Final time was 22 hours 20 minutes 25 seconds, about 5 minutes inside the previous record!. The GPS tracker worked perfectly, hope you had fun watching progress (slow as it was at times :) ) There's a full report of the ride available over at BikeMagic
The South Downs Way, twice. In one day. Winchester to Eastbourne, and back again, something over 200 miles offroad on a bicycle, around 4 miles of ascending in total. Wednesday 29th August 2007, so it's a full-moon thing. I'll have GPS on the bike, and it will, with luck, update this page in real time (once every few minutes). The route will be the current 'Riders Route', starting from the King Alfred Statue in Winchester and turning around at the signboard marking the end of the SDW in Eastbourne.
The map below automatically centres on the latest reported position. If everything goes to plan, it will update with the current position (via GPS) about once every 2 minutes starting early on Wednesday morning. You can zoom in and out, but note the pan controls will automatically re-centre on the last reported position (if you want to free-fly about, use the SDW route page).
You can change views with the Satellite/Map/Hybrid buttons, and (if you have a compatible browser) you should also see the South Downs Way marked with a thick line.
Success! Back safe and sound(ish), biggest thank-you has to go to Jim, my support guy (he only got stopped once by police, and he's so solid they took his word for it that the bags of white powder he was handing out to a passing cyclist was for making energy drink). Also big thanks to everyone who expressed their support, and esp. Chris L who came out to let me know the GPS tracker was working and people were watching - that was very motivating!
Completed the ride in well under 24 hours (despite losing well over an hour to technical problems). Scariest moment was a front tyre blowout on a fast flinty descent - managed to ride it out but v. lucky!
According to GPS, the start time as I passed the King Alfred statue in Winchester was 04:03:53, and end time was 02:24:18 - that gives an elapsed time of 22h 20m 25s. Turnaround at Eastbourne was the signboard marking the end of the SDW in Paradise Drive. Actual riding time was more like 20 1/2 hours, the technical problems were behind most of the non-riding time.
GPS log: It's split into 2 files (lucky to find out beforehand the full ride would have overflowed the GPS memory!). The first file covers Winchester to Eastbourne, the second covers the return from Eastbourne to Winchester. The elapsed time is taken from the GPS entry at the King Alfred statue in Winchester going east (i.e. the point at the start line) and the GPS entry at the statue going west (i.e. the point at the finish line). Start was 04:03:53 BST on 29th August, end time was 02:24:18 the next day.
Track logs - GPSBabel
Winchester to Eastbourne
Eastbourne to Winchester
Memory Map (converted from above)
Winchester to Eastbourne
Eastbourne to Winchester
KML for Google Earth (courtesy Tony Lock)
Winchester to Eastbourne
Eastbourne to Winchester
For more route information, visit the South Downs Double website - you can download complete GPS route data and other useful info from there.
If you have any comments or questions, please send me a message via the feedback page - thanks!