club ride....'THE FAST AND FURIOUS'.......

[Stu Merckx Man]

Well i shall start off by saying that this weeks club ride was the fastest club ride i have done thus far....(to charlswood that is)....22.5 mph avs.

as the training group was called up to get ready, i was slightly worried about some people i have not seen before...and these people looked good !!

we set off and i took the descision just to stay at the back and cling on for dear life, as i felt it was going to be fast. up reigate hill i nearly dropped off but the shame i would have felt infront of the new people kept me going, (though practically dieing).

i was rather releived when we hit lights in reigate as it gave me time to swallow the blood from my lungs that were starting to smoke !!

felt ok going toward leigh (i think its called that). as we cross over it and picked up speed i saw the avs speed on my computer hit 22 and i new i was in for hell.

then almost as a punishment for my lazyness at the back of the group i dropped my water bottle under a lorry...(sorry bike god???). fealing a bit panic struck and thinking it would be a good excuse for dropping out i contemplated waiting for the 19s...but then sylvain came up next to me and said 'stuart, do you think you will make it this time?' ... Consequencly my dam ego got the better of me and in my manliest voice i said 'YES I FEEL GOOD TODAY!' - im pretty sure my nose grew abit

but with no water and on the fastest ride of my life i looked to ray meares...what would he do?...well it was a misty day so i clenched my teath hoping to catch droplets of water....i think it kept me ggoing to rusper.

down through rusper and aproaching the big hill thing before the trhough and off, i dropepd back slightly , sylvain was a little way behind me and so he dragged me back to the peleton.

just before the through and off a couple of people gave me water ..cheers lads very agreeable of you!...through and off was pretty hectic. more of every man for himself type senario. i got separated at one of the round abouts...thought about following but realised i had a roast tomoro and that life was worth living. we had a little team of 3 left however and we all worked hard to sustain a distance with the main group, we picked up sylvain on the way , he recovered a bit, did his fair share of the work and then one the sprint into charlswood....personally i got a cramp just before the sprint ...

pretty easy ride back to the church .....i made the mistake of telling people my dastidly plan of making a break at the m25...well i made my break and held off for a while, but i was followed by chris, i thought about trying to avoid him but he looked fairly strong so i thought he would be useful....he then did most of the work to coulsdon and enevitably we got caught at some lights and a smallish chasing group caught us. then back home..

avs when i got home 21.5 mph

cheers stuart

p.s

i have been givin advice for next weeks break away...won't share it ...MUHUHAHAHA

[Ian A4size]

I hate to be a pedant but the club ride does not go near Reigate hill, if it did there is no-one in the club capable of riding up that at 22mph or even 15mph.
I think you must mean Gatton road- by the petrol station, reigate hill is steeper than that and goes on for about 1and a half/ 2 miles with no downs in it.

[Stu Merckx Man]

ah right cheers, i got them confused, i thort that gatton road was the one that goes up the north downs....cheers for that


stuart

[Dr Frigo]

Man! Maybe it was the feedback from last week's fast ride, or the promising weather, or the temptation of riding bikes sans mudguards, but the training group today looked like a who's who of who's fast in ACC, with a few ex/future members:

John (man in green/black)
Marek
Tim
Matthew
Stu
George
Paul
Simon H
Simon H²
Jim

Plus a small handful of others, whose name escape me (would like to know their names?), but who didn't get dropped as badly as me - I lost count of how many times I did today.

My average speed from CSS to Charlswood was 37.3km/h~23.2mph (faster than the ACC race then), and that's having lost maybe a minute altogether on the front group, and with all the traffic stops ... just under 21mph for the whole trip.

Best moment was riding behind John and Matthew who were at the front on a slight incline, barely hanging on (calling out for holes was getting me out of breath) ... and then John starts chatting to Matthew as if nothing!

A smaller group of us carried on at pretty much the same rate from the caf', I think John left late and rode Charlswood~bottom of Box Hill mostly on his own, then overtook everyone up the climb at lightning speed. I felt so slow going up, and was wondering whether I should stick to mountain biking ...

Cheers guys, hardest ride in a while, completely knackered by the end, hope to see many of you at Eastway next Saturday http://www.londoncyclesport.com/news/ar ... 67&SP=&v=1

[Stu Merckx Man]

sylvain,

how good is your speedo? (mines the basic cat eye thingy)...

because is yours is better than mine ill trust yours...

i hope ive been doing myself short all this time

cheers

stuart....

[Dr Frigo]

Did you reset yours at Coulsdon like I did? If so we should have had pretty much the same average to Charlwood. I think my wheel circumference set-up is correct, but I'll double check.

[Matthew Ives]

yep...another monster training ride.

Jim questioned whether we were all starting a new season, rather slipping quietly into the off season and a few others commented that these training group rides are a lot faster/tougher than actual races.

It was pretty damn fast again today with John (man in black) and Marek forcing the pace along.It calmed down a bit when we got into the lanes past Reigate . John sat on the front most of the time and most of us were reluctant to come round him.

My best moment was when Sylvain put an out of the saddle effort in up a short hill edging past John in the process. With Sylv gritting his teeth with the effort, John simply glided up to him and past him with absolutely no sign of effort at all.

Through and off was a welcome respite from the infernal pace since we kept it together pretty well until the roundabouts where the group split up a bit. Some Manic chasing from Marek saw him get back on just before the sprint and lead us out at high speed. I was on Marek's wheel and came round him at the right time only for.....yes you guessed it...John to beat me effortlessly to the line.

The ride back to box hill was quite fast and luckily we didn't have The Man in Black with us. As we hit the lower slopes, Jim went off the front and we let him get 30 metres or so .Then John appeared from no where and blasted past us. It seems he and Tim chased our group from the cafe and just made contact at the bottom of Box Hill. Simon and I tried to reel him but could only get to within 20 metres or so by the top.

The ride back to Coulsden was animated, to say the least with several 30mph+ efforts put in.

Got home pretty knackered and couldn't muster the energy to head up over South Norwood hill to watch the Tour Of Lombardy at Ajay's.

[Andrew G]

Another goodun. Went in Monty's 18's which Phil said ended up at 19 after the through and off, which worked well at a steady building pace with decent close riding organisation. Quick pace up Merstham drag on the way back which had me hanging on for most of it, but I always get a new lease off life at the top for the nice high speed swoop in to Coulsdon.

Ian, I always though Reigate Hill was a bit more of a monster than anything on the CR, but after 18 months I still don't know most of the road names enroute and call the climb after the garage the "triple climb".

[quote]Got home pretty knackered and couldn't muster the energy to head up over South Norwood hill to watch the Tour Of Lombardy at Ajay's.

[Paul H]

Great ride with the fast and furious. Hopefully it will continue all through Winter.

[Alan M]

The 18/19 group turned out to be 20.9. Matt had a new focus bike and seemed in need a bit of of a thrash and Chris, who just took the sprint finish from Brian, was showing a lot of end of season pace. Unusually, Andrew, our Polish member was not his usual sparky self but I think he did feature in the sprint. We were a very ordered group - no real attacks but always steady and fast. The thru-n-off worked well with a good share out of the pace and a very safe riding group that stayed together right until the last when a group of 4 or 5 got away for the sprint. Excellent stuff - an early ride back meant that I had time for another coffee which was much needed after hard ride up the Merstham drag - I was quite relieved when the traffic closed it down to a sedate pace.

[Stu Merckx Man]

sylvain,

i don't think i reset it at coulsdon...

so that must be it (or my computer is a bit crapp)

perhaps a bit of both !

cheers

stu...

[adrian]

Once again, failed to organise myself in time for a leisurely ride to CSS - instead had to go at time-trial pace (well, my time-trial pace, at any rate) if I wanted to see anyone when I got there. On the way, hooked up with that other notorious latecomer, Robbie.

Needed to recover somewhat so opted for a steadyish ride down to the caff. After this, though, I fancied the challenge of a bracing ride back via Box Hill. Trouble was, by the time I saw who was making up the Box Hill group (Sylvain, George and Kevin are the only names I knew), it was too late to pull out - I was committed.

Straight from the get-go I was bitterly regretting my schoolboy error of having a bacon sandwich (nice though it was at the time of ingestion) and knew I was in for a hard time. Managed to hang on up the first climb, then felt relatively comfortable through Rusper etc until the final climb before the descent to the A25. With Box Hill still to come, didn't want to completely shoot my bolt, and held back a bit, with the inevitable consequence of my getting shelled out the back. Hoped to luck out and rejoin the group as they waited to get across the A25, but no dice - when I got there, they'd just pulled away. The minute I had to wait before I could get across was crucial and meant that all the way to Box Hill the group were always visible but definitively out of reach.

Got up Box Hill (passing an older fellow in what looked like five people's deep-sea fishing gear, but who still looked more comfortable than I felt) to find some of the group still there. After a brief pause and chat with Geraldine 'we' set off again - I see 'we', because it was immediately clear that I was in no state to be part of what I knew would be a brutal dash home, and I lost touch within minutes if not seconds. Instead I was left to limp back alone to the Kingswood roundabout, where I carried on down the A217 and homewards.

Had plenty of time to reflect on the day's events as I did so. Clearly I had been (in YouTube vernacular) 'totally pwned', but decided it's good to be dragged out of your comfort zone, and no disgrace to get your botty smacked (figuratively speaking, of course) by the likes of Sylvain. It was also useful to see (or more accurately, feel) what sort of wattage you have to put down in order to stay in such company. So the net result was that I'd had a good fast ride and will hopefully be the stronger for it. But haven't been as tired as that after a day on the bike for a long time.

[Stu Merckx Man]

adrian,

i was completely nakered aswell.

have you / anyone else ever had it so that for the rest of the day, when ever you walk DOWN some steps your quads realy tingle and shake?


hopefully im not alone.....

cheers,

stu...

[adrian]

To tell you the truth, Stu, until I woke up this morning, I had no feeling in my legs at all. Now they're pinging a bit, I can tell you...

[Stu Merckx Man]

adrian,

im glad im not alone...and im also glad you seam to feel it more than me ...

also pinging is a good way to describe it...i shall use it in the future!



stuart