Todays Epic Run

[Marek]

I am well knackered. Made the mistake of doing an extended route with Darren and Rob. My idea of an extended loop was not the same as their idea. I had 140km on the clock by the time I got home. We averaged around 18mph and the ride included Ide Hill and a number of other hills probably worthy of having their own names.

I am never going to believe Darren again, I have made this mistake on a number of occasions now. So all be warned. When Darren says, 'this way is a lot quicker don't worry' what this really means is 'this way is about double the distance of your planned route and is going to include a number of steep hills.' When Darren says, 'don't worry we will take it easy along here', what he actually means is 'on the hills we will try and keep the same speed as we do on the flats, and then when we get back to the flats we need to push the speed up to 25mph'.

I am probably sounding like a whinging pom in Darrens lingo, and yes I agree, but I have to admit I am having trouble getting up and down the stairs today.

I now see that Darren and Rob are planning a gentle ride tomorrow. Be warned this probably means 150km of serious terrain at a ludicrous speed.

Cheers Darren and Rob for doing most of the pulling in the final kms today, good route.

Cheers

Marek....

[Andy]

Did Ide Hill on my first-ever ride on a bike (well, first ride in several years) in Decemeber 2002.

Memories are not nice, not all nice at all

[richv]

It was a fine ride on Saturday, nice and steady on the flats and it was Marek's choice to chase Rob and Darren up Ide and Star Hill. Thanks to everyone for waiting for me after the hills. The pace did pick up a bit after Pratts Bottom and I was quite relieved to see the group disappear into the distance as we returned up past Farnborough. I sat up and eased myself home.

A thoroughly enjoyable day.

[Marek]

I don't think you could call it a chase, I was just trying to keep them in view. Forgot to say cheers to Luke for giving me the carb gel stuff I think that just about saw me through.

The pace certainly did pick up after the hills, and I thought that was when we were going to start taking it easy.

Anyway good training for the coming up race season, have been looking on the race calendar and a lot of the 3rd cat races are over 100km long so need to get used to that sort of distance.

Cheers

Marek....

[Daren L]

Marek, you might have been pleased that you enjoyed the delights of the duvet, the pillow and the drawn curtains. Today's ride was supposed to be nice and steady, and it was - mostly.
We put in quite a lot of hills, and all was going smoothly, heart rate was kept to a respectable level until Rob decided that 200metres into Toys was the place to launch an attack; we went hammer and tong up to the top and decided that we'd ease our way up Ide; which we did, well we eased our way down Ide. At the bottom we were turning to climb when a group of around 20 of the Reliability Ride came into view; a red rag to Rob. One came past, we sat on his wheel; Rob commented on his flash bike given the time of year, and then said that the rest was over. It was until we eased our way towards Star Hill, oh we didn't see the group of 20 or so again....
End result: one puncture (mine), lots of hills, and a very enjoyable Sunday ride.
Now to look out from my living room window at the frost forming and the snow falling.

[Rob]

after the two days, i feel great, actually wish sunday was longer!

i look forward to the same pain and pleasure next saturday, hopefully with one or two more riders joining us.

[Marek]

You are making me jealous now. That sounded like an excellent finish to the weekend. It was glorious weather today so took the misses and baby out for the day.

How far did you ride today?

Ide hill two days on the trot after the ride we did on Saturday is pretty brave, and racing up it well thats just showing off.

Anyway, see you next Saturday, if you want to go for a long one next Sat then we should either leave CSS a bit earlier or take a shorter Cafe stop. If I come back home at 3pm again I could be in for the high jump.

Darren I am up for doing the Sunday route and then stopping at Westerham and then going out to the hills. Would like to start getting some speed into my legs, so on the flats we should start cranking it up, I am aiming to race at end of Feb. What do you reckon?

Cheers

Marek...

[Rob]

marek, with your performances at the moment, in a hillingdon race of 4th cats, id say you'll easily finish top 5 if your smart, and with 3rd cats, looking id say top 10...mind you, thats only based on the general turn out of hillingdon, but if thats all your interested in for this season, by the time you actually start in late feb, you should be a hot favourite in the races.

tuesday nights at hillingdon 7 pm,

if you can make those, do!

[SimonH]

[quote="Marek"]Anyway, see you next Saturday, if you want to go for a long one next Sat then we should either leave CSS a bit earlier or take a shorter Cafe stop. If I come back home at 3pm again I could be in for the high jump.

Darren I am up for doing the Sunday route and then stopping at Westerham and then going out to the hills. Would like to start getting some speed into my legs, so on the flats we should start cranking it up, I am aiming to race at end of Feb. What do you reckon?

Cheers

Marek...

[Daren L]

Not sure if that was intended double-entendre? But if you mean are we going to ride our bikes for a long time and go up some hills; then yes we are.
Weather is the only prohibitive factor. Hopefully we'll go through Eden Bridge and onto Westerham, stop at a cafe, and then tacckle some hills.

[siwickm]

Alright Simon, calm down, blimey I would watch your terminology. Anyway, I think we are going for a long hard one, if thats how you want to put it, but will be leaving at 9.00am so as to avoid the chance of too much ice, not that it will make that much difference. Except that it would be a long hard slippery one.

Cheers

MArek...