Tell us about your weekend ride

Saturday 40k flat stuff around Adelaide down and along the beach, then back, in surprisingly nippy weather despite full sunshine. Windy as and I rode for a good part of it in the drops, which is unusual for me.

Then today I felt crap in the morning and the family annoyed me and despite all good intentions to fit a climb in I didn't make it out in the morning. Feel like a right loser now. Will have to make up with a mid-week night ride up a steep hill.

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Chilterns Classic yesterday. I thought they were joking about those hills until I had to go up them. And the downpours.

Don't mind getting wet but when I'm cycling along in a ****ing biblical downpour, edging around a ****ing river that is flowing down one side of the road, and then some ****ing twat motorist starts honking his horn cos I've delayed him by all of maybe 15 seconds, and then decides to accelerate past on the other side of the road, sending a tidal wave of water all over me.... well I have to ask if that is really necessary.

However, still a great ride and well pleased to get round 100 miles in bang on 6 hours, including a couple of stops.

Went out into the Kentish lanes for 70-ish miles. Avoided all the rain (ayyyyy!), but back started aching after two miles. The next 68 were hellish. Seem to be something about riding in Kent at the mo, it's always harder than I think it should be. /sulks

Great ride today!
Rain, bumped a car at a roundabout, tire exploded, puddles and rivers everywhere, angry motorists, mighty headwind.
Still an amazing ride, very pleased with the route, quite fast!

https://www.strava.com/activities/621669551

I did the inaugural edition of L'Alsacienne sportif yesterday. It was a lot harder than I'd expected (I'm not sure why I thought it would be anything other than hard with 4,500m of climbing) but I can thoroughly recommend it. It was extremely well organised, the route is challenging, and it's a great area to ride in.

Welcome to the Chilterns. :)

I went to Stratters for a bbq and beers. Bikes>>>

I had a mate come across from Blackpool for the day on Saturday. Not a close mate, but since he left uni he's got into cycling and we've chatted about it a fair bit online so we decided to go for a spin.

I thought I'd make it a bit challenging, we're both in okay shape but not riding as much as we would each want so nothing crazy like ^ but a reasonable 80 km ride across to Whaley Bridge/Buxton with about 1100m of mixed long and short climbs.

Ended up being a lovely ride out. We had all four seasons worth of weather but as the ride had been organised for so long we were determined to keep cracking on. The company was great, conversation flowing throughout despite the hills, and I was pleased to find that my mate loved the route. A cafe stop for cake and coke by the canal on the way home topped the day off nicely, the sugar and caffeine making for a spirited blast home. Riding 1x10 on the road bike ended up not being too limiting though I think some of the fatigue I was feeling by the end was due to over-tall gears climbing.

bromance/10, would ride again

https://www.strava.com/activities/620552109

Whaley Bridge

My home town, lovely part of the world

London to Pembroke on Sunday. 412km with a vicious headwind the whole way and heavy rain for the last 220km. Tough day but good for character-building.

Full write-up and piccies on the blog: http://wp.me/p6RY6c-1Dr

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Off the back of a great Eroica Britannia, I've just returned from a magical
730km London - Dover - Calais - Amsterdam - Hook of Holland - Harwich -
London 'Tour of Bruv' with my brother who is over from NZ.

It's been a pretty tough few years for our family with the loss of both
parents so was magical to reconnect under more positive circumstances with
great company, great scenery, food and beer/rum.

Did it over 5 days unsupported staying at budget hotels & camp grounds.
Got the routes off Ride with GPS from a company that specialises in cycle
holidays and adapted them to suit.

Day 1 - 127 km London - Dover. It's a fairly hilly route this one but it
most importantly misses the A2 and goes down some magical lanes. Caught
the 5.30pm ferry over to Calais and stayed in a £60.00 per night Ibis.
https://www.strava.com/activities/617291817

Day 2 - 175 km Calais to Westkapelle. Early start with thunderstorms and
much rain. Breakfast in France, Lunch in Belgium & Dinner in the
Netherlands.. Rain turned into glorious sunshine. Stayed at a lovely
beach hotel.
90% on lovely bike paths following dikes etc. Headwind the entire way.
https://www.strava.com/activities/618411611

Day 3 - 180km Westkapelle to Amsterdam. Amazing going over some of the sea
defences. Truly wonderful engineering. Quite a bit of our planned route
was on the same route as the Dutch national road racing course which
happened to be on at the same time! Shame we couldn't stay round to watch
as we had such a huge distance to chop. Stayed at the wonderful Camping
Het Amsterdamse Bos which seemed to contain every European teen that liked
high energy trance. Met my girlfriend and daughter who had flown in from
London to spend Saturday and Sunday with us.

Day 4 - 109km. Amsterdam to Hook of Holland. Late start. A lovely
meandering route through Sand dunes along the North Sea Route. Caught the
overnight ferry back to Harwich. The ferry is first rate and would
thoroughly recommend to anyone!
https://www.strava.com/activities/621572168

Day 5 - 137km back to London. A fairly direct route back to London but
could have been worse. Would have rather taken some nicer lanes and taken
a longer route.
https://www.strava.com/activities/622470225

What a fantastic trip. 90% of the continental cycling was in dedicated
cycle lanes that were great for covering good distances relatively quickly
not like the cycle lanes here which I avoid like the plague.
10/10 - Go on plenty of adventures before you're too old. So so good.

The Ride with GPS files are here:
Day 1: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/13940897

Day 2: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/14558197

Day 3: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/14569122

Day 4: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/14567451

Day 5: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/13945583

Looks fantastic. I may investigate further, as I've been wanting to take my daughter on a mini tour and some of that looks perfect.

For sure. Perfectly suitable for touring with children. Was thinking about doing the same as we did a family group ride to Paris last year and kept thinking that this would have been a much better choice! Would skip days 1&5 with children in tow. Everything that wasn't the UK was magical!

Did 100 laps on the ghettodrome in Trelleborg

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@Cycliste and I did the Engadin Radmarathon for the first time today. It's a 97km or 210km ride around the Alps near Davos and St Moritz. It's a double loop - you start in Zernez, go off and do some little climbs in a loop to the south, which brings you back to Zernez after 97km. There's a climb up from Zernez to Livigno, over the border in Italy, and then two smallish cols, the Passo Forcola and the Passo del Bernina. If you make it back to Zernez before the cut-off time (half eleven - it's a 7am start) then you can go off and do the second loop to the north to bring the total up to 210km.

The northern loop contains two big climbs, the Fluelapass and the Albulapass. The latter in particular is a bit of a beast - 1,300m of climbing from 975m up to nearly 2,300m in one hit. Apart from the dick in the Italian registered car who managed to hit my hand and handlebar with the door mirror of his car climbing up the Albulapass, it was all rather jolly. Lovely weather, and well organised. Pretty hard though, obviously.

I drank cider at a festival while paying someone to drive my car repeatedly over my bikes.

We did a little 'wtf is going on with my camera' 100k loop through neighboring Belgium territory

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Looks a fun trip, and "Breakfast in France, Lunch in Belgium & Dinner in the
Netherlands" is a great statement to be able to make.

Enjoyed a 60km jaunt round Cambridgeshire/Hertfordshire today that pretty much did me in. Depressingly, turns out the route I followed makes up 60 of the 70km the local club do, and they went a helluva lot quicker than I did. Maybe I'll hold off joining up then ...

https://www.strava.com/activities/643759741

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Bunch aerodynamics...

Having never ridden in a group, I've never known quite how much benefit it gives you? Would it really up your average speed from 25 to 30-35km an hour over that distance?

Yes.

If you can sit on 30kph on the flat then sitting at 40 in a bunch is easy.

Well behind on long rides so did the lumpy end of the Ridgeway. Decided to man up with 34T 1x10 => much pain in legs such that I couldn't lie down after shower but had to walk around while pain subsided.

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Swerved a flat club run to go out to a nearby National Trust place. Huge headwind all the way out, and I don't normally do coffee stops but it felt necessary today. Went out early so missed most of the heat, but it was baking by the time we got back into town.

76 miles, 4000ft of climbing.

Repping LFGSS in N Yorks.

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Took the tandem over to Leith and Box Hill to ride them before the Ride London. Box Hill was fine, Leith... not so much. Staple Lane for good measure on the way home.

Hit 50mph on the way over to Dorking... were glad of the drum brake a few times.

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