Category Archives: England

Packing tips for riding London Edinburgh London 2025

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This is the fifth in my series of posts about my preparation for the 1530km London Edinburgh London audax event in August 2025. Read part one here (my road to LEL), part 2 here (lessons from the 400k London Wales London audax), part 3 here (even harder lessons from the Bryan Chapman Memorial 600k audax), and part 4 here (volunteers put together the LEL rider starter packs).

It’s starting to feel very real. On Sunday morning, 3 August 2025, I will join over 2,000 cyclists in the quest to ride London Edinburgh London, one of the world’s greatest amateur cycling events. My training is complete, and my bike serviced. Now, I’m going through my final preparations and kit choices. There’s been some chatter on the LEL Facebook page about kit lists, so I thought I’d share some of my kit choices and packing tips. The chances are that you are taking much less than I am, but as a first time LEL rider I’m playing it safe.

I’ll start by confessing that I’m torn between carrying things like a down jacket that will help me cope if we get wild weather in Scotland (as in 2009 and 2017) and keeping my on-bike weight down. I may compromise by having it in a drop bag, ready to carry if it looks necessary.

My other aim is to try to organise my kit in a way that saves time at controls while minimising the chance of losing things. On my recent tour of France (which involved a different destination every night) I used packing cubes, which made it very easy to find things in a suitcase. I’ll obviously not be carrying suitcases on LEL, but will use small bags within my saddle bag. This is how it will work:

Sleepover kit

This is taking into a control where I plan to sleep for a couple of hours. It will sit at the bottom of my saddle bag. It includes a sleeping bag liner, inflatable pillow, eye mask, ear plugs (mine plus the ones included in each rider’s registration pack), plus loose shorts to sleep in to give my body a rest from cycling shorts.

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Preparing for London Edinburgh London: LEL volunteers create over 2,400 rider starter packs

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This is the fourth in my series of posts about my preparation for the 1530km London Edinburgh London audax event in August 2025. In this edition, I experience life as a volunteer – and love it! The series was inspired by LEL supremo Danial Webb asking if anyone was planning to post about their training and preparation for the event. Read part one here (my road to LEL), part 2 here (lessons from London Wales London) and part 3 here (even harder lessons from the Bryan Chapman Memorial 600k audax).

The LEL volunteers at Flaunden. Photo: Tim Decker

An event like London Edinburgh London doesn’t happen by magic. It takes countless hours of hard work and problem solving over four years by organiser Danial Webb, route director Andy Berne, start and finish control boss Tim Decker and many others, supported by an army of volunteers during the event.

I’m riding LEL this year, but this weekend got an unforgettable glimpse of the dedication of the organisers and volunteers. Liam Fitzpatrick, who runs the 400k London Wales London audax, put out a call for volunteers to help put together the rider registration packs. As this was happening at Flaunden, Herts, just seven miles from where I live, I couldn’t say no. It was a chance to give something back, as well as learn more about an event I’ve come to love, despite not (yet) having experienced it!

Flaunden awaits an army of volunteers

Flaunden village hall was a hive of activity when I arrived just after 9am on a grey Sunday morning. Danial, Liam and Tim had done a lot of preparatory work the day before. Around 35 people had volunteered to help, including making teas, coffees and lunch for those putting the packs together.

Danial explains the process of creating the registration packs

When you pick up your rider registration pack on Saturday 2 August, you won’t give a moment’s thought to how it was put together. And why would you? You’re probably feeling equally excited and nervous about taking part in one of the world’s greatest amateur cycling events. Yet in Flaunden’s village hall around 30 people assembled over 48,000* individual items, many of which varied by rider, into 2,409 rider registration bags. (* Based on the conservative assumption that most riders had bought at least one item of merchandise, typically a jersey. Some bought so many extras that they needed two bags!)

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Remembering my first bike tour, 30 years on

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Note: most of the images illustrating this post are photos of projections of the 35mm slides that I took during the tour. Their quality is variable, to put it kindly...

We reach the English Channel at Sidmouth, Devon

Time flies. It hardly seems like 30 years since I set off on my first proper cycle tour. In recent years, I’ve cycled the length of Great Britain, Ireland and Portugal, and am embarking on another end to end, across France, later this month. But it started with a 325 mile tour of the West Country in June 1990, with my university friend Richard Attewell.

Looking back, I’m struck by how different cycle touring was 30 years ago, just as the internet was poised to change our lives. (There was much talk of the ‘information superhighway’ in 1995, but I didn’t get online until the following year.) We didn’t own or carry mobile phones, and used phone boxes to arrange somewhere to stay once we decided how far we’d get. We navigated using paper Ordnance Survey maps attached to my handlebars using a brilliant map holder designed and sold by Chris Juden from the CTC (now known as Cycling UK). We weren’t complete touring novices: we’d enjoyed a weekend ride around the Isle of Wight two years earlier, and I’d cycled from Wiltshire to my parents’ house in Cardiff the year before.

I plotted that adventure during the bleak winter evenings of January 1995, with those Ordnance Survey maps spread across the floor of my home in Ashton Keynes, Wiltshire, which was our departure point in June, as seen above.

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