London - Edinburgh - London aka LEL

[Nuncio]

We pushed on on the return, bumping Traquair and zipping fairly quickly though Eskdalemuir. I was dreading a headwind in the A7 and on to Brampton, but it was OK. Made it to Alston by about 22:30 catching about half an hour of the really bad weather. The big plus though, was getting a bed for 5 hours. Bliss, even if I was woken a couple of times by the howling wind, and thinking of the impossibility of getting up Yad Moss in those conditions.

 

[onthe_road]

I spent a grand total of 11 hours in Alston! Every time I looked out the window I thought "I'm not going out in that weather". At one point late at night there was an elderly rider - I think he was in his 70's - in the hallway suffering from hypothermia. Red face. Violent spasms. Purple toe nails. This was no joke. Definitely not like some Dunwich Dynamos, leaving the feeding station in the freezing cold and not worrying because you'd be warm in 10 or 15 minutes and never too far from somewhere. This was some remote area in the North Pennines where people actually die of exposure.
I felt fragile to say the least. Luckily, everyone seems to have come out at the other end ok.
What can I say, the weather threw a lot at us.

 

[yello]

This was no joke. Definitely not like some Dunwich Dynamos, leaving the feeding station in the freezing cold and not worrying because you'd be warm in 10 or 15 minutes and never too far from somewhere. This was some remote area in the North Pennines where people actually die of exposure.

Indeed. I'm somewhat surprised there has not been more comment about this, and I genuinely do not want to be seen as a killjoy or a doom merchant, but I'm not entirely convinced that people (riders and volunteers alike) realise just how potentially nasty it could have been. I saw some seriously cold, wet and out-of-it riders coming in.

 

[Greenbank]

The weather affected people differently and I'm not sure everyone got their choice of kit right.

I don't doubt that many people had a torrid time (I saw people coming into Eskdalemuir 5 minutes after me who looked like utter death) and there were real cases of hypothermia but I find it odd since I was caught in a lot of the bad weather and didn't really have a problem.

I left Dalkeith at 13.45pm and with an hour long stop at Traquair I did that entire section to Eskdalemuir in just shorts, base layer and short-sleeve jersey getting in at 7.30pm. Warm and wet was always my plan. Dressing lightly and hoping a waterproof will keep you dry isn't the way to do it (in my opinion).

I got an absolute soaking from about 15km out from Eskdalemuir but the last 10km was a descent. Riding fixed was a bonus on that descent as the constant pedaling helps keep me warm. The rain was stinging on my face thanks to the headwind but there was nowhere else to go but into it.

People arriving after this would have had it worse as the section between Dalkeith and Eskdalemuir is not a nice place to be with poor weather and they would have had the rain for longer, but this doesn't explain why people arriving just 5 minutes after me were in such a state.

Maybe my physiology is just designed to keep warm in these situations, I tend to run pretty warm in general, but I'll say it again, once I'd been moving for 5 minutes, I simply didn't feel cold in the slightest during the entire ride. I did avoid the worst of the weather for Yad Moss, climbing it in sunshine and daylight on day 2 and, again in daylight and light drizzle/gentle rain at about 11am on Wednesday morning.

But at Eskdalemuir, and other controls, many people came into the control and immediately took off everything wet they were wearing. This stuff wasn't drying by the time they wanted to leave. Upon arrival I sat still in my wet kit using my body heat to dry it. I wasn't going to get cold because I was inside somewhere warm. Within 15 minutes most of what I was wearing was dry. My kit was nothing special, just generic cycling lycra and a goretex waterproof. At each control I put my mitts in a jersey pocket and they were dry by the time I wanted to leave (and wet shortly after starting again). Only when my jacket was dry would I take it off.

This included setting off from Eskdalemuir at 10.15pm into that grim weather. For this leg I'd donned my roubaix backed Endura Thermolite leggings (put on dry but soaked within 5 minutes), Endura Thermolite arm warmers (put on dry) and waterproof jacket (Gore Alp-X). 5 minutes in and I was lovely and warm despite getting soaked through and, perversely, I felt more comfortable than I did sitting in the overheated control at Eskdalemuir.

There were lots of grim predictions about the weather at Eskdalemuir, and lots of people not leaving there for hours (some on advice of locals) to avoid it when, in reality, it wasn't that bad at all. It was wet and windy until the top of the climb above Langholm and then if anything, we had a gentle tailwind all the way to Alston and mainly in the dry. It was probably still heaving it down in Eskdalemuir then. IMO the weather was far worse at various points on this year's Bryan Chapman. The weather at Eskdalemuir is very localised caused by the local geography, there was little point (in my view) in sitting it out when you could get through it in 30 minutes.

Much as I'd love to say that it was the grimmest weather I've seen on an Audax, but I can't really as I've seen worse. Again, I don't doubt that some people had a horrid time, I saw plenty of examples in the controls for myself, I just don't understand how they got into that state. Maybe I was just lucky I missed the worst of it, or maybe my above average layer of fat (I could do with losing 5kg or so) helped me. The more svelte riders with less body fat would have less insulation and felt the cold much more.

For me the worst weather was the series of hailstorms between Washingborough and Thurlby, mainly on the first section to Sleaford. Stinging hail with a strong crosswind. This coupled with the poor driving standards and relatively narrow and fast B1188 through Ruskington made for the worst section of the ride. I couldn't wait to turn off onto the country lanes south of Sleaford.