses into sandy 4am eyes is as grim as it sounds! Plus-side was, the weather forecast was shaping up to be a stonking day, with barely any wind and the sun splitting the stones.
The ride in was great fun. Following the a dozen or so club cyclists in on near deserts roads really was starting to get the good vibes going. However a couple of realisations were made:
1. That tickle in the throat that hadn't quite gone away, was making itself known with any kind of extra exertion. Pssh, not a surprise I guess but it confirmed I was going to be taking it really easy today!
2. My stomach did NOT feel right at all. Something about my Saturday night dinner / Sunday breakfast combo was not settling well and had a general ominous feeling about what loo stop habits were going to be today.
We got into the bustling city centre, and through a series of gates and lanes, were filtered into our starting paddock fairly seamlessly over about 2km*, with some fortrite negotiating from some of the club members meaning we all got into the 630-700 start group, despite many of our start times beings hours apart. Seeing Big Ben in the early morning light with empty strees before it, felt something like the opening scene from 28 days later, with cyclists replacing the zombies.
*One loo stop was had along this procession, and another at the start line. Hopefully that was the end of that!
After about 15 minutes of waiting at the start line, we were off. Quite a causal start, or at least it felt like that as we were at the back of the group, but the SCC group colours passed the start line en-masse before slowly breaking up into smaller pockets of riders and pace clicks developed.
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| Crossing the start line, in a sea of SCC Riders |
The first 10km or so was super chilled. For my part, I was just taking in the novelty of cycling on closed city centre roads, seeing sites such as the Shard, the Gherkin and the Millenium Dome, while chatting utter shite with Paul, as per standard protocol. Already it was basically just me and Paul, with Kelly just behind, chatting to another club member, Bruno. Sometimes we got a bit carried away on pace with all the cyclists around us, but then would lay off and let the guys catch us. As we progressed into the Greater London sprawl, a pattern was starting to emerge on the roads. On the left hand lane(s) were the potterers, the individuals just ambling along doing their thing; on the right hand lanes, massive groups or trains of cyclists were passing by at seemingly spectacularily higher speeds. We were very much in the pottering lane!
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| Leading everyone out of the Big Smoke |
At the 20 mile or 32km point we had a loo stop. Absolutley required by me, but I made sure other people needed to go too. We had gotten away from Kelly and Bruce and used this as an opportunity for them to catch up, but when we continued they were in turn ahead of us. And we just made sure to keep them in site, which in a way was kind of easier! However as we went onto the biggest climb of the route through Epping Forest (not really much of a climb at all, but about 5km of steady 2-4% drag, they slowly pulled away as myself and Paul nattered away. By the time we passed through Epping town itself, we didn't see them anymore and had to pass through the first major feed station, somewhere I probably would have have prefered to have stopped at. I knew they were just out of sight, maybe about 100m ahead, and just assumed with the ebb and flow of the pace of ride, this was not to be!
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| Pottering away in the left lane, not quite ready to join the trains on the right |
At about 50km in, I HAD to have a loo stop again! It was starting to get frustrating but also grand as Paul wanted to loosen the legs as well. Just had to accept that Kelly and Bruno were getting away from us, and it might take a little longer to catch up. It was weird - it was a lovely day, the sun was shining, it was great fun cycling on the closed roads and chatting away to Paul, but there was a weird underlying unspoken sense that, only a third of the way in, this day was starting to grind us both down.
Shortly after restarting after the legs had warmed up again, I vocalised a small thought I had in my head, as one of the 'trains' of cyclists breezed by us.
"You know, I think we'll only have to try 5% harder to get into these groups to go 20% faster" No major discussion or agreement was had after that. It just sat there as an idea in our minds for a couple of km. And then, I don't really remember what exactly what the signal was as another train passed by us, but let's say for the sake of drama, that Paul raised a defiant fist to the air and cried out, "LET'S FUCKING DO THIS!"*
[*I think the reality of it was more like:
- Will we try this one out?
- Ah yeah. Go on, so]
We put the hammer down, to accelerate to match the group. Almost immediatley this felt like an immediately unsustainable mistake, the legs burning to get the pace on. However, this settled within a minute or two, the legs adapting the new tempo and all of a sudden things were a lot more involving. From previous rides over the years, myself and Paul cycle quite well together - constantly looking over shoulders checking for each other, inches off each others wheels locked into the group, keeping an eye out for the train breaking away from recent passengers, looking out for hazards. Everything was now ramped up. Tempo. Speed. Attention. Adrenaline. Enjoyment.
The next 30km or so seemed to fly by, with us easing in and out of trains, generally deciding their intensity up some of the draggy hills was a bit much for us, but all of sudden we found ourselves coming into the half way point in Felsted. This was where the biggest welfare stop of the event was located, a serious of food gazebos, burger vans and water tents organised around a large expanse of cricket and playing fields. There was almost reluctance to leave our pacey trains, but sustenance and (guess what) a toilet stop was greatly needed.
It might have a combination of the glorious sunny day, the enhanced mood of the last 30km, or the grand big green space we were now in, but we found ourselves with shoes and socks off sitting on the grass picnicing away without a care for time, or anything really! It was nice to stop and take stock of the first half of the ride and plan what way to take on the 2nd. This toilet stop I felt had finally put me right as well. We really did dwell here and take our time, the pressure of when to finish or who to catch up to had finally left us. (On looking back over our rides it turns out we had sat here for 1 hour 40 minutes!! Living our best lives!)
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| A very leisurely stop in Felsted! |
After re-stocking our bikes we headed out enthusiastically, but now totally not warmed up at all we didn't manage to really stay passengers of our selected trains for too long. But, about 10-15 minutes in, our legs caught up to us and we caught a good one. This was a bunch of 4 or 5 lads, fairly on it, hammering past everyone in single file, and myself and Paul were happy to lengthen the line. We were definitely working harder than in some of the other trains, but it was well worth it, the speed was incredibly rewarding! After about 5 minutes of wheel hugging, I felt it was polite to say thanks to one of the lads ahead for the tow and offer a turn at the front. He shrugged and said they had been doing turns of about 10 minutes, but this guy at the front was on one! And he really was, we must have averaged 45km/h for the 45 minutes or so that we were in this train, and this guy was leading the whole time!
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| All aboard the train to Epping Ongar! |
Ultimatley even though we had the benefit of the draft we ran out of steam a bit and had to leave them power on ahead, when one draggy hill became a bit much for us. From here we pottered from group to group, changing intensity as we pleased but essentially it was all about cycling and chatting. Interesting by the time we pulled into the welfare stop at Chipping Ongar (approx 75 mile point) we had actually caught up the fast train as they were leaving.
This stop was needed, but definitely took our momentum away a bit. For the next 15 miles or so, as we made our way back along winding country roads towards the greater London area, there was less trains and less chunks of distance getting lopped off, but the sun was out, energy levels were good and spirits were high. We took one last stop at Woodford Green (approx 90 mile point) for a bit a loo break and leg loosener. Only 10 miles left!
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| Time for a ploddie selfie |
Luckily we were soon on Eastern Avenue, a 4 lane carriageway closed off for us - a bizarre experience on bikes but very useful to thin out the crowds. As we passed through a long tunnel underpass, I felt the end was close, I remember see Tower Bridge shortly before going through a tunnel on the way out. To my surprise, we left the carriageway and turned left. This was where knowing london a bit more may have helped - I had no idea where we where now... but surely Tower Bridge was just around the corner? Back onto a 4 lane carriageway again. All of a sudden it felt like we were never going to get to the end of this thing. It was probably only a 15 minute period, but the not knowing really made it feel like we were wandering these backs treets for 2 or 3 times as long.
Back through another tunnel. This one was great - it was not only that we got away from a slight headwind, but it almost felt like a vacuum that drew us through at great speed! We were shot out the other side, and after another km or so we rounded a corner and there it was - Tower Bridge! It was hard to fully take it in. One of the most famous bridges in the world, cycling across it on closed roads, with large crowds cheering both sides. It was almost a shame to be on a bike, as it felt that we crossed the bridge too quickly!
Ride London, done!
Activity link [click to open in new window]
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Paul, just ahead, starting the last stretch across Tower Bridge |
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| Crossing the finish line |
We proceed down a bottleneck of a street where we got our medals - I must admit I was more than a little disappointed to get a wooden medal for this one. I actually like wooden medals and think they can have some lovely designs - I think they're totally fine for 10k runs and smaller events where you don't expect to get a participation medal, but for one of the London Classic, it felt a bit .... I dunno....
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| Wooden finsher medals.... they're nice and all, I guess |
Due to our very leisurely stops the rest of the guys from the SCC had long finished and where now out at the cricket club in Enfield.... 25km away. Our day wasn't over yet! This was possibly the longest 25km I have ever done. I felt I had cycled well within myself today but I think the 100 miles and the sunny weather had actually really worn me down. Also I found, compared to chilled out country lanes of Pembrokeshire, cycling the not-closed Greater London streets quite stressful, even on a Sunday.
Eventually we got there, and considering they had probably been there a while, it was great they hung back for us to have to couple of drinks there and recount the day. The great weather definitely helped people stick around, I'm sure. It was a really nice experience to have some good chats with people who were strangers by face, but had in fact spoken to a number of times over the past 3 years while zwifting.
Probably repeating myself on this point, but it was something genuinely good to come out of the past 3 years of pandemic times, all these new virtual connections becoming real. It really was a great weekend, catching up with Paul and restarting our annual event thing, the fantastic weather, meeting the club and of course Ride London itself.
Ride on!
