2012-07-21 London to Bath Night Ride (a TNRC affair)

^^^^^ tl;dr

;)

Certainly a very nice ride, I enjoyed it a lot. Thanks for organising this Ben, and thanks to Ben and Sam for leading us. Hard evidence that I made it to the end:

Congrats logan, it was great to have you along. I must admit that, by my standard, you were employing a rather strong, high cadence then brief respite method to riding and that although high cadence is clebrated amongst professionals, you might do better to carry the cadence through on flats, dips and climbs alike.

Anyway, you made it and kept us in good spirits. Looking forward to seeing you on a tnrc soon!

B

more photos :)

hitting the road

blazing through the night

[insert a lot of blazing through the night here with your memory/imagination]

after a lot of blazing through the night, we saw twilight (not the vampire movie)

blazing through in twilight

Ben

continued to blaze through

a subtle mountain

not to forget our fellow cyclist with character

morning sun!

country lane in the morning sun

last stop

duck watching right before the end

Congrats logan, it was great to have you along. I must admit that, by my standard, you were employing a rather strong, high cadence then brief respite method to riding and that although high cadence is clebrated amongst professionals, you might do better to carry the cadence through on flats, dips and climbs alike.

Anyway, you made it and kept us in good spirits. Looking forward to seeing you on a tnrc soon!

B

yeah man, thank you for the advice. I am still quite new to cycling as a hobby (I did commute with bike before) and I need to learn to pedal in a more relax and consistent pace rather than strong, explosive moves. And by joining you guys to Bath this time I think I am one step closer :)
I certainly look forward to the next fun ride with you guys!

Nice photos!

Benjam - prob worth mentioning, as Hairnetnic suggests, that they did sell us tickets in the end, and the conductor was happy to take them was - so it was clearly not a settled policy, but the ticket office going rogue.

yeah man, thank you for the advice. I am still quite new to cycling as a hobby (I did commute with bike before) and I need to learn to pedal in a more relax and consistent pace rather than strong, explosive moves. And by joining you guys to Bath this time I think I am one step closer :)
I certainly look forward to the next fun ride with you guys!

Thanks for the photos man! They're great :)
And definitely good advice to take on board, 100miles and sitting in teh saddle for hours is a bloody big milestone on any bike so props for coming along man, see you soon

Logan, those photos are brilliant! Finally a good picture of me on a bike!

That group-save saga is unbelievable. It's at the discretion of the train manager whether the bikes are carried or not, it's not up to the ticket office to pre-empt that decision. You can see how they think they might be being helpful if they really think your buying something unusable, but there has to be a point, when you're having a stand up row with your customer, that you should suspect you may have crossed out of the helpful zone.

Just a quick note about the letter, I'd try and be a bit more concise. Although you do want to sound polite and positive, if you let it get too whaffly they will be looking to file it under n for nutter before they've digested it properly.

I've sent the email to the Managing director (with the story about the first group actually getting a ticket). Left my request (demands) the same and sent from my my society.org email address to add some impetus. Will keep you all updated.

Now enough of this terrible business. The ride was perfection and I'm very proud as it was the first deluxe under new management. When and where for the next one!?

Just a quick note about the letter, I'd try and be a bit more concise. Although you do want to sound polite and positive, if you let it get too whaffly they will be looking to file it under n for nutter before they've digested it properly.

I went with the gentleman's approach rather than the 'this happened gimme money' side. you're probably right but hey, I like creative writing :)

and here is a little something to get you through the day: http://youtu.be/POxMp61Ksbk

^This will get anybody through anyting.

Ace photos Logan.

Nice photos, cheers.
Any body got any more?
I hadn't realised how black with white stripes I was. First time I'd worn the Torm jersey - matchy matchy.

Yeah, any with me in? My work colleagues are a bit suspicious that I'm absent from those above!

Was wearing my Orange with blue stripe 'molteni' style jersey...

thank you guys, I was a bit held back about posting photos with you guys in there without your permission, but now I am all relieved :) so here goes more photos:

now hairnetnic if you show this one to your colleague and point him/her to the right side of the photo

this man brought me to this ride! At some point during the night, I did wonder on my saddle, "what the hell am I doing here instead of sleeping in my nice warm bed". And now he is playing innocent!

duck-watching place

and the duck-watching crew

and the duck being watched

DO NOT touch the plant right above the left water bottle, it gets your skin itchy and hurts like burning. I reached for the bottle and got hurt, I thought of taking a photo of it so that if I die of this at the end of day, at least I know what I die of XD

150km was what we did!

happy man who made it to the end

two men happily chattering, and unconsciously they got tangled up with spiders (too small to be seen in photos)

spider bite put them asleep, and they are going to become spider man when they wake up

fellow cycling enthusiasts in Bath

and, the crescent

I should have taken more photos when we were on our bikes (as I am sure you all want to show them to your friends/ colleagues/ parents/ partners/ dogs), but it was not as easy as I thought though, most photos just turn out blurry or missing the subject. I need more training on this but I am getting there :)

We should have taken a photo which includes all of us and our bikes at Bath, since the weather was good there and we were all in good spirit. Next time!

And Nick (ridding a single speed silver Specialized) gave me a pill of pain killer which killed a severe lower-back pain that almost killed me. I haven't got a chance to say thank you before we splited. My appreciation is eternally yours.

cheers, logan, and you're welcome for the pain killer, probabale cost ~10p!

DO NOT touch the plant right above the left water bottle, it gets your skin itchy and hurts like burning. I reached for the bottle and got hurt, I thought of taking a photo of it so that if I die of this at the end of day, at least I know what I die of XD

That's a stinging nettle FYI - definitely not fatal, and even edible (although cooking is recommended).

Had you really not encountered stinging nettles before, Logan?

cheers, logan, and you're welcome for the pain killer, probabale cost ~10p!

oh, you are Nick! I vaguely remember you were in orange but wasn't sure. You could have told me the pill costs 100 pounds man :) considering we were in the middle of no where, and there is no place to buy such a pain killer even if I had the money. Thanks anyway and I am practicing my muscle these days hoping to ease the pain in future rides.

That's a stinging nettle FYI - definitely not fatal, and even edible (although cooking is recommended).

oh yeah! that's it, this is the exact same symptom I had after touching it. ehhh, I can still feel the pain by just looking at the picture. I wouldn't go so far as eating it though, even after cooking, it is too dangerous

Had you really not encountered stinging nettles before, Logan?

maybe I have seen it before, but haven't touched it, otherwise I will remember. So I was like a virgin, you know, touched for the very first time (by stinging nettles)

I have to admit I find that odd. Admittedly, I grew up in Germany, but I thought stinging nettles were pretty ubiquitous everywhere in Europe.

I have to admit I find that odd. Admittedly, I grew up in Germany, but I thought stinging nettles were pretty ubiquitous everywhere in Europe.

I think Wei (did I get that right?) hails from more exotic climes than Northern Europe though.

There's not much to fear in the UK but itchy rashes tbh, with the possible exceptions of Lyme disease and Weil's disease. And the nettles really don't sting if they're cooked or blanched for eating :-)

I see. The 'logan' bit made me assume he was native. :)

They also don't sting if you grasp them.