Faux-dax
Last wednesday, damerell and I went for a little jaunt around London, following the route of the 100 km London Sightseer Audax. We'd missed the official one, but both being men of leisure, I persuaded him that we weren't bound by such things as weekends or official dates, and since he had a set of directions from a previous trip, we decided that we could just pick a day and go for it.
Here are some photos of bikes.
I enjoyed the route - it's tortuously complicated in places, but it took me to a lot of places I'd never been before, especially in Docklands. I'd never really considered quite how much of a port town London was before last week - the amount of canals, moorings, docks, harbours etc., there are scattered around to the east of the city is amazing. Most of them are now fancy marinas or decorative walks. The route-planner ( Bill Carnaby of the Hounslow and District Wheelers, I believe) has done a good job of fitting in a lot of famous sights into the ride, even if there are one or two weird crossings-and-recrossings involved in places.
The distance was just right for a day, I think - we started at about 10:00 and finished around 18:00 - roughly in the middle of what the allowed time band would have been if we were actually doing it as an Audax (5-10 hours). I started to flag pretty seriously at around 80 km, particularly as there was a gusty wind from the south-west that sped us into London but slowed us down on the way out. But I made it! By far the longest distance I've travelled in a day by bike (previous best: 60 km).
Here are some photos of bikes.
I enjoyed the route - it's tortuously complicated in places, but it took me to a lot of places I'd never been before, especially in Docklands. I'd never really considered quite how much of a port town London was before last week - the amount of canals, moorings, docks, harbours etc., there are scattered around to the east of the city is amazing. Most of them are now fancy marinas or decorative walks. The route-planner ( Bill Carnaby of the Hounslow and District Wheelers, I believe) has done a good job of fitting in a lot of famous sights into the ride, even if there are one or two weird crossings-and-recrossings involved in places.
The distance was just right for a day, I think - we started at about 10:00 and finished around 18:00 - roughly in the middle of what the allowed time band would have been if we were actually doing it as an Audax (5-10 hours). I started to flag pretty seriously at around 80 km, particularly as there was a gusty wind from the south-west that sped us into London but slowed us down on the way out. But I made it! By far the longest distance I've travelled in a day by bike (previous best: 60 km).