Well, I don't know anyone else who's going, and I'm not as fit as I was last year but I've decided to go this year. Had the bicycle serviced on Saturday - including a rear hub service - and then took it out for an 80km on Sunday which was cut short by the rear hub failing. The bike shop (Moore's in Twickenham) is replacing the rear wheel and chain ring for free, by way of an apology. The original service was > £160, so I feel that's fair, especially as the rear wheel 4 years old and has more than 20,000km on it (not sure how much more though, just an estimate based on 12,000km in the last 18 months).
On top of that, first class tickets back to London (it was the same price as standard), a carradice bag and sqr mount, spare batteries for the moon xp500, a new external usb battery for my phone, light weight cable lock for the train home ... this is proving to be an expensive 12+ hours. And that's not including a taxi home from Braintree when something goes catastrophically wrong.
Or hopefully not :-)