Tell us about your weekend ride

Excellent read

Very nice indeed

Nice pics, looks like a great ride. Weather is horrible up here today so also dived out yesterday for my weekend ride. Love staying out in the country - no pissing about getting out of town.

Nice write up there dan looked like a lovely day. Twice to the mall though? That must have slowed progress down massively going in and out of town then back through it! Have a good time over Xmas and make sure u write up anymore rides!

Is there anything better than making a mess of a pretty bike on a beautiful winters day?

That uncapped cable end is giving me nightmares...

Oh yeah look at that. I'll fix that.

#nitpicking

I don't normally ride on a Sunday but this morning I joined a few good peeps at HPC and rode out to Fat Boy Diner, Trinity Buoy Wharf, then cable car'd it across to North Greenwich, meandering back along the river to Greenwich (central), Deptford etc to SW London. I've no idea of the mileage and I definitely couldn't find my way back there on my own, but it was a lovely ride with lovely people.

Once again I was reminded that cycling is a great way to see/get around London and I really really should do that more often, early on a Sunday morning. Now if I could only find someone willing to clean my bike before Tuesday's ride...................

Since the forecast was clear today I figured I'd head out. No rain but a lot of cloud cover and a fairly stiff breeze. In a paranoid attempt to prevent kneewear I plotted a ridiculously flat route in East Sussex, which I probably could have spiced up with the odd hill. Anyway, I had a big one to climb from the off, but I was soon in amongst the reed beds:

Quite a few flooded roads where the marshes were reclaiming some land. None were too deep but I got my feet submerged a couple of times. Loads of fun. Spent a lot of time in the drops too. Stopped for a massive mug of tea in Lower Dicker and plodded back along some more flat roads until the rolling hills loomed once more. Passed my old football club and my old house, which sits atop a sunken mud filled lane with a view of the stream I used to explore as a nipper. Good times.

Into the wild today - broke my seat post after a wheelie crash, continued with shorter post building up acid.

Since the forecast was clear today I figured I'd head out. No rain but a lot of cloud cover and a fairly stiff breeze. In a paranoid attempt to prevent kneewear I plotted a ridiculously flat route in East Sussex, which I probably could have spiced up with the odd hill. Anyway, I had a big one to climb from the off, but I was soon in amongst the reed beds:

Quite a few flooded roads where the marshes were reclaiming some land. None were too deep but I got my feet submerged a couple of times. Loads of fun. Spent a lot of time in the drops too. Stopped for a massive mug of tea in Lower Dicker and plodded back along some more flat roads until the rolling hills loomed once more. Passed my old football club and my old house, which sits atop a sunken mud filled lane with a view of the stream I used to explore as a nipper. Good times.

I was in this exact area this morning, I wonder if I saw you...?

Went out yesterday on a club run from Oxford to the white horse. Pouring rain and wind. Lots of standing water on the way back. Not A long ride but I'm glad I went out because I think with all the rain quite a few of the lanes are going to be flooded again.

First ride of the Rapha Festive 500. I decked myself out in every piece of Rapha kit I own and took off into the cold.

Got 92km in before I gave up due to ridiculous headwinds. I was hoping for almost double that (an imperial century). Fuck.

On the ride I experienced subzero temperatures, rain, sleet, snow, the aforementioned head (and side) winds... and...

Delicious cake! Festive 500 indeed.

[yourMom]Remember to cover up your joints (knee, elbow, hip) excessively, as you probably will complete the Houston500, but need 2 month recovery from (cold)strained joints afterwards - lube with heat baby.

Cold strained joints are a myth. Imo

I'm abusing embrocation and clad in merino and stuff so I should be fine. I have a bad knee anyway (old injury) so I tend to try to look after my joints in the cold.

Nice cake!
Weekend rides officially every day from now until next year
If you can be arsed to go riding in this

So I went out for a big one for me on Saturday, to Cambridge and back on my geared bike. To be honest the weather was bloody awful. I started out in Kennington and by Elephant and Castle I was already soaked. Out past Epping and in the lanes it was lovely as always but it just hammered it down. Sad for some probably because I rode through lots of flooded roads and it must have hit some homes as well. Anyway it was until 2pm on the turnaround (I had enough of forward progress at Great Shelfotd) when the rain finally let up passing through Antsy. Saw a big fox hunt I as well, must have been 40 hounds and 15 riders and a convoy of land rovers. The sound of the horn was ringing out and mist was rising off the fields and damn it was beautiful. I'm not pro hunting or anything but it was a hell of a sight.

Started raining again around 4. That was annoying. It was hard being that wet for that long. All in all worth it for the miles for the rides planned in January but was hard. Stats: 130 miles, 8 hours riding with about 2 hourz of stops (bonked before lunch so took an hour to recover and had to fixed my broken light bracket when it popped off and got hit by a car on Epping road on the way back into town with electrical tape). Sorry no photos, it would have killed my phone.

Good man dan well done for getting out on that shitty day

I decided to cycle across to North Wales today for my Christmas dinner. Had a bit of a rough time of it, after a relatively quick start, and ended up having to really pull out some HTFU and break through some barriers to get there.

Not sure if it was my lack of a good night's sleep in the last week or so, the fact that I stayed up till 1:30am last night fixing a puncture after an impromptu night ride to see an old friend, my slightly underinflated rear tyre, the rubbing mudguards, the fact that I had my directions wrong and had to keep stopping to check where I was, or just the fact that I'm not as strong a rider as I thought, but after a couple of hours I was seriously starting to think I couldn't go on. The other week I did a longer, faster ride (albeit with a fair bit less climbing) on fixed and finished it feeling fresh as a daisy.

When I arrived, the Christmas dinner (which had already started without me) and the hot shower were so so welcome.

Little bit demoralising but at least it gave me some inspiration for the name of the ride on Strava:

http://app.strava.com/activities/33939147

Oh and I did get a nice picture of Beeston Castle on the way past:

Well done tommmmm, these solo winter miles are tough going

did 30 miles this morning . could have done more really. Seemed like quite a few road bikes out today. The first two i saw waved like we were old mates. The next few (full team kit ) blanked me .
This seems to be the norm for road people , as im on a flat bar and not in full team lyrca gimp suit im not in their gang and not worthy of nodding at. Shame really, we're all doing the same hobby . you don't see many bikes out this way.

Anyway I rode from Ruislip to Northwood , Harefield , Uxbridge, Iver, Denham , Uxbridge again, Hillingdon hill, vine lane , Hillingdon and back to ruislip.

Festive 500: Did 130km today including a nice Cat 3 right off the bat, in the snow. Pretty fucking tired.

I look so unhappy/cold - I do love cycling, honest!

Planning 100km tomorrow, then 120km on Saturday. Then I leave for New Year, so I need to finish it (218km) in 2 days. Fuck.

Screwed myself somewhat by doing absolutely nothing yesterday but I had such a late/tiring night (Christmas night... awww yeah...) that I honestly needed the recovery day. Oh well, just makes it more hardcore to do it in about 4 days I guess!

So I went out for a big one for me on Saturday, to Cambridge and back on my geared bike. ....Sorry no photos, it would have killed my phone.

One tough Yank!

#vikingbiking