2009-03-21 Sat - The Bridges VI - West to East

The bricklane meet bumped into some guy riding a stolen bike, they called him over i think and explained, he happily handed over the bike and kept the seat that was on it (he changed it), so a recovered nearly full bike. Apparently it was his mates and he was given it or something.

First bridges for me too.. absolutely great feeling, also met new friends which was great. Looking forward to the next one!

That explains why I couldn't find you along the way, what was wrong, hiccups?

Haha yeah my tracknuts hiccuped themselves off my axle ><

Awesome ride... Quicker pace than the last bridges run. Met some great peeps last night, out to the guys from N1.

1st time. great scene. good riding. good people.

Amazing ride!!! was also my stag party had loads of fun, met some new people and good to see the SE boys

Ended up hanging out on the South Bank till about 3 and floated home

Took some blurry pix

http://www.flickr.com/photos/14123298@N07/sets/72157615766004156/

that was ace. from the roll down from souths, glad to be there when adam got his bike back, just after pista said "you know, someone'll just call you one day", the smell of the smelliest shit in the pub on kew green, stopping in barnes to fix a puncture, pursuit back to barnes, catching everyone up, fulham madness, stopping at battersea park, more pursuit, getting to parliament square for midnight, more pursuit after telling people to turn left, over one bridge to face everyone coming the other way, then just rolling to tower bridge, malt loaf introductions, brick lane madness, beigels, then the amazing ride home with dropout, morgan, and tim (?), a final hill sprint with dropout.

where's the pics?

wooooooooooo! ride back was painful after 2 hours sleep and 3 beigels, sorry if i was moaning ... lol got there in the end.

glad to see people had fun, missed the ride yet again, my gauge of time is terrible didnt get back home from town till 9. thought it was 7:30ish :( boooooo.

Dude, those are BAGELS. We should know, they're from NYC.

Anyway, yes, amazing ride. I hear it was quite a bit faster than the last one and I'm happy to say that I pushed it and stayed where I wanted to be the whole way.

More riding than I've ever really done; my dogs are barkin', but in a good way.

Good indication of a healthy pace?

Sum total of 9 pictures so far.

I tried to take a panarama at P square but Big Ben was just a bright circle and the nicely timed 12midnight is but a myth.

My first forum ride and a really great night out, great route, lovely people and a beautiful night. Highlights all round as far as I'm concerned...
Thanks especially to all the people who chipped in to cover our fines (kindly distributed by the Beyonce loving London Met) we pretty much had enough to cover both tickets. It just kinda added to the night...

Totally awesome ride... I also wanted to say thank you to Donut for doing a whip round to cover the fines that NYLON & I got from the coppers, and thanks to everyone who chipped in... we were both very grateful
And thanks to the South African dude (sorry I'm bad with names) who fixed my puncture on the way to Kew...

Highlight for me was the coppers getting suspicious because NYLON and I gave them the same date of birth... just so happens we were born on the same day is all.
They'll never make detectives.

Cheers all

excellent weekend - highlights - big ben at midnight, the millenium bridge with St Pauls looming and the bagel shop at brick lane after party at Kitty's and beer for breakfast with Jayloo, Guapo and the Moogster - happy days

my first ride... pace was much faster than i had expected... its was a saturday night FFS!!!!- i thought it would be leisurely ride with more drinkie sessions... that said had a great time until I had to bail out because of my chain... Steves - I'm sure you were thinking your were well and trully handicapped last night with the blonde bird on the bike (yes I was the one with the gears too...) Here's to less malboros, less wine and more cycling to keep up with you all... happy sunday xx

Stopped right at the start to help with p*tures - one bloke suffering valve fail, his friend holding his bike up while he pumps, and as i pass i realise there are loud hissing sounds coming from both their bikes...** His friend has a pin-badge stuck in his back tyre. A 531 pin badge.**

i dont know whether to laugh or cry!

fuck it, ha ha ha ha!

Loved the pace of the ride and had a real blast. No real issues or problems occurred which was cool. Who's the guy with the 'cocaine white' ribble and the BagJack? I was talking to you loads but never asked your name.

i think that was adam a mate of Damo's from Manchester

Loved the pace of the ride and had a real blast. No real issues or problems occurred which was cool. Who's the guy with the 'cocaine white' ribble and the BagJack? I was talking to you loads but never asked your name.

yep, dangeruss....

Really good fun, way quicker than the last one, but great pace. I was super beat by the time I got home. Good ride back with George, Spins and MattS (your legs must be shot dude ;)

Props to all the organizers as always, and good to see everyone.

@ Toughknucles & NYLON, glad we could help.

the pub in kew did stink and everyone in it was a knob (apart from all us!)[/quote]

The look on my face at seeing my freshly built Claude fluro wonder go down as the fat cunt waddled his fat fat fat lardy arse past it must've been something to behold.....

scratched my forks!

Also.... glASS, speak properly Nik

Who was that black fella on the Fuji? Bonkers! Cycling like a man posessed, whingin and frontin people - I thought he was gonna smack someone on one point when he said "Oi man, watch it man, fuckin cut me up man..."
Mate, you were on a bike ride with nearly 100 people, course people are gonna cut across you at some point, chillax fella

Again, me, and for cutting him up I am truly sorry, i was trying to get across to give Mr Sportif a clip as he wee wee'd in the street

Was it a conscious pre planned decision to ride at such a pace?
If so then I think it needs to be mentioned in advance...I'm wondering if that ride will have put off any newbies doing their first ride with the forum. I brought several new faces having proclaimed the easy going nature of the ride. And that they had nothing to fear or to worry about.

I think Loic (Vello) and Steves seperately bailed early due to their guests struggling keep pace (disclaimer: I may be wrong on this).

I thought that the pace wasn't that fast, just there weren't as many stops. Definitely been on faster rides than that one.

I thought it was way too fast. I was going at a decent pace but after stopping for a quick "comfort break" in putney I had to cycle like mad to catch up with the tail end and even then I lost you all in wandsworth - tried skipping a couple of bridges, but I was absolutely knackered by chelsea and bailed.

His friend has a pin-badge stuck in his back tyre. A 531 pin badge.

That will be mine. I noticed it had fallen from my bag yesterday afternoon.

I thought it was way too fast. I was going at a decent pace but after stopping for a quick "comfort break" in putney I had to cycle like mad to catch up with the tail end and even then I lost you all in wandsworth - tried skipping a couple of bridges, but I was absolutely knackered by chelsea and bailed.

Yeah I was having this discussion last night, I think the 50-60 people that all bailed before the final bridge were probably thinking the same, for the record I made it to the end and near the front of the pack, but I thought the pace for the second half was quite fast, and my legs were most definitely feeling it yesterday!