Oars!

All mine: A brand-new pair of Croker S2 Superlights with standard stiffness, 288 cm median length, Slick blade, Mk3 asymmetric sleeves, adjustable carbon handles and standard grip size. Yay!  Only problem: How do I get them to the boathouse…?

London-Edinburgh-London 2009, the prologue II...

LEL - the prologue part II

Tuesday morning I boarded the train for Portsmouth (via Crediton, Exeter St. Davids and Southampton) and Tuesday afternoon I was in Portsmouth.  The train took me right down to the Harbor and I walked down to the Gunwharf Quays. The Gunwharf Quays are the old gunwharfs(!), where the once so majestic British Navy would be outfitted with guns, gunpowder, biscuits, rum, bullets, shanghaied sailors, opium, prostitutes and whatever else was needed to run an empire.  Nowadays it is full of fancy shops and small ugly hotdog stands.

There were plenty of memorabilia left from the golden old days when the Brits ruled the 7 seas and everything inbetween: HMS Warrior , HMS Victory, which Nelson, the scoundrel, used to defeat the Glorious Danish Navy in the Battle of Copenhagen 2 April 1801 . Maybe I could smuggle some gunpowder onboard and, if placed in the right locations, finally get some revenge for the defeat...?

But first I had to meet Kathryn for a beer or several (well, it was a given that it would be several; only question was the time between them). After some serious txting Bar 38  was chosen as a starting point and I sat down in an enormous chair shaped like a crown, waiting for her to get off work.  While waiting I had a Fosters , and then another when she showed up.  After chatting for a bit about what had happened since last time we saw each other (15 months), we dropped off my stuff at her place on the outskirts of town and I had a Carlsberg from her fridge.  She had a nice view of the tidal channels and the mudflats in front of her apartment, something I could appreciate with my sedimentology background. 

Then we were off to an Indian restaurant for some typical classic British food - the curry - and a seriously sized Cobra beer. After dinner we walked along the now most empty Gunwharf but ended up in The Old Customs House , where 2 Seafarers Ale ended their life in my lager-lined stomach. At midnight the establishment decided it was time to close down, so despite our reluctance to leave we had to, although we were the absolute last to haul ourselves out of there. Then it was back in a taxi to Kathryn’s place and off to bed before next mornings most delicious treat - a fried brekkie from a greasy spoon on the waterfront. It wasn’t Mike’s Bites - it was almost better (!) and I left Portsmouth for Bangor with a happy stomach and liver.  

Tally for the 20 hours or so I spent in Portsmouth: 2 Foster’s, 1 Carlsberg, 1 Cobra and 2 Seafarers Ale, roughly on par when compared with my time spent in Crediton. What was not on par was the train fare for my trip Portsmouth-London-Bangor-London-(Portsmouth), which were cheaper than any other return trip option to get me to London after visiting Bangor. However, it still came to bloody 97 quid for second class tickets!  Normally one should be able to get a flight from the UK to Mallorca and back for that kind of money, but unfortunately I wasn’t going to Mallorca. I was going to Bangor. To visit friends. So I had to pay. And with a lighter wallet I was on my way to the green pastures of NW-Wales and the slate-grey streets of Bangor.

London-Edinburgh-London 2009, the prologue I...

LEL - the prologue...

So my LEL preparations started in earnest in September 2008 when I paid the fee and submitted my registration form for LEL. I began the winter training in December 2008 or so, and rode a 200 km ride at least twice a month until May/June. I also did a few longer rides, 600km, 300km, just to check out the legs and gear, and then I slowed down from early July. 

I had decided to go to the UK one week before the ride began, in order to catch up with friends from when I used to live there. I flew out on Friday 17 July 2009 and arrived in Heathrow Terminal 5 the following day around lunch time. Then it was on the train towards the south-west...

My LEL preparations increased in intensity as I arrived in Crediton, a 10-minute train ride outside of Exeter in beautiful SW-England late in the afternoon on Saturday 18 July. My friends Biz & Pete from my time at Bangor University picked me up at the train station and we walked to their house, about 200 meters from the train station. After European standards it was a short walk but I bet that 99% of all Americans would have expected to be picked up by a car for the trip...  Biz & Pete of course knew that I used to walk 2.2 miles to work and 2.2 miles home from work every day when I lived in Bangor, and that the tiny trek wouldn’t be a problem at all.

Anyway, I hadn’t seen any of them since March 2008 when I was last in the UK so once I was installed in their spare bedroom we had a couple of Carlsbergs or 3 in their garden to celebrate my return to dear old Blighty.  After a few pints in the sprinkling British summer weather we retreated to the indoors, where Pete fired up under us with an excellent Chili Con Carne.  

They informed me about Exeter’s nightlife and the plan they had laid out for me for the evening (unless I wanted to go to bed early and rest). No way! Staying up till 2 in the morning while drinking numerous pints with your friends is by far the best way to get over the jet lag quickly.

Therefore it was inbound for Exeter and it’s Ex-iting nightlife when we had finished the Chili and another Carlsberg. We started out at Wetherspoon’s  with a couple of Fosters and comparing the dress code of the locals in Exeter with that of the locals in Bangor (far less track suits and fewer super-overweight teenagers in Exeter than in Bangor). Also, the Wetherspoon’s in Exeter, being located in an old orangerie, was far better looking than the one in Bangor, with a HUGE panorama window with cast iron glass panes. But, Wetherspoon being what it is, and with Biz & Pete promising that there were much more exciting pubs in the city centre we broke up and headed towards the downtown area (as the city centre is known in the US of A). 

In Coolings Cellar , where the downstairs lounges have ceilings that are roughly 5 foot and a few inches above the floor, we sat down with a Heineken in plush leather seats and enjoyed the spectacle of lanky young brits trying to avoid banging their heads into the arches. I did feel the jet lag rather strongly by now, so we didn’t stay for too long in the plush decor - or I would have drifted off to la-la land...

Consequently we went for a place where chances were that we wouldn’t be able to get a seat: Timepiece , which used to be Exeter’s prison but now has been converted to a 3-story night club and pub. We had another Foster’s while standing around, but suddenly a table opened up so we were able to actually sit down. Fortunately I was able to stay awake. It was really a cool place, as were the other pubs we had visited during the night. Massive oak tables and benches provided the right feel for a former prison, I thought. 

The last pub that night was Amber Room  (I think, forgive me if I’m wrong, but I’m writing this from the memory 15-16 weeks after I actually visited). It was a quite hip place, but the fact that we now were getting close to closing time meant that the hipsters had or were about to leave - apart from Biz, Pete and I, of course. We got our pints (another round of Foster’s) and once again sunk into soft leather seats while reminiscencing our Bangor past and what had happened since (a lot, actually, but that is not the topic of this tale - at least not yet). 

As we emptied our drinks we looked out the window onto the street and saw a taxi pull up in front of the bar - it was ours; we had ordered it 8 hours before, before we even left Crediton. This was one of the many wonders I never fully grasped about England: How is it possible to order a taxi to pull up in front of a pub at 1.30 Sunday morning 8 hours in advance, and then have it actually happen? Surely that would never have been possible in Denmark, and I also very much doubt that it would be possible in Seattle. Regardless, the taxi was there, it was in our name, and 15 minutes later we were back in Crediton and on the way to bed.

Beer tally for Saturday 18 July: 3 Carlsbergs (Crediton), 2 Fosters (Wetherspoon), 1 Heineken (Coolings), 1 Carling (Timepiece), 1 Fosters (Amber Room) for a total of 8 pints on a pleasant night out. An Ex-cellent start to my final week of preparations for LEL! (I take hydration seriously...)

Upon getting out of bed rather late on Sunday and enjoying an excellent breakfast with bacon, sausages, toast etc. etc. etc., prepared by chef Pete, we took the train to Dawlish on the coast (the channel coast, in case you were wondering [the *English* channel coast for the slower readers]). 

Dawlish was a peaceful little seaside town with a couple of secluded beaches, red rocks and cliffs. The weather was typical English summer weather, so I was happy that I had brought my wet weather gear along. We went for a walk along the promenade, which took us to one of the beaches where we could admire the red rocks. They are made up of loosley consolidated sandstone with angular pebbles in a matrix of fabulously red sand-sized grains. The pebbles were really rather loosely embedded in the matrix and it was easy to pick them out if you tried. 

Then it was back to Dawlish for a quick lunch (pastries, what else?) before we walked along the seaside walk to Dawlish Warren. The walk is only a mile long or so, but it is on the seaside of the railroad tracks. If you have ever taken the train from London to Plymouth you will undoubtedly have noticed a section where the train is right on the edge of the water - that is this stretch. As it turned out, the seaside walk is indeed to the seaside of the railroad tracks, with waves from the channel washing over the walk, so you had to time your walk carefully if you didn’t want to get wet feet!

We made it to the other side, close to Dawlish Warren, without being overly wet, and enjoyed the view from the top of the red cliffs overlooking Dawlish and the Channel. The it was down to the Red Rock Cafe for a well-deserved cuppa. 

Since it was now getting close to afternoon-ish we all started to feel that beer o’clock was approaching so we boarded the train back to Crediton. Or rather, upon our return to Exeter we realized that the next train to Crediton was in 55 minutes, so we headed over to a local pub opposite of the train station - The Jolly Porter .  A few minutes later the first pint of the day was being enjoyed. We had a table next to the window where we could enjoy the great attraction in the neighborhood - a double roundabout (so in the shape of a figure 8).  Almost every car that went through the roundabout went through in a different manner than the previous car. It was a highly amusing sight and I was quite surprised that no accidents had occurred after 15 minutes of car watching.

The pint (a Foster’s) disappeared rather quickly, so after having finished our drinks we decided to go across the street (and the roundabout!) to the Great Western Hotel  for another pint.  In the plush, deep leather seats from another century we enjoyed the second  drink of the day in a relaxing atmosphere designed for conversation about the latest cricket results and the upcoming fox hunt.  Since we could talk about neither we talked about a lot of other stuff and headed out just in time to catch the train back to Crediton. 

Upon our return to Crediton the plan was to head out to explore the local pubs there. Since it was a Sunday our plan was to find a place where we could indulge in that most cherished of British meals: The Sunday Roast. But first a drink, so we had a Carlsberg before moving on... Then we moved on to the Crediton Inn  where I first had a pint of Silver Stallion sharply followed by a White Russian.

It was now getting towards 20:00 in the evening so it was about time to find a pub for the Sunday Roast. The local Wetherspoon  was chosen but when we arrived we discovered to our dismay that they were out of roast for the day! Oh well, fortunately they were not out of Bangers and Mash so I had a large portion of that, together with 2 pints of Pedigree.

Then it was back to Biz & Pete’s place for a well-deserved night of sleep after a great day of outings and pubbing. Beer tally for Sunday 19 July: 1 Foster’s (Jolly Porter), 1 Full Sail (Great Western Hotel), 1 Carlsberg (Crediton), 1 Silver Stallion, 1 White Russian (Crediton Inn), 2 Pedigree (Wetherspoon) for a total of 6 pints and 1 drink on a *great* day in Devon!

Monday was my last day in Crediton before moving on the Portsmouth to see Kathryn. Biz and Pete had to be home in the afternoon as they had some furniture delivered, but we went into Exeter in the morning. We parked and then walked around for a bit to take in the sight of the cathedral and the tons of churches - and there are a lot of churches in Exeter! 

We meandered down to the river, where the riverfront shops were just opening up. It was clearly here that the good people of Exeter came if they wanted to buy heavy oak furniture. Several small shops specialized in the making and selling of sturdy oak bed frames, huuuuuuge oak dining tables (2 inches thick tabletops!) and lots of other furniture of the kind that would last 8-10 generations at least.

It was also close by the river that the parts of the old city wall, dating all the way back to the Romans, were easiest to see. The city wall was no match for the mighty Danish viking army who conquered the city in 876. Unfortunately they were driven out of the city again the following summer, only to try again in 893. But, as unbelievable as it may sound, the Danes were not able to conquer and plunder the city again until 1003 when they were let into the city by a Frenchman, Emma or Normandy. She had married the English King, Æthelred the Unready, in 1002 in order to lighten up the relationship between the English and the Normans.  However, perhaps because of her Normannic heritage she was sympathetic to the Danish invaders (the inhabitants in Normandy are descendents of early Viking raiders in that area in the 800s)? Regardless, it was very nice of her to open the door to the city for my ancestors. I was glad that I had a much easier time getting access to the city than they had. 

But I couldn’t help wonder how an action like that would affect the conversation when Æthelred came home in the evening from a hard day of ruling the English people: 

Æthelred: How was your day, love? 

Emma: Oh well, quite brilliant I dare say my darling: I met up with some distant relatives and showed them around in Exeter. They were very pleased with the shopping! It was frightfully exciting! 

Æthelred: Marvelous dear, I’m glad you had a good time...ummm, are you not of Normannic descent my honey-bunny? Would your distant relatives perhaps be those Danish scoundrels who plundered the entire city today?! 

Emma: But sweetie-pie, they are so far away from home and they need food and clothing to keep up their work...

Æthelred: ...which is conquering England!!! We’ll talk about this tomorrow sugar; you can’t just let anybody in all over the country! It makes me look bad when I confront the people! What’s for dinner?

Anyway, I didn’t try to steal anything. In fact I left a few quid in a camera store for a new card for my camera, as well as 10 quid for a haircut and another few quid for lunch before it was back to Biz and Pete for an exciting afternoon of waiting for their new furniture. Around 5pm it arrived: The largest purple sofa I have ever seen in my life soon lit up their entire lounge. And very comfy it was too! We immediately proceeded to celebrate the purchase with a bunch of Carlsbergs and then we were off to the Crediton Inn for a last round of pints in Crediton before my departure for Portsmouth the following morning.

Tally for Monday: 3 Carlsbergs, 2 Silver Stallions and  1 Regatta for a total of 6 pints. That made it 20 pints of beer and 1 drink for the first 3 days of my stay in the UK. Probably somewhat below my ‘summer-average’ when I used to live in Bangor, but quite respectable nonetheless. And the company had been first class!

August 2010?

http://www.1001migliaitalia.it/

...hmmmmm - tempting, but would it be a vise thing to do?

London-Edinburgh-London 2009, the epilogue...

LEL - The Epilogue...

I had finished LEL2009 in 105:30 hours. After I got my final stamp in my brevet card and had handed it over to the controllers they handed me a little pack. Ooooh, joy of joys - there was a sandwich and a beer in it! Maybe it would be a Golden Best or something equally refreshing? Unfortunately it wasn’t an English beer but some diluted Belgian water called Stella Artois. Regardless, I sat down on a bench with some of the other riders from the US. One of them was John Ende, famous at least in US randonneuring circles for passing a kidney stone during Paris-Brest-Paris 2007 and continuing his ride after having been hospitalized due to the passing stone. Despite the weather he had had an easier ride this time around... 

We drank and ate our sandwiches and generally drifted off mentally in various directions. I was feeling a bit fuzzy from sleep deprivation, but not really tired or sleepy as such, just fuzzy all over. It was also a *very* nice feeling to have completed the ride and although I was way over my initial 96 hour target time I was nonetheless very pleased finishing Thursday evening. This meant I could sleep the entire night, have a big breakfast and then take off for London and get 2 full days in town before heading back to Seattle Sunday afternoon.

But all that was for tomorrow. Now a more pressing need started to become apparent - showering. Last time I was in a shower was Sunday morning. It was now Thursday evening so it had been 4.5 days without showering - and 1400 km of cycling inbetween. While I certainly had been wet for some of the time I’m not sure that it really counted. I went to the counter and asked for the key to my room, got it and started walking my bike towards my lodge.

Then Dave suddenly appeared. I had been wondering how he had finished and how he felt. I imagined that when I saw him he would be well rested, as in Coxwold he was some 15 hours ahead of me, so I figured he would have finished late Wednesday evening or very early Thursday morning at the latest. But his tiny eyes looking at me didn’t really indicate that he was overly rested. He had finished late Thursday morning, some 10 hours ahead of me, so I had made up a lot of time on him towards the end.  He had been riding in various groups most of the way and things had been going so well that although he had planned for a nap in Dalkeith (riding non-stop there), he had continued on with other groups going south, all the way to Coxwold. Coxwold. 1021 km after the start. Without sleep.

I had a hard time comprehending that. I was hallucinating mildly after ~600 km. I couldn’t imagine what another 400km would have done to me. But Dave could tell me: He had been seeing all kinds of stuff the last hours before coming into Coxwold. People on the road that vanished into thin air when he approached them and stuff. Much like cheap drugs. He had slept at Coxwold for a few hours and then continued on in daylight (early Wednesday morning). But the 1021km without sleep had worn him down a bit so progress had been slow the last 400km. The last 68km from Gamlingay had taken him 4-5 hours, riding together with another Dane, actually. Anyway, he made it, but not as much ahead of me as I would have thought. 

Dave suggested we had another beer or two and I was all up for that! He went to the bar to get them and I parked myself and my bike outside on a bench - the weather was really nice now! We drank and talked about the ride; both of us agreed that it was one of the hardest things we had ever done. I decided it was time for a shower; it had been 4 1/2 days since my last shower and I had cycled 1401 km since then. While I had been wet a lot in those 4 1/2 days I hadn’t had any soap to go with the wetness and it felt about time. Consequently I went to my room, which I was sharing with a couple of Italians who had finished Wednesday morning, some 36-40 hours before me. They did look fast... They said they had to get up at 3 Friday morning in order to catch their plane and that they didn’t hope that they would wake me up. Reassuringly I informed them that I really didn’t think that would be possible. 

I then had a quick shower and Dave and I went to the nearest pub for a few more beers and general evaluation. I had 6 packs of chips (crisps for UK readers) as well. An hour or so later I started to feel the impact of the last 4-5 days effort and we broke up in order to head to bed. A couple of riders rolled in as we walked through the gate to the hostel. Well done! 3 minutes later I was fast asleep.

At 6.45 or so Friday morning I woke up again, in a completely empty hostel room. I hadn’t heard a thing when the Italians had left and I had spent 7 hours or so in deep sleep, which felt really good. So I got up and had another shower (2 in 12 hours!) and then headed off for the breakfast room. On the way I met Dave, who was surprised to see me. He thought I would’ve been off in la-la land for much longer. It was probably the thought of the English breakfast that had awoken me - since it was included in the price for the room there really wasn’t any reason to miss out on it...

There were not too many riders in the breakfast room so we had no problems finding a place to sit. Only the sitting itself was a bit of a problem for us - turned out that also Dave had some issues with general wear and tear here and there... A rider who had just finished a few minutes earlier sat down next to us. It turned out he was a cop and that he was living in Wales. His first job had been in Bangor, of all places, so we talked about that for a bit. It was his first grand brevet and he was very pleased to have finished. So was I. This was my 3rd ride of 1200km or more and the finish always feel the same - tremendous satisfaction and a great sense of achievement. Add to that a slight sense of feeling peckish  and you’ll understand that I was very pleased looking down at my plate, eyeing my breakfast, which was steadily disappearing from my plate!

After breakfast it was time to get the bike packed up. Dave was flying out Saturday morning, so if we could make it into London for the afternoon we had time for several pints in the very pleasant (now!) summer weather.  An hour or so later we had both bikes in the boxes and checked out. There was a train strike so we had to take a taxi to the next station over, in order to get on a train operated by a non-striking company. British taxis are great! We had 2 bikes in boxes, I had a huge duffelbage, Dave a backpack, and then we had 2 smaller bags each. It all fitted inside the taxi, together with us without problem - that would not be possible anywhere in the US, where the trunk (boot for UK readers) always has a funky bump in the middle where the spare tire sticks up. Whoever came up with that car design was certainly not a bicyclist!

Anyway, 20 minutes later we were on our way to Liverpool Street Station and from there we went to Paddington where we both dropped of out bikes in the left luggage section. Then we checked in to the hotel and then out to find 1) lunch 2) beer. We ended up sitting in a pub in Covent Garden for 5-6 hours all afternoon before going for dinner in a Steak House back at Paddington Station. Then we said good bye to each other as Dave was off for Canada next morning at 7:00 while I was meeting with a friend coming to town for the day from Portsmouth. So that was really the final end of LEL for me.

A quiet pint (or 5...) in sunny Covent Garden!

Dave in front of London's Chinatown

It has now been about a month and I have been thinking about the ride quite a lot. My daily distances were 633km, 261km, 216km and 291km. So apart from ‘day 1’ (which was really more like 2 days) the distances were very moderate. I would have liked to see a more even distribution of the mileage, but the weather also came into play. It took forever to get from Eskdalemuir to Dalkeith and back, despite the fact that it was only 166 km for the round trip. I then made it into Alston on midnight and due to the storm it was impossible to go any further unless you were a complete lunatic (all randonneurs have a bit of that in them, I think, but not enough to put you into outright danger...). 

I would have liked to make it to Middleton Tyas at 969km for the 2nd ‘night’ (i.e. 2nd sleep period), and I wasn’t too tired to do that, but the weather prevented any further riding that night. If I had made it to Middleton Tyas I figure that I could have slept 4-5 hours and then be quite well-rested to ride the last 432km in one stretch. 

It is also possible that riding 633km in one sitting was too much, but once I noted the rapid cooling down in Alston I was very determined to not ride in the night (especially w/o my gloves) and was determined to get to Eskdalemuir as fast as possible - together with everybody else, as it turned out... (My buddy Mark from SIR arrived at Eskdalemuir around 19.00 Monday evening and, due to back problems, decided to sleep there. He later told me that when he went to bed there was only one other rider sleeping there, and that when he got up and left in the early morning the place had ‘changed a lot’!!)

Anyway, the way things unfolded I’m not sure I would have done anything different, except try to get in the early start group. If I had been on the road 5.5 hours earlier I could have made it to Eskdalemuir in one go for Monday evening, instead of Tuesday morning. I could then have had about 5-6 hours of sleep until 4am or so, and therefore be on the road 2-3 hours earlier than actually was the case. This in turn would’ve enabled me to get all the way to Middleton Tyas for my 2nd sleep stop, probably early Wednesday morning, instead of being hunkered down in Alston for the night. With 4-6 hours of sleep in Middleton Tyas it would not have been unreasonable to try and make it back to Lee Valley in one go (only 432km) and be back Thursday early afternoon. 

Regardless, even the best laid plans for a long randonnee are susceptible to weather and you end up improvising. In the end I am quite glad that I managed to get 633 km in the first day; that gave me a comfortable time cushion as I met a lot of people in Eskdalemuir that had started in the 8:00 start group. And I know from previous 1200km rides that I usually only need 2-3 hours sleep to recover enough to go out again for 18 hours of riding, so I was never really worried about fatigue. During this ride the worst enemy was the sleepiness (first night, and the approach to Eskdalemuir), and tremendous boredom on some of the stretches. 1400 km is a notably longer ride than a 1200 km. There are 1600 km rides in Germany and 2000km rides on Vancouver Island in Canada. I don’t dare think what they are like. A 2000km ride would take about 7 days, maybe only 6 full days of riding... 

I think I will stick to the 1200 km rides as maximum distance in the future. I now have a 1200km (or more) ride in 3 different countries (USA, France, England) so I only need one more 1200km ride in a 4th country to earn my second International Super Randonneur award - hopefully that will happen next year!