Richmond Park training email group

london-red

Would anyone be interested in a loosely arranged cycling group based in Richmond Park? Rather than commit to a certain time and day each week, it would be organised during the week in question via email...

I find it really difficult to commit to a club but really want to find some regular training partners and increase my speed at the same time. It seems to me that there's loads of people doing laps on their own (probably through choice, but then the occasional chaingang can't hurt).

I'm currently hovering around the 62 minute mark with designs to go considerably quicker if possible...

Any takers?

wildmoustache

I would be up for mid-week sessions ... though to be honest i'd like them to be as hard through and offs as possible (limited time) ... and I'm nearer the 51/52 minute level

felgen

I would be interested, but don't have my road bike yet so I don't know what sort of pace I would be going at and whether that would be quick enough. I assume you mean 62 minutes for three laps. How many laps in total are you thinking?

Also I heard, and please correct if required, that there are some gentleman's agreement rules regarding riding in the park along the lines of

no more than 6 in a group
no more than 2 abreast
no tailgating
no overtaking cars

There may be more but those are the ones I had heard of

the_jackalcp

I would be interested. It would certainly add some motivation to my park riding as I tend to amble road at a pedestrian pace until someone comes past me.

Let me know if anything develops.

Felgen, not sure if those rules exist in any form however the first one is probably not the case as London Dynamo ride in bigger groups, the middle two just make good road sense and the last is sure to bring you to the attention of the Old Bill so best done seldomly.

JL

Sounds a good idea to me.

wildmoustache

felgen wrote:

I would be interested, but don't have my road bike yet so I don't know what sort of pace I would be going at and whether that would be quick enough. I assume you mean 62 minutes for three laps. How many laps in total are you thinking?

Also I heard, and please correct if required, that there are some gentleman's agreement rules regarding riding in the park along the lines of

no more than 6 in a group
no more than 2 abreast
no tailgating
no overtaking cars

There may be more but those are the ones I had heard of

you're allowed to overtake cars providing you are not breaking the speed limiit and it is safe to do so, and it is not on Broomfield hill where there is s solid white line (though the number of cars overtaking cyclists going up that hill ...)

the other things you mention sounds sensible I agree.

london-red

Good stuff - well that's a few potentially on board.

I'm up for a few laps one day over the weekend and also tomorrow night if anyone fancies it. I can get there for 7.30.

Any takers?

biondino

This sounds fun and I might join you at some point though I work a bit later than you guys and probably can't make it most days.

guinea

I'm up for it

Gavin Gilbert

felgen wrote:

There may be more but those are the ones I had heard of

Yeah, loads more....

You're allowed to shove solo riders into the grass if you're with a Dynamo group
You're allowed to swear at the wheelchair athletes if you're with a Dynamo group
You're allowed to drop litter if you're a triathlete

of course most of us behave.
[/list]

london-red

Great! 7.30pm tonight Guinea, depending on weather? Which gate is good for you to meet.

Anyone else want to pop along.

felgen

So it seems like London Dynamos are not well regarded then :twisted:

I will be keen to join in but my new spangly bike will not be here for a couple of weeks and I don't think my slicked MTB is quite quick enough to keep up (unless you let me draft you at the back of the group for the whole ride maybe ), but hopefully I should be building good fitness as its heavier to climb with and takes more effort to keep zinging along.

I was toying with the idea of coming yesterday, but was fried by the time I got out of work, so wussed out and went home.

biondino

I should add I am very likely to fall into the "spangly bike but sits at the back of the group trying not to throw up" category.

RedGreenBaron

felgen wrote:

no more than 6 in a group
no more than 2 abreast
no tailgating
no overtaking cars

Hi Felgen,
For what it's worth, the Dynamos set a group limit at 8 (used to be more like 10, I think), although sometimes this can be exceeded if people jump on or if someone drops back from a faster group ahead. This is something we've discussed with the police.
We try to follow the other points, though if the group splits on the last lap there may be some overtaking of cars, particularly if they are serious deer-watchers.
There's a lot of intra-group communication, including warning each other of riders, wheelchair athletes, ski-ers etc. ahead, which is partly a headsup for those ahead, although it's a tricky balance between being helpful and alarming. Some of us make a point of saying 'Hi' to those we pass, though not everyone is of a sociable bent. We also aim to give lots of room to those we pass, though from my own observations this does not always occur.
Finally, we take a note of reg no.s of mad/bad drivers and pass them on to the police.

Mostly common sense, really, I guess, but in the heat of the moment not everyone gets everything right all the time.

Nick

RedGreenBaron

felgen wrote:

So it seems like London Dynamos are not well regarded then

We do get some flak on bike radar - we're an easy target. 400 of us mostly in club kit, with maybe 50 on a typical Saturday morning lapping the park. Some are pretty fast, though many aren't. Nobody's perfect, and statistically there's bound to be someone misbehaving/losing his/her temper from time to time, and so if you're in the park regularly on Saturday mornings and you've seen dynamo groups on dozens of occasions there's a pretty good chance you've seen something you don't like, and it'll be all the easier to remember.
Personally, I don't like it when people swear at drivers, for example, and that happens from time to time. Plus as I mentioned above, not everyone gives enough room all the time to overtaken cyclists.
There's just too much variety among club members to justify sweeping generalisations, but that's human nature.
Our high profile also makes us an easy target for the police, and over the years we've built a good relationship with most of them.

biondino

Some of us make a point of saying 'Hi' to those we pass

Hmm, I've yet to come across any in several hundred laps of the park. Something to look forward to.

wildmoustache

given there's a fairly high number of people who want to ride there (esp. on sunny w/e mornings) having organised groups helps enourmously. imagine the same number of riders all going solo?

agree that it is best to keep calm and not react to some of the very poor driving going on there. also ... please ... if anyone gets a puncture please fix it off the road, not standing in the road messing about with it.

Rich-Ti

biondino wrote:

I should add I am very likely to fall into the "spangly bike but sits at the back of the group trying not to throw up" category.

+1 here then :oops:

Finally get my road bike up to London this Sunday and now that I've moved to a full time Mortlake living arrangement it'd be rude not to - count me in 8)

cjcp

RedGreenBaron wrote:

felgen wrote:

So it seems like London Dynamos are not well regarded then

We do get some flak on bike radar - we're an easy target. 400 of us mostly in club kit, with maybe 50 on a typical Saturday morning lapping the park. Some are pretty fast, though many aren't. Nobody's perfect, and statistically there's bound to be someone misbehaving/losing his/her temper from time to time, and so if you're in the park regularly on Saturday mornings and you've seen dynamo groups on dozens of occasions there's a pretty good chance you've seen something you don't like, and it'll be all the easier to remember.
Personally, I don't like it when people swear at drivers, for example, and that happens from time to time. Plus as I mentioned above, not everyone gives enough room all the time to overtaken cyclists.
There's just too much variety among club members to justify sweeping generalisations, but that's human nature.
Our high profile also makes us an easy target for the police, and over the years we've built a good relationship with most of them.

I think anyone riding in a large-ish group, whether they belong to a club or not, is an easy target for criticism from cars or other cyclist given that most cyclists lap the park in ones or twos.

felgen

Sorry didnt mean to turn the thread into London Dynamo bashing! :shock:

I take your point about large enough groups of having a variation in attitude which can end up getting the whole group tarred with the same brush.

Anyway I am chasing the progress of the bike today, and hopefully should be here soonish? Couple of weeks.

Has anyone managed to get together for small group less than two abreast, not overtaking cars ride yet?

Also did anyone else have problems logging in over the weekend? Myabe it was just me, or my firefox browser.

chuckcork

felgen wrote:

Also I heard, and please correct if required, that there are some gentleman's agreement rules regarding riding in the park along the lines of

no more than 6 in a group
no more than 2 abreast
no tailgating
no overtaking cars

Interesting that the police aren't interested in enforcing minor little points of law like:

no car drivers allowed to speed
no dangerous overtaking, too close or where it simply isn't allow (unbroken white line)
no threatening behaviour or language from motorists

I guess that only makes the police look bad, generate accusations of "raising revenue" and so on. Can't have that now, can we?

As for cyclists not overtaking cars, why is it apparently OK for a rider tavellling at under the limit to be overtaken by a vehicle travelling at a speed well exceeding the limit, but not vice versa?

Nice that the dynamo group pass on details of the "mad and bad" to them, but do they actually do anything with it? Wishful thinking I suspect.

felgen

Interesting that the police aren't interested in enforcing minor little points of law like....
no threatening behaviour or language from motorists

I saw a cyclist overtake some slow moving cars on the downhill run on sawyers hill the other day. One of the motorists let forth a huge torrent of abuse at him, which I thought was a bit off, I guess it is just frustration at being stuck when we can whizz past.

Anyway at the risk of going horribly off thread. Anyone planning a ride this week?

london-red

Aha, back on topic. I''m up for a ride tomorrow night... Depending on weather.

the_jackalcp

London-Red wrote:

Aha, back on topic. I''m up for a ride tomorrow night... Depending on weather.

What time were you thinking. I will be riding tomorrow at some point but not too sure when. Let me know what time and I will see if we can meet up.

london-red

Looking to get there for 7.30 - it's generally a bit quiter at that time!

What sort of lap time are you doing? I'm a bit of a pedestrian 62-64 minutes, I'm afraid...

biondino

Shame you're not able to do it tonight, I'd have been up for that! Bit slower than London-Red but if I tuck in nicely and claim, um, that I've got a case of gutrot and he wouldn't want to cycle behind me anyway, I reckon I could keep up...

I've never got any aggro from cars in Richmond Park. And to be fair to the Dynamos, I almost never greet anyone when riding in the park as otherwise I'd be waving and noddlng more than a conductor on crystal meth.

Rich-Ti

London-Red wrote:

Looking to get there for 7.30 - it's generally a bit quiter at that time!

What sort of lap time are you doing? I'm a bit of a pedestrian 62-64 minutes, I'm afraid...

I reckon I could manage that kind of time just about - where are you meeting?

guinea

Ooh, I forgot about this, when's the next meet?

Dynamo guys mostly seem decent. They've helped me out in the past. However, I got shouted at when I pulled into the middle of the road to turn right into the cafe. That wasn't very nice.

Rich-Ti

guinea wrote:

Ooh, I forgot about this, when's the next meet?

Tomorrow (Tues 5th) at 7:30pm judging by that up there ^^ - Just need a meet point and we're sorted 8)

london-red

Assuming this bloody weather improves I'm still up for this tonight. I come in through Kingston gate, but can meet anywhere really.

Rich-Ti

I'll confess - if it stays like this I'm not heading out! I get wet enough on my MTB and my commute without having to get wet on my roadie too! :roll:

But yes, if it does improve then Kingston Gate is cool with me 8)