2nd Chaingang

[Stu Merckx Man]

just me, marek, rob and paul again tonight.

this one was a lot harder than last week, i think its because we knew the course and so we absolutely hammered it !! also i forgot my dam water bottle, big mistake !

we set off from bletchingly rob and paul up front. marek started to drop back because of his gears, and some mad chasing down paul and rob with marek took a bit out of me.

good pace down through to redhill, and then onto the duel carriage way. big ring all the way. there was a lot more rotation this week which i think helped keep the speed up. even with a head wind we bommed down. in no time at all we got the to round about where we turned round. by this time i was sufferring for not having my water bottle.

as we turned round lead by paul i was thinking great no head wind !! unfortunatly it just meant paul could go that much faster !! i nearly got dropped as we had to chase him down. the pace was relentless and did not change up hills. i was really starting to suffer with no water my mouth it felt like a desert and it was making me feel sluggish. and with rob on top form leading us a lot of the way it was hell!

thankfully as we approached the only biggish hill of the ride marek had to stop because his glasses had misted up i think. i mananged to get a swig of water from rob (cheers). i led us up the first part of the hill trying to keep it steady so i could recover a bit. paul was having none of it and whipped round me. so we raced up the hill, again i nearly got dropped but just managed to cling on--> because of the way i was riding (very strangely) to keep up at the edge of my capability i broke my left pedal!!

after the hill it got easier into redhill. off went marek. rob, paul and i headed home. paul led us up the merstham drag at a good pace and then rob took over going down the other side. i let paul and rob do most of the work as i was absolutely £#*%^$ !!!

again a good 29 miles and an average speed of 23mph!!!!

great ride.

cheers,
stu

[Marek]

Jeepers that was murderous today. I thought I was going to die when we got to that dual carriageway bit that goes uphill towards Salfords. Massive relief when we turned around, but as you say did not last long with Rob absolutely blasting it and then Paul putting his oar in as well.

See you on Saturday.

Cheers

Marek...