Ride Reports

itboffin

Chapeau epic riding gents.

@cjcp now you've tasted the forbiden fruits :roll:

Aidy

Kieran_Burns wrote:

It didn't even occur to me to worry about the metric ton! :roll:

Meh. I've done it once. (as near as) so next time

Metric centuries are for people who can't do proper centuries, anyway.

Sewinman

Took the train to Canterbury and followed a circular route down to the coast. Passed through Sandwich, Deal and near Dover then back up to Canterbury. I used the garmin for the first time and it seemed to work a treat, however I just checked the route and it took me completely off piste towards the end of the route. Strange – as I had uploaded the course from bikehike to the garmin. I got back to Canterbury ok but via a different route to the one I had created and uploaded.

Fun ride, covered about 60 miles for the day. I bonked towards the end and had run out of food and water and could not find a shop for ages. Finally managed to find one and ate a packet of fruit gums and was fine. Lesson learnt.

benno68

Went out for a quick spin after work on Saturday, from City Road up Newport Road and took a left just before St Mellons though Michaelston Y Fedw and into Lisvane, some fairly short but sharp climbs - just about scraped up them in 34 - 25 (when are my legs going to get stronger???). Then into Lisvane, drop through Roath Park Lake, Canton and home.

Can't remember the time or the mileage, would have been 20 miles or so.

Most of Sunday was spent tidying the shed :roll:

Later on Sunday I met up with "Golfclub", he arrived straight from work on his commuter with his back pack on. He took me on his Llanedyrn loop at a fairly fast rate (for me), stopped at his place to admire his Cayo Expert - nice piece of kit. Did about 22 miles or so in all - not far I know but a decent workout with my heart rate up to 178 (probably up Leckwith Hill).

I see many cyclists bombing along looking effortless as they go - climbing hills like they weren't there and looking like they could keep going for miles and miles....; I doubt I'll ever be one of them, but it's fun trying even if it is painful sometimes!

il_principe

I had an interesting ride on Saturday morning. Was down at my folks house in Sussex and and managed a quick ride while the missus was still sleeping. There's a very narrow and twisty lane that runs from their house to the main road so I never start timing my ride/distance until the end of that lane - it's simply to narrow to allow for any safe speed. So from the end of that lane I rode a 36 mile loop (40 in total) out onto Romney Marsh, past the famous links course at Rye and the ever popular Camber Sands, then looped past the old man's farm and headed for the wonderfully named Appledore then along the Royal Military Canal to Rye. Romney Marsh is all former sea bed and as a result is exceedingly windy! I spent a good third of the route with the wind at my back, happily bowling along at 26/28 mph. But try as I might I couldn't sustain anything at 30+. The final third saw me head home directly into the wind. Christ but it was hard work. I normally expect to manage at least 17/18 into a strongish headwind, but I couldn't get much above 15 and my back and left hip flexor really started to ache. At this point I remembered I'd moved my seat up by around 1cm the week before, and this was the first time i ridden the bike since. I'd left my minitool at home so I soldiered on and even managed to sprint the 2nd and last short sharp climb of the day. By the time I got to the start of the lane home and stopped my timer I'd managed an av of 20.1 despite the speeds along the coast. I was reasonably pleased with this given how much I'd suffered in the headwind and concluded that I'd just been having a slightly off day - I'd still really enjoyed the ride, had seen hardly any traffic and really enjoyed the peace of the Marsh on a sunny morning.

It was only when packing the bike up yesterday afternoon that I noticed the rear brake was rubbing on the rim - it must have taken a knock on the drive down and then rubbed form the moment I first braked! No bl00dy wonder I was suffering so much.

Lesson learnt, always do a quick spot check before riding and never ride without a minitool when you've made positioning adjustments! Schoolboy error that one.

tailwindhome

Il Principe wrote:

It was only when packing the bike up yesterday afternoon that I noticed the rear brake was rubbing on the rim - it must have taken a knock on the drive down and then rubbed form the moment I first braked! No bl00dy wonder I was suffering so much.

Hmmmm

When I suffer on the bike the brake never seems to be rubbing, no matter how often I stop to check :roll:

Kieran_Burns

Okay this is weird.

How accurate is BikeHike?

www.bikehike.co.uk/mapview.php?id=14588

Is my Sunday route... i wanted to see how much climbing I did. A respectable 1675ft on the way out.

Only look at the mileage: 32.65. I showed 29.4 on the way out and 31.75 on the way back.

That may make my Cycle Comp 10% out. :shock:

Has anyone confirmed their mileage? I'm not trying to get the century through cheating here... but if my cycle comp IS out, it would be nice to know (and nice to have hit the century!)

iain_j

I'm quite happy with myself

65-odd miles around the Peak District on Sunday.

OK, I've done two circuits round the Peak District in the past and know there's not many flat roads, so not having done much riding this summer I thought I'd take it easy.

Got up early to get the train out to Marple, for a few miles' warm-up to Glossop before tackling the Snake Pass. Climbed it twice before, but always turned round at the top and sped back down to Glossop again - my favourite descent in the country but I'd never properly "crossed" the pass. Damn I was climbing well this morning. Didn't even need bottom gear. It's nearly four miles long, and not yet a mile into it I passed a fella walking at the side of the road with his bike - "I've given up already" he said - I wonder if he's at the top yet!

The descent was great except for getting overtaken a little too closely by a motorbike when I was pushing 40mph and approaching a corner, then getting stuck behind a slow-moving coach further down. Still, I was loving it. Stopped for lunch in Hathersage, and on to Hassop, Great Longstone and the Monsal Dale. I suddenly started meeting loads of riders going the other way and it dawned on me the Phil & Friends sportive was on today and I was doing half the route but in the opposite direction!

At Cressbrook I came to a fork in the road - go right, with some zig-zags up out of the Dale, or left, straight up past the 20% gradient sign? I was feeling ridiculously confident and went left. Bikehike reckons it's more than 20%, and it went on, and on, and on, and on. I crested the hill grinning ear to ear, then rolled on down the other side, plummeting into Tideswell Dale past the Phil & Friends riders slaving their way up the hill.

Some more meandering miles to Buxton, a couple more miles uphill then the highlight of the day, a five mile descent of Long Hill, with no traffic in sight - whoopee!

I'm still buzzing from it 3 days later. I love cycling 8)

Roastie

Hog Hill. Missed prime by a hair. Rain. Got dropped. Chased and got back in. More rain. Ran out of road in corner. Intimate acquaintance with several prickly bushes. Took lap out, got stuck back in. Rear didn't feel right, pulled out. Full bitter-sweet story on my blog.

lost_in_thought

Yaaaay I did my first solo 100km today! Haven't uploaded the data or anything to get ave speed, but apparently about 16-17 mph according to elapsed time versus distance travelled.

Went from my place in Essex down to Mersea Island, had some fresh locally caught prawns and a couple of cans of sprite, watched a bit of the local regatta, and then headed home again. Had completely unintentionally managed to head into wind all the way there, so had a tailwind most of the way back. Lovely.

Note to self - buy stock of energy drink for Essex. Also, zipvit peach and apricot energy bar gets a 6 or 7 out of 10.

EDIT: Ave speed 16.7 mph, Zipfit chocolate recovery drink bloody awful.

Aidy

lost_in_thought wrote:

Went from my place in Essex down to Mersea Island...

Do you commute from Essex into Central London?

[Edit]Or well, bearing in mind recent redundancy woes, did you?[/Edit]

lost_in_thought

Aidy wrote:

lost_in_thought wrote:

Went from my place in Essex down to Mersea Island...

Do you commute from Essex into Central London?

[Edit]Or well, bearing in mind recent redundancy woes, did you?[/Edit]

Yes, for about 4.5 years, drive-train-bike or bike-train-bike. More recently, however, it's been from Ealing.

Aidy

Ah

Always vaguely on the lookout for people who might be doing similar commutes to me!

stuaff

Latest Friday Night Ride to the Coast: from HPC at midnight to Felpham near Bognor Regis (about 75 miles I think, not absolutely sure of starting mileage on the computer & didn't always start it up at the beginning of sections). Ride organiser Simon Legg had promised no major climbs. Well, there were rather a lot of 'rises' which required the 34 tooth ring. And the chalk path some of us took on the approach to Arundel was somewhat hair-raising. And I seem to have done something or other to my right knee, probably down to me not noticing my saddle was too low until it started aching, which now hurts like......
All of which might imply it wasn't fun. Anything but. Today happens to be my birthday, and I had a brilliant time, I think my 79 or so cohorts all did. The PF made frequent visits, which delayed our arrival until 9 (!)- no-one gets left behind in the event of mechanicals- but that did at least provide more opportunities for socialising. The halfway tea stop (Cabin Cafe at Faygate) was excellent, as was the breakfast cafe. Weather was fine, if a little nippy. And as it was a mere 25 miles or so back home, I rode it (with hindsight, my knee probably suffered from that). Total mileage for the day (including my commute) somewhere between 110-115 miles, average rolling speed about 13 mph. My first imperial ton!
And tomorrow, I pick up the birthday present to myself (hopefully the knee will have eased up by the morning)

cjcp

Nice one, LiT.

I, OTOH, did the commute again, to pick up some stuff from work,

stuaff

lost_in_thought wrote:

Also, zipvit peach and apricot energy bar gets a 6 or 7 out of 10.

EDIT: Ave speed 16.7 mph, Zipfit chocolate recovery drink bloody awful.

Not tried the energy bar yet, I agree with Biondino and others that the choc orange recovery one is smashing. Though it hasn't helped my knee. The recovery drink was for me, OK (nothing more)- found the energy ones insipid in flavour, like too-weak squash, thought I diluted the first one too much, but I hadn't.

jonginge

lost_in_thought wrote:

EDIT: Ave speed 16.7 mph, Zipfit chocolate recovery drink bloody awful.

Yep, I thought so, too. It's much nicer in vanilla (BOGOF offer). I've just got the night recovery stuff (ZV5, also on BOGOF) in chocolate and the flavour is much better, with no aftertaste.

lost_in_thought

JonGinge wrote:

lost_in_thought wrote:

EDIT: Ave speed 16.7 mph, Zipfit chocolate recovery drink bloody awful.

Yep, I thought so, too. It's much nicer in vanilla (BOGOF offer). I've just got the night recovery stuff (ZV5, also on BOGOF) in chocolate and the flavour is much better, with no aftertaste.

I reckon it would be much better in a fruity flavour, seeing as you're diluting it with water. If you were diluting it with milk (which I wouldn't like) then chocolate or vanilla would be good.

Although I haven't checked out the night recovery stuff, maybe you make it with warm milk... would make sense (bleurgh)

UndercoverElephant

Well, yesterday was the big day. After a whole week's preparation, I went off to do the Edinburgh Sportive (Bethany). It turned out to be 72 miles in the bluest skies you've ever seen. The course, though very hilly for the likes of me, was set among some of the most beautiful countryside you could imagine, on very quiet roads, so quiet, you almost completely forgot about the possibility of oncoming cars.

http://www.bikehike.co.uk/mapview.php?id=13699

As you may know, this route was about six times longer than I've ever cycled, and frankly one hundred times hillier, roughly four-thousand feet of ascent.

Four of us from my work all set off together, two of whom are proper roadies, who had agreed to stay with the other two, who aren't. I'm one of the latter two, obviously. Big thanks go out to the first two, for whom it must have been quite frustrating.

We made pretty good time though, finished in four and a half hours, average speed of 15.65 mph and a top speed of 40.5 mph (by god I had to earn that long downhill down the Granites). Brilliant day, and I only have one butt muscle that's really hurting this morning, which is a surprise, as I was expecting everything to hurt.

By the way, I did wear Lycra shorts in the end.

Kieran_Burns

I rattled off a 50 miler today. I ventured South this time, and after having a natter with a work mate who knew the same back roads managed a route that threw in some good uphills and one blinder of a descent :twisted:

For those that know the area: Hatton, Tutbury, 5 lanes end, Rangemore, Barton U Needwood, Yoxall, Kings Bromley, Alrewas, Croxall, Tamworth, Thorpe Constantine, Clifton Campville, Lullington, Coton in the Elms, Rosliston, Stapenhill, Newton Solney, Repton, Willington, Etwall, Hilton... and home.

Heck of a loop and now I look at it, it looks further than my cycle comp is reporting. The only downside being that I had to use some fairly main roads but it was still quiet enough.

I got some great country-side in and am happy to report my hill climbing is definitely getting better! It's not great but I'm not being defeated by any damn hill I come across.

I also met an old bloke who was just out for a pootle on his bike (beautiful old Dawes) with no idea in mind of where to go and was gob-smacked when I said where I was off to 8)

I also managed to scare the crap out of myself with my personal speed record for the Tricross: 42.7 mph I could've gone faster but the road surface was a worry the first time.. but next time it'll be powering down the whole way and I'll get 50 :twisted:

Total distance: 50.54 miles
Total time: 3:01 hrs
Av Speed 16.7 mph

spasypaddy

just got in from a 32miler, was really good to get out at 5.30 this evening. Nice weather, good scenery. However im never going out with a plan of action again. I just rode out in one direction and hoped for the best, averaged 16.1 on the way out and averaged faster on the way back (different route back) so my average over the 32miles was over 16.6.

Just kind of followed my nose and road signs even though i had my garmin on me, once its uploaded i shall link the ride into this post.

I've now done well over 2000miles for the year (2040...) with three months out injured thats not bad!

Need to upload my stats to the SC stats page.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/10822946

itboffin

I had several nice longish rides this weekend and only THREE visits from the PF :shock:

add that to the flat on my SS this morning and i'm now up to 30 YTD

At this rate I'm going to have to get a second job just to pay for all the inner tubes.

roger_merriman

itboffin wrote:

I had several nice longish rides this weekend and only THREE visits from the PF :shock:

add that to the flat on my SS this morning and i'm now up to 30 YTD

At this rate I'm going to have to get a second job just to pay for all the inner tubes.

http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/category/components/tyres/road/product/marathon-plus-10686

;-)

Wallace1492

Kieran_Burns wrote:

some good uphills and one blinder of a descent :twisted:

For those that know the area: Hatton, Tutbury, 5 lanes end, Rangemore, Barton U Needwood, Yoxall, Kings Bromley, Alrewas, Croxall, Tamworth, Thorpe Constantine, Clifton Campville, Lullington, Coton in the Elms, Rosliston, Stapenhill, Newton Solney, Repton, Willington, Etwall, Hilton... and home.
Av Speed 16.7 mph

Kieran, know some of this route quite well, as brother stays on it and have ridden some of it. There is a big hill near Hoar Cross that is a bit of a killer. Nice countryside, and I hope to get down there soon. Hopefully with my new Specialized Tricross!!

jonginge

lost_in_thought wrote:

JonGinge wrote:

lost_in_thought wrote:

EDIT: Ave speed 16.7 mph, Zipfit chocolate recovery drink bloody awful.

Yep, I thought so, too. It's much nicer in vanilla (BOGOF offer). I've just got the night recovery stuff (ZV5, also on BOGOF) in chocolate and the flavour is much better, with no aftertaste.

I reckon it would be much better in a fruity flavour, seeing as you're diluting it with water. If you were diluting it with milk (which I wouldn't like) then chocolate or vanilla would be good.

Although I haven't checked out the night recovery stuff, maybe you make it with warm milk... would make sense (bleurgh)

Ah, your aversion suddenly makes more sense. Both the rapid and night recovery drinks have colostrum in them, which is milk++

Kieran_Burns

Wallace1492 wrote:

Kieran_Burns wrote:

some good uphills and one blinder of a descent :twisted:

For those that know the area: Hatton, Tutbury, 5 lanes end, Rangemore, Barton U Needwood, Yoxall, Kings Bromley, Alrewas, Croxall, Tamworth, Thorpe Constantine, Clifton Campville, Lullington, Coton in the Elms, Rosliston, Stapenhill, Newton Solney, Repton, Willington, Etwall, Hilton... and home.
Av Speed 16.7 mph

Kieran, know some of this route quite well, as brother stays on it and have ridden some of it. There is a big hill near Hoar Cross that is a bit of a killer. Nice countryside, and I hope to get down there soon. Hopefully with my new Specialized Tricross!!

gimme a shout when you do -we can have Tricross formation cycling...

biondino

Undercover Elephant, how are you feeling today?

I had my first Torq bar yesterday. It tasted predominantly figgy with a strong aftertaste of Germolene. Which wasn't ideal, but clean-tasting I guess...

Gazzaputt

Shite ride yesterday.

Planning on about 80 miles at pace but 4 punctures put paid to that and I had to call the SO to rescue me. Only managed 25.

Wasn't a happy bunny.

Also about 2 dozen cyclists go past and only 2 stop to see if I needed halp and offer tubes. Big thank you to them.

Kieran_Burns

Oh, there was one moment of gloating - couple of MTB'ers I swished past at over 20 with no real effort (there was a great tail wind!)

Rapidly followed by a moment of relief when I was on a food stop and a club cyclist went past at a hell of a rate of knots. If I hadn't been sat by the side of the road chomping down my malt loaf I would've been made to look a complete amatuer! (Lichfield club so he was clearly on a circuit that would've co-incided with mine for some time)

UndercoverElephant

biondino wrote:

Undercover Elephant, how are you feeling today?

Quite all right actually, Biondino! I'm not sore anywhere today. I did have a couple of low-energy moments yesterday, but they passed with food. I'm in the car today only because the weather was stinking this morning, and I have to get home sharpish tonight. Otherwise I'd have been just fine to be back in the saddle.

You'll be particularly pleased to hear that the jersey you sent me performed admirably.