Your greatest cycling achievements and memories?

[DooDah]

Generally just getting the time to get out on my bike, an achievement in itself.

Cycling in France, a pure pleasure in terrain, lack of traffic, road condition, scenery can be a bit monotimous though.

Cycling in the Spanish Pyrenees, super hard but loads of fun.

Getting healthier and fitter would be my greatest achievement though.

 

[EltonFrog]

Good thread. Many memories for me too.

• Buying my first bike aged 13 ; a Dawes Kingpin -£35.15s.3d
• Cycling to my aunts on it from Willesden Junction to Welling in Kent.
• Aged 15 doing my first sponsored bike ride for ACTION £7.00 raised
• My uncle building me my first road bike out of an old Gillett frame ( wish I still had it)
• 2010/11/12 various cycling trips along around the area of the Canal du Midi
• 2013 my first cycle tour along the Kennet & Avon Canal
• Last year cycling the New York Five Boro's challenge with 36000 cyclists on closed roads .
• Last year my first 80, 100 & 125 mile rides.
• Last year cycling the London Surrey ride 100
• Last year cycling in Paris around the Arc de Triomph and up & down the Champs - Élysées

There's probably more.

 

[ChrisEyles]

My best cycling memory has to be the first time I went out after getting my first road bike after a succession of dodgy MTBs made of steel drainpipes. I went out for my regular ten mile pootle, and ended up doing an extra thirty miles or so through the Oxfordshire countryside... at the time my longest ride by some distance. I remember I couldn't stop grinning the whole way

The bike was an old five speed 80's Puch (dubbed "The Yellow Peril" by my OH) - I *wish* I still had it, I loved that bicycle!

 

[marcusjb]

Paris Brest Paris will be forever special - I hope that doing it again will only augment my feelings for the ride.

Hitting the top of Col d'Aubisque after 570km of brutal riding and realising "I have done it" (even though I had 30km of freewheeling to go).

Riding from London to Brighton for the first time (and to think I now use Brighton and back as a shorter training ride).

Many special touring memories as well - but the Western Isles and Picos de Europa hold more than most.

 

[Spinney]

Cycling up the Bealach na Ba. A friend and I had set off from Shieldaig and gone around the coast, thought we might just have lunch and cycle back. However looking at it (it is a bit shallower from the Applecross side) we thought the gradient didn't look too bad so up we went. We had a couple of chocolate stops on the way, but we didn't walk any of it. Glorious sunshine too, and lots of other cyclists at the top (most of whom had come up the steeper side with luggage!). About a 60 mile ride all told, and the rest of our party were dead impressed when we got back that night and told them what we'd done.

And doing my 1st 100 miler...

 

[ColinJ]

[QUOTE 3103549, member: 9609"]Nearly 6 years ago I had a very serious spinal injury that had me floor bound for many months, before I was able to walk again I was able to get onto an exercise bike and make my legs go round, could do about 10 minutes at its lowest resistance. I couldn't walk more than 10 paces, couldn't sit down for more than 2 minutes but for some reason could sit on and pedal this exercise bike for 10+ minutes. One day when the wife was out I got into the garage got my old bike out (which probably hadn't done 10 miles in 10 years) I got the tyres blown up, and went down to the main road and back, 0.2mile there and 0.2 mile back. Apart from an horrendous spell in hospital this was the first time I had been out of the house or garden for 3 month - It felt like my greatest adventure ever! Have been hooked ever since - something daft like 14,000 mile since and Just done my first 100miler a few weeks back (107mile + 7500'ascent) and the sense of achievement was nothing in comparison to that first fifth of a mile. will never forget it[/QUOTE]
Oh ... I had been wondering about the extreme upright position on your bike - chapeau, sir! (OOPS - wrong smiley, I'll change that!)

 

[derrick]

The first time i did over 100 miles. 112 miles to be exact.
Getting the other half on a road bike, ( but it has had it's ups and downs. mostly ups i am pleased to say).
Cycling to Amsterdam and back.
Ridding in Belgium.
Joining our local club and meeting like minded people. and being asked to lead club rides
But the best is yet to come, London 100 in August is going to be Awesome.
And also looking forward to ridding on the velodrome in a few weeks time.
I love my bike.

 

[Flick of the Elbow]

First experience of (underage) drinking when a schoolmate suggested an evening ride to Stratford upon Avon, 15 miles away down the A34. Several pints of lager were consumed in the famous Dirty Duck/ Black Swan followed by a wobbly return in the dark over Liveridge hill.

 

[EltonFrog]

Ooh ooh wait I've just remembered a couple more!

• My first and only thus far FNRttC last year from Hyde Park Corner to Whitstable, it was such fun!
• 45 mph down Kirkstone Pass in the Lake District on my hybrid, cripes that was fun and blumen' dangerous!

 

[Donger]

• Doing only my second 100km audax at the age of 50 and weighing well over 20 stone. We went wrong at one point and added a further 5 miles in the hilliest part of the route. The final hump backed bridge of the day, about a mile from the finish felt like a major climb, with my thighs no longer working. One more mile and I'd have dropped off the bike.
• Completed the Windrush Winter Warm-up one freezing February with temperatures averaging less than 1 degree, and sub zero in places. I seemed to be just about the only rider in the event without neoprene overshoes due to my size 14 feet. Soaking wet trainers and freezing temperatures made this one of the toughest days of my life. The drinks in my bottle cage partially froze. I remember doing a Basil Fawlty in a pub toilet, contorting myself to lift each foot up in turn to blast it with the heated hand dryer for an instant defrost. Frostbite, chillblanes, trenchfoot .... think I had a little bit of each of them that day and for the next couple of days.
• Rode for about 9 miles through an absolute artillery barrage of a thunderstorm in the Alps last year near Annecy. This was way more scary than plummeting through a traffic lights in Great Malvern with no brakes, or being chased through a traveller camp near Gloucester by a pack of snarling dogs. I just didn't know what else to do other than just keep going as fast as I could. I reckoned as long as I didn't put a foot down, I was hopefully insulated by the rubber tyres. (Still don't know if this is so).
• Rode back with a mate from the Spyglass Inn up through the steep winding road through Ventnor on the Isle of Wight with a crowd of holiday makers cheering and giving us the Alpe d'Huez "Dutch Corner" treatment! Totally unwarranted of course, but it was actually quite a tough climb straight after scampi & chips and 2 pints of lager. Nearly ralphed in front of a large audience.
• 2/3 of the way up my first Alp last year, I came around a corner and found all the motivational writing from the Tour de France still there on the road. "Voeckler", "Froome", "FDJ", "Team Sky" etc, scrawled all over the road. If that doesn't give you a lift, nothing will.

 

[Brandane]

My best cycling memory has to be the first time I went out after getting my first road bike after a succession of dodgy MTBs made of steel drainpipes. I went out for my regular ten mile pootle, and ended up doing an extra thirty miles or so through the Oxfordshire countryside... at the time my longest ride by some distance. I remember I couldn't stop grinning the whole way

The bike was an old five speed 80's Puch (dubbed "The Yellow Peril" by my OH) - I *wish* I still had it, I loved that bicycle!

OT for a sec.. was it an Alpine? See this thread!

 

[ColinJ]

Rode for about 9 miles through an absolute artillery barrage of a thunderstorm in the Alps last year near Annecy ... I just didn't know what else to do other than just keep going as fast as I could. I reckoned as long as I didn't put a foot down, I was hopefully insulated by the rubber tyres. (Still don't know if this is so).

It isn't - a lightning bolt which has just zapped its way through up to 10 or 20 miles of air isn't going to struggle finding its way through (or round) a few mm of rubber!

A young man was hit by lightning near my sister's local shops. It burned holes through the soles of his shoes, but somehow he survived.

 

[Accy cyclist]

Probably not my best achievement,but last night i cycled 34 miles without stopping, apart from when i had to at traffic lights and junctions etc. I've often stopped for a few minutes rest before a big climb or to pretend i'm waiting for the peloton,but last night i didn't skive off,so i'm quite happy!

 

[slowmotion]

Having re-discovered two wheels about six years ago at a ridiculously old age, I'm entirely rubbish. My three very personal highs..

Three or four years years ago, hanging on to the bars of a 17kg clunker of a 1980's mountain bike with completely perished fat tyres at the top of the hill above Ford's Cove, Hornby Island, BC, Canada. A dead straight steep road ahead. It took off like a rocket and the tyre rumble from the road was impressive. I hung on wondering what would happen if one of them blew. I had brought a CatEye Strada with me from the UK. It registered 32 mph, a speed I have never beaten, before or since.

After three or four attempts to get up any of the three big hills on the Brighton FNRttCs, I eventually made it up all three last year on the same night.

Broomfield Hill, Richmond Park, London, anti-clockwise. It's bendy and it has that strange "sine wave" tarmac that makes your eyeballs judder and your teeth rattle. Famously, somebody got nicked for doing 37 mph down it in the Park's 20 mph speed limit. My target is 7 mph less and I have never reached it. I've had a lot of fun trying.

 

[classic33]

, wGetting to a relatives house, just outside of Killaloe, via Holyhead-Dublin. Within 24 hours.
They said it couldn't be done, so I did it.

Most memorable! I'd have to include York last June in there somewhere.

Riding back from Blackpool, having ridden there, with a bunch of kids from the local Adventure Playground. Getting stopped by the driver of the support van and listening to the latest news live from Bradford. The day of the fire at the football ground.