The Easter Arrow 24hr 370km Audax 6th April 2012

The Easter Arrow 24hr 370km Audax 6th April 2012.

The Easter Arrow is a 24hr Audax event where teams of 3-5 riders plot their own route and submit their own control points with the minimum distance of 360km for qualifying for the Brevet. The event can start from anywhere, yet all teams must have York as the destination. We had opted for a 401km route starting in Willesden Junction, London. Our team: The London Grimpeurs, was compiled by Team Leader Tim Sollesse and consisted of a handpicked bunch of Londons most hardened randonneurs, rouleurs and grimpeurs. I should point out at this point that myself and Chris had never ridden a 24hr event before, nor ridden a 400km and had only recently completed our first 300kms on The Dean several weeks before... what could possibly go wrong... 

The London Grimpeurs. (l-r) Joel 'Yossarian' Bromley, Chris 'Gadget' Breed, Tim 'Ridehard' Sollesse, Justin 'Jonah' Jones and Pete 'Pete' Turnbull.

The day hours were spent rolling through country lanes, taking long breaks at controls and generally (for me at least) trying not to spend too much time thinking about what the night hours would have in store. We were all aware that the weather forecasts for the north of the country were pretty bad, with horror stories of snow and rain in Yorkshire.

In one town we discovered that a resident had carefully removed key letters from each of its road sign, to hilarious consequences.

 

Squandering time at one of the first controls.

 Contact outside the team was limited to being shouted at passing through villages: 'dickheads', one person managed to articulate from a passing car window, leaving little time for any response from us and the clientele of several pubs and service station on the way were briefly engaged in conversations with the frequent response of "you've cycled from London.. and are going to York... are you all mental". I had to admit, they probably had a point.

Fierce headwinds over the rolling plans of the midlands slowed progress, and time was slowly leaking from our schedule. Shifting into the night hours, and reverting the course off the country lanes and onto A roads brought the pace up and clawed back some time, still, it was apparent that the 400km may be a bit too much of a stretch and we then opted for the 360km option. Time at controls got shorter, water ran out and we pressed on into the wind and rain.

 It was pretty desolate in places.

 I spent a good few hours of the night examining the inside of my skull, and found myself fluctuating between euphoria and absolute despair. The isolation of the roads at night, especially in the face of frequent rain showers, and the knowledge that despite having ridden a good 200km, then 300km we still had a good way to go. It was apparent that without a group around me the difficulties at these points would have been almost insurmountable. Yet you still carry on, control after control, ignoring the fact that a mechanical issue in the middle of nowhere at night would send you on the immediate and slippery slope towards hypothermia. The most consistent advice I had be given on previous Audax's was that after 200km, increasing the distance becomes purely psychological, and this certainly became the case.

24hr garage, closed. Thanks Tescos.

Home comforts of a warm bed were replaced with the relative comfort of a warmer pair of gloves, and overshoes to keep your feet at a functional temperature. The dawn light was a welcome relief, as was the sight of the Humber Bridge, my only real point of reference to remind me that I was significantly further north than I had been 24hrs before.

Over distanced and rapidly running out of time we opted to move our 22hr, and 24hr controls forward and claim the 370km for our 420km ridden.

So that was that, the finish line turned out to be a garage in the middle of nowhere, and the only witness to our exploits was a rather confused looking driver who was presumably having trouble working out why we were looking so pleased with ourselves considering the increasing rain and haggard looks on our faces.

Having spent the dark points of the night promising myself that I wouldn't attempt such a feat again in a hurry, and convincing myself that night riding just wasn't for me, I'm now looking to the Summer Arrow on the 22nd June and am giving consideration to putting my own Hackney Based Team together...

Totals so far: 1080km 7.25AAA points.