Tell us about your weekend ride

Last night I messaged Pigfarmer, asking if he was riding with London Dynamo this morning. He responded that he was doing the Rapha Hell of the North Ride instead and that I could come along.

I thought the ride involved some off piste action, so asked "How rough is the route? White or black shoes?" to which he replied "Weather dependent. I'd happily wear white on a good day, all on tarmac." I assumed he knew what he was talking about.

As per usual this morning I left the house later than intended, and then hit every red light between Kew and the mink pen, where I met Arvy, Sasmon and Twinkfarmer a few minutes later than planned. Though it turns out Arvy had arrived at the designated time to find Jon still in his dressing gown, so my tardiness had not interfered with proceedings too much.

Off we set to Highgate, taking in Swains lane. Saw someone in Rolla kit (I knew Cliveo was doing reps there today with Ramaye but was neither of them) hammer past us, though Simon did the lane in big ring, setting the tone for a day of "Jens Voigt hardman proportions" - according to Pigsy at the end of the day.

Today was going to be a day of mild little sufferings that were in no way epic, so my Raphaspirations were clearly not going to be met. On the way out of London i felt the horrible itch and burn of my bronchial system curling up in an asthma attack. Though it was not bad enough to warrant stopping Ventolin did need to be dispensed.

Initial impressions appeared to dispel my concerns that the route involved any offroad shenanigans, so things were looking up. It appeared we were off on a North London loop, and we all felt we were on familiar territory. Until we came to a junction where our illustrious leaders Garmin was telling us to go straight on, yet we were at a T junction with options to go left or right only. Until it dawned upon us that the bridle way in front was our intended route.

The first bridleway was an utter blast, a little sketchy under the wheels and a lot of potholes, the fast descent and following climb all had us excited like school boys. Of course Jon came in for a ribbing on account of his cluelessness about the ride he was leading us on.

The ride progressed with sections on the road and then sections off road and for a while it was all good. Mottram's minions had left pink R's and arrows at key junctions and they were still visible months later. It was an amazingly well structured and planned route, thank you to whoever put this one together.

While I was having minor respiratory problems, Sasmon was beset by hiccups for most of the day, so continually interrupted the conversation with his little stomach tics. It was pointed out that not even God could save him from the affliction as a pope once died from them.

It did however occur to us that we were visiting cottaging and dogging sites of north London. At some point the conversation progressed to entirely unsubstantiated rumours that someone who shall go by the name Jaydee (for reasons of anonymity and clearly to protect the potentially innocent) may be practiced in dogging. What God could not do for Sasmon was done by the mental image of Jaydee unleashing his load upon a couple fornicating in the woods. The poor man looked shocked at the thoughts he was having but the stomach spasms were cured.

What had started as concreted paths and bridleways now degenerated into hikers trails through the edge of fields. The two riders equipped with Campagnolo were doing fine. Arvy and myself had Shimano groupsets and our brake calipers had much less clearance. Mud, leaves, twigs and grass were quickly collecting in our brakes. At times my rear wheel was jamming due to the volume of cag becoming crammed into the gap. To compound matters I was running a 25mm rear tyre, so even further reducing the clearance and causing even more problems. Arvy and I ended up resorting to removing wheels at times to pull out handfuls of embedded debris. This gave great mirth to Sasmon and Minky, though I must confess my patience with the situation ran out after the 4th or 5th time of having to de-clag my bike.

Then to add insult to injury the mud entirely jammed one of my speedplay cleats. This was our only real mechanical of the day. Initial impressions were that it was properly buggered, (like the people more used to these filthy passes). However once more of the mud had been removed it became apparent it might be retrievable - but did involve me having to entirely strip down the cleat to its constituent parts, wipe them clean on the grass and put it back together. When i say grass i omit that managed to try to clean one part on a patch of grass that turned out to be a bloody red ants nest. Some days I should just not get out of bed.

Finally back on the bikes we pull up at the first available pub offering grub. We enter and order drinks and then start to order food, only to be told that the kitchen is busy catering for a party and wont be available for another 90 minutes. I think my tetchiness was becoming obvious and thankfully the chef came out and offered BLT's, so things started to improve.

At lunch we came to a discussion of distance travelled so far. I thought I had done 45 miles since leaving Kew, where as Pigfarmer thoguht he had done 65 miles since leaving his flat. Clearly someone had the wrong wheelsize set in their Garmin!

After lunch we carried on with more of the same mixture of road and off road, the Shimano crew continued to suffer from clearance issues. Discussion kept coming back to the need for cyclo cross bikes. Though we were all quite surprised at what could be done on our normal road bikes with slick tyres, it could be frustrating to lose all momentum on ascents due to wheelspin. Despite the hazardous nature of the terrain no one took a tumble all day which was reassuring.

Unbelievably after all the flint, shale, thorns etc our one puncture of the day happened when Minkscoble clattered off kerb. The 15 minutes of him struggling to repair a puncture were priceless, there is iphone footage if the public demand it, one for the randonneur thread.

I was really impressed with everyone else's fortitude and riding ability today, though if honest I was not in the same league. After my initial asthma attack things stabilised, on the cardio front. However my legs just had nothing extra to give, there was no additional kick or spurt in them. This combined with my other niggles of the day did leave me with a more than slightly frustrated mind, which kept being inclined to contemplate bailing and going home. Thankfully I never resorted to this (though when the cleat jammed I did really think that my day was done).

Ended up at LMNF for cake and coffee and then had to return home in a downpour, which started the cleaning process on my bike. Got home and finished the job off, but just as I was wheeling it along noticed a shard of green latex showing through my rear tyre, so that will need to be replaced before tomorrow's planned Windsor loop with Cliveo.

I am glad to have done the ride, but do now see the potential for a cyclo cross bike. Though to be honest I get more of a buzz doing single track on the 29er.

Yet again I was left with the thought that I really enjoy small group rides, and that sportive type events really are not for me these days. My loathing for humanity in general, particularly bloody cyclists in smelly synthetic clothing, cluttering the way in front of me would be particularly antagonised by such events. Given that the same roads can be ridden any day of the week, for free, with a group of good friends leaves me questioning their appropriateness for myself even more. This is probably because I have very few competitive aspirations on a bike. The simple action of turning pedals, for hours on end, seems to be enough to entertain me these days. Add a continual stream of lewd, crude and humorous banter and even bad days like today are great days.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/109797758[URL="http://connect.garmin.com/dashboard?cid=1125954"][/URL]