Ride London 100 - what a great day! And over £1600 raised for Prostate Cancer UK

So the day finally arrived, the Ride London 100 cycle ride, the event that had got me back on a bike and fit again and the culmination of 11 months of hard work.

My preparation had gone well as had the fund-raising, as a last minute push I said I would shave my legs (A strange tradition amongst cyclists apparently) if I reached my target of £1500. I thought I was safe until some last minute donations started to roll in. I was a little alarmed by "friends" who wanted the legs waxed rather than shaved on the grounds that it was more painful. (The total now as I write is £1615 or £1928.75 including gift aid)

Shaving the legs was a lot more difficult and took a lot longer than I thought it would, glad I don't have to do it often! Having said that it did feel quite nice......


A last minute kit check and I was good to get started on the drive to the IBIS in Stratford, a stones throw from the Ride London start. After checking in and depositing the bike in the room I Parked in the Westfield shopping centre (a bargain £5 for 24 hours). My mate Rob joined me later, Rob had an earlier start than me so alarms were set for 4am! Did we sleep? Not really sure, we were certainly both awake at 4am when the alarm went off. A breakfast of mainly of carbs and caffeine and then get the kit on after a careful application of chamois cream to the "undercarriage".

It was only a short ride to the start, no worries about knowing where to go, just follow the lines of cyclists also on their way to the start. I deposited my bag at the luggage check-in to be transported to the finish at the Mall. The whole start area was full of people preaparing for the ride. You could almost touch the excitement. The first waves of cyclists were sent on their way, started by good old Boris. There were 19 waves from each of the black and blue starts with about 500 riders in each wave, I was in wave "L". Loading started 30 minutes before my ride time of 7:06, I looked down at my heart rate monitor, it was 110 and I was just standing still! That's adrenaline for you!

Moving out onto the road, then a countdown and we are off! The first 2 miles were a neutralised zone before the official start line this is to sort the riders out and make the start safer. My initial thoughts were jeez this is fast! I decided just to hold back a little not wanting to get too carried away 100 miles is a long way. Riding through red lights on traffic free roads with big wide roads was fantastic, no other way to describe it. Through the Limehouse Link tunnel it was still fast and furious and then a mechanical problem, I hit a pothole and my saddle tilted forward as I landed on it. Nothing else for it but to stop and sort it out, it only took a couple of minutes but it meant that I lost the group I was riding with.




 Along the embankment, up Northumberland Street and Trafagar Square, Pall Mall, Piccadilly and onto the A4 past Harrods and over the Hammersmith Flyover normally teeming with traffic but today only cyclists. A left towards Chiswick Bridge and then into Richmond Park. Progress through the park was slow as the road narrowed and it got a bit congested aspecially at the first slight climb of the day at Sawyers Hill, not really a hill just an incline.

On to Kingston and Hampton Court the scene of the London 2012 Cycling Time Trial where I watched Bradley Wiggins ride to Olympic Gold following on from his Tour De France victory and hoping that I could get some inspiration.Onward through the outskirts of London and into Surrey. This was the hardest part of the course with several testing climbs, the first was Newlands Corner which I breezed up passing many other riders on the way. I planned to stop at the food hub just after the Hill to refill my bottles with energy drinks and to grab some food.

A long descent followed on the way to the foot of Leith Hill which was always going to be the toughest hill, it was slow going due to the congestion caused mainly by people getting off to walk up. The rewards were a very long but tricky and fast descent to the A25 and then into Dorking where there were big crowds to cheer on the riders. On the other side of Dorking was Box Hill, the last of the big climbs made famous by the London 2012 Olympic roadrace where the riders went up it 9 times! Fortunately we were only doing it once. I made good progress up Box Hill and was delighted that my friends Paul and Sarah spotted me and gave me a big cheer. It certainly gave me a boost I even managed a wave to one of the official Photographers!

There is a long descent from the top of Box Hill down to Leatherhead, normally you have to take a lot of care because of cars, not today though, using both sides of the road and knowing that you wern't suddenly going to meet an oncoming vehicle improved the speed no end. Coming back through Kingston I got a huge cheer from the Prostate Cancer UK team, I missed them on the way out but they were in fine voice on the way back. It was now almost flat going back into London, apart from Wimbledon Hill which I think took a lot of people by surprise. I once got overtaken by the good Lord Seb Coe going up Wimbledon Hill in the Southern Road Relays back in my competetive running days. I remember it, I bet he doesn't.

My brother was supposed to have been on Wimbledon Hill to cheer me on, I'd given him an ETA but I was way ahead of that and it turned out that he arrived there after I had ridden through!  

From the top of Wimbledon Hill it was dead flat and with a tail wind I averaged over 23mph for the last 9 miles and that was without sitting in a group. Coming back into London was great, over Putney Bridge along the Chelsea Embankment, Millbank and then all of a sudden I was riding up Whitehall. I had a sneaky glance towards Horseguards, there were HUGE crowds cheering us all on, up to Trafalgar Square once again, a sharp left though Admiralty Arch and onto a final sprint up the Mall, huge crowds again all banging the hordings as you rode past and then......it was all over.....11 months of training for this moment.

Medal round my neck, goody bag in hand I collected my belongings from the lorry and made my way to the Prostate Cancer UK meeting point where I sat for an hour or so just relaxing.

My official finishing time was 5hrs 18mins 17secs this included the mechanical stop, and 2 stops for food and drink. My moving time was 5hrs 4mins 07secs according to my Garmin GPS.  This was way inside my target time of 5 hrs 45mins so I was initially delighted but then I got thinking could I have dipped under 5 hours? This is now the incentive that will drive me on as I stay healthy and age doesn't catch up with me.

It was a hugely emotional day for me, the build up, the ride and of course my reasons for doing it in memory of my dad who I lost over 4 years ago. I hope he would have been proud of me in fact I'm welling up now just thinking about it.

And finally I'd like to thank all the people who gave up some of their hard earned cash to sponsor me in aid of Prostate Cancer UK and to all the people who have supported me and sent messages of encouragement it really did help. A thank you as well to all my riding buddies over the last few months. And last of all to Prostate Cancer UK for giving me the opportunity to ride in this great event and be part of history because I'm sure this will become an event equal in status to the London Marathon but on wheels.

Thats all, I hope those who have read my blog have enjoyed it and been mildly enertained by it.

Alan

To sponsor me  please visit my fund raising page.