LEL Card

This arrived in yesterday's mail. Fun stamps -- the snail got it about right.

Phil Creel's LEL Post

Phil Creel, our good friend from South Carolina, has done a fine write-up of his recent LEL adventure. Definitely worth a read. It's here.

London Edinburgh London 2009 Stories -- Crank Problems

You've heard the advice many times -- don't change anything on your bike before a big ride. Still, I had a lot of miles on my Coho's drivetrain, so I had Ed, my trusty mechanic, put on a new cassette, chain, as well as an FSA bottom bracket and crankset, which is one of those modern designs with the outboard bearings. All seemed fine on the 100-mile test ride here in the states, and on a 20-mile trial run on the LEL course.

So what happens on the ride itself? I'm probably 15 miles in and I can no longer shift into the large front ring. Thinking I had a derailleur or cable issue, I stop to check things out. The crankset now has as 1/4-inch of side-to-side play -- so much that it slides to the right out of range of the front derailleur's ability to put the chain on the large ring. I knew how to tighten it -- loosen the bolts on the left crank arm, tighten the crank arm cap bolt. But I didn't appreciate the subtleties involved. I should have loosened the crank arm bolts more. The volunteer mechanics along the way were more like me -- they knew all about the old school square taper bottom brackets, but were pretty clueless about these new-fangled designs.

Bottom line: I never really got it right and had to stop, sometimes as often as every 100K, and readjust. In my lowest moments, I wondered whether this mechanical issue would be a show stopper. But I lived with the annoyance and got er done. Lesson learned -- leave well enough alone before the ride or get a quick lesson in roadside repair beforehand.

Apart from that issue, the bike performed flawlessly and was a delight for the entire 1400K journey. A special thanks to Chuck for building such a fine randonneuring machine.

London Edinburgh London 2009 Stories -- Technology Marches On

It was pretty clear before the ride started that LEL organizers were not planning to offer online updates of riders' progress, like those that had been done two years before by PBP07 officials. A week before we headed to London, I found something that would let my family and friends know how we were doing and where we were. I have an iPhone and I bought a data package for England. I also bought a iPhone application, TweetMic, that allowed me to easily post audio messages to my blog via Twitter. The process was a bit frustrating. Many of the tweets I recorded would not upload, but enough got through to let folks know that we were moving steadily along and doing just fine, despite some atrocious weather conditions. Next time, I'll know to type in an ID tag and put more identifying info in each message, but by and large TweetMic worked well, and several friends thanked me for the updates, saying Ende and I sounded good the entire time. The tweets accurately reflect our mostly upbeat moods. The fact is, there were very few low moments on this ride.

London Edinburgh London 2009 Stories -- Connections

For two or three days I exchanged hellos with an English rider I'd see at the controls. We were on a similar timetable. He seemed vaguely familiar, but I could not figure out why. Finally, on Day 5 of the ride, we were in the cafeteria together and I introduced myself. And his name? Ian. Then it clicked. "Ian? By chance, did we ride on PBP07 together?" He smiled and suddenly made the same connection. "We may have," he said. No wonder he looked familiar. On PBP07, I'd left Mortagne-au-Perche at 2:30 a.m., having been mistakenly awakened after only 15 minutes of sleep by the control volunteers. Out in one of darkest sections of the course, I was falling asleep on the bike. I needed someone to talk to, and as I rode along I finally heard someone say something in English. I asked if I could ride with him, just to have a bit of conversation to keep the mind occupied. He said sure, so we rode together to Dreux. Of course, it was Ian. I never suspected we'd connect again, since there must be a million cyclists named Ian in England. It's a small world after all. That is his pix at the top of the page. Ian, great connecting and riding with you once again.

Speaking of connections, a shout-out to Gabriele and Carina (sp?), two German riders we had dinner with before the event, and who we saw numerous times along the way. They looked like they were having a great time, and the ride marked Carina's longest ride ever. A big congratulations.

London Edinburgh London 2009 Stories -- Local Knowledge

It's a safe wager that most LEL riders did bonus miles. No matter how careful you were to synch your mileage with the cue sheet, missed turns were inevitable. The reasons were varied. Some lanes didn't have names, leaving you guessing when you got near a scheduled turn. Other lanes were so narrow or inconspicuous that it was tempting to write them off as the correct choice. Only after the cue sheet stopped making sense would we circle back and give the road we'd passed a second look. The safest way to stay on course was to hook up with a British rider who 1) knew the local roads or 2) had a GPS. Thus, on the run into Lincoln, our group put a local on the front whose club regularly rode the streets we were on. He probably saved us an hour as we twisted through the central shopping district. We later heard that some of our friends got lost and climbed two or three steep hills in town. As for the GPS, fellow RUSA rider and friend George Swain rode nearly the entire event with a Brit named Robin who had meticulously programmed the route into his GPS, including waypoints at the turns. Here's his picture.



We were the lucky recipients of his labors on the last two days. Robin was a steady rider with tireless legs. He led us home with only one wrong turn, and that was within a mile of the finish where the GPS file uploaded by LEL folks deviated from the final cue sheet.

London Edinburgh London 2009 Stories -- In Camera Conference

On the afternoon of Day 2, we stopped for a food break at a cafe in Middleton-in-Teesdale, a small market town in County Durham at the foot of Yad Moss, our one significant climb of the day. Looking for a food miracle in northern England, I went against my better judgment and ordered a hamburger. The folks in this part of the world probably have a dozen recipes for leg of lamb, but their preparation of the lowly hamburger still needs a bit of work. But all of these details are a distraction from the real story. I left my camera sitting on the chair beside me. I didn't miss it until I was two-thirds the way up Yad Moss. There was no way I was going to ride back down the hill to retrieve it. When I got to the Alston Control, I recruited a little help to hunt down the restaurant where we'd stopped. By now, it was closed, and the chances of being reunited with my camera grew slimmer by the minute. I was growing resigned to the loss, and mentioned that fact once more as we prepared to leave. A cyclist standing nearby heard me talking and asked, "What did you lose?" I told him I'd left my camera down the hill. With a sly smile, he whipped the camera out from behind his back. Happy day! He told me his name, and I promptly forgot it. But I did get his picture. Here it is. A million thanks.



Note: mystery solved! The riders are Brett and Chris. See the comments section.

London Edinburgh London 2009 Stories -- Black and White and Wet All Over

A few miles outside the village of St. Neots, we came into a small village with a farm store. I ducked in, picked up a lemonade, a candy bar and a bag of chips. As I paid for the items, one of the storms that had been shadowing us finally moved in, dumping a heavy rain. That's when the newspaper stacked in front of the meat counter caught my eye.



When we got to St. Neots, we were hit by a hail stones, and several of us ducked under a storefront to wait it out. Coincidence? Neots is an anagram for stone.

London Edinburgh London 2009 Stories -- Scotch Anyone?

I've seen beer and wine served at the controls during PBP. But in Scotland? The volunteers offered up another sort of prized local beverage -- single malt Scotch. There were two varieties available. My riding companion Ende went with Islay, a Scotch whisky made on Islay, the southernmost of the Inner Hebridean Islands located off the west coast of Scotland.



Spencer opted for a Biere D'or Des Flandres, which, despite its highfalutin name, apparently is found in the supermarket economy bin.

London Edinburgh London 2009 Stories -- Control Volunteers & Food

Kudos to the volunteers at the many controls along the route. Pre-ride, there had been some listserv chatter about volunteer efforts being in disarray, with some helpers threatening a full-blown mutiny. We prepared for the worst. In fact, nothing could have been further from reality. The small armies of volunteers at the stops along the way were among the true joys of the event. No question that the majority of the helpers were cyclists just like us. They were sympathetic to our pains and took unabashed delight in our progress. Many of them put in hours equal to our own -- I was surprised to see the very same workers at some of the controls on our return leg -- two days after we'd first passed through. Those volunteers looked as bleary-eyed as the riders, but they remained enthusiastic and engaged. Thanks to the whole bunch of you; your efforts were greatly appreciated.

Overcrowding was a problem at some checkpoints, especially the Eskdalemuir control. The control fell at about the 300K mark on Day 2, making it the natural destination for the many randonneurs riding a moderate pace. By midnight the place was jammed with bodies. The one sleeping room was overwhelmed, so exhausted riders began falling out wherever a square of floor space could be found -- in the hallway, under tables in the dining area. I tried to grab a little sleep under a table, but there was a beehive of activity just above my head. It sounded like a poker night at the frat house. Worse, quarters were so cramped that at one point a rider planted two wet socks, with the dogs still inside, squarely across the old kisser. That did it. Sleep was officially off the menu. Despite the unpleasant prospect of rolling dead-tired through the next day, I filled the water bottles and headed out into the night at 3:30 a.m. Thankfully, the sky began to lighten within the hour, which helped to revive me, and I was able to grab a precious hour of sleep at the Dalkeith control as I waited for Ende to arrive.

As for food? As a rule, English cuisine gets a bad rap; the common complaint is how bland the menu is. But I can tell you that the food was every bit as good as that on PBP. For one breakfast I enjoyed a plate of eggs, bacon on a roll, potato and leek soup, a bowl of cereal. I capped it off with a bowl of ice cream. Now, that's what I'm talking about. Finding food between the controls proved difficult. This was not America, where every corner has a 7-11. On the entire route I think we saw no more than three of what we'd call convenience stores here in the U.S. Of course, riding buddy Cap'n Ende apparently sniffed out the only MacDonald's in northern England and stopped in for fries and a burger.

London Edinburgh London 2009 Stories -- Romancing the Stone.

Cap'n Ende and I shared a hostel dorm room with four other cyclists, including Andy from England and Barry from Australia, who is a RUSA member. That's Barry on the right in this photo.



Chewing the fat as we prepared our drop bags, the talk drifted to PBP 07, and Barry launched into the story about some RUSA rider who'd finished despite being hauled off to the hospital with a kidney stone. Ah, yes.... I interrupted Barry. "The guy you're talking about? That's him, right there," I said, pointing at Ende. Barry got to hear a first-person account from Ende himself. I'm amazed by the legs that story has -- the stone heard round the world. If you haven't read it, check it out here.

Stories from London Edinburgh London 2009 - Winding-Up at the Windmill

Before the ride started, the North Carolina crew, as well as cyclists from around the globe, gathered for beer and bicycles at the Windmill, a small pub that was a stone's throw from the ride start. The tap dispensed Guinness while the TV showed Le Tour's Mont Ventoux mountain stage. There is no finer way to spend a pre-event afternoon with your rowdy friends. Here are Jimmy and Cap'n Ende enjoying a pint.



Speaking of friends, we made many new ones including Spencer from Missouri. He was a constant riding companion the last couple of days, and he kept things fun. Here's the proof.