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London-Edinburgh-London 2017 finishes todayLondon-Edinburgh-London (via Vimeo).jpg courtesy www.madegood.com/london-edinburgh-london/

London-Edinburgh-London 2017 finishes today

Roundup 1441km ultra-audax which more than qualfiies as an allowable use of the word 'epic'...
by Laura Laker
Fri, Aug 04, 2017 16:58
11

While the Transcontinental race has hogged the headlines another and older, and some might argue, tougher event has been taking place much closer to home - the London-Edinburgh-London Audax.

The 1441km route, which features 11,128m of climbing, is so tough the event only takes place every four years. This year’s 1,442 competitors, from around 60 countries, have braved rain, cold, badgers and sleep deprivation, for the past five days since Sunday. The event concludes today.

Started by Bernard Mawson in 1989, the London-Edinburgh-London has grown to be a fully-organised, fully supported event with control points, featuring feed stations, with showers and somewhere for exhausted riders to sleep. This year driving rain and 20mph head winds and the all the weather related vagaries of a British summer have challenged riders, while one man was injured after hitting a badger on the road.

Yesterday the event’s Facebook page offered a snippet of what riders - and volunteers - endure. It reported 350 riders had scratched – some will not have made it through checkpoints in time, while some will have quit through sheer exhaustion.

“In a nutshell all controls that remain open are waiting to be hit by the wave of riders struggling against the headwind and the clock and their exhausted bodies,” a facebook post read.

“There'll be no rest tonight for the volunteers at the later controls.”

The notoriously tough event, which uses “proper card brevets” at checkpoints, attracts riders from around the world looking for a challenge. For some the distance itself is not enough - they need to add in a comedy bike choice to up the ante. 

Sleep deprivation does funny things to people.

British ultracyclist, Jasmijn Muller, the former British national 12 hour time trial champion, who beat the Zwift distance record earlier this year, was spotted on the road looking cheery.

We assume this is a warm-up event for Muller’s LEJOG solo record attempt, which begins on 1 September.

Helpful locals offer support for riders caught short.

And of course the food is a highlight for many, including this rider who tried his first British speciality.

There was also soup and, err, that other British-Asian fusion speciality: Haggis pakoras

Not everyone will make it 

Why do they do it, you might ask? TS Eliot sums it up, via Sue Kahn. 

Photographer Charlotte Barnes has captured some of the ruggedness - and in some cases, haunted expressions - of the riders in some gorgeous black and white portraits, which you can check out here. 

You can also get a flavour of what it's all about from Madegood Films documentary on the 2013 event - you can watch the trailer and buy the film from their website (our lead image is a still from it). 

Whatever people's reasons for tackling the London-Edinburgh-London, all of us at road.cc would like to salute your efforts.  

You can find out more about the event here.

Update: the provisional finish list can now be found here.

London-Edinburgh-London
Audax
Jasmijn Muller
Laura Laker

Laura Laker is a freelance journalist with more than a decade’s experience covering cycling, walking and wheeling (and other means of transport). Beginning her career with road.cc, Laura has also written for national and specialist titles of all stripes. One part of the popular Streets Ahead podcast, she sometimes appears as a talking head on TV and radio, and in real life at conferences and festivals. She is also the author of Potholes and Pavements: a Bumpy Ride on Britain’s National Cycle Network.

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kitsunegari | 7 years ago
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Massive congratulations to everyone who did this, I'm both jealous and impressed.

I did Cambridge>Edingburgh over a comparably bening 4 days recently and loved it, and at the time felt like I could have come back. There's no way I could have covered this distance in the time allowed though.

Seriously impressive. @alotronic, @PpPete if you have any accounts written up anywhere I'd be fascinated to read them. If you haven't, write something up!

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alotronic replied to kitsunegari | 7 years ago
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kitsunegari wrote:

Massive congratulations to everyone who did this, I'm both jealous and impressed.

I did Cambridge>Edingburgh over a comparably bening 4 days recently and loved it, and at the time felt like I could have come back. There's no way I could have covered this distance in the time allowed though.

Seriously impressive. @alotronic, @PpPete if you have any accounts written up anywhere I'd be fascinated to read them. If you haven't, write something up!

Oh yeah there will be tons of blogging about LEL. Mine will be the best of course 3

It was - obviously - hard, but I am over 50 and would struggle to get through 25 miles in 1:20, so I am no racer. DC Lane above is still a racer and got through it quicker I imagine, though he is a little younger. Training required, but 'just' normal Audax training is enough. Bike prep and confort is vital and good company is worth a lot but overall it comes down to how well you cope with a couple of hours of sleep a night, how well you can digest a full meal every 100k, how good your mental management is. 

As a benchmark I slept 0,4,3,2,1.5 hours, shortest day 275k, longest 445k.

So... any competent cyclist could complete an LEL or PBP with two years prep regardless of age or gender, and I would say that 'long-form' cycling suits older riders better. Certainly having had children and having to cope with long sleepless nights is good training!

Find your local Audax rides, start at 200km and by the time you do a 400 overnight ride you'll be hooked. In the south there are particualrly strong and social Audax clubs in Hackney, Essex, Bristol and Portsmouth. 

http://www.aukweb.net/

Here is my blog about failing on PBP in 2015; I sure didn't want to fail LEL as well!

https://audaxery.wordpress.com/2015/09/06/paris-brest-paris-attempt-2015/

 

 

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Grahamd | 7 years ago
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Respect to all riders. I did a London to Edinburgh ride last year, weather was great until the last day, 116 miles into a strong headwind. No way that I could have turned around and done the same again.

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dottigirl | 7 years ago
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See, I quite like the idea of something like this, but the brutal weather puts me off. I really don't like to be uncomfortable on a bike. I'll (wo)man up and do wet rides, but not a series of them.

 

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Liam542 replied to dottigirl | 7 years ago
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dottigirl wrote:

See, I quite like the idea of something like this, but the brutal weather puts me off. I really don't like to be uncomfortable on a bike. I'll (wo)man up and do wet rides, but not a series of them.

If you fancied something similar where the weather could be a bit more 'benign" take a look at Paris-Brest-Paris. The next outing is in 2019 - if you start pushing the distances next year the start line two years away is ridiculously achievable

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DCLane | 7 years ago
2 likes

I made it round in 99 hours despite achiles issues, compared to a 68 hour Paris-Brest-Paris in 2015. LEL was brutal in comparison to PBP but the controls and the ever-wonderful volunteers made the event for me.

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PpPete | 7 years ago
3 likes

Ditto, made it with a couple of hours to spare.

I was lucky that Yad Moss was benign when I passed both north and southbound.  Instead I got strong headwinds climbing up from Innerleithen, freezing rain descending to Eskdalemuir, rain of utterly biblical proportions heading for Louth (think OMM 2008 was last time I was out in anything like this) and then the icing on the cake: those amazing headwinds in the Fens.  At one point, even working efficiently as a small rotating group of experienced riders, speed dropped below 10 kph !

Epic as it was for the riders, it can't compare with the heroic efforts of the hundreds of volunteers who laboured day & night at the controls to keep the riders going.  Those I spoke to at the finish were as tired as the riders and for me the chapeau goes to them !

 

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davel | 7 years ago
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Chapeau, alotronic.

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alotronic | 7 years ago
9 likes

I made it, truly an epic experience. Just getting around inside limit is major, anyone who did it quickly is a very very good cyclist. 

I would say it is physically 20% harder than PBP due to the amount of climbing and the nature of the climbing - short and vicious in Linconshire Wolds, long and epic in Pennines. PBP is faster and you have to do it on less sleep but it has nothing like the geographical contrasts  and scenery. Having to push hard coming DOWN yad moss in driving rain and gale force winds was a top five horror, yet some of the night cycling in Scotland and Yorkshire were some of the best.

So much to say about this event, but yes, if you like big and bold.... it's awesome.

 

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Carlp | 7 years ago
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Some great photos on the Charlotte Barnes link. 

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Stef Marazzi | 7 years ago
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Amazing to follow this ride on Instagram, Strava and watching the dots on Garmin connect. Honoured to know two of the guys doing it, who both finished early on Thursday morning. Incredible efforts for all and makes Paris-Brest-Paris look like a walk in the park. It had a 34% Did Not Finish rate as well, so must have been extremely hard.

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