Tell us about your weekend ride

Did a quick hit in Essex. Highlight was a hi res #selfie4dimi3

Kind of took road bikes offroad, started rough, got worse then opened out onto some hard packed gravel paths, twas fun and fast.

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So, having failed miserably to get up Yorks Hill Sunday before last and foolishly 'fessin' up to my cycle buddy... he, being a gentleman, invited me out yesterday to partake on one of his fave routes. Rather ungentlemanly though he picked his hilliest route so he could 'kick me while I'm down' as if last weekends failure wasn't enough! :)

He has a bike with what I believe are termed 'geayryres', and relished in this fact too (it being a comedic on-going slanging match between us) but it didn't stop me overtaking him on EVERY CLIMB on his route. That it until 'the beast' came along... at 23 miles in check out that vertical cliff!!!

Thats the one that got me, staright up the North side of The Downs nr Upper Halling. I got about 2/3 up but it was another near-death experience. I had to get off and walk (again). Natch, my chum (with his multisprocketed thang) just about made it up although he admitted he failed on 1st attempt on this route. I was running a 48T chainwheel and a 18T freewheel with 32C tyres as he'd warned me bits of the route were 'off road'.

Next weekend I intend on finding another hill I can push my bike up, I'm getting very good at it.

Good fun ride mind you, 9/10 would push bike up hills again.

55 miles today (I know it's a Monday but having a long weekend in France).

From the house to Mont St Michel and following all the ' you are on the route of the 2016 Tour De France grand depart' signs all the way back.

The route goes about 2 miles from our French house and goes up alter local hills!

Went to Italy this weekend, climbed the Colle d'Agnello (2744 m) on friday and rode the Gran Fondo Fausto Coppi on sunday (174 km, 4200 m of climbing).

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The Col d'Agnel from Italy, brilliant!

Indeed! Very nice climb with magnificent views. Hard the last kilometers but nothing compared to the Fauniera we had to climb on Sunday. ;-) That climb is a horrifying beast.

I'm out! :-)

I wasn't pushing a 48x18. ;-) Had troubles spinning the 34x30 on the hardest parts of the Fauniera.

I wasn't pushing just 48 x 18... it was the whole bike arf arf arf!

That 2nd photo is great, it looks like you've ran out of Planet Earth to ride on!

Pictures from last weeks ride from Copenhagen to Riga http://www.lfgss.com/events/858/

Looks just great. What tires were you guys using?

On top of the Agnel I bumped in on some guys from London who were riding from Geneva to Nice. I'm always jealous when I see people making multi day trips; it's just too long since my last one.

it looks like you've ran out of Planet Earth to ride on!

there aren't many paved roads in Europe going higher than that one so I left Planet Earth a bit, yes. :-) Crazy thing was: on the French side there were practically no clouds at all.

@Zdrenka was on the specialized Fatboy 45c, I was on 25c Gatorskin [mostly with 65 psi front/80 rear to accomodate the several hundreds of gravel km's. (Total wessel weight ~95kg)

Annual ride in RP. Backed up with a slightly longer ride out the A4 and back. Non-riding time filled with beer drinking. Taking the build up to Nat 24 very seriously this year...

I knew Gatorskins are indistructible but not they would survive that kind of roads.

No Flintstones® in Balticum is the reason

You spunked over Norsham. Nice bike btw

Quick Layhams Beddlestead loop into Kent today. Off to the Pyrénées on Friday. Very unfit. Will need to ride myself into form :)

First longish solo ride for awhile. Felt good but this wind's been doing my head in... As well as my legs.

Off to the Pyrénées on Friday.

I'm in a small hotel in Brive-la-Gaillarde at the moment, on my way to the (Spanish) Pyrenees as well.

Nice one. We're basing ourselves in Bagnères-de-Bigorre. Enjoy!

Did a little loop taking in various WNKR sections (Cucumber Lane, White Stubbs and the Lea) whilst Mrs rhowe did her first cycle training session (!).

I haven't heard the end of it since, so I think she's hooked already. Enfield do a £10 hire-a-bike-for-a-month scheme which she just signed up for.

http://ridewithgps.com/routes/9368913

Only the one puncture, made worse by a broken pump I had to repair on the towpath. All good

I managed to revive my appetite for night rides by taking part in a gentle FNRttC to Whitstable on Friday/Saturday. It always takes too long to escape from London via Bermondsey, Greenwich, Woolwich, Erith and Dartford but once we were outside the M25 it became beautiful, with noctilucent clouds glowing in the north opposite Gravesend, a perfect sunrise over the marshes, a visit from the International Space Station and an Iridium flare at Strood, and then into real countryside and place names like Tonge and Iwade and Bobbing. Some pleasant ups and downs (Basser Hill is what some might call a leg-tickler) but mainly a very gentle 70 miles or so.

With 6.5 miles to go a group of us turned onto Head Hill (which is where the road is pan flat as it heads across the Graveney marshes) and sprinted all the way to the Waterfront Café. I had my moment of pleasant middle-aged delusion, thinking that my 48 years didn't prevent me from being an athlete, chasing down other riders and basically giving it the beans in a way that's never possible/survivable in the world of commuting.

^^^ Dartford by moonlight, the stuff of poets! :) Gerrofff moi laaarrrhhhnd!!!

I broke with tradition this weekend. Instead of pushing my bike up hills I found that by moving the pedals in a steady rotary fashion I could get up inclines. Radical I know but thats the sorta fella I am. I rode out to Teapot Island from Dirtfud. I found another rider's route on RwGPS and tweaked it to suit me en-route. It was mostly great, I didn't like cycling along 7 mile lane though, speedy lorries and cars zooming past on a single lane country road made me feel vulnerable and it was a surprisingly rough surface too in places. Quite a few other cyclists going that way too I noticed. Folk from 2 different clubs whilst I was there woofing down a Baked Spud, Reading and Dulwich I think. I went this a-way...

...and set my PB for climbing up Hills on one ride, whahey! 689M, thats the elevation, not the length of my legs BTW.

8/10 Would ride it again but try and work out some way of not doing 7 Mile Lane.

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