London – Brighton Minibike Adventure 2007

Months ago, Giles had talked to his friends about doing the London – Brighton bike ride on his minibike. This is a bike designed for adults but so small that when you cycle, your knees are bobbing beside your ears! He’d done a test run on a normal bike and had even officially entered the ride. All he needed was someone mad enough to go with him. It was then that I volunteered!

The trouble was that on both his two-hour test rides, the bike had broken. I wasn’t convinced that we would make it and joined our medical relatives in suggesting to him that it was a mad idea, both physically and mechanically! But, if he was going to do it, I’d be with him. The challenge was on!

We only had two weeks to get ready and raise sponsorship. We did everything at the last minute, with Giles doing most of the work making the website, collecting sponsorship from all our generous friends and planning the expedition. The weeks before were hectic weeks anyway, with both of us having lots of work to do and late nights.

We both arrived in Clapham, London at nine pm on Friday night. Giles has a huge A2 sign on the front of the bike saying: “Stop Me! Sponsor me! London – Brighton on this!”

Giles’ wonderful friends Ruth and Tom looked after us the night before with a large curry and a place to sleep before we got up at six am to set off … in the pouring rain! Giles cracked straight into cycling the tiny pedals around along the pavements of London. I followed him with a weighty rucksack, pastries in a carrier bag and a camera to catch shots of key landmarks – such as Giles next to red double decker buses.

We used the A-Z map for the first bit and met quite a few characters on route including a postman, milkman, people cycling the London – Brighton the next day, and two women from the West Indies!

The pace was a relaxed three miles-per-hour as we counted down the first part of the 54 miles that we had to cover. The old adage of breaking a big task down into manageable chunks was essential and we set the M25 as the first big chunk with lots of pubs to stop off en-route as the little chunks! Each time we stopped we met some friendly people, amazed at what Giles was doing.

I stopped to buy a bucket en route. It was a bore to carry, but helped us raise £130 extra, so was well worth it!

Once out of London we navigated on Googlemaps! We did get a bit lost, which resulted in us doing about another two miles and climbing an unnecessary hill!

Giles commented that he should have read the road names while route planning, noticed that they all had “Hill” in them and guessed that it would have been a hilly route! I moaned about having lost my OS map that would have had contours and other useful navigation features on it. The moaning stopped, but the hills didn’t!

Giles was tired but kept going on sweets and padded shorts for the painful little bike seat. I was wide-awake, but in pain from carrying too much stuff… who needs a kilo of raisins and bourbon biscuits when there’s shops selling bacon baps on the way!

I took a ride on the bike for a while and it seemed ok. It was nice to sit down and take the weight off my legs. Giles was happy to rest his arse and walk a bit!

The downhills were great for Giles, although the minibike wheels were very small; he could free wheel for a bit and get some way ahead of me. Oh, how I wished for a bike! On one hill, I asked for a go and set off quite relaxed, being careful not to pedal backwards too much (that puts the brakes on). Half way down I freaked out by how steep it was and thought thank God I asked Giles for the bike helmet. I was picking up speed and then the bike started to wobble on the rough tarmac road surface. Being so top-heavy with the big rucksack on, I rapidly lost control and tumbled three times, bare flesh onto road. Thank goodness for natural adrenaline, I was able to get up and carry on although I was bleeding and slightly shocked.

Giles’ van, parked on Turners Hill, was the mid-way point. We arrived there at seven pm just as it started to get dusky. After thirteen hours we’d done about 30 miles.

We had a hearty pub meal and a beautiful sleep in the van, despite its location parked on the street. At six am we woke up and had breakfast. Giles had planned this well and left frozen milk in the van the day before that had defrosted to the perfect temperature.

Sunday was different, in that the weather was drier and we had 27,000+ cyclists to keep us company. I was amazed how many of them did not have the official race number on their backs and even more amazed by the five people who Rollerbladed the whole way!

We had some major technical issues with the back wheel and had to find superglue three times from some very generous people en-route. Zip ties, insulation tape and bottle tops were also used to hold the wheel together. The poor bike really struggled as the pedals began to slip. It was only designed for a fun cycle to cross a patio! But, we were spurred on by the disbelief and support of the other riders.

By Ditchling Beacon (750m above sea level) most of the riders had caught up with us and Giles was becoming quite a celebrity. I was knackered and carrying a bucket with about £100 of their kind cash donations (heavy!).

We struggled down the steep hill into the outskirts of Brighton & Hove. Seeing the sea in the distance gave us a massive boost for the next few hours and soon we were creeping along Brighton seafront to see a large crowd waiting. We got the longest applause ever as we were could only go at about 2.6mph! We were going so slowly that the announcer had to find extra words to keep talking!

The police and marshals had heard of our progress over the day and gave us great support. One cyclist who had been particularly enthusiastic when he passed us was sat having a pint. He jumped up in amazement shouting “NO WAY! I saw these guys nine hours ago!!!”

Our wonderful parents and cousins greeted us with warm hugs and cold beer. What an exhausting but amazing trip.

JSW July 2007