LEL.. if you want something different

[Espi]

A friend of mine just finished the LEL 2009 edition.. I'm incredibly proud of him as he still finished despite being 5hrs late.. due to the incredibly nasty weather, this must easily have been the most grueling edition of them all.

Here's a small bit on Youtube (someone else's):



In case you never heard of LEL.. here's more: http://www.londonedinburghlondon.co.uk/

[Espi]

Here's another impression (very poor quality alas)



Watch the front & rear carriers as well as the contraptions (lights) on top of helmets.

Third one is slightly better

[mpipes]

That's a pretty good haul!

Reminds me of when I used to ride the annual RAGBRAI across Iowa ~500 miles, with the farmland and storms encountered along the way.

[Espi]

What I didn't tell is that my former cycling buddy was also one of the organizers and hence had to start this multi-day ride/race with a sleep deficit already due to 1001 last-minute details.
It's incredibly hard to be both on the organizing team as well as one of the participants.. he nearly always carries a camera along so he can take hundreds of pix, which means he never ever gets in fast but always struggles somewhere at the end and frequently has indeed come in too late.
I've done LEL eons ago in 1997 and it's my only successful 1000+ ride, not knowing how hard it actually was can be a plus at times. Just DO it

RAGBRAI is a very similar ride AFAIR , organized by the American counterpart of Audax UK (who arganizes LEL). Not to be confused with say RAAM (Race Across AMerica) which is a real race with required support. The vital difference is that for a ride like LEL, support vehicles are banned 'en route' but are allowed to stop on the controls where riders have to get their cards scanned/stamped.