Your Best, Worst & Toughest Ride This Year

[cosmicbike]

It's nearly the end of the year, so what's been your best, worst and toughest rides of the year?

Best was a 14 mile ride with my lad along the Thames, not very long but he was really chatty and we had a good laugh.

Toughest had to be the February metric century challenge ride, completed whilst my van was being lowered, by pedalling along the seafront at Poole-Bournemouth in the midst of storm Doris. Very very wet, very very windy, and I was glad to get off the bike.

Worst was probably one of my homeward commutes in the cold and wet windy weather, but really couldn't put my finger on any specific ride.

 

[MrPie]

Best day - Peyresourde, d’Azet and Aspin in glorious sunshine
Worst - col d’Agnes descent in the pi$$ing and freezing cold rain
Toughest - hiring a 4 seat bike in Huntington Beach, CA.....I’m sure the rest of the family were not pedalling

 

[nickyboy]

Best....Manchester to Llandudno of course. Good bantz, good beers, good weather (ish) and all round good company

Worst....the bit of my CC ride to Huddersfield when it absolutely bucketed it down while we were on top of a mountain. Several rather unhappy looking souls by the time we got to the bottom

Toughest....in Spain in October. I wasn't as fit as I had been all year and a couple of friends took me on a really tough 70 mile loop. They were a touch fitter than me so, in trying to keep up, I was put through the wringer. Last 10 miles I just wanted to get off the bike and go home (actually that might have been worse than my "worst)

 

[Cuchilo]

Best and toughest was London - Brighton and back with the club lads . Fish and chips at the sea side and then the pub on the way back for a pint . We stop for a pint because my knees start to hurt ( honest )
I guess i could also include this as the worst because my knees really do give in after about 70 miles . Almost 30 years of being a carpenter may have something to do with that .

 

[Supersuperleeds]

The Spurn Point ride I did with @EasyPeez and @Pale Rider was probably the toughest mentally. Very wet and very windy. Still enjoyed it though

Toughest physically was probably @13 rider forum ride to Breedon - was a bit lumpy.

Loads of best rides, the ride up to Hull for the Spurn Point ride was pretty good (the ride back was okay until I got hit my a monsoon 20 miles from home.) Done several rides to Lincoln with @13 rider and @tallliman which are always good rides, though the one where we went via Boston was hard - headwind all the way.

Rode to Hunstanton through some cracking villages, again the ride back was a bit windy.

Worst? The forum ride when @13 rider showed his love of all things gated. For a second or two I thought the silly bugger had seriously hurt himself, luckily he was fine - or as far as we can tell

 

[NorthernDave]

Best: The weekend before last I did a 36 mile loop out to Church Fenton and Ryther. Nowt special you might think, but I've been struggling with fitness, a new job leaving me with no midweek bike time and then manflu. This was the first ride in an absolute age where everything just clicked, I felt really good and it reminded me why I go cycling.

Toughest - completing the Vale Vélo Sportive and adding an extra two miles on to make it a ton (honestly, who plans a sportive route that's 98 miles long? ) giving me my first imperial century. I was starting to flag a bit at about 80 miles in and then there in front of us was the near vertical face of Birdsall Bank to climb. How I made it to the top I will never know but I did and I ground out those last 20 miles. It was worth the effort in the pub later.

Worst: I abandoned a couple of rides off when attempting a recovery from manflu (see above) and just couldn't go on. I also binned a ride off when the 40+mph wind meant I couldn't ride in a straight line and had there been any traffic about I'd have been squashed. But I think the worst was a ride in the summer when an incorrect weather forecast and a routing error (it was meant to be a metric century ride) saw me riding virtually the entire last 25 miles of a 77 mile ride into a 20 mph headwind. It was so bad I would have got the train home from Church Fenton if it wasn't for the 1hr 45m wait for the next one. I may have said a rude word when I saw that on the timetable. And then about 10 miles from home it started raining.

 

[13 rider]

Toughest ride physically was down in Cornwall on my holidays a 37 mile ride doing 3700ft of climbing along the coast Porthtowan ,St Agnes ,Porrenporth to Holywell bay featured a 33% climb on the gearing 34/25 in the middle of a 100 day consecative riding days . It was either up or down no flat and the downhill were scary .
Toughest mentally was probally a ride with @Supersuperleeds and @tallliman to Lincoln via Boston into a headwind along dead straight Fen roads was soul destroying but the company got me through
Struggle to pick a favorite ride but all my forum ride have been great fun in great company . My 50th Birthday ride Bosworth to my house for a picnic and back is up there . But If I had to pick one it would be a Leicester to Lincoln ride with @Supersuperleeds and @tallliman where we got the tailwind right and were flying along the old A46 in a slightly downhill car free stretch
The one that hurt was the gate incident ride ! Where I decided to ram a gate at 15mph to stop @Supersuperleeds hitting it I thought I done some damage to me and bike but got away extremely lightly

 

[Threevok]

To be honest, every ride this year has been a bit (and sometimes a lot) of a struggle, compared to previous years.

Which is a bit worrying

 

[Supersuperleeds]

Toughest ride physically was down in Cornwall on my holidays a 37 mile ride doing 3700ft of climbing along the coast Porthtowan ,St Agnes ,Porrenporth to Holywell bay featured a 33% climb on the gearing 34/25 in the middle of a 100 day consecative riding days . It was either up or down no flat and the downhill were scary .
Toughest mentally was probally a ride with @Supersuperleeds and @tallliman to Lincoln via Boston into a headwind along dead straight Feb roads was soul destroying but the company got me through
Struggle to pick a favorite ride but all my forum ride have been great fun in great company . My 50th Birthday ride Bosworth to my house for a picnic and back is up there . But If I had to pick one it would be a Leicester to Lincoln ride with @Supersuperleeds and @talliman where we got the tailwind right and were flying along the old A46 in a slightly downhill car free stretch
The one that hurt was the gate incident ride ! Where I decided to ram a gate at 15mph to stop @Supersuperleeds hitting it I thought I done some damage to me and bike but got away extremely lightly

Forgot about the birthday ride The spread at your house was fantastic and looking at the photos of you as a young sprog - I think this one should be an annual event

Also the ride when your sis and her hubby did cake and coffee in the park for us, just brilliant.

 

[Lilliburlero]

Best - a 200 km (124 mile) solo charity ride for Young Epilepsy in the memory of my niece. I will never forget the feeling of watching my strava click over to 200 km and looking up to the heavens and saying "that`s for you, Vicki". I`d only ever done one 100 mile ride before this and was so nervous leading up to it, but I just took it steady and got it done

Toughest - Too many to mention, but my first audax was a good`n. Managed 135 miles from door to door on the Moira East Midlands Forest audax. I`ll never forget the wife shaking her head with the look of "where the heck have you been" when I came back through the door

Worst - I`ll go for the 32 mile trail ride that I did with my mate Paul earlier in the year... 2c, 18 mph winds and sleet... sideways sleet. It was for the 50 km challenge and I entitled it "Hypothermia Ride" on strava

 

[derrick]

Out of the 148 rides i have done this year i can't remember the hard ones, am sure there was a few.

 

[Jenkins]

Best was probably the one from a couple of weeks ago where I took the train to Newmarket & rode home. The weather was bright sunshine and crisp, but not too cold and I took a wrong turn adding ten miles on, but went through some lovely contryside guesing my way back on track. Virtually all my rides are round trips so it made a change to do a one way ride from much further out.

The toughest was probably an accidental century when I took yet another wrong turn and ended up heading in the wrong direction. The only problem was that I'd only taken enough food & drink for the intended ride so the last 30 miles or so were a bit of a struggle.

There's no single worst ride - just any commute in strong wind or heavy rain.

 

[tallliman]

@13 rider, @Supersuperleeds, I didn't find the Boston ride too bad really but it was at the point in the year where I had strength.....17mph into a flat headwind, easy!

On the other hand, the ride down to Market Harborough, doing an insanely lumpy route with @PeteXXX and continuing to the ton was the hardest ride of the year physically....dont fancy going into which was most difficult mentally today but safe to say @Supersuperleeds and @13 rider often pull me through.

My favourite rides of the year were my first 200km ride and completing my tour from the East Midlands to the south coast.....the first couple of days with @PeteXXX and then on my own were lovely and fun, the last through London was fun but I was shattered by the time I finished. The funniest bits were thinking "I need to stop" and a bakery appearing and beating people up hills on my heavily laden bike!!

 

[mjr]

Best - I think East Dunkerque to Bruges in Flanders, but that might be the drinks stop at the tiki bar on the beach talking... fascinating prom cycling that went on for ages, then a picnic in Ostend, followed by canalside ride to Bruges and entry through one of the old town gates which cars no longer can use.

Worst - probably my first audax. Icy back roads mixed with some fast local boring A/B roads that I usually avoid.

Toughest - undoubtedly sixty miles through Pembrokeshire. Beautiful, especially sunset over Carew castle, but so many jagged little climbs.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Toughest was the cent cols (100 cols) challenge over 6.5 days in the summer.
Worst an Audax last Feb where my fitness was down and I hated the last 100km finishing well into the night.
Best the Cent Cols as above