Tell us about your weekend ride

Dead jelly!

http://ridewithgps.com/routes/2480817

Rode up to my mums house in Hull on Saturday, trained it back down from Doncaster the following day. Set off at 7am in the rain, which lasted for the first 40 miles or so. Pace was very conservative which helped avoid sweating like a bastard inside my Castelli rain cape. Got a bit lost through Kings Lynn. Must remember to map a route that avoids busy town centres.

Very demoralising headwinds around mile 70 until we reached Spalding, we struggled to hit 10mph for about half an hour. It seemed to take ages to get to mile 80.

After passing through Spalding and on to Surfleet the wind was behind us and we suddenly went from 15mph avg to pushing 18/19/20 mph quite effortlessly. Went through various stages of rain, but on the whole the weather was quite kind in spite of what the forecast had been saying for the days leading up.

Highlights were the stretch alongside the River Witham, the 10% Walesby Hill which seemed to come out of nowhere 130 miles in and the nice long freewheel'tastic descent alongside Humberside Airport.

Arrived in Hull around 20:20 after 13 hours on the road, 11 in the saddle. Beer & pizza very welcoming.

^ excellent work . Rep.

Yup seriously solid work that. Nothing worse than a headwind to grind resolve into regret. Except maybe an uphill headwind....

Rob - your mum lives about half a mile from my dad's house by the looks of it!
Epic ride.

Today didn't go so well. Forgot to pack patches. 4 flats. 1 broken inner tube (presta stop valve)... All spare tubes used.
Cause? Pinch flats... Annoying!
100 miles ridden, then picked up for the last 5 as I was out of tubes...
And fuck me, it was 40C and the hills... So many hills.

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Still, beautiful ride, even the garmin detours which all involved bigger hills, but some stunning places visited.... Just a sense of incompletion...
Oh well. Hope for better luck tmw- reapplied rim tape, fingers crossed.
http://instagram.com/p/a-84NNFxfC/
Marty rode out for 30 miles with me- super awesome start.

Awesome! better luck with the puncture monkeys tomorrow dude.

Did the Melburn Roobaix. 13 cobbled sections (with some big fucking cobbles) and terminator style riverbed drainadge ditches on the track bike. Was awesome!

That Chase The Sun ride sounds the bollocks. Must sign up next year

I snuck out of work early yesterday to do this 62km route around the west and north of Nairobi. Whilst thoroughly enjoyable, it was a bit ambitious after a busy day in the office.

At one point I heard serious honking behind me. Kenyans often give a courteous toot-toot to say "overtaking you", but this was more like "I'M COMING THROUGH YOU'LL DIE" so I veered off the road and a monstrous "clean water" truck thundered past, kicking out black exhaust. It must weigh over 5000kg fully loaded, so probably didn't want to lose any speed in waiting for me. Annoying, but who am I to make the provision of drinking water more expensive?

The approach to Banana village was the best part of the route, a delightfully well surfaced and windy descent (with gratuitous chevron signs) down to a bridge over a river, then a sharp climb up the other side of the valley. Kenya usually offers long, steady climbs so 100m in 1.4km was a surprise. Schoolboys taunted me in English "Slowly slowly eh?".

I felt wobbly at 50km and ran decisively out of gas at around the 57km mark. I then crawled the last 5km through ultra-posh Muthaiga. There was a guy with a shit MTB / leather boots / hoody who was keeping pace with me as I went past the golf course and the various Polish/Swedish ambassador's houses. I couldn't drop him! I think the last 5km took at least 15-20 minutes. You know you'e screwed when you can barely keep your head upright.

At home I felt pretty rubbish once the happy-buzz wore off. This ride is to be reattempted with more water, more food, more HTFU. I might use it as a weekly test and try to break the magical two-hour barrier.

Here's an AIDS bill-board in the village of Banana at 2km elevation. Apologies for not wiping the sweat off my phone before the picture, I was in a hurry because a man was enquiring about whether, on the off-chance, I would give him my bike.

62km, 559m ascent, 2hrs 15mins, so average 27.6kph (17.1mph).

Read your sentence about needing more water, then spotted the slightly compressed tab at the top of my browser that says: Tell us about your wee....

You could gild a bathroom suite with it....

I finally have a 'little cycling friend' (as my wife so patronizing describes it.) He's actually a tri-athlete though that doesn't make him a bad person.

We did my favourite ride home from the office together yesterday. It was mid to high 80's with a solid headwind on the flat bit (15-25k.) Which was exactly the point at which he kicked it up to e-major rock and roll. Quick rotations. Big Gear. Smashing.

http://ridewithgps.com/routes/2335308

^That's my 'hood!
Love the Ferndell ascent, so nice. Don't like descending the back side on a road bike though, much prefer it as a climb.

Rode up to Mount Disappointment yesterday, it was probably 90 degrees by the time we summited. Insane views up there.
http://app.strava.com/activities/63058130

Yeah it's a bit bumpy down the back. Sometimes I turn around at the bottom and go back over by the observatory and down past the Greek. Great that it's right on our doorstep - we should have a ride!

Mt Disappointment looks great - is that up the Angeles Crest? Think I've hiked up there.

Mt Disappointment is up a closed (gated/unmaintained) road just off Mt Wilson Rd. Climb the ACH (Hwy 2) up to Red Box, then take a right off the Mt Wilson Rd.
Through the gate, it's a 3-mile climb, ascending just over 1100 feet. The last 400 yards or so are crazy, like 22% or something.
A bit treacherous here and there, rocks are falling constantly and two out of seven of us flatted on the way back down to Red Box. Views are nothing short of breathtaking.

I'll PM you my number, maybe see you for a spin around Griffith sometime soon!

Ahhh ndeipi, your posts always make me so jealous.
Apparently there's a Kenyan restaurant here in Bethlehem.

Anyways. 2 day update (short version):
Yesterday: hard, hilly, humid.
Today: sunny, sublime, shorter (105miles)

Long versions.
Yesterday. Hartford CT to Washingtonville NY. A lot of short sharp hills, with one or two big climbs. 2,500m acc the garmin, 115 miles. It was way too humid and there were way too few towns/ stops. About 8hrs in the saddle, 10 hrs in total.
Beat the rain!

Today: Well the Appalachians are incredible. 1800m of climbing, acc garmin, 105 miles. Some of the most beautiful roads- empty, good surface. Stunner. I hit the wall with 8 miles to go as I'd run out of water, fell off the bike outside some persons house who sent the kids out with a glass of water. Then to a diner for some French toast and bagels.

Tmw will be the last day of riding with panniers loaded, bringing the total to just north of 400. One day of riding around Long Island is planned for Sunday, but no panniers.

^ I too am jealous of your rides in the Appalachians. So we're both jealous. So nobody's jealous.

If it makes you feel any better...

He's actually a tri-athlete though that doesn't make him a bad person.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kaF91YxCzMI/TsPs0SWRLoI/AAAAAAAAAFM/pZaTAAAtvjk/s1600/the-very-best-of-the-futurama-fry-meme.jpg%253Fversion%253D1308337289000

And we're done. Nailed out the last few miles (70) this morning, drizzly rain. So happy to be off the bike and in Philadelphia. Good 4 days of riding (+1/2 day around Boston). Only 1 p***ture. Incidentally, the Maharagwe didn't have the right flavor and there wasn't enough Ugali... When I get back, I'm making myself a giant portion of Ugali.

Apocalyptic ride for me, but some valuable lessons learnt. Set off for Bristol from Cheltenham again, this time following route 41 of the cycle network, which meant avoiding the dull A38 and instead following the Severn, which was longer but a lot more picturesque. I was looking forward tpo Bristol, some good pub food and some drinks with friends from work, conditions were decent (headbreeze rather than wind, intermittent sun) and the legs felt good.

So to the first lesson; national cycle networks don't always take you down routes suitable for all bike types. I was aware that one bit of it wasn't on a road, but I had visions of a tarmaced cycle path. instead it was the very stoney, rough towpath of the Gloucester to Sharpness canal.

second lesson when you're riding on a surface and are thinking to yourself 'I'm going to get a puncture on crap like this' you get off the bike and push. No exceptions. The inevitable happened around the corner, hit something big in the path, very rapid loss of pressure.

Third lesson: when you say to yourself to swing by the LBS and pock up a spare tube don't fucking forget. i had everything else but the tube was a frickin' pin cushion. I got the help of a friendly lock keeper who supplied me with a cup oif tea and watering bucket to look for punctures. There were so many I ran out of patches, fortunately he has some. I was there for an hour and a half, had to use 10 patches, more in fact as I had to re-patch a couple.

Anyway felt like a fucking prick. Eventually managed to get the tube into good enough state for me to limp to the nearest train station with a slowly deflating rear, stopping to pump it up every few miles.

Never known a tube is such a bad way, ten punctures, most of them two holes side by side. Pinch flats maybe, or maybe I ran over something very sharp. I don't understand how they were in so many different places around the tube.

I really like that route. Sure it's slow and winding (compared with the A38).

Riding the canal path is easy when it's dry, just go as fast as possible and don't death-grip the bars. If riding geared then push a big one to keep shit planted.

So I did another ride here in SF on Thursday. Only 26 miles, but fuck me, I hate hills. No matter where you go there's a fucking hill in your way. Throw in it being a mild 29c at 6pm and I was destroyed. On the flip side, it was hella fun flying down the hill at over 30mph and wondering why I hadn't checked my brakes first!

Hills are cycling for me, particularly in CA.
Cranking out miles on the flat is boring as fuck, there are too many cars and generally shit views. Still not visited SF tho, might take the train up there with m'bicycle someday.

yeah so I'm getting there. I'll handle 50/50 but the killers for me are when we do miles (well I'm unfit so 20 miles) and then my mate turns round and says "Sorry about this, but we're at sealevel, need to climb to 640ft to get home. At 18%" ... bastard. Yet I still cycle with him, becuase he's a great friend, he's pushing me and also, I'm getting a fantastic guided tour of SF/Marin