FNRttC Friday Night Ride to the Coast to Felpham 26 July

[StuAff]

Would never have guessed you were a Giant fan
How about putting a pic of yourself and your bike on the GIANT thread HERE

That was one of the fiddliest of jobs us TEC's have had.
Did you true the wheel yourself or take it down to a bike shop?

Ah, would that be the gentleman on the Giant with the Giant wheels, in the Giant kit, then?

 

[srw]

Apropos a statistic I mentioned at some stage during rehydration:
The reason for careful planning and even more careful riding

 

[theclaud]

What a superb ride that was. It didn't rain and nobody died, what more could you want? Whatever it was, we got it.

A Boris Bike in the hallway?

 

[StuAff]

A Boris Bike in the hallway?
View attachment 26894

I am absolutely certain I would never wish for one.

 

[Mark Grant]

Others have waxed lyrical about the ride, and quite rightly so, but I would just like to add a something of my own.
A bit before the stop at Faygate I realised I'd lost my Tilley hat. At the time I was in a group at the front turning right at a T junction, I let the others go ahead as I checked more than once that it was in fact missing from the elasticated stowage on top of my saddle pack. I carried on alone in the dark somewhat pee'd off that I had lost it but also enjoying the quiet darkness. A light approached from the rear and passed me, it was @McWobble speeding by on a mission back to the front after waymarking. I momentarily thought of latching on but he was going at a fair lick and I was still in mourning for my hat!
A short while later another light approached from the rear and as it passed I recognised @User10571 so I sucked his back wheel and we traded places until the halfway stop. Once sat down with tea and sarnies I told User10571 that I'd lost my hat, a blue Tilley, 'It's in my bag' he said. Fortunately, he had seen it and picked it up.
Now it's only a hat but I can't really believe how chuffed I was to hear this, ( I had already planned to retrace the route in the car to look for it once home).
So, thanks User10571, I owe you a beer or a Pastrami on rye or something. .

 

[procel]

Was my 1st FNRttC - just great. (Except for the drunk pedestrian slapping my arse in Balham as I went past). Lovely route, with the exhilaration of Pebblehill Rd to the pretty villages of W Sussex in the morning. I think the last 20mi I had a big grin on my face. Most of all, the lovely lovely, friendly and welcoming people. Big thanks to the wayfinders, TECs and Simon.

 

[procel]

A lovely ride with lovely people on the loveliest of all conveyances. Thanks to the big cheeses, TECs and Waymarkers - I reckon they should get given jerseys so they get to skip the queue at the food stops! Even if it's so I end up with the smaller portion of bread puddings. Pretty sure those things weighed more than some of the bikes. Cracking grub at both stops and some of you may have noticed I didn't mysteriously disappear after we went past Horsham station.

aD: Hey look, the sky's getting brighter over there!
Philip (I think): I suppose sunrise is soon-ish.
Rob: I can tell you when that is, I've got an app for it.
aD: What do you mean "there's an app for that"? Just look at the bloody sky!

p.s. that was not "walking across a field and lifting the bike over a fence". Just sayin'

Totally.

And, yep, I do have some vague recollection of that conversation!

 

[Sproken Giant]

That was one of the fiddliest of jobs us TEC's have had.
Did you true the wheel yourself or take it down to a bike shop?

After being collected by the support team we decided to pop the bike in to the shop I purchased it from, the bike was serviced 13 days ago and I specifically stated the rear wheel had a squeak. Stating "please check the wheels" before a service isn't enough and its my fault for not checking the spokes before the ride.
Anyways after a little chat I left the bike and all is fixed, wheel is perfect and they even cleaned the bike for me.. Note; I now own a spoke key and will be learning the art of wheel building by dismantling the misses wheels and rebuilding . Note to self never ask a man how much his wheels cost, bad things happen after!!!

 

[ianrauk]

Being one of the regular tec's....I have missed out on the mighty bread pudding. That wasn't a happy time.
The time after that, Simon missed out so I offered him half of mine..of which he took.

But...there was plenty this time

And leaving the cafe last I managed to hoover up a couple of half eaten pieces left behind, the filthy scrounging individual that I am....

Leave the bread pudding the size as it is.. the campaign starts here....

 

[StuAff]

After the Welsh adventure of a fortnight ago, (ab)normal service resumed on Friday. No day off, so straight to the station after work. HPC start. Oh, and not riding 150-odd miles to get there...

All the Friday routes (well, apart from the ones I haven't done...) have bits I love (and yes, that even includes the almost-certainly-one-off that was Emsworth...). But Bognor, particularly when the grinding lump of boredom that is Bury Hill is not on the menu, is one of my particular favourites. And of course, as always, with some of my favourite people...

Thankfully, work was done and dusted just after nine, so no bother making the preferred train into Waterloo, which was also on time. Arch made in plenty of time for usual hellos, chinwagging, and birthday boy's safety talk, which included doom-laden possibilities on precipitation from the Norwegians of yr.no. Thankfully, they got it wrong for once. Also an unexpected but very welcome cameo appearance from @arallsopp, looking and sounding fully recovered from his recent encounter with an idiot motorist. Then, after a more hair-raising than usual (or so it seemed to me) exit from HPC, off we went. The Tooting variation was as pleasant as always, and our escape from the smoke seemed uneventful. Pebblecombe is not exactly my favourite descent- it's dark, twisty, overhanging trees, the odd car coming the other way, oh, and there's a level crossing at the bottom. Thankfully, warnings about taking it easy were heeded more than usual- only two I think decided their lights, brakes and ability to see round corners were better than mine and overtook. And then, my favourite part. The Race For The Bread Pudding. As joyous a leg-stretcher as ever. And the Cabin as welcome a sight as ever. I'm with Ian. Been there when it's run out. Even when I've had some already that evening, that's not good. And I always need the calories. Mick couldn't finish his bit, so a mere 1.5 portions for me (think I burned that much off in the sprint).

Apart from those wheel issues (resulting in one rather long regroup), part deux seemed as light on the mechanical front as the first half, and the rain continued to hold off. Was glad I brought my jacket though, it felt a bit nippy. And on we went, Horsham indeed looking unusually good (in multiple senses). The off-road excursion was diverting as usual (though I forgot trying to ride across fields on 25mm tyres disagrees with me), and the cows remained placid. And on we went to Felpham, by now basking in glorious sunshine. Breakfast top-notch, ummed and ahhed about having a bit of cake before deciding against it. When the pub peloton headed off, I joined them before continuing west (once I escaped Bognor- road closure on the esplanade and poorly signed diversions complicated that a bit). Ended up going to Chichester via the 259 rather than my usual route- rather busier but not too bad. As I'd already done three century rides this month, the final mileage of 94 or so (missed recording a mile-and-a-bit on the Garmin) was perfectly adequate.

Next up, Brighton!

Thanks everyone.

 

[Aperitif]

Some nice reportage, thank you.
Addendum to all the images previously posted last Friday.
Contibutions to the Legg postcard album were:
(by #posts as I can't 'edit' for some reason and annotate each image...)
#129 Ianrauk
#132 theclaud
#133 Bollo
#134 SigSilverPrinter
#135
#136 Tim Hall
#137
#138 Mistral
#139 Adrian
#140 Swarm_catcher (B+ for that one)
#141 Longers
#142 rich p
#143 threepensmcginty
#144 Saorise50
#145 Radius
#146 arallsopp
#147 arallsopp
#148
#150 ditto

 

[dev]

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone involved in making this happen, it was my first FNRttC and it was sadly curtailed when the friend who had introduced me to the idea was unable to continue after Faygate due to illness and I wasn't going to leave him to make his way to Gatwick train station alone. Despite it being cut short it was enormous fun and I can definitely see the appeal and will be back soon enough.

I managed to pop a spoke somewhere early on so my bike's in the shop at the moment getting sorted out, I feel the need to learn how to fix this myself in case it should happen again.

So again thanks, to the waymarkers, TECs and Simon and I hope to see everyone again soon.

 

[Flying Dodo]

Apropos comments about the HPC departure, normally when we're waiting for the lights to change, I try and cajole people to spread out more evenly across the whole width of the road, so that riders on the right hand side can speed away quickly into the road. As it was a smaller number of riders, unfortunately I didn't do that this time, so there was a much bigger bunch on the left hand side. As those in front were initially going forwards and only a bit to the right, rather than diagonally off to the right to get into the middle lane, it then delayed things for people behind. So next time, I will be back to cajoling.

 

[Wobblers]

Others have waxed lyrical about the ride, and quite rightly so, but I would just like to add a something of my own.
A bit before the stop at Faygate I realised I'd lost my Tilley hat. At the time I was in a group at the front turning right at a T junction, I let the others go ahead as I checked more than once that it was in fact missing from the elasticated stowage on top of my saddle pack. I carried on alone in the dark somewhat pee'd off that I had lost it but also enjoying the quiet darkness. A light approached from the rear and passed me, it was @McWobble speeding by on a mission back to the front after waymarking. I momentarily thought of latching on but he was going at a fair lick and I was still in mourning for my hat!
A short while later another light approached from the rear and as it passed I recognised @User10571 so I sucked his back wheel and we traded places until the halfway stop. Once sat down with tea and sarnies I told User10571 that I'd lost my hat, a blue Tilley, 'It's in my bag' he said. Fortunately, he had seen it and picked it up.
Now it's only a hat but I can't really believe how chuffed I was to hear this, ( I had already planned to retrace the route in the car to look for it once home).
So, thanks User10571, I owe you a beer or a Pastrami on rye or something. .

Ah, that would be me wondering just where the front had got to - eight miles of assiduous pedalling it took me to catch up! But that particular corner is one of my favourite waymarking points: it's a very quite and dark spot which allows you to reflect on your position in relation to the rest of the universe: the furtive rustlings of (hopefully) small creatures in the undergrowth accentuating the solitude. The spell only being broken by the appearance of lights heralding approaching cyclists. A disembodied voice - Thank you - and the island of light recedes back into the darkness...

Mostly everything's already been said: I was amused by Big Gee's asymptotic approach to tackling the bread pudding. My own strategy was to donate a quarter of mine to TC - fair's fair, she did get me an extra mug of coffee. The Lobster Pot is definitely one of the better breakfast destinations, and it was very pleasant indeed to be able to eat breakfast outside and bask in the morning sunshine. As was the customary debriefing session at Wetherspoons afterwards. it was just a shame we had to leave. It was only on the train back to the Smoke that srw revealed that this was his first solo century ride - well done!

 

[slowmotion]

That really was a lovely ride. It was a strange thing to slide sneakily out of south London without most of the traditional chucking-out time greetings, some amusing, others not. I still don't know the route we took, but it was through wonderful countryside and villages for a lot of the way. It's not an area I know at all so it was a great surprise. I loved the "agricultural" section, the Gurkha Bridge and the narrow path in the new morning's light.
It was fun to briefly meet friendly new faces, talk more with familiar ones, and enjoy beer and bullshit with the usual suspects outside the pub in the sunshine. Many thanks to the TECs and waymarkers.....and Our Great and Glorious Leader, who protected by Divine forces, narrowly escaped being squashed at HPC at about midnight plus10 secs on Saturday morning. It was miraculous how he parted the waters. Thank-you.