www.dadswell.co.uk Mostly cycling records, mostly on three wheels
These were the rather exciting weather charts which shouted London to York at me. Back to Rides in 1995
This is the 72hr picture, which caused me to ring the RRA. Isobars almost perfectly north-south, meaning something close to SSE winds.
And this is an extract from the next day's (48hr) chart. Staying much the same, so good news!
There weren't many newspaper reports.
Simon Barnes covered it in the Times. And there was a small piece in the Bucks Free Press
And here are the phone call lists. (Mike Brogan could well be Mike Breckon)
I had a note from Ted Bays, evidently it was him who sent the Times clipping above.
David Duffield was the defending record holder. His ride in 1961 had taken nearly 90 minutes off Syd Parker's performance in 1938. 10hr 24m came down to 8h 55m 50s. Dave held the record for 34 years.
Here's his note when he returned the trophy.
And a note from Chris Watts. I'm more intrigued by the Coventry Chair then the message she sent!
Finding the best way from Barnet to the A1 wasn't easy. To begin with, I just used the A10 instead (ie Edinburgh to London 1991), but I quickly preferred the route using more of the fast roads.
In the early 90s we chose to go via South Mimms roundabout and then shadow the A1. Andy Burnet's first note outlines a route that I looked at but never got attached to. The second note is closer to where we ended up.
Andy did lots of research for me, and presented the results very neatly.
Here's Andy's annotations on a Hatfield map.
Straight away we used a shortcut at the Birchfield roundabout, essentially taking a service road (not shown on the map, but it does exist!) to stay on the east side of the A1. Also, I used Lemsford Lane to avoid the roundabouts on the west of the A1(M) near Lemsford.
After a few more years, I chose to avoid South Mimms & Swanland Road, and instead use the A1000.
I also had some discussion with Richard Hulse, one of the RRA checkers in York. In the early 90s, the terminal point was the Post Office clock in Lendal. Annoyingly, this area was pedestrianised by the time I was looking at it, and so we were looking at the most effective way of getting to the clock without lots of walking/running with the bike.
The matter I'd asked Richard about was effectively cutting out a one-way system by running on the pavement (approx 1 minute before again having to run to the finish point!). He agreed that my plan was reasonable, although he noted that he believed there was a better way of getting there.
As it turned out, the RRA had altered the terminal point before I eventually did the ride in 1995, and so we were back at the shortcut over the pavement.
A key point of the proposal that we were discussing was crossing the pavement. Having a somewhat delicate relationship with some people in the RRA at the time of the 1995 attempt, I was quite aware that I needed to be running with my machine for this bit. Much as it would have been tempting to have ridden, I decided to dismount and run. This was indeed a good decision, as Richard was apparently a witness to the manoeuvre - discreetly placed and inconspicuously dressed, just as a proper RRA checker should be.
Back to Rides in 1995