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Fantastic effort - well done! I remember reading your report from the last time round and thinking that you must be insane :)
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80ish miles out to Clacton-on-Sea today for Corlis Benefideo, OldSchoolRacer, Fox, Hats and I. Things were going swimmingly until around midday when the heavens opened and we were gifted with sheets of rain. It did (eventually) let up, but not until we'd had our fill of hailstones; the wet stuff returned later with a vengeance and brought a couple of thunderstorms too.
Great ride, great to be out and I feel good. It's better riding in rain than it is in hot sun. (Chevrons, go back to Scotland, etc...). Somone with a Garmin and a love of data will no doubt be along to quantify things later. Corlis has a few photos too, which he may share.
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I rode 44 miles today and got rained on. I don't even deserve to be on the same page as this ^.
Awesome!
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Fancy a shot at Paris-Brest-Paris?. I will, one day...have a crack at this
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In fact, let's bring things back down to a sub respectable level shall we?
I just went on a holiday. Not something I really do that often, but my best pals offered my wife and I the chance to join them at a family house somewhere in the hills near Lunas in Languedoc. I immediately realised my error in not organising to take a bike when I saw the fabulous ribbons of immaculate tarmac linking infinite pretty mountain villages. In desperation I unlocked the 'cave' or flood cellar under the house and found four bikes in various states of fossilisation. On the hunt for tools I sorted myself a screw driver, a bike pump and some pliers. Three of my potential steeds were way beyond that tool kit so I turned my attention to the girls, small frame MTB:
A classy ride I'm sure you'll agree.
I couldn't get it out of the big ring so I set it up as best I could and put the saddle up, donned the free hat I got from drinking beer during the tour at LMNH and took to the black stuff.
I cruised joyously through a couple of towns linked by about 10km of undulating loveliness, got some odd looks from many, an "allez" from a fat bloke in a Renault van and several waves from a peloton of roadies pinging in the opposite direction. Loved it. Then went back to my veranda for a kilo of fromage a weak beer and a well deserved snooze in the sun. No gels consumed because I'm tougher than a badgers ball bag.
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great stuff hippy and wrongcog. not sure which was more epic.
fuck riding from a to b, went from b to a this weekend. banbury to aberystwyth. 260ks over two days so nothing to shout about but some glorious weather and amazing blacktop in the black mountains.
must make more effort to ride places i have never been before.
cheers to chalfie for the loan of a geared rig, and to toegrimes for the company.
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Fancy a shot at Paris-Brest-Paris?. I will, one day...have a crack at this
Thought about it but it's not a race so I'd prefer to just tour France in a more enjoyable fashion.
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80ish miles out to Clacton-on-Sea today for Corlis Benefideo, OldSchoolRacer, Fox, Hats and I. Things were going swimmingly until around midday when the heavens opened and we were gifted with sheets of rain. It did (eventually) let up, but not until we'd had our fill of hailstones; the wet stuff returned later with a vengeance and brought a couple of thunderstorms too.
Great ride, great to be out and I feel good. It's better riding in rain than it is in hot sun. (Chevrons, go back to Scotland, etc...). Somone with a Garmin and a love of data will no doubt be along to quantify things later. Corlis has a few photos too, which he may share.
Here is a small collection of stats...
Distance: 85.2 miles (though this is from my house... so the actual ride was about 78 miles)
Average speed: 14.9 mph
Wee stops: at least 5, thanks to one of us having a bladder like a walnut (naming no names...)
Envious looks given to OSR’s Batmobile: countless
Olympic teams seen: 1 (Italian)
Number of pubs: 2, only one of which we were allowed into
Kestrels: 1
Hailstorms: 1
Torrential rain: too much
Swimming in the sea: none (see “torrential rain” above)
Clever person who brought spare dry socks for the train: only oneCan’t think of anything else insightful to add, other than to say it was a fun day out despite the occasionally horrendous weather.
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are you hydrating enough,?
remember crossing Sydney Harbour bridge after being at work there on a bike 2 days and seeing it saying 40C, then realising why I was spacing out nearly collapsing when going up and down in lifts with parcels...
drink more man!Yeah. I'd drunk a litre and a half of electrolyte drink by the time I hit the one hour mark. I've never been to Sydney but I think a big part of the problem here is the humidity - you sweat buckets but that sweat doesn't go anywhere so you never cool off.
^^ get up earlier - if it's hot why would you go for a ride at 13:14? go at 6am, it'll be gorgeous.
Depends when I have the time! Definitely going to try to juggle my schedule to allow night rides, though - although at night it's still high 20s and even more humid, at least there's no sun!
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200 tandem miles since 1pm yesterday, not quite three hours' sleep, now for another 80 miles before 140 back to London tomorrow. Work Tuesday is going to be FUN
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Today I rode from Eisenhüttenstadt to Berlin. Eisenhüttenstadt is a planned city built around the EKO steel works in the 1950s. It's good loads of very good public sculptures but very little else, and a strange 'ghost town' vibe. The old village it was built near to is actually quite picturesque (spot the Trabi-raft), and has half a bridge across the Oder to what is now Poland, which was blown up as the Russians advanced in 1945:
I visited it last week and, taking a more scenic route home, realised it would make a nice ride.
After a little bit of oversleeping and apologising, LFGSS's famous Rodolfo and I eventually met at this charming station:
The friendly graffiti reads 'I'm no racist, I hate you ALL'.
I didn't bring a geared bike with me to Germany, as I thought my track bike was comfortable enough to cope with longer rides, and a few moments of downstairs numbness aside, I think it was alright actually. I did it on 52x19 (72.9 GI) and never really felt like I was suffering too much.
The scenery was beautiful, lots of single-carriageway tree-lined roads through rolling fields, and plenty of good old German pine forest.
No p*nctures and no major mechanicals, but I fell over trying to trackstand in the long grass on the roadside verge while Ruud fannied around with his pedal, and the bang or twist on my knee during the fall was starting to twinge a bit by the end of the ride. Which serves me right.
Next ride is going to go from Dessau or Müritz I think.
Strava for any one who is interested. How much cheese can I get away with eating if I burned 2,500 calories?
HHSTB:
miro_o
Gussio
Cupcakes
wvm
jammy
Wrongcog
DeadSpale
jonny
hippy
hats
jadias
lemonade
cafewanda
tricitybendix
tbc-
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Tell us about your weekend ride
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Alright so its not the weekend but had an eventful ride today.
For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to ride 110miles today in the smeltering heat, seriously bonked and went to a dark place.
Anyway went round Hog Hill to see what was going on and saw the GB Olympic cycling team.
Seeing Wiggins still wearing the yellow helmet I shouted "Wiggo!" and instantly regretted it feeling like the lycra-lout I am.
Got a casual fist pump from the man :)
I'm sore but happy.