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• #7952
120km around Princess Risborough, Bledloe, Chinnor and Marlow to make 1100m of climbing all on the TT bike.
Preceded by a 5k run and followed by 16km.
This has been the hardest week of training so far for Ironman (7,5k swum, 320k bike and 50k run so far), but i felt myself pulling back on the second run, as I just seemed to have a tonne of spring left in my legs, tomorrow may be a different story, but a good confidence builder...
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• #7953
Did the straight outa Hackney yesterday. Rode to the start so a grand total of 154 miles . Breakfast was provided and a bbq at the end. Some very nice beer was supplied. Apart from the very heavy rain in hartfortshire and the headwind it was a pleasant enough ride. I rode the first part fixed . My knees hurt.
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• #7954
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• #7955
Just did the earliest start for a weekend ride, that I can remember anyway..
Set off at 10 to 8 (later than I'd hoped) to the Kingston Wheelers meeting spot, to see what it's all about and go out on their 2nd fastest planned ride.
Turned up. Turns out after going hell-for-leather for 8 miles to get there before 8.30, the normal meeting time is about 8.45 and nobody else was there... Queue having to drink most of my water before the ride had even started.
Anyway, a very friendly inclusive lot for the most part, and a very good route with some hills but nothing major, winding it's way back and forth to Windsor park, then further south-west before coming to a stop at a great, and likely well-known "Artisan" cafe, after 60miles.
Fully refueled after 3hrs 15 in the saddle, the pace dramatically increased from about 18mph to about 23. Everyone split to go home at Kinston with 74miles on the clock and the sun beating down on us, just in time for the cake and sausage roll to really kick in. Felt pretty chuffed with the overall effort and how great the bike felt after so long mashing along the lanes, so took a detour through RP to round up to about 90 miles.
Great day out. Really good training after an initial slow start. Very good company.
Tempted to go out with them every Sunday if that's what I can expect. Thoroughly enjoyed myself and feel energetic again at last!
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• #7956
Went out around Kent, some new roads, some old. Paid my first visit to Ide Hill café, which was rammed (at about 10.30). Fantastic place, and fantastic views, and they serve a mean can of coke.
Gave it the beans on my first ride back to Herne Hill and didn't leave quite enough in the tank, thus resulting in a total implosion on the lumps through Crystal Palace. Stopped my Garmin whilst having a mind freak out and so just missed out on the August Gran Fondo (big deal huh!!)
http://app.strava.com/activities/174811162 -
• #7957
Such a lush ride on some news lanes. Empty roads mean no cars, but lots of debris
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• #7958
^That looks ace. Where is it?
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• #7959
The lane leads to Kilkenny viewpoint I think, Gloucestershire, above Cheltenham. SO many lanes like that in the Cotswolds, leading to little hidden valleys. The potholes and the detritus on the road make for some interesting descending though.
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• #7960
A bit further on
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• #7961
I'm at my parents house this weekend, without a road bike just my mtb. so couldn't do my usual beloved chilterns loop. So I grabbed a few OS maps and worked out a new off-road route which shadowed the first half of the route to Henley and back. Discovered some new bridle ways and paths, which was nice, including a steep chalk shute which was a bit sketchy. Picked up plenty of bramble scratches and nettle stings too, but in all about 15 miles. Definitely one is the longest mtb rides I've done.
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• #7962
Rode both days this weekend, which is unusual for me.
Saturday we rode out to Stoner Park (near Henley), which was fun - I'd not gone out that way before and some of the roads were really nice. The heavens opened briefly and we got totally drenched, but dried out fairly quickly.
Annoyingly my Powertap went to sleep for 50km in the middle of the ride.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/555384565
(^This garmin file is mega-borked, it'll work in GC but not strava, anyone know how to fix?)
Sunday I went out with my club, great fun and fairly punchy - this time the Garmin "lost" the Powertap at the halfway point, I think I am cursed.
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• #7963
I went on my bike. It was a rare event. Less rare lately - which is a good thing. Just myself and Bigpaintbrush while I get my confidence back but put the miles in and surprised myself at times with how much fitter I was than expected.
Saw the Dedham Vale lot on their way out at our halfway point. They were barely into their ride I imagine but we'd been all over the shop by then.
ccHackney were out in force too. That club is swelling is it not?
Beautiful day for it.
Went to work this afternoon and then hilariously bonked on my way home from that. Made up for it by eating all the food in the house.
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• #7964
The lane leads to Kilkenny viewpoint I think, Gloucestershire, above Cheltenham. SO many lanes like that in the Cotswolds, leading to little hidden valleys. The potholes and the detritus on the road make for some interesting descending though.
Thanks. I've got a real soft spot for that dappled sunlight effect. Good effort at capturing the feeling; lanes are hard to photograph I think.
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• #7965
Saw the Dedham Vale lot on their way out at our halfway point. They were barely into their ride I imagine but we'd been all over the shop by then.
Hello! We'd taken a fairly indirect route to Toot Hill, too, via Lambourne End.
ccHackney were out in force too. That club is swelling is it not?
Yes. We also spotted five very quick CCHers who looked as if they were riding back from a road race which started and finished near Great Saling.
Beautiful day for it.
Went to work this afternoon and then hilariously bonked on my way home from that. Made up for it by eating all the food in the house.[/QUOTE]
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• #7966
Great day out. Really good training after an initial slow start. Very good company.
Tempted to go out with them every Sunday if that's what I can expect. Thoroughly enjoyed myself and feel energetic again at last!
What time did you approach Kingston when returning? I'm tempted to join for a Sunday ride as I start work at 11.
You probably rode with my colleague on his blue/white/red Trek Madone Project 1 with flame paintjob.
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• #7967
Rolling down towards Bath: it's very old around there, and most of the roads seem to have been built before flat ground had been invented. The A4 into Bath itself was wedged with stationary traffic with no room to filter safely, so I turned around and went home. I'll actually go into Bath some other time.
My home town, also, rather obviously an historic Roman settlement built in the mouth of a volcano (see: hills / natural springs). But next time please do go into the town, it is a pretty city. However, if you want to do the touristy things, esp. Roman Baths, bring your wallet and cattle prod. Alternatively just take in the architecture. Stay away from Larkhall and Twerton though :)
seriously.
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• #7968
I had'nt ridden for a month after the Styrkeprøven insanity. Mainly due to being on holiday With the Family. But I have to admitt to not being physically able to for the week following it..
Attempted a sufferfest vid last week. Only to Discover my Power had dropped off dramatically. So Saturday was all about getting some distance into my legs, attacking a few Climbs in prep for the alps, but most all to HTFU.
It was meant to start easy. But my riding bud was a little delayed. So he would take a quicker route and meet me at a petrol station 25km or so into the ride. This of course meant war. So I stupidly pushed a bit to get there first. After that was a stretch of motorway which is pretty horrible to ride. Lots of Close fast traffic. So we kept the pace up. Hitting the short but tough Climb pretty cooked. Have to say it hurt pretty bad. But it was Nice to feel pushed again. Rode the rest of the 160km pretty easy. Aside from attacking the odd Climb.
Rode a winding, undulating Coastal road, With breath taking scenery. The weather was mild, and the road absolutly traffic free. Bliss.
Not sure why Strava thinks it involved 'epic suffering' aside from busting a gut on a few hills. It was great spin, and a Nice reintroduction to the saddle.
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• #7969
Friday was Swiss National Day - cue lots of fireworks and beer. A perfect opportunity to take the day off and head over to Switzerland early. The focus of the weekend was the Gurnigelpass Panorama Classic ride. Neither Cycliste or I had done it before, but with a name like that, how could we resist?
Friday - we both had work to do, so just a quick spin up to the local ski station at Les Plaiedes, and back again. 16 miles, 756m of climbing.
Saturday - picked up the hire car - actually a hire bus as it was a VW minibus. Despite its enormous size, it was actually rather hard fitting two bikes in there as it was full of seats. On the way up to Thun, for the start of the Gurnigelpass ride, we stopped off at Gletsch and did the Furka Pass and the Grimselpass. We'd planned to go up and over the Furka Pass and then climb it again from the other side, but the weather looked at bit grim on the far side of the Furka, while the Grimsel was in sunshine. Easy choice. This is the Furka Pass from halfway up the Grimsel:
20 miles, 1042 metres of climbing.
Sunday There were three options for the Gurnigelpass ride - you could climb up the pass once, twice or three times. We'd both planned to do the three climbs option, but the weather was pretty grim. There was, ironically, a distinct lack of panoramas due to the low cloud and constant rain/drizzle. Here's Cycliste heading up the second climb:
So Cycliste bailed after the second climb, and I did the third climb solo. I dare say it would have been a very enjoyable ride in the sunshine, but in those conditions it was a bit of a slog. The sun came out as soon as I'd finished. Strava says:
I think the altitude figure is a bit high - according to the organisers its 3697m of climbing rather than 4892. Adopting the organisers' figures it's a total of 133 miles and 5495m of climbing for the weekend. Perfect preparation for a time trial on Tuesday evening.
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• #7970
Decided to do my first ever MTB race this weekend. In fact I dragged the family along, so my daughter and son also had their first taste of racing in the under 8s and under 10s respectively. The event was a BC Go MTB race organised by Bedgebury Forest CC, at, er, Bedgebury Forest.
It was brilliantly organised and the kids were made to feel very welcome and relaxed despite the obvious experience of some of the other young racers present. My daughter came 4th in the under 8s and first girl, so she won a medal, which she was well chuffed with.
My son didn't fare quite so well in a much more competitive race, coming 7th of 8 after being pushed into a tree by a passing rider. He still really enjoyed it and definitely hit the other trails we rode that day with more confidence as a result of the race. I'd recommend these events to anyone with kids.
I was forced to start behind all the riders with "previous" in a vague seeding of the starting grid. By the time the course dived into the trees I'd managed to get into 3rd position with a good sprint along the 100m or so of fire road. Once in the trees it was all singletrack with no opportunities for overtaking.
I was pretty comfortable on the wheel of the rider in second, the first placed rider was pulling out a small lead, but never got out of sight, and the three of us slowly pulled away from the rest of the field.
After what felt like an eternity, but was probably only 2/3rds of a lap, the course opened up onto a fire road climb, so I went full gas, quickly passing rider number 2 and kept going past the leader too. I kept the throttle buried for the remainder of the lap and the next time I turned around to see where they were I realised I'd managed to get well clear.
Not expecting to be in this position and not really having a plan for this (or any eventuality really) I definitely went way too hard on lap 2, clipping the bars on tree trunks encroaching on the tight twisty singletrack twice, narrowly avoiding major crashes both times. I quickly realised that I wasn't going to win it taking risks, but I could easily lose the advantage I had if I crashed.
So I then had 3 laps of tempo, with only back markers for company and encouraging shouts from marshals. At the bell for the last lap I figured if there was a chasing pack then now was the time they'd make a last charge, so went back to full throttle.
Ended up with a comfortable margin in the end as first vet and first overall too. Best of all I loved every second. Just annoyed I waited so long for the first attempt.
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• #7971
^ chapeau! (both danstuff and yetidamo)
I received a phone call around midnight Saturday from Antidotes, spontaneously / drunkenly asking if I'd like to cycle to Brighton in the morning with him and Tom. As I'd sacked off SPFG, I said yes. So I woke early to do some pre-ride maintenance / adjustments, glad I did as I discovered that my front wheel nuts were dangerously loose in the process. Antidotes had some chain issues with his new build so we didn't leave our respective abodes till around midday. We met at Croydon for some fuel / dirtyfood and headed out around 2ish.
I was riding brakeless on my Fort Track.Aero, with a bottle cage duck taped to my seat tube for road biek guise. Antidotes was breaking in his new Hardisty track with a sweet Nitto cockpit, running a cheeky front brake (sensible) and Tom was cruising his Raleigh Wayfarer SS through the country lanes.
It wasn't long out of Croydon before we happened upon some lovely country scenery. We took the longer 'scenic' route and found ourselves sliding through dusty country cycle paths and slipping through some dense vegetation. Making a stop for hydration every 15 miles or so and to do some 'mapping' as we didn't really know where we going.
No matter how far we cycled, Google seemed to be in troll mode as it repeatedly told us we were 3 hours away every stop. There were a few hills to battle, for me both up and down because brklz, but we miraculously managed to avoid Ditcham, which I'm thankful for because I was officially broken around 45 miles in. I was so exhausted that once we reached the city limit, I cycled all the way to the centre of town no-handed, relishing the upright position.
We made it to Brighton around 7sh, stumbling into Pride. We were triumphant but also rather tired, after Tom managed to appropriate some free beers, I grumpily elected to head down to the beach to relax and reflect before grabbing some fish & chips and jumping on a train home. All in all a great day, last-minute planning and exhausting but good laughs with awkward tans / sunburn.
Would I do it again? Yes, probably just leave a little earlier.
More photos here.
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• #7972
First post on the new fangled forum! In Provence last week so thought it impertinent not to get my fat backside up Mont Ventoux. However, this was from Sault (Venoux lite as it's been called). Nevertheless, an achievement for someone with a commute that boasts Chiswick Bridge as the highest point on the route!
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• #7973
Lovely 90km spin trying to slay some of the issues I faced while doing the Marlow half ironman a few weeks ago so repeated some of the course, I could comfortably put out a load more power, and enjoyed overtaking a couple of pretty casually paced club runs on the way up Pishill, then headed into Henley for a coffee and them up Remenham hill, White Waltham, Windsor and home again.
Just under the 3 hour ride in my training plan for today.
One top 10 on strava, which is always nice, although it was for a largely downhill segment!
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• #7974
#workupto500 August 400
This time I planned to make it all the way to Bath, but 50km in I discovered that I'd left my lock at home, so I had to go back and fetch it. That meant Bath was out of the question, and I didn't make it to Devizes either, so I'll have to look for the statue of the man with balls of different sizes another time.
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• #7975
I had planned to ride 100 miles with my pannier up 12 of Kents finest hills as my final ride before LEJOG. I got to the 100 kilometer mark and just wasn't feeling it due to getting drenched/gusting winds so go the train back from Otford to Victoria. I did notice that the Samaritans had been out in force putting up their number on most of the major road crossings.
http://app.strava.com/activities/178377639
This!
Another good write up, Croft. Can't wait to join you out there!