Training - Winter Road Rides

Fenders are the devils work. Probably doesn't help they are really old and for 27" wheels.

I plan to do the CoastToCoast, Shitehaven to South Shields route, some time between April and July - anyone wanna join me? I tried it last August on the MTB laden with tent and all manner of gubbins and had a fun but gruelling time getting to Alston - had a bit of an adventure there that meant I couldn't finish the ride so on a mission to beast it 2nd time round - on a roadie with no bleedin luggage this time though! The Victoria Inn is a lovely pub/B&B/curry house (Victoria Spice) with rooms at £25pn and Alston is at the end of the hard half.

Anyone fancy it?

I'd need a lot of warming up and see if I can actually work this road bike of mine. Would be quite cool though.

I would rather like to. We will have to see if I have a job and am not homeless by that point in my life though.

If you're jobless and homeless you'll have no excuse not to! And yes, much warming needed - a weekly marathon ride methinks. With much hill-climbing - find yourself a gradient map of the route, the last hill before Alston took me to my limits and beyond... It took a great deal of self-deception to beat it!

I'll pass then

Such resolve. Inspirational.

people can learn a lot from me

Can you teach me to ride a bike?

maybe not that much

I can vouch that Rob has a real road bike, it's shiny.

I dropped it, it now has some mud on the bars, for sale at £150

cheap bike? expensive mud? anyone risking a dibs?

That's my mud, you bastard! I want at least a 50% cut on that sale to pay for the damage to my front step.

60/40

road ride this saturday?

it's meant to stop raining in the afternoon

I would be up for going out on a bike tomorrow, doesn't look like I'm going to be out tonight so I should be fresh and alive.

I would, but I'm out tonight so will definitely not be fresh and alive... come to think of it, I don't think I've felt fresh and alive for 15 years or more... ;-)

Can someone suggest a route? I'm too sleepy to worry about that sort of thing. How does 12 sound as a start time?

Up the river, just watch out for bears

12's good.

Neil do you have that route we did in a handy google maps format?

I've got completely and utterly confused trying to reverse engineer they way using street view

How far are you thinking? Feeling grim today, if I make a miraculous recovery I wouldn't stretching the legs a bit

45-ish miles I would say.

I've managed to work out a route by following a cyclist on street view, he's faster than the car.

Drew - I use this resource as my go-to for road rides... I based the ride we did on one of these.

http://www.manchesterwheelers.co.uk/rides/routes/list.htm