London to Worthing and back, Southern RRA Back to Rides in 1998
This was another Southern RRA double, with Glenn Longland starting 15 minutes ahead of me to take the bicycle record.
It's also another case where I'm writing this mostly from memory!
We did the ride on a Friday morning. Although not disastrous from a rider perspective, the following cars were heavily delayed at the London end. There were also a few times when I got stuck, meaning I was always a few minutes behind the plan.
I can only presume that Glenn and I must have rehearsed the journey from the start at Epsom to Big Ben and back. Looking at the schedule now, it seems like it would be very easy to go wrong.
I had scheduled to beat the previous record by about 45 minutes, although this was just a rough guess.
When I was back opposite the start point, I was about 10 minutes behind the schedule. I picked a few minutes back as things opened out past Leatherhead, but then I had a front wheel puncture near North Holmwood. Despite a fairly swift change of wheel, I was still 11 minutes behind at Horsham.
At the Worthing turn point I was 12 minutes behind, possibly because of adverse weather. I say this because I then started to reduce the deficit. At the A272, I was 9 minutes down, 7 minutes down at Horsham, and 5 minutes down at North Holmwood.
I finished with a time of 5h 28m 47s. This was 5 minutes behind the schedule, but a comfortable 40 minute improvement on the record.
I don't think I really had any problems, although I do recall feeling pretty shattered at the end.
Glenn had finished some time before me, and of course didn't look even slightly tired!
Some time afterwards, I received a letter from Sid Armstrong, from whom I had taken the record.