Skating the London to Brighton 2006

BHF Bike Ride

For some time now I've enjoyed longer cycle rides on my bikes, so it was about time I did an event on my skates.  Somewhere around March this year I thought about doing this charity ride, but on my skates, and posted a topic on the speed team forum looking for people to join me.  I was also inspired by reading about the exploits of the French long distance skaters and North Carolina roadskaters.

There was quite a bit of discussion on the forums, sadly with a few naysayers, but in the end 7 of us skaters did the trip.  3 started super early at 6.00 am on Sunday 18th June, and another 4 of us at 07:45.  The early birds were the experienced cyclists who wanted to leave super early to avoid the crush, while I wanted to leave later to expose as many cyclists as possible to us skaters.  One of the big reasons behind the skate was the promotion of skating in general and LondonSkaters Speed Team in particular of course!  I've also been on Critical Mass a couple of times on my skates, and nipping safely in and around bikes is very easy when on skates since you don't need nearly as much room.

Departure

We met up at Clapham South station, we being the second group of four skaters and some of my cycling mates.  Then waited by the start for FixedWheelNut and his work crew, but with some unexpected delays I was getting worried about the lateness and so we skaters reluctantly departed early.

Quentin and I at the start at Clapham

The roads of South London were a pleasure to skate, we were overtaking hundreds of cyclists, and hopping to the front of the queue at every traffic light.  Not very English of us, but then cyclists leave so much space between themselves, and we were overtaking 95% of them anyway on the straights.

Got some funny comments from the marshals and police, such as:

• "I thought you were only supposed to use two wheels".  Well what about trikes then?
• "That's cheating!" No, it's harder work on skates than on a bike.  Even with decent technique we're still maybe 40% less efficient.
• "Is that legal?".  Why not?  It's the public highway and there's no such thing as jay walking in the UK.

Small Stack

One of our number crashed at the first accident black spot on the first steep downhill - a cyclist had gone down for some reason, and 3 of us made it through the resulting small gap on a steep downhill.  Unfortunately the last skater fell in the congestion and cut her head, necessitating a delay whilst an ambulance patched her up.  No problems though, she was up and skated on for the remaining three quarters of the ride.  Very impressed at that display of toughness.

Cyclists reactions.

It was just so cool overtaking cyclists and seeing the double take, followed by jaw-dropped astonishment.  Most of them couldn't believe we were skating and asked us if we were going all the way to Brighton.  Hahahahaha!  From about half way along we started getting comments along the lines of did we skate all the way from London?  Well of course, why else were we proudly wearing our LondonSkaters Speed Team lycra?

Strangely enough most of the people we talked to thought the uphills would be a problem, not so.  Uphills on skates is probably fractionally easier than on a bike since you don't have the extra weight of the bike to lift as well as your own body weight.  A clever few realised that the downhills are harder, since skates don't have brakes as effective as those on a bicycle.

It was a lot of fun on the downhills - where there was a clear run, we often went much faster than the bikes because we can make ourselves smaller and thus have less air resistance.  I was also very happy with the roll of my big 100mm wheels on my Bont Vaypor 3 mount skates.  I could often roll past Quentin or Dmitry whilst they were striding to maintain speed.

Ditchling Beacon

This dreaded hill, which so many cyclists talk of with respect, we didn't find so bad at all.  Going up Quentin and I maintained a nice stride rhythm, in perfect time with each other, and dropped some hundreds of cyclists on the first half.  My main goal was to be fastest skater up the hill, and I managed to drop Quentin about half way up.  Of course there was a young slip of a girl on her MTB who did the same to me, she managed to put about 100m on me by the top of the hill.  Chapeau to her!  I'm pleased to say that no other cyclists did, in fact most of them were quite peeved with us skaters being able to pass them so easily.

I must admit to getting cramp though, I pushed myself longer and harder than ever before on a hill.  For the last four hundred metres I was getting a twinge of cramp with every push in my left leg, and this completely locked up once I stopped at the top, and I rarely suffer from cramps.  My quadriceps looked like a Z, very painful and scary until I managed to relax the muscle.  I didn't know my leg muscle could get that big!!

The Downhill and run to the Finish

After a good rest at the top of the Beacon, we skated off, and made good speed.  Conditions were perfect for skaters, relatively smooth roads, and mostly downhill so we could make the best of our reduced aerodynamic profile compared with bikes.

Dmitry, myself, and Quentin at the Finish in Brighton

I was somewhat cautious on the last steep downhill, but Quentin got clocked at over 42mph and went faster than all the other cyclists in the group there, they were extremely impressed.  From here we had a lot of fun sprinting away from each group of cyclists and overtaking them on the run into the seafront.  I was amazed how much energy we had left, we again passed hundreds of cyclists in a flat out run down open straight roads.  Quentin and I felt super fast and fit, we were hauling past cyclists like they were standing still.

Further on and as traffic got more snarled up we ended up doing a lot more ducking and diving through the traffic, NTWNS stylee.  There's no way cyclists can keep up with skaters in these conditions.

The finish was upon us almost before we realised, and again we were at the front of the queue in moments.  With the quick acceleration that skates allow, of course we had to go for maximum pose factor, and do a full on sprint down the finish straight on the seafront.  The crowd just erupted with cheers, it was a wonderful reaction!  I'm sure many didn't believe that we skated the whole way, going by comments from people afterwards.

Time for refreshments, a massage, and then the train back to London.  We were certainly lucky with that - the ban on bikes on the trains didn't affect us at all of course.

Quentin having a snooze on the way home.

Conclusion

That's one of the most fun and most rewarding skates I've done, even better than my Berlin marathon experiences.  The roads were much smoother than I'd expected for mostly country lanes, though there were quite a few rough sections which really ate into our speed.

I can't get over how much fun it was. Probably the best bit was the end when Quentin and I were tanking it on the last miles into Brighton. We were cruising at mega speed, 35km/hour easily leaving all the cyclists behind. (Probably because there were no racing monsters around, though a few people with good kit and bikes, but whatever).  They were fast, but not as fast as us, I felt like an elite skater for a while, LOL! At least in my own mind... It was great, we were in charge and dictating what was going on, like a little taste of being a super hero.  Second best was up Ditchling Beacon, again ruling the climb.

6 hours 30 minutes elapsed time, of which we had 2 hours worth of stops, and 1000m of climbing according to my Polar HRM.  It would have been easy to go much faster than we did, but perhaps less fun as this way we got to talk with a lot more people.

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