Many of our members seem to enjoy multi-day endurance events and member Nigel Cairns is no exception. Every 4 years, the UK’s long distance cycling association, Audax UK, organises its flagship event, the London-Edinburgh-London bike ride (LEL) so Nige decided to dust down his bike and give it a go.......

The word Audax comes from the Latin for ‘bold’, and Audax riding can best be described as ‘fast touring’, involving completing a prescribed route,  via timed checkpoints or controls, within a specified time. The first such Audax event was held in 1897 in Italy; to swim, run, walk, or cycle a set distance in 14 hours (approximately the time between sunrise and sunset), the distance to be covered by cycling being 200 kilometres. Today, most Audax events are of 100 or 200km, although 300, 400 and 600km routes are also popular. The LEL is the longest at about 1420km, and has a time limit of 118 hours.

This has been my first year of Audax riding, the goal was always to complete the LEL in my first year, and apart from the week in-week out training (the round trip between home and North Tees of 36miles helps), long rides through the Yorkshire Dales at weekends, I completed a 400km and two 600km rides to prepare myself for the long days ahead.

The ride started on Saturday July 23rd at 8am; I had opted for the start near Doncaster rather than North London, that way I’d get the two toughest legs out of the way first – the journeys to and from Dalkeith in Edinburgh – and finish with the relatively flat ride back from London (hopefully with a tail wind). We left Thorne and rode round York into the Howardian Hills through Castle Howard to the first control at Hovingham. From there we headed north through Teesdale and Barnard Castle and started climbing the Pennines to the control point at the highest Youth Hostel in England on top of Yad Moss. There we stopped for the first of many cups of tea and something to eat – I don’t recall what it was, but given the rest of the ride it was probably pasta, rice pudding or beans on toast. The field of 150 riders (there were another 200 starting in London) had thinned by now, and we were bunched in groups of three or four, many of whom I had met through previous Audax rides.

We pressed on over the Pennines and into the Scottish borders via the control at Canonbie; by now it was getting dark and we decided that we should try and make it to Edinburgh before we got any sleep, so that we could get up after a rest and start heading south immediately, so on went the lights and waterproofs as we headed north. By this time it was about 3degrees – not the sort of temperatures I had expected in July – and pitch black. In the moonlight we could see the outline of the border hills but not see the road itself, we could see shadows of ourselves at times but barely see the road at others; we certainly couldn't see the road climb the hill sides, and had no idea of the forthcoming gradient or the length of the climbs. We felt our way up the hills, and got very, very cold on the descents. As we approached Dalkeith, we started to pass returnees who had decided they were going to ride as far as they could on the first day before stopping for rest, and we finally rolled into Dalkeith control at 05:15 Sunday morning; 410 km, and about 21 hours after leaving Thorne.

Rest at Dalkeith was a camp-bed on the floor of the rugby club, surrounded by snoring cyclists – we managed to get about 5 hours’ rest before starting the southbound journey one hour earlier than planned at 11:00 am Sunday. By now, other riders who had slept elsewhere on route had caught us up and were starting to leave Dalkeith, so we were keen not to hang around too much. Starting off was hard work after the long ride the day before; we were into the hills straight away and it was raining - we saw many riders still heading north though, which made us feel much better. The scenery was superb, we could see the hills now in the daylight, the views and the long fast descents were great reward for our efforts. Heading south the weather improved and we continued back into England and started climbing the Pennines again up towards Langdon Beck on Yad Moss. We’d decided that this was going to be a short day (only 200km) after the 400km on the Saturday to give us time to recuperate, so we would climb to the top of Yad Moss and stay the night there before heading downhill on the Monday. We also thought that the YH there would give us a good chance of getting some sleep, whereas the next two controls would both be camp-beds-on-village-hall-floor arrangements. As we climbed Yad Moss we spotted another rider ahead of us near the top, "Do you think we can catch him ?" asked Martin, my riding partner. We were moving faster than our target, gaining all the time, so we decided to change up a couple of gears and in a show of strength overhauled him before the summit. We rolled into Langdon Beck YH just as the night was starting to descend, 205 km from Dalkeith. It was during this leg that we had started to pass riders who were coming the other way, heading north from London. The first ones, those who would end up finishing a day or so earlier than myself, we crossed as we left Dalkeith, usually head-down with not even breath to spare a ‘hello’. As we got further south so the number increased, as did their friendliness, until we passed a bunch of Japanese riders just before our overnight stop at Yad Moss, and bar a couple of stragglers, these would be the last of the London starters that we would see until we turned at London for our last leg north and met them riding their last leg south and to the finish.

We were woken at 05:00 Monday as requested and found three or four riders asleep on the floor, so I must have slept well if I failed to hear them come in during the night. After porridge and scrambled eggs, we were off down the hill; it was cold and wet, but in the distance it looked bright and clear towards Teesside and York. As we rode back towards Thorne, retracing our steps of Saturday (had we really travelled that far on the first day?) the weather brightened up and we had a relatively easy section to Hovingham which again was quiet, then a choppy cross wind to Thorne. As we arrived back at our start for the first time we decided that we had time and energy to push on and make our overnight stop in Lincoln – again our decision was influenced by the fact that Lincoln was a YH stop, whereas at Thorne we’d be sleeping on the floor. We rested at Thorne briefly, to change clothes we’d left there, and top-up our supplies of chocolate, energy bars and glucose drinks, then headed off in what by now was a roaring tailwind. Could we make it by 22:00, three hours for 75km? Thanks to the flat roads of North Lincolnshire and the tailwind we did pretty well, arriving at Lincoln YH at 22:15 after negotiating the city centre, another 283km completed. By now we’d done 900km, just over 500km to go with just over two days left to do it in.

We decided to split the 2 days so that we’d do the longer day first, leaving us just over 200km to go on the last day. That meant riding from Lincoln south through Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire to London, then turning back and staying at Gamlingay overnight on the return leg. The alternative was to stay in London overnight and leave 300km for the last day back to Thorne, but when we eventually got to London we realised that this would be a bad psychological move as we’d be staying with those riders who had started from London and would be finishing the ride that night – 300km ahead of us. I’d not cycled through the sleepy villages south of Lincoln before, and the rolling hills of Herts were a welcome change from the flat barren lands of east Yorkshire and north Lincs. With two days to go I was feeling in pretty good shape; unlike some other riders I was having no problems with my back, neck, shoulders, feet or hands, the only problem being the saddle-soreness that was starting to set it, and I knew that would be with me for a few days yet.

Setting off on the final morning for the 232km to Thorne via Lincoln I knew that compared to the other days’ rides this would be the least challenging physically, but probably the most psychologically, especially the last 30 miles or so which I knew to be flat and fairly dull. We took a short stop at Lincoln for a last re-heated carbohydrate-based meal, a quick stop at a local bike shop for some chain oil (the squeaking by now was getting annoying) before a tail wind on the last section blew us home to the finish at Thorne Rugby Club at about 19:30 on the Wednesday, about nine hours within the time limit, where a few of the earlier finishers cheered us in, and we got our Brevet Card stamped at the final control point.

So in my first season of Audax riding I had completed the UK’s toughest endurance ride, alongside seasoned campaigners who were into their fourth or fifth. I was relieved to have finished, rather than elated, and even though I’d tried to get 6 hours’ sleep per night (a number had got by on 2 or 3), all I wanted to do now was rest, especially as I had a two hour drive back home that night, so I found a quiet corner and curled up in my sleeping bag.

Nigel Cairns

(c)2005 Nigel Cairns