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50 hilly miles in Kent with Benj (a fair few more miles for him) and a non-forumunger buddy of mine.
All three of us managed to get flats on the wet gritty roads on the way, so a fair bit of faffing about and then limping round on inadequtely pumped tyres. Good times though.
http://app.strava.com/activities/48563818 -
^ Nice to meet you today Jim.
I was up at 6.30 making porridge, bathed in sunlight pouring in through my kitchen window. By the time I met Jim and TY at Orpington station my optimistically donned sunglasses were entirely redundant, and we set off in gloopy low cloud and began throwing grit and mud at each other from our tyres.
I, prophetically as it turned out, commented on the inappropriateness of our summer/race tyres. It wasn't long before we had our first sojourn on the verge and before long we were all tiptoeing on our bikes in near-constant trepidation, waiting for that all too familiar, horrible, lumpy sensation that presages another faff in the hedge.
However, that only slightly diminished the enjoyment of a splendid ride - I felt almost, oh what's the word, almost... oh, erm, warm? At least not cold... That was quite nice. I'd like to get used to it. So used to it that I start to wonder whether I might want to have freezing fingers and toes, just because I'm so fucking bored of being warm.
Kent was swarming with cyclists and it still amazes me how many people one sees out doing meaty riding. A couple of years ago I might only see 3 or 4 people over the course of a whole ride - we must have seen 50 or more today; H G Wells would have been over the moon.
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http://app.strava.com/activities/48522763
Yaaaaaaay!
Until...
Huge bulge. Swapped tubes, flatted that within 500m (not surprisingly). Cue a 30 min walk and a very expensive taxi ride home.
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What the fuck? That's a very strange deformity - and I've seen some fucking weird porn.
50 miles today including three laps of Richmond Park. Best of 19.05 which is a bit off last summer but I could have gone faster had I not been boxed in twice by Dynamo cunts. They are the worst.
Planning Dulwich's Sunday club run tomorrow. No idea what to expect. Says on the website it can be quite quick and it's some time since I did the 80 miles it can top out at. Bound to be someone less fit than me though and I will ride that fucker right off my wheel.
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Quick video of a pretty awesome little descent from today:
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Yeah, it was a rather flexy mount I jerry-rigged the night before. My friend's GoPro, not mine, and he just lent it to me and said "Have at it!".
When I took the tube out it looked like it was a patch that had failed somehow, causing the tube to bunch up or expand too much in that area. That expansion fucked the tyre, then when I put the new tube in it just popped right away.
Temperatures here aren't that high yet (below 20C today) and I barely touched the brakes on that descent, which was pretty much immediately prior to the problem. I noticed a 'thump thump thump' sensation on a short, steep climb and when I checked at the top, there was the tyre tumor.
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Quick video of a pretty awesome little descent from today:
Am I missing something, or is putting lots of painted lines on every corner of a descent a stupid decision?
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Life keeps dealing little challenges out to me at the moment and last week they all got a bit too accumulative for my liking. Basically I was having a crisis of finance and sanity, the studio has been suffering too. Not good. I had planned to be in Suffolk doing a bit of work for my parents but long story short another job has come up and so I had to cancel. That doesn't start until Monday though so I snapped, phoned my folks and said "fuck it I'm coming anyway". I chucked my bike in the back of the car and fled London.
On the way back I was mulling my options. I needed a ride more than anything. If I hadn't got out on two wheels this weekend there could have been murders. When I'm at my wits end I often find them again on a quiet lane with the swish of tyres for company. "I'll go for some serious miles" I thought, "really punish myself - lose myself to exhaustion and geography". Then my thoughts turned to a guy who knows those Suffolk lanes better than anyone I've met. A guy who taught me at primary school in the 80s. He used to teach in old tatty cycling jerseys. Pete is a hippy. A kind and angry activist. Someone I've looked up to since I was 8 years old. He's a guru and he rides bicycles. So I phoned him up. "I ride slow" he said, "pick me up at 2 tomorrow".
By 1 yesterday I was climbing the walls so I got out and looped the lanes near Pete's house for an hour. I slotted in 20 miles and arrived on the dot of 2 at the gate of 'Mellow Yellow' to find Pete beaming, on his carbon steed and ready to ride. No small talk - off we went. Pete set a social pace and we took advantage of the quiet roads to cruise along next to each other shooting shit about his days as a club rider, the lapse in health which kept him off the bike for eight years, his recouperation and his love for all things velo. He's the absolute opposite of a bike snob. He just loves bikes utterly. We talked local history, politics, family, art and he led me around lanes I'd never seen in 15 years of living there as a kid. He showed me the old church he'd been married in and the house he rented for a pound a week. We stopped in an old tea shop for cake with the crappiest lock known to mankind preventing the interference of the criminal underclass of Woolpit. With the wind at our backs as we rounded for home I felt like I might have just reclaimed a bit of self somewhere near the A14 between Bury and Stowmarket.
On return to HQ we had a good sniff around Pete's garage, making up reasons why it should be entirely justifiable for him to keep that steel winter bike even though the old Rourke hanging from the ceiling would surely surpass it on completion. I glanced at the sky, bid Pete farewell and spun my legs like hell for the remaining four miles to my parent's place, racing the rain.
Strava report: slow as fuck. Calories burned: not enough to justify that date cake. Max speed: irrelevant. Conclusion: one of the best rides ever.
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Went out with Brixton this morning, turned into a beautiful day- my choice of clothing was a bit too conservative ultimately.
Anyway, we split the group coming up to the Hogsback and I went with the group led by Cliff, BC's Cat 3 racer.
Fifty seven miles and change, great fun.
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ace post Wrongcog.
just back off 60 ish k'er with gordo,
lots of people in new forest whod bought hotels and all for the cancelled wiggle jaunt, enjoyed the fixed miles as always, couldnt help noticing some serious lack of awareness on quite a few riders-other than that usual ting, muntjacs crossing road, indolent ponies, oh yeah first skylarks out singing so spring is somewhere near.. -
I did a local 'sportive' today, in support of two new to cycling friends who are 'into' sportives.
Witness: inconsiderate overtaking, undertaking, lane crossing, turning, junctions, poor/no hand signals, disregard for other road users, a general sense of aspiring-class-one-upmanship, and to cap it all, some twonk discarding a bottle into the hedge (nice bottle for me though).
No brotherhood of the cyclist, am sad, probably won't be doing another one for a long time/ever.
On the upside, the weather was fantastic, even the debilitating headwind on the homeward leg, which has left me with a 'glow'.
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Airtime Al, a non-forumunger friend, and myself foolishly went out on a Kingston Wheelers 'training ride'; i.e., the one that the racers go on to keep in shape. The ride was led by a guy who rides in cat 3, and about 2 or 3 others out of the 9 or 10 of us raced I think.
Ferocious pace (on a pancake flat route) for the first 40ish miles; around 21 mph. Us three were just clinging on to wheels for dear life. It was challenging, and not particularly enjoyable at times, but a really good insight into what's required if you want to give racing a go.
Some of the guys from the club were really friendly, but a couple were complete cnuts... sitting towards the back of the group, never doing a turn at the front, shouting shit at you if you didn't call a hole or whatever quick enough. I believe he upbraided Al for shouting 'drain' when it was in fact a 'manhole cover' in his opinion at one point. Berk. I would like to give some cat 4 racing a go, and I appreciate there will be a lot of guys like that participating, which is a shame. Really counters the generally all-embracing mentality of the sport.
The group spit after 45 miles and us three carried on alone, before also splitting. I limped another 20 ish miles into a nasty headwind before giving up at Staines. Nothing left in the head or legs.
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I intended to ride to Winchester and back today but I had a massive tantrum at Medstead because I'd been riding directly into a headwind for the last 65 miles so cut it a bit short. Was slooow (well, less so once I turned around) but thoroughly enjoyable; one of the nicer routes I've done between Guildford and there.
I saw no dead badgers, but three live partridges and one tragicomic squashed frog.
jim1985
jadias
miro_o
Benj
%~}
edscoble
hms
pifko
Wrongcog
Dammit
rive_gauche
tricitybendix-
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Tell us about your weekend ride
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Fucking hell, good work! I remember I had trouble walking up and down come of the hills in Kyoto when I visited.