legs of lead...i meen steel. 9/6/07

[Stu Merckx Man]

well as this was possibly jons (man in green), last club run before he goes off to nepal and the usa. he wanted to do something a bit different. by different im sure he means just harder.

jon, me , paul H, hal, polish andrew, marek, jim b, richard A, aidon H, and jons mate set off. (did i miss anyone??)

we headed over towards dorking to do the legs of steel ride. we arrived at dorking pretty swiftly and realised we had lost marek, and jons mate.

so we carried on into the hills...im not really sure when they started but soon they came in thick and fast.

on the smaller hills it stayed together pretty well. but on the big hills jon and paul where always up the road with jim not too far behind them. for the first few hills it would be me next up, but soon my endurance was not enduring and it would by aidon up next, followed by me, then hal and then polish andrew. we lost richard somewhere along the line (did you get back ok!?!?)

most of the ride i managed to hold off bonking. i had one gell sachet which i rationed throughout, which just about kept me going.

the 3rd to last hill was my last ok performance. i stayed with paul and jons wheel most of the way up with jim just behind me. it was a long draggy one. my legs were burning like hell, but because of the amount of burning they had already done it had got to the point where i could overcome it. the hill seemed never ending. i just concentrated on pauls wheel and kept turning my legs over. then round a left hand bend and onto a 90% corner ...i got out the saddle and then just died, i moved over to let jim past. slowly they went up the road. luckily we were nearly at the top so i was only 20m or so behind them. next up was aidon i think, then hal, then andrew.

the second to last hill was the signature on my death certificate. it looked about a steady 10-12% climb. everyone went past me and i was going nowhere fast. thankfully the hill was long enough to let me get into a rythm, and i managed to get past andrew and hal before the top.

the last hill was ofcourse box hill. i knew i had no chance of contesting the top 3 or even 4 places. so from the bottom i went up my own pace. it soon partially paid off when i came past andrew and on the last straight i went past hal, who had put in an emence effort on the first drag .

astonishingly paul beat jon to the top!!!!

we relaxed for a bit at the top, and had a good conversation on epo

then we had a nice fast run in back to coulsdon.

i had a total of 72 miles from coulsdon south and an average speed of 20mph!! which i think is pretty amazing considering the distance and hills. though when i think who organised the ride, im not so suprised

cheers
stu

[Marek]

Well done guys, that is an impressive average speed for that type of ride. I got past Reigate and decided that I actually fancied a ride that involved me being able to breathe and see where I was going. I turned off and caught up with the club run.

We picked up Richard at Box Hill a little later, I think he lost you guys at the top of Coldharbour.

Cheers

Marek....

[Paul H]

Very enjoyable 72 miles on the bike with fantastic scenery and made a great change to the normal CR.

I didnt beat Jon up BoxHill - I thrashed him. Only teasing Jon if you read this who I am not sure was going as hard as he could. Did 6:13 to the cafe entrance and it was quite slow untill the 1st hairpin.

[Jim B]

Popped out for a steady couple of hours ride and arrived home 4 non-stop hours later. Daren't stop at Box Hill in case I didn't get going again.
Great ride, but I wouldn't like to do it every week.
Thanks for leading the route Jon - good call.

[Jon (Man in green)]

What an awsome last ride, I intended to try and keep the pace sensible so that I would have some energy left for racing on Sunday. However as soon as I saw Paul had his racing wheels on I knew I was in for tough time up the hills, but I assumed I would be getting plenty of rest at the tops. This never materialised since everyone kept an impressive pace up the hills and were never far behind.

Well done Paul for giving me a good thrashing!! I didn't bother jumping on your wheel when you shot past because I thought the lactic would kick and I would be able to reel you in! I thought wrong!

The Elite Circuit race I did today in Brentwood was madness. The pace off the start was blistering, after ten minutes someone crashed in front of me a gap formed and my chance of staying with the pack vanished. I chased down a sub group, then carried on until I got lapped about 3/4s of the way through the race. By the time I had to drop out, half the field had already dropped out so I guess I did ok. My legs definately felt worse for wear after Saturday, all in all a very humbling experience. Next big race is the Smithfield Nocturne on the 23rd.

[Stu Merckx Man]

im suprised you managed to race at all today!

my legs are still twanging whenever i go down some stairs!

well done though.

do you know who won?

stu

[-Adam-]

Isn't the smithfield nocturne an invitation only Elite race...?

[Jon (Man in green)]

1. Russell Downing
2. Warrick Spence
3. Simon Holt
4. Gordon McCauley
5. Simon Gaywood
6. Rob Hayles
7. Adam Blythe
8. Tom Barras
9. Graham Briggs
10. Tony Gibb

It was great racing, Downing, Spence and McCauley were away by about twenty seconds with about 15minutes to go. This young guy Simon Holt decided to shoot off the front and try and bridge the gap, very brave but he did it, everyone was going crazy cheering him each time he went past.

About the Smithfield Nocturne - I emailed them and they said that I could enter so I have!

[-Adam-]

Fair play mate, id come cheer you on too, only ill be in the alps by then, sorry!

[Richard (Apples)]

Well ,my legs tured to pig iron halfway up cold harbour. By the time I got to the top I didnt know if you blokes had gone left or right.

I saw a sign for Leith hill so headed off in that direction . After a few more climbs and a really fast decent through a narrow gorge (not cheddar) I ended up on the A24 to Box hill.

I got to the NT cafe at the top and sat down with a cuppa and some treacle tart and waited for the CR to come past.

Tagged on with them for the run back to CSS

Great day out ,shame I couldn't keep up

[higg]

Sorry to hear that Richard. It turned out to be a good ride on Saturday. Enough hills to keep everybody humble but enough lesser hills and rolling roads to maintain a decent speed. Between one thing and another I haven't done many training rides this year and I think it showed, I was into gear one at the bottom of Coldharbour and dearly missing my compact. Thankfully it settled down a bit after that but a good pace was maintained throughout, mostly by Jon and Paul on the front.