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@dancing james
A late night barrage of emails between myself and Cliveo and I decided to tag along with him and Ramaye doing Swains reps.
FUUUUUUUUUU
Early start - never the best, thankfully I made porridge last night and had put out the winter clobber for the ride. As ever, left the house 5 minutes late and had underestimated the time it takes to get across London. It was uneventful and peaceful around 8 am, it was cold but crisp and dry. Preemptive use of ventolin to deal with the bronchioles closing in on themselves against the chill was a good idea.
Winter rides, need to keep heart rate up so was aiming to spin as much as possible, with the idea of keeping blood moving round fast. Got to Swains late and I have never done reps there before, clearly Clive and Chris had already set off so I had no one to follow. So first rep, got to top turned right and dropped back down, but decided that lots of right turns across traffic was probably a bad idea, so on the next lap took the left at the top. Descending the hill I could see two black clad riders one in Rolla kit, so new I had found my prey/chums/banter partners. Nipped past and gave them the old DJ salute and the chatter started.
Turns out that they Clive had done a couple of reps like me and Ramaye had done one, so we did another couple. It was amazing to see the frost getting worse on the top of the hill over the course of an hour, the chill wind was having a big effect. Had a moment of near disaster on a descent, went over a traffic calming bump and heard a clatter - my tool roll had opened up and dropped my multitool, slowed and stopped to walk back up the hill to get the tool and realised my spare tube had also decided to make a break for freedom, and was now multiply punctured on my cassette. Apart from scuffed multi tool and destroyed tube, there does not appear to be any other damage.
We then went on a longer loop to pass The Cottagers Cottage (George Michael's abode) before returning to the top of the hill for a coffee and a natter. Subjects included football - I discovered Pele has erectile disfunction and trolled the conversation by asking if he was from Argentina, the unintended consequences of dumping tags all over the place and the resulting technological and sociological fallout, linkedin/job hunting and the dreaded festivities.
Just as we were leaving the rain set in, and quickly my feet, hands and arse got soaked. The schlep across town was interesting as I lost all sensation in my fingers, I would try to change gears and could not feel in my fingers if the shift had happened, it only registered in my feet and legs. Was whingeing to myself about this until I got to Chiswick and saw a pensioner on his bike cycling along with sandals on and no socks or gloves.
[ame]http://connect.garmin.com/activity/134883177[/ame]