damerell

This Audax was the 50km ride in Liz Creese's Autumn Assortment; I'd gone for the 50 because I'd hoped to have a fresh new fixie to test run, but the parts only came on the Friday. However, since I'd left my normal tourer in Cambridge, this meant the only bike I had was the Brompton, so being on the 50 was no bad thing.

Ruislip's a little way from Hampton - I cut the journey up a little short (and eliminated some really huge roads) by riding up to Greenford and taking the Tube to Ruislip Gardens (I'll bet not many people have managed to take the Tube to the start of an Audax), but I'd still clocked about 11 miles up to the start, which meant the usual early start to assemble two piles of food and eat one.

There were only seven of us on the 50, including a worried-looking auk-girlfriend-on-first-Audax (whose worries were not justified, she had no real trouble keeping up), a small boy, and the chap running the first control (who I gather would have zoomed ahead if anyone else had felt like a big hero). One of the other riders was on a shiny new race bike with a kickstand fitted, which struck me as slightly subversive - unfortunately he also had two big chainrings and a tight back block, which meant he ended up walking a bit.

The ride was generally north-easterly out towards Chipperfield. It's not a desperately lumpy route but there are some steep sections - my B has standard 3-speed gearing, which means below about 8mph I was standing on the pedals and honking, but none of the hills were too long to just bull up, and I'm glad to say I never had to walk. The converse of that is that I've never been at 36mph on a Brompton before - with worries about heating the tiny tyres up, I was sitting bolt upright being an airbrake more than once.

First control was in a garden centre; stopped for tea and cakes which took about half an hour. Not really necessary, but we had plenty of time in the bag.

Second control was an info at the top of a hill near Chalfont St Giles. We stopped to wait for the walkers, a short rest, and a newton of figgs - irritatingly, it was at the end of the five-minute rest when I noticed that two-big-chainrings' front tyre didn't have the bead seated and was on the verge of herniating out and bursting. He and the controller set to to fix it - in the course of that they noticed a loose brake block - and by the end of all that, we'd bled half an hour. However, the controller said he'd explain to the organiser and we need not fret about the cutoff time.

After that we pressed on, getting a bit more strung out - about 2 miles from the finish, I figured I could just squeeze in before the 1405 cutoff, and I'd prefer not to chance it. Off I went - pant gasp - and just made it, only to find the cutoff was 1415 and everyone else would just make it anyway.

More tea and cakes and then home - feeling lazy, so Tube to North Acton, cycle to Acton Town, Tube to Hounslow West, cycle home.

My hands were quite sore by the end - I wouldn't care to do twice the distance on flat bars - and my knees were quite sore when I got home (again), but that passed very quickly.