www.dadswell.co.uk Mostly cycling records, mostly on three wheels
A List of
Sorry Excuses
Sept 2002
Maybe that's a bit harsh, but what do you expect when we were
comfortably ahead of schedule, but somehow failed to break the
Birmingham to London tandem-trike record?
Yes, when we were past Milton Keynes (about halfway), we were 9 minutes
up on schedule. Even after getting through the really heavy
traffic in congested Dunstable, we were still 7 minutes up. Even
with the time lost in the chaos of St Albans, we were still 5 minutes up
at South Mimms.
But
the run in to the London finish was dire. To cut through to the
bottom line, we ended up crossing the line an hilarious 10 seconds too
late. The Pitt and Stonebanks record lives on. I still can't
believe it, but it's true.
What's written above is only the tip of the iceberg for the list of
excuses, but I'll spare you - mainly because I should be in bed, and all
that.
Ralph
####
This is the
proper report
Gnashing of Teeth in Stationary Traffic
What follows reads almost like a comedy of errors. Personally, I
see the whole thing as yet another character-building experience.
It describes a record attempt on the Birmingham to London route, made by
Mr David Johnson and my esteemed self, riding our favourite steed, the
tandem-tricycle.
We
were attempting to beat a ride done very late in 1990, and in
circumstances that I seem to remember were hardly ideal - I'm talking
about traffic, not weather. With our recent 'form', it seemed
likely that we would do a good job - probably take 10 minutes off ?
It
was unfortunate that we'd arrived in Birmingham with only about 15
minutes to spare, and so were in a bit of a flap when we got to the
start point with 3 minutes to go. The road layout in Birmingham
seems to change on an annual basis, and to get onto our chosen exit
route, we had to run with the tandem for the first 50 yards before
mounting and riding off. Quite a bizarre spectacle!
Conditions were reasonable for leaving Birmingham, although there were
one or two hold-ups. After 20 miles, we had absorbed any time
losses resulting from the City Centre start, and were reasonably
comfortable.
The
night before the ride, I'd realised that my published schedule wasn't
really very sensible, in that it expected us to barely slow up in the
London run-in. So I redrafted the time-checks in order that we
would have to arrive at the London fringes several minutes earlier to be
"on schedule". I also noticed that our route in the last half-mile
was probably not the best one - but it was too late to change anything
then !
At
Weedon (42 miles, where we joined the A5), we were 5 minutes up on my
revised schedule. When we actually got across the junction, we
were only four minutes up, owing to a stream of traffic blocking our
path. Shortly after this, we had a bottle change, with the
expectation of another bottle to be taken on about an hour later.
At
Towcester, we had covered 50 miles in 1h 56m, but were delayed again -
both before and within the town. The next target was Milton
Keynes. By the time we left the bypass, we had reached an
advantage of 9 minutes, which seemed pretty good going.
One
of the reasons for our late arrival at the start had been my decision to
drive along the course to get to Birmingham. One of the things
that we discovered on the way was that Dunstable was affected by major
roadworks, with long queues. During the attempt therefore, I
was quite surprised when we weren't offered drinks prior to going into
the slow zone.
As
we rode past queues of traffic, we realised that we weren't going to see
the car until the finish, and that whatever drink we had on board was
going to have to last us. Luckily the sun wasn't beating down, but
we would still have preferred to have had more refreshment. Our
advantage had, unsurprisingly, slipped to 7 minutes at Dunstable (78
miles).
By
the time we reached the St Albans check, we were still 7 minutes up, but
the city was solid. Despite employing some desperate tactics, we
were down to 6 minutes advantage at the check near London Colney.
By South Mimms, we were reduced to a mere 5 minutes up.
Suddenly, it was looking tight. At that point, I believed that we
had 14.5 miles left, and 48 minutes to do it in. No problem, eh?
Barnet (100 miles) was slow, and overtaking was almost impossible
(please remember, we were on a tandem tricycle, which is the cycling
equivalent of an articulated lorry). We sped up for a while, and
only had to stop dead at three or four junctions before reaching the
North Circular Road.
There is then an intermittent cycle-path. It's great for a while,
and then you've either got a parked car, a bus, a narrow bit, or it just
stops without warning. At Highgate, we still had to average 20
mph, and it looked tight.
Even a wild run down Archway Road was tempered by a snarl-up at the end.
We then just kept pushing all along to Highbury corner, which was solid.
I'm not sure how we got through that particular car-park, but somehow we
ended up in Upper Street, Islington.
As
we approached the Angel junction, things became impossible again, and we
took ages to get across. Once into St Johns Street, we got moving
again, but there were still several more junctions which we had to have
respect for.
And
so we reached the final section, which involved a number of sweeping
bends as we went around Smithfield Market and through some
traffic-calming barriers.
I
didn't realise it at the time, but we were within sight of the finish
when the time expired. And so we clocked 4h 46m 10s, against a
record of 4h 46m. Drat, and double drat.
Our
journey home was not without incident, but you'll have to ask me about
it when you see me next!
Ralph Dadswell : Sept 2002
