Tell us about your weekend ride

best thread ever
well done https://www.lfgss.com/profiles/56368/

Good to see fatherhood hasn't completely stopped you from riding a bike.

Did my second ever over 200km ride on Saturday. Same route as year ago, almost exactly to the date. I was a little slower this time, having done very little riding all year, but possibly enjoyed the ride more. I'd guess around 70-90km was gravel, resulted in a squeaky chain and amusing dust tan between shorts and socks. One "flat" which the tubeless sealant eventually patched up, but after re-inflating the tyre a bit I managed to unscrew the valve core while detaching the pump. Happily (and to my surprise) I was able to get the tyre back on the rim with just the small volume pump, not having to resort to a spare tube. Lower back issues somehow vanished at around 150km, and left knee became more manageable. Approaching 200k and midnight – going through some unlit forest sections wearing slightly too thin clothing – I felt I could easily push on. Gotta try 300k next summer.

I am convinced! When/where shall we go?

Failed to follow Oliver's advice and had an 8am departure. 30deg temps proved a bit too much for my girlfriend who started vomiting due to the heat and we trained the rest of the way from the 120km mark at Sudbury.

I thought it might be a bit too much. I rode out to Sible Hedingham for the DD feed on an extremely hot day and felt as if I couldn't/shouldn't go on much further, and that was only 50 miles. Well done for doing 120k, though--where did you start from to make it such a long distance? It's 60 miles from Hackney to Sudbury.

Started in Lewisham, got to between Great Waldingfield & Little Waldingfield then turned back so guess it was 119km all up including the journey back to Sudbury.
https://www.strava.com/activities/374839063

Some of the guys I enjoy the most

I did the Alpenbrevet yesterday, and did the PlatinTour option. 276km and, officially, 7031m of climbing, although my Garmin says it's only 6,620m.

@Cycliste did the gold option - a mere 172km and 5,500m of climbing. Easy.

@danstuff Chapeau! How did you like it? Last year I seriously considered DNF'ing just before the summit of the Passo del Lucomagno, so killing to climb for over 40kms.

RE Garmin: two friends of mine did the Gold version this year and they both clocked over 7000m elev, must have been some strange meteorological situation in Switzerland yesterday ;)

It was bloody hard, and at times I was thinking of quitting too. I got some sort of heatstroke or sunstroke climbing up the Passo del Lucomagno - felt sick, couldn't eat anything, could hardly drink anything, felt dizzy, and ran out of water with 20km of climbing still to go. I recovered after 2 bottles of Coke and 2 glasses of water, but never really fully recovered. Glad I did it, but boy did it hurt.

Alpenbrevet gold for me as well. I guess we didn't see each other, though I was actually wearing my LLFGS jersey. Got a bit overcooked on the Sustenpass in the heat of the afternoon. Great route, but especially fantastic between the top of the Grimselpass, where the crowd thinned out a lot, and Airolo. Also, gold, easy? How many km of cobbled climbing on the platinum?

@Cycliste said she saw someone wearing an LFGSS jersey, so she might have spotted you. Very few cobbles on the Platinum, although there were some early on. I've done the cobbles on the San Gottardo previously - they're hard work too!

What time did you get to Airolo out of interest? I was always planning to do the gold (which was quite enough for this year as it turned out), but I was hoping to reach the cutoff in time so I could casually say something like "yeah I could have done the platinum one but I just fancied those cobbles instead". Anyway, your moving average speed was about 20 km/h and so was mine but I didn't get to Airolo until 11.30. Were you pushing on much more in the early sections and then slowed down in the heat? Also, did you start near the front? I was pretty much at the back and perhaps would have made it on the dot of 11.15 if I had really started at 6.45.

We set off at about 20 past 6, as we opted for the individual start, rather than the bunched mass start. I got to Airolo just before 11, but I definitely slowed up later in the day due to the heat. On the Grimselpass I was riding with @Cycliste and was doing about 200 watts, on the Nufnen I was by myself doing 240-260 watts, on the Lucomagno pass I was struggling to do 160 watts and if my heartrate went above 150bpm I started feeling sick... Ah, such fun!

Did over 100 miles yesterday for the first time in ages, out to Windsor a long wiggly way on a sportive and then back a direct way.

Really enjoyable and much better than expected. I generally prefer independent rides to sportives because you've no control over who else is riding a sportive and you get some numpties. And you're paying quite a lot for support services you don't need or use. But I rode this with some colleagues who do most of their riding at organised mass events. Actually a really fun day.

And another group of my friends rode it on my suggestion and had a good day too. Bikes are good :-D

I guess we didn't see each other

Well, with all those mountains in the way, you would have needed X-ray spectacles for that.

I see, thanks. I was staying in Axalp, about 20 km away so between about 5.30 and 6.30 I was making my way gently to the start (Axalp is well above the valley floor and the descent is pretty engaging in the dark!) - it was a nice day for an early start.

@Oliver Schick: Indeed... I imagine real x-ray spectacles to be pretty chunky, might be problematic for rule 37.

So, was it you with the black/blue glasses and matching black lfgss jersey with blue text in the finish area at about 17:30? Or were there other lfgssers out there?

Almost certainly, yes. In my defense the glasses are actually brown and the remarkable jersey-specs (xray or not) coordination was a coincidence I hadn't noticed till now.

Went to Llandegla, did Blue run with daughter on Yepp Mini seat. She was ok for about 3/4 of it then novelty wore off so glad we kept it short.

I then got 45 mins in the pump track - ace, followed by my first go along the freeride bit back to the cafe.

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I haven't seen them, but evidently the jersey/specs combo is a winner. When I finished I was half dead and desperately in need of beer, and all @Cycliste could tell me about was your glasses...

Easy? That's more climbing than the Marmotte!!!

Twelve hour Torq in your Sleep XC endurance thing - as did @AdsH. First solo effort - I've previously only done these type of things as part of a team.

Plan was to start slow and stay slow and stay on the track, just chipping away at it. First six hours went fine, just stopped for a bar and a gel at the end of each nine mile lap with a handup from @Doctor_Cake.

The course was one of the trickiest - hardly any fire road and mostly rooty, loamy singletrack requiring constant pedaling and punished every slip of concentration with a trip in to the dirt, which was mercifully soft from the weekends rain.

To make my life as hard as possible I rode a hardtail, 26" wheels with probably 10psi or so too much up front in the 80mm travel fork - at the six hour mark I was feeling it.

This meant a stop for a good feed, some time with the shock pump then I set off again and put in a few more laps with a cup of tea in between each, the ambition of putting in eighty miles scaled back to 100km.

Bike felt a lot better but with three hours to go I was feeling pretty done, and a tumble in the dark a few hours later that almost planted my face in to a tree meant I effectively finished an hour early, and just waited out until midnight came round before rolling over the line to finish 27th having done roughly 100km.

Certainly the hardest 100km of my life.

Nice! Always fancied some of the Gorrick events.