Tell us about your weekend ride

115km from Linton to Norwich. Muggy, constant headwind and smelled like shit most of the way. Chain noise unbearable. Meh.

Conversely, Cambridge to Linton the previous day was great fun. 18km, mostly on gravel, dirt and grassy doubletrack roman road. Need more of that

Nice ride!

Relive is AMAZEBALLS

Sometimes not.

(and shorter than 12 hours, sorry for the crazy ones ;)

@FatManOnAFixie I like your ride reports and think you should continue to use whatever spellings you like for place names! It seems slightly mean spirited to be critiquing someone for their use of language on this forum considering some of the drawn out 'in' jokes re crabon/fixeh etc and certainly from someone who takes every opportunity to make painful puns and pointing out irrelevant spelling errors etc... no offence meant to @Oliver Schick, each to their own and I appreciate you add a lot to the forum for a lot of people, but I just wanted to put in a word of support for the fat man's reports with whatever stylistic embellishments he chooses to employ...

Yey! Thanks Mr Owl.

I'll do 2 types of ride reports to keep everyone happy if it helps :)

Stick with your original style. I love your reports. @Oliver Schick can do one.

Stick with your original style.

I preferred their first album.

Wait, what?

Fel freey 2 writ 'bout ur rides hoeva u wish

Finally dragged my sorry arse out and onto the bike. I set off determined not to be too hard on myself if I wasn't going well and had a nice route planned with some lanes and a little climb. The only bike I have up and running atm is my steamroller (~72") so bike choice was easy.

Set off feeling decent, got out into the lanes and though the wind was a bit nasty at times it was lovely - nice temperature and well behaved drivers. It's been a while since I've ridden more than ~45km (even that's been a while, really) so as the distance started to accumulate my legs tired. Speed dropped a fair bit in the smaller lanes and I had to stop for a break on the climb, but overall I'm really happy with the pace. More importantly, I'm chuffed that I actually went out on the bike, enjoyed myself and didn't hurt my knees.

Highlights: being overtaken by a mtb on the most gentle of gentle descents; rich people's expensive car festival of richness in Wilmslow

https://www.strava.com/activities/723315520

Bit disappointed to see that you didn't pick out cycling through the outskirts of Wythenshawe as a highlight. U mad bro?

Ta for the 'stylistic-props' everyone :) Its appreciated. I'm having a go at a North side of the river 'Thames-Tickler' today (Sunday) starting at the Dartford Crossing and seeing how far I can go after a very stressful week starting my 1st new job in 20+ years. I need Phixxey Therapy pronto.

On it.

Phwwoooooaaaarrrr, that was both fun and rewarding. I think I've managed to find most of the bits of paths and tracks where you can ride next to or as close as possible next to the Thames between the Dartford Crossing and Tower Bridge, henceforth known as "The Northside Thames Tickler". I had a whole day to meself to do it so took lots of time detours, a velo-voyage-of-discovery if you will, all 33.4 twisty turny miles of it.

Loadsa piccies along the way, starting with a picture of an inquisitive wally with too much time on hands and rubbish bike that needs riding waiting for the lift over the Thames to Essexth.

Safe landing, ride along the Rainham Marsh Path and took the obligatory (!?) Paddlesteamer heading down stream to the river crossing at Dartford picture.

Nothing worth taking pics of until I discovered a little path I didn't know of in Creekside that takes you down to the Barking Barrier...

I don't know of a way of keeping close to the Thames along the section betyween Creekside and Becton but you can get on the Thames path at Gallions Reach and cross a coupleof lock gates like this one near the Redgrave Bridge...

which is right under the City Airport flightpath where some joker has put the Christmas lights on early...

Picking up the Thames path again you go past this funny little boat by North Woolwich, whats it for?...

Continuing along the lovely scenic (ahem) path to the Ferry...

Then I had to come inland a bit as Tate n Lyle own the river frontage along a big chunk o Thames at Silvertown but I did get to find a little park and path that leads you right up to the north end of the Thames Barrier thus..

Then over the Lower Lea crossing and bit of a detour into Trinity Bouy Wharf just because I could, and it's got good views of Mega-Bucks-Land....

and a crash helmet with aerials sticking out of it...

Shimmy onto the Isle O' Dogs and take the 1st left after the big blue bridge and here's a little bit of my partners family history....

and...

Can't see nuttin' right? Well, many years ago there was Shipbuilder on this site, it was the Pitcher Shipyard. My would-be-Muvver-in-Law-if-I-married-her-bonkers-Daughter is a Pitcher, a direct descendant of that fella who owned that yard. Coolio or what? Unfortumatley there's no Onnasiss (sp?) mega dosh dynasty to be inherited as the business went bust due to boats sinking years later due to dodgy rivets or summat. Meh.

Talking of boats, here's the launch site of Brunel's SS Great Eastern, what a whopper it was too...

..which was on a nice riverside path around towards Canary Wharf, lovely views up stream along it too IMO. Then you get thrown off it around Limehouse where upon sits number 131 Wapping High Street...

Thats where in the late 80's I signed away a fortune to buy a 1970's MusicMan Stingray Bass and a huge Mega Boogie all valve bass rig. Still got and play the Stingray but I've got no need for huge backline amps now so the Boogie went. I digress...

Further along Wapping I found you can get close to the river again, sweet views of Tower Bridge getting closer...

And so after a very pleasant 33.4 miles I thought I'd let my heap take the spotlight...

and thrash it to within an inch of its life back to my fave pub close to home. 1Hr 2 mins to do this...

Slight tail wind helped me keep up an Av. 15.67 mph which was good for me on the Fixie.

Arrived happily knackered at the pub and found this guest ale being served,

Awethumne! I'm a big King Crimson fan, saw them in Aylesbury at the beginning September and they were amaaayyyyyyyyyzing.

2 pints, night night.

The end.

:)

@fatmanonafixie - well done for completing that route and not being throughly bored to death. London can be really shit at times!

Did 60km down to Balcombe from Forest Hill to visit La Familia. Garmin died outside Croydon so managed to get lost a several times around Farleigh.

Has anyone descended Succombe Hill? I shat my fucking pants - completely unexpected and seriously busy. Never felt more unsafe! Not sure I could actually go up the other way with it being 25%.

All in all, fucking cracking weather - the last of the Indian summer. 6/10 would probably ride again, slower - down Succombe Hill.

Drove down to clermont-ferrand, France to take part in the Rapha prestige in a team of 4. The ride was 170km 3500m ascent. The weather was great, and the roads were quiet and smooth. We smashed it and were a bit gutted to narrowly miss out on first place (too much faffing at the second feed station) relive vid https://www.relive.cc/view/723436956

Sat: https://www.strava.com/activities/725578686
Sun: https://www.strava.com/activities/725573083

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK-lGSYKaaM

Five points. You really getting into the Audax spirit now. What next hyper AAA SR next year to make up for what you did to the alps? I feel a bit fat with my 37.

Kerrrrrrrrrrrikey! The mileages you fella's achieve in one ride. I'm well-impressed and more than a little in awe.

I doff my sweaty bike helmet you Sirs, respectacles to you both.

It stopped me drinking for a weekend.

I've got race goals so think the point system is a bit silly but if I wanted to win it, rest assured I would destroy that points table. Maybe when the mortgage is paid off. :)

Could you not just abstain like normal people?

He is too audax now to be normal.

The same 'normal' people fighting each other outside pubs, football grounds and shitty clubs all around the country? Oh, abstain, maybe. I did once or twice. It's the same reason I eat too much - either stress or boredom - there's no middle ground.

@hippy that's crazy miles ...

Nah.

Kilometres.

:)