FNRttC FNRttC 2nd October to Southend-on-Sea 2009

[StuAff]

Don't forget, it only starts to get light at 6.30 am now, so if you're battery powered, make sure you've got enough batteries to last.

+1. My front Cateye should have enough juice for the night, I have the Hope (fully charged batteries) for darkest sections/reserve, two rear blinkies, plus a spare set of AAs.
Just getting ready, train to Waterloo is half-nine...

 

[The Jogger]

I regret to inform the beloved fnrttc'ers, I shall now not be in attendence...

I have been offered a very rare ticket, of which I have been after for many a year to see the Old Firm Derby this weekend! That's the mighty Glasgow Rangers Vs Celtic for you non-football types! And I just canna pass on it! Sorry!

And yes, the game is on Sunday, but am travelling up about the same time your all be going up Bread n Cheese hill, I think it is, so I will be thinking of you all...!

I wish you all well, am sure this, yet again, will be an awesome trip!

Battered Haggis and Scotch pies here I come!

Hope you're not to disappointed with the score but I'm sure you will be

Good luck all and enjoy the ride, hope to be on the next one.......
Jogger

 

[Origamist]

I hope you all have a great ride. Wish I was joining you...

 

[TimO]

I've just got home, after a fairly horrible final 12 miles which seemed to be almost entirely against the wind, which appears to have swung around and become southerly.

The ride itself however, was as ever excellent, and my congratulations to the cat on arranging a tailwind to ensure that this was one of my easiest FNRttCs ever. I enjoyed myself immensely, and unusually spent almost the entire ride near the front, bar a brief period helping to deal with TheClaud's fairy visitation.

I chatted to various people, who I've either forgotten their names, or never remembered to ask (apologies in either case), but in all cases the conversations were interesting. Adrian left me scratching my head over something which I'm sure I'll be able to find a solution to, once I've rested a bit, and had a bit of a Google about.

There are a few pictures to follow, but the server I generally use is powered off this weekend for electrical safety testing. I may create an account on a free service, and temporarily use that to upload stuff.

 

[Tony]

And it was a good one. We proceeded through a minimal level of cabbie obnoxiousness, a serious level of almost comatosely drunk pedestrians, and the odd shout of abuse from the chemically imbalanced. The night wasn't too cold, and we fairly shot out of London, certain chaps being a bit keen.
We arrived at J31 rather early, in fact, having proceeded without Visitations, and sat there longer than normal till User10571 arrived.Onwards and away from the light,as His Bandageness took us to visit Batatown and an architectural curiosity. We turned back on ourselves and then, at the darkest point of the journey, Claudine was attacked by the Faery plague. We stood in the dark counting stars....and then returned to our third level crossing, where a Luton van decided that the correct place to wait at the gates was on the wrong side of the road, facing the oncoming traffic (of which, surprisingly, there was a piece)
The wind was by now getting rather frisky, and there were mutterings of dicontent at the Hadleigh Castle viewpoint.
"Why are we stopping here?" (Suzie)
""What castle?" (various folk)
"Got better at home, int we?" (Her Welshness)
"Whoops" (Arallsop as I dismounted onto him and his 'bent)
"It's bloody freezing!!" (Almost everybody)

We set off for the sea wall, and on the long descent, with a blistering tailwind, we cheered on a lady with a red headband coming the other way, uphill, upwind. The run along the wall itself, over all those "no cycling" signs, was amazing. A long string of bikes, almost coasting with the wind's healthy assistance, and we were there.

The Rose did us proud again, tea was drunk, breakfasts eaten. Some folk had chips with theirs.....Southend Central was not running due to an Incident, Victoria's trains were not exactly bike-friendly, but who gave a monkey's? We got to Liverpool St, sprinted to London Bridge, and I was home by 1035.

Yes, some folk DID set off to ride back. Navigation was easy. Headwind all the way.....

 

[ttcycle]

Was welcomed warmly onto my first FNRttC by drunken louts shouting out c**nt and f******g along the ever friendly streets of Essex. Personally as the route passed along part of my daily commute it felt surreal to be traversing the same roads in the wee hours of the morning and at a sociable pace with the hypnotic blinking of around 60 bike lights.

Pointed left to direct the peleton at a poor attempt at a glamorous assistant just shy of Tower Bridge met TopCat here 1 or 2 I'm not sure but one of them has photos of wheeled weenie and myself - guys, do they really have to be published here?! Greeted by bemused zig zaggy onlookers at the sheer number of cyclists pootling along the streets in flashing unison with the almost ubiquitous fluorescent yellow jackets led by Dellzeqq, Him of the bandaged bretheren with architectural knowledge that can be matched by no other mortal.

It was a pleasant conversational pace which aided yells of hole, multiple holes, holes and potholes especially in the deepest darkest stretches of Essex. If it wasn't traversing along bumpy Essex roads, it was zipping surreally along A roads with national speed limits.

It was fantastic to put faces to names on here, chatted to a few people who's names I didn't ask. Met Redbike who got an earful of my protestations about the cold at various intervals when I saw him next to me, Chris who reassured me the 'hill' was only for five minutes - the hill still wasn't my friend but I struggled up it, sucking in air like I was dying on two wheels-hmm lactate thresholds and all that. WheeledWeenie and I chuckled at the 'fun' of London commuting. Gina was up the front with me like a constant companion. Sig, Auntie Helen and The Claud I met momentarily. 'Teef I saw you but didn't properly chat to you -probably fearful of more impending puns! Mike eeeee - finally nice to meet you though brief -on the 24th for sure. Had a very involved conversation with Stuart and User3143 at the service station about cycling and HGVs. Tony and I had a good chat about cycle touring in the cafe over full englishes and cups of milky tea- what a great place!! Who needs Gatwick when you have great cafes like The Rose! Ianrauk was surprised at my misnomer of tt, though we shared an obsession with bike computer times and PBs -however he and Allrallsop failed to convince me to take the cycle home route of the 'hardened cases'. Hope the compasses didn't fail too much on the way home for those eight brave souls *(read hardened 'nut' cases). William, Kate and Jo cycled up the road with me to get to the train where we met a few others. Caught a few forty winks on the train home.

My personal highlight was cycling along the stretch of pathway next to the southend Coast rolling over numerous no cycling signs painted onto the floor whilst watching the landscape of the sun rising to the eery and desolate boats sitting on the sand as the sea was out, revealing patches of dark wet sand. Coupled with the ghostly clanging of the boat masts and the cables attached to them at Leigh on sea there was an ephemeral quality to the final stages of the FNRttC.

Thanks guys for a great experience- you made it fantastic and Simon thanks for organising it all!

 

[StuAff]

Splendid night/morning that was. Well, apart from one of my bottles deciding to eject itself from its pouch on my rucksack & breaking, closely followed by another one (which survived...and went in the bag) which led me to become, inadvertently, the very, very TEC in Bow/Stratford. Managed to make my way to HPC from Waterloo in good time and without getting lost (11.35! woo!). Thoroughly enjoyed my first efforts at wayfinding (OK, particularly going back through the peloton at a rate of knots!). Route was excellent, apart from getting caught out in too high a gear on that nasty little climb at Fobbing and having to walk up- Bread & Cheese in comparison was fairly straightforward. And that last run into Southend was indeed a cracker, despite the crosswinds. The Viner took it all in its stride. Goes like stink, rides like a dream....even the cobbles weren't too bad!
As ever, the highlight of highlights was the company- Teef, Claud, Clive, Andy A....(lovely brownies/cakes, thank the wife!) et al. And Simon's illuminating talks on Essex architecture.....
Probably it for me for this year, but it's not that long to March.....

 

[ianrauk]

Just got home (1pm on the dot) after cycling back from Southend . The lovely Mrs Ianrauk thrusting a steaming hot cup of tea into both mine and Arallsops hand.

My first FNRttC and a most enjoyable one it was too. Always a pleasure to see some old friends and even nicer and a great pleasure to put names to some new faces/handles.
Few posts above have mentioned how nice it was to cycle through east London after pub closing time.. what a wonderful world we live in. The bottle of pee throwing was a highlight...

Cycling back... blimey that was hard work. Myself, Aperitif, Arallsop, Topcats 1&2, Lee10, Mike, Sig and Steve all braved the ever increasing headwind. At one point we had dust storms blowing over from some fields and am sure I am now cycling with a leaning gait. What a bunch of strange looking people in Grays (sorry if anyone reading is from Grays)...

Thanks for the cake from Mrs Arallsop, Thanks for the cake & sweets from Sig, Thanks for the chocs from Helen, Thanks for the sweets from Pippa...

115 miles for the day, absolute jolly fun indeed.
Thanks Simon, see you all again for another FNRttc..(well maybe..).

Right.. food... need food...

 

[Tony]

Was it Grays we had the shouting drunk who was carrying the kid's folding scooter?

 

[Aperitif]

Coooo eeeeeee! I'm back!

Tony; in Grays, the 'feature' (for it was that - no more) that Ian & I espied was a rather suntan coloured damsel sporting Davywalnutsize thighs , abundant tatouage (as did her chaperone, her Mum? Hers were faded - like her hair) scant clothing, and the most immense pair of legitimate shoes she could muster. They were architectural in their magnificence - twin Leaning Towers of Pissa

 

[Aperitif]

Anyway, it was nice to share with Clive & Adam, the official tech duties, but as ever, everyone who can wield a tyre level in anger is 'on call'!
The lady on the till at Junction 31 was a patent mysteroginist (that's similar to mysoginist)- as she tried to argue the toss about what denomination note ?I had given her. I knew - but she knew better. when the till was opened again, she realised her mistake and threw ten squid in my general direction.
A nice long, relaxed, chatty stop - we liked that.
Cut to the return, and the departure of Ian and Andy, to find the transport over the QE11 Bridge (this is where smartphones come into their own..) then Sig, headed home, where her husband had been toiling hard all morning - and then we were four.
Bear in mind that the headwind was fierce, and we were trying to drive on to Kings Cross by 13:45 - for mikee's scheduled train. Mark called it a day at his home in West Ham (well, someone has to live there... ) and that left mikee, topcat1 and self to 'drive onwards to Kings Cross.
Well. mikee - realising that his 'lead-out' train was going to be Thomas the Tank Engine & The Fat Controller, did the last few miles at his pace (F ing quick!) only to find his train had been cancelled and the next one was in 50 minutes.
I chose to wear a yellow top accompanied by black shorts - to offset the fact that Simon might not be able to do the whole ride (User10571 knew he was up to it though...) - at least the newbies would remember 'someone in a yellow top and black shorts'...
The only thing I couldn't attempt was to look like $h1t.(No smart comments here please!) Simon kept that all to himself and emulation would have been a waste. Get well soon Simon, and take it easy.
I said ta-ta to Dave at The Gherkin and made my way around City Road to Islington, Camden and home.
Total distance for today: 228kms - the wind buffeting me all the way along the Finchley Road to here and now. I was pushed to get above 22kph against that stuff.
Anyway, more snaps later - now I am tired...

 

[ianrauk]

most immense all over... I nearly fell of my bike at the sight..

Coooo eeeeeee! I'm back!

Tony; in Grays, the 'feature' (for it was that - no more) that Ian & I espied was a rather suntan coloured damsel sporting Davywalnutsize thighs , abundant tatouage (as did her chaperone, her Mum? Hers were faded - like her hair) scant clothing, and the most immense pair of legitimate shoes she could muster. They were architectural in their magnificence - twin Leaning Towers of Pissa

 

[ianrauk]

oh on another note. Topcat 2.... do you luv your bruv?

 

[StuartG]

My first FNRttC. Not the last I hope! A real thanks to all those who must have worked so hard to make it such an enjoyable and comfortable experience.

I took on that headwind to return. The last level crossing we used (near Vange?) was taped off with around a dozen police vehicles of all shapes and sizes. No idea how serious it was. I presume that explained the lack of trains from Southend Central.

My first attempt on Betty's Bridge was a success. A bit surprised at the no cycling sign on leaving the service station roundabout heading south on the signed cycleway to the bridge. As you pass it you can see a blue cycling sign just round the bend. It is then apparent the prohibition applies to the road, not cycleway but the traffic people obviously never checked the sightlines!

Somebody needs to drop a line to whoever looks after that cycleway -rambling brambles are threatening to engulf it. Riding over thorns is slightly unnerving.

Anyway I rather threw the towel in and took the train home from Dartford (oh the benefits of a Freedom Pass!)

Wonderful night, great people, strange machines ...

SG

 

[arallsopp]

Evey says 'I apologise for the crumbliness of the brownies. I was in a complete headspin and had to go to the shops three times for forgotten ingredients. I am embarrassed and will do better next time. Hope the sugar helped.'
Andy says 'nom-nom-nom-nom'!!!

Great riding with you all, as always.
Vid to follow.