StuAff
Silencing his legs regularly
- Location
- Portsmouth
Front of ride arrived Wetherspooms 8am. SMRbtH mob now en route, I'm on a train west. Ride was somewhat blowy, but good fun.
London to Brighton night ride, March 6th
- Thread starter redfalo
- Start date
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clivedb
Guru
- Location
- Milton Keynes
I was wondering too!
jiberjaber
Veteran
- Location
- Essex
Great first night ride, really annoyed my Garmin fubarred the data from Clapham through to Horely so no max speed down Reigate Hill 
Quite a few pics on my phone of people topping over the Beacon which I'll post up later 
Thanks guys
Quite a few pics on my phone of people topping over the Beacon which I'll post up later Thanks guys
And the back of the ride ... ?
slowmotion
Quite dreadful
- Location
- lost somewhere
Jane, who was on her first FNRttC was having trouble on the hills. We thought she had bailed at Gatwick. We were delighted when she turned up at Wetherspoons when the degenerates were on their second pint. She said she had gritted her teeth and pressed on to the finish. Chapeau! We celebrated with more beer.
Celebrity (non) spotting moment. At HPC there was some sort of do in progress which meant the ginormous gates in the middle of the arch were closed and the whole edifice was bathed in a blue light. It is told that a certain Mr Beckham was being filmed for an ad to promote his whisky. (Does that sound ridiculous enough ?)
Well I enjoyed that. Rode up to town and met with @ianrauk on the way. Colder than expected and much windier but great fun nonetheless. Witnessed some big armed Police operation on Clapham Common as well as a major domestic involving people with dogs. This made things more interesting. I dispensed cakes and sweets at regular intervals, which went down well. And as always I took a few pics.
Attachments
AKA Bob
Riding a folding bike far too much of the time...
- Location
- Reading upon Thames
She passed the SMRBH as they headed up to Devils Dyke.
slowmotion
Quite dreadful
- Location
- lost somewhere
Verification of a heroic deed!
U
User10571
Guest
Surely we're getting into 'dog's seen the rabbit', 'won't let it go' territory here?
Chapeau Jane!
Nice to see the hardcore set in Weatherspoons - I confess to having skunked it down on the train with the brommie for breakfast.
The other part of my southbound mission, a visit to The Brighton Sausage Company, proved to be something of a disappointment.
If, on your website, under 'Products', you list 'Pork, lemon & ginger', then the expectation is, surely, that these are available. As opposed to 'We make fifty different types of sausages here. We can't be expected to have all of them available at any one time'.
A note, on your website, to that effect, would've been most useful.
That excuse is on the verge of 'Dog ate my homework'.
I came away with pork & leek.
Widely available. Most places.
Now, back to the overnight ride.....
Chapeau Jane!
Nice to see the hardcore set in Weatherspoons - I confess to having skunked it down on the train with the brommie for breakfast.
The other part of my southbound mission, a visit to The Brighton Sausage Company, proved to be something of a disappointment.
If, on your website, under 'Products', you list 'Pork, lemon & ginger', then the expectation is, surely, that these are available. As opposed to 'We make fifty different types of sausages here. We can't be expected to have all of them available at any one time'.
A note, on your website, to that effect, would've been most useful.
That excuse is on the verge of 'Dog ate my homework'.
I came away with pork & leek.
Widely available. Most places.
Now, back to the overnight ride.....
Fab Foodie
hanging-on in quiet desperation ...
- Location
- Kirton, Devon.
Well my plan for an EPIC RIDE were to become err .... epic ....
Plan: Ride from Abingdon to That London, eat, Ride to Brighton, eat + Beer, ride back either to London OR Abingdon. Aim to stick 300k/200 miles on the clock or thereabouts.
All started well, leaving Abingdon at 1530 in bright warm sunshine, routing via Chinnor Hill. The Sun went down descending Bledlow ridge into High Wycombe and I cooled notably. Then Beaconsfield, Chalfonts Ruislip and the Ealing Acton Notting Hill. Arrived Victoria at 2130, still cold despite the warmer city environs, had an XL Whopper and fries and a mug of tea.
Met the rest of the team and felt good heading down the road. Finally met User482 and Hatler after many years which was indeed a pleasure as well as many other fine boys and girls ... and Slowmotion.
P*nctured just short of Gatwick, a tiddly flint well embedded (must pack small Swiss Army Knife) which took several of us to finally extracate. Then followed some CO2 faffage and thanks to Hatler, Simon and others got back on the road to Gatwick (must invest in CO2 technology).
I have to say I never really got my rhythm back after Gatwick, maybe it was the BLT, the longer stop I don't know, but I found myself continually in the guards van rather than the vanguard. Bloody wind after Ditchling robbed us somewhat of a glorious descent.
Wetherspoons was good, brekkie fab, had a quick-ish beer with SloMo, Trickdem, User482 and decided to make a move back for Abingdon via Olaf's 200k route to Maidenhead and then cut-across to Henley and home. It was 10am, I got half a mile from the pub when my chainset locked-up suddenly. The front deralier looked like it was trying to carve the side-link away (which had broken), and jammed and distorted the derailleur. I split out the damaged link and rejoined with a quick link to see if I could get it going. But the derailleur was sufficiently out of whack that without an hours roadside repair I'd only be able to hobble along on a selectopn of Granny and middle ring gears. I could splice in more links to improve the situation but the truth is that if it failed again in the middle of nowhere I'd be bu99ered. The BB bearings were well and truly dying too.
So I coasted back down the hill to find User482 and Slowmotion fortunately still engaged in beerage along with Jane and companion (apols for forgetting your name kind Sir). Jane's courage and determination was frankly amazing over a lumpy route in cold conditions.
Eventually we trained it back to Victoria.
When I loaded my bike carefully into the coach and went to gather my bag and bottle off the floor I noticed some other Bus Co employee trying to ram an open baby buggy on top of my precious at which point I told him to desist in a firm manner. When I got into Oxford and off-loaded the bike I noticed large gouges in the TT paint. I have a claim process to start tomorrow ....
So the lows were the bike damage, the p*ncture, not achieving my goal and having to drink more beer than planned.
The upsides were, the Police Squad operation at Clapham South, the Screaming Dog man of old Coulsdon town, the bonhomie, new friends, 226km (141 miles) lumpy miles, and drinking more beer than planned
Photos to follow ....
Plan: Ride from Abingdon to That London, eat, Ride to Brighton, eat + Beer, ride back either to London OR Abingdon. Aim to stick 300k/200 miles on the clock or thereabouts.
All started well, leaving Abingdon at 1530 in bright warm sunshine, routing via Chinnor Hill. The Sun went down descending Bledlow ridge into High Wycombe and I cooled notably. Then Beaconsfield, Chalfonts Ruislip and the Ealing Acton Notting Hill. Arrived Victoria at 2130, still cold despite the warmer city environs, had an XL Whopper and fries and a mug of tea.
Met the rest of the team and felt good heading down the road. Finally met User482 and Hatler after many years which was indeed a pleasure as well as many other fine boys and girls ... and Slowmotion.
P*nctured just short of Gatwick, a tiddly flint well embedded (must pack small Swiss Army Knife) which took several of us to finally extracate. Then followed some CO2 faffage and thanks to Hatler, Simon and others got back on the road to Gatwick (must invest in CO2 technology).
I have to say I never really got my rhythm back after Gatwick, maybe it was the BLT, the longer stop I don't know, but I found myself continually in the guards van rather than the vanguard. Bloody wind after Ditchling robbed us somewhat of a glorious descent.
Wetherspoons was good, brekkie fab, had a quick-ish beer with SloMo, Trickdem, User482 and decided to make a move back for Abingdon via Olaf's 200k route to Maidenhead and then cut-across to Henley and home. It was 10am, I got half a mile from the pub when my chainset locked-up suddenly. The front deralier looked like it was trying to carve the side-link away (which had broken), and jammed and distorted the derailleur. I split out the damaged link and rejoined with a quick link to see if I could get it going. But the derailleur was sufficiently out of whack that without an hours roadside repair I'd only be able to hobble along on a selectopn of Granny and middle ring gears. I could splice in more links to improve the situation but the truth is that if it failed again in the middle of nowhere I'd be bu99ered. The BB bearings were well and truly dying too.
So I coasted back down the hill to find User482 and Slowmotion fortunately still engaged in beerage along with Jane and companion (apols for forgetting your name kind Sir). Jane's courage and determination was frankly amazing over a lumpy route in cold conditions.
Eventually we trained it back to Victoria.
When I loaded my bike carefully into the coach and went to gather my bag and bottle off the floor I noticed some other Bus Co employee trying to ram an open baby buggy on top of my precious at which point I told him to desist in a firm manner. When I got into Oxford and off-loaded the bike I noticed large gouges in the TT paint. I have a claim process to start tomorrow ....
So the lows were the bike damage, the p*ncture, not achieving my goal and having to drink more beer than planned.
The upsides were, the Police Squad operation at Clapham South, the Screaming Dog man of old Coulsdon town, the bonhomie, new friends, 226km (141 miles) lumpy miles, and drinking more beer than planned
Photos to follow ....
Fab Foodie
hanging-on in quiet desperation ...
- Location
- Kirton, Devon.
Fab Foodie
hanging-on in quiet desperation ...
- Location
- Kirton, Devon.
THREE CHEERS TO OLAF FOR ORGANISING A GREAT NIGHT OUT. :-)
