Ride report by Peter Simon, Bynea CC.
People always say don't change anything just before a big ride. After completing the Bynea 300km and 400km I was thinking about this. But in the end I had to change a couple of things…
Different frame:
The organiser of the Droitwich ride had made mudguards mandatory but, with its very tight clearances there was no way I could get them on to the frame I had used for the 300km and 400km rides. I had another road frame that the dropout had cracked on last year; Tim Jones (one of our club’s touring heroes) was brazing it back together for me (for the second time). He was just about to go on a riding holiday around the Alps to watch the Tour but he just managed to do my frame the day before he left. I picked it up from his wife 7 days before the ride and brushed some black gloss over the freshly brazed area at the rear.
New rear wheel:
I only have one set of road wheels but the rear rim had cracked during the Bynea 400km. When I took the old hub apart the hardening had come off all of the ball bearings and worn a large groove in the races. It wasn't worth building a new rim around them so I needed a new wheel. I had bought a pair of new 105 9 speed hubs ready to go on my racer with a pair of STI brake levers. I decided to try and build a new wheel with a new MA3 rim and DT SS DB spokes I had bought for something else. Following Sheldon's instructions (http://www.sheldonbrown.com/), I loosely laced up my first wheel, which was quite easy. I had won a wheel building stand cheap on eBay but it hadn't arrived in time so I had to clamp the wheel in a frame and use the brakes to finish tensioning and truing. I thought it turned out quite well in the end, just a fraction out of round, most of which seemed to be due to the uneven join in the rim. I went for a test ride and after a bit of settling in I called it good.
New gears:
To go with the nine speed hub I had bought some Tiagra brake levers/shifters to try out STI, so I put them as well.
New front wheel:
I also had to get more light on the bike so after building the rear wheel had gone so well. The night before the ride I built a matching front wheel around a Shimano dynohub and mounted a Lumotech front light with 3W bulb to be powered by it. On a test ride down the road that night it worked really well, a lot more light than the Cateye LD200 I had used for the 400km ride.
Battery lights are good now especially the new big LEDs but I liked the idea of generating my own power. I was still using a battery powered rear LED though. They work so well and this one will run for about 100 hours on a fresh set of batteries so I can live with it.
New bag:
After carrying everything I needed for the 400km ride in my pockets, I knew I would need more space for the 600km. I had been thinking about this and with no rack mounts on either frame, I had bought a Carradice SQR seat post mount a few weeks before and had been waiting for a bag to some up on eBay to go with it. It was getting close but I won a Carradice Camper saddlebag with a week to go, and it arrived 3 days before I was due to leave. It fitted on quite well and on the short test ride the night before I left it felt OK. I didn’t notice the additional weight too much.
Same pedals:
I would have preferred to use my SPD shoes and pedals for such a long trip but I had been riding racing shoes with Time pedals for the last few months and thought it would be better if this was the one thing that I didn't change. I would have to put up with hobbling around.
I would have preferred to do the Bryan Chapman Memorial 600km Audax ride rather than the Droitwich one. The Bryan Chapman is in Wales, running diagonally across and back. The route looked great but it was being held the week after 300km ride I did and I thought it would be too much to try it at the time. That left the Droitwich 600km as the only ride that wasn't too far away which I could make this year. I didn't have my car due to arrangements for a tandem tour I was doing with my wife a week later. I took the train on the Friday afternoon from Llanelli to Craven Arms. This was on the Heart of Wales line which is a great route through south and mid Wales (and not too expensive at £17 return!). From Craven Arms station I rode to a B+B in Droitwich (43miles) arriving early evening. There was another cyclist staying there whom I never saw but the same Droitwich map was fixed to their handlebars, so they must have been there for the audax as well. The B+B owner said my bike would be fine parked in the unlocked yard behind the house as it was a good area. Though when I looked out of my window later there were 3 kids jumping all over the roof of a car in the street.
I had a walk around town in the evening but it was quite quiet. A large plate of chips and bread filled me up before I went to bed ready for the early start on Saturday. I arrived at organiser Gavin Greenhow’s house for 6.30am Saturday morning. Outside a few people were preparing bikes. I got my brevet card and a small amendment to the route inside and also a good breakfast provided by Gavin's family.
Ready to go, me at the start:
At 7am we set off into a bright warm morning. The route was split into two sections, a 200km loop out to the east then back to the start before commencing the final 400km loop. This was to try and combine the riders from the 600km with another audax ride over only the 400km loop which was starting at 5pm.