Silly commuting racing

attica

biondino wrote:

I don't think I've ever seen so many men shoot lheir loads at the same time.

Are you sure about that Blondie?

Kieran_Burns

You know I genuinely had no idea about the 10K post. I thought everyone was banging on about getting page 500. :?

So when we GOT to page 500 and people were still going at it like a knocking shop on pay day i asked the question.

and got post 10,000


How ironic is that?



Anyway bow before your MASTER.

Cyclocross is now THE official transport of the Commuter,

I decree that all shall henceforth GO forth and purchase a bicycle of the Cyclocross persuasion and ride it and only it.to work.

Oh, and wear womens clothing while doing so.

DonDaddyD

Classic scalp battle today and I loved every minute of it!

Caught up to a guy on a Cannondale Capo. Took him by Heading towards Wimbledon/Colliers wood bus garage. He had a quite high gearing because it took him slowly at 22mph and moderately fast at 25mph and at no point was he properly spinning out. Most fun.

He kept up with me proper and I couldn't drop him completely. Got to Tooting Broadway lights and got talking about the Capo. Found out he had it a whole year, hasn't ridden for 10yrs before that and the Capo makse for a great winter bike (I may go single speed :shock: I like the idea of not having any choice but to ride at the speed the bike demands). He even kindly told me to wait for the sales (which, I'm finding there are discounts almost every month in the year - except May, June, July and August).

With the lights green I let him go ahead all through Balham and watched him power up Balham hill, which in all fairness isn't hard just bothersome.

Got to Clapham South and joined another roadie a Pearson SS with lime green rims (take that hi-viz jacket wearers). Polite as I am I stay at the back of the queue as opposed to the Capo who makes his way to the front.

Green

Yep, I'm stuck behind the slow guy, a Mountain bike screams past and joins somewhere at the front and then a 2009 Allez charges past and I've had enough.

I move out right (Clever Pun you reading, you'll like this) and like some dilithium powered Galaxy Class Star ship, I engulf myself in a warp bubble and bend quantum mechanics around the ferocity of my spinning pedals.

I scalp them all, first the slow roadie, then the mountain bike, Capo and I duck in beside the Allez to avoid the pothole that took me out last week. I scalp the Allez and the Pearson. I beat the lights check the shoulder, I believe they've stopped (read the signature) a proper scalp to be sure! I turn off right towards Acre Lane.

I've been waiting all week for this!

tardington

I got hit by a new tactic - a guy had his rear light tied on with STRING! and in made an awful rattley noise from right behind me. After my rear gear implosion I slowed down to check, and he whizzed past me. Bah!

blu3cat

Quick question?

What FCN is a car.

I managed to scalp one this morning on Fulham Palace Road, admittedly it looked and sounded a bit sick. Does that count?

biondino

I don't usually put myself in a position to get left hooked but I managed it today - luckily the only contact being my shoulder with his wing mirror as we both came to a stop. I was pretty pissed off at the time, but on reflection I think I had a duty to be a bit more careful - ahead of us was a garbage truck wanting to pull out and I thought the van was simply slowing down for him, not turning left.

Of course, this begs the question why didn't I use discretion and slow down for the truck myself? On balance I should have done, despite the loss of momentum (and I was in that zone where you really, really don't want to lose momentum). To add to that the van driver didn't get sweary at me, I think I'm feeling rather less belligerent now.

So lucky you, EY58 ZRO, you're not getting reported to your boss this time!

Roastie

Kieran_Burns wrote:

Cyclocross is now THE official transport of the Commuter.

From when I was knee high to a grasshopper I thought the ultimate commute bike was a crosser.

Must have been those articles on bike commuting as an alternative to the dirty internal combustion engine from my Dad's National Geographic magazines in the late 70's ... (goodness, am I *that* old!)

Roastie

Notable SCR action:

Last night I reckon bikes outnumbered motorised traffic on the run from London Bridge to E&C. Some were quite quick, but there was a dude on some sort of silver flat bar who was quite fast and persistent and who completely ruined my attempt at a "post ilness recovery ride" (keeping HR <160). Whenever I glaced back (checking for traffic, of course) I could see his bleeding LED - 'tho the push to Kennington seemed to do the trick.

Then this morning I has round #2 of my regular morning battle with a certain Porsche 911 C4S. Previously we'd met at Vauxhall, he'd pushed his way past only for me to catch him before Newington where he got caught and only caught up again where I turn off to Fenchurch St - so I claim that as a scalp.

Except that this morning traffic was lighter and he managed to sneak through the Kennington/Newington Butts traffic light before it changed (and before I could draw level) - so I'll have to give him this round (though from the delicously fullsome sound the Porker was making, I suspect he was doing more than 30mph to get through that light). I'll still give it to him, making the score an even 1-1.

girv73

I'm was nursing a bit of a strained quad today, probably down to too many wind fighting hill attacks on Wednesday (serves me right) so I was intending on taking it very easy in this morning.

Then, of course, a bike comes from the left fork of the traffic lights I am waiting at and proceeds along my route. MY. ROUTE. As I see him recede into the distance, SCR takes hold like Rage and I poise on the pedals waiting for the green light.

And we're off.

There's a rare tailwind, so I take advantage and push hard. Rapidly I'm up to 30mph (it's downhill as well) and blasting along a clear lane beside a line of static traffic. My quarry lies head; my game is obvious to a group of ladies at the bus stop and they shout encouragement. I reel him in at speed, he's not moving very quickly, and line up for the pass.

But then I back off. No reason, but equally no reason other than vanity to pass the hapless chap, in his flappy trousers and flat pedals. I just quit and settle in behind at 17mph, downhill. It's so easy compared to my normal commuting effort - I'm barely turning the cranks - and a very different experience. I'm not wheel sucking draft fairy though so after a bit I take my turn at the front and keep the speed down so he can keep up. It was difficult to resist the urge to spin faster, but I did.

After another while I check behind, but he's gone. I'm not sure how long he drafted for, or if he kept up at all. I've still a few miles to go and I stick at the slow speed until the end.

My journey time wasn't much different, but the time spent on the journey was completely so. Much more relaxed. I never realised I got so worked up about getting held up in traffic or about always pushing on at near threshold.

Does this mean I'm cured of SCR? Am I still allowed to post here?

Greg T

girv73 wrote:

Does this mean I'm cured of SCR? Am I still allowed to post here?

I asked the SCR membership cancellation secretary what he thought of your situation



He said you should get a grip of your withered manhood, get back in the saddle and put this sad little episode behind you.

I feel dirty and may need to wash off the feeling by drinking beer tonight.

cjcp

This morning: man on a Cervelo passed by man on hybrid with two panniers pedalling like a loon. Uphill. Oh my.

biondino

CJ, where was this and when? My best mate rides to work on his wife's hybrid with panniers filled with 4 reams of paper for extra fitness training - could well have been him. Was he wearing unsuitable riding gear (rugby socks etc)?

cjcp

biondino wrote:

CJ, where was this and when? My best mate rides to work on his wife's hybrid with panniers filled with 4 reams of paper for extra fitness training - could well have been him. Was he wearing unsuitable riding gear (rugby socks etc)?

This morning, up Dark Hill. The ol' boy on the pannier-laden hybrid kicked on the first rise and the Cervelo had no answer.

biondino

Ah, not him then, unless he's gone way out of his way to get from Wandsworth to Piccadilly...

Jay dubbleU

Greg T wrote:

girv73 wrote:

Does this mean I'm cured of SCR? Am I still allowed to post here?

I asked the SCR membership cancellation secretary what he thought of your situation



He said you should get a grip of your withered manhood, get back in the saddle and put this sad little episode behind you.

I feel dirty and may need to wash off the feeling by drinking beer tonight.

He's bluffing - SCR is like the Mafia, once you join you can never leave - if you try they come round, crush your bike and leave it in your bed :twisted:

Citizen Smith

cjcp wrote:

This morning, up Dark Hill. The ol' boy on the pannier-laden hybrid kicked on the first rise and the Cervelo had no answer.

Fit the description, guv.... but was nowhere near dark hill this morning.

shoulder_of_orion

feck me!

I rode almost 40 miles today and now I'm proper shattered.

I have to go to quite a few meetings as part of my job and today I had two in the Victoria area and one in Soho. These were spread throughout the day and each were roughly 6 mile roundtrips added to my normal 23 mile round trip.

In these straightened economic times, our FD has instituted a policy of austerity. It used to be black cab city:

pissed after work with colleagues, need to get a cab home - check someones leaving do and need to order a fleet of cabs to ferry everyone the equivalent of three stops on the tube - sure 3AM on a weeknight and nowhere near work - check 6AM on a weekend and obviously nothing to do with work - check need to get home from your sisters wedding in Bray - yep picking up the mother in law from heathrow (both directions) - hell yeah

They started summoning people into meetings in the finance department. The guys who live in Essex got proper caned, one guy lives in Southend and it's £175 back to his place, I think his bill for the month was something like £1100. Some people actually got the amounts deducted from their paypackets including the poor sucker from Southend (serves him right for living in Essex) :twisted:

<disclaimer>Obviously, I had nothing to do with such shenanigans and had pure contempt for anyone who would so blatantly steal from the company.</disclaimer> :roll:

Anyway the point in relating all this is that due to the bastard recession I can no longer order cabs at will (even for legit meetings) and now cycle everywhere and therefore silly race. Does this count as commuting? I think so, I am travelling to work, ergo commuting.

Took out a few couriers. They're a funny bunch cos unless they are on a job they don't give a shi-ite. Plus they RLJ as a matter of course, nevertheless when they are on the game they are tough prey. Also took a guy on a condor bike who had an "Etape de Tour" flag on the back of his bike, that was a proper scalp as he chose to draft for ages, then overtook when I wasn't properly concentrating, but I took him back bigtime on the next straight.

Bassjunkieuk

S.o.R - The traveling between meetings in the day surely counts as commuting! I've had a few instances where I've been asked "as a favor" to go help one of our field engineers out cos we've got a printer to install that is a 2 man lift (stupid H&S!!) or to deal with an urgent server call when the field team can't get the resource there quick enough!
Asides from thoroughly enjoying the excuse to get out on my bike whilst being paid I'll damn sure make sure I'm a scalping all the way! So what if I arrive on site to repair some peoples tape drive a bit sweaty............

Got a reprieve on Monday, so I've got a day commuting into town, but I'm on an 8am start and 16:30 finish so I think I'll miss quite a bit of action, at least on the morning run :-(

Bassjunkieuk

I can firmly say I'm rather surprised! Seems there is certainly some healthy competition out on the roads!
Asides from the PITA guy on his MTB down by Tooting, who after I powered past him coming away from the lights (I let him in pull over in front of me as he'd started on the RHS and we had traffic coming behind us), decided the best thing to do would be to cut across the common and rejoin the road just ahead of me, without so much as a shoulder check!!!

Found a Pearson Touche a bit further down, shook them off whilst filtering although they rejoined me at the lights opposite Waitrose. Whilst I was sitting there I saw something rather brightly colored whip past with drop bars, my initial thoughts where a Cannondale in Liquigas colours but then I thought that might be a little OTT For a commuter!

Lights went green and we set off, the Touche was quickly left behind as I pulled out a rather impressive 25MPH along the drag towards Clapham, only hampered by a WVM who seemed to think his giveway line was on the opposite side of the bus lane........I caught up with the brightly colored bike by Clapham and found it was actually a Scott. Not to sure which model but a rather nice one. Clapham onwards was good fun, the traffic was a bit lighter then normal and I had an amazing run. Found a rather large crater that was trying to suck a manhole cover down it, just at the same time as I was pulling off from some lights and I missed my clip in! The Touche rider (a lovely young lady I discovered ;-)) said she'd almost come a cropper on it last week too!

Anyhow I put that behind me and laid down some speed along the next stretch by the common leading towards the shops. Lights ahead went to amber and I thought I'd done a DDD style scalping of the Scott rider, however a quick shoulder check confirmed he either come through even later on the amber then I did or RLJed.......naughty man!!!

Managed to pick up a drafting fairy down towards Stockwell, the spidey senses starting tingling and a quick check confirmed someone just off my six. Two buses occupied the lanes outside Stockwell so not wanting to be the filling in a double decker sandwich with the lights changed I hung back behind them. The DF went up the right side and to the front. He also headed down South Lambeth Road and by the 3rd set of lights was again looking at my backpack :-)

Last bit of action for the morning came in the form of a rider perched atop a yellow Carrera on Vauxhall Bridge Road. After going well over the ASL line he started out quick once the lights changed. I duly took up the chase and watched as the lights changed ahead of us. We where both carrying big speed towards the road just after the turn off for Pimlico with the bus lane on the left. A bus was just pulling out and we had traffic on the right.........I managed to eek out a bit more power, nipped past him and in between the bus and taxi. Admittedly it probably wasn't the safest thing I've ever done but the adrenaline saw me through :-)

All in I was rather impressed when I got to work and checked over the stats on the ol' Cateye, it reckoned I averaged 18mph :shock: Sportstracker has me pegged at 15.4mph, but also over a slightly shorted distance with with a higher max speed (31.3 vs 28.8) - having said that I did have some weight saving work done last night - my front and rear lights have now been confined to the storage bag :-) Handlebars look a lot cleaner now but I just can't seem to work out if I really need that damn bell........

Christophe3967

9 policemen on bikes on Birdcage Walk this morning (not too mention half the Met on guard around Buck Palace and dozens of vans parked on Millbank). The bobbies on bikes looked as though they needed stabilisers, so they hardly count as scalps... what a rabble.

Clever Pun

Back on the bike this morning after an enforced absence through a pretty rotten illness… I feel okish during the day after a good bout of coughing up blood so I though I might hit the cycle in the first day as the idea of the train made me feel nauseous.

I decided not to race as it’d kill me, a dude on a cervelo and aero bars passed me… deep down I know I could and should crush him but since I’m in a real recovery ride I let him go. I did pass one roadie while giving out a bellowing chesty cough… that’s gotta be insulting I would have been doing 20 absolute tops

Anyway I got here in one piece with an average only a mother could love. But I made it… whether it’s a good idea or not we’ll see tonight.

greg66_tri_v2.0

Clever Pun wrote:

I feel okish during the day after a good bout of coughing up blood

:shock:

FFS! Coughing. Up. Blood?

I'm no doctor, but I watch a lot of ER and CSI, and I'm pretty sure that that's the "bad" side of normal.

I think you might have an illness of some sort.

In fact, I'm pretty certain of that.

Greg T

Clever Pun wrote:

I feel okish during the day after a good bout of coughing up blood

Hmmmmm

Unlike other Greg I don't watch medical soaps on TV as:

a) I'm not a burd
b) See (a)

I do however watch a LOT of war films and Sci Fi.

I think that you probably have either:

a) Been seeded by an Alien in your chest cavity and are currently incubating its young. I expect you to feel better by lunch time and will be feeling peckish. DO NOT get chinese food on those little containers - no one likes blood in their noodles - when it bursts through your ribs don't have your best kit of - it stains.

b) Been shot by a sniper. I think you might have noticed this other than the blood via mouth thing, do you notice any large exit wounds that weren't there yesterday?

Either way, my commiserations K'Pla.

Clever Pun

Greg66 wrote:

Clever Pun wrote:

I feel okish during the day after a good bout of coughing up blood

:shock:

FFS! Coughing. Up. Blood?

I'm no doctor, but I watch a lot of ER and CSI, and I'm pretty sure that that's the "bad" side of normal.

I think you might have an illness of some sort.

In fact, I'm pretty certain of that.

oh dear

I'm pretty sure it's on the bad side of normal too, the doc had signed me off all last week and I was sofa bound pretty much for 4 days and barely ate... viral weight loss FTW

the blood is getting less and at lease I can sleep the whole night through if I don't move

biondino

I got a genuine scalp today - a black Cervelo (one of Greg's models I think) with proper deep section Zipp-style rims - god knows what he was doing commuting on it, and god knows what he was doing riding at about 16mph, but who cares, his scalp is mine. Also saw a bearded courier type RLJ in front of the massed rank of coppers at Buckingham Palace, and then speed up dramatically on the Mall as he saw a MTB was about to overtake him. What a d!ck.

I was feeling frisky today so decided to attack St James Street (the short hill between the Mall and Piccadilly) and was clocking 23.6mph (without getting out of the saddle) by the time I had to slow for the lights at the top. Guess I found the day's tailwind...

In other news, I went for a ride on Saturday and got cramp in my right calf. Rode through it, and it seemed to get better, but when I got out of bed this morning I couldn't even get close to putting my right sole on the floor! A few expletives later I'd stretched it enough to do a comic interpretation of walking, but ouchy.

biondino

Get well soon CP - glad you went to the doctor. Don't overdo it on the bike though (sounds like you're not).

gb155

FINALLY getting over the flu (real not man lol) Did a one mile shakedown yesterday felt great, crappy chest tho, Back on the game in the morning, Its ON !!!!!!

Clever Pun

biondino wrote:

Get well soon CP - glad you went to the doctor. Don't overdo it on the bike though (sounds like you're not).

cheers, I suspect I'll have gound my teeth down if I can't boost it up in the next day or two...

will see how I deal with beckenham hill on the way home... I'm a little concerned it's going to bend me over and spank me

Christophe3967

biondino wrote:

I got a genuine scalp today - a black Cervelo (one of Greg's models I think) with proper deep section Zipp-style rims - god knows what he was doing commuting on it, and god knows what he was doing riding at about 16mph, but who cares, his scalp is mine. Also saw a bearded courier type RLJ in front of the massed rank of coppers at Buckingham Palace, and then speed up dramatically on the Mall as he saw a MTB was about to overtake him. What a d!ck.

I was feeling frisky today so decided to attack St James Street (the short hill between the Mall and Piccadilly) and was clocking 23.6mph (without getting out of the saddle) by the time I had to slow for the lights at the top. Guess I found the day's tailwind...

In other news, I went for a ride on Saturday and got cramp in my right calf. Rode through it, and it seemed to get better, but when I got out of bed this morning I couldn't even get close to putting my right sole on the floor! A few expletives later I'd stretched it enough to do a comic interpretation of walking, but ouchy.

So the fixie's doing the business. Cervelos - amazing what some people commute on . Money. Sense.

DonDaddyD

I couldn't drop the mysterious Asain guy on the Ammaco front suspension and knobbly tyred bike. Most infuriating.

Got to Tooting Broadway and I picked up a goatie on a Time bike. Looked the part calf muscle looked as though it had evolved to ride bikes.

We are both stopped at the lights. I like this guy, he isn't affraid to make eye contact. He is older me. Suddenly this Asian guy on a fair weather, wobbles through to the front of the ASL, leather jacket, jeans and knees that turn inwards towards the frame. He has earphones in and I'm think 'holy chutney!' I look at him in annoyance of how he barged to the front and in the thickest indian accent he says sorry. Fair Do's lights go green and the Goatie and I drop him.

We come up by Tooting Bec and Goatie has left me at the lights, the Asian guy is behind me and RLJ's. For the first time in my life I sympathised with a motorists against cyclists as a girl and a brompton come round the front of him on the right only to cut across his bonnet left as the lights go green.

At the end of the Balham drag strip stopped at the lights I see Goatie and Asian guy again. we hed towards Clapham and I'm left startled as I'm attempting to drop the Asian guy who is wobbling like crazy and realise I'm holding a solid 22mph and not getting any closer :shock:

The shame but to be fair no one caught him (not even the goatie on the Time) and his continuous RLJ's just made it that much more annoying.