A long slow day

The plan in my head is that we will have a pre-programmed ride in the Garmin, we can then cycle a reasonable distance with minimal time spent navigating.

The plan in Stuart's head is that we will have a long lazy day meandering round the countryside with the help of an OS map.

A certain amount of grumpiness ensues on my part, when I realise that there is no pre-planned route in the Garmin, but this only lasts for the first 10 miles (or so!)

Last time we rode to Westmill tearoom (the draft target destination) I denied myself the opportunity of taking pictures of a field of poppies.  This time the photos were mine.

With a certain amount of getting lost, we arrived at the tearoom after 30 miles instead of 24 miles, and realised that it was in fact time for lunch, instead of elevenses.

I am now resigned to the getting lost exploring mode of the day.

Despite 5 navigational aids (one Ordnance Survey map, hugely detailed with all the geographical features, two iPhones with google maps, great for street names  and two garmin GPS satellite connected tracking devices), we still decide to choose the route sign-posted No Through Road.

In our defence, the Ordnance Survey map did show an old Roman road as a possible route, and we figured it might still have been useable for bikes.  All looked good for a while....

.... but things didn't end too well.

One of the villages we passed through on the way home was called Nasty, and Stuart suggested that I stand in front of the sign for a picture.  (Was I really that grumpy this morning?)

As you will see this village is not at all nasty, but is actually very nice.

The flower of the week this week is the Dog Rose, a wild rose that grows over hedgerows.  Possibly, just past their best, but still very beautiful.

As we cycled through the village of Ardley, we noticed that they were having their Summer Fete and selling afternoon cream teas.  Well, it would have been rude not to....

Finally, near the end of the day, we stop at Emily's in Whitewell.  We are so late, they are closed, but Stuart takes the opportunity of showing me a secret hidden garden, that I hadn't realised existed behind a very discrete doorway.

In the end we arrive home at 7.30pm, a lovely leisurely meandering Summer's day out, but not the cycle training that is needed for the 100 mile ride in August.

I'm pretty resigned to the fact that I will get timed out on the ride and made to miss out loops, so that they can re-open the roads on schedule, but today I realised that it is more important to do the cycling that you love rather than shoehorn yourself into a mould that doesn't fit.

London to Brighton

The ride is now in its 40th year, but this is the first time we have entered.  

The logistics of entering the ride are not easy.  With a 6am start time from Clapham junction  we have a planned departure time from home of 4.15am. 

There are 6 of us heading down in one car, so loading the car up the night before makes sense.

Note to selves, Stuart and I may think we can be ready by setting our alarm at 3.45, but we can't.  We duly depart at 4.30am

Clapham Common is all set up with big barriers showing where to line up for each departure time.  There are 22,000 riders entered, so this is a major event.

However, we are riding with people who have done the ride many times before, (Jim, Pete, Ray and Jenna) so they know a short cut down a side road, which misses out the melee, but also unfortunately the starting atmosphere.  

Luckily, we spot our friend Aisling, who gets swept along with us along to the shortcut.

The first chance I get to take a photo is at Tooting Broadway.  I used to live in South London, not far from here, I am reminded why I left.

Granted it's 6am, but there are no cheering crowds to wave at the riders.  I decide that this ride will belong in the same category as the New York 5 boro ride.  Glad to have done it, but no need to do it again.   The Boston Hub ride I'd do again in an  instant, and as for the Montreal Tour d'ile - somehow someway, I'll get back there again one day!

Fortunately, once London is out of the way, the countryside cheers up the spirits.  People are in good form and we stop for a coffee at a pub called the Curious Pig.  This photo was taken by another rider who was on his second pint, and it was only 9am! I guess that's Britain for you.

The ride is easy, and once we are out of London, quite picturesque. The weather is good, even with a tailwind.  

However, there was one horror to come.  I'd heard rumours about the Beacon, but I'd just assumed this would be like any other big hill that I'd done.  Oh no. It was a monster.  

It looms up at you like an impenetrable, towering wall.

I tried to ignore what I had seen, and put my head down and keep pedalling.  This worked for about half of the hill, but eventually I had to get off and push.  This was no walk of shame, at least 50% of the people were walking their bikes up the hill.

Still the view from the top was amazing!  

Stuart and I had decided to wear our bright green 5 boro jerseys, thinking that this would help us spot each other.  It turns out this was THE colour of the day!

It was then a nice leisurely 9 mile downhill into Brighton, where there were plenty of crowds and cheering, which helped make it feel more like an occasion.

Just past the finish line we were reunited with our friends, who had arrived at 10.30, 2 hours before us and were already on their second bottle of wine.

With a coach trip back to London and then a drive home, it seemed only right to start the journey back again straight away.

However, if we were to do the ride again we would make sure that we have time for a celebratory lunch and glass of something in Brighton.  

Cycling pressure and pleasure

Despite a lovely sunny day and no wind, best cycling conditions we have had in the UK for months, I have never felt less like cycling than today.  Partly it was complete and utter fatigue and partly it was the knowledge that I would be struggling to keep up on the club ride.

My early morning feelings of foreboding were not wrong.  Although I am fine on the flat and downhills, as soon as we hit a hill, I drop back.  Several occasions we lose sight of the group completely.  Three or four times the group stops to wait until everyone is caught up and I am clearly quite far behind.  Stuart tries to tell me that this is not the case, but I'm pretty sure it is.  He also helped me up the hills again, one hand on my back pushing as we both cycled along.  I've no idea how he manages this, but I'm very glad that he did.

Fortunately, there are people in the group who make sure we don't miss any key turns for which I am very grateful,  but I am also thoroughly dispirited that I am not keeping up.  I tell Stuart that this might be my last club ride, we shall see.

Happily, the tea stop was at one of the nicest places we have had chance to visit.  A gorgeous tea room on a lovely village green.

It was good to have a pot of tea, homemade cakes and a nice natter.  I really enjoy this part of the group ride, but can I improve my riding enough so that I am not holding people up?  I don't know.

I felt so bad about being last all the time that Stuart and I decide to ride home by ourselves.  The route was fabulous and I was looking forward to riding it at my own pace on the way back.  We waved off the rest of the group and then had a second cup of tea.

Stuart's garmin had recorded the route out, so we saved this as a course in his garmin planning to follow it all the way home.  This was quite tricky as it thought we should be going A to B, whereas we wanted to ride B to A.  We need to find a way to reverse the route to create a new map home.  Despite being told to do a u turn most of the way home we did not get lost and we had time to appreciate the beautiful countryside on the way home.

I love this type of riding, but I need to get much fitter, and maybe some more early nights.  Now I'm really tired.

The Reluctant Cyclist

On Sat 30th May, Stuart and I find ourselves heading north to Lincoln for another Sportive on the Sunday.

To ensure we get an early start we have booked ourselves into a B&B that offers to do breakfasts from 6am.

As usual we set off late to get to Lincoln, so it is dusk as our GPS system is directing us down some completely random country lanes towards the B&B. One upside of this minor detour is that we see a beautiful Barn Owl gracefully gliding ahead of our car along the lane.  I'm too stunned to reach for my camera ( a rare event), but if I had had the presence of mind to take a picture it might possibly have looked like this.

We are really lucky with the accommodation we are staying in, a lovely Manor House, Burlingthorpe Manor, with a delightful host Jo, who makes us feel very welcome and doesn't mind that we have arrived late and want to get up crazily early on a Sunday.

We had also booked supper at the Advocat Arms in Market Rasen and are extremely impressed at the restaurant, great service, great ambiance and the food is probably the best we have had since returning to the UK.  Crab and samphire risotto to start and spicy hake and clam broth for a main.  Will have to go back another time to sample the desserts.

Sunday morning and the weather is lousy and the forecast looks grim too.

We are having our very early breakfast, next to the lovely cosy log burner, and as we look out of the window we have no idea why we are still planning to do this ride.

There are 3 routes on offer today, epic 99 miles, standard 76 miles and short 48 miles.  Although we were planning to do the standard ride we had registered for the epic to make sure we could start early.

When we arrive at the start point the rain is lashing down.  I really don't want to get out of the car.

I tell Stuart that I will probably do the short ride, that's fine he says, I'll just follow you in the car.

Eventually around 9am the rain stops and we reluctantly depart.  The route is very well planned and the majority of the roads are quiet country lanes.  The Lincolnshire wolds is a lovely area and if it had been a sunny day it would have been a beautiful ride.

 

Unfortunately the glum weather is a real dampner, and everyone's spirits are quite low.  Although the rain holds off, the sky is always threatening and the winds are quite strong and forecast to get quite bad in the afternoon.

Given the forecast, Stuart and I do opt for the shorter route, a wise move it turns out as the weather does get wild in the afternoon.

We finish the ride just after lunch and declare that we will definitely do this sportive again, we have found a gem of a B&B, a marvellous restaurant and we know this ride has the potential to be great.  We will be back!

Footnote -  one aspect of taking part in a Sportive is that they record your times and put you into categories depending on the speed which you complete your ride.

We forgot to tell them that although we registered for the epic ride, we did in fact do the short ride, so we were awarded gold class times

And having reviewed the rider lists it seems like we were a good hour quicker than the rest.    I wonder if there are other riders out there trying to figure out who these speedy people are.  If they use our rider numbers to look up our photos they will be very surprised to see that they were beaten by someone on a touring bike laden down with a heavy pannier!

 

We probably should fess up and admit that we really need to be in the tin class rather than the gold class.  Although I think the finisher medal is of the appropriate quality.