FNRttC Friday Night Ride to the Coast - Whitstable 5th October

[Mice]

Mice - did you two hit that, frankly F***ing huge expanse of standing water in Woolwich? I ploughed through it (riding in front of a stream of boy racers was the alternative) and ended up so wet that I may have been laughing somewhat hysterically as I ploughed on to Greenwich...

Im afraid I saw more water spread across the rode than I have seen in a long time. There were several which forced a decision "ride through it" or be taken out by the bus behind who doesnt necessarily know you are there" Awful. If the one you are talking about is the one that came across the whole left hand lane of a dual carriageway - yes! I didnt quite go for the racing stance like you did - Im not that brave! Well done for getting home on your own - it cant have been much fun.

Mice

 

[Mice]

Mice, you did the best you could under the circumstances. At least you have an idea of wardrobe suggestions for another time and your jacket was up to the job so that's a plus. I now need to add waterproof gloves to my shopping list and, possibly, a pair of Stuart's Goretex oversox.

Thank you that's very kind. And you are right - definite wardrobe quality testing took place! I think my gloves are waterproof until you have to take them off - my feet however were yuk and I am looking into the oversox you mention. Warm feet - wouldnt that be lovely?!

Mice

 

[wanda2010]

In my short cycling life/passion/joy, I've discovered you can have warm feet in dry and cold weather or warm'ish and wet feet in wet weather. Warm and dry feet in wet weather doesn't appear to be possible, but maybe somebody knows differently?

 

[redfalo]

These kind of rides really flag the limits of human engineering. After less then two hours, for instance, I had wet feet despite wearing Gore Tex socks AND Gore Tex overshoes (at least my feet stayed reasonably warm...) My Garmin (60 Cs) also bit the dust. Fingers crossed it will come back to normal life.
My lowest point was when this drunken twat in Erith (?) knocked Eddie off his bike. My heart really sank when I heard him hitting the road. Fortunately, apparently without any serous consequences. Highest point was when the waitress at Whitstable laughed her pants off because everyone paid with damp pound notes.
I also learned that it always pays to carry some fabric tape which was very useful to fix a weird bulge in the rim tape of DZ's front wheel. Afterwards, when we were chasing down the rest of the group and I was slipstreaming DZ, I found out that the is completely and utterly wrong on mudguards.
Thanks for that epic ride to everyone.

 

[kimble]

In my short cycling life/passion/joy, I've discovered you can have warm feet in dry and cold weather or warm'ish and wet feet in wet weather. Warm and dry feet in wet weather doesn't appear to be possible, but maybe somebody knows differently?

Recumbent: Sealskinz or particularly effective overshoes will work fine for a few hours when the water is tending to drain out of them. Beyond that, you're going to need a fairing. And three wheels, so you can choose when to put your foot down. Not that fairings solve everything - they have a lovely habit of accumulating water and depositing it in your face when you hit a bump. And then there are other murky wet-weather recumbent issues like seat drainage that you saddle-sore types can count yourself lucky not to have to worry about

Looks like I made the right decision to chicken out of this ride. Given what I know of how well my kit works in those conditions, I'd have bailed miserably at Rochester. While I've no qualms about carrying an Ortlieb full of dry clothes and a towel, I only really have one set of proper foul weather cycling kit. And that's before factoring in the unknown of how grotty that flu jab was going to make me (enough to make a night ride non-sensible, it turns out).

I went for a couple of hours of pootling in the chillier-than-it-looked sunshine this afternoon. That'll do.

 

[User10571]

Ed made a comment to me, roundabout Graveney Church.
I had to remove teh KLF which was being piped from my iPod to hear him.
I think what he said was "You are welcome, User10571".
Other than thanking him, they were the only words he and I exchanged last night.

I am saddened to hear that he (or anyone) encountered earlier grief

 

[Dogtrousers]

That was my fourth FNRttC, and second Whitstable.

There's no denying that the ride out to Strood was nasty, and I was regretting my decision not to stay at home. But if you're going to have foul weather you may as well have it in Erith and Dartford, on which a nice night would be wasted. I was OK as long as we were going along, but once the engine was switched off - at puncture stops and so on - I was shivering convulsively, and it was hard to get going again. That's my own fault for not wearing enough layers. In those conditions cold feet and hands are pretty much par for the course, but I was dry inside my cheapo Decathlon rain jacket but still very cold.

After Strood, where I tried to make up for the shortfall in numbers by eating as much of the delicious fruit cake as possible, things just got better for me. There was a gradual change from enduring to experiencing then enjoying the ride. The view down to the lights on the estuary through the rain haze, the cloud formations as the storm broke up, the tweety birdies waking up, a nice avenue of poplars somewhere. Egg and chips. The ride finished on a high for me.

Huge waves of tiredness and sodden feet put paid to my plans for a morning ride to Maidstone or Canterbury even though the weather was fine, and the trains back were problem free.

Thanks all.

Andrew

 

[StuAff]

Kim, I reckon you'd have got very wet indeed. Some of the flooding we rode through was deep enough to soak anyone on a 'bent.

In a sense, this ride summed up my week's leave- a bit of a washout. OK, a lot of a washout. I had hopes of getting three or four hundred miles in, perhaps making this one into my first 200 miler. The weather well and truly put paid to that. Thursday was great, and I finally managed to get a decent ride in- 106 miles to Bournemouth and back. Friday was back to 'normal' for the week- pretty good to start with, did a few miles on errands- then at three the heavens opened. The biblical power shower seemed to be on pretty much all night...

Not surprisingly, I decided not to ride up and got the train into (oh, how apt for tonight) Waterloo. As I had free pick of the services for once, I went for an earlier and faster one than usual, and it arrived just before 10. A quick stop to buy food, and then over to Victoria, where I met up with Amy, Claud, and the rest of the pre-meet-up meet-up, before over to HPC with Simon. In view of our depleted numbers, and in the absence of the shy & retiring Mr Walnuts, I was appointed All-up man, along with Eddie, Graham and (at first) Long Martin at the back. As the rather miserable weather conditions clearly weren't going to improve, the numbers rapidly depleted further. Martin decided to head off for home when he reached the ideal point to make that choice, and Georgios and Miranda headed west too. Chris, having helpfully had his puncture within handy reach of a nice dry flyover, decided to follow suit.

My own levels of dampness (definitely not dry!) were OK. The DHB rain jacket is excellent, though not up to monsoon conditions it certainly has a good go, and the jersey was moist rather than sodden. The Aldi rain trousers were even better- my bib tights stayed dry, and though the Shimano MW80s again did sterling work, there was a small amount of water in them by halfway. They and the Sealskinz socks kept my feet dry though. The weak link, by a mile, was the Northwave gloves. Brilliant for cold, fine for shorter rides in the wet, but absolutely hopeless last night. Luckily it wasn't too cold, but certainly not comfortable. And most definitely glad I went for the bike with mudguards and disc brakes (I can only apologise for the noise, they're not usually that bad!). Utterly, and thankfully, surefooted in the conditions.

Thankfully, the mechanical situation wasn't too bad, Simon's multiple tube failures apart. I can only agree with Graham and Olaf about those idiots in Erith. I was nearly brought down by one, and Eddie's injuries could have been much worse. Just because of a dangerous prank..On we trudged? plodded? floated? to Strood, and another excellent spread from Mrs D and friends. Sorry there weren't more of us to do it justice. I could only manage the five bits of cake and two rolls, all top notch. Bread pudding up there with Mark of the Cabin Cafe! There was another parting of the ways as some more decided to head for Strood station. I could have joined them (trains from Strood go into Waterloo East, so no bother making a connection), but I wasn't tempted. Or too stubborn. Probably both. As a veteran of two of the other candidates for 'hardest FNRttC ever' (October '09 & March '10 Brighton runs), and someone whose favourite LonJOG day was the one that featured, er, torrential rain....those kind of conditions don't bother me that much.

On we rode, the weather forecasts being now proved wrong, sadly...still raining! It eventually stopped about seven, by which time the ride was firmly a case of getting there ASAP. Neither the weather nor us were really up to achieving that- the last stretch into Seasalter, so often a sprint for me and others, felt more like a slog. And the Garmin decided to throw a strop- it logged the ride, but the data is now unrecoverable (boo!), touch wood it'll behave itself after drying out. And, sod's law, at the Waterfront- I made it at five to nine (!!!)- we were greeted by sunshine. And as ever, great service from the team. One large breakfast and much nattering (along with consumption of various beers for those inclined) later, we headed home. Back about four.
Thanks one and all, and well done we happy (I hope), sodden (certainly) few who made it!

 

[ceepeebee]

Im afraid I saw more water spread across the rode than I have seen in a long time. There were several which forced a decision "ride through it" or be taken out by the bus behind who doesnt necessarily know you are there" Awful. If the one you are talking about is the one that came across the whole left hand lane of a dual carriageway - yes! I didnt quite go for the racing stance like you did - Im not that brave! Well done for getting home on your own - it cant have been much fun.

Mice

That's the feller, the grate was backed up from what I could make out. crazy scenes. By the time I saw you I'd got so focussed on getting home that I just ploughed through everything.

 

[ceepeebee]

Oh and you guys with sodden electrics - if it's not too late get them in a plastic bag filled with dry rice and leave somewhere for a while, With a bit of luck it should draw out the water. It's worked for me before.

 

[slowmotion]

TAKE
OUT
THE
BATTERIES

 

[kimble]

Kim, I reckon you'd have got very wet indeed. Some of the flooding we rode through was deep enough to soak anyone on a 'bent.

You'd be surprised. Due to being above rather than behind the front wheel, the Streetmachine is pretty non-soaky to ride through puddles on, and the sort of thing that would fill your shoes on an upright isn't really a problem (my feet get soaked by riding behind mudguard refusniks, instead). I value my dynamo hub, though, so don't deliberately ride it through anything deeper than a couple of inches.

The ICE Sprint, on the other hand, puts your arse all of about 6 inches off the ground, and the mesh seat is delightfully porous. Plus even really well-adjusted mudguards aren't perfect, and your arms get the spray off the front wheels. Not a machine to ride in torrential rain, unless it's warm and your sense of humour's intact, which it's only going to be for an hour or so, or until you hit a stealth pothole and suffer a left wheel blowout - whichever happens first.

The bulk of the soaking on a 'bent comes directly from the rain, not least the stuff that works its way up under your jacket and past your wrists from the front. Pools of water inside the elbows of your jacket are an occupational hazard - always extend your arm downwards before wiping your nose!

All things being equal, I prefer an upwrong in apocalyptic rain. At least the waterproofs work as intended. Though the increased risk of skiddy death is much scarier.

 

[kimble]

Oh and you guys with sodden electrics - if it's not too late get them in a plastic bag filled with dry rice and leave somewhere for a while, With a bit of luck it should draw out the water. It's worked for me before.

I gave my light a bath in isopropyl alcohol after it drowned on the Morecambe ride and developed a flashing mode it isn't supposed to have. The effect was instant.

And yes, disconnect the batteries ASAP. Both to reboot the confused electronics and, more importantly, to prevent electrolytic corrosion.

 

[Aperitif]

Sounds like a good ride - I sense satisfaction radiating from all of you who lasted the distance, in fact everyone who had a crack at conmquering the rain. I was trudging through London late on Friday, aiming for a tube station, and didn't once think I would be missing something. London's ExCel was bathed in sunshine today, and I was hoping you would all be doing a beer on the balcony at Whitstable...but never mind - it's only beer.
Well done.

 

[dellzeqq]

Good effort guys and gals.
How many made it to Whitstable?

23