FNRttC 2017 (that's next year, folks) thinking ride thread

[redfalo]

That might be because you didn't have a weight of responsibility on your shoulders that day.

indeed

 

[redfalo]

I don't see the "choice" as being "revisit" versus "new", but a choice between aiming to be "inclusive" (as in achievable for most, with a reasonable amount of conditioning and preparation) versus "challenging" (as in, expanding the comfort zone of those who are already fairly comfortable with the "inclusive" option).

I think the real challenge is to cater for both types of riders. You don't want to lose the second group either. The idea that people who did a 70km ride starting at 9am at an overall pace of 12 kph go on a spin after arriving at Fridays central is nice in theory but won't work in practise.

 

[Andrew Br]

Helen and I are also thinking about doing our own thing next year, partly for the same reasons as jiberjaber.
Our current thinking is to head down to Bilbao then ride to Bordeaux and take TGV/Eurostar back to Blighty unless we take the car (not my preferred option) and do the same route.
Either way we'll probably be staying consecutive nights in a couple of places and doing day rides (without luggage) from there. It'll also give us time to explore where we'll be staying.
Thinking back to this year's tour, the bits I enjoyed the most are when Helen and I rode round from Europort to Hook, the charge to Leuven, chasing the group along the river after Gordon's hedge visit and, most of all, the audax, even if I did look tired at the supermarket stop . What those memories have in common are that we were riding faster and we were having fewer and shorter stops.

 

[mmmmartin]

Our current thinking is to head down to Bilbao

You might have to go to Santander instead. Brittany Ferries didn't allow bikes on the Bilbao crossing, there is no bike option in the drop down menu when you try to book to Bilbao.
Phoning might produce a different response?

 

[mmmmartin]

people who did a 70km ride starting at 9am at an overall pace of 12 kph go on a spin after arriving at Fridays central is nice in theory

A 9am start and a 70k day means arrival around 2pm. What peeps do after that is up to them.

 

[mmmmartin]

To make that work well you'd need two leaders familiar with the route and its shops, cafes, roads etc, two all-uppers, two sets of maps. Can be done, but needs thought.

 

[StuAff]

Haiko prepared the audax route, and had clearly done a good job. When self and Eddie rode back into Aachen, it was a bit play-it-by-ear but worked out.

 

[mmmmartin]

The rest day Audax was an Audax (ie an individual ride on public roads not a group ride), and it split into three small groups (fast, slow, and short). It involved preparing the route and sending the GPX track by email before the trip.
And you and Adrian going to Maastricht was not a group ride, it was only two riders.
Splitting the whole tour into two groups each of say 14 riders and planning separate routes for each group is double the amount of planning time, two recces, etc. It'd be like having two tours, but at the same time.

 

[mmmmartin]

Unless Fridays Tours are going to become less inclusive

Don't you mean

IF Fridays Tours are going to become less inclusive

But they're not going to be less inclusive.

 

[StuartG]

Good, as that is a non-negotiable core attribute of The Fridays.

But how we achieve that may be negotiable. To try and bring together some thoughts from above. We don't want two Tours. We don't want to double the load on the leader. If people want to go off and plan their own tour - that would be great. Even greater if they invite others to join.

But if they are doing that because they don't feel included then that spells real trouble.

Even an 'easy' tour is likely to have a 'hard' day if only to reach a particular icon or just 'cos we can't move a convenient town 30km closer or 300m lower. Then splitting may be worth considering. On the last day of the last Tour I felt we were travelling further per hour yet without extra effort. Was that because there were only nine of us? Less faffage, waymarking and mechanicals to break up the rhythm? Rhythm is very important in making progress. It wasn't because the range of riders was faster than previous days (indeed the real speedos were mostly missing) and 'the back' was still 'the back' controlling the ultimate speed of the ride.

Provided we can trust a Garmin/Smartphone App or two - is this a solution with, perhaps the real speedos having an extra hour in bed and then scooping up anybody dropped from the forward groups with an unfixed issue - or just having a bad day.

Just a thought - with the abolition of roaming charges next June - it makes it easier ie more economical to keep in touch and maybe use apps like Glympse to re-unite lost parties or track people on alternate routes? Just one day as an experiment?

 

[mmmmartin]

Aha, I see. You meant:

Unless Fridays Tours are going to become less inclusive, the only solution for the faster riders is Andrew's, unfortunately - go and do a faster tour elsewhere.

We all know what's coming: Peeps are told what the tour route is going to be like long before we go, with daily distances and hilliness, and where we're going to eat, etc. It would be pretty safe to assume next year's Tour will take on board the comment by @redfalo that

next time, I would not put in days longer than 100km

 

[AKA Bob]

Looking forward to the coffee, food and ice cream bicycle tour......

 

[AKA Bob]

No beer?

Opps maybe I should make a Doctors appointment to check I am OK having forgotten such a key element....

 

[Flying Dodo]

More like it's assumed as one of the essentials, like having a bike.

 

[kimble]

As an outsider (and I accordingly offer this diffidently), it was weird reading the unfolding day by day accounts. Simultaneously, there was a litany of discomfort, heat, exhaustion, mechanical breakdown, health breakdown, and various recourse to trains; and a litany, sometimes I think from the same people, of how this was the best tour ever and how much people enjoyed it.

Data point, for whatever it's worth:

- I was carrying more weight than anyone else on the tour, by a substantial margin. This didn't actually matter as there weren't any hills.
- I was probably riding the most appropriate bike for the conditions in the Netherlands, which some people found hard going.
- I had some digestive issues on the first day (I have chronic digestive problems, so I was expecting this at some point), and found the heat and sleep deprivation unpleasant at times, but otherwise I found the cycling to be enjoyable and well within my capabilities.
- But I feel there was too much distance. The overheads inherent in wrangling a large group meant little time to stop and see things, or even photograph them. Breaks to wait for the tail-end aren't really breaks, because they come at random and you don't normally know how long you've got before the group moves off again. And you might be the one with the issue at the tail end. This is absolutely fine on a social ride, but I'm less keen on a multi-day tour.
- On the other hand, you can't help geography.
- As we reached Aachen, I developed an unexpected injury that crippled me for the rest of the tour. Indeed, I've been unable to walk properly since I got back, haven't been near a bike (I can't even crouch down to fettle them) until a gentle (inconclusive) experiment on the turbo trainer this afternoon, and expect to take weeks to recover. I'm still not entirely sure what caused it, but my best guess is bad luck facilitated by newish shoes. I don't think it was the ride structure or over-exertion that caused it, and nobody could have predicted it.
- I certainly enjoyed the first half (I made it as far as Maastricht). The rest was mostly educational frustration. I wouldn't have minded bailing out to trains as much if I'd been able to wander around (on bike or foot) and see more of the places I was visiting. Chatting to randoms in the hostel while keeping my feet elevated was good though, even if it wasn't part of the plan.
- I found Belgium particularly challenging due to the language barrier. But that's because I'm crap at languages, and had more opportunities for it to be an issue. On the other hand, Belgian railway staff are brilliant and I wish we could import them.
- Would I do it again? Possibly. But given limited time and money, I think I'd rather tour solo or in a small informal group (preferably of fellow campers, to simplify logistics) with less rigid planning, it's just easier. I'm all for pushing the envelope, but in cycling terms I'd rather do it in other types of ride. This is in no way intended to be a criticism of The Fridays.