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@dancing james
from the PBP thread
Had the most awesome day with Matt, Andrew, Kristian and Chris.
Chris Clubman is amazing, comes along on a battered old conversion, riding fixed in leather shoes and set a great pace and led the ride perfectly. Lots of anecdotes and a wealth of knowledge about cycling in general and more specific stuff to audax riding. A true hardman of cycling, yet utterly humble.
Andrew, TSK, forever to be known as Mandrew, again rode fixed and would not let anything stop his ongoing rolling up and down anything put in front of him, again his knowledge and experience of audax is awesome and a huge boost to all of us.
Kristian of the rucksack, hats off to you for carrying the world on your back, lovely to have you along, it shall be great getting to know you over the next few months.
Matt_ha, as ever you look better in Rapha kit than me and threw a better humorous tantrum at your equipment failure than I could - I hate you. Yet again we seem to be incapable of any independent thought and our mutual loathing for the world is brilliant. Pure pleasure as ever.
We met at my place, Chris had the game plan of eventually meeting his wife so we ventured out westward from Kew. We found some quiet roads, took main ones only where necessary and all took our turn bulldozing through the wind. We maintained great group discipline for the first half of the ride, staying good and close and sharing our duties.
Generally good calling of obstacles and a great deal of banter all day. The spots of drizzle were brushed off by all concerned and we made the most of the generally crisp day. I cannot describe how much I enjoy the simple pleasure of people on well maintained bikes, cycling as a cohesive group, chatting, laughing and sharing knowledge.
Chris led us to one of his favourite cafes in the area and we all tucked in to hearty food, it was a proper timewarp establishment but provided exactly the big sustenance required to keep us warm and energised for the the return leg.
Apologies for my exuberance on the return, the wind was now behind me, blowing my huge bulk along, I realise if I am going to be part of the group I will need to curb the childish enthusiasm a bit and may have to practice being the back marker. After the push through the wind of the morning it just felt so liberating to be spinning along against virtually no resistance.
I am really excited at the prospect of further PBP training sessions. It is very clear that we all have different areas to develop and one of mine will be paying attention to the group more and not being the one to cause it to split apart.
I hope that we can all find other people who we wish to invite along, riders who may or may not intend on doing PBP but can come along and join us in the act of putting in long miles on bikes over the next 10 months or so.
http://connect.garmin.com/player/53216866