By: Simon Brooke :: 27 July 2004
Over the course of this year I've been hearing about audaxes and thinking about trying one. Finally, one came up which was reasonably near home and a manageable distance: 114 kilometres. I took my twelve-year-old Raleigh Record Sprint, which is not really a very good bike in a lot of ways but is fast and comfortable for long distances. It was pretty much standard apart from a Brooks saddle and Shimano SPD-R pedals.
An Inauspicious Start
Start was at Coldingham Beach at 9.00am. I arrived at 8.30, unpacked my bike from the car, assembled it (carefully, I thought), walked over to the control table and signed my name on the sheet. Sitting on the grass by the control table was someone with a long black ponytail who was clearly Jon Senior, so I greeted him and we chatted a little and then I started organising my gear — again, carefully, as I thought. Finally nine o'clock rolled round, and Bruce Lees (the organiser) said his bit, and the whole bunch — about twenty five bikes, including one tandem — set off. Up the first hill was fine.
As soon as we started the descent the back of my bike started making seriously unhappy noises — noises that sounded like an imminently failing rear wheel bearing. I stopped, got off, and messed, and Jon stopped to offer support. I couldn't see anything (apart from a sticky rear brake caliper, which I knew about) wrong. After a bit of fiddling we set off again. By now the peloton was out of sight. I was pretty doubtful about my fitness to complete seventy-five miles, and really didn't want to be dropped — I wanted to stay with the bunch for the morale advantages that offers. So I sprinted for a mile or so, until I'd caught the rear of the peloton. And then I noticed Jon wasn't with me, so I eased up, and he still wasn't with me, so I circled back. I found Jon with a broken front deraileur — the bolt holding the band had pulled out (Shimano 105: cheese, or possibly, given its provenance, tofu). Jon screwed the bolt back in and we continued on a mile or so, by which time I had become aware that my computer wasn't working... because I'd put my front wheel in back to front, so the magnet wasn't on the same side as the pickup. And I hadn't got my mitts on.
Jon's front deraileur band failed a second time and I used the opportunity while he took it off to turn my front wheel round. From this point on my computer was working, athough I had to add five miles to the distance it showed to get our true distance. We set off again, by now a long way behind the main pack. Jon navigated, and I was glad to let him. We carried on at my best pace (which was clearly less than Jon's) for some miles until we caught up with another straggler. I told Jon to go on and not wait for me, and for some time I and the straggler (a serious looking cyclist with a good audax bike, but looking ten years older than me) carried on together for some miles. As we crossed the Tweed on an old suspension bridge she said to me to go on ahead, and I did so, arriving at the village of Horncliffe.
Before leaving home I'd printed out the route sheet (which had been emailed to me) several point sizes bigger than the official one so that I could read it without reading glasses, and I'd tucked it into my map slieve behind the map I'd printed out and marked as best I could. Here, though, the map was ambiguous, so I looked behind it for the crib sheet... and it wasn't there. I remembered I'd tucked the hotel booking in with it and I assume I'd pulled it out there and then left it. Panic! The straggler caught up with me, and, as we consulted her sheet, Jon (who had taken a wrong turning and got lost) caught up with us too. We went on, and I stayed with Jon, cycling through gently rolling countryside towards our first control point at Etal. At Etal we found that we were not, after all, last — three riders were still awaited. I was given a new route sheet, but found that, without reading glasses (which I'd purposely not brought) I couldn't really read it.
This was the point at which a sensible person would have given up. I couldn't read the directions, I had an undiagnosed but serious sounding mechanical problem with the bike (and suspected it was the drive side rear wheel bearing), and I was clearly not fit enough to stay with the main group. However, we'd done OK so far, and so I decided to carry on at least until the next control.
A Senior Moment
At this point I should stop and say what an excellent riding companion Jon Senior was. I had never met him before. He was a lot fitter than me and climbed much better — he could easily have left me on any of the climbs, and probably on the flat. He waited for me again and again when he could have gone on with other riders. And he took the full burden of navigation. Of course I physically could have completed the course without him. But I would not have. By myself, my morale would not have been good enough, particularly in the last twenty miles, when I suspect I was probably pretty whiney and not at all good company. Jon stuck with me, and I'm very grateful to him.
Straight On at Crossroads
The next few miles from Etal were very pleasant riding. The wind, which was clearly sturdy, was at first a crosswind and then increasingly a following wind, and the terrain, although rolling, tended downhill. Soon we crossed a ridge and could see causeway to Lindisfarne ahead of us. The minor road we were on descended fairly steeply towards it, and the wind was helping us down at a good 35 mph.
The next guidance on the cribsheet was 'SO at Xrds'.
Well, I knew my brakes were pretty much crap. They're old Weinmann single pivot calipers, and the return spring on the rear caliper has lost most of its spring. I had been planning to treat myself to a really good set of new brakes for the trip, but it hadn't happened. And anyway, there was probably some flat land at the bottom of the hill to slow down. And anyway, a crossroads, 50-50 chance we'll have right of way, and if we don't, these little country roads don't have much taffic on them...
Hang on, that's the A1!
I found that my brakes were a little better than I had thought they were, if you really try. Across the A1, across a level crossing over the East Coast Main Line, and out onto the sandy, open littoral. By this time it was clear that our tailwind is really sturdy. We tore down the road and out across the bottom of the sea at a steady, easy 27mph — on the dead flat. The surface on the causeway itself — which I'd been anxious about, since the tide sweeps across it twice a day - was excellent. Across onto the island, and the wind still with us we continued to tear along. Now we met the leaders of our audax heading back, and exchanged greetings. At the post office we had our brevet cards stamped again, and I asked Jon what he planned to do. We agreed we'd head back more or less straight away.
Blow Wind and Crack Your Cheeks
Well, we knew we had a wind to face. Out across the island towards the causeway I worked downwards through all the gears I'd got, one at a time, until I was in my lowest (which, at 42x21, is still 56" so not very low), and the speed was down to under 10 mph. On the causeway it was clean, laminar wind, very steady; but blowing at least force five. It was frankly a battle. Ahead was a yellow jacket, which we were gradually chasing down. Finally we caught up to a much older rider on an old but good tourer, exchanged a few words, and passed him. Back across the railway, back across the A1, and back up that long hill into the teeth of the wind.
It felt like too much. It felt like I couldn't do it. The old gentleman on the tourer passed us, and before long the newspaper that had been in his saddlebag came drifting back to us one sheet at a time, as if he was throwing out ballast. As the hill steepened Jon was creeping away from me. Finally I cracked. I could not do it. I got off and pushed up to the top. And at the top, Jon was again waiting, cheering me up and urging me on.
At each bend the wind seemed to move with us, making each turn of the pedals a struggle. Even the downhills were hard work. We reached the 50 mile point, and I was very much aware that my legs were now in uncharted territory — I hadn't ridden so far in one go for at least ten years. But mostly I felt OK. I wasn't feeling too tired, and, apart from one thing I'll come to in a minute, I wasn't really sore. I was, however, aware that I was slowing Jon down quite a lot, and that I should tell him to go on — and also aware that if he did I would probably give up.
Yo' Feet's too big
The real problem that was sapping my morale was a very painful left foot. I have short but wide feet. I had only one pair of cycling shoes which are extremely comfortable — my winter SIDIs. But the weather forecast was for sun and gentle winds, and I'd assumed they'd be too warm. So, in Edinburgh on Friday, I'd gone to look for a pair of summer shoes which would fit. The only pair I could find that were comfortable were a beautiful pair of don't-look-at-the-price SIDIs. But they didn't have an adaptor for ordinary SPDs, so I'd had to buy a pair of pedals as well (I bought SPD-Rs, mainly because they were cheaper than any of the other pedals which would do, and the bill was looking very scarey).
Obviously it isn't sensible to go for a long ride with new shoes and an unfamiliar cleat system, but...
At about fifty miles my left foot was really hurting — very painful indeed. Eventually at an information control I got off the bike, sat down and took my shoe off. For five minutes I wiggled my toes in bliss, and then faced the issue of putting it back on again. I loosened off the ratchets, slipped my foot in, and... comfort. I'd obviously just overtightened it before. We rattled down into Berwick and caught up with some other riders at the control there, and things started to look brighter. But then the route took us inland again, once more climbing steadily into the wind. As we came to the A1 the routing instructions were ambiguous. Jon and I got lost, and then just about caught the tail of the bunch at the crossing of the A1. From the A1 the route climbed on, and Jon was keeping with the group. I couldn't. Once more I was being dropped.
I must go down to the seas today
I struggled on up the hill, and at the top Jon was waiting again. I was getting slower and slower on the climbs, and recovering slower and slower at the tops of them, still fighting into the wind. Finally the route turned from northwest to northeast, and we started to descend again towards the coast, and once again the wind was with us. I didn't exactly feel tired, and I wasn't any longer uncomfortable, but my legs seemed to have lost their ability to clear lactic acid. Fortunately the climbs got fewer and shorter and the descents longer. Eventually we descended through Coldingham village, down to the beach, took our shoes off and wiggled our toes in the sand.
At the end we didn't do badly. We finished at 4, seven hours on the road. It was an hour longer than I'd hoped. We averaged 12.1 miles an hour while we were rolling, and 10.7 mph (17.2km/h) over all. That's not a good time for an audax, of course, but even the experienced audaxers had found the wind tough going. Control was, I believe, still waiting for another twelve riders (out of about 25 starters) when we loaded the bikes into the truck and left. So that counts as mid-table respectability.
I did enjoy most of it and I'm glad I did it. It was much tougher than I expected, and I'm not certain I'll do it again. Certainly not without a good riding companion, and probably not without knowing the route.
Lessons learned? Prepare. Jon and I were the only first-timers and the only people (so far as I know) to suffer mechanical problems. My mysterious noise appears to be something to do with a mis-adjusted front deraileur; in addition the cable clamp bolt on my rear deraileur was slipping through the day, but fortunately not so far that I couldn't select all gears and the joy of non-indexed deraileurs is they don't go out of indexing. My front inner tube also had a slow leak which necessitated three or four pumping stops, although I was able to do all but one of these at controls. Finally, doing an audax on a bike which is really not set up for climbing was a mistake. I should have fitted much wider range gears.
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