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Well, it's been nearly two weeks since the London to Brighton bike ride, and I'm ashamed to admit that I haven't been in the saddle since! In fact, the exercise regime that I'd enthusiastically started, including gym-in-the-lunchbreak three times a week, karate in the evenings, riding to work at least three times a week, and a weekend bike ride, has completely gone to pot.
OK, so I was slightly achy after the ride, and did leave a week to recover, and at the beginning of this week I had a very minor muscle pull, but there's not much excuse really. Can't say I'll be able to ride this weekend either; I have a massive server migration to carry out, which'll probably start tonight and continue over Saturday, hopefully not in to Sunday! So if I do a bike ride, it'll be on Sunday.
Well I actually ended up taking many fewer pictures that I thought I had on the London to Brighton bike ride; a grand total of 6 in fact!
We ended up setting off on the bike ride from Clapham Common in London at about 10:30. The good thing about this was that the streets were pretty empty for quite a way.
Not long after the start of the ride, the slight "cracking" sound that I noticed a few bike rides ago, started getting a lot worse; although still intermittent, when they did happen they were a lot louder.
The first major hiccup we faced was a (presumably) huge crash which happened in the vicinity of the tunnel under the M25. This was at the bottom of a huge hill, and all the way down, the stewards were asking people to slow down.
We didn't get any information about the nature of the accident, but the resulting crowd of (I'd estimate) about 3,000 riders who'd had to stop suggested it was probably quite serious.. I hope it wasn't.
It took about half an hour to get going again; they'd been letting people go in groups of around 100-200.
Despite the potential bunching up that this could have caused, and combined with the fact that the spot where it happened was at the bottom of a hill, there wasn't the same claustrophobic feel to ascending the hill as last year; it was still possible to ride most of the way up, which was cool.
After a while, the crunching in the bottom bracket region started getting embarrasing; here I was riding a fairly flash bike, that was emitting the sort of sound that you'd expect from something that had been rescued from a tip!
It was at the fifth or sixth official stop that we pulled in to see if the Halfords team there had a replacement bottom bracket that would fit. As it happened, they did have one - it was an FSA platinum, which they said was worth about £50.. they sold it to me for £15, which was a result. I also paid no labour, which turned out to be a bargain (read on)!
As it turns out, after removing my chainset, that particular branch didn't have the tools required to remove the bottom bracket, but called ahead to the next tent and confirmed that they did have the right tools.
Five fairly uneventful miles down the road, and we get to the next stop, only for the Halfords guys to tell me that they didn't have the tools either, after half an hour of fiddling. The only way they could get the chainset off risked damage to the chainset and the bike.. erm, no thanks.
After a burger at the BBQ (yum!), we continued on down the road until the next Halfords.. we were still only half way through the ride by this point, and now my chainset was wobbling back and forth unbelievably. Fortunately, this tent had all the right tools they needed and managed to fully extract the BB.. it had seemingly spontaneously combusted, with the main body snapped in to three pieces in stead of one!
Once they'd fitted the new BB, everything was a lot smoother, and we covered a lot of ground much quicker than we previously had. All in all, I'd spent 1.5 hours in Halfords tents, but I have to say, without them I'd have gone mad by the time I got home as the cracking would have become unbearable! So humble pie time, I retract my statement further down the page about not classing Halfords as a proper bike shop - they really did save my bacon on this occasion ; )
Thanks must also go to my mate Mark who really sorted out my rear wheel, including the addition of a new spoke, at 4:30 on the day before the ride - cheers dude!
Nothing really to note about the ride apart from that; I rode up all the hills including Turners Hill and Ditchling Beacon, and we were back in Brighton by about 6:30. We did cheat slightly by turning down Carden Avenue and home via London Road, and not going down to the seafront; by this time we'd spent a little too much time in the saddle.
Completed the London to Brighton yesterday; had a few minor hiccups along the way. These included an "exploded" bottom bracket, which took three stops at Halfords tents and 1.5 hours to get sorted.. The body of the BB was sheared in to three pieces, and inside was a slushy mixture of orange goo and some small fragments of what started life as bearings! Picture to come; not brought my camera to work today.
Only got a few photos, full report to come soon though.
Finally for this post, I'd like to wish the people who had the misfortune of having an accident all the best; I'm not sure if there were any really bad ones, but one St. Johns guy said his pitstop alone had had 65 incidents!
So, 6 days to go till the London to Brighton ride, and after a weekend of not riding, I remember that my Kona Dawg:
- Has been making strange creaking noises from the bottom bracket area (think the bottom bracket's finally on the way out; not bad innings compared to previous models)
- Has a snapped spoke on the rear wheel, which happened on the Eastbourne ride;
- Would probably benefit from a service;
OK, so I left it a bit late, but no local bike shop is able to carry out a service this week; I'm a bit stuffed.
I have a few options -
- Try fitting a new spoke myself, not a disastrous idea, as it's only one;
- fit the disk from my Dawg on to the wheel from my Fire Mountain, swap tires over etc, and use the Fire Mountain wheel;
- Bribe a bike shop worker to fix it for double the usual cost of the job just to make sure it gets done (any offers?)
That's all I can think of - any other suggestions gratefully received.
I know the basics of truing wheels and do have a spoke key so think I might try poaching a spoke from my Fire Mountain and fitting that - the wheels will need to have the same dish / hub size to do this though, as the spoke'll be the wrong length if these things are different..
Anyway, I'm sure I'll get it sorted.. of course, I could try a Halfords branch, which of course, I wasn't including in the above classification of "bike shop", but desperate needs and all that.. ; )
Cheated slightly, finishing off the Eastbourne to Brighton bike ride route in the Routes section, as opposed to getting the relevant Gallery section live.
I have done most of the required image manipulation though, so the Gallery shouldn't be too long.
As this ride goes from Lewes to Brighton, I have stopped the route guide short and pointed in the direction of the latter part of the Brighton to Lewes and back ride, in order to avoid duplicating content. Enjoy - I certainly did!
Finally got to do the Eastbourne to Brighton ride, which is officially a mammoth 45 miles, including the ride to Brighton Station in the morning and back to my house from Brighton on the way back.
Absolutely brilliant fun, with really varied riding across the length of the ride, this also acted as a warm up / training ride for the London to Brighton bike ride, which is on the 18th June, one week and six days after I write this.
Been to the gym in my lunch break today, so no time to write up the ride properly, but it should be up by the end of tomorrow.
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