Etape Anglais

I saw a pretty nasty crash. It was just after a corner too, on a climb. Couldn't see how it could've happened.

The guy was on the ground and an ambulance was there. Only three bikes involved.

respect, props and high-fives all round to winston

JimmyP Came in a shade under 9 hours - 8 hours of riding.

Went off way to fast trying to keep up with a mate of mine and his full carbon geared bike. As a result felt quite crap around 30 miles and started to have some doubts. However, a mountain of malt loaf a couple of gels and two bottles of energy drink perked me up and I felt pretty good after that.

Fixed Wheel Nut - I saw you, we spoke briefly coming up the second cat 4 hill. I was riding the blue Pomp.

Malt loaf - never want to see the stuff ever again

I remember, you were on the same gearing as me :) glad you got round ok
I spotted four other fixies, Jimmy's Pomp, a Langster, a Planet X, and a black framed I couldn't see the name of.

I also know a friend Jo did it on his Condor Pista on 76" gear in 7h 03m.

I saw a red Fuji riding around fixed too. He overtook me on an uphill :)

Thanks mate...I stayed a little way behind you for a while...but I was a bit worried about the last hill so eased off a bit. On reflection, I need not have worried.

As for 76"...f*ckin hell!! Full respect. I had a chat with the guy on the PX Superlight at the end. Running an White ENO hub to get the chain length right. Its (the bike) aluminium so I suspect he felt a bit beaten up - the road surfaces weren't exactly great in places.

I came in at 7:03. That's not too shabby for a ride way over my normal distances, solo except for two solid 15min bouts of bunch riding and stopping at every food station to maintain my 'fatness' (and I still lost ~6kg!!).
My average speed was 28 something so ride time was under around 6.30-6.40 which was pretty bloody good for a lardy sprinter type like me.
As someone else commented about, I took a rain jacket thingie and didn't put it on the whole ride. It rained and people were faffing about with clothing by the roadside but the showers only lasted 2min at most.
With riding from home to Greenwich and home I ended up with 237.5k for the day which is the most I've ever done in a single day. Was a good ride. Nice. I like.

OnT: I saw one fixed rider and was glad I was geared. I was riding pretty hard and was cramping like a mofo up the hills. Ow!

LEL jersey

[Hippy}
OnT: I saw one fixed rider and was glad I was geared. I was riding pretty hard and was cramping like a mofo up the hills. Ow!

Thats because you weren't pedalling downhill to move out that lactic :)

You wanna make a bet?!?!
Unlike most of the gearies I saw, I was slamming down the hills, partly to make up for my slow pace upwards and partly because my mass (and, gloat, powerful legs) make me pretty fast going downhill. I tend to climb sitting down and that was where I'd get all the cramp trouble so it forced me to stand and climb, which on the longer climbs didn't suite me too well. I was pushing ~110kg bike+rider up those hills though.. that's why I stopped at all the food stations - there's no way I was gonna run out of energy half way up one of those climbs and then struggle to the next food station.

I didn't see that jersey though. I noticed they (you?) have Assos knicks too. £75 knicks really do keep your arse free from pain but the new problem comes from the fact that it just means you notice other pain more!! I had to stretch a few times coz my tight hammies were caining my lower back. Maybe not riding in the few days beforehand had caused my hamstrings to tighten up? Stupid office move. Stupid city working.

Tight hams are a sign of imbalance. Try some yoga or anything that will strengthen the muscles round the front of your tum. Not like a six-pack, the ones underneath. My yoga-teacher gf reckons that you should stretching of equal duration to exercise. Seriously! I wouldn't go that far....

this is a very good primer:

Yoga for Cyclists
http://www.yogajournal.com/practice/196_1.cfm

Or a any rudimentary stretching regime.

Cheers Bill. Once I'd stretched my hammies out for a while my spine felt quite good. I used to have the same issue a few years ago before I started regular stretching routines. Nowadays I don't stretch much and those couple of days off the bike before the Etape must've stiffened me up (haw haw). 7hrs of stretching is taking it a little bit too far: 20secs to 1min for a hammie stretch does me well. The more intense the exercise the longer the stretching/warmup should be - sprinters should stretch for much longer. I haven't done any glute stretches or hip flexor stretches for ages either so I reckon they are probably contributing.
Seems London is just too feckin' busy for stretching! :S
I could've done an hour long session on the train yesterday though, while it waited to pull into Paddington after a lightning strike killed some signals..

Pics are online.

Marathon Photos

The site's a bit up and down at the mo!

People like us hitting it to see how shagged we look in the pics! :)

Focus! Daniel-san..

Oh dear!

Although it looks like I'm overtaking him, he's (probably) just undertaken me!

My brother offered his hand to shake it, I think I just punched him instead.

I think loads of people (like me) attached their number facing sideways underneath the top tube, instead of facing forwards...I guess that means we're never gonna see our pics.....were we told to have the number facing forward?

The photos which dont have a number they will bung in a folder for people to trawl through (or that is what happens with these sort of things in the past IME).

Bah. Cant get on the site to see how knackered I looked.

winston were we told to have the number facing forward?

Yes. It was in the rider pack which I read about 300 times while panicking the night before..

doh!!!

Like lardy said, they usually have an 'Other' option which shows all the other pics.
Then again, maybe they just didn't bother with unnumbered riders?

Now I know why you were so fast.. you didn't have the aero disadvantage of that number on your bars! U cheatin' buzztard!! ;-)

they've worked out a clever way of finding your official photos on either the everydaycycling or marathon-photos websites....type in your number, then when it doesn't find you click on "more photos"

here's one of me:

Hug that line trackie! ;)

woow,well done to everyone....237k!! thats a long ride hippy,nice one mate:)

thats well quick winston!! kodus:)