FNRttC Friday Night Ride to the Coast Brighton July 15th 2011

[ceepeebee]

Bailed at lindfield and still beating myself up about it a bit, but my legs had a serious case of anti-Jens and just wouldn't shut up. Suppose it was a case of 5 weeks of newborn affected sleep catching up with me, shame as i felt pretty fresh at the start.

Weather up to that point was nowt to complain about too much, feet were a bit squelchy but it was all manageable til I started to feel it a bit on the train. Text updates let me know I probably made the right decision for my knackered legs.

Scout hut was great, friendly locals, great cake, all round a very welcome opposite to planet sweet in may.
Thanks to all for making it a good ride, I'm off to put in some more miles to get ready for august (I did make myself climb central hill as penance for bailing...)

 

[ceepeebee]

And bamboo bikes!

 

[zigzag]

ride to brighton was excellent, but riding back to london - not so. various body parts including face have hit the tarmac on a slippery roundabout near crawley and it was a slow and painful ride home from there. luckily, bones and teeth intact.

no dunrun for me tonight i'm afraid..

 

[Aperitif]

Yes cp, one of those bikes was cane, not able. The drop out had deformed allowing the rear wheel to run eccentrically (like the owners! ) - no wonder all the faffing in the world a third of the way up DB couldn't put humpty the brake together again!
A mild technical evening, given the propensity for stuff to stick to tyres.
As for the post ride imbibery... 'I made an excuse and left', as hommage to the News of the Screws, which kept my Dad occupied in the upstairs WC every Sunday morning for aeons.
Thanks for the coffee at Brighton, Clive... if only it had been sunny eh?
I'm going to do something reckless now, and doze.
That's the wettest Brighton since the Preston Park ride of a couple of years ago.

 

[Aperitif]

ride to brighton was excellent, but riding back to london - not so. various body parts including face have hit the tarmac on a slippery roundabout near crawley and it was a slow and painful ride home from there. luckily, bones and teeth intact.

no dunrun for me tonight i'm afraid..

Damn, Rimas - I hope your confidence is not too damaged. I know exactly how you are feeling, unfortunately.
Hope you have a restful night... don't beat yourself up either, these things happen.

 

[Aperitif]

Thanks Simon. More of a endurance test than a genteel ride, which I found challenging and enjoyable. Top marks for the Scout Hut stop!

And happy birthday for today, too my friend! Good health.

 

[StuAff]

NUTS

Him and me, and assorted others....

Sorry you missed it Andy & Evey, shame about your tyre Martin T.....

 

[StuAff]

ride to brighton was excellent, but riding back to london - not so. various body parts including face have hit the tarmac on a slippery roundabout near crawley and it was a slow and painful ride home from there. luckily, bones and teeth intact.

no dunrun for me tonight i'm afraid..

Aargh....get well soon.

 

[_aD]

ride to brighton was excellent, but riding back to london - not so. various body parts including face have hit the tarmac on a slippery roundabout near crawley and it was a slow and painful ride home from there. luckily, bones and teeth intact.

Argh sorry to hear that! After doing that hellrun from the Beacon intact you would have thought you can get anywhere in one piece!

Right know I'm looking out to beautiful blue skies with a few languid clouds floating around in East Hants. Damn you weather!

 

[User10571]

Hello peeps.

Back in the land of the (almost) living, following nearly five hours of sawing logs.

That was quite a ride, that was. Thank you, Simon.

From our stately progress through the suburbs,
turning distinctly damp (but not in a really horrible way - you understand) as we broached the provinces,
to the scout hut refreshments (100% success, cranked up to 110% success thanks to Mice Logistics - that worked very, very well),
to the sublime descent from Turners Hill to Lindfield in pretty good (by the standards of the night) conditions,
to Hatler's caffeine injection at the broken greenhouses (thank you),
to my (frankly) surreal solo descent from The Beacon into Brighton - I can't remember that last time I encountered so much high velocity, horizontal mizzle on a ride. Extraordinary.
Thanks Ian (sp?) for your company on the latter parts of that.
Apologies to all of those to whom I failed to say g'bye - I was on a train-catching mission.
Rimas - I'm gutted for you - prior to this ride I had feelings of 'I hope nothing happens on this ride that might screw up the next one' - as you do - I'm pleased it wasn't anything more serious.


That was quite a ride, that was. Thank you, Simon.

Now, do I give the bike a quick clean before the next one?

 

[StuAff]

That was one hell of a night/morning (btw, four and a bit hours kip here, prior to tonight's lunacy...). Weather was, er, interesting- if it had stayed 'mildly moist' then it would have been pleasant all the way. Overall, though, it seemed to me almost as wet as the legendary/notorious November 2009 run. Currently attempting to dry out the Shimano boots (I had pools of water in each foot, as those I had brekfast with will testify!!). They kept my feet dry most of the time, but the big holes in the top are an unfortunate design flaw as far as waterproofing goes! The horizontal drizzle made the run down to brekkie somewhat interesting...
Ditto on not saying farewell to those I missed, train home and the land of Nod ASAP was the order of the day.

Many thanks to all fellow wayfinders & TECs (despite the weather, that ran pretty smoothly IMHO), the truly magnificent catering team at the scout hut (cake was splendid), Hatler and smaller Hatler for the coffee, hit the spot nicely.. and (sorry, didn't catch your name) tandemist for the flapjack at the beacon. Which undoubtedly helped my reasonably speedy ascent of said obstacle....

Speaking of which, WELL DONE SUSIE!!! for making it up there for the first time without resorting to walking. That needed capital letters I think. And absolutely lovely to see Miranda (Mice) and Andrew (beatleandrew) riding and in such fine form.

Thanks everyone, see you for Bognor. Unless you're on the DD....

Right, now for another night out....

 

[martint235]

ride to brighton was excellent, but riding back to london - not so. various body parts including face have hit the tarmac on a slippery roundabout near crawley and it was a slow and painful ride home from there. luckily, bones and teeth intact.

no dunrun for me tonight i'm afraid..

Hey Rimas, sorry to hear that. Take it easy mate and see you soon

 

[redfalo]

So the February ride was re-scheduled to July, this year. I'm really glad that I didn't miss it and that I talked Katharina in doing her first night ride on this occasion.

I advised her to take some warm clothes with her but foolishly forgot to do the same. Clever as I was I didn't care to put on my waterproof jacket in the big shower after the break and carried on in my softshell. The wind chill was horrendous (it felt likt 6 degrees rather than 16) and I was soon completely clapped out and - something that had never happend to me on previous rides - got incredibly tired. Amazingly, Katharina on her first FNRttC was way more abject than I on my 10th.

Nevertheless, we bowed out at Haywards Heath (my suggestion, and a first, for me). Jointly with Chris, we cycled to the station and were happy enough to be on the platform in the same second as the train to London. At home, we were completely knackered and slept until 2pm.

Amazingly, Katharina pretends that she enjoyed the whole endeavor.

Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to seeing you guys next Thurday, hopefully in a better shape and more properly equipped....

 

[frank9755]

ride to brighton was excellent, but riding back to london - not so. various body parts including face have hit the tarmac on a slippery roundabout near crawley and it was a slow and painful ride home from there. luckily, bones and teeth intact.

no dunrun for me tonight i'm afraid..

Rimas didn't mention that the reason that he came off is that he braked instinctively on the roundabout when he saw me come off in front of him!

We had had a very good run back on a some quiet and pretty but wet lanes until we came to a roundabout at Pease Pottage. I went into it first, saw a bad patch of surface on the line that I wanted to take, changed course, then saw another bad patch on my new line. The next thing I experienced was the falling sensation as I lost the both wheels in the loose gravel on the road. As the road was so wet, I skidded for about 10 metres on my hip - which was probably good as there was little friction. As soon as I stopped sliding I heard another bang, and saw that Rimas, in a remarkable act of solidarity, had done the same.

We picked ourselves and bikes up and looked for damage on both. We were lucky that both appeared relatively minor (and there were no cars following us round the roundabout), although we compared hips and we both had patches that looked a bit like something you might normally see in a butcher's shop. Rimas had a couple of other knocks with a cut on his nose and a sore knee.

I do time trials and so am very used to riding quickly around roundabouts, and doing it with thinner tyres with far higher pressures and less grip than I was using today. Given my speed and course, I did not expect to come off, so clearly the surface was defective but, given that I didn't know what to expect on the roundabout beforehand, I clearly went into it too fast - so my fault!

 

[arallsopp]

I'm not pointing the finger here, but it sure sounds like someone took a liking to the road surface. With the lead rider stuffing so much of the tarmac into his shorts like that, I'm not surprised poor Rimas fell.