Sunday, 16 September 2018
Alex writes: My audax season has not gone to plan: I have the dubious honour of having gained an SR series in DNFs (Did Not Finish) having failed to finish a 200km (crashed on ice), a 300km ride (mechanical failure), a 400km ride (
physical failure) and a 1000km ride (mental failure).
This left the points cupboard pretty bare, and with
Paris-Brest-Paris (PBP) looming next year it is wise to have a long ride logged this season just to get on the application list. So in an effort to recover something from the wreckage I entered the "
Fenland Friends" 600km event.
This is a variation on the well-established "The Flatlands" 600, which has gained notoriety as being an event which attracts riders thinking that
flat means
easy, only for them to be cruelly disabused. I don't need to explain why: as Cambridgeshire cyclists we know that it is a foolish rider who ventures into The Fens thinking they'll have an easy time of it.
In the Fen Country: a rare bend
The idea behind the ride is simple: cycle from Great Dunmow in Essex up to Goole in Yorkshire, then turn around and come back. There are some variations northbound and southbound, but also some out-and-back overlapping sections. This is an X-rated event, meaning no facilities are provided by the organizer once you're on your way. The recommended route is 608 km and the time limit for completion 40 hours.
And so I found myself in the dark at Church End, Great Dunmow as one of 141 riders setting off for Yorkshire at 06:00. After being waved off by organizer Tom Deakins, we started by heading straight up the rolling B-road to Thaxted and Saffron Walden. The pace was fairly brisk and I glimpsed Nick W flying off ahead – on fixed gear as usual – with a demeanour of definite intent.
I had chosen to use my single speed bike (based on Nigel's old 1987 Dawes Galaxy frame) and when we came to the "golf course climb" out of Saffron Walden I fell back through the bunch as everybody else changed gear and sped upward, notably French Seb looking svelte and powerful on his
meticulously fettled titanium wonder steed.
After Saffron Walden, a novelty – the A1303 through Sawston to Cambridge: at this time on a Saturday it was pretty much car-free. Then familiar roads through Cambridge, out through Girton, up to Earith and into the Fens proper.
I rode much of this first leg with veteran audaxer
Judith Swallow - just about to complete the
impressive feat of riding 300,000 miles in 20 years, whose brains I picked about PBP (apparently "benign" in comparison to London-Edinburgh-London). As usual chatting while riding made the time fly and before long we rocked up at The Green Welly café in Chatteris (82km) after three hours. Good going, helped by a useful breeze.
It was too soon for me to stop and the café looked very busy so I got my brevet card stamped, ate a flapjack and pressed on. The turn onto Forty Foot Bank gave a small
hors d'oeuvre for the menu of winds the Fens had planned for the weekend. Blowing from the SW, it made progress hard work for a while before the turn northwards.
I paused in Crowland (120km) for a café stop to take tea and a tea cake, watching other riders pass. Afterwards it had started spotting with light rain and this continued on and off up to the next control at Sleaford (173km) where I snaffled a packet of crisps before pressing on quickly.
By the time I reached Lincoln (203km) it was raining steadily. I went off route to the McDonald's near the university for a "proper" meal of veggieburger, fries and milkshake. 9 hrs 20 mins into the ride and going well – comfortably on schedule. The next part of the ride I saw as a 170km loop via Goole back to Lincoln, where I had booked a Premier Inn, hoping to arrive in the wee hours. My plan was to have a decent rest and finish the ride the next day refreshed.
Leaving Lincoln I was surprised to find some quite steep roads heading up out of town. With no gears the only option was to get out of the saddle and honk up them while cars waited with varying degrees of patience behind me, windscreen wipers swishing away. At least my legs still seemed to be working well.
Back out in the countryside I was soon passed by a tandem pulling a small train of riders, with Seb as the caboose. He dropped off the back and we rode together to the next control, Gainsborough (234km), where I stopped briefly at a garage before pressing on in the rain and still-heavy traffic towards Goole.
Seb a'wheel
The route to Goole doubles back on itself and several kms out I saw Nick heading a group steaming towards me. He still looked like a man possessed, evidently going very well. I was still pleased with my own progress too, arriving at the control (285km) earlier than I thought I would, at 20:00. Several familiar
ACME riders were there, and Allen O'Leary, the poet of the Flatlands, who has written memorably about the event a
number of times.
Seb had arrived shortly before me and we resolved to have a proper hour's break in readiness for the coming night section. Seb explained he was taking
medium-chain triglycerides to aid digestion & energy efficiency – but I'm not convinced the
evidence supports this application; it is however a faster route to achieving
ketosis than Nick's favoured "fasting" method (the horror!). My own preparation for the upcoming stage was a decidedly unscientific coffee and donut from McDonald's.
It was still raining steadily and the McDonald's staff were coping heroically with the huge influx of dripping cyclists. The loos were mayhem with a long queue for the cubicle, people in various states of undress changing clothes and one randonneur (who shall remain nameless) enjoying a blast from the hand drier down the front flap of his bib shorts.
Goole is a strange place – a large inland port with gleaming silos and high floodlights, serviced by major wide roads suitable for container lorries. I felt miniature on my bike passing back through but with all my warm layers on and with a decent rest behind me, I was in good spirits and ready to face the 80km back to Lincoln, and my waiting hotel room …
The going was not so easy now though partly because of tired legs, partly because night riding always gets slower, and partly because the wind – though not strong – was less helpful as the route turned south. As I approached the "info" control at Kirton in Lindsey (338km) the road suddenly went uphill quite sharply and I found I couldn't turn the pedals. I got off and pushed. The info control was to note the name of a pub – it was just as well last orders had just been called otherwise I might have been tempted to stop.
Info control temptation?
Only 30km to Lincoln but it was becoming a slog. I passed riders stopped in bus shelters and soon found myself starting to climb up onto the Lincoln Ridge. Plodding along, suddenly a new and unwelcome sensation came from nowhere: a stabbing pain in the left knee. I unclipped and waggled my leg and it subsided a little. Worrying – would I be adding a DNF (injured!) to my collection?
I was vaguely aware there were some cobbles and hills in Lincoln but wasn't quite prepared for just how precipitous the cobbled streets were. Descending on these in the damp certainly woke me up. And then, there it was in its purple splendour: the Premier Inn. It was 01:30 – there was time enough for a decent break before resuming the ride in the morning.
After some delay rousing the night receptionist, I wheeled my bike to my room, hung my wet clothing up to dry (no heater!), took a hot bath and collapsed into bed to enjoy a few hours of fitful sleep, my sore knee twinging angrily all the while.
I was back on the road at 05:30. That left 16½ hours for the remaining 230km of the ride – how hard could that be?
Taking advantage of the free routing permitted by AUK events, I had a number of route modification up my sleeve for today. The first was an immediate long cut out of Lincoln adding 3km to avoid Canwick Hill, the only real climb of the entire ride. Starting the day on creaky legs and with no gears, this was probably a wise move, and especially so with a grumbling knee.
Canwick Hill 12% (Photo: Google Streetview)
As I then worked my way south on a fun rollercoaster road dawn broke and a much more cheerful day seemed to be in prospect. The rain had stopped and occasional splashes of sun broke through the clouds. There was however a niggling headwind that made progress quite hard going.
Before long I met up with another rider, Will, riding his first 600. He had taken a break north of Lincoln and had experienced what sounded like an unsatisfactorily damp bivy break in a bus shelter. This hadn't had the restorative effect he wanted and he was finding it hard going, particularly into the wind. He took up position on my wheel and we ground on. The thin morning light had by now revealed the Fens in all their dismal splendour – what wasn't so splendid was the wind, which seemed to be strengthening all the time.
Twenty Foot Bank
At 08:20 we arrived in Boston and made a beeline for the McDonald's. Sustained headwind riding really burns through the calories so I took on a load of fuel: a Double Bacon & Egg McMuffin® with hash browns, a blueberry muffin and a cappuccino for a total of approx 1000 kcal. Yumsk!
We were on the road again by 09:00. 170km left in 13 hours. By now the SW wind was properly strong and the entire next leg was straight into it. There was nothing to do except grind it out, and maybe cry. Progress was slow and with my mental spreadsheet adjusting I began to harbour a concern about making the cut. It's not going to be this bad all the way back surely? And my knee is going to hold out isn't it? As we neared Spalding I glanced in my mirror to see Will had fallen off my wheel. A brief dilemma: do I turn around and offer encouragement, or do I press on? I pressed on.
Past Spalding, riding the exposed section was brutal. I had horror flashbacks to "
windy Thursday" on
last year's London-Edinburgh-London but although the wind was bad, it wasn't
quite as bad as then. For comparison on the stretch from Thorney to Whittlesey I averaged 14.1km/h then, but this time the figure was 18.2km/h.
A brief stop at a Spar in Whittlesey for chocolate milk and a Snickers, and I moved on swiftly, keen to get off the Fens. For this next stretch I had an alternative route that would shave off several kms, and which would be more compatible with the SW wind. This entailed heading back to Chatteris, and when I made the turn onto Forty Foot Bank the wind was – at last! – right on my back, meaning it was easy to zip along at 30km/h while hardly needing to pedal. After this there was a stretch on the A142, which is not great for cycling (very fast traffic) but which "got the job done" and before long I was back on the recommended route at Haddenham. Here I teamed up with Martin, another keen Cambridge-based audaxer who rides with
CCC, today on his first 600. The wind seemed to have swung round Westerly and was now broadly helpful. Once again cycling while chatting made the time pass rapidly and before long we were on the approach to Red Lodge.
At Red Lodge I wolfed down a bag of 4 supermarket jam donuts (calories!) and drank a chocolate milk. With 60km remaining and 6 hours in hand I thought the ride "in the bag" and that it was time to relax. My knee however was protesting loudly and my legs in general were not "shutting up" so I applied a chemical kosh to them in the form of ibuprofen.
For this final section again I used a modified version of the route to take in some tiny lanes around Cowlinge and Sturmer and to incorporate a fun rollercoaster section on the (quiet) A134. This saved several kms and a bit of ascent. I was in a mellow mood taking my time and enjoying the scenery. As I rejoined the official route at Finchingfield the sun was beginning to set and on the final run into Great Dunmow there was a spectacular deep pink sunset to mark the end of the ride.
I sought organizer Tom Deakins in the Angel & Harp. The scene was a convivial one, with riders nursing what looked like the best pints of beer in the world. But I had to drive, so quickly conducted my brevet card business and headed for the car to get home before any doziness set in.
I had ridden 604km (375 miles) in 37hrs 45mins. In the end it had been a enjoyable ride with a lot of variety in the weather and company, if not always the scenery. Despite its reputation I think this ride makes a very manageable 600, especially if a decent sleep stop can be assured! Many thanks to Tom for once again organizing what seemed a very successful event.
GPS files for this route can be
here, and there is a permanent version of the route,
The Flatliner, which can be ridden any time. Next year (2019)
both The Flatlands and this
Fenland Friends variant are being run again as calendar events and both are sure to have large numbers riding. Entries are open – book now!