15th September saw us take on another group challenge, the first full team ride we have managed – The Annual Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research London Bikeathon. A full 52 mile bike ride (conveniently managing to forget that it required us to ride an average of 8m to get there…), around London following this route:
We started in high spirits, and some of us even looked pretty cool, especially with our eye-wear:
A solid start saw Tim attempt to cycle away with his chain hanging off, with Karim suffering a similar fate no more than 1/4 a mile from the start, but we soon found some ‘speed’ through central London and numerous traffic lights – allowing us a little time to take in the fumes of buses and anger of saturday morning drivers oblivious to the concept of mass-scale charity events.
Reaching as far south as Surbiton, we came back up into London through Wimbledon and up over the Thames through Chelsea to our finish line where we had begun a mere 5 hours previously. Not the fastest, but we blame the traffic…
7 lads, 52 miles and a medal to show for it. It was great to have been part of an amazing event that saw 7,000 cyclists come together to raise over £750,000 in the fight to beat blood cancer. On to the next one!
London to Varese 