This is not a happychase.

sunshine beer football alleycat yes

Less trafic with the match on...

10 mins from the foundry suit you? Few cushions and some smelly bedding is all I can offer...

lazy fu*ker!!

Twenty racers out of Warner Street blasting up Grays Inn Rd, the roads slick and greasy, slipping all over the place on solid tyres through the Kings Cross traffic heading for Greater London House. Somehow managed to get there first but had a moment of pure alleycat confusion when given 37 North Wharf Road and shot off north towards Camden for absolutely no reason at all. Looked down at the checkpoint slip again and realized it was W2. Click. M&S. Backtrack with Martin who'd braindrained as well and with heads down we try and chase the pack which had a good 500m on us. Euston Road all the way, pushing it hard through the rain we managed to close the gap and finally wound them back in by Marylebone. Left into North Wharf Road I came as close as it gets to slipping and falling somehow managing to stay upright and push it to the checkpoint where we arrive as a clattering bunch to smiling faces. Young Street, W8. Where the feck is that? No-one wants to lose the time by checking the A-Z but look, Vojtech knows and like the gentleman that he is he leads as we snake behind him in a tight train through Notting Hill and down towards Knightsbridge. Sitting on V's wheel is a godsend and I manage to use the oppoortunity to squeeze some air back into my lungs as the song of a thousand roll-ups screams inside my chest. Young Street, it's the bleeding Daily Mail OF COURSE, more blurred faces, next checkpoint New Compton Street, WC2. NO-ONE knows where that is but we streak off back in the direction of town just to make time. I decide take the race on and develop a gap through Hyde Park Corner and into the underpass but my legs fail on the pathetically negligable incline into Picadilly and we bunch again. I'll never be a hill climber. I'm losing the pack as I try to find the next checkpoint in my mapbook whilst riding but it isn't working so I have to stop and when I find it it seems I'm the only one who knows where it is so I lead, banging through the bright lights of Piccadilly, tourist madness, screaming at Peds, taking risks. We find New Compton Street behind Charing Cross Road but where are the checkpointers? We should be in the right place? Braindrain attack Number 2. Slot. It's the back of Endeavour House. Idiots. There they are, in the rain, another blur of familiar faces, the last checkpoint, Warner Street.

And so. It comes down, as it has on many an occasion, to that all too familiar dash along Bloomsbury and onto Clerkenwell Road and home. Anyone could win this race now, a lot depends on luck through the junction of Southampton Row but we fly through it and I'm only too aware of Martin on my wheel and a couple of shadows on his. Martin I know is scheming and is gonna want to draft me all the way and turn me on the sprint to the finish but there's no way round it, it's balls out along Clerkenwell and weaving skids in the wet left down into Mountpleasant, the quickest way back to Warner Street. There's someone behind me, they're gonna take me, steals it from me! My precious. But no, I screech into Warner Street to sweet, sweet victory, with Mark on my back. Martin, Seabiscuit and Vojtech had taken the longer route past the Duke to their detriment, Sirs. Ahhh....

A proper race. Point to point madness. Loved it.

Nice one OD, an excellent shout on the Emergency Cat, brilliantly executed despite the rain and England's crap as, completely uninspiring performance on the box in The Duke before the race. Cheers to everyone that contributed, thanks for some proper good prizes (nice gloves!) and well done on raising that money, big tings gwarn.

Great race report,thanks.