Tell us about your weekend ride

Lovely ride to Edenbridge with fausto and a friend this morning from crystal palace taking in pilgrims way which was perfectly undulating. Toy hill and Ide hill were pleasant climbs and there were some scary descents.
http://www.bikemap.net/route/1214199

Getting used to gears again as have ridden fixed all summer

decided on the hoffmeister classic route for today.. weather good so far heading to brasted, pound, toys hill on to chiddingstone, waited 20 mins for cafe to open then another 20 mins for bacon sardnies..

we depart now it's raining , not showers but torrential downpours weaving our way to sevenoaks via weald (weak road), on to star hill, then the long drag back via bromley, lewisham, tower bridge, clerkenwell, camden

forgot how good this route is (better in good weather) descending was iffy though, alot of grit washed onto the roads

the garmin download profile really played up, not sure if the rain affected the data received, but it has jumped about, so not sure how accurate it is. but map looks correct.

well done to all those who braved the weather/ hills today

1 Attachment

• trainingride_110827.pdf

http://ridewithgps.com/routes/155469

Mud, sun and a snapped mech hanger, singlespeed full susser on the way home.

Should have used a higher gear. Oh well, atleast it wasn't my bike.

http://ridewithgps.com/routes/155469

Mud, sun and a snapped mech hanger, singlespeed full susser on the way home.

Should have used a higher gear. Oh well, atleast it wasn't my bike.

Andy, I've seen lots of your attempts by now to get off this island--have you still not realised that it's surrounded by water, or does it take you another try every time until you see the sea again and remember?

It's a little like watching a rat in cage, quite frankly. :)

And what's worse is that you're already teaching Nancy to perpetually go around in circles. :)

Escape to England? Mmmmmmm, no thanks.

No, escape to Wales. Wheres the sense in escaping to England?

hoffmeister

Really?

Last night I messaged Pigfarmer, asking if he was riding with London Dynamo this morning. He responded that he was doing the Rapha Hell of the North Ride instead and that I could come along.

I thought the ride involved some off piste action, so asked "How rough is the route? White or black shoes?" to which he replied "Weather dependent. I'd happily wear white on a good day, all on tarmac." I assumed he knew what he was talking about.

As per usual this morning I left the house later than intended, and then hit every red light between Kew and the mink pen, where I met Arvy, Sasmon and Twinkfarmer a few minutes later than planned. Though it turns out Arvy had arrived at the designated time to find Jon still in his dressing gown, so my tardiness had not interfered with proceedings too much.

Off we set to Highgate, taking in Swains lane. Saw someone in Rolla kit (I knew Cliveo was doing reps there today with Ramaye but was neither of them) hammer past us, though Simon did the lane in big ring, setting the tone for a day of "Jens Voigt hardman proportions" - according to Pigsy at the end of the day.

Today was going to be a day of mild little sufferings that were in no way epic, so my Raphaspirations were clearly not going to be met. On the way out of London i felt the horrible itch and burn of my bronchial system curling up in an asthma attack. Though it was not bad enough to warrant stopping Ventolin did need to be dispensed.

Initial impressions appeared to dispel my concerns that the route involved any offroad shenanigans, so things were looking up. It appeared we were off on a North London loop, and we all felt we were on familiar territory. Until we came to a junction where our illustrious leaders Garmin was telling us to go straight on, yet we were at a T junction with options to go left or right only. Until it dawned upon us that the bridle way in front was our intended route.

The first bridleway was an utter blast, a little sketchy under the wheels and a lot of potholes, the fast descent and following climb all had us excited like school boys. Of course Jon came in for a ribbing on account of his cluelessness about the ride he was leading us on.

The ride progressed with sections on the road and then sections off road and for a while it was all good. Mottram's minions had left pink R's and arrows at key junctions and they were still visible months later. It was an amazingly well structured and planned route, thank you to whoever put this one together.

While I was having minor respiratory problems, Sasmon was beset by hiccups for most of the day, so continually interrupted the conversation with his little stomach tics. It was pointed out that not even God could save him from the affliction as a pope once died from them.

It did however occur to us that we were visiting cottaging and dogging sites of north London. At some point the conversation progressed to entirely unsubstantiated rumours that someone who shall go by the name Jaydee (for reasons of anonymity and clearly to protect the potentially innocent) may be practiced in dogging. What God could not do for Sasmon was done by the mental image of Jaydee unleashing his load upon a couple fornicating in the woods. The poor man looked shocked at the thoughts he was having but the stomach spasms were cured.

What had started as concreted paths and bridleways now degenerated into hikers trails through the edge of fields. The two riders equipped with Campagnolo were doing fine. Arvy and myself had Shimano groupsets and our brake calipers had much less clearance. Mud, leaves, twigs and grass were quickly collecting in our brakes. At times my rear wheel was jamming due to the volume of cag becoming crammed into the gap. To compound matters I was running a 25mm rear tyre, so even further reducing the clearance and causing even more problems. Arvy and I ended up resorting to removing wheels at times to pull out handfuls of embedded debris. This gave great mirth to Sasmon and Minky, though I must confess my patience with the situation ran out after the 4th or 5th time of having to de-clag my bike.

Then to add insult to injury the mud entirely jammed one of my speedplay cleats. This was our only real mechanical of the day. Initial impressions were that it was properly buggered, (like the people more used to these filthy passes). However once more of the mud had been removed it became apparent it might be retrievable - but did involve me having to entirely strip down the cleat to its constituent parts, wipe them clean on the grass and put it back together. When i say grass i omit that managed to try to clean one part on a patch of grass that turned out to be a bloody red ants nest. Some days I should just not get out of bed.

Finally back on the bikes we pull up at the first available pub offering grub. We enter and order drinks and then start to order food, only to be told that the kitchen is busy catering for a party and wont be available for another 90 minutes. I think my tetchiness was becoming obvious and thankfully the chef came out and offered BLT's, so things started to improve.

At lunch we came to a discussion of distance travelled so far. I thought I had done 45 miles since leaving Kew, where as Pigfarmer thoguht he had done 65 miles since leaving his flat. Clearly someone had the wrong wheelsize set in their Garmin!

After lunch we carried on with more of the same mixture of road and off road, the Shimano crew continued to suffer from clearance issues. Discussion kept coming back to the need for cyclo cross bikes. Though we were all quite surprised at what could be done on our normal road bikes with slick tyres, it could be frustrating to lose all momentum on ascents due to wheelspin. Despite the hazardous nature of the terrain no one took a tumble all day which was reassuring.

Unbelievably after all the flint, shale, thorns etc our one puncture of the day happened when Minkscoble clattered off kerb. The 15 minutes of him struggling to repair a puncture were priceless, there is iphone footage if the public demand it, one for the randonneur thread.

I was really impressed with everyone else's fortitude and riding ability today, though if honest I was not in the same league. After my initial asthma attack things stabilised, on the cardio front. However my legs just had nothing extra to give, there was no additional kick or spurt in them. This combined with my other niggles of the day did leave me with a more than slightly frustrated mind, which kept being inclined to contemplate bailing and going home. Thankfully I never resorted to this (though when the cleat jammed I did really think that my day was done).

Ended up at LMNF for cake and coffee and then had to return home in a downpour, which started the cleaning process on my bike. Got home and finished the job off, but just as I was wheeling it along noticed a shard of green latex showing through my rear tyre, so that will need to be replaced before tomorrow's planned Windsor loop with Cliveo.

I am glad to have done the ride, but do now see the potential for a cyclo cross bike. Though to be honest I get more of a buzz doing single track on the 29er.

Yet again I was left with the thought that I really enjoy small group rides, and that sportive type events really are not for me these days. My loathing for humanity in general, particularly bloody cyclists in smelly synthetic clothing, cluttering the way in front of me would be particularly antagonised by such events. Given that the same roads can be ridden any day of the week, for free, with a group of good friends leaves me questioning their appropriateness for myself even more. This is probably because I have very few competitive aspirations on a bike. The simple action of turning pedals, for hours on end, seems to be enough to entertain me these days. Add a continual stream of lewd, crude and humorous banter and even bad days like today are great days.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/109797758[URL="http://connect.garmin.com/dashboard?cid=1125954"][/URL]

250k on the TT bike yesterday. There's quite a few breweries out west. Must explore on proper bike at some stage.

https://www.lfgss.com/post2376501-709.html

Repped for "Minkscoble"

Funny stuff.

24 hours of soaking the white castelli aero kit in oxy-crystal Vanish seems to have been fruitless. I doubt the washing machine is going to bring anything extra to the table.

All-grey Castelli will have to be passed off as a special addition kit!

Thanks for coming along on the ride James. My sincerest apologies to all regarding the off-road (thank god for my magnesium spokes!) nature of the ride.

Still not really sure how/where I can wash the Moser. Might take a trip to the car wash tomorrow.

Nice little run out to Ascot and Windsor. 83 miles, much of it in the charming company of Prancer.

Yesterday was Swains reps with Chris "Two Tents" Ramaye and some other Rollas followed by some more steady miles.

Tomorrow is my last run before the off to Monte Carlo.

And what's worse is that you're already teaching Nancy **to perpetually go **around in circles. :)

At least he is not teaching her to split infinitives.

[/out pedanting a pedant]

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/109797758

how on earth do you remember your garmin connect username?!

145k solo in the Welsh hills and mountains - out and back over the Cambrian Mountains, including a loop of the Elan Valley. Just stunning. Got soaked a couple of times and had 15-20mph winds to contend with for most of it, the last 50k was really really tough. I was so cold and really suffered. Amazing ride though...

Got back to a pre-run hot bath, roast dinner and fire - bloody love staying at my mums house!

About a 40k ride starting along the waterfront in Auckland, heading into town. Pub, ride to seafront, more beer, crash on rough concrete, another beer and all is good for my ride home back along the waterfront. About 18degrees with blazing sunshine. Not bad for a mid winters day. Something about sunshine makes me sack off 7am starts with high milage for milling arround with a couple of beers. Most people in my bunch ride disagree....

My first ride report on this thread and it was my first offroad ride.
Got the train to Brighton with STE5, rode up Ditchling and joined South Downs Way towards Eastbourne.
We were lost after about 10k and had to get back on to the tarmac in Lewes to rejoin South Downs Way at Southease. Lots of offroad technical climbing and it was hard work on 34x25 but rewarding once you are at the top. Both were on cross bikes with 700x35 tyres.

Some highlights :
*Offroad hill reps after taking a wrong turn 3 times
*Long offroad rocky climbs
*Fun descents that leave your hands numb
*Amazing scenery

I am very keen to do a full 150k South Downs Way route now and hooked on offroad riding.

Thanks Sean!

Stats :
Distance 65.7 km
Elevation Gain 1,295 meters
Moving Time 03:49:09

Pictures:

Short spin out to Stratford-upon-Avon and back, with coffee and cake somewhere in the middle :)

Phow on gods earth do you use those levers?

my weekend ride(s)
Yesterday to the uber chicken chef and affable Tibbs for the bbq
today was with cupcakes n friends, twas lovely despite a lack of Tibbs chicken which has now cemented its place in my mind as the best chicken in history.
:)

At least he is not teaching her to split infinitives.

[/out pedanting a pedant]

Au contraire, dear Clive. In this instance, it is more elegant to 'split the infinitive'. (This, by the way, is one of the few things concerning style that everybody seems to have heard about and then applies rigidly without the benefit of the knowledge that while it is applicable some of the time, it isn't always applicable. You see, adverbs are supposed to be words modifying certain other words, and more often than you might expect, they are best placed adjacent to the word they are modifying. It not only aids clarity, but there are also instances in which different positions of the adverb can result in different meanings, and, last but not least, as in 'to boldly go', it can result in a ringing phrase which, if used sparingly, can be a bona fide stylistic device.)

30 Miles tweaking the bike (new shoes, pedals and crankset etc) in preperation for this.

[ame]http://ridewithgps.com/routes/674123[/ame
[/ame]

on Sunday.

Wet & windy today.