LONDON LAP

We cyclists love to set ourselves challenges. For Joe Laverick, riding a lap of London, mirroring the M25, was all in a day's work

- Joe Laverick

I’ve made a lot of good, but also a lot of bad decisions in 2023.

Lying on the ground of a country lane just north of Heathrow Airport, my idea to ride a lap of London in as fast a time as possible quickly moved from being a very good to a very bad decision.

How fast can you ride a lap of London on a bicycle? It’s a very simple question, and there’s one very easy way of finding the answer. Looking to the end of the season, I wanted some sort of challenge to round out my year. I wanted it to be on the TT bike, and I wanted it to be unique. The London Loop was born.

It’s a slightly stupid, Top Gear-style idea – but so was the first Paris-Roubaix. The plan was to start and finish from the Parcours Wheels office just outside of Guildford. From there, I’d head south and complete a 276km loop around the M25.

We billed it as a nine-to-five London Loop. Would it be possible to circumnavigate the Capital in the time of a normal working day? Eight hours to ride 276km isn’t overly impressive, and would give an average speed of 34.5kph. So I set the ambitious target of sub-seven hours – the working day if you take an hour for lunch.

The bike was the star of the show. Built around a Ribble Ultra TT frameset, it is the first time in years that I’ve had control of building my own stuff. You see, when you’re on a road team, you’re limited by your sponsor. Full disclosure: Ribble is still a sponsor of mine, but beyond that, this build was my own (see box).