Tell us about your weekend ride

50 miler in the new forest sunday.sunny. dry. busy.
newbie cyclists- you dont have to wave at me when you pass,
do you beep and wave at every driver going in the opposite direction?
kthx bye

You're a wave to kinda guy.

Century (miles) on fixed - been a while - did it today - happy.

newbie cyclists- you dont have to wave at me when you pass,

Noobs, getting tetchy when someone's not grimacing or hanging on for grim death on a ride. It's called fitness. You might discover it yourself one day. #handbags

I always said I'd take a wrong turn during a 25mi TT and end up in Scotland.

The B709 is a cracking road if you're up in that area...

Little bit behind the curve but here are my Tour De Yorkshire rides

http://ridewithgps.com/routes/5347782
- cycling to Lucifer's Corner in Haworth from our campsite...'im indoors told me it was about 25km...about 20mins into ride and after going up a 14% climb he realised it was closer to 50km and the 25km referred to the day before's average speed! Little wonder we were too late to get to Luci's Corner/Lufguss Hill

And the saturday where we watched in Hawes, at t'bottom of Buttertubs: http://ridewithgps.com/routes/5347793

Proper beautiful, challenging cycling country and proper pleased with the hills I cycled up.

Before we went t'Yorkshire we were talking about going somewhere like Tenerife or that sort of ilk to cycle up mountains next year but we're going to spend a week in Yorkshire instead. Champion.

Ride it like you fuckin' stole it

Great photo

Bit of an advanced post, tonight riding to Fairbourne Welsh Coast 120ish miles to arrive for sunrise. A bit into the unknown in many respects. It shall not be Strava'd by me but I'll try map route after or see if others record it.

Beautiful day out there. I went out on a bicycle and didn't commute - which is quite rare these days. I'm ring rusty but was pleasantly surprised at how few times I wanted to climb off.

https://www.strava.com/activities/171040614

Went back to my old standard loop. Warm out there - dropped a couple of kilos even after taking on 3L during the 4hrs.

Some nice resurfacing but still so many stretches of road that have repeating trenches in it - wtf? Means you have to ride in the middle of the road and then get punished for it by impatient dickheads that probably caused the problems with the road in the first place.

90 miles from Windsor to princess risborough and back through marlow/winter hill. Preceded and followed by 40 minutes running.

Saw someone in willesden kit who I don't think was hippy and someone in Brixton kit who could have been dammit but wasn't sure...

Lovely day for it but baking hot, the coffee stop was more a see how much water can you carry stop.

I was out that way (Princes Ris and Marlow) but I was in red Croydon Cycle Works kit (Aussie bike shop).

Kent with Dulwich Paragon in the glorious sunshine. Warmed me up after last weeks wet & freezing cold Etape & a 50 mile ride home in the rain.

56 miles in the Mendips in the scorching mid afternoon sun. Think probably the hottest I've ever ridden in. Legs gave up on me on some nasty little undulating section south of Keynsham but good fun overall.

head a nice ride out, lovely weather annoying cross wind but still great to be out

http://app.strava.com/activities/171024714

these are the times I don't regret moving away from London

up and down up and down all day. drafted the bahamian TT team car (in town for the commonwealth games) at one point and eventually caught in horrendous thunder and lightning. was shitting it

accidentally cycled down a no-bikes fast A road at one point too. wooooooooops

70 miles, 18 ave solo over rolling roads. good day in the saddle all round
http://app.strava.com/activities/171098586

Exactly 12hrs since I left the house we're here. Ave speed (moving time) 13.8mph we have done plenty of not moving, esp since light as the views have been awesome.

July 375

This time I left early, getting up at the same time as Mrs Earthloop as she got ready for her shift at work, out the door by 0340. The dual carriageways on the way out were fantastic at that time of day, almost empty.

Then there were some lanes, then the A4 to Bath. I like this road, it's mostly marked out as one lane in each direction but the lanes are very wide. Not a single close pass was made.

Rolling down towards Bath: it's very old around there, and most of the roads seem to have been built before flat ground had been invented. The A4 into Bath itself was wedged with stationary traffic with no room to filter safely, so I turned around and went home. I'll actually go into Bath some other time.

On the way home I didn't fancy trying the dual carriageways at a busier time of day, so I stuck with the A4 almost all the way into town.

It was quite hot: I was drinking 1L per hour of isotonic fluid for most of it, and still dehydrating. I tried adding a bit more plain water but that didn't feel good, I think 1L per hour is about my limit.

#workupto500 http://app.strava.com/activities/171412781

90K 6fixeh

Got the train up to Sheffield and did a bit of a Peak District loop. Seventy miles, and about 3,000 metres of climbing. Jesus Christ. There's a lot of hills up north. Biggest hill I ever get to go up is College Hill. That's alpine for me. To go from that to Holme Moss... Ouch. I am officially a total failure when it comes to hills. Had to get off and push twice. One was on some country lane about 55 miles in. The road ramped up to about 20% and I decided that it wasn't even worth trying.

Amazing views. Wish I could have seen them through the sweat and tears. I'm doing the Etape Cymru in September. It's not looking like a good idea at the moment.

Some nice resurfacing but still so many stretches of road that have repeating trenches in it - wtf? Means you have to ride in the middle of the road and then get punished for it by impatient dickheads that probably caused the problems with the road in the first place.

I was out that way (Princes Ris and Marlow) but I was in red Croydon Cycle Works kit (Aussie bike shop).

There's your explanation, they thought you were from Croydon. :)

Not sure how or why, but I somehow got dragged into the Rapha Rising thingy on Strava. I'm not a natural climber, but I guess it's good to train your weaknesses.

Was forecast for showers and storms, so decided to take the steel winter bike. Met up with a couple of mates for the middle bit, then headed home once I had the desired altitude in the bank. Nice day to be out in the end.

http://www.strava.com/activities/171494446

Last weekend Cycliste and I also did the Etape Pennines. It was a particularly important day since not only was it the Etape Pennines, it was also my birthday. As a result, I had express permission to head off and go round at my own pace, so set off at 6.36am in the big ring with a view to getting a good time in. However, I broke the habit of a lifetime and stopped at the first feed station to wait for Cycliste as I got fed up towing along skinny grimpeur types who'd sit on my wheel on the rolling hills, try and do me on the steeper climbs, and then when they failed go back to sitting on my wheel. Rather than tow along a group of backstabbing bastards from the Valverde school of cycling, I thought I might as well tow Cycliste around instead, but try and set some good times on the KOM and timed sprint sections.

This did not, as usual, work particularly well. Cycliste was running a triple, whereas I was on a compact double, so I wasn't really comfortable climbing the steep hills at the same speed she was. On the downhills, despite being on my wheel and pedalling Cycliste couldn't keep up even when I was coasting. I'd like to put this down to my aero frame and wheels (I was riding the Dentist's Chair) but it may of course be the result of my status as one of life's Naturally Gifted Descenders.

As ever, the ride was full of pretty stiff climbs, some of which were steep enough to cause other riders to zig-zag their way up. Apart from Mr. Orica Greenedge (full team kit, but riding a Canondale) who zigged, but did not zag, and ended up lying on the road still clipped in. He wasn't alone in this, as one of the climbs was liberally coated in engine oil from being used as a hillclimb for classic and vintage cars.

I tried to perform my role as Cycliste's domestique despite these difficulties, including keeping her entertained on the shallower climbs with my impressions of TdF pro cyclists. My repertoire included:

1. Thomas Voekler - tongue hanging out, gurning faces.
   
2. Chris Horner - on the pedals, crotch rubbing against the stem.
   
3. Chris Froome - elbows out, staring at the stem.
   
4. Richie Porte - blowing up spectacularly, dropping behind
   
5. Bradley Wiggings - being invisible
   
   

Cycliste obviously wasn't concentrating as she didn't get any of them, despite the excellence of my impressions. I then switched to singing to her on the climbs in an effort to provide motivation, but apparently that didn't have the required effect.

My plan to set a time on the KOM section didn't go to plan as I only saw the sign marking the end of that section, having missed the one at the beginning. I did make an effort on the timed sprint, which appears to have paid off as I came 8th overall on that. Overall it was a good morning's riding, particularly as the rain held off, and closed road events always make a nice change. Gratuitous pic of Cycliste doing her own Froome staring-at-the-stem impression:

This weekend we went out with the club on the Saturday morning ride, which turned out to be my normal 30 mile training route. I decided to ride fixed, which meant I got well and truly dropped on the only downhill section. When we got back we finished building up Cycliste's new TT bike, and took that for a 20 mile shakedown ride in the evening. It obviously worked, as Cycliste's average speed increased by about 2mph.

This morning we went for another new-TT-bike-test-ride, a bit longer at 46 miles. Nothing fell off, the weather was glorious, and despite Cycliste feeling a bit lethargic it was a good ride.

tl;dr - Etape Pennines last weekend, TT bike testing this weekend. All good.

We were only in Bala for sunrise, but Fairbourne looked ace still when we did get there. 10 of us rode the 125 miles there, got driven back after.

Never done a nightride like that, certainly not trained up for distance as commute 7 miles e/w plus sone bmx riding thrown in.

The route wasn't always flat but it was much flatter than I'd expected, only one long drag out of Llangollen then a shorter one out of Bala.

Fuelled by

takeaway dal and coffee beforehand
2 bananas
1 pack fig rolls
1 sesame snap 3 pack
1 snickers
3 blackfriars flapjak bars

and about 3l water plus 1 coffee

haven't slept at all yet, carried bivvy for if opportunity arose, but tho we had some waiting time it was never long enough to kip.

I'll plot the route and share it, worth a go... you gotta dip your wheel to finish properly though: