Tell us about your weekend ride

She insisted we did the 105k route instead of the 75k, was confident she could do it and she did, all of it.
This one is a keeper for sure.

As if being turned inside out by @eyebrows, @6pt, @branwen and @Hovis on the LFGSS.cc 'training' (read 'punishing') trip to Mallorca wasn't quite enough, I thought it would be a good idea to race the Gorick XC spring series Round 2 at Deepcut on Sunday, too.

This would mean that rode more mileage and elevation over the course of one week week that I have in the last... four months.

Anyhoo, things didn't start well when on arriving at Westminster square on my way to Waterloo at 7:15 I found those Top Gear cunts had completely closed off the square and bridge meaning I would miss my train to Farnborough.

Plan B then - worlds slowest train to Woking and a nine mile off road ride on the muddy slop that is the Saturn Trail (THANKS SUSTRANS!) to Deepcut. Arrived with twenty minutes before the start of the 'sport' four lap cat. Experts do five laps.

I'm always amazed at what an absolute animal you need to be to do well at XC. The sport race went off the block like a rocket leaving me trailing at the back with a chap from WindyMillar and a couple of other stragglers picking their way across the tight, muddy, rooty, loamy circuit. Two laps in and I accidentally dropped my co-sufferers and rode the rest alone, only company the beasts on the front lapping me towards the end of my penultimate lap. They were polite beasts this time, a nice change.

I rolled in thirty minutes down on the winner, more or less last of the finishers in 24th, but happy to finish without too much drama and the bike in one piece, then rode another five miles to Farnborough to get the worlds slowest train home where I promptly lost a glove (Fuuuuuuu!). Stats reckoned 150 minutes in zone 4.5 - recovery time estimated at 72 hours.

On my return I found a south bank in complete chaos - some kind of protest - and so my return journey was duly lengthened making my return some eight hours after I left the house.

I was fucked.

I think the root cause of your current form can be found in your second paragraph.

Absolutely. I've done nothing. Except eat cake, annoy CSG, work and play Fallout 4.

Worth it, obvs.

muddy slop that is the Saturn Trail (THANKS SUSTRANS!)

http://www.sustrans.org.uk/support-us/donate-now/safeguard-network-appeal

where I promptly lost a glove

http://andtheglovesareoff.blogspot.co.uk/

As if being turned inside out by @eyebrows, @6pt, @branwen and @Hovis on the LFGSS.cc 'training' (read 'punishing') trip to Mallorca wasn't quite enough, I thought it would be a good idea to race the Gorick XC spring series Round 2 at Deepcut on Sunday, too.>

....these guys were kicking my arse on strava, compared to my trip a week previously.

(........unfollows)

everything went better than expected

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Definitely. I walked up Yorks Hill and everybody riding past me was not much faster.

Had an attempt at a local TT course, turns out I'm pretty shit. Aim this year is to put in a half decent time I'm happy with.

https://www.strava.com/activities/515100496

Enter a TT, a number will make you faster.

I'm thinking I might do that this year actually.

Normally only go out riding the local climbs, feels nice exploring something a bit different.

Unless your pins come out, then it will make you slower.

http://www.lfgss.com/comments/12868656/

First 100km of the year; Spring Onion Classic. Bunched with a group for the first 50km averaging 27kms - After Bedham Hill I was in pieces. Coombe Hill nearly cracked me. Finished in 4hrs.

Sore arse, completely fu-bar'd. Love It!

Went on my clubs charity ride yesterday; 190km to a Maggies Centre on the Wirral was the aim. I rode with the A riders for the first time which was brutal in itself but enjoyed my first chaingang and took my turns on the front.
I decided to join the B guys on the way home because my knees were hurting badly and in the end I couldn't even keep up with them because of the pain. Ended the ride about 135km in in the end, which was pretty gutting since people had sponsored me but it was a good day overall. Hobbling around now, seeing a doctor this week about the knees.
5/10

I did about 100k yesterday from Mainz to Frankfurt am Main and back. I first rode out along the route of an old Roman Road that I'd been meaning to do for some time. This used to lead from the large Roman legion city of Mogontiacum (Mainz) to their fortifications along the Limes in what is now Hessen, with a spur to the old town of Nida, whose location has been swallowed up by Frankfurt. There were Roman-era ruins still visible above ground in the 1960s and they just went and destroyed the archaeological record by building ugly tower block estates on it. That would no longer be possible today, fortunately.

Anyway, the first stretch of the old alignment is still called "Steinern Straße", or 'Stony Street', just like similar roads in Britain. Another very prominent name, which still recurs several times along the route, is Elisabethenstraße, a medieval name.

From Mainz-Kastel to Wiesbaden-Delkenheim and slightly beyond the route was very easy to cycle. While there were some small information signposts, I got the impression that the road hasn't been worked on much archaeologically. Not that roads are very easy to work on; finds tend to be made by people working in adjacent fields, etc. After Delkenheim, it became first impossible to ride by road bike (my tyres looked as if they were on a crosser after a while) and then impossible even by mountain bike. The track was extremely rutted and pitted and very waterlogged. I walked a kilometre or two until it became rideable again after the underpass under the A(utobahn)3. It was then called "Casteller Straße" through Hofheim-Diedenbergen. In Marxheim I went rather off-course because I couldn't quite remember where I should have gone to trace the road. It's not quuite clear to me how it passed by the well-explored Roman castle there:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kastell_Hofheim

It probably went past the older earthenwork castle, but then another, stone-walled castle appears to have been plonked right on its route. Perhaps it was diverted around it.

Anyway, I soon got out of Hofheim and rode to the motorway junction between the L3018 Hofheimer Straße and the A66, which squats a good length of the old road's route. Here’s a map of the route alignment from Hofheim to Frankfurt:

The problem the motorway arrangement brings is how to get around the subsequent motorway junctions. I went slightly wrong here again by going into Zeilsheim and out again, not having noticed the path around the northern side of the motorway junction. Then it was a case of riding parallel to the motorway, with a couple of naughty bits. The first was crossing a singletrack railway line northeast of Unterliederbach. It would appear that very few people make the detour south to the official level crossing. A train passed just as I got there. Crossing the Schmalkaldener Straße only a short distance further also required a detour.

Next I arrived at the Main-Taunus-Zentrum, an unbelievably silly out-of-town shopping centre, where I'd only been once, to see a film. I was not best pleased when I realised that my friends hadn't told me they wanted to drive fifty kilometres to see it, and it still ranks among my top ten least favourite travel experiences. Getting around the centre and the major A-road (B(undesstraße)8) took another long detour--first across the southernmost car park, onto a foot- and cycle bridge to Unterliederbach, then back north again along the east side of the B8, and then back on the route. You can see the various paths on aerial imagery. I'd looked at this before so didn't get lost here. Then it was straight ahead again, Roman road-style, except for a detour around a motorway service station, and another unmarked crossing of a singletrack railway line, which people clearly did all the time, to the effect that the sleepers were lighter-coloured than those either side of the crossing.

Unfortunately, the alignment became rather obscured around Schwalbach (north of the A66) and Sossenheim (south of the A66), specifically the crossing of the Sossenheimer/Siegener Straße. After getting across by following a northerly detour there was another short stretch called Elisabethenstraße. I then went wrong yet again. I should have carried on north-eastwards to Eschborn-Süd Station, through the station, and carried on along the other side, but I'd forgotten about that and did a long southerly detour before I was finally back on the route on a street called "Heerstraße" (in Praunheim), which means 'army road/street' and whose alignment was again disrupted by a motorway, the A5 this time.

The last bit was plain sailing apart from roadworks in a section of the Heerstraße, which meant a walk along the footway, but I was soon in the area known as "Römerstadt" ('Roman town'), even though there was no trace of it left thanks to the aforementioned vandalism brought to bear on its remains.

I didn't stay there long and rode into Frankfurt, did some shopping, and left it again along a more southerly route. This was partly along the route of the "Radfernweg 3" ('long-distance cycle route 3'). At first, it looked interesting where I picked it up, as a former road had been closed to through motor traffic, meaning a wide, well-surfaced (although not by German road-building standards; the tarmac was quite wavy in places) carriageway up to the bridge across the River Main to Sindlingen.

From there, the route became positively Sustrans-esque. At first I convinced myself that I should ride along it for research purposes, and it was initially quite nice to ride alongside the Main, but by Okriftel I'd become completely fed up with it, especially how it first takes you south when to get to Mainz you want to go due west via Hattersheim and not via Okriftel. Anyway, I rode to Eddersheim, then to Flörsheim (a nice straight bit of the L3006 for a good time trial interval into a headwind), and then to Hochheim, which it turns out is actually "hoch" or 'high' as it says in the name. There I was fooled by the signage that was aimed at keeping drivers out of the town centre and got diverted to the ring road, which meant a long detour through the town. Next time I'll know better. Then all was left was a quick ride to Kostheim, Kastel and then Mainz.

So, looking at this old Roman road was a very interesting exercise. Oddly enough, despite all the detours, having to walk some bits, only being able to ride quite slowly along some of it, and getting lost several times, as well as stopping to look around, I only took about two hours from Kastel to Frankfurt-Heddernheim (next to Römerstadt), and I was very surprised when I looked at my watch. With better knowledge of the route, I should be able to do it in much less than two hours. This section of the route is about 35-38k, I think. It must be much quicker to take the B40, cutting through Hochheim, which is bypassed, and then the L3265 via Hattersheim, to get to Central Frankfurt, but the Eschersheimer Landstraße, which I took into town, is actually a very good connection.

The Romans built their road so that it reached the foothills of the Taunus quite quickly, probably for military purposes given the location of the successive castles in Hofheim, but probably also because the environs of rivers back then were, of course, generally marshy and impassable, and staying well away from the Main was probably advisable. Despite the relative absence of marshes today, in some summers midges are still a serious problem along the Rhine and Main, and perhaps they carried diseases back then.

Permeability across western Frankfurt appears to be quite poor, so I imagine that I'd want to take this route when going there, then ride in along the Eschersheimer Landstraße, even though on the face of it this is a detour, and quite complicated in places, but it seems that the old Romans knew a thing or two about saving time. The general geography along the Main is also pretty difficult to negotiate, what with hills and extremely large chemical factories, as well as an unbelievably badly-laid out major road network.

tl;dr Roman roads were straight, modern roads are crooked.

Rode into Kent (further East than my usual territory) to do a lesser known hills ride that I last rode in 2014.
Lots of dumped asbestos, a few burnt out cars and Chelsfield Lane was closed as someone had dumped a huge load of rubbish in the middle of the road where it passes under the M25.
This ride takes in Fackenden (both up and down), Magpie Bottom, the 25% that is Lockyers, Plaxtol, Cotmans Ash and Chelsfield. A very nice ride and no slower than I was in 2014.
9/10. Highly recommend

https://www.strava.com/activities/522303610

Up Box Hill for the first time in the middle of a 60-mile jaunt. Didn't feel too bad at the time, but my legs felt pretty wooden up the next hill.

At 5:10 Sunday morning I found myself fjording (sp?) the Thames carrying a carbon mountain bike whilst wearing wellington boots, one of which certainly had a hole in it. The current was moderately strong, and the water lapping about an inch below the top of the boot. A slip could have been very wet and embarrassing, or very expensive, or both.

This was because the night before I slept on the barge / houseboat that @sonic_sol resides, which sits in dry dock at the boatyard on the Isleworth Eyot. Our plan was to drive to Battle on the Beach at Pembrey County Park, wales, on the day, some four hours away.

Naturally we arrived well ahead of schedule and without a hitch so had enough time to grab a second breakfast and do a practice lap - wearing civvies as it was still about five degrees. I bumped in to @benjam and his poo-brown Crosscheck who appeared to be having teething troubles with his cleats.

Riding to the start I realised I’d forgotten my chip, and as I’d been trusted with the car keys swung off to grab it. Sol was gridded anyway so I wouldn’t be starting with her.

Chip attached I made it to the start with fifteen minutes of standing around. It was now eight degrees. I found @benjam and struck a deal that I could suck his wheel across the sandy opening section.

The gun went, and with a running start as the sand was deep, we lurched in to action. My plan to wheelsuck Ben immediately failed when it turned out that he was such an animal in straight line I couldn’t hold his wheel without killing myself, so I settled back in to a more comfortable rhythm for the first three mile long beach crit section.

As courses go, BotB is brilliant. It’s a three mile beach crit drag race followed by a return leg of four miles of XC sandy single track trails and a smidgeon of fire roads. Cyclocross and MTBs are invited to play, but the lightweight 29er is the weapon of choice as the crossers struggle on the sandy dune singletrack sections, causing log-jams in the initial lap.

I managed to pace myself fairly well over the three laps and was in a good bunch for the second beach TT / schlep. Sol and Ben didn’t fair so well, being ill and mechanicalling respectively. The final lap was pain but spurred on by pacing / racing a Canadian chap to the line I finished fairly strongly, mid-field, the only casualty being my front brake that was fucked before we even started.

On arrival back at the car I found that Sol had also forgotten her chip, but wasn’t so bothered given that sickness had prevented her from racing.

Then followed a long drive home invoking trying not to fall asleep and eating dirty Burger King burgers.

9th in a 15mi TT out at Fifield and probably a club record.

Sunday ride cut short...

Oh dear! How'd you manage that?

9th in a 15mi TT out at Fifield and probably a club record.

Hmm I rode through Fifield on Sat on the way to Newbury. Nice and flat, and lots of Roman Roads. I wonder if your TT was anywhere near Drift Rd

I think I have a tolerable route from Pinewood to Marlborough if anyone is interested. I also have the route to Pinewood/Iver but it might just be easier to hop on a train and start from Slough

Big ring to little shift, bad timed bump or something flicked slack chain over between spokes and cassette, I coast thinking I've dropped the front and can recover it with another shift but chain is already pulling derailler into spokes, bang, narrowly avoid crashing, veer into gutter, call gf for lift home, go to pub.

It was on Drift Rd:
https://www.strava.com/segments/9076602