//subdivision

I first noticed this event in the serpentineroad.com forums. A few of the local London skaters have attempted the London to Brighton BHF Bike ride on skates before, and it sounded like a 'fun jaunt' to the coast at the time. Of course, the week before the event itself, I was completely unprepared.

However, I managed to fit in a Sunday Stroll, Wednesday Night Skate and Friday Night Skate (all regular, organised skates around London) the week before the big day in the end, which would have helped with stamina. I picked up a Karrimor Refuel bag for the day too, a cheaper CamelBak, which was invaluable.

I attempted to sleep and was woken by my my phone at about 5.15am.. it was my lift to the start, Mark from serpentineroad, who was just down the road. With about 15 minutes to shower and eat, the taxi arrived and took us to the start at Clapham South tube station. There was a group of around 20 skaters ready to set off at 6.30am, and a great atmosphere!

After a while, I settled into my own pace, and eventually was on my own with the cyclists, apart from spotting a skater now and again. Becca from the forum kindly lent me her heelbrake, but I stupidly took it off a little way into the skate on my first stop as I was afraid of tripping on it. I say stupidly, because, fun though it was, I narrowly avoided a major bail on one of the hills-on-a-corner, at what felt like warpspeed. It was fantastic fun developing slide braking skill, but probably not the best time to do so with 20,000 cyclists around you. So the heel brake went back on on the second stop.

The cyclists were fantastically friendly, intrigued and encouraging all the way. The general consensus seemed to be that as long as we don't get in the way, we're less hassle than some of the 'lesser skilled' cyclists were! I had a good chat with a couple of the guys from the Medway velodrome at one point, which really inspired me to go over there for a visit.

I had three stops along the way including one at the top of the legendary Ditchling Beacon, which I'm really pleased to say, I made it up in one go, though death through heart attack could have happened any moment. The sense of achievement at the top of the beacon, combined with great scenery (I couldn't help thinking 'I really shouldn't be here on skates') was a buzz, followed by the long, very fast and hugely exhilarating road dropping towards Brighton

After reaching the finish at about 12.30pm (a very kind volunteer gave me one of the medals!), all the skaters gathered for a well-earned beer or ten, before snoozing on the train back again.

I logged the whole thing to my Garmin Forerunner 305, which I found quite entertaining along the way as well, for example checking current and top speeds. My average speed was 10.8mph, and according to my Garmin; 46mph max but it is a little prone to speed spikes, so I think it was more like 36mph max according to a couple of cyclists I spoke with on the final descent. I didn't know skates could go that quick!

Here's the GPS trail from the skate:

View Larger Map

Here's a link to the activity on MotionBased, too.

Here's a few clips of the run edited together:

And a couple of movies made by other skaters on the day!

The most exciting thing I've done on skates so far. Roll on next year.

Tagged as cycling, inline skating, london to brighton, marathon, sport + Categorized as Skate & Surf