Silly commuting racing

lost_in_thought

cjcp wrote:

lost_in_thought wrote:

biondino wrote:

Morning all - off sick today (just a cold, honestly) so that's 4 days with no riding at all. Am beginning to fancy going out on the fixie again...

Oooooh let's do an RP lap next week! I am determined to get up Dark Hill this time...

I will be there tonight. I can crack the whip and shout "mush, mush" if it helps.

Alas, I am in the pub tonight. Next week, however...

lost_in_thought

biondino wrote:

lost_in_thought wrote:

biondino wrote:

Morning all - off sick today (just a cold, honestly) so that's 4 days with no riding at all. Am beginning to fancy going out on the fixie again...

Oooooh let's do an RP lap next week! I am determined to get up Dark Hill this time...

You're on. You may need to push me up some of the hills...

If yesterday's performance was anything to go by I'll be too busy trying to push myself up them!

DonDaddyD

girv73 wrote:

DDD, we're kidding.

Some facts:
- 160 dead in Mexico, 1 dead in US.
- You can't get it from eating pork products.
- The problem with swine flu is that it spreads like ordinary flu but is much more dangerous.

160 people haven't died in Mexico from Swine flu, no where near that number. Nowhere near the hundreds....

Sorry for taking it so seriously, its been the topic of the week (and end of last week) at work...

posh_pedaller

Most young people who die in flu outbreaks are killed by their overactive immune systems.
Improve you chances. Spend the next few weeks drunk and sleep deprived to keep yours suppressed.
Shamelessly stolen from here.

cjcp

What a pig of a day.

Bassjunkieuk

Thought I was in for a bit of action this evening. Did a chinese guy on a Giant through Camberwell and he kept up all the way until Denmark Hill starts pointing up. I went one way down the queueing traffic, he went the other and the lights changed as he approached..........

I was on the left side and could clearly see him trying to move over to my side but I wasn't going to let him in ahead of me :twisted:

He came in right behind me and I knew that I couldn't let up or look back for fearing of losing my scalp or making it look like I was worried!! I was sure I had picked out the noise of his cassette and could hear it a fair way up the hill!! I didn't let up and he didn't come past but as I got to the flatter section I had another rider ahead so did a "safety" check before pulling round them and he was no-where to be seen!!!!!!

He must have turned off and my ears where playing tricks on me..........

Gonna have fun for the next 2 weeks as my place of work has changed again so I'm now working down in Westferry Circus! What this does mean is that I get my longest and most scalp filled commute :-) Cable Street riders beware!!!

DonDaddyD

Bassjunkieuk wrote:

Thought I was in for a bit of action this evening. Did a chinese guy on a Giant through Camberwell and he kept up all the way until Denmark Hill starts pointing up. I went one way down the queueing traffic, he went the other and the lights changed as he approached..........

I was on the left side and could clearly see him trying to move over to my side but I wasn't going to let him in ahead of me :twisted:

He came in right behind me and I knew that I couldn't let up or look back for fearing of losing my scalp or making it look like I was worried!! I was sure I had picked out the noise of his cassette and could hear it a fair way up the hill!! I didn't let up and he didn't come past but as I got to the flatter section I had another rider ahead so did a "safety" check before pulling round them and he was no-where to be seen!!!!!!

He must have turned off and my ears where playing tricks on me..........

Gonna have fun for the next 2 weeks as my place of work has changed again so I'm now working down in Westferry Circus! What this does mean is that I get my longest and most scalp filled commute :-) Cable Street riders beware!!!

Chapeau!!!! +1million!!!

Christophe3967

cjcp wrote:

What a pig of a day.

Certainly was. Made a fatal mistake tonight on the embankment, pootling along, thinking about work ffs, when a bus comes past. Attached to bus's exhaust pipe is a roadie (later I discover he has aero bars) and in hot pursuit is a black roadie on a Bianchi. He has the hairiest legs I've ever seen on a black guy. They must be slowing him down. Order more power from legs. Scotty sends back dumb "laws of physics message". Filter filter filter, traffic traffic traffic, Battersea Bridge. Roadie guys are so far across the junction I can't see them behind the phalanx of scooters and other flotsam. Lights to green Reel in TT guy - just (not so quick without a bus are we?). Bianchi guy has vanished. I cam see as far as Chelsea Harbour - nothing. I'm not going to sleep well tonight

@BJUK - good work there, at least you had a good ride home

cjcp

Christophe3967 wrote:

I cam see as far as Chelsea Harbour - nothing. I'm not going to sleep well tonight

This is becoming more common on my rides home too. What the flippin' 'eck is wrong with the traffic at the moment? Why does it seem that there are more cars on Embankment from DSC to Battersea Bridge?

Anyhoo, they were drafting vehicles. If they drafting each other, you can have a bit of fun, but not when they're up a bus's backside. No way.

@BJUK - good work there, at least you had a good ride home

+1.

Christophe3967

At least I retained my dignity this morning - weather looks good for the weekend, and for the summer too 8) 8)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weath ... -80-F.html

Feltup

Bassjunkieuk wrote:

He must have turned off and my ears where playing tricks on me..........

Classic case of scalp paranoia. Perhaps you need one of these


Computer with rear looking camera

Feltup

Well I made it up the 12% Hedsor Hill on the 42-16 and after the initial shock of seeing the hill from the bottom and thinking "shoyt that's steep", I MTFU and went for it.

The real comedy was when a little 1lt Metro overtook on the steepest part changed down from 1st to 2nd and promptly didn't have enough power to accelerate away The Metro only managed to get up the hill about 30s faster than me which really peeed off the cars behind it! Just a bit more power in my legs and I reckon I could have scalped that Metro

cjcp

Christophe3967 wrote:

At least I retained my dignity this morning - weather looks good for the weekend, and for the summer too 8) 8)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weath ... -80-F.html

You know you've effectively just done a rain dance, summoned the Gods of All That Is Wet and cursed the summer, don't you? Well done. I hope you sleep well tonight.

Quiet morning for me really. Traffic's obviously going to be pants again tonight. Yippee. Whoop, whoop.

Bassjunkieuk

@Feltup - That little device does smack of trying.........I think I need to rely on my spidey senses and trust in my legs to keep me ahead :-D

Change of routes this morning from the earlier part of the week meant I got to take in Streatham and DDD's Drag Strip..........did a guy on a nice white Bianchi in Streatham who carried on along the A23 as I was turning just passed the station, shame as he looked like he would have kept me on my toes :-)

Nought along the Balham - Stockwell section until I saw 2 roadies fly through lights by tube as I wait at the red. Ours go amber to green and a tall guy on a un-marked white roadie comes through (clearly a RLJer) so I set about getting him. Reel him in then he jumps an empty set of red lights at a ped crossing and I don't pick him up again until crossing VB and catch up just as he turns off for Pimlico.

Had some upstart on a hybrid come past as I was slowing for a red light, he promptly RLJ's also, some people have no honour :evil:

lost_in_thought

WHHHHEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

I said to myself as I enlarged the target on my back and went to FCN1... commuting by Maxima rocks.

My legs ached from the gym, and will no doubt be even worse by this evening, but the bike made it all better.

Also, you'll be pleased to hear that I wasn't scalped. However, due to my new FCN, I struggled to find any targets, apart from one guy on a rather pretty bianchi who also had a rucksack, and was a serial RLJer. He was comprehensively destroyed on several occasions.

Stuey01

All this talk of white Bianchi's has me very paranoid. You can't be talking about me though as I didn't get scalped this morning and don't RLJ.

Scalped a couple of lycra'd up dudes along the Oval - E&C straightaway. Don't think they were really trying though...

Clever Pun

only today for me this week and my seat adjusted itself so the back was well down and sitting involved either being double jointed or keeping my plumbs in my mouth... so I ended up standing for 7 miles until I found a kindly soul with an allen key...

lost_in_thought

Clever Pun wrote:

only today for me this week and my seat adjusted itself so the back was well down and sitting involved either being double jointed or keeping my plumbs in my mouth... so I ended up standing for 7 miles until I found a kindly soul with an allen key...

Ah, good, you're not dead then! Beers tonight?

I have to say, a set of Allen keys is one of the only tools I almost always have...

jonginge

Stuey01 wrote:

All this talk of white Bianchi's has me very paranoid. You can't be talking about me though as I didn't get scalped this morning and don't RLJ.

Scalped a couple of lycra'd up dudes along the Oval - E&C straightaway. Don't think they were really trying though...

:twisted: Saw a chap the other day on one of those Bianchis you've got. He made a right old mess of trying to clip in when pulling away from the lights near the eponymous tube stop on embankment. I patiently trackstanded behind him until he got sorted and then scalped him.

lost_in_thought

Speaking of not being able to clip in, speedplays are NOT good commuting pedals.

jonginge

Clever Pun wrote:

only today for me this week and my seat adjusted itself so the back was well down and sitting involved either being double jointed or keeping my plumbs in my mouth... so I ended up standing for 7 miles until I found a kindly soul with an allen key...

Glad you're not dead. Plum(b)s in mouth you say? May I direct you to the Cycling and Class thread...

biondino

Did anyone else get held up this morning by a phalanx of about 50 supercars? I was held back by police (not physically) for 5 minutes as they all ambled past, occasionally doing racing starts to liven up the procession. I wish I'd had a camera!

Stuey01

Wasn't Wednesday evening around 7 was it?

That was my first day on the road bike and I took a detour along Embankment that evening.
Don't think I was done by anyone on the bikes in your sig, the only one I remember was a London Dynamo kit wearing dude on a Time alu/carbon jobby. He got passed me in the traffic but didn't pull away.

(hoping it wasn't me....)

lost_in_thought

biondino wrote:

Did anyone else get held up this morning by a phalanx of about 50 supercars? I was held back by police (not physically) for 5 minutes as they all ambled past, occasionally doing racing starts to liven up the procession. I wish I'd had a camera!

No, but I wish I had been! Whereabouts exactly?

biondino

JonGinge wrote:

Clever Pun wrote:

only today for me this week and my seat adjusted itself so the back was well down and sitting involved either being double jointed or keeping my plumbs in my mouth... so I ended up standing for 7 miles until I found a kindly soul with an allen key...

Glad you're not dead. Plum(b)s in mouth you say? May I direct you to the Cycling and Class thread...

Whereas I have a silver spoon in my pants! I am avoiding the "class" thread as I always end up being the person saying "posh people aren't necessarily evil, you know" but it's very hard to gain the moral high ground when you're a privately educated British white male. Sigh.

cjcp

Stuey01 wrote:

All this talk of white Bianchi's has me very paranoid. You can't be talking about me though as I didn't get scalped this morning and don't RLJ.

@JG too - a white Bianchi you say. There's a few around then,

I passed one on Embankment this morning and he passed me on the entrance to Blackfriars tunnel this morning (I was having one of my "let's use the 53x14 to get away from the lights today" days - it's slow going chaps :roll: ). This stirred my memory: a white Bianchi passed me in exactly the same spot last summer when I wasn't paying attention and I didn't reel him in. Not happening again, I thought, so I re-took him in the tunnel.

CP - welcome back, ol' chap!

jonginge

Stuey01 wrote:

Wasn't Wednesday evening around 7 was it?

That was my first day on the road bike and I took a detour along Embankment that evening.
Don't think I was done by anyone on the bikes in your sig, the only one I remember was a London Dynamo kit wearing dude on a Time alu/carbon jobby. He got passed me in the traffic but didn't pull away.

(hoping it wasn't me....)

Nah, I was only joshing anyway. The clipping in incident occurred in the morning and I haven't got a pic of my commute bike up on flickr: it's an old skool red and white roadie, which is habitually very dirty. I did think the Nerone looked pretty nice though

biondino

lost_in_thought wrote:

biondino wrote:

Did anyone else get held up this morning by a phalanx of about 50 supercars? I was held back by police (not physically) for 5 minutes as they all ambled past, occasionally doing racing starts to liven up the procession. I wish I'd had a camera!

No, but I wish I had been! Whereabouts exactly?

Outside St James Palace, heading up St James Street to head west on Piccadilly. Loads of impressive motors, Ford GTs, Lambos, Ferraris by the dozen - the occasional Porsche looked very dowdy in comparison!

Bassjunkieuk

biondino wrote:

lost_in_thought wrote:

biondino wrote:

Did anyone else get held up this morning by a phalanx of about 50 supercars? I was held back by police (not physically) for 5 minutes as they all ambled past, occasionally doing racing starts to liven up the procession. I wish I'd had a camera!

No, but I wish I had been! Whereabouts exactly?

Outside St James Palace, heading up St James Street to head west on Piccadilly. Loads of impressive motors, Ford GTs, Lambos, Ferraris by the dozen - the occasional Porsche looked very dowdy in comparison!

Sounds like pretty standard machines for town with the exception of the Ford GT......give me some nice Morgans, a Bugatti Veyron, something from Ascari and then I might be impressed........

Besides I'm rather more interested in super bikes, i.e. those that will be Morpeth bound this evening :-D

Feltup

Bassjunkieuk wrote:

biondino wrote:

lost_in_thought wrote:

biondino wrote:

Did anyone else get held up this morning by a phalanx of about 50 supercars? I was held back by police (not physically) for 5 minutes as they all ambled past, occasionally doing racing starts to liven up the procession. I wish I'd had a camera!

No, but I wish I had been! Whereabouts exactly?

Outside St James Palace, heading up St James Street to head west on Piccadilly. Loads of impressive motors, Ford GTs, Lambos, Ferraris by the dozen - the occasional Porsche looked very dowdy in comparison!

Sounds like pretty standard machines for town with the exception of the Ford GT......give me some nice Morgans, a Bugatti Veyron, something from Ascari and then I might be impressed........

Besides I'm rather more interested in super bikes, i.e. those that will be Morpeth bound this evening :-D

Any bike in particular? (watch out LiT for joy riders)