London drinks

frenchfighter

Good times. Usual heavyweights out and some good new faces. More words tomorrow.

RichN95.

I hope you enjoyed yourself. But being London I imagine you limited yourself to one over-priced Belgian beer at £9 a bottle. Now get back off to your mortgage crippling one bed apartment and decide whether or not you can afford to turn the heating on.

Bo Duke

I expect Lance Armstrong was discussed all night, bar short intervals for fighting? ;-)

frenchfighter

The pub was a good choice and there is a good amount of space out the back where you can actually hear yourself speak unlike a lot of these other places.

Iain in his understated pink shirt was reliably good company and I couldnt quite believe it when he told us he was riding!
BigBean was jovial and animated as usual and possibly necked the most pints...and had a long ride home : )
Coriander was happy as ever demonstrating a surprised me by remembering my real name after two years
Paul 8v, first time we`ve met - a great chap and clearly passionate about the sport. Held the most unusual job!
Macaloon, another new face to me...authentic Scottish man who had interesting conversation
Timoid, good to see the suave Irish man was in fine spirits
Ridgerider, making a late appearance after a heavy meal with colleagues it was good to catch up
OCDuPalais, reminding me of Pantani with his hooped earring, didnt get to chat much with him but he seemed a decent bloke

iainf72

Good times all round. Nice to meet a few new people, and good to see the old hands too.

We'll have to do one in season.

I think FF learnt a lesson about oversharing on the internet last night too

I believe we're all up on ourselves and unfriendly in the South East, so that must mean that get togethers in the north and or wales must be fantastic....oh, you don't do any? :P

TheBigBean

Bo Duke wrote:

I expect Lance Armstrong was discussed all night, bar short intervals for fighting? ;-)

Absent forumites such as organiser in chief star moderator Mr Rick Chasey were abused far more than Armstrong.

TheBigBean

iainf72 wrote:

We'll have to do one in season.

Paul 8v said he'd be delighted to sort that out.

frenchfighter

iainf72 wrote:

I think FF learnt a lesson about oversharing on the internet last night too

You surprised me with that one...some weird people out there.

Paul 8v

TheBigBean wrote:

iainf72 wrote:

We'll have to do one in season.

Paul 8v said he'd be delighted to sort that out.

Damn, so I did! I was hoping Frenchie hadn't minuted that!

We could do a pre-TDF pub meet up and watch one of the Yorkshire stages if there is a sports bar showing it? (If there is enough of us we could just get them to put it on) I might need some advice on where to do this though from you city types as I haven't a clue where

Macaloon

Rest day. Still reeling from the discovery that a distinguished forumite dabbles in necromancy. Heavyweight.

timoid.

Was good seeing everyone last night. Reasonable turnout. Except for that truant Chasey.

What forfeit did we agree on for Rick's no show?

Macaloon

I recall talk of suspending his whiteboytrash click-bait login for a while.

Paul 8v

Macaloon wrote:

Rest day. Still reeling from the discovery that a distinguished forumite dabbles in necromancy. Heavyweight.

Start with small things like boars, then move on to an army of undead...

ocdupalais

Macaloon wrote:

Rest day. Still reeling from the discovery that a distinguished forumite dabbles in necromancy. Heavyweight.

Is that a euphemism for posting on BR?

As a still relative newbie, it was good to meet the actual human beings behind the avatars/online personas (how quaint).
Big Bean definitely wins 'Most Like Avatar' competition...
FF changes his so often - plus, I'd formed a mental image of something between Dean Gaffney and Milhouse... But neither are true... Unless that thoroughly decent seeming bloke was a stunt double...?

Has anyone checked that Ridgerider's still alive after his 3rd event of the evening?

Paul 8v

I had Frenchie down as a French Louis Theroux so I was way out! Disappointed that Iain does not have a massive cartoon head.

Paul 8v

And of course that Macaloonis not actually Dr Strangelove

Pross

Hang on, is someone saying Frenchie isn't really called Frenchie?

Rich was talking about having a Welsh meet at the Nationals in Abergavenny. That could be a good one, for a small entry fee of £6.50 we'll even let some of you others over the bridge.

Paul 8v

Sorry Pross, Frenchies true identity is a closely guarded secret.

seanoconn

Was there a stand out character at the Christmas drinks party?

RichN95.

Paul 8v wrote:

Sorry Pross, Frenchies true identity is a closely guarded secret.

It really isn't. He used to put his name in the URLs of some of his photos.

frenchfighter

RichN95 wrote:

Paul 8v wrote:

Sorry Pross, Frenchies true identity is a closely guarded secret.

It really isn't. He used to put his name in the URLs of some of his photos.

Are you one of the crazies I was referring to earlier who do their damnedest to to scour the internet trying to find the identity and various other aspects of people on forums? Otherwise known as stalking and the preserve of despicable people with dishonourable motives. Iain mentioned about one person who had got some information on me...lucky he wasn't at the meet because he would have got a piece of my mind.

RichN95.

frenchfighter wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

Paul 8v wrote:

Sorry Pross, Frenchies true identity is a closely guarded secret.

It really isn't. He used to put his name in the URLs of some of his photos.

Are you one of the crazies I was referring to earlier who do their damnedest to to scour the internet trying to find the identity and various other aspects of people on forums? Otherwise known as stalking and the preserve of despicable people with dishonourable motives. Iain mentioned about one person who had got some information on me...lucky he wasn't at the meet because he would have got a piece of my mind.

No. I just noticed it a few times when 'quoting' the photos. The URL is in the reply box when you do that.

frenchfighter

Good, good, you have never struck me as the type. Not my name in the url - just liked his writing about the time I set up the account.

RichN95.

frenchfighter wrote:

Good, good, you have never struck me as the type. Not my name in the url - just liked his writing about the time I set up the account.

If I was desperate to know who you are I'd have gone to London yesterday.

ocdupalais

seanoconn wrote:

Was there a stand out character at the Christmas drinks party?

Yes.
As lovely as everyone was, for me it was the Dark Star Pale Ale...
£4.50 for a pint, that close to the City? Why, Ambassador, you are spoiling us...

ridgerider

OCDuPalais wrote:

Has anyone checked that Ridgerider's still alive after his 3rd event of the evening?

Nevermind the 3rd event, 12 hours after walking out into the night from the BR do, I found myself in Scunthorpe (fully clothed and not attached to any street furniture thankfully). I'm tending towards Macaloon for that one, still waters run very deep.

However, it gave me time to reflect on the evening before, where three things stood out for me: -
1. First rule of Bike Club is if you say you are coming, you have to turn up. Watching three work mates burning up from the inside by 1.3 million chilli burns in the 'hot wing challenge' (Collegue A - "Waiter, the three of us want to do the hot wing challenge"; Waiter - "I know it's a laugh, but I recommend you don't do it...") is quite addictive, but having said I was coming, I came.
2. When Rick is not there, everyone relaxes as we don't have to talk alnight about Uncle Tom Cobbly and all.
3. FrenchFighter needs to get over the power outage I caused to his office. That's why you do back ups, FF.

So, to the night in question...we went over last years minutes as usual. Despite a challenge from newbies Macaloon, Paul V8 and OCDuPalais, we reaffirmed the BR Xmas Drinkies Mantra that you need to assume that no riders are clean for the purposes of these evenings. Other random threads over the evening, which all flowed naturally at the time but I cannot recall the connections between them all now, included...

a. When are we going to get our first gay cycling icon?
b. Lightning protection.
c. Half an hour with Lance, or 5 hours with Brad (in a pub!)?
d. How can you stop cats killing mice?
e. Wheelbuilding
f. Scotland
g. Japan
h. Echelons
i. Aluminium
j. Power cuts (let it go FF!)
k. How long after someone dies is it ok to burn their effigy on a bonfire (let it go Timoid!)
l. Rick

As said by others, good to meet the faces behind the facades.

Macaloon

Ridgerider wrote:

With the Total Recall, Andrew Mitchell style/i]

And with the Jedi skills to get S****horpe past the profanity filter. Chapeau.

rick_chasey

Still p!ssed off I couldn't make it.

ridgerider

Rick Chasey wrote:

Still p!ssed off I couldn't make it.

Actually, I cannot recall ever seeing Rick and Frenchie in the same room at the same time...can you follow this up RichN95?

chrisday

Rick Chasey wrote:

Still p!ssed off I couldn't make it.

Ditto - thought I was finally going to make it, and ended up laid up in bed for 3 days with a chest infection. No excuse, I know, but "there's always next year" *sigh*