CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
Well done to ALL posters
It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
Darkerside's phone, in what surely must be a metaphor, was taking up too much juice from the USB charger/dynohub, so he did without it.
Mentioned at Gracemount that he was chancing his arm by charging both GPS and phone, and at some point yesterday or maybe Wednesday tweeted that he was turning it off.
Congratulations to the daft wee beggar. Hot bath, fine wine.
Well done Darkerside. You looked in fine spirits on the way to Traquair. What an achievement!
Dunno if I'll ever manage that ride. Maybe when I'm sporting a ZZ Top style beard like one of the riders I saw in Glentress...
Well done buddy! Great work!
How did you find it (when you wake up and get here)
I am seeing reports of quite a few people out of time still heading back.
Is the next one 2017? (wondering if four years is long enough to get fit...)
Congratulations to you Darkerside, great effort.
And Alex, how are the hands, opened a tin of beer yet?
4 years is plenty time Anth! I'm seriously thinking about PBP in 2 years now....
@kaputnik - I can feel my little finger on the left hand now! rest of fingers still electric shock tingly numb. Sad times.
More bar tape, and get the gel inserts for underneath, can reccomend!
Darkerside will report soon on riding a bike with no bar tape or saddle. He tweeted from train to Glasgow that he's alive and well.
In other news..
The last of the LEL cake has now been eaten wih help of Lachlan, Hannah and Andrew at Bike Works. Sorry.
Hi all!
Sorry it's taken a wee while to get on here properly. Spent an extra two days in London and although I attempted to write a decent length reply by phone, after it crashed twice I decided to just wait until I got to a PC!
Firstly, I'll echo ARobComp in saying that the support received both on here, on other electronic things and in person was humbling and hugely helpful. A massive thanks to everyone who cheered us along in some way or other.
I won't go into details about the ride as I'm writing up a proper ride report which will hopefully be easy to read than a massive post on here. I finished with 2.5 hours in hand, which was pretty close to the original plan. The last day across the Fens was probably the hardest - around 33 degrees and with a stonking headwind.
Personal damage is pretty limited. Both my Achilles felt like they were indexed yesterday, but that seems to have cleared up overnight. Knees are tired, but in a well-used sense rather than 'erk, something about to go spang'. Lips very chapped, but copious amounts of blistex is sorting that out.
And that's it! Recumbent is definitely the way to go for long events, particularly if you haven't managed to get in the miles beforehand. As Uberuce mentioned, my preparation for LEL was laughably small - never attempted an audax before, furthest daily distance about 150km, bike only one week old.
If you're content to go slowly, I'm convinced the primary concern is not physical prowess but the mental strength to keep turning over the pedals. Happily if I'm on a bike I'm generally pretty cheerful, so that made things easier.
Anyway, thanks again, full ride report to follow!
I'll finish by saying that, although I didn't ride LEL for charity, it would be a shame not to harvest the goodwill that physical endeavour seems to generate. I've got a JustGiving page running for Yorkhill Children's Charity, and the page below includes a link to that and the reasons why Yorkhill is important to me. If anyone was planning on donating a cake or pint to my recovery, please consider throwing a few quid their way instead. Thanks.
http://www.darkerside.org/2013/08/yorkhill-childrens-charity/
Ride report up...
Another tale -
This is cool.
ARobComp:
http://gicentre.org/lel2013/?id=a30&all=true&anim=true
Darkerside:
http://gicentre.org/lel2013/?id=L22&all=true&anim=true
Coming soon to a screen near you: LEL - The Movie.
http://www.madegood.org/films/portfolio/london-edinburgh-london-official-film-trailer/
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In the summer of 2013 MadeGood.films followed six cyclists on a remarkable feat of endurance, that took them from the heart of London all the way along the length of Britain to Edinburgh, and back again in under five days.
This is your chance to become part of an amazing film, and for a limited time only we are pre-selling copies of the movie to pay for the following;
An original score to be written for the film.
A professional sound mix.
A professional colour grade to our footage.
With your support we can get them working on the film with the aim of having it finished by summer 2015, when we will enter it in to film festivals and find a distributor.
For a very limited time we are offering a chance to become part of London Edinburgh London. We have the backing of both London Edinburgh London and Audax UK, who have kindly said that anyone donating £20 or more can have a GUARANTEED ENTRY onto LEL 2017.
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Seems the guaranteed entry slots have gone already.
don't forget if you want to see riders going "all the way along the length of Britain" you'll also need to watch tonight's Adventure show.
"all the way along the length of Britain"
I'm not disputing that it's a long way but that's not very accurate.
I suppose by the time the route returns to London it could be said to have ridden the length of Britain (c. 1400Km). But only in so much as the Welsh coastal path is the length of Britain.
Unfortunately it would seem I was too fast to have come across any of the camera crews. Think that's for the best.
I'm impressed and depressed by this event in equal measure. I'm in favour of both cycling and endurance sport. But I can't shake off an image of one of Francis Bacon's screaming popes on a two-wheeled throne.
Do participants learn about themselves? Is there pleasure to be had beyond the end of the suffering?
@arobcomp did you ever get the feeling back in your hands?
Yeah I got it back fully after about 6 months.
1 month to get back "I can tell what's in my pockets" feeling and 4 months till I got back I can tell the difference between rough and smooth.
weirdly I never lost the fine motor control (picking things up etc) I could hold a pint fine for example. Weird that. Possibly a different set of nerve controls...
@IWRATS - I learnt that I can push myself incredibly hard when I need to, that chaffing is horrible in certain places, and that the euphoria of riding long distance (and fast for me) is hard to match.
LEL 2017, for anyone interested -
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London Edinburgh London follows a group of cyclists from around the world on a remarkable feat of endurance. Join their ride up the length of Britain - from London to Edinburgh and back again - in under five days. Travelling over 1400km, a continuous distance far further than most of them had ever ridden before, our unlikely and eccentric heroes are not only tested physically but face the mental challenge, "can I push myself further, can I go one more day?".
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Maybe you'd like to show the trailer on your website? If you tell your followers to enter the code 'lelpresale' at checkout, they'll receive a 10% discount before the end of June.
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