Ride Reports

Kieran_Burns

itboffin wrote:

Nice report but 2700ft in 100 miles .....tiz very flat non!?!

Just saying

Added the ride profile. It may not be much climbing but it's hardly flat. :P

R0B75

Kieran_Burns wrote:

CX Route etc..

Good ride yesterday Kieran. Good route with lots of cracking scenery (and other stuff...) to look at.

I keep facepalming when I think about my clipless moment yesterday, as you said, it's only the second I've ever done it but I should know better by now. Knee and hip are bruised today :roll:

I wouldn't say I was a better cyclist though, I just I like climbing hills and also coming from riding a MTB have picked up some useful skills on the twisty stuff. At least you had a bell.. Ding, ding! I'm going to start calling you Hector

You definitely need to sort out some more routes, hopefully they'll be as much fun as yesterday.

rubertoe

Kieran_Burns wrote:

CX Route etc..

I'll give you a ride 100 report.

The climbs were cut, it rained. A lot. It was flat and there was loads of terrible riding.

It stopped raining. I lost the sprint.

Fin.

MonkeyMonster

rubertoe wrote:

I'll give you a ride 100 report.

The climbs were cut, it rained. A lot. It was flat and there was loads of terrible riding.

It stopped raining. I lost the sprint.

Fin.

It rained, more. Floods too. More bad riding

Won my challenge of 20 mph average (even with cramp!)

Kieran_Burns

R0B75 wrote:

Kieran_Burns wrote:

CX Route etc..

Good ride yesterday Kieran. Good route with lots of cracking scenery (and other stuff...) to look at.

I keep facepalming when I think about my clipless moment yesterday, as you said, it's only the second I've ever done it but I should know better by now. Knee and hip are bruised today :roll:

I wouldn't say I was a better cyclist though, I just I like climbing hills and also coming from riding a MTB have picked up some useful skills on the twisty stuff. At least you had a bell.. Ding, ding! I'm going to start calling you Hector

You definitely need to sort out some more routes, hopefully they'll be as much fun as yesterday.

You saw just how invaluable a bell is on bridlepaths. People would simply not move for you, but as soon as I rang the bell: clear path.

MonkeyMonster

Is it "legal" to have a bell on a cx bike?

Kieran_Burns

MonkeyMonster wrote:

Is it "legal" to have a bell on a cx bike?

It's like this: http://youtu.be/k7oGk-ozhKI?t=12s

MonkeyMonster

Kieran_Burns wrote:

MonkeyMonster wrote:

Is it "legal" to have a bell on a cx bike?

It's like this: http://youtu.be/k7oGk-ozhKI?t=12s

That's brilliant

Kieran_Burns

and he's back. 8)

Title: I hate hills
sub-title: I hate the wind
sub-sub-title: it's getting so you need arm warmers
sub-sub-sub-title: I need to lose weight.

Set off over 30 mins late to meet Rob75 and went straight into God's pillow again. 17 miles of in your face Westerly, which p*ssed me off so much I was thinking of bailing right at the start. Finally got to Willington and met up, and back into the wind for a further Ireallydon'tknowhowlongbutitjustannoyedthehelloutofme miles. Turning North gave some relief but then the hills started.

Rob (bless him) had done the route (bless him) and deliberately picked the first proper hill to be the one that I specifically said last week killed me (bless him). Then we hit rolling country on the run to Rocester (JCB factory) with the wind making everything so much harder. Stopped for food here as I realised I'd kind of messed up the energy intake (something I came to regret later) and naturally stopped before the steep little climb up past the JCB factory (on the left of it not the right where all the Alton Towers traffic goes)

Then it was Nabb Lane, which is a very sneaky back route to Alton Towers and a surprisingly unrelenting climb. I think it was at this point I started to grumble about the hills and properly dreading the climb to Alton Towers.

Which was next!

Small hint for everyone: do not even think about going to Alton Towers and arriving as late as some of these people did. I think it was about 11 when we got there, and they were queuing from the bottom of the hill (original entrance) and we ended up in this nightmare scenario of having to climb this git of a hill while over / under taking cars, ducking in between when they actually moved and something came barelling down. I was in the bottom gear (not for the last time today!) and just kept a steady pace up the hill. To be honest, even without my limitations I don't think I would've climbed much quicker as the traffic just totally got in the way.

Still:



See that lane to the left? If you ever get the chance, just cycle down there. It's epic and the whole reason why we did the loop. It is gorgeous, hilly, a little scary on some descents but the trees over hang, lakes, quiet sections... just perfect.

So now we loop to Ashbourne and finally get a tailwind (woohoo!) stop for a coffee and meet a guy cycling from Northampton to Manchester (!) 'cos he needed to get some training in.

Then we have Old Hill in Ashbourne. I was going to bail out and do the longer hill but Rob kept nagging so I went for it. I have no idea what my cadence was, probably 1rpm; I know I was breathing more quickly than I was rotating the crank and I sounded like a flaming steam train climbing a gradient. I was using a 30/28 and standing on the pedals to get the bike up the hill, but I did. All 15 stone 5lbs of me, and that was quite an achievement. I even got a nod of respect from the teen yoof at the top ("God, you're brave!")

Looped through the biscuit tin village of Osmaston, bravely ignoring the road closed signs... we picked the worst day to cycle through: they were having the village fete / fair / show thing on and the roads were chocker. That and the git of a climb to get into the village had me scrambling for the granny ring again.

You know that old computer game: "You are in a maze of twisty passages, they are all alike" That was the next section to the A517... I really had no idea where the hell we were and some of the bits were so narrow I swear the bushes were touching both shoulders... Manic descent towards Kedleston now, with one particularly frightening bit when the wind picked me up and shunted me across the road at over 35mph! Couple of sharp climbs Rob said, soon be over Rob said. Liar. They flaming HURT, but again I made them up. The grumbling was much more voluable by now.

All the climbs done now bar one teeny little lump past Kedleston Hall. One lump too far. I stopped to let a car past (and Rob) and everything went kind of light and weird. Ah. Two gels, much drink and a slow slog up the hill had me trembling in the saddle and basically blown up.

Thankfully we now had this epic tailwind, so much so that the last 10 odd miles was flying by. I even managed some >20mph avg miles belting down a REALLY bad road (old A6 into Shardlow) and through Shardlow.

I got home, still trembling (the last little climb to mine hurt way more than it should) and was surprised to see 79 miles. It really felt much further.

Here's the ride profile:



and the stats:

Distance 79.13 mi
Duration 5h:26m:20s
Avg. Speed 14.5 mph
Max. Speed 40.5 mph
Calories 5794 kcal
Total Ascent 4209 ft
Total Descent 4327 ft
Weather Partly sunn

After my long winded discussion of the day I will leave you with Rob's comments on his strava page for the ride:

Gentle and sedate social spin with Kieran round to Alton towers and back via Ashbourne. Headwind all the way out and took in a few half decent hills including Old Hill in Ashbourne and the climb up to Alton Towers itself. Good ride

You may want to watch the papers for man murdered by bike being inserted where it shouldn't....

R0B75

Kieran_Burns wrote:

...moaning..

Bwahahahahahahahaha

Edit: In fairness Kieran you did really well.

itboffin

Do you live in Holland?

Just saying

PS. Pan flat up north

Kieran_Burns

itboffin wrote:

Do you live in Holland?

Just saying

PS. Pan flat up north

You live for my reports... admit it. 8)

itboffin

I've long know you northerners are prone to exaggeration but who knew it was so flat up there

UndercoverElephant

Rode "The Crystal Run" yesterday, a local 100 km Audax. The Audax Altitude Association say this is a silver medal route, which, by my calculation, makes it pretty damn tough. Add in a 35 mph gale-force headwind up the two toughest climbs of the day, and you have a really spicy plate of pain.

My Garmin says that it was 6,296ft of ascent over the day, it also reckoned that the roads were in the 20's of percents relatively often - I'm willing to believe both of these things. The route also took advantage of downhills with really tight turns, so you didn't get much joy there either, the only straight downhills were into that headwind, at one point I was having to pedal when the descent reached -18%.

Anyway, it was a good day with lots of cake and it was only a fiver for entry. Plus I get a silver grimpeur medal to remember how much "fun" I had.



http://www.strava.com/activities/181826478

vermin

Kieran_Burns wrote:

Then we have Old Hill in Ashbourne. I was going to bail out and do the longer hill but Rob kept nagging so I went for it. I have no idea what my cadence was, probably 1rpm; I know I was breathing more quickly than I was rotating the crank and I sounded like a flaming steam train climbing a gradient. I was using a 30/28 and standing on the pedals to get the bike up the hill, but I did. All 15 stone 5lbs of me, and that was quite an achievement. I even got a nod of respect from the teen yoof at the top ("God, you're brave!")

This comment reminded me of my poor chainset selection (standard double) last week. Having given my all on Buttertubs, I descended back into Hawes and, not knowing what Yorkshire had in store, continued straight onto Fleet Moss.

Who else has had to engage the Fleet Moss Wiggle?

asprilla

Just back from a monumental ride bimbling from Walton to Hampton Court.

Monumental because not only was it the Awesome Noodle's first trip out on a bike but it was also my Wife's first time on a bike in about 25 years. Both enjoyed it thoroughly (despite the Mrs complaining that all drivers are maniacs and there is no way she would have overtaken there and that she would have given more room).

Anyway, here's to more full family bike rides.

Such fun.

On a down side the Mighty Pickle was on a tag-along and you can tell she pedals squares because it throws the lead bike all over the shop.

ad_snow

Went for a 'lovely' bank holiday ride this morning. Did the bottom section of the Wiggle Cotswold sportive. 40ish miles and it rained the entire time. Props to my PBK waterproof cape for keeping my core completely dry and also to my BBB overshoes which did the same for my feet/shoes.

Quality route though, many beautiful parts and nice hills/quick descents so looking forward to doing it again when it's sunnier. http://www.strava.com/activities/185125706

rower63

Did a solo uninterrupted ride yesterday morning, figure-of-8 40-odd miles Sunbury to Windsor and back via Walton and Hampton Court. On way back from Windsor went right at the roundabout after The Bells of Ouseley pub, and up Priest Hill, instead of the more normal uber-flat through Runnymede.
What a brilliant little climb! Never done it before, but I have walked up to the RAF memorial from Runnymede, so always wanted to try a riding route up the back.
Priest Hill is a sneaky climb, a series of ramps interspersed with "false inclines", so that before you realize it you're on a flatter bit, spinning out and power is right down. Next time I'm going to really concentrate on keeping the power up on those shallow bits, perhaps select a gear that gets you off the saddle for the ramps but still allows a good on-saddle resistance on the false flats.
Also rode past a bunch of 15-20 Dynamo guys all standing around halfway along the kidney-roundabout-to-windsor-castle straight stretch. Strava Flyby shows they all set off in pursuit just after I went past, and one of them burst out of the bunch to catch me late on, then slowed to wait for the rest. I did briefly see him over my shoulder as I changed lane to head back round towards Old Windsor. I always thought it was poor etiquette to "just catch someone" then drop back to one's own group.

surrey_commuter

rower63 wrote:

Did a solo uninterrupted ride yesterday morning, figure-of-8 40-odd miles Sunbury to Windsor and back via Walton and Hampton Court. On way back from Windsor went right at the roundabout after The Bells of Ouseley pub, and up Priest Hill, instead of the more normal uber-flat through Runnymede.
What a brilliant little climb! Never done it before, but I have walked up to the RAF memorial from Runnymede, so always wanted to try a riding route up the back.
Priest Hill is a sneaky climb, a series of ramps interspersed with "false inclines", so that before you realize it you're on a flatter bit, spinning out and power is right down. Next time I'm going to really concentrate on keeping the power up on those shallow bits, perhaps select a gear that gets you off the saddle for the ramps but still allows a good on-saddle resistance on the false flats.
Also rode past a bunch of 15-20 Dynamo guys all standing around halfway along the kidney-roundabout-to-windsor-castle straight stretch. Strava Flyby shows they all set off in pursuit just after I went past, and one of them burst out of the bunch to catch me late on, then slowed to wait for the rest. I did briefly see him over my shoulder as I changed lane to head back round towards Old Windsor. I always thought it was poor etiquette to "just catch someone" then drop back to one's own group.

maybe they were looking for directions back to Richmond Park

Kieran_Burns

Another bucket list ride completed... rode out to Belvoir Castle yesterday and it lived up to the name: the views were beautiful.

Also managed one of the 'top 100 climbs' while I was there. I say managed... 'struggled hugely' might be the better expression

Terrace Hill: http://100hillsforgeorge.blogspot.co.uk ... -hill.html

It's actually a lovely climb (as climbs go) riding up the bank through the trees on a quiet road is perversely a lot of fun. It wasn't so quiet with me there of course, doing my asthmatic warthog impersonation.

The descent to Belvoir Castle is worth the climb - sweeping bends on a good surface had the cars not able to pass, coffee and cake at the cafe there rounded off a good first half.

The second half kind of went pear-shaped, due to me messing up the Garmin. When asked "do you want to navigate to the start?" Say no. It looped me BACK to the inbound course by a weird route, which admittedly was very, very enjoyable; at least until it had me climbing back UP the same bank the Terrace Hill was part of. I couldn't work it out, I thought I was just a cr*p climber (well I am) until I saw the ride profile. Ouch.

I made my own way back after I realised where I was and looped off the inbound route finding back roads I knew and came back along my normal commute route. I messed up the food / water intake at some point and the last 15-20 miles were not great but overall I am very glad I did that ride and I'll be going out there again.

Stats:

Distance 71.15 mi
Duration 4h:26m:39s
Avg. Speed 16.0 mph
Max. Speed 34.9 mph
Calories 5093 kcal
Total Ascent 2661 ft

I was VERY surprised at the average speed for a solo ride for myself.

Ride profile:

DrLex

Kieran_Burns wrote:

Another bucket list ride completed... rode out to Belvoir Castle yesterday and it lived up to the name: the views were beautiful.
[...]

Nice, but from you, was expecting

gag.

Kieran_Burns

DrLex wrote:

Kieran_Burns wrote:

Another bucket list ride completed... rode out to Belvoir Castle yesterday and it lived up to the name: the views were beautiful.
[...]

Nice, but from you, was expecting

gag.

Genius response

itboffin

seriously how are you finding all these pan flat rides?

you know its much hillier down south, much :twisted:

rjsterry

Not my ride (if only), but I've just read this rather inspiring write-up of the Haute Route. It's an over-used word, but it does look epic.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... aute-route

Kieran_Burns

itboffin wrote:

seriously how are you finding all these pan flat rides?

you know its much hillier down south, much :twisted:

Are you stalking me? :shock:

roger_merriman

Less one ride but a few, had Monday and Today off by chance so as Tour of Britain was passing close to my folks place, took the train down on Sunday, fun riding home via the quiet dark lanes Sunday.

Took the dog for a quick blast up and down the valley yesturday.

And today climbed up to Keepers Pond which was the finish of Stage 3.

Lovely day for it and loads of room, saw wiggo etc zipping past, and what not.

And once allowed pootled down Fiddlers Elbow (tumble) though far too many iffy riding from hyped up roadies how some of them didn't end up part of the hedge....

But a glorious few bike/family few days.

davis

Been off the bike far too much recently, so a sunny Sunday and a pink slip was too good to turn down. Nipped up to Ockley, then over Leith Hill, then Whitedown (I think!) to Great Bookham. Refuel in the Domestique, then pretty much the reverse on the way home.

Leith Hill's alright, not too taxing in reality, but it's good fun coming down the South side. Only 45 miles in total, but they were happy miles.

meanredspider

Beautiful autumn morning in Amsterdam

pollys_bott

The school holidays torpedoed my 55 consecutive months of doing a metric century, so given that I hadn't done anything longer than 50 miles since the end of July, I just had to ignore the forecast and crack on when the opportunity came up for a decent ride out...

Started off nice weather-wise but typically I had picked up one of those irritating hint-of-a-sore-throat-and-just-enough-of-a-snotty-head-to-be-a-nuisance type bugs and my heart rate was all over the place for the first hour, but then it settled a bit. Started raining around Southwell (25 miles in) and from there around Clumber Park to Worksop was pretty rough: I'd eat, then feel really lousy (I assume whilst it was being processed/digested) then suddenly feel really good as the energy kicked in. Got to Blyth where a glove change worked wonders for the psyche, then did the stretch around the east of Doncaster where once again (I did this route at the end of March) I encountered more examples of p1ss-poor driving in 8 miles than I did in the other 80. Be warned: Rossington to Barnby Dun is just chock-full of idiots. Having survived that stretch I knew I only had an hour or so left so despite being totally sodden spirits were good. Crossed the A1 at Barnsdale Bar and hammered down towards Pontefract, with a couple of miles left thought I'd try one of the very few climbs around there so opened the taps and not much came out so pootled the last bit to the in-laws. Quietly pleased with myself... 8)

http://www.strava.com/activities/216803547

meanredspider

Gorgeous day in the Highlands yesterday - barely 4C though.