Saturday's clubrun

[huw williams]

Great ride today. Despite a huge ACC turnout at Rykers cafe for the 50k hilly there was another huge turnout at CSS for the regular club run to Charlwood.

The promised 'steady 18' group was just that, for all of 150 yards of the road out of the station anyway. Then Marek and Graham nudged it up to a 'not so steady 20' on the drag up to the Little chef. At the bottom of the three hills attacks started and on the descent into Reigate my new and very accurate computer revealed that our av.speed to that point had been a 'completely un-steady 23mph'.

Graham punctured and although I was up for leaving him to the wolves and vultures in the Newdigate badlands for contributing to such a furious pace, Marek suggested we waited so he wouldn't get an easy ride with the main group. Said main group breezed past laughing at us, throwing half-eaten, soggy energy bars and bananna skins, which goaded Marek sufficiently into leading a chase to catch them at a lungbursting 26mph after Graham's repair was complete.

Latching onto the back of the group just before the drag up to the Partridge Lane turn I stupidly thought we could sit in for a few minutes to recover but not a bit of it. Our group went straight through, maintaining a ridiculous tempo right up to (and including) the sprint for the sign at Charlwood. By now our starting group of eight had for a long time been whittled down to a finishing group of four and I have no idea who won the sprint because I was too dizzy to see any furthur than my front wheel (which paradoxically wasn't anywhere near the front in the sprint).

Our average speed at the cafe wasn't 'steady 18' or 'training group 19' but 'ridiculous 21' on my computer and the great Siwicki (Poland's answer to Peter Crouch) was up for dishing out further punishment with an extended torture session back over Ranmore and Box Hill. "I want to kick your arse when the racing starts" was his reasoning. "Well why can't you wait 'till the racing actually starts then and stop kicking it all through February and no doubt March too!" I ventured hopefully but in vain. Seems like I'm looking at a whole summer of getting my arse-kicked!

Anyway I wasn't having any of that, so I rode back the normal way with a very convivial and steady main group in order to experience what club runs SHOULD be like and to get back in time to see the aforementioned Crouch (or was it perhaps Siwicki in his other job) score the winner for Liverpool in the early kick-off FA cup tie. Arsenal and Man U defeated in 5 days, blimey. Bring on Benfica on Tuesday.

Other highlights:

ACC 2-up
Seeing AJ and Ninder's tandem (which I stated at the time I will never EVER get on the back of as long as AJ and not Ninder is on the front, and I'd just like to confirm that here... in writing).

Unbreakable
Good to see Tamar for the first time this year even if she did observe that "I didn't reckognise you in new kit. I've never seen you wearing kit that's not full of holes." This is more than likely to be true, but if your going to go down under a Polish onslaught you may as well go down looking good is the way I look at it. Anyway I think there was a compliment in there somewhere which I feel I must return by praising TCs recent TT win and return to two wheels after crashing twice in the past week (a crash to ride ratio which even ACCs very own Evel Knievelalike Jackie Morgan-Smith would struggle to match...or maybe not). Regarding her win; "It was the lack of competition" she explained with typical modesty "I'm too slow at the moment... cakes and chocolate are the culprits." Don't you believe it, you can only beat what's in front of you and she did just that, cakes or no cakes, so hurrah I say.

Wizzards of Oz
Paul Brown's laptop must be broken becuase he managed to find the time for a ride, or possibly Robbie just pulled the plug out and dragged him away from his desk for a few hours. Is this return to action for the (normally) flying Browns to be permanent? Have they finally forgiven us Brits for winning the ashes? We all hope so, the ACC tradition of multi-cultural club runs just ain't the same without at least two Aussies in the group.

It did exactly what it said on the tin.
The number of calls I got throughout the afternoon from riders who suffered on the 50k hilly ride. Hillarious. Sounds like a mixed bag of experiences which were mostly enjoyable but really, those of you who tried (and largely failed) to stay with the Paragon triumvurate of Calland, Breuton and Hawkins really should have known better. Those boys eat hills instead of food! Their favourite film is 'The Hill', starring Sean Connery and their favourite song is 'Run To The Hills' by Iron Maiden. They don't live in houses they live in the hills!
And complaining about the amount of hills in a ride advertised as a 'Hilly 50' doesn't wash. What did you expect, a flat hilly 50?


The future
The next two months should see dedicated Sportive training rides if weather permits. We're going to ride up so many hills it'll make the "Hilly 50" look like two laps of a billiard table. Watch this space for details.

[Ian A4size]

A most entertaining tale Huw . Any ride with crouchy is bound to turn into a speed fest- i dont know how he stays clipped in with those studs.... I would have loved to play yesterday but i have a sore achilles at the mo and have been told by the physio to back off for a week so i only did a few miles- it was hard to let the others go off as i have not done a thing all week and was feeling very strong after having done some 600k the week before, but orders is orders. I was out today tho, and rode with the Aussie contingent - so its a fair bet the laptop has broken or they have run out of 50ps for the meter. No swelling after either of the rides so hopefully its not going to be a long drawn out injury, and bring on the hilly rides.
I cant believe someone moaned about the hills tho- wotcha expect? it was in the title!

[Ian A4size]

Oh and great goal marek Anyday Utd lose its a great day for me.

[quote]As he was fixing it the slower group came through, shouting and jeering like silly school children at the fact that the faster group had been slowed down.

[Elliot M]

Just a thought - as per usual we had a lot of people wanting to go into the 17mph group, so many that we split into two. I have a feeling there are quite a few people who'd like to go a little faster (like me once I'm reasonably fit) ... any support for forming a "True 18mph group"?

[huw williams]

Mr Ian Munnery is a very dependable sort who can usually be relied upon to run an 18mph group which, amazingly actually sticks to 18mph.

The key is not to rise to the bait when the group gets hi-jacked by Polish subversives intent on 20mph+