Cycle Sportives

See you all there - overdressed probably, and wallowing along on squishy 25s :)

PS. How come my knees have only started hurting since I stopped riding a bike? I must be an overgeared pedestrian :S

I'll be wearing my Stinky Jacket(tm) I reckon. It's truckin' cold out. Nothing wrong with 25s. Bring spare tubes.. i'm gonna need 'em for those fkn contis!
Reckon I'll be catching the train back too rather than riding. 300k in 2 days is a bit much this early in my cough training.

good luck chaps, have a goodun and hope the route works!
My Ashdown training is 40 miles of hills fixed on Sunday.

Are you riding Ashdown fixed? Should train on the bike you're gonna use dude.

Continental Tyre are fucked. So is ice.

Hmmm, the curse of the londonfgss Brighton rides. Here are my ice-skating trophies:

And mine:

Condor didn't have any short derailleurs. If only we'd gone fixed, we wouldn't have broken ours. Was a good ride all the same, but don't think we should attempt any more Brighton runs. :)

Jesus. Knew it was cold this morning, but not that cold!

What happened? I hope the injuries are minimal, but see that you bust the bikes.

fatboyralph was unable to continue - looked a bit like a dislocated shoulder or fractured collarbone or something...

I've spoken to FBR and he's broken his collarbone. Sounds like a clean break from what he described so he should heal up quick and even.

Mind the ice people! Fucking evil shit!

Hope Ralph gets well soon and back on the bike. Enjoyed riding with you anyway today Ralph - was a good one.

Yeah, get well soon FBR - at least you know your new carbon frame is tougher than your collarbone ;)

I also ripped the shit out of my newish overshoes (likewise Francis with his), but I've done a bit of judicious bending of my rear mech and some barrel adjusting and it's working okay. Not sure how many more black ice whacks it can take. That's 2 so far...

Enjoyed the ride despite the crash and the traffic. Next time we go to Brighton, I'm just gonna set up my turbo trainer on the train outside the disabled loo. Should be safer, but the londonfgss jinx will probably mean the train derails somewhere South of Croydon, or the new train driver will decide to go brakeless and plough into the train in front.

hehehe I blame it all on the Contis! The curse just spread out..

Who wants the tyres? They're freeeeeeee!!!!!

eek don't sound too good ...
where was the ice?

On the road.

No, really, I'm looking where now..

Stanstead Rd, Caterham.

k. not mine but my xray looked almost exactly like this (space between fracture ends bit closer tho) appointment on monday will confirm if its ok to leave it without further treatment

thanks guys, for the company in that long walk to the station. only just got out of my cycling clothes. found out that ive got one of them bruises as well. right hip, not as big. weird how all my clothing survived...well done decathlon. helmet is spotless as well. mustve slid on the smoothest part of the road. still think i caused everyone else to stack it...sorry bout that. ill shout ice on my way down next time ;)

weird. ive been tryin to remember exactly what happened. dont think i realise ive slipped until my back was on the tarmac...didnt even try to soften the fall. bit dissappointed in my slow reaction

your right BMMF, bike fared a lot better. apart from some rips on the tape...not that it matters, no riding for a mth or two!

take care out there guys

"things i hate" - ICY ROADS!

There's no way you caused the other 3 of us to go down. I saw you fall first and started to wonder what was going on; then Matt and Francis did a carbon copy (no pun intended), and I barely had time to even pick (no pun intended) the word ice out of my semantic cupboard before I was suffering the same fate.

I didn't touch the brakes, was probably only leaning a degree or 2 to the right, and went down so fast I can't really remember the transition from vertical to horizontal either. There's nothing you can do once you're on the slippery stuff, apart from relax, and hope like f*ck that there's no traffic around :)

My head didn't touch the ground either (rarely does on a sideways fall), but I think I've got a bit of lateral whiplash or something, but a few whiskies have sorted that out.

Going back up that hill from the station was fun though :D

ended up goin to chelsea a&e. was in and out in 2.5hrs. record time in an a&e. once had a 6hr visit!

That road was sooo fkn slippery. I couldn't believe it when I was picking bmmf's bike up and both tyres just slid across the surface with almost no friction!
I checked my speed and I was doing 26kph when you guys went down so not super fast. It was an uphill and slight right hander.
That's two icy crashes in two weeks.. no conti's now so tomorrow's club run should be incident free :S

You want some free conti's fbr? :)

yeh neck is sore as well. we're very lucky there were no cars around...couldve been a lot worse

that hill looked well steep..and endless! top job gettin up that. did hippy catch the train after that? :p

Yeah, I heard or saw fbr go down which probably woke me from my slumber and then I think as I'd reacted to slow the rest of you kind of followed. I quickly hopped off and put my bike on the side of the road coz I didn't know how bad you were and worried a car was gonna come around the bend quick. bmmf actually looked worse to me, on the ground, which is why i went to grab your bike, to get you up and off the road. it was when you started moving I noticed ralph holding his arm in the 'bye bye collarbone' postition that i was like uh oh..

I think I've got dense bones or something. Never had a break/fracture (famous last words) in years of throwing myself into dangerous situations. When I was playing football/rugby/etc in my teens, I regularly clashed bones with these f*cking gargantuan types, and while I was hopping around saying 'ouch' they were usually being carried off on a stretcher.

Psychologically though, I shatter at the drop of a hat ;(

tried to get up on my right but felt a pinching pain on my collar bone. thought those kind of fractures only happen on over the bar faceplants

im so soft. right, extra cup of milk in my cocopops

Extra shot of whisky and some ibuprofen in my hot chocolate (before I go to bed and keep waking up every few hours when I roll onto my right side)...