10. August, 2014 London-Prudential-100 (shortened to 86mi)

What a feast, getting up at 3.00 in the morning (raining), meeting fellow Dynamo Rusty in Richmond at 5.00 (all wet, drizzly), charging out towards the Olympic park, keeping ahead of our scheduled 30km/h (starting to rain properly again half way), arriving with an hour to go to the start at the venue. Wet, wet, wet. Getting everything sorted, bag dropped, craving for a hot cuppa, forgotten the thermos at home...starting to feel cold. Then the news "Route has been shortened" - leaving out all dangerous descents and therefore all challenging climbs, too. Our start time 6:05, blue wave, whatever, off we go.
Racing speed from the start, hey this is not a race, but it is. We are London Dynamo Team 1, taking it out against another 800 (?) or so other clubteams. Our team consisted of Jamie Francis (our youngest),  Russel Short (as his name suggests, our shortest), Simon Barnes (our tallest) and myself (our oldest). I have made myself believe that we did a lot of hard work to stretch the group and didn't have too many supporters from other teams, but a lot of wheelsuckers. Ok, not going to be moaning here, but we (or I) wanted to catch the first wave, but didn't. So we ended in positions of 70th and further down. We lost Rusty on the way, but the rest of us four crossed the line together, which was a hard finish after 140k in the rain. Funny eh, how this still could have been enjoyable. Must sound totally manic for non-cyclists, but there you go, experiencing challenges is not everyone's cup of tea either.
3:27:33 was the time and this apparently was the 70th fastest time of 19,000 participants.
With the return journey from home 187km on the day, Almost 4,200 kcal burned, weighted average power 228W, Strava suffer score 217
Apparently at least I got two KOMs, but as usual won't get any free T-Shirt for it.

http://www.strava.com/activities/178174947

 Flyer with finish photo

Early hours, Sawyers hill in Richmond park
made me tempted to just get home back to bed
which was just around the corner.

After the finale, wet but content:
from left, Simon Barnes, Riko Sibbe, Jamie Francis
Thanks for the Ride.

Python Summer Roadrace, Holyport/Maidenhead, National B, E/1/2, 137km, 3h:10mins

 Very fast first half, breakaway of nine couldn't be brought back, other breaks were less successful, including my own attempt together with two others.  I punctured at the bell for the last lap, got a neutral rear wheel and back on to the peloton with 3km to go. Burned my last match in the chase. Bad luck being wedged just behind and between wheels of two riders who gave up sprinting at the 200m mark and i had to pull the brakes to almost standstill. Only consolation: Wouter Sybrandy finished behind me (sorry don't mean to be mean :-)