A Hard Morning in February?

No planning has gone into this one, but this Sunday's (1st February) Hounslow training run should have two riders on fixed. Forum readers are invited.

Meeting place is Staines Bridge, on the side of the river away from the town,opposite Sainsbury's, leave 9.15 sharp.

Expect to do 60 -70 miles in 4- 4 and a half hours. No cafe stop, you will need to bring energy drink & food. A map can be useful in case you get separated from the group. There will be hills - personally, I find descending at speed with only one brake to be stressful, although I'm not saying it can't be done.

I can't state a destination, tne idea is to set off into the wind, if possible, so that we don't over reach ourselves.

I know this is short notice, and that the Ashdown ride is the same day. If there is interest I will try to organise another Sunday ride in the near future. I have written an article about this type of riding which I will send to anyone interested - pm your email to me.

I would go but i've got the Crack of Dawn TT and Brighton Run that day, not sure I could squeeze this one in =P

Will definitely be keeping my eye out for future runs though.

wowgold?

Whatthefuck!

Wac!

Sunday 22nd Feb. Another February Morning.

I’ve just watched, mostly from behind, one of the most impressive displays of fixed wheel riding I’ve ever seen. Normally I wouldn’t trouble you with an account of a mundane training run, but I think the fixed aspect here makes this one worth recording.
The rider in question is my clubmate P.H., one of my companions from the Petersfield ride (see ‘A Hard Day in January’). The two pictures with this post are from that occasion, but the bike and rider looked just the same on this ride – in the photo of the group on the road P.H. is the rider at the front right hand wearing sunglasses, in the static picture note the front tyre.

We set off from Staines Bridge with ten riders: nine on good quality, mostly state of the art road bikes and one on a very basic fixed machine. Although P.H.’s bike is based on a well made 531 frame there is nothing special about it. The wheels have fairly heavy rims and very heavy ‘tractor’ tyres, gearing is 42 x 17, about 65.5 inches.

Our route was Staines, Gerrards X, Beaconsfield, Hazlemere, Askett, B4009 back to the A40, Stokenchurch, Marlow, Cookham, Staines (total distance 73 miles). For those who don’t know the area, it is hilly. The average speed, according to our computers, was 18mph, although the true average must have slightly less since we did have a brief pee stop.

What impressed me was not just that P.H. could stay in the group on that bike, but that he was the one making the pace, doing about three quarters of the distance at the front. On the climb up to Stokenchurch (nearly two miles in length, the major difficulty of the day) he was first to the summit. We had a tailwind home from there and according to my speedo we were mostly doing 22mph on the flat. Easy enough following a wheel and using a biggish gear of your choice; completely different at the front on a 65 inch gear.

The moral seems to me to be: the bike makes very little difference; it’s the rider that counts. This is something one reads all too rarely in the conventional cycling media but sees over and over again on the road.

I expect these rides to continue until the end of March. Our open Road Race is on the 29th, and I would expect most people will be racing on Sundays after this. Forum members are invited to try these runs and I suggest anyone wishing to come should contact me beforehand.

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Hey clubman, I was out there yesterday too. Doing the Willesden CC Reliability Trial.
A couple of us got lost (surprise, surprise) and made it back to Ickenham via the A40, through Gerrards X, Beaconsfield. I was shelled after this on gears so well done to your mate for riding it fixed.