OK, so it's well over a week since I did the ride and some of you have been waiting ever-so-patiently to hear all about it. Of course some of you have asked this week when it is, so clearly weren't paying attention in the first place... As it turned out I had the timing all wrong, so it was just as well I checked on Saturday evening before the ride and discovered that I was, in fact, starting at 8:30am and not 7:30am as I'd been telling anyone who would sit still enough to listen during the week before. I had become slightly cocky about it. 'Yeah, no problem at all. I'm sure I'll make the distance, it's just a question of how quick, and even then I'm starting to revise my estimate downwards', was the sort of thing you might have heard had you been unlucky enough to get stuck in a room with me during the week prior to the ride. My original target time was four and a half hours, with a hopeful eye on the four hour mark if I felt particularly good on the day. I turned up at Clapham Common for the start and couldn't believe the number of people that were there. I knew that there were 27,000 entrants, but I also knew that they were starting from 6am and that I was in one of the last three starting slots (8:30, 9 and 9:30am are the last three). The scene was almost unreal, and the number of people saying things like, 'what time did you manage last year?' and 'yeah, I asked for a 7am start and got stuck with this - started at 6am last year and it was just too early' was mildly alarming. I felt like I was the only first-timer. My 8:30 start time turned out to be an estimate anyway and I finally passed the start line just after 9am. Five minutes later frustration kicked in. The average speed was just a couple of miles per hour due, mostly, to the volume of riders, but also to the number of sets of traffic lights. Now call me a winger if you like, but if the roads are closed to allow a massive cycle ride through, why are the riders forced to stop at the red lights by three armed (I kid you not) police per set of lights?! After about an hour, which somehow equated to about 12 miles in, we stopped. By we I mean every single cyclist as far as the eye could see in front and behind. Every last one of them. Stationary. This lasted for something like half an hour and was caused by an 'incident'. No idea what the incident was, but I was by now beginning to doubt that four and a half hours was achievable, never mind the four hours that I'd started wondering about. After this little hiccough it was plain sailing for the next not-quite-40 miles or so. I did all sorts of fun things like keeping up with a couple of people who clearly cycle a lot more than me - slipstreaming is definitely the easiest way to cycle at 32mph. I also had a nearly-accident at just over 30mph - I passed a car coming in the opposite direction, pulled out to overtake a bike that I'd been closing in on at a scarey rate and bounced off the guy beside me. Just think about that for a moment - I'd just passed within inches of a car, so there wasn't anyone there and then when I moved sideways there was. How close must he have been behind me, and what was his speed like?! Anyhoo, he bounced off me and carried on up the road at what can only be described and an unachievable-by-me type of pace. Those of you counting the miles will note that at this point in the tale we are about 50 miles in, and therefore not far from Brighton. I was, surprisingly, feeling pretty good at this stage, although a little thirsty and wondering how much a bag of chips would cost me on the pier. It was time to tackle Ditchling Beacon. I'd looked this up a couple of times and the prospect of a mile long one-in-four hill after 50 miles of riding didn't fill me with warm happy thoughts. I paused in Ditchling village to top up with water, start my camera recording and stretch my muscles (they weren't quite stretched enough by this stage). Then there was no delaying any more and off I rode. At first I wondered what the fuss was about, and then I realised that I was not really in what you could call a high gear and wasn't going all that fast. I decided as it got steeper to drop down to a lower gear and broke the gear change. I was not happy. I lost all momentum, got off the bike a kicked it several times. I managed to get it into the lowest possible gear and set off again. The noise was terrible - it was kind of trying to change seven gears and kept jumping, so I couldn't ride it. I got off and kicked it again - harder this time. Got back on and thought it was better. Then the chain fell off. I spent a few minutes cursing the bike and then got the chain back on, got it in the lowest possible gear and started off. Two stops later, and after a lot of puffing I reached the top. I was a bit miffed that I hadn't managed to get up in one go, but I didn't walk any of it, so I figured that was better than nothing. Now, if you ever do this ride yourself don't listen to the commentary as you reach the 'top' of Ditchling Beacon. It's all lies. They keep telling you that you're at the top and it's all downhill to the sea front. Utter bollocks. There are two more hills. Not large ones, but hills all the same. At the top of the hill, believing I was at the top, I sorted the gears a little and managed to get the bike working for the top seven gears only. This seemed sensible for a downhill sprint into Brighton. The downhill was almost as terrifying as the climb was knackering. When the downhill finally got going I ran out of gears and simply freewheeled with my chin tucked down on the handlebars - I set a new record for my personal best top speed on two wheels at 41.something mph. Then I saw a tiny little problem - the first traffic light for 30+ miles. And it was red. The rest of the ride into Brighton was as uneventful as the first 10 miles out from Clapham. It was lovely to be greeted by such a large crowd of people as we rolled through the town and onto Madeira Drive to the finish line. At this point I seriously believed I could have turned round and gone back to Clapham, and probably would have done had I not had Claire and the girls waiting with Tim to drive me home... next year maybe. Speaking of which, who's up for it next year? One final word on the sponsorship. Many, many thanks to all those who donated. I think my final total is in the region of £800, but I'm still collecting the last of it. If you do want to add to the pot retrospectively then please do - send a cheque payable to British Heart Foundation to me (ask for the address) or go to http://www.justgiving.com/jamesadane/ which will be active until about September.

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