The Willy Warmer (200km Audax UK Randonnée) – 23rd January 2010

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Ride report by Derek Noble
As part of our ‘normal’ cycling activity, Mike Spencer, Alan Maclean and myself are planning to complete a 200km randonnée each month for the remainder of 2010 to qualify for RRtY in Audax UK.

The first of these rides was on 23rd January and is known as the Willy Warmer (“Willy” from Willesden CC who organise and “Warmer” to get rid of the winter chills!).

Some clarification required.

Now, randonnée is French for ‘excursion’ and can sometimes be referred to as a ‘brevet’ (cycling) and is intended for the participants to complete the said distance within time frames – the times are based on minimum and maximum speeds, typically in the 12kph to 25 kph range. These are NOT races, just self-sufficient, get-round-within-the-time-limit events – and come in many flavours, e.g. 100km, 200km, 300km, 400km, 600km and the ‘biggies’, London-Edinburgh-London or Paris-Brest-Paris – the latter two are over 1200km each!

RRtY means ‘Randonnée Round the Year’.

Mike and Alan are both taking part in the Winchester to Gibraltar ride (whole route), while I’m intending to join at Madrid.

Our RRtY experience will stand us in good stead for the cumulative effect of the Winchester-Gibraltar event and make sure we get base miles in and build our fitness.

Back to the ride on Saturday, 23rd January – the Willy Warmer. It was a 07.30 start from Chalfont St Giles in Buckinghamshire – just outside the M25 and close to the M40.

There were something like 60 participating in this event – typical sort of numbers for a 200km. This meant very early starts for all three of us coming from Hampshire – got to get my porridge eaten for energy storage!

Also, as we are still in winter, it is still dark at 7.30 and lights are a necessity.

Like all Audax events, the adrenalin tends to dictate the speeds at the start – everyone dashes off like there’s no tomorrow, instead of preserving energy. There are some 10-12 hours’ cycling ahead of you!

We headed out of the centre of Chalfont St Peter up the hill – I had a clicking noise coming from my front wheel straightaway. A technical issue already! It was my computer magnet rubbing against the sensor on the fork. Instead of taking the sensible option of stopping and fixing it, I tried to move the sensor while still moving. Bad move. My adjustment did not relieve the problem – it exacerbated it, by moving the sensor more into the paths of the spokes and started to make a heck of a noise. I then decided to stop. But I stopped abruptly without checking behind or warning anyone. Nearly caused a crash, certainly caused some cursing from the people behind. But, I fixed the sensor – although my computer wasn’t working now…I left that till later, as we didn’t want to lose too much of the chain of red lights from the bikes in front of us.

And up the hill we continued towards the back lanes.

There was an option to follow a ‘scenic’ route as part of a detour early on in the ride, but we decided against this. For ‘scenic’ read ‘hilly’. Why inflict more pain early on??

As part of the randonnée, there are controls you have to go through, in order to verify that you have completed the whole route and not cheated (mind you, the only person you are cheating by not doing the whole route is yourself). The first of these controls was in Pangbourne, some 51km into the ride. (The rides are done in kilometres because, essentially, the origins of randonnées and Audax riding are French.) But, before we arrived in Pangbourne, we had the first of our many punctures that day – Mike’s rear inner tube went! Mind you, he is super swift at changing inner tubes and we were back on the road within minutes! (He should get a job on the Tour de France as one of those mechanics who adjust gears and so on from the window of a moving car!)

The next few miles passed generally without incident apart from my chain coming off! Changing up gear, the chain decided to disengage itself from the big ring and wrap itself around the crank. In the process I managed to put some oil on my face – like makeup – which was only pointed out when we arrived in Pangbourne!

Our arrival at the café in Pangbourne was round about 9.45, but at the same time as many of the other 200km riders. Service was a little slow – many people arriving at the same time certainly slows down the cooking. We were debating if this was a cake and coffee stop or a full-English breakfast one. As it was something 3½ to 4 hours since any of us had had breakfast, we plumped for the full-English. Good choice, because the time we had to wait for it was not too bad and it stood us in good stead for the rest of the day.

Having collected our stickers to validate the Audax control, Mike, Alan and I set off once more. The weather was cool, but good for riding and remained so for the whole day. No prospect of rain and a very light wind.

The next route instructions from the Pangbourne café stated:

“L (1E MRB) $ Basingstoke
Immed R onto Pangbourne Hill & climb J”

Hmm, nice start to the next part of the ride and to ride away the full English breakfast!

As it turned out the hill was not too difficult and we continued to eat up the miles on this relatively flat route. Many of the lanes in this part had borne a lot of snow in recent weeks and the subsequent salting and clearing up – so, the surfaces of the roads were littered with grit, salt, debris and general muck! Tyres watch out! And sure enough, another puncture for our group, this time it was Alan’s turn.

We reached Hungerford – another control. This was effectively the furthest west on the route and all the roads we would take would be homewards back to the start! However, we had covered only 92.9 km of the route – not quite halfway. But, the psychological halfway point had been reached. Time for a quick bite to eat from the local supermarket and onwards…

Up over Hungerford Park and across the cattle grid…

We continued our way skirting near Newbury and the A34 / M4 into an area I was more familiar with in Berkshire and Hampshire and into Kingsclere, the next control on the ride.

…and the next puncture…! Alan’s turn!!

Once repaired, we set off again – with about 80km still to go. Then my chain came off again. Same procedure, same oily mess on my face! I knew that I’d have to get the gears adjusted when I had time after the ride – I didn’t want to have to go through the rigmarole of the chain coming off on future rides.

Continuing along towards the north of Basingstoke – and along roads I use for training – Mike had another puncture, this time in the village of Charter Alley, or should that be Puncture Alley!!

Light was starting to fade and we were getting tired. At this point, we made our first navigational mistake – somewhere near Swallowfield (or was it Arborfield Cross), we were confused by signposts that should have been there (or weren’t there and we followed something else!)! This mistake didn’t cost us too many extra miles, as we managed to get back on track fairly quickly.

Lights on – for visibility for drivers as much as anything.

My final chain disengagement was the worst! It got completely tangled up in my crank – couple of times it was wrapped round! Took several minutes to untangle, by which time the other two were far off (I hadn’t managed to make them aware of my predicament by shouting – or, at least, they hadn’t heard me.) Mind you, there is an unwritten rule in Audax rule – we all look out for each other – and both Mike & Alan were waiting for me, once I had got going again.

Last control before the finish – Winnersh Sainsbury’s – was reached. It was completely dark. Last chance to chomp down some fuel and get some energy back for the final push (40km to go)!

My front light was not working very well – seemed to have a loose connection. So, Mike or Alan sat at the front, me in the middle and the remaining guy at the back – I was cushioned and could use their lights to be able to see. Not ideal, but it worked.

We hit another navigational block. Instructions said right, then left. But, it should have been left, then right. Or was it?… We checked with a guy in the pub, and yes, the route sheet was wrong, but we got through it!

We got through Maidenhead and we were on the home stretch! Longish downhill – that was a relief to the tiredness setting in! But, one final twist – about 5km from the finish, Mike had a blow-out! Very surreal in the dark, but quite scary. I thought that it was a car backfiring, but no! Just as well Mike managed to get the bike under control, as he could have ended up in a ditch. Last change of tyre and inner tube and off we went.

Entering Chalfont St Peter and we were there. 200km (or 128 miles in old money) under our belt – taking just over 10 hours cycling time, but of course, arriving at the control in Chalfont St Peter at around 8 o’clock means that we had been on the road for around 13 hours in total. A quick cup of tea and back to the car to get home and a refreshing shower!

The first 200km of the RRtY down – only 11 to go! You should try it. If nothing else, it will be good training for the Winchester to Gibraltar ride!

For more details on Audax randonnées, see:
http://www.audax.uk.net/
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