If you’re a cyclist and haven’t heard of Prudential Ride London by now, then where the bejesus have you been? Around 20,000 of us were actually there for starters! I was going to say that I don’t know how I got a place but I think that’s probably disingenuous of me. Let’s be honest, whatever arcane formula they were applying to allocate places was heavily weighted in favour of women. According to the results list, there were 14793 men, and 4414 women. Since the usual female turnout for a sportive is around 3-5%, there’s no way that happened naturally. Is positive discrimination a good thing? Discuss. Or don’t. Pretty much everyone I know who ended up doing the ride did it on a charity ticket. Hardly anyone seems to have gotten a place in the ballot…and I did. Which came as a bit of a shock when the places were given out since I’d pretty much forgotten I’d entered! Still, not complaining, right?
Having said that, if I’d realised how complicated it was going to be, I might have had second thoughts… For starters, it doesn’t start and finish in the same place, it’s in London (no, really?), and you can’t register on the day. It turned out that GB was doing it too, for Macmillan, for reasons that are obvious if you know him. Except he was going to be on holiday in Crete (or somewhere similar) the week before and not due back until late the Saturday night. So in equitable stylee, he sorted accommodation and some route details, and I agreed to register him as well as myself on the Saturday. This added whole new degrees of stress to the pre-event faffing and prepping process however. After all, if I f*cked it up somehow, I wasn’t just screwing my day but his too. No pressure! And I was having a massive country mouse moment about hitting the big city. Sad, but true.
So I was more than a little apprehensive when I set off on Saturday, not least because I was about to spend hours on the motorway, which has been a little problematic of late. I’d left myself plenty of time, and leeway, and contingency, but even so, if I ended up needing a nap, if there was traffic problems, if I got lost in London…the possibilities were endless. And registration closed at 5.00pm! Aargh..!
Step one. The drive. I stopped at Membury services for a comfort stop, and the car park was full of cyclists and cars with bikes on/in. Considering we were all heading to the same place for the same reason, converging like bees to a hive, there didn’t seem any way life couldn’t just get busier and more stressful! However amazingly the roads were flowing fairly well. I don’t know how I coped before sat navs when going places on my own, because looking at paper printouts going around London whilst also trying to drive would have been a nightmare. Let’s face it, I may have a very good sense of direction (I do), but my geography is shocking (it’s a running family joke) and I had no real sense of where I was going. Other than West. More specifically West Ham. Quite literally. As in West Ham United Hotel. GB is a Hammers fan (I presume somebody has to be) and had booked rooms there, as it’s only two miles from ExCel where registration and the start were. I was, as might have been predicted, half an hour early for the 2pm check in, and had to hang out in the car park for a bit before I could get safely installed. Still, that’s what works for me, I’d far rather be early than late! Once checked in, I don’t know what I was expecting, but a room with a view of the pitch wasn’t it! Actually, I’d been so busy of late, and it’s the school summer holidays, and I really hadn’t given much thought to the whole weekend until about Thursday!
Right, baggage deposited. Me freshened up. Bike safely rebuilt and tucked up in bed. Well, bedroom 😉 Time for me and my new, retail therapy induced, frock to head off to ExCel in the sunshine. Using public transport, which is something us country mice are somewhat unaccustomed to doing, what with it barely existing out here in the sticks. Thanks to various apps and websites, I’d kinda figured out what I had to do, and the receptionist told me which way to walk to get to Upton Park station, which was a good start. It’s probably not the politically correct thing to say, but I was very glad of my reflective sunglasses on the way It’s safe to say I was the ethnic minority and I felt more than a little fish out of water. I hid behind my lenses, did my best to walk tall for the five minutes it took to get to the station, and found myself the right train to get to West Ham, and from there to get the DLR to ExCel. By the time I was on the DLR, I was once more among friends. Well, among cyclists anyway. With giveaway accessories, conversation, tan lines and so forth. I myself was sporting my mighty fine birthday Rapha musette bag – it being lighter and easier to carry than my usual handbag. I didn’t want to be carrying lots of stuff as I wasn’t sure how much stuff I’d get given once there – times two!
As it turns out Roger, of goats’ cheese fame, texted me as he was already there, and we agreed to meet, and for him to show me the ropes, as it were. Him telling me he was standing near the front doors with a blue top on was a little less than constructive though…blue tops were far from unique! Still, he found me, which is just as well as I was about to call him and point this out ;). He very kindly showed me the way through the whole registration process. Which, considering the numbers of people being dealt with, was remarkably easy and queue free. I handed over my paperwork, showed my passport, and was given my entry pack. I then did the same for GB, albeit with a photocopy of his passport and a letter of authorisation, and I had to show them my number too! A completely unnecessary palaver. Let’s face it, the only reason they don’t send out your entry pack, which would be far simpler, is to make sure you attend the associated cycle show. Which was great for free nutrition samples (no use to me), for last minute bits and souvenir items, and was heavy on the charity stand front, but really didn’t hold enough to grab my attention for more than 15 minutes or so. The only upside was talking to the Garmin guys and getting a phone number to call for product support who might be able to get me a new usb port cover for my Edge 500, which disappeared a few rides back.
Roger headed off, and I decided to grab a coffee and kill some time. The twitterverse did not yield company, but somewhat surprisingly I got a text from Figgy Chris as he was there, so he joined me for a bit which was nice, as I was feeling a tad at a loss as to what to do with myself. Still, even he had to go, and I had to admit I’d run out of things to do. I debated my options, but the idea of more hanging around on my own, or indeed trekking across London on my own to meet others (sorry Pixie) were both unappetising so I decided to head back to the hotel and take it from there. Back to hiding behind the sunglasses… I really wanted to buy some bananas from the market on the way back but I had to own up to being too shy/scared to, so I didn’t. How tragic is that?! Hey, I’m not quite as hard as nails as you might think! 😉
As I chilled out in my room, a little wiped out from all the travelling and worried that I might have overdone it, I checked out the hotel menu, and realised that an omelette was only going to set me me back £5.50. Cheap as the chips it came with ;). I set up everything for the next day to pass the time until food could be served. Numbers on…the front of the bike, the bike frame, the back of my jersey. I passed on the only non-mandatory one, for the helmet – it was only really for photo identification purposes and I rarely buy those anyway. A little overkill methinks! So, kit laid out, bike checked over, gadgets installed, everything as ready as it could be. Time to go install myself in the air conditioned bar, and drink something cold. Which in this case meant San Miguel, which at £4.10 a pint was scarily expensive and nearly as pricey as the not at all bad bacon omelette I did indeed order. However that wasn’t until the second pint ;). Well if the Magnificat could be Stella powered, I figured Prudential Ride London might as well be likewise fuelled. I read my Kindle, drank my lager, ate my food, and passed a few hours. By the time GB finally arrived sometime after 9:00pm I’d even found a few fellow cyclist souls to chat too. A group from Swindon RC, and a couple of ladies from the Chilterns. Their levels of experience varied wildly and I have to admit to having been a bit cagey about mine… People tend to presume that if I’ve done a lot of sportives I must be good at them, whereas all it really means is that I’ve done a lot of sportives!
Time passed, and they headed off to their various rooms. Once GB had tucked his baby into his bed(room) he joined me in the lounge, He ate unattractive looking cold supermarket pasta and I had another pint, which made it…well, enough pints, and we went through details for the following morning. Being as organised as we were ever going to be, it was time to head for my room, for a little more faffing, decaf coffee, an Eat Natural bar in lieu of my usual pre-event porridge, and a little more daft tweeting before finally trying to get some sleep. You can guess how well that went…but that’s a story for another day :).