BHF London to Brighton 2008

Harry B

Well done PostieJohn, thats a good time. We managed to keep it under 4 hours but had a few problems along the way (see other post)

Clever Pun

A lovely day.. I managed to start about 8 and getting out of london was a bit of an @rse but after that it was overtaking city

The hills were tricky in that every sod starting walking after 2 metres Managed to weedle my way up all of em, I thought Ditchling looked impressive but wasn't as tough as I expected.

The journey back was loads quicker. The A23 to pease pottage was rancid but really fast so was good to spin without worrying about others doing something stupid.


Saw a couple of accidents including going down a hill some old guy losing it at speed and going over the handle bars


Postie John were you wearing a post office jersey with a 9.30 start?

PostieJohn

Nope, although some fella from Herne Bay must have done an impressive time with a postie bike, as I watched him quite happily push it around the £1000's worth of carbon at the finish line.

overmars

Well that was fun!

9:30 start but I pushed off at 6:45am :twisted:. The roads were still packed.
There was a major accident and the ride was 'suspended' for a time. Turned the Garmin off after 2hr 33min (39 miles).
I flew up Ditchling Beacon! Well.. for the most part (traffic). You get the feeling when you ask people to walk on the left that they get a little peeved.
Anyway, enjoyed it immensely. That was my first 50+ eight months and it felt great! :D

However, it's the second year now that I've taken the coach back to London and I hated it.
Should have cycled back.

overmars

Clever Pun wrote:

The hills were tricky in that every sod starting walking after 2 metres Managed to weedle my way up all of em, I thought Ditchling looked impressive but wasn't as tough as I expected.

The journey back was loads quicker. The A23 to pease pottage was rancid but really fast so was good to spin without worrying about others doing something stupid.

Let's be honest... some of the hills weren't 'hills' at all! Ah what the heck! It was fun! Ditchling wasn't hard at all. It was a delight to ride up.:D

I should have cycled down the A23. I had enough in the legs to do it too.

Richard_D

You guys are making me feel slow. Did it with the other half and our 14 year old son. Set ourselves a target of finishing within 6 hours in which we succeeded but only just. I think we would have done it much faster apart from us getting seperated going over turners.
I saw what you mean about the coach back to London at least with the works organised event the lorry stackers were also cyclists so treated the biker with a bit more care.
If I do it again I need to improve my hill climbing before hand. I walked up most of Ditchling and a bit of Turners. With some of the bumps you end up running out of space if you are not confident and end up walking up hills you could cycle up if you were on your own. Now back to work and rounding up the sponsorship money

howiejmidlands

Does anyone have a link to the offical photographers website?

NWLondoner

Well done to ALL of you who did it.

I will ding it next year if i can arrange a lift home

chriscw

first time ive ridden it. managed four hours ride time. six hours overall as there was 28 of us from work so we had to stop twice for everone to catch up. ( Pitstone Peddlers with the blue tinsell wigs)

hills were not to bad, almost made it up ditchling, had 600 metres left when someone stopped in front of me and i couldnt go round cos some plonker was walking on the right. couldnt get myself going after that so was reduced to walking.

brill fun will do it again.

Richard_D

Howie.
If you are still looking for the photo web site it is
www.actionphoto.net.
and they do not have any identified photos yet

howiejmidlands

Thanks Richard

I cant log onto it for some reason.

Will try again in a day or so.

I am right in thinking that if they took your photo and you had the orange sticker on your helmet, you can buy the photo??

Harry B

howiejmidlands wrote:

Thanks Richard

I cant log onto it for some reason.

Will try again in a day or so.

I am right in thinking that if they took your photo and you had the orange sticker on your helmet, you can buy the photo??

Yep, I saw a few photographers taking snaps. There seemed to be some "official" photographers and others who weren't official. Not sure who they were from. Probably Hello magazine :?

Clever Pun

overmars wrote:

Clever Pun wrote:

The hills were tricky in that every sod starting walking after 2 metres Managed to weedle my way up all of em, I thought Ditchling looked impressive but wasn't as tough as I expected.

The journey back was loads quicker. The A23 to pease pottage was rancid but really fast so was good to spin without worrying about others doing something stupid.

Let's be honest... some of the hills weren't 'hills' at all! Ah what the heck! It was fun! Ditchling wasn't hard at all. It was a delight to ride up.:D

I should have cycled down the A23. I had enough in the legs to do it too.

I did enjoy berating everyone in there cars and buses taking the easy way home

howiejmidlands

Tried again to get onto actionphoto site, and i get:
The website declined to show this webpage
HTTP 403
Most likely causes:
This website requires you to log in.

What you can try:
Go back to the previous page.

Clever Pun

I can get on the site no problems I assume the race number is my rider number

it's not finding anything yet

StuM

@ HOWIE

First link was wrong (had a full-stop after the net), try:

http://www.actionphoto.net/ap.aspx

I enjoyed this years ride in the end, but was close to calling it a day after realising it had taken 2 hours 15 mins to do the first 14 miles - I ran a half marathon in March faster than that. I've never seen so much congestion - had to wait at just about every light coming out of London, filtering down the traffic made it feel more like a commute and as for the people walking up the middle/right of hills....

Still, I expected that as I got a 9:30am start time.

That's my other gripe. I turned up in good time and was good to go at 9:30am, but they were letting people with 6:30am, 7:00am etc go to the front. I'm sorry, but if you don't turn up within 2+ hours of your time, you should get to the back... :evil:

Cheers,
Stu

howiejmidlands

Thanks for the link it worked, but they havent got my photo................bugger.

StuM

howiejmidlands wrote:

Thanks for the link it worked, but they havent got my photo................bugger.

I think it was Action Photo that did the Fleet half marathon this year and that took at least a couple of weeks for my photos to get up there... there were a lot less people to go through then too. Just think, even if they only took one photo person, that is 27000 photos to upload, then then have to go through and match the numbers up. Not the work of a moment...

GEPC

I did it for the first time. Had an 8.30 start and it was very slow going because of the sheer weight of people. We were also stopped for over half an hour because if a serious accient after the second rest stop (a rugby club). It didn't look good when we eventually went past the accident with the ambulance still on the scene.

I am still relatively new to cycling so this was the furthest I had riden. Didn't quite make it up Ditchling. To be honest my legs ran out of steam and also I had stopped quite soon before and eaten a large bit of flapjack and got the worst stitch I can remember having since I was a kid.

Enjoyed the day although the truck with our bikes got stuck in Streatham when police closed some roads due to a fire so we ended up wating on Clapham Common for over and hour waiting for the bikes to arrive. I only live iin Clapham North but couldn't go home and come back in case someone pinched my bike.

All in all a good day out. May well enter again next year and try and get an earlier start to avoid some of the congestion.

NWLondoner

I REALLY want to do it next year.

I would probably pre-book a hotel and either ride back or get the train on the Monday.

Has anyone else stayed overnight on get the train back on Monday? I have read you can still have problems getting the train on Monday.

Thanks

gematkinson

i just got into road cycling in january, but not really 'properly' (ie other than my commute) til around april, im a VERY novice female rider and this was the longest distance i have tackled. i did it in four and a hlaf hours which im really pleased at, especially as i rode the first 20 miles with work colleagues (some on knobbly mtbs!)
i also made it up ditchling, even though i thought my lungs would collapse at the top :-)
was a massive esteem boost and has given me the confidence and taste to go on a few longer rides now! im booked to cycle the gower in wales with some buddies now in july.
the day itself was superb, excellently organised, and il DEFINATELY be participating for hyears to come!

Clever Pun

NWLondoner wrote:

I REALLY want to do it next year.

I would probably pre-book a hotel and either ride back or get the train on the Monday.

Has anyone else stayed overnight on get the train back on Monday? I have read you can still have problems getting the train on Monday.

Thanks

2 real options

ride back the same day
get someone with a car to give you a lift back

gematkinson

i think you can get the train back mon with your bike but it has to be after 10am. might be worth booking the monday off work