Ride London 100 2022

I actually forgot to post this mainly because I was away from home and probably more to do with the fact that I failed to complete the ride and was quite pissed off about it >:-( Anyway I had entered the Ride London 100 2022 and was looking forward to it. I had done some training for this, not a lot, but enough to allow me to attempt a 5 hour ride time, fingers crossed. The day started out well enough, we had closed roads for the entire ride and I left London around 08:30, it’s quite strange riding on major 3 lane A roads but also glorious as the roads were clear and flat, well at least of cars My plan for today was to have the hammer down for the entire day, hoping that I could pick up some fast rider trains as this would afford me some easier riding and hopefully not have me tanking all my energy and blowing up. It was a sea of cyclist and I was flying past all of them, thankfully this years route was flat with only 3000 feet of climbing for the entire 100 mile ride. This would prove to be advantageous for me as for the most part I would be cycling this on my own. I struggled to find any riders that were going as fast as me and in the occasions that I did I didn’t have them for very long before they pulled into the next feed station at which point I would lose them and then have to find another train And thats how it would go for the remainder of the ride with me cycling on my own and only able to get onto about 3 trains, suffice to say I was stuffing my face with as much energy as I could as I knew there was no way I would make it to the end of the ride cycling at this pace on my own without it. I was avg 19 mph up until the last feed station at 86 miles where I stopped to get my last little bit of energy before hitting the last little leg and thats where the shit hit the fan Just as I left the feed station there was a large twang sound and I stopped to see what the hell it was. One of my spokes had broken, I was lucky it had happened so close to the feed station as I could walk back to it and see if the mechanics there could save me but it wasn’t to be. The wheel was buckled so much and rubbing against my frame that the mechanic couldn’t straight it enough for me to limp back to London, so ended my Ride London 100 :’-( he didn’t have a spare spoke or wheel. I was so depressed and angry about that one, I had been flying up to that point and my time was on for about 5 hours 15 mins which is epic for me, the fastest 100 ride I’ve ever done in my entire life was an avg of 17 mph, at this point of the ride it was sitting at 19 mph! So I had no choice but to call in the cavalry and get Marcus to pick me up which proved to be a 2 hour nightmare for all concerned due to the road closures Absolutely gutted with this one as there is no guarantee that I can get another shot at this one, I had been trying for 3 year to get a place on this ride, mainly due to covid, but this ride is a ballot and as such I have to be luck to get a position on it again. So 86 miles clock up at an avg speed of 19 mph, something that I may never achieve again