My Ride (according to Strava)

Club Run, Saturday 9th May, 2015

Total Distance:                                    117.2km/72.8 miles with 739 metres of climbing

Ride Time:                                             4:46 hours

Group size:                                            A Dirty Dozen. No FNG’s

Weather in a word or two:            Dreich

Main topic of conversation at the start: How it’s always the same hard core (sad core, maybe?) of a dozen or so lunatics who turn up for club rides, no matter how bad the weather is

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop: The unfeasible, unlikely and unattainable weight of the pro peloton “grimpeurs extraordinaire.” Domenico Pozzovivo, 53kg soaking wet! Over-the-top cakes featuring various countline confectionery bars in their entirety; Mars cakes, Snickers cakes, Rollo cakes et al.

I’m just guessing here, but I don’t think Snr. Pozzovivo and the triple layer chocolate and fresh cream, Mars bar brownie cake, with the Malteser topping have ever been formally introduced.

The Profile:

The Waffle:

A small group, the Magnificent Seven were bolstered by a few late arrivals to form (very fittingly, judging by the end results) a Dirty Dozen brave lads and lasses who met up at our rendezvous point under cold leaden skies and a never ending supply of rain.

Off the leash without OGL we set our own route and travelled down roads a little less known and travelled, even foregoing our usual café stop for pastures new. Such an offence is usually worthy of excommunication, a public flogging with knotted inner tubes and having your micro pump snapped in disgrace.

Two random indignant motorist (RIM) encounters. The first over-taking impatiently on a blind bend, only to have to stamp ferociously on the brakes as an on-coming vehicle, (also travelling much too fast for the horrible conditions), came barrelling into sight. I hate these encounters because I can almost feel the driver wondering just how much damage would be done to his shiny automobile if he just slid the wheel, ever so slightly left to avoid a car on car incident and took out a bunch of skeletal blokes on plastic bikes instead.

Encounter number two had a driver making a slow pass (no, not that kind) so his passenger could lean out the window red-faced and apoplectic with rage and jabber incoherently at us; “Fuggar, cumma rubba, ronts!” We naturally gave him a very happy, cheery wave and a hearty thumbs-up. Unfortunately he didn’t take the opportunity of stopping so we could discover his nationality, and what strange dialect he was speaking. A shame really as I’m certain we could have broken down the language barrier, helped him with whatever his problems were and parted as new best-friends.

No mad heroics, long breaks or mad sprinting this week, but lots of sensible riding as a group and selfless riding by the stronger ones to shelter everyone else from headwinds. All in all, a grand day out.

Until next week…

YTD Totals:         1,957km/ 1,216 miles with 20,379 metres of climbing