Well with the Van all booked and our entire team organised you would expect things to operate with military precision on the day. It started well 5 out of 6 team members turned up on time. One over slept! (Bad man Richard!) The van got loaded up with all the bikes in the morning (this is the van that we couldn't unlock on friday so had to leave unlocked so that we could guaruntee getting into it! The RAC's advice once we had it unlocked - Don't lock it!!!)
Bikes loaded and all members present and accounted for we got the first lot of riders to the start line via taxi and the van was to follow... or so we thought.... but no! It wouldn't start!!! The battery was fine, but the starter moter was disables... (That would be the immobiliser then... grrrr... bloody electronics in the enterprise van! Nothing but trouble) So we had the RAC out again... After a bit of messing about behind the battery we were off... with 45 minutes to get the bikes to Clapham Common in order to hit our start time. (that was a race in itself.)
In the end the bikes did get there just about in time and I was the last person to go through the 9:30 start gate. The check point close off car was even in front of us!!!! But not for too long! We got ahead of that and joined the rest of the riders before we even left London. Then Richard got a puncture, so we repaired that... silly man didn't bring a spare innertube out with him so he used my spare (always prepare for the inevitable when doing a long road ride!).
Once that was done we were off again... we overtook a large proportion of the 9:30 people after the first hour and caught up with some of the slower 7:00 an 8:30 people, and all those people who stopped off at the refreshments stops along the way. I didn't stop for refreshments, just kept going. My plan was to get from the start to the end without stopping for anything except queue's where I couldn't help but stop and mechanical issues such as punctures and chains coming off (which both happened to one or other of our team during the course of the race!).
I made it up the first lot of hills no problem... I even managed to weave my way through the crowds of riders to find clear sections which I was happily surprised about. (the fact that I successfully weaved through them was good and I'm shocked there were clear gaps!!) At one point we had to deal with a bit of traffic, which was generally fine. Apart from once where I was on the left hand side of a blue van and the van driver decided that he would move over to the left and squish me between the curb and his van. I bashed on the side of his evil van and he took no notice and forced me to abandon my bike in favour of the raised grass verge on the side of the road. It was either that or end up under the wheels of his van with no bike.. so Sarah and bike ended up on the verge... that didn't do my left knee any good at all, I seem to have strained the tendons down the back of my knee! (Thanks Mr Blue Van Driver... learn your highway code!!!) You would have thought with thousands of people passing him on his left that he wouldn't even think of veering off that way! Grrr... anyway, fortunately there was no damage to the bike and with a sore knee (which I totally ignored) I carried on.
Eventually I got stuck in a large quantity of traffic as there had been a serious accident ahead of us. (downhill over the handle bars I suspect.) So whilst stuck in amongst thousands of people I got chatting to a few guys on their bikes, part of a single team David (the frog man - coz of his green cycling gear) and I managed to get through the crowds eventually and we ended up cycling from there to the finish line together. We chatted about allsorts of stuff from bikes to go-karts (which he used to race too!) and onto work and computers (mac's vs pc's for graphics design).
There was one bit of the ride going down the second large hill of the day were I nearly crashed out at 34mph... I was tring to get round a guy who was going slower than me down the hill and we were going round a bend, and he crept out bit by bit around this corner, pushing me further and further out. I hit the gravel and next to that was a big solid brick wall... fortunately I was strong enough and skilled enough to pull off the gravel and keep balanced to finish the corner. David was sure that I was going to crash out. It would have been a very messy accident if I had... I certainly wouldn't have been in one piece, but I was adamant that I would stay on my bike and there was no way a second person was going to force me off the road and off my bike for the second time that day.
Eventually we got to Ditchling, and a little worse for wear David and I slowed down about 2 miles before the beacon so that we could get our strength back up and tackle the beacon. David had been down the week before and got about half way up it so he was desperate to get all the way up but wasn't sure he would manage it. I on the other hand with a (by this time sore leg - which I was still ignoring!) had not done the beacon in a year. So we both headed on up it. Round the first corner (better than last year already!) and around the second one too... then David overtook and on the third corner I got about half way up and my sore leg got the better of me... I couldn't stand the pain any longer and ended up walking the last 500 metres which really annoyed me, but at the same time I didn't want to make the injury irreparable... (as it is it really does hurt today! I would hate to know how much more it would be hurting if I had continued!)
All in all a good day! And finished off with a BBQ in the evening!