2011-10-01 - London to St Margarets

Sounds like you all had a tough but good ride! Hope you all had an ace one! Can we all play out on bikes together next time?

Cambridge sounds a good chance to play together...

I'm pretty sure you told one of us that it wasn't bad if we took it steady Steve. I'm well up for doing this next year...

I do believe that you were the only rider to make it up all of the hills without stopping. Respect is due.

i concur - bloody remarkable.

Cambridge sounds a good chance to play together...

Woo hoo!

few pictures

love the map.

that is truly amazing.

Its like our very own Bayeux Tapestry.

Few more crappy iPhone pics:

photo (1) by danieljsoul, on Flickr

photo (2) by danieljsoul, on Flickr

photo by danieljsoul, on Flickr

thanks Dan for taking Ludovica and me along for this great ride, really enjoyed the route, the weather and most of all the company

as i said to John, i occasionally ride over Ashdown Forest to Birling Gap on the South Coast (between Eastbourne and Newhaven) - it is a lovely (hilly) ride with gears or without (single speed 72 max, have not done it fixed) and it would be great to ride this with you guys

hope Abs will call you soon

Matthias

I read that as "really enjoyed the route, the weather and most of the company"!

Great to have you both along Matthias and I'm really sorry for losing you on the way into Dover!

Steepest gradients measured for yesterday (cant do averages with data in this form):

Hollingbourne: 19.9%
Wye: 13.2%
Elham: 21.2% (short one at mile 71)
Connaught (up to DC): 20% at first switchback

There were too many short but sweet 10%+ to count.

Oh god I'm glad I gave this one a miss :D

Good to see you masochists had fun. Hopefully I'll be up to this sort of thing next year.

Good effort... and looked like a decent time for that distance and amount of climbing. Maybe the best weekend of the year for getting out as well...

x

Just been crunching some more stats...the Elham climb was actually 22% at its steepest and 8.7% average but only about 0.6mi long.

Even more respect to Dan is due I think!

The heat was oppressive for some of the day but because the sun was so low in the sky the light and views were amazing. You could not have picked a finer day for it.

If only I could marry a statistic. I do love my stats.

i have finally coaxed my blackberry into surrendering the photos, so attaching a few (the least crappy ones).

the heat and open spaces during the first part of the ride made it more trialling; the part between the hil^H^H^H peak of doom and the open vistas (where it was claimed we could see dungeness) was definitely the most beautiful of all the rides i've done this summer. i think the temperature hit 29C at some point, but it still fell like autumn - the sun at an angle, the tunnels through the trees, the leaves on the road (my apologies for the exalted gushing, it must have mortified some).

it was psychologically hard though to face all those small steep hills after the climb to the vista-observing spot. i really thought the hardest part was over, but it was just starting - the sharp murderous hills that finally convinced me that i needed proper clipless pedals and shoes.

i am really glad we pushed towards st. margarets from dover though - powered by chocolate milk, we got to see the sunset over the sea; the ride back through the darkness was a great way to end the day (my traumatized mind has blocked the memory of the final climb though).

of course now i am deeply suspicious of "rolling hills" euphemism - although i was not in particular pain on sunday, it took me until tuesday to recover from general fatigue.

the ride was all the more special, since it was the last for me before i head back to NYC. i promise to wear my lfgss cap proudly in manhattan and tirelessly explain what the abbreviation stands for.

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This ride in 2009 was the most gruelling thing I've ever done, and I'd had a barium enema.