The London to Brighton experience

Chipstead hill jam, London to Brighton 2010

Thirty thousand of anything is a lot. Thirty thousand cyclists creates an immense snake of humans and metal. The London to Brighton bike ride is the annual institution organised by the British Heart Foundation that can easily lay claim to be Britain's biggest bike ride. And quite possibly one of the biggest in the world.

I've never ridden L2B, even though part of the 54-mile route does run very close to my home in Surrey. This year I decided to take part just to see what the 'London Marathon of cycling' was like, so my father-in-law Ken and I turned up at Clapham Common on Sunday, June 20, at the crack of a sparrow's.

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