London to Cambridge

Rev\'d Gatlin

Anyone else doing this on Sunday? We did it last year. It was a good run on mostly traffic free roads. If all goes to plan we'll have a couple of recovery pints in the beer tent on the common, then back home to watch Cav in green and Wiggins in yellow. And if that happens I'll stick an extra £50 in the Breakthrough for Breast Cancer pot.

Rev\'d Gatlin

Just me then. I'll take a book.

FlamingTberto

I kinda fancy it, did London to Oxford earlier this month and had a good time.

For me I'm having a mental battle about wanting to do it:

Against:
I'm thinking about logistics at the mo, have I got the will to get on the train back to London and find my car near the start line. I live near Guildford so would drive in.
Should I be spending more time with wife and kid
I am a fair weather cyclist :oops:

For:
Brilliant charidee, mum died a few years ago from breast cancer related illness.
It will be great once you are on the road, even if it rains.

hambones

I'm doing it again - there and back like last year. Hopefully it won't be as hot as last year when I ran out of water because the feed stations weren't up and running in time!

FlamingTberto

Just had thunder here but it should clear by sunday.

See you both on the road, i will be the one in black shorts

Rev\'d Gatlin

FlamingTberto wrote:

Just had thunder here but it should clear by sunday.

See you both on the road, i will be the one in black shorts

Good choice. I'd recommend white socks to make a real statement. Weather looks like it's going to be sunshine. If you get to the beer tent 1st I'll have a pint of cooking lager, cheers. Have a good ride.

FlamingTberto

I went with black socks in the end

I had a good ride, planned to stop a couple of times to enjoy the refreshments and fill up with more water but I carried on through to the end in 3h55m with an avg. of 14.8mph. I've never tried to cycle through before, trying to unwrap cling filmed squashed malt loaf whilst cycling was fun. Mental note, don't overwrap it next time. Good job I had some easy access Haribo.

The first quarter of the route was a bit undulating and caught me out, mid to end was nice though not as scenic as I had hoped. There were quite a lot of people cycling like motorway fast lane and middle lane hoggers. Oh well. Except one accident halfway, seemed incident free to me.

A good day out.

Rev\'d Gatlin

FlamingTberto wrote:

I went with black socks in the end

I had a good ride, planned to stop a couple of times to enjoy the refreshments and fill up with more water but I carried on through to the end in 3h55m with an avg. of 14.8mph. I've never tried to cycle through before, trying to unwrap cling filmed squashed malt loaf whilst cycling was fun. Mental note, don't overwrap it next time. Good job I had some easy access Haribo.

The first quarter of the route was a bit undulating and caught me out, mid to end was nice though not as scenic as I had hoped. There were quite a lot of people cycling like motorway fast lane and middle lane hoggers. Oh well. Except one accident halfway, seemed incident free to me.

A good day out.

Good effort Sir. I'm with you on the malt loaf. I've spent time cutting and buttering into bite size chunks only for the loaf to reconstitute itself into a lump in my back pocket. I've given up on malt loaf, I've taken to trying not to choke myself on flapjack bites instead.

We're not talking about cycling socks in my house. All mine have gone missing. I eventually found a pair in a pair of trainers, not mine. hmm.

We were up and out with the sparrows to make a day of it and cycle to the start. I was all ready for an easy, low heart rate, spin to the start, my training partner/coach decided it'd be more fun to do a 25 mile blast down the A10. Ouch.

Full credit to all those on knobblies and shoppers and BSO's, that must have a hard day in the saddle. We were going at a reasonable pace and I had a hard job keeping the lungs in the chest and breakfast in the gut. I hate to think what those guys went through. Top moment was when I punctured heading into Langley. I pulled up to change the tube metres from the mechanics stand. A guy from Ben Haywards Cycles in Cambridge ran over and grabbed my wheel, he had it changed and back on my bike in a couple of minutes. Thankyou very much, I will be in to make some purchases soon.

We had a couple of pints on the common before the support crew turned up. Home, Hungarian GP, TdF, roast beef, bed by 9, bolloxed.

T'was a good day out.

FlamingTberto

Nice, fortunately no mechanicals or punctures for me but if I did I will try and breakdown near the mechanics next time and preferably the chaps from Cambridge. What a service!

Fair play indeed to the chunky wheeled and heavy bike riders. There seemed to be quite a lot of suffering going on out there, even before midway. My rotund friend did London to Brighton on his BMX last month and didn't complain one bit. Another friend who rode with him said he deserves BBC's SPOTY award for the greatest sporting achievement this year. Apparently he overtook a shed load of people who reacted with "WTF, I am being overtaken by a BMX." When I say rotund, I mean Michelin man KFC eating guy. Nice bloke, not very fit and smokes.

thebongolian

Great ride yesterday. Stayed with a mate in Cambridge then rode to the start. Actually rather enjoyed the trip down the A10 - quiet at that time of the morning, good tarmac and nicely graded hills. Spent about 30 minutes trying to catch 3 guys about 500m up the rode who were going imperceptibly slower than us

Then we joined up with a bunch of others for a more sedate ride up with a fair few stops including an excellent pub lunch in Duxford. Then a last blast into Cambridge at the head of a group speeding along at 22 mph or so.

Good crowd of people, smooth organisation, pretty scenery and nice roads made for a fantastic day. Plus really great feeling in the form to keep going at a good pace right to end as I've never ridden so far on a fixie - expected to be crawling over the line not hooning it in