COUNTDOWN TO LONDON-EDINBURGH-LONDON 2022 The proverb says that one volunteer is worth ten pressed men. Martin Brice, a veteran Audaxer from Tunbridge Wells, got as far as a small town in the Scottish Lowlands on the London-Edinburgh-London ride before throwing in the towel. Instead of going home, he took the train back to London to support an army of LEL volunteers. He’s never looked back. Here’s Martin’s story of the dedicated band of unpaid helpers – the heroes who oil the wheels of one of British cycling’s toughest challenges
MARTIN BRICE Martin Brice started cycling 60 years ago and is still going strong. During that time he has started many prestigious events such as LEL, PBP, the Essex Grand, Brussels-Paris-Brussels and The Borders of Belgium – but hasn’t necessarily finished them… as he says: “if success was guaranteed it wouldn’t be audacious.” He’ll be volunteering at LEL 2022 but hopes to ride it again because at least that’s one way of getting more sleep during the event.
Let’s hear it for
the volunteers
Arrivée155Spring2022
THERE COMES A MOMENT when an LEL rider looks deep into his soul…and doesn’t like what he sees. That moment arrived for me at the Moffat control in 2013. I was exhausted. It was the point, for this rider at least, where dreams met reality – and reality won. But that decision to pack opened a door through which I cheerfully stepped – becoming a volunteer on LEL. Though my dream was over, I discovered an opportunity to help others achieve their own dreams. After a train ride south from Scotland, I joined the team of volunteers at the finish control – and it was a real privilege to hang medals around the necks of those exhausted, sweat-soaked, quivering
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Final briefing… Danial Webb talks to volunteers before the start
wrecks who were shattered but jubilant at finishing. Many were friends who’d started the ride with me, and were full of astonished admiration that I’d finished before them – until I owned up. Thanks to that experience in 2013, I volunteered at the next LEL in 2017. If I’d known then how grueling it was to be a volunteer, I might have opted to ride instead. Looking back, the 2017 experience is a half-remembered blur of tiredness, train journeys to Scotland and back, and hundreds upon hundreds of conversations notable for both parties being really, really tired and not quite making sense. It started on the Friday before registration. Volunteers were needed to
set up the control. It seemed a good idea for someone to sleep on the floor inside the school. There was an extremely early start to the Saturday. My role that day was to be part of the reception desk team which involved dealing with a constant stream of requests for help and information. That night I slept in the school again, on the floor next to the riders’ drop bags, just to be on the safe side. One rider from Russia had arrived without his bike. After a phone call by me to Heathrow airport, the bike was delivered at 1am, and he spent the next few hours rebuilding the thing. I know this because he did it on the other side of the door from where I trying to sleep.
