The Event
Every year around 27,000 riders take part in the London to Brighton Bike Ride. This huge
fundraising cycle event covers a distance of 54 miles (about 87 km). The ride
departs from Clapham Common in South London and finishes on Brighton's seafront.
It's a fun event for all and can be covered at your own pace with regular stops
on the way for you to rest and re-fuel. The event usually takes place in the
third week of June (on Father’s Day) and you can register through the
British Heart Foundation website.
This year’s event was held on Sunday 21st June 2009.
My Event
This was to be my 5th, and quite possibly final, London to Brighton bike ride. Later this year I will be moving to Finland permanently and it is likely that this could be the last time that I take part in this great event.
Andy joined me for this and we drove to Clapham Common as usual and managed to get there fairly early. This year, we may just get a clear run all the way! It would be nice to set a decent time on my final attempt as all other years I had taken part, I had to get off and push at some point because of bottlenecks on the route. We were certainly capable of finishing much quicker than our usual finishing time of around 4 hours.
It was another warm year (in fact, every year I had taken part in this, I had been very lucky with the weather) and Andy and I sped off from the start. We both had a similar fitness with regards to cycling at this time, which was good, as neither one of us would hold the other one up.
The first part of the route where we expected a bottleneck did slow us down a little, but didn't delay us as it had done in previous years. We were progressing well through the route and it looked as though we would easily break the 4 hour time.
Ditcling Beacon was soon upon us and Andy and I agreed that we would have a little mini race to the top! We had never considered racing before - previously our tactics were just to get to the top without getting off! But, having done this hill many times of the past few years, we were both confident that we could push ourselves a little harder. It was a very close race, but unfortunately Andy just beat me to the top, with a final push in the last 50 metres or so!
After this, of course, it is all down hill. There is one very big hill on the way into Brighton where you can pick up some great speeds, if you are brave enough to do so! I had nearly clocked 50 mph (80 kph) on previous years and this year my top speed was 47 mph (75.7 kph)!
Shortly after this, we both passed the finishing line at the seafront in a record time for us - 3 hours and 35 minutes!