The 2015 Night Ride thread

[Fab Foodie]

Last weekend of the Football League season.

Hooray!

 

[StuartG]

I'm afraid that, in three out of the last four seasons, Northampton Town have depended upon the results of the final Saturday in order to stay in the Football League. If, of course, it's all over by then I will (a) join the Flemish Night Ride ...

The only problem with the FNRttK is getting home. Of course if Northampton no longer has any reason to exist ...

BTW if you are as young as I think you are ... Belgian Railways do a 6 euro return to anywhere within their network. Sadly they will charge you more for the bike unless you bring the Brompton. Be warned Brugge cobblestones and Brook saddles are incompatible. I can still feel the pain.

 

[ianmac62]

The only problem with the FNRttK is getting home. Of course if Northampton no longer has any reason to exist ...

BTW if you are as young as I think you are ... Belgian Railways do a 6 euro return to anywhere within their network. Sadly they will charge you more for the bike unless you bring the Brompton. Be warned Brugge cobblestones and Brook saddles are incompatible. I can still feel the pain.

Thanks @StuartG - CTC Northampton visited Belgium early last year when I was a mere 64 and felt the pain of paying full-price! We thought, however, that the helpfulness of Belgian railway staff towards bikes more than made up for it.

Just spent a brilliant week on the Belgian coast with my wife. Both of us on Brommies. Take the coastal tram; get off and check wind direction; pedal along the coast with a tailwind; catch tram again.

Went to Antwerp for the day for the Benelux Brompton Championship - great fun!

 

[theclaud]

To take part in your wonderful, inspiring, fun-filled, magical, ethereal ride I would walk 100 miles barefoot over icecold gravel and stand in raw
sewage

Just to complete the picture, mainly for @User's benefit... would this be with or without budgie-smugglers?

 

[redfalo]

[edit]
Register of rides....
(nothing guaranteed yet)

1st May - @Trickedem - London to Whitstable
2nd May - @swarm_catcher - Brussels to De Panne.
15th May - @StuAff - Round the Isle of Wight

Please contact the indicated user by PM if you want more details.

--------------------------------------------
The night-meister @dellzeqq is taking a break for at least some of next year, and a number of others are thinking of trying to fill in the gaps in the calendar. To avoid too much duplication, and clashes, this is your chance to declare your hands. I'll start.

I'm intending to do something from Central London to Oxford, via Buckinghamshire on roads which are much less hilly than the ones the Tour of Britain used. I've got an enthusiastic in-principle agreement from the local church to provide refreshments half-way, and @Fab Foodie is using his contacts to see if we can find somewhere good in Oxford for breakfast.

I've also had a couple of other ideas for non-coastal destinations, but so far nothing more than ideas that I think might have legs.

Anyone else? @AKA Bob @Flying Dodo @redfalo @theclaud

can you add March 6 - London to Brighton to the first post, run by me and hopefully @ianrauk

 

[ianrauk]

can you add March 6 - London to Brighton to the first post, run by me and hopefully @ianrauk

Yep, happy to help.

 

[dellzeqq]

ok. We're back from Spain. Which for reasons that I'll go in to at greater length elsewhere is most unlikely to be a Fridays ride - and, if it were, it would be in the third week of September not at the end of June.

So - my plan for 2015 is this - run one tour, and run one or maybe two night rides. The one night ride will be to Whitstable. I'd like to do that toward the end of June or the beginning of July - that is to say not too soon after the Normandy tour.

 

[dellzeqq]

sorry - I should have said. The Fridays will continue as an CTC affiliate. The money is in the bank. If people want to run a ride under the FNRttC title then that's do-able, but it will take work on their behalf.

 

[dellzeqq]

Behalf or part?

on my part and their behalf. Obvs.

(Jeez. I go away for a week, ride up mountains, come back to sea level and all of a sudden everyone's a critic.......)

 

[ianmac62]

NOBODY would criticise you, DZ!

 

[mmmmartin]

the Benelux Brompton Championship - great fun!
View attachment 57502

Er, um....
*checks his emails*
I was rather hoping for a more sedate tour of northern Spain. Is this the same @ianmac62 I'm going to Spain with or is there a different one?
I'd like to know, that's all......

 

[mmmmartin]

run one tour, and run one or maybe two night rides. The one night ride will be to Whitstable.

Delighted to help in any way I can.

 

[dellzeqq]

I made the same assumption I think - that you were saying other people will have to take on a fair bit of the (admin) work. Which is in no way a bad thing, surely?

it's a little bit more complicated than that. The rides leaders have to be named as officers. The ride has to be on a website. The ride has to be recce'd and risk-assessed - and that includes things like making sure the length of the ride and the refreshment stops are suited to those taking part. There has to be a central record of those taking part - and that has to be formatted in a consistent way so that the data can be found if there's some kind of question after. So, yes, I did mean 'on behalf'.

Now......Olaf and Ian taking a ride to Brighton on a well-established route is easy-peasy. They know the roads and they know what needs to be done to make sure the ride is safe. But Oxford to London - that's going to take some thought. Reading to Northampton - ditto. I'm not saying it can't be done, but I'd want to see a plan, and I'd want time to assess that plan - if, as I say, it's going to be a Fridays ride.

 

[dellzeqq]

Which all sounds like a lot of ongoing work for a person on a sabbatical, hence my question.

less work that answering a bunch of dopey e-mails from people who cancel at the last moment ('will I make it?' - to which I answer - and this is the best I can come up with - 'if you can answer no to two out of these three questions - are you over 65, two stone overweight and riding a bike that weighs more than 13kg you will be ok'). And a whole lot less worrying about the weather, about asking the same people time and time again to waymark junctions because you just know the young man riding six inches behind your back wheel is going to stick it out for ten minutes and then go off after his mates, and the woman who is always there to offer help (thankyou Miranda) should not really be doing solo waymarking at dodgy junctions in east London. Not giving a monkeys about the next letter of complaint about the lack of toilets en route. Telling 100 farking idiots (of whom 99 will never turn up) that there isn't a Garmin track of the route because I change my mind as we go along. Trust me, Adrian, this is going to be a year off.

 

[ianrauk]

Not giving a monkeys about the next letter of complaint about the lack of toilets en route.

FFS