FNRttC Friday Night Ride to the Coast 18th March to Southend-on-Sea 2011

[Aperitif]

On 18th March 2011 at 21:02:36, the FNRttC's Consultant Rocket Scientist wrote:

Even though many of the forecast sites have temperatures below zero, I'm not entirely convinced.

I mentioned that the 'Southend' thread was an abstraction that accompanied the work of serious cyclists.
We started on about Page two with £1 coins, cow cheques and having faith in halfords. A stately mention of The Queen Mother and features on 'I'll get my Kote' Middleton, Andrew, bungalows, secret nuclear bunkers and David Hasselhoff. By the 7th March, Frank said he was riding back (like me ) and we longed for sightings of the 'red dwarf' jersey (a red star is 'relatively cool' apparently). Tim Hall's birthday, Klein bottles and Moebius strips, the Very Rev, Billy Gibbons and hat tricks, Burberry 650 knicker coats and a revelation that the Moon was going to be 14% bigger on the night - for free! (Rubbished again by our Consultant Rocket Scientist. but Tim's third abstract, the kevlar spoke actually surfaced on Saturday afternoon - very neat!)
The thread continued to build with Katie Price and Leandro, the Olympic clock, a wasp-catcher's gilet, siderophobia and then snatches of John masefield and Chas Dickens.
Frank popped up on the 18th march to make an offering to Adrian, Ian dury rocked into the mix, then Mick McManus and voile pants reared their (ugly? - nah, manly) heads.
And then we rode.

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.

The 'Saturdays' even turned the tables on this snippet of Dickins! We had great expectations and we partied and parted in style.

 

[Aperitif]

Seems I have a lot of photos of 'beer bottle kissing...' I'll be back later with some more evidence imaginings.

 

[frank9755]

Yeh but you promised wit, which carries at least a suggestion of promptness, not a treatise on the mental torture of being unfairly blamed over an extended period for a crime that you didn't commit.

I can only assure you that there is not some ultra side-splittingly funny comment that I am deliberately withholding!

 

[theclaud]

Hope you enjoyed the rest of your birthday Claudine and don't forget the Buff choice.

Ooooh how exciting! I almost forgot. I do enjoy extending my birthday celebrations well beyond the bounds of decency. I'll have a look and get back to you. Thanks! We missed you at LMNH, Adrian, but I've a strange feeling we might do something similar again...

 

[Mice]

Thank you for creating such a hilarious sequence of comments. It makes up for not being well enough to do the ride. And the photos are fab too. And the spectacular actions of generosity across the gang. Cheers DZ - The Fridays are a tremendous creation. I look forward to the next one (comment, action and FNRttC!) M

 

[dellzeqq]

word from Geoff, Ann, Freddie, Grace Maisie and Alfie Tully - they raised about £300.

Now I know that a lot of you will want to stop by Grace and Fred's virginmoney page and sponsor them for running the London Marathon, so here's the link.

http://uk.virginmone...61&isTeam=false

Feel free to mention The Fridays on the page.

And here's a picture of Fred and Alfie getting very excited about our impending arrival..

 

[Aperitif]

Maybe the Tully squad should buy a mobile catering unit and follow us around the South, for half-time (and possibly sundry other events). If they can blag a vehicle suitable, why, there could be the odd patio heater to keep people warm, and profits would got to a good cause. We could eat & drink 'Alf Fredsco'

Well done all of them and I'll wander over to the page ... Of course, they will be wearing a 'Fridays' jersey to run the London marathon bien sur. ?

 

[TimO]

That was a fine ride, a little nippy in places, but I've cycled in far colder conditions (although generally not for as long).

Somewhere I've got a GPX track of the route, and a few photos taken at Look Mum No Hands where we had the post ride rehydration session (primarily because TheClaud was meeting up with her Mum). I'll post both of those later on. As usual I managed to neglect taking any photos on the actual ride.

I think the mechanicals for the ride were quite low, I was there for one fairy visit and some spoke issues, and I know the Halls were around for at least another fairy and another spoke problem (two lots of spoke problems on one ride is rather unusual), but that may have been it, and if so that was nothing for a ride with probably almost 100 people on it.

The route was fun. Less flat than the older route, but considerably more attractive, even if I missed out on Bungalow spotting. The few hills weren't the most challenging ever, so I don't think that route would be too off-putting to a newcomer, but it was probably more effort overall than Bread and Cheese Hill would have been.

As ever thanks to everyone for making the ride so enjoyable, and for a few smiles in the face of some chillyness. The friendly smiles at the halfway stop were also very welcome, and I''ll be making a stop at their JustGiving pages later on. The main thanks as ever goes to Simon, who all does a quite spectacular amount of work in organising the ride so well, and so meticulously.

I did manage to get back to the station eventually, but I'm pretty sure my GPS track will show I did a big loop, and crossed over my own path before getting there. I then jumped on a train, somewhat erratically, which fortuitously was going to East Croydon, but I had to check the GPS to be sure it was going in the right direction!

 

[CharlieB]

A great opening to the FNRttC season. Thank you one and all for the organisation and great company as ever.
A beatiful but icy sunrise in the Stock area
Did the lady wandering around in the night near Chadwell Heath realise she'd no shoes on?
It's all been said about the wonderful catering at both halfway and end locations, but thank you to Dellzeqq for instigating that.
Thank you to the person, whose name escapes me, for the advice regarding the less than perfectly reassembled brakes on the recently refurbished and rebuilt commuter bike I was using, which enabled me to refit them more efficiently this morning
Sorry especially to have missed the after-party later, but a combination of a heavy work week and a text from SWMBO alerting me to the recurrence of the two feline demons we have at home threatening to tear each other limb from limb meant a hurried return to sunny Chesham.

 

[TimO]

For amusement, this is a screen shot of my GPS track from Look Mum No Hands to London Bridge station. Look Mum No Hands is were the green flag is, and London Station is at the bottom right. I managed to go quite spectacularly wrong, and I'm not sure why I turned off of the route that would have just got me to the station!

 

[TimO]

Rolf Harris mode on/

Can you tell what it is yet?

/Rolf Harris mode

I'll have you know I was following directions given to me by one of the Mets finest, although he did forget to say "Don't randomly turn right for no good reason".

 

[User482]

Well, I can safely say that's the coldest bike ride I've ever done. But more than ample compensation was to be found in a glorious, life afirming sunrise, glinting off the frost-laden boughs as we meandered through the lanes of South Essex. Details after the finish are somewhat hazy - there seems to be a pattern emerging - but I recall celebrating theclaud's birthday by getting my lips around several slags... it seems as though I quit rather early compared to some. I was somewhat surprised they served me at all, given that I appeared to have 26 more gears on my bike than is considered fashionable.

Given that I don't know London very well, what better idea could there be than to buy a fixed-time train ticket, and try to find my way to Paddington when rather the worse for wear.

Sadly, I can't make the next two rides, but I hope to do Brighton and Cardiff-Swansea, before an enforced parenthood-hiatus. Maybe I'll be back in the Autumn.

Till next time...

 

[StuAff]

For amusement, this is a screen shot of my GPS track from Look Mum No Hands to London Bridge station. Look Mum No Hands is were the green flag is, and London Station is at the bottom right. I managed to go quite spectacularly wrong, and I'm not sure why I turned off of the route that would have just got me to the station!

I can beat that...here's how to take an extremely extended course from Kings Cross to Waterloo...

Garmin Connect

 

[Aperitif]

For amusement, this is a screen shot of my GPS track from Look Mum No Hands to London Bridge station. Look Mum No Hands is were the green flag is, and London Station is at the bottom right. I managed to go quite spectacularly wrong, and I'm not sure why I turned off of the route that would have just got me to the station!

I think you probs. need a beer, Tim!
I have just finished replacing two dead spokes. A perfect job, and I was just refitting my M+ on the wheel and positioning the 'beads in the middle to allow for 'tolerance' etc - and I ended up with three holes in my tube FFS.
Luckily, a whole bottle of Chardonnay was to hand, along with Cassis, so I was able to effect a decent repair It was a Kir hardy that saved the day.
Now I'm ready to do some photos on here...

BTW Tim, you don't plot the spaceship's routes to Mars and Pluto etc do you? Should we expect one to land in Bognor about 09:13 one Saturday morning?

 

[TimO]

The images I took at Look Mum No Hands, after the ride, are now up and thumbnailed.

Unfortunately, about half the images are low-res, since I leave one camera mode in 640×480 mode, so I can do live uploading with an Eye-Fi card and my camera, but I wasn't doing that yesterday, and I forgot that I'd set the camera to that mode!