Your ride today.... (part 1)

[cyberknight]

Commute home at 4 am in the pouring rain, no jacket as it made a change from sweatign my rowlocks all night in the factory , caught a workmate who set off a few minutes earlier who asked why it took so long to catch him ?

Cue excuses ....
I have panniers, gaurds etc so my bike weighs more than yours
Your a good ten years younger
any more i can use please?

 

[cosmicbike]

Today was supposed to be about nice cool weather, a smattering of rain, and 30 miles plus since I've been stuck at work all week. My legs had other idea's, and 10 miles in decided that a hamstring cramp would help (it didn't). The weather then decided some rain may help (it didn't). So now I was in Chobham, wet and hurting. Nothing for it but to stop, have a Sainsburys fake Mars bar, bit of water and a stretch. Thought that would have helped (it didn't), so I limped and swore my way home. Of course by now it was sunny and humid and too bloomin' hot.
Got home, fell asleep, hobbled about a bit followed by more swearing. Proper unhappy now as I really wanted the longer run today
Maybe I'll take the lad for a short ride tomorrow if I'm freed up a bit.

 

[Saluki]

Really pothery here today. Happily there is a nice breeze. We just went around the Wreningham cyclepath loop, as yesterday but on the way home, instead of going down Ayton Road to home we went 'the long way' so down Browick Road to the museum and then left to the lights and straight over passing the bottom of Ayton Road. It adds that all important .1 mile to the ride making my ride a nice round 11 miles so that's my target hit this week with another day to go out and play yet.

11.01 miles with Hubster, nice and steady as it was bloomin' hot out out there 49.37 and I demolished a whole 750ml bottle of water. Hubster has sorted out my BB click. I don't know what he sprayed at it but it's worked. He might have over oiled my chain though. I'll sort that out when I've had a cuppa.

 

[Old Plodder]

Really pothery here today.

That's a new one on me, what does that mean?

 

[cosmicbike]

That's a new one on me, what does that mean?

Humid, muggy. Courtesy of Collins online directory

 

[Saluki]

Humid, muggy. Courtesy of Collins online directory

Thank you

It's a word that I collected when living in Stoke-on-Trent. My BFF's Mother-in-law used to say Pothery and I just loved the word. It's right up there with 'pingling' in my book. Pingling is not the same as Pothery obviously. It's an old Norfolk word for playing with your food.

 

[arranandy]

Just under 60 miles this morning to Muirkirk and back at a fairly easy pace of 16.6mph average. It was raining lightly when I left home then it dried up but the rain came on again when I had about 7 miles to go. It was quite muggy throughout the ride and I was glad I hadn't put a jacket on.
Planning on going down to Arran tomorrow to try and do a sub 3 hour circuit of the island. Its 56 miles and my PB so far is 3 hours 4 minutes.

 

[beardy01]

Just a steady 25 miles today at 14.2mph in preparation for my ride to brighton and back tomorrow morning. Am estimating its about 80+ miles down through lingfield , haywards heath and then up ditchling beacon and into brighton for breakfast then back home in time for roast lamb dinner. This will be my biggest ride am praying for no wind and a dry morning at 6am

 

[TigerT]

Todays ride started off at a pleasant 17 degrees. The plan was to ride the 27kms over to my LBS to meet my friend who needed a couple of adjustments done on his new bike. Then take a ride down to a local cafe to meet a couple more friends on a shorter ride. Ride around the local lake and home.

The plan started on Target, a very pleasant solo ride through the lanes from Zürich to Wetzikon to the bike shop, arriving early. Still nice and cool. Friend arrived by train and the bike got fixed whilst I munched through a chewy chocolate flapjack bar. Very nice!

By the time we left 45 minutes later, it was starting to warm up. A short ride down to the lake to meet our friends and we found a nice shady place for a drink.

My friend by this point had decided that his bike was awesome and he was up for a longer ride. How could I turn down the opportunity?! So we ended up doing three laps of the lake. Stopping for Ice Creams and drinks at each pass of the cafe.

A great ride, but the temperature peaked at 34 degrees, my 2nd chocolate flapjack is a totally melted mess, and so am I!

Total today 103.5 kms, my longest ride and 2nd 100. Totally exhausted though from the heat and have sunburnt knees. Will sleep very well tonight.

 

[gbb]

Circa 26 degrees, odd cloud but lovely for 21 miles.
Its still difficult to fully expand my lungs but managed 15.4 mph average so im happy.
Drenched with sweat when I got home but feel good. One rather large dead grass snake, about 2ft long, head as big as my thumb, I did take a photo but don't seem to be able to retrieve it. Not much else to see, just lovely countryside.

 

[Saluki]

I've been out for another ride It was great!
I rode from home to the hospital to meet Hubster from dialysis. This should be his last Saturday night now they've moved him to mornings on Mon, Weds & Fri instead. I can go meet him and top up my tan rather then riding through the dusk It wasn't that much cooler but I just wanted to ride. So I did.

I rode via Little Melton as I like the route, it's fast and mostly devoid of traffic. Because it's quite twisty the cars that do go along that road, do so a bit more carefully than they do going up the main Norwich road. I arrived at the hospital a bit early so carried on up Colney Lane to the overflow carpark, through the bollards to Eaton and then turned down the cyclepath that runs parallel to the A11 and then rode back to the hospital via Roundwell Lane or whatever it's called. As I've said before, it was all fields when I was a kid. Actually, it was all fields when I left Norwich a dozen years ago.

I then spent a couple of happy miles looping the car park and hospital complex to cool down. I did consider riding back home again but then saw Hubster parking up in the layby so thought that I might as well go back in the car. I turned the Garmin off when I arrived at the hospital, not when I was slowly looping the car park. I just mention this as I averaged 16.6mph to the hospital. 13.15 miles in 47.28 which is not too shoddy for me.

Happy now

 

[DCLane]

Today's ride was the Three Bridges 200k audax: http://www.strava.com/activities/168055820 which turned out to be about 220k.

It's a quiet back-road route, if one where some of the route instructions were vague/missing and the route kept taking meandering roads. I spent the day trying to dodge thunderstorms, but got caught near Beverley and also just at the end. Oh, and I seemed to be towing along one of two riders for most of the day, not that I minded too much as it helped me with route-checking.

For me this was my first audax for 2 years and the start of an eventual aim of doing LEL2017. It went well; unlike last time I didn't get lost and also I didn't have silly mechanicals. There were a few lessons - overall an good day but a soggy one!

Would I recommend it? Yes - it's a new route and worth doing but hopefully next year's will be drier.

 

[ColinJ]

Today's ride was the Three Bridges 200k audax: http://www.strava.com/activities/168055820 which turned out to be about 220k.

It's a quiet back-road route, if one where some of the route instructions were vague/missing and the route kept taking meandering roads. I spent the day trying to dodge thunderstorms, but got caught near Beverley and also just at the end. Oh, and I seemed to be towing along one of two riders for most of the day, not that I minded too much as it helped me with route-checking.

For me this was my first audax for 2 years and the start of an eventual aim of doing LEL2017. It went well; unlike last time I didn't get lost and also I didn't have silly mechanicals. There were a few lessons - overall an good day but a soggy one!

Would I recommend it? Yes - it's a new route and worth doing but hopefully next year's will be drier.

@Steve H was doing that one as well.

I'm not being funny, but I really can't understand why everybody doesn't use GPS these days! When I was doing 200s, I would take the route sheet for each event and plot the route using my OS mapping software (Memory Map). I double-checked everything, including a run-through on Street View. I'd then upload the route to my Garmin and not have to worry about getting lost on the ride. I'd only carry the route sheet and a printed map for backup, in case of a hardware malfunction.

 

[LarryDuff]

Went out first thing this morning. Did a nice hilly (for me anyway) 32 miles with 2500+ feet of climbing. Was pleasantly warm with little wind for a change.
Legs felt quite heavy after but a game of tennis in the afternoon loosened them up nicely.

 

[DCLane]

@ColinJ - if I'd not got my GPS I'd have got lost; one of the other two riders I rode with at times had to stop and ask people. Also, coming out of Bridlington there were two stragglers who were way off course.

I didn't see @Steve H - Steve, if you were there and I missed you, sorry. I was in my usual Ravensthorpe CC jersey but ended up moving at a fair pace and was the first back, although at the Water's Edge Visitor's Centre stop 1/3 out most other riders had caught up.