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.
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!)
This is the first in a series of posts about my training and preparation for the 1530km London Edinburgh London audax event in August 2025. The series was inspired by LEL supremo Danial Webb asking if anyone was planning to post about their training and preparation for the event. For part 2, lessons from London Wales London, click here.
London Edinburgh London is a cycle ride across Great Britain between the English and Scottish capitals. Held every four years, it is the premier British audax – a long-distance, non-competitive cycle ride. You have a maximum of 128 hours to ride to Edinburgh and back to London.
I’ve been dreaming about taking part in LEL since the pandemic, and will be on the start line in August. I’ve followed LEL Facebook and Yet Another Cycling Forum (YACF) posts, and read several books by previous participants such as Andy Allsopp and Malcolm Dancy for inspiration and information. I also bought the film about the 2013 edition of LEL. (All of which, truth be told, sent shivers of fear down my spine about what I’ve signed up for!) I’ve also enjoyed the LEL podcasts, which you can find on all the usual podcast platforms, including Spotify.
In this post, I’ll explain my road to LEL 2025, talk about my training, and also share a few tips for fellow LEL riders – which may be useful for anyone taking part in other multi-day audax rides. These tips are based on my own cycling experiences and advice shared by previous LEL riders. In future editions, I’ll share any new lessons from my training and preparations.
So – what makes me think I can complete LEL?
My original inspiration for long distance cycling, 1994
I’ve been cycling for over 35 years, since buying my first proper bike in 1989, as I blogged last year. Back in 1994, I was inspired by this feature in the old Cycling Today magazine about cycling 100 miles, and successfully completed my first century the following year.
Last year, I completed my first audax ride, the 400km London Wales London, and my beginner’s story appeared in Audax UK’s Arrivée magazine. (The article was a shorter version of my LWL blogpost.) I knew that LWL was a good test of my ability to complete the far bigger LEL challenge, and early on my ride to Wales I had a brief crisis of confidence:
‘I was still in the Cotswolds when I decided such a challenge [LEL] was beyond me. The toll on body and spirit would be huge. Yet now, after the satisfaction of completing LWL successfully with something to spare, I’m not so sure. I have a guaranteed place for 2025, and that would have to be the year – it really would be too much by 2029, when I’d be approaching 66.’
I am feeling more confident now about LEL, and am fitter than I was on the eve of LWL 2024.
It’s official. I’m taking part in Britain’s greatest cycling challenge, the 1530km London Edinburgh London ride in August 2025.
I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and my successful completion of London Wales London in 2024 makes me think I’m not completely crazy contemplating cycling from London to Edinburgh and back in 128 hours. That wonderful 26 hour experience showed that I was capable of the mental attitude needed for endurance cycling. As I wrote in my LWL blogpost, the mental challenge is arguably greater than the physical one, at least while the body is still capable of turning the pedals. LEL will require far greater mental strength than the far shorter distance of LWL, which spans just one night – although the fastest LWL riders make it home before midnight.
I’ve really enjoyed the London Edinburgh London podcast series – I was impressed how it shows how you don’t have to be a super athlete to do LEL, while not hiding the fact this is a feat of endurance. I listened to this episode while driving to Wales with my son just hours after entering. I felt exciting and scared in equal measure!
Over the coming months, I’ll be getting match fit while learning from accounts by LEL veterans what I need to do to maximise my chances of success. This will vary from the physical – how to improve core strength for days on the bike, while avoiding saddle sores and Shermer’s neck – and choosing the right equipment for the ride. As my friends know, I love recording my cycling adventures in word and video, but LEL is so all-embracing that I’ll have virtually no time or energy to give a detailed account along the way as I’ll be living in the moment. (My clear lesson from LWL was to avoid faffing and minimise the elapsed time off the bike – it’s easier to reduce time at stops than make up time on the road.)
Last year, I was pleased with my training for LWL. I blended time on the road with hill climbing, which helped me on the big one. I need to take this to a new level for LEL, and also get into the habit of stretching – for days after LWL, I was incredibly stiff, which will be debilitating on LEL when setting off after my first sleep after a few hundred kilometres. In 2002, on my first Land’s End to John O’Groats ride, I was impressed by a couple of riders who stretched whenever they stopped. I must follow their example in 2025.
I’ll post updates on my preparations in the coming months. Do please share any advice! UPDATE: you can read the series on training and preparing for London Edinburgh London starting here. (There’s a link to the next episode at the end of each post.)
PS: I am lucky enough to have a guaranteed entry to London Edinburgh London as a member of Audax UK, Britain’s long distance cycling association. But I hit a glitch using the guaranteed entry to apply. It emerged that as I applied for the early entry ballot in 2023 the guaranteed entry link didn’t work. Happily, the LEL team sorted this for me, hence the entry confirmation at the start of this post. If you are in a similar position, just contact them for help.
In 2002 and 2019 I cycled the length of Great Britain. Over the past few weeks I have been reliving some of the most memorable moments of those tours – in my kitchen, on my Wattbike Atom smart training bike.
It was inspired by an email from Wattbike about a series of rides on the Rouvy indoor training app. I’d tried Rouvy very briefly last autumn but this seemed like a good reason to give it another go. There was a competition to win Wattbike goodiies but that was less of an incentive – I never win these contests.
Rouvy has taken sections of seven stages of the Babble Ride Across Britain Land’s End to John O’Groats ride (LEJOG), which takes place this September. I’d ridden two of these routes in my 2002 LEJOG, and four on my 2019 one.
The first ride was across Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, which I remember as a very tough ride as a horribly undertrained rider in 2002. I remember the respite of a lunch stop in a village cafe in Minions – and the moment I saw that very cafe on the Rouvy app was the experience that made me a Rouvy fan.
It’s traditional for me to mark the end of a year by reflecting on the year’s cycling achievements, and looking ahead to the following 12 months.
This year was a modest one in my cycling career. That was largely by choice. I was thrilled to complete over 6,250 miles in 2021, including at least 500 miles every month, but felt so relieved to step off the treadmill when the clock struck midnight heralding 2022. I no longer felt any pressure to go cycling, but could devote more time to other things, especially family. Inevitably the pendulum swung the other way and I leaned too heavily on my self-issued dispensation.
Yet if 2022 proved my most modest year for cycling since 2015, it included spectacular highlights that I will cherish for years. I wrote 12 months ago about my anticipation at returning to Scotland, one of my favourite cycling countries. That expectation was more than fulfilled. My Highland 500 tour with Peak Tours in May was a joy, testing and rewarding me in equal measure. The weather improved with every passing day, as the scenery grew ever more spectacular.
Loch Cùl Dromannan, north of Ullapool
I’ve posted a day-by-day account of my Highland adventure starting here, so won’t repeat the whole tale. That holiday included two of the most alluring roads I’ve ever pedalled: Ullapool to the Summer Isles, and from Hope on the far north coast of Scotland along Loch Hope and Strath More to Altnaharra. The first of these featured on an optional Peak Tours day ride; I was sorely tempted to take the rest day, pottering around Ullapool, but accepted the challenge to cycle. At first I cursed that decision as we endured hill after hill, but that changed in an instant as I glanced to my left and saw the breathtaking sight above: Loch Cùl Dromannan. Minutes later we turned off the main road onto a lonely lane, skirting lochs and mountain peaks towards the coast. We had lunch in the sunshine overlooking the Summer Isles.
Any cyclist who’s feeling jaded need only tour Scotland on two wheels to remember why they fell in love with cycling – and life itself.
OK Commuter
My Brompton at Fleet Place, City of London
My other cycling highlight of 2022 was more mundane, but arguably just as significant. This was the first year since March 2020 that I was able to return to the office after the pandemic. We opened a new City of London office at Fleet Place in September and I rediscovered the pleasure of using my Brompton Electric in combination with the train to commute there from Buckinghamshire. It saves me around £13 a time plus the joy of cycling across town, with the iconic view of St Paul’s and its younger cousin the Shard as I freewheel down from Farringdon towards Holborn Viaduct. The experience positively encouraged me to use Fleet Place as my London office rather than drive to lovely Richmond.
Electric dreams
My Brompton wasn’t my only electrifying ride in 2022. In February I bought a Trek Domane + electric road bike, and quickly fell in love with this special bike. That wasn’t a surprise: I found the electric Brompton a revelation three years earlier, so it was natural that I’d enjoy the road bike equivalent. On days when I couldn’t face jumping on the bike, I’d make an exception for the Domane +. I’d revel in that electric boost as I climbed away from our village. When I found I’d lost my way, and faced a steep climb to regain the route, I laughed rather than cursed. And forget those lazy cliches mocking e-bike riding as cheating: because the motor cuts out by law at 25kmh you still get a decent workout. (Especially as you’re pedalling a much heavier bike.)
But the Domane + had another special trick. You can remove the battery and motor to transform it into a regular sportive bike. On a Sunday ride before the Highlands tour I was jubilant as I beat my Strava times on a few Chilterns hills. It wasn’t quite as sprightly as my old Cannondale Synapse but as an e-bike it was a wonderful bonus to roam free.
As 2023 dawns, I’m looking forward to my next cycling adventure. I’ve booked another Peak Tours holiday, pedalling the length of Portugal. It will be my first foreign cycling holiday since 2005. I’m hoping for sunshine although I know from my experience this year that it can rain in Porto in May. I’ll need to lose the Christmas pounds to make those Portuguese mountains a little less painful. (A lesson from Bealach na Bà and many other Scottish climbs this year…)
I can’t wait to experience spectacular Portugal – including a glass or two of vino tinto, and the temptation of the native pasteis de nata custard tarts….
Boris Johnson’s decrepit, dishonest government was hit by two devastating by-election defeats in different parts of England last week.
Labour retook Wakefield in Yorkshire, a seat it lost to the Conservatives in the 2019 general election. More dramatically, the Liberal Democrats took Tiverton and Honiton, a seat that had been Tory since the dinosaurs were young. (OK, slight exaggeration.) That Lib Dem success saw the biggest ever majority overturned in a British by-election.
The Tory defeat has led to a debate about the need (or not) for anti-Tory parties to agree a pact to ensure the progressive vote isn’t split, which traditionally means the Tories win despite the opposition winning more votes. Margaret Thatcher famously enjoyed big majorities because of this.
Sometimes it doesn’t matter. Labour won a landslide in 1997 and 2001 under Tony Blair and the Lib Dems did well too. That was the reverse effect: anti-Tory voters teamed up to punish the Conservatives,
Could the same thing happen in 2024? Last week’s by-elections suggest it might. Tactical voting can work, especially when there isn’t a Jeremy Corbyn to deter Lib Dem voters or a Nick Clegg to deter Labour ones.
What about a repeat of the Tory tactics in 2015, saying Labour will be in the pocket of the Scottish National Party? I can’t see that having any traction in 2024. Boris Johnson is the greatest boost possible for the SNP. The SNP’s apparently unstoppable advance has been turbo-charged by the Tories and Brexit. Brexit is done, at least for now, but the return of a progressive UK government might be the union’s last hope. Especially if that government replaced the deeply undemocratic first-past-the-post voting system with some form of proportionate representation.
The progressive parties must state their case – their collective case – with confidence and brio. Take a leaf out of RMT leader Mick Lynch’s book – don’t let this battle be fought on a field chosen by the Tories. Britain – England, Wales and Scotland – must be better than this. Make the case for a fairer government that fights for all the people, especially those less well off, not just the privileged few who win every time with the Tories.
As a Welshman, I long believed that Wales was best served by being part of the UK. We are a small country that has traditionally looked east to our large neighbour England for trade and much more. Yet I have come to believe that the UK in its current form is a divisive, destructive influence. London doesn’t care (spicier epithets are available) about Wales. Or Scotland. Or Northern Ireland. Even worse, it will force any amount of destruction through that negligence, as Johnson’s poisonous rejection of his own agreement to the Northern Ireland protocol shows. The Tory embrace of Brexit has made our nations and their peoples poorer than they were before. How could Wales – or Scotland – do any worse alone than under destructive London rule?
The next five years will decide whether the UK has a future.
This post recounts the seventh and final day of my Highland 500 cycle tour with Peak Tours in May and June 2022. Read day 6 Durness to Lairg
Ferry across Cromarty Firth to Black Isle
Our final day. The end of a 470 mile odyssey across the Scottish Highlands. And the sun was shining.
We continued to retrace in reverse part of my Land’s End to John O’Groats route in 2002 and 2019. It was an easy downhill to the Falls of Shin, along an eerily quiet road. Yet when I paused at the falls I was amazed to see a crowd of people. Then I spotted the tourist coach… I didn’t linger long, not expecting to repeat my 2019 success in videoing salmon leaping up the falls. I was sad to see the lovely cafe and visitor centre was boarded up, a victim of the pandemic.
I followed Rose to Bonar Bridge, seen above. She set a cracking pace, and my average speed to lunch was far higher than on any other day on the trip. Not far beyond Ardgay, where we had lunch on LEJOG19, I said goodbye to the LEJOG route, glancing up towards the Struie hill viewpoint where I’d taken photos in 2002 and 2019.
Today, we said farewell to the sea and the route of the North Coast 500.
Tràigh Allt Chàilgeag beach
The first few miles followed the far north coast, with a few inevitable short, sharp hills. I was entranced by the sight above: wild campers above a beach not far from Durness. Scotland allows wild camping and I can imagine the delight of drifting to sleep to the sound of the waves at this beautiful spot.
This was the hardest day of the tour. Harder than the Bealach na Bà day. And all because of that cyclist’s curse: a headwind.
Yet it started well. The 1,000 feet of climbing over the first nine miles from Ullapool that sapped my morale yesterday proved easier when repeated today. And I was looking forward to seeing Assynt and cycling over the stunning Kylesku bridge.
Loch Assynt with Ardvreck castle (and picnic!) behind
We had a lovely stop by the shore of Loch Assynt with Ardvreck castle in the distance. The sun was shining, it was warm and we had a stunningly scenic day ahead.
Ertblog 