Tell us about your weekend ride

I refuse to believe Hippy rides his 24hr TTs without having pizza delivered along the way, together with take out coffee.

Pizza is a very aero foodstuff.

Interesting that one has TT extensions mounted. Much as I loath to add such to my BMC. I do wonder whether taking the weight off my arms occasionally will help on a rapidly approaching 550km.

Been um-ing and er-ing about this for a month now.

maybe change your saddle setback a bit perhaps? ideally you should able to let go of the bar while staying in the same position when riding.

Even with clip-on, you'll still get weight on your arm, just spread on your elbow/arm rather than your hand.

Very different.
Do message him. I reckon the 24h TT is a brutal event, as you'll know, and would love to see some wide publicity on it. To show people what a real hardmans event is. Not riding 300 miles eating pizza every hundred.

I'm not sure how I would go about it. "Hey dude, I rode further than those Dutchies!" ? :)

I'm not even sure I'll do another one. It's definitely maybe.

I refuse to believe Hippy rides his 24hr TTs without having pizza delivered along the way, together with take out coffee.
Pizza is a very aero foodstuff.

That grates with me a lot. I ride a great event that almost justifies any quantity of food consumable in the space of a day and yet I'm forced to stuff my face with energy products and don't get a single cake, steak, chips, pie, pizza, kebab, pint, nothing! Insanity isn't doing the 24, it's not using it to eat a restaurant worth of good food! :)

Interesting that one has TT extensions mounted. Much as I loath to add such to my BMC. I do wonder whether taking the weight off my arms occasionally will help on a rapidly approaching 550km.

Been um-ing and er-ing about this for a month now.

I told you this in the other thread. The answer is yes. Yes, it will help.

Lovely 60k SS ride in rain&snow

That grates with me a lot. I ride a great event that almost justifies any quantity of food consumable in the space of a day and yet I'm forced to stuff my face with energy products and don't get a single cake, steak, chips, pie, pizza, kebab, pint, nothing! Insanity isn't doing the 24, it's not using it to eat a restaurant worth of good food! :)

Recovery day(s) surely.

After Dammit and TW2 visited, and we had a pretty eventful weekend. I spent the next week eating everything, all the time. If I did something as insane as a 24 hour TT. They'd have to put me on an intravenous Ben'n'jerrys drip.

I told you this in the other thread. The answer is yes. Yes, it will help.

Your right.

Thats not to say I wont keep asking in various threads.

Last weekend, I was riding with my girlfriend doing the Surrey Legs of Steel route, roads were icey, people were falling off going up Box Hill, average temp of 0, and now here we are in Victoria !!!

Off the plane, drive from Sydney to country Vic to her Mothers house, build the bikes, get to bed at 02:00, alarm goes off at 05:30 and we set out for a small 114k loop.

We headed off into the country, and within a K, 4 kangaroos started hopping beside us, they then jumped the fence and hopped in front of us and into the next paddock !!!

The plan was to ride up Mount Alexander, down the other side, do a loop and then back up Mount Alexander and back home. As we hit Mount A, within the first K, Mrs Davroos picked up a puncture and as her dedicated domestique, I fixed it and then she insisted on going back down and starting again so that her strava time would be better !!! Up we went, so different from England, there was nobody, not a car nor bike on the road, and up the top, we found a couple of wallabies who were more interested in us

/attachments/78991

Back down the other side, we saw one cyclist coming up, and into a 30k loop. It was starting to heat up when we came back towards Mount A, but the route we had chosen, included a dirt road

We started the climb, and this side was loads steeper, but we got to the top, with Mrs Davroos pulling the QOM !!!

/attachments/78992

Back down and 5ks from the finish, my chain decided to snap !!! She rode off, whilst a friendly local chucked my bike in the back of his ute

http://www.strava.com/activities/107079706

Day 2, we decided to do a longer flatter route and the temp was also a lot better, it was quite cold at 14 !!!

Amazingly, the headwind decided to follow us wherever we rode, also the route was very undulating and Mrs Davroos was suffering from the QOM attacks from the day before !!! So we crawled along, the average time slipping down whilst she died !!!

Eventually the ride ended at 122ish ks.

http://www.strava.com/activities/107340381

Great weather and awesome riding. The lack of traffic here is amazing !!!

2 Attachments

^ Nice one. I was out riding in Oz before Christmas over on the Gold Coast and loved it. As you say, so few people, so little traffic makes the riding a pure joy.

Love the Kleins too.

^^Nice indeed, here's a bit of contrast in terms of busy roads....

Over Chrimbo I decided that I'd like to re-do Harry Beck's famous tube map. Its too easy on the eye and not a true representation of where the stations are in relation to each other. I'm totally useless with the crayons so I shall 'draw' it by GPS tracking each line end to end, cycling to every station along the way. I then plan to upload them all onto one map, have the lines colour co-ordinated like the original, add in all the station names in a much messier fashion, probably in a font that will most people hate, and make it into a poster for my wall.

As it happens its a feck of a long way, lots of lines have seperate branches that I'll have to go down and back in order to 'draw' a continuous line. Some lines I've never even been on and parts of London I've never visited so it will be good for my London geography. My ridewithgps routes have the 11 lines with their 379 station come out at just under 430 miles, not including any or the riding to and from my house and from line to line. The total distance will depend on the order I do it, but I estimate it will be around 500 miles in total. This assumes I don't get killed to death by traffic, overcome with fumes or simply lose the will to live from visiting more train stations than the most nerdy trainspotter. This sounds like more of a summer project but its really mild for January so I thought I'd get cracking yesterday. This would be the biggest test yet of my Tunnocks teacakes scribed sat nav device, but I had an A-Z so as long as I did'nt get lost in the outer limits, ie off map, I'd be fine.

I've never done an audax but I reckon this would be a good audax, in a sort of horrific way. There's loads of control point options and plenty to see. And contrary to what you might think there's plenty of countryside too. I'm amazed I've never even noticed it but the Metrolpolitan line starts in Amersham, which is no word of lie north of Watford, which is also on the tube. WTF! How did this happen? I imagine a ye ole London Undergound meeting where a few people called in sick and the office temp wrote up the minutes incorrectly and the whole thing got approved without anyone realising the error.

So after 4 hours sleep (urgh) I got up at 5 yesterday and was out of the house at 6. First up was the Victoria line. 6am on Saturday morning at Brixton station is a bit like a scene from Shaun of Dead, but I managed to escape in one piece.

Going through central London in the early hours is joy, and of all the lines this was probably the one I knew the route from end to end without needing any directions. As it happens I got a bit disconbobulated with the bloody one way system of Tottenham Hale but otherwise it was a good run.

So next up was the longest GPS route line of the lot, the Central line. Luckily it was still early so the drag strip out to Epping was not too busy but I was passed by a few cars along there that were doing well above 100mph.

I know Essex is flat and prone to flooding and with all the rain recently I was a little worried the Essex loop would would have lots of flooded sections, but apart from plenty of puddles it was OK. I did go wrong early and missed a turn and did a totally unneccessary climb up Jack Hill that I'd have liked gears for, but turned around and found my original route. There were a few sections along the A12 which I will try and erase from memory. Its so mild I'm in shorts, I left the house in trousers but was overheating by Green Park so spent nearly 12 hours in shorts in January, which has got to be some sort of record for me. I was getting some funny looks and on my way up Bethnal Green Road a white van man pulled up to tell me to 'put some fucking clothes, its bloody winter you know' haha. Pfft it was about 9 degrees, positively roasting.

Again the central London bits I know but beyond White City was unknown. Hanger Lane was predictably a clusterfuck, I hooned along the A40 for a bit too which was also the stuff of nightmares. As it was a pretend audax I thought I'd give it an air of authenticity by having a made up control on a garage forecourt

West Ruislip arrived, and I discovered looks just as shitty as a great many other stations.

So onto the final leg, going to Harrow and Wealdstone for the final Bakerloo line leg back to civilisation.

North West London observations, the roads are shit, people in residential areas absolutely do not look before jumping into the road, honestly the bit around Harrow and Brent I must have had about 4 or 5 incidents of people almost step into my front wheel without even a hint of looking. So I am more than a little embarrrassed to discover that after berating the locals for their lack of vision I'm struggling to read my tiny written directions in the onsetting gloom, and it dawns on me that being over 40 I probably need my eyes testing. This is confirmed by struggling to read the index pages of the A-Z. All this means I take numerous wrong turns. Also maybe a funny thing to notice but the street lamps in Brent are quite dim, when I got to around Maida Vale the council must have invested in some swanky deluxe streety lights for the rich people as they were much brighter and I could nearly read the A-Z. I finally roll into Waterloo at 6.20, just over 12 hours after setting off.

I think I managed all of the 90 underground stations on this leg. I was covered in road grime which is a close to a tan as I'm going to get at this time of year. It turns out to be my longest singlespeed distance as including the 'transfers' it came in at 141 miles which I'm pretty pleased with for January. And amazingly despite cycling around London with a front tyre on its last legs I had no punctures. 3 lines down and 8 to go, but they're for another time, today I earned the day off.

Victoria line http://ridewithgps.com/trips/2168039

Central line http://ridewithgps.com/trips/2168037

Bakerloo line http://ridewithgps.com/trips/2168035

One of the best week-end ride posts *on here* for quite some time.

The Tottenham Hale one-way system should have been returned to two-way by now, although I've forgotten when they were due to start on the Broad Lane section. Perhaps it hasn't happened yet. I haven't actually been up there for some time.

'Tube maps' superimposed on the 'real' map exist:

http://also.kottke.org/misc/images/tubegeo.gif

I've never heard of anyone trying to do it by GPS, though. Your results certainly look interesting, with all the kinks and corners in them that the Underground line doesn't have in it. I look forward to the final result. There are so many re-edits of the Underground map that one more (and very original) attempt can't hurt. :)

Thanks Oliver. I like that map, thats kind of what I was after, I want a true reflection of the messy London sprawl, but thats easy just printing that, it has extra value as a poster if I actually ride it. Ideally I want it to be overlayed onto a google maps type background, detailed enough to see the street names but not sure how to do this yet, or what size the poster may end up, it could be huge.

The GPS won't work on the underground lines as you say but I wondered if it was possible to get an idea of where the lines go as apparently they do not go straight. I suspect TFL may think I was a terrorist if I asked for it. Wiki mentions they had to get permission in the olden days and if it was'nt granted they had to dig around, there's some crazy kinks and near right turns around Bank so it says.

Tott Hale still looks like there's lots of road works going on so whatever they are doing its far from complete, I did find the signage there useless.

Sunny family ride along the river mersey to the cafe in the park, rare excuse for getting out my mtb

First proper non-commuting ride this year and first outing for the new hub geared winter trainer/commuter/tourer. Predictably is was a touch taxing keeping up with the rest of the group who were all on road bikes.

A little over 100km in the surrey hills with lovely sunshine the whole way.

http://www.strava.com/activities/107471340

A fairly unimaginative 92 miles out through Surrey's hills and back. Things got a little soggy on some of the country lanes, passed an old lady cycling the opposite way coming out of a 4inch deep puddle, asked if it got any worse, "Nah, it's fine if you stay in the middle of the road." Ended up the best part of 7inches deep but already passed the point of no return, soggy feet for the rest of the day. Nice weather all day though!

http://www.strava.com/activities/107565218

Fantastic blue fleet, truly epic. Repped.

Regarding the font, is comic sans too much?

yeah Blue Fleet I am not worthy etc etc, a true london weekend ride well done

Blue Fleet... what to say... When I started reading your post I had to blink and re-read it to make sure I wasn't imagining things. But no, you really had thought of the most awesome of plans. The idea alone was amazing, but your write up was great too. I think I might love you a little bit. I'm looking forward to the next instalment and the end result.

Windy windchill in DK at the moment

Over Chrimbo I decided that I'd like to re-do Harry Beck's famous tube map. Its too easy on the eye and not a true representation of where the stations are in relation to each other. I'm totally useless with the crayons so I shall 'draw' it by GPS tracking each line end to end, cycling to every station along the way.

Surely this deserves its own thread

Blue feet, really great read. Hope you enjoy the rest of the lines :)

blushes Thanks all. Will probs start a thread after the next installment, it would be good to get advice on turning it all into a final map.

Lea Valley CC Club Run , Sunday 19th
10 of us in all were out on Sunday. 6 at the Town Hall and the others joined us @ High Beech. For the first time since the new year a Sunday without frost or rain. A spring day in January. Welcome to David and Lydia who joined us for the first time. Epping Forest looks like its been in trouble . Ditches are streams and there are new ponds in the clearings . Roads have holes and puddles swallow your front wheel; be careful coming down Theydon Mount. We headed to Moreton via Toot Hill and I regret only being on a single speed. At Morerton we decide to head for Hatfield Heath and on the road from Matching Green to Hatfield there's a flood across the road. The cafe there is full and we don't think it wants us so we head to Sawbdridgeworth and briefly enter Hertfordshire for lunch. Back via the side of Harlow and more flooded roads. We come across a cyclist being bandaged up after coming off. Home via the Lavers , Epping and High Beach. Tom says it was 56 miles. I get in and then its bike cleaning , I must get the mudguards fitted.