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No bikes, just this.
Viking Longboat Races - 2012 - YouTube
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Wiggo had already won, so went on a ride in beautiful sunny west Dorset. Dorchester to West Bay and back, 71km, (my first fixed ride over 50km), fish n chips and a swim in the sea at our half way stop. Riding 44-17, will admit I had to push a few hills, and had my feet on the steamrollers flattened off fork tops down the other sides, down from Hardy's Monument was fun legs in front for any that know it! Sprint finish too just to keep in the spirit of the tour. Was riding with Peter Gostelow from thebigafricacycle.com - top bloke. Just settling down now to watch the highlights. What a lovely day!
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I’ve always said that I can’t ride more than 40 miles by myself as I get bored, but yesterday I decided to put that to the test, make the most of the nice weather and ride to my parents house in Cambridgeshire.
Preparations consisted of eating some crisps, faffing about for ages trying to decide which shorts to wear and not planning a route. I didn’t eat proper breakfast and realised I had no food to make any lunch. BIG FAIL.
I’ve driven to my parents house many times – straight up the A1, simples. I figured I’d do the same cycling. I just needed to find it... I headed aimlessly north until I remembered that Edgware Road goes to Edgware and I should probably just ride up to there. And there was the A1! Simples indeed.
After about 20 miles I was finally on the other side of London and was enjoying the A1. I like A roads as there’s limited thought involved and I like to imagine the looks of Clarkson-esque rage on drivers’ faces when they see me. Alas the A1 had other ideas and turned itself into a motorway, and I had to think more and go on other roads. I started to feel hungry. I got a bit lost in various Hertfordshire towns but all in all was enjoying myself and the sunshine.
Just after Stevenage, things got a bit gloomy. I was really hungry and ran out of water. My arms felt like I was getting sunburnt and of course I hadn’t brought extra sunblock. My shorts weren’t quite as comfortable as I’d hoped. I’d spent too long by myself and was starting to overthink things. I really needed food. I told myself that I’d stop at the next place I saw to buy food, and then of course, saw nowhere. Eventually at Baldock, I saw a sign for the motorway services. “Great”, I thought, “that’ll do”. It didn’t do. The knobjockey working in the petrol station refused to let me bring my bike inside the shop and I refused to leave my bike outside (have you ever been to Baldock?!), which culminated in a screaming row, me being thrown out of the shop and me not getting any food. Fail.
Things got more gloomy. I rode on. Lots of villages. Lots of fields, some lovely views. NO SHOPS. I contemplated throwing myself in a ditch. I did the only thing I could do in the circumstances and started listening to the James Bond theme tunes album on my ipod. Ah, James Bond songs. I sang along. Things felt a bit better and I forgot to stop singing when I got to a village and got some very strange looks.
Finally I came to a village with a pub! I jumped off the bike, stashed it in the beer garden and went to buy a lemonade, it was AMAZING. From the outside the pub looked quite normal but inside it was super fancy and full of couples in their 60s, out for their Sunday roast. No one looked impressed to see me, sweaty, sunburnt and in lycra.
From the pub it was one long straight road all the way to my parents. Cambridgeshire is nice and flat and has lots of long straight roads, the joys of being dug out of the sea I suppose. The final 15 miles went by nicely despite the odd kamikaze rabbit. I arrived at my parents absolutely famished and ate all my brothers bagels. Mmm.
So, lessons learnt: I can ride by myself without driving myself mad, though I’d still prefer to do long rides with someone else, for ease of buying stuff at petrol stations if nothing else. Not riding on A roads is actually quite nice as there’s some beautiful scenery, even in boring old Cambridgeshire. Must take food on rides in future. My new shorts really aren’t all that comfortable. Need to listen to more James Bond theme tunes.
According to my good friend strava, all in all I did 82.1 miles at 16.5 mph average speed. And I’m still hungry.
tl;dr whatever
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A couple of 30m mtb rides with my son who for the past 3 months has been banging on about getting a KTM motoX bike which not being made of £ and caring for his safety is a complete non starter and generally poor topic.
His increased fitness, using a better bike (mine) and good weather helped him say that actualy this was fun.
We looped onto the Ridgeway - to be overtaken on a particularly long hill by 3 motoX bikes including 1 orange KTM.
Bollocks.
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a screaming row, me being thrown out of the shop
I did the only thing I could do in the circumstances and started listening to the James Bond theme tunes album on my ipod. Ah, James Bond songs. I sang along. Things felt a bit better and I forgot to stop singing when I got to a village and got some very strange looks.
I can ride by myself without driving myself mad
Hmm...
Great work though, good distance and average speed!
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I know the feeling. I jumped from 'long' rides for me being 25mi maybe, to riding 75mi the other week. Big step up! Especially as, like you, I only decided the night before and had little to no real preparation. Shows what you're capable of if you push yourself, though... and think of what's possible if you know what you're doing!
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Hmm...
Great work though, good distance and average speed!
Haha, are you implying I'm not completely sane?
Average speed was brought down by 20 miles of London and long stretches of "I'm too hungry to peddle anymore... come on, htfu... no, I'm just too hungry" internal monologues. Next time...
I know the feeling. I jumped from 'long' rides for me being 25mi maybe, to riding 75mi the other week. Big step up! Especially as, like you, I only decided the night before and had little to no real preparation. Shows what you're capable of if you push yourself, though... and think of what's possible if you know what you're doing!
I've done long distances before but never alone. Quite fancy doing more now though as I don't think I could get away with the James Bond showtunes with other people around. Anti-social riding FTW!
Good on you for going from 25miles to 75 miles, that's a big jump!
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I always ride with music. I'm frequently alone so it makes sense to me. I ride with music when I'm with friends, too - just my iPhone's internal speaker - so I get lots of funny looks. Not tried Bond themes but will do now!
Yeah, tripling my mileage was in retrospect a bad idea, but I did it! Next time I'll work up to it more slowly rather than just jumping in, because it pretty much killed me (in a good way).
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So in an effort to train on my TT bike and the weather being as good as it was yesterday I headed out on a Dulwich Paragon weekend club ride route that I stole off Strava last week (courtesy of Cupcakes/Spybot).
Actually I did the exact same ride on Thursday night after work fixed and managed an abysmal 13.something average, but given that I was knackered and the route is fairly hilly (i'm no hill climber that's for sure but i get up them regardless, managed Ditchling on 66GI's and was over the moon) it was all miles in the legs.
Went out a bit fresher yesterday and managed a 17mph average for the same ride, although I was stuck in the big ring, doh. Some epic descents on the route, including a long one through a village that flattens out and carries on for a couple of miles - was loving it till I hit a pothole and my pump fell out at some ridiculous speed. After a brief wander back up the road to recover it I bashed on and got bored after 20 odd miles.
Things i learned;
Gears rock and make life soooo much easier.
My TT bike is comfy.
I need to fix my front mech.
I still get bored after 20 miles.
Carbon rims squeel like a slaughtered pig but appear to work just fine.
Riding with a spare tub poking out the back of your saddlebag raises some eyebrows. -
SRAM Red front mech by any chance?
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Yup, but i already knew of its shortcomings when i bought it but seemed a shame to spoil the ship for a ha'peth of tar to use a Northern reference.
No matter, i hear its better training in the big ring...
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Left London three days ago with 2 friends riding to Marseilles. So far we've made it south of Reims, been quite flat but have had chunks of undulating terrain, so im hoping I picked the right gear ratio for the mountains ahead (45 x 17), although spinning down 4km of between 4 and 6 percent today was tough. Today was spent tasting Champagne along the route and the next few days should be filled with wine of the Beaujolais region. Will write it up properly when we finally reach Marseilles.
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Carbon rims squeel like a slaughtered pig but appear to work just fine.
Riding with a spare tub poking out the back of your saddlebag raises some eyebrows.What brake pads are you using?
I also need to come up with a better spare tub storage option than just sticking it in my jersey- it looms behind you when you glance back.
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"Equinox" - they came with my PX wheels and it said "warning only use these pads with these rims yadda yadda blah blah" Well I have and was a bit disconcerted at first when the matt black "braking surface" started to wear through but i read up on the tinterweb and apparently this is fairly normal. One forum said this chap has run their 50mm's for cyclocross for 2 seasons and they've been fine.
The noise however is supposed to be solved by toe-ing in the pads, which i did, and it kind of worked. Oddly enough after getting the bike piss wet through last week round regents I actually noticed the brakes were better. Maybe the grit and all the shit wore the surface in or something daft?
Anyhow, they were fine for the first 20 miles yesterday but then started to squeel again. I think it's heat related.
What brake pads are you using?
I also need to come up with a better spare tub storage option than just sticking it in my jersey- it looms behind you when you glance back.
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^lol, well done Hippy, epic effort!
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Tell us about your weekend ride
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As an aside, I know someone who could be fairly accurately described as 150kg of ginger cake.