Mid the steep sky’s commotion

Club Run, Saturday 5^th December, 2015

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 95 km/59 miles with 930 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 12 minutes

Group size: 7 riders, no FNG’s

Weather in a word or two: Storm chasing…

Main topic of conversation at the start: Crazy Legs rolled up lacking his usual ebullience and by-passing all form of normal greeting, to darkly intone one dread word: “Hangover.”

He did however manage to rouse himself briefly for a spirited round of “wheel wars” – loosely based on the successful “thumb wars” model, but this week pitting his Continental Gatorskin shod Campagnolo wheels against my Fulcrum’s with Schwalbe Durano tyres. “One, two, three, four, I declare a wheel war!” was accompanied by him bashing repeatedly at my front wheel until our bikes became locked together in rampant combat like two rutting stags. Sadly, this was to be his only meaningful action on the day.

OGL pulled up in his automobile with much head-shaking, to check which idiots were intent on heading out into the storm, before he himself sought safety in the gym. In his best, “We’re all doomed” voice, he went on to outline a litany of cancelled events, postponed sporting fixtures and general catastrophes, as Storm Desmond, 80 mph winds and torrential rain continued to batter the North.

A quick conference concluded that we’d be pretty much heading straight to the café and home again, it certainly wasn’t the day for longer rides or routes unknown.

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop: It was black bin bags all round as we made it to the café completely soaked through and dripping relentlessly. Sitting on the bags kept the chairs nice and dry, but couldn’t stop the flow of water, which pooled and seeped and ran until we were all seated in the midst of a big puddle of water that expanded slowly but remorselessly across the tile floor. I have to admit the surprising amount of water I was able to wring out of my waterproof logged gloves didn’t help matters.

Still, as necessity (or, perhaps adversity in this case) is the mother of invention, at least it led to us designing a cyclist mangle – you feed wet riders in one end, turn the (Kranken) handle and pull slightly creased and flattened, but much drier cyclists out the other end. We’re convinced there’s a market for this one…

Never mind the aerodynamic benefits of a hard, clip on helmet shell, beZ declared a far better, much under-appreciated quality was that it kept your hair dry and neatly in place. The various manufacturers are obviously missing a huge marketing opportunity by not pushing this particular feature.

Another club was also in the café, en route to their Christmas get together and they helpfully added their own offerings to the expanding pool on the floor. In a vain attempt to dry out various bits of kit they also took up much of the space around the wood-burning stove with steaming piles of gloves, hats, helmets, scarfs and other bits and pieces.

The Prof resorted to trying to dry his gloves directly on the black iron top of the stove, where they started to steam and then smoke alarmingly, and were rescued by beZ before they completely melted and we were all overcome with noxious fumes.

True to form, the ever absent-minded Shoeless bemoaned forgetting his protective specs, as he blinked furiously, each time exfoliating his stinging eyeballs of one more layer of cells. The collected grit and road crap that had been washed into his eyes formed a rich abrasive paste which beauty companies would pay a small fortune for, if they could only bottle and sell it as an exotic facial scrub.

Midway through a normal series of SMS exchanges, the Prof received one that was displayed entirely in Chinese characters. In an attempt to decode it, beZ took control of his old man’s phone with the intent on running the text through Google translate or something similar, but he had to give up when the signal was too weak to get a connection.

Unfortunately while playing with the phone he unwittingly opened up the Emoji menu. “Hey” the Prof declared in surprised delight, “What are all these hieroglyphics?”

Realising his mistake and at our urging beZ quickly wrestled the phone away again and turned the keyboard back to display just normal characters – we have trouble interpreting the Prof’s text messages, social media interactions and forum postings as it is, without letting him loose with a whole new wave of characters and icons.

The Waffle:

Our Faecesbook page was surprisingly active first thing on Saturday morning, as Shoeless checked out the storm damage and weather forecast and posted up an interrogative, “Who’s riding today?” There were lots of negative responses, but seemingly enough affirmatives from the crazies to reassure him it was worth heading out.

I made my way to the meeting point through the collected debris of the night’s storm, fences, road signs, trees, bins and traffic cones all dragged down and scattered by the wind, while the roads were an obstacle course of broken branches and massive pools of standing water.

True to his word, Shoeless was there, waiting at the meeting point early, having decided even battling the elements in potentially dangerous conditions was better than the painful grind of another turbo-session.

A small nucleus of seven of us eventually pushed off, clipped in and headed out, the foreshortened roll of honour comprising: Shoeless, G-Dawg, Son of G-Dawg, The Prof, Crazy Legs, beZ and me.

The much hungover Crazy Legs – usually one of the first to ride on the front, drifted right to the back early on and made it to the first set of lights, maybe a mile up the road, before calling it a day and turning back for home, conquered either by the weather or last night’s alcoholic excesses. Everyone seemed surprised and not a little disappointed that he hadn’t at least drilled it a couple of mile on the front for us before abandoning.

We pressed on regardless, swapping the front riders frequently as we battered our way out into the wilds of Northumberland. Conditions weren’t too bad, the day was at least fairly mild and it would have been pleasant if it hadn’t been for the gales.

Pointing out obstacles to following riders became a bit of a gamble and an exercise in how quickly you could reach out, stab a finger down at the ground and then regain your death grip of the bars.

Turning left or right now came with the luxury of power-steering, sticking an arm out to signal gave the wind something to push against and almost automatically dragged the wheel in that direction.

We managed to eke out a little shelter from hedges, embankments and buildings as we trundled along, but we seemed to spend a lot of time riding inclined and leaning over at about a 10° angle.

Every gap in the hedges brought a sudden gust of capricious wind that would push or pull us sideways and every time this generated a chorus of maniacal and very nervous cackling. Just for a change of pace it also decided to rain and we were soon thoroughly doused and soaked through.

At some point we passed and exchanged a few words with a shooting party, who looked particularly miserable, perhaps because as soon as their beaters flushed a bird it rose up and was immediately snatched away at supersonic speed by the wind, making targeting it almost impossible.

Either side of the road leading to the Quarry climb was a desolate, water-logged landscape, and in one dip we hit a huge lake of surface water that stretched right across the road and the Prof swore he could see wind-whipped whitecaps ruffling its surface.

As beZ seemed to be the tallest , I suggested sending him through first to see if he could make the other side, which was just about visible through the driving rain. Throwing caution to the wind though, we barely slowed, ploughing on regardless and through water that easily topped our wheel hubs, and as a consequence, everyone’s overshoes.

934101d5b1a832bc3d475c725c6ec453 — The Prof keeps asking when I’ll run out of pictures of riders negotiating puddles …

We pushed on to the top of the Quarry climb, now with soaking feet, shoes and socks to add to our other woes. After some deliberation and a bit of confusion we turned left at the top, the highest and most exposed point of our ride, and straight into a punishing headwind that had everyone bent over their bikes and grinding slowly just to keep some sort of momentum.

Dropping down to the final junction, and keeping a wary eye out for the Prof torpedoing everyone as he “came in hot” with barely functioning brakes, we hit the final run to the café and the Tally Ho! cry went up.

The youngsters, Shoeless, beZ and Son of G-Dawg started the long burn for home, leaving us “elder statesmen” struggling behind. Sitting camped on G-Dawgs wheel, I was too late in realising he’d reached terminal velocity and his blurring legs just couldn’t whirr around any faster to drive his fixie across the gap.

I jumped around him, but couldn’t make it across either, as the front three slowly pulled away. Not wanting to languish in no-mans-land I cut my losses and sat up to try and recover a little. G-Dawg and the Prof passed me, and I upped the pace a little just to stay in touch.

As we hit the long, shallow descent down to the Snake Bends I pushed hard again, swept past the Prof, ducked down the inside of G-Dawg and piled it on, ripping through another flooded section of the road, before hauling on the anchors for the bends.

f72caee6e934860144be2a5c4dde61dc — The Prof knew he should have brought the bike with the rocket-pack attachment

Safely negotiating these, G-Dawg re-joined and we pushed on together for a very welcome stop, replete with copious amounts of reviving hot coffee and, of course, a much anticipated date with some cake.

Warming up a little and drying out just the tiniest bit, we watched out the window as the other club gathered themselves and all their slightly less chill, but still soaking gear to venture back out into the wild weather. We all knew stepping out across the threshold was going to be a real challenge after the comfortable and cosy sanctuary of the café and the brief respite it offered from the howling wind and driving rain.

Bizarrely the other group were heading off for a Christmas lunch and get-together somewhere in Whalton, which is only a further 4 miles up the road. This meant that not only did they get semi-dry and warm in the café before plunging outside again, but would have to repeat the process when they left their lunch venue. We couldn’t work out why they hadn’t pushed on and gone straight to Whalton, but perhaps it proves we weren’t the only crazy ones out on the day.

Even worse, one of their riders had a puncture and they seemed to spend an age milling about outside the café, getting cold and wet all over again while this was fixed.

Finally steeling ourselves to leave, we plodged through the puddle of our own making to hand the black, slightly damp bin bags back in at the counter. We then stacked up at the door like a well-drilled SWAT team about to breach and clear a hostile room, gathering together before we struck out to ensure we wouldn’t be hanging around waiting for anyone.

We dashed out to our bikes, only for beZ to discover that both of his tyres were suspiciously soft and squidgy. He was reluctant to stop for repairs though and decided to risk running with them, hoping to get home before all the air ran out.

If we were hoping for a helpful tailwind back we were sadly disappointed and found the same mix of gusting headwinds and vicious cross-winds along most of our route. On one corner in particular we were hit with a sudden buffeting and howling blast that had everyone crabbing sideways across the road and blew Son of G-Dawg out of his pedals and dangerously close to running into a field before he somehow recovered.

Geraint-Thomas-decking-it-still-taken-from-YouTube-video — Son of G-Dawg came bloody close to a Geraint Thomas “moment”

We stopped once for beZ to force some emergency air back into his tyres before pressing on. I split from the group at the earliest opportunity, cutting off a large corner by battling the vicious winds around the airport, before turning west directly into a gale and the long, exposed drag past the golf course. This section of my route home is fast becoming a bête noire to rival the Heinous Hill.

8d0312068a111e3d39b24134a3457813 — Hmm, can’t help feeling I’m missing a trick…

A weak, wintry sun briefly broke through, and combined with the constant tugging wind acting like a massive hair drier, I began to feel a little less wet and a bit more comfortable. The storm also seemed to have kept people in doors and suppressed the volume of traffic on the road, so I had a decent run for home and an immediate appointment with a hot shower.

YTD Totals: 5,996 km/ 3,726 miles with 67,064 metres of climbing.

Galibier Mistral Foul Weather Jacket Review

To be totally transparent from the off, I really like, own and very regularly use lots of Galibier kit including; shorts, tights, leg warmers, gloves, overshoes, a headband/bandana and a rain jacket. In fact they are responsible for my favourite lightweight gloves and their winter ones are pretty damn good too.

I find their products to be of good quality and durability at very affordable prices, although I feel they are sometimes let down by some strange aesthetic designs and decisions.

When I was looking for something a bit better at coping with the rain than the usual lightweight, waterproof but unbreathable rain jacket, they were my natural first choice.

From their website I discovered the Mistral being marketed as a foul weather jacket. This seemed to tick all the boxes in terms of breathability and triple-layer wet weather protection. Most comparable jackets were 2 or 3 times the £72 price, and the design of the Mistral promised “the wind, rain and cold protection of a jacket, but with the comfort of a jersey.”

Galibier state that the specially sourced fabric of their jacket was designed for use by the German military, and given the traditional quality of German Army materiel, (think MG42 or Panzerkampwagen V), this sounded like a ringing endorsement to me.

With their usual efficient delivery service the jacket was soon in my hands. The first thing I noticed was the packaging – the Mistral came very neatly and impressively folded into its own, perfectly serviceable Galibier musette and one of their buffs was included free for good measure.

Perhaps this latter addition was Galibier’s way of addressing one of my own slight gripes with the jacket, but more of that later.

The product itself looks very well made, double-stitched throughout and with the Galibier name prominently embroidered on the left hand breast – a big quality step up from the usual short-lived, less than durable transfers they typically use to brand their gear.

In minimalist black with a contrasting red cuffs, collar and zip and a matching red “skunk stripe” down the back, the design is neat, serviceable and looks the part, although it’s not especially distinctive in either cut or colour and is never going to engender any “I want one of those” product lust.

The material of the jacket is the interesting stuff, it does feel akin to pulling on a jersey, but the fabric is thicker, somewhat stiffly elastic and quite smooth and slick to the touch.

mistral-material-features-graphic — The triple membrane construction

There are 3 very deep pockets with reflective trim and mesh bottoms, presumably because the fabric is so waterproof water would pool in the pockets if they didn’t have an outlet.

These pockets are excellent – one of the best features of the jacket because although deep and wonderfully capacious, the taut elasticity of the fabric means they don’t lose their shape and hold everything safely and securely with very little bulging or movement. Ideal for winter rides where I tend to carry a few more tools, kit and spares.

rear-pocket — The pockets are just fabulous

Pulling on the jacket feels very much akin to pulling on a winter weight, race-fit jersey, and you do have to actively pull it on – it’s close cut, with no excess material to flap around in the wind. Once on it feels very warm, supportive and enfolding.

The jacket has what Galibier refer to as a diaphragm cut, quite short on the torso, so there’s no uncomfortable bunching up of loose material once you’re tucked into a riding position.

This had me somewhat self-consciously tugging the front down when I first tried the jacket on, but it comes into its own once you swing a leg over your bike. In contrast the tail is slightly dropped to give additional protection for your lower back.

The cut comes into its own once you’re on the bike

The sleeves appear long enough to cope with even my gibbon-like limbs with material to spare, so there’s no excuse for having any annoying gap between cuff and glove. As with the body the sleeves are quite close fitting and supportive – you will inevitably have to pull them inside out as you take the jacket off.

The inner cuff, in the contrasting red fleecy material, seals the sleeves effectively from the wind, but experience has taught me these cuffs are not made of the same water resistant material as the shell, and, if accidently exposed, will soak up and retain water like a sponge.

The zipper appears to be of good, robust quality and sits in front of a windproof “storm flap” of protective material. There’s also a neat “zip garage” built into the top of the collar, which would perhaps be a good idea, except I don’t think I’ll ever use it. This is because, (my one criticism of the cut of the jacket), I find the collar too tall, restrictive and uncomfortable so never zip it fully closed. I’ve often wondered if this is a recognised shortcoming and the reason Galibier supply a free buff with the jacket!

First impressions are overwhelmingly positive, so how does the jacket actually perform?

My first few rides in the Mistral are short commutes to work where I paired the jacket with just a thin base layer. To wear, the garment is supremely comfortable, so much so that you forget that you’re actually wearing it and I can’t think of a better endorsement than that.

It’s also impressively windproof and warm – almost too warm in any temperature over 11°c to 12°c especially, though not surprisingly, when climbing hills. It also pleasingly shrugged off any showers or light rain, and when caught in a sudden downpour I could see the water beading on the surface and running away without soaking through the fabric.

I’ve since comfortably worn the jacket with a double base layer in temperatures (taking the wind chill into account) of -1°c to -2°c, and feel it will cope with just about anything the British winter can throw at me just by regulating what I wear under it.

The jacket is also highly breathable, so even if I’ve worked up a sweat I’m confident this will eventually dissipate through the material so you’re not left with a cold, clammy and chilled feeling for the rest of the ride.

My one disappointment has been with how the Mistral performed when faced with heavy and persistent rain. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t expect the jacket to keep me totally dry throughout the ride, but I wasn’t expecting for it to surrender quite so meekly and quickly.

To be fair I think you’d struggle to find more testing conditions than the very heavy, very persistent rain we faced on our club run of 7^th November. A list of the Strava titles my companions used to label their rides may give some indication of what we faced; “Biblical Rainfall,” “Ou Est Mon Bateau?” “The Life Aquatic” and “Yo, Noah, Where Art Thou?” being just a few selections.

By the time I reached our meeting point after about an hour of riding into the downpour I could already feel cold water slowly creeping through the jacket, especially down the arms and back.

Now Galibier are perfectly honest and don’t claim that the Mistral is 100% waterproof, in fact there website clearly states that “The softshell is highly water resistant, but due to the superior body stretch of the material, the seams cannot be internally taped, so in a downpour, the rain will eventually get through.”

This being the case it makes me wonder why they then inserted the contrasting red skunk stripe down the back of the jacket, effectively adding two full length, unprotected seams to one of the most exposed areas and sacrificing functionality for aesthetics.

After another couple of hours of prolonged, unrelenting driving rain and high pressure road spray, the Mistral was pretty much soaked through and everything under it was decidedly damp. The jacket was surprisingly heavy when I took it off in the café to try and let my inner layers dry out a little, and not particularly comfortable to pull on again when it was time to leave. Despite this however it did serve its primary function – keeping me warm throughout the ride.

In conclusion then, the Galibier Mistral is a well-made, very competitively priced and supremely comfortable winter jacket. Although it isn’t going to keep you dry in the most demanding of conditions it should be able to cope with all but the heaviest rainfall and, no matter what, will remain windproof and keep you reasonably warm.

The Mistral jacket, not quite as waterproof as I would have liked, but fast becoming an essential piece of winter kit

I’m happy enough with its water-resistant properties enough to forgo carrying a separate waterproof, although I would probably look for a different solution or additional protection if I’m likely to face prolonged and very heavy rain throughout a ride.

Its versatility has meant that I’ve pretty much abandoned all other winter jackets in favour of my Mistral and I guess that means I’ll soon find out how durable it is too.

Mistral foul weather jacket – £72.00 from Galibier (www.galibier.cc)

<<Click Here>>

All photos from galibier.cc

God Speed You! Black Emperor

Club Run, Saturday 28^th November, 2015

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 98 km/61 miles with 952 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 7 minutes

Group size: 16 riders, no FNG’s

Weather in a word or two: Challenging and changeable

Main topic of conversation at the start: OGL rolled up in his car to tell us he wouldn’t be riding today as he was travelling to Glasgow as a guest of honour at the Revolution Series track meet. Crazy Legs, lost in some internal song sequence, had largely tuned the conversation out, so only the words “revolution” and “guest of honour” actually registered. He took these quite literally and was left pondering if OGL’s Napoleon complex was rising to the fore, and if we’d soon be made to line up either side of the road and greet him with cries of “Vive l’Empereur!”

He then pondered aloud the folly of invading Russia, but I was able to convince him that although OGL might have a Russian wife, she hadn’t been claimed as the spoils of war and he was confusing our leader with some other megalomaniac despot, or despots.

OGL then went on to complain that he’d turned up at 9.31 last Sunday and everyone had already left. He’d even gone so far as to record his disgruntlement on the club forum, where his comments no doubt languish, largely unread amongst the dust, cobwebs and tumbleweed.

Far be it for me to claim any great skills of prescience, but I recall a slight degree of concern about the confusion likely to arise when he first announced that Sunday runs would now meet at 9.30 for a 9.30 start.

It’s ironic that OGL was “hoist by his own petard” – but I’m fairly certain he hasn’t been the first and is unlikely to be the last to miss out in this way. Oh hell, I might as well go for a full-house of clichés and offer some less than sage advice – “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Elsewhere, Richard of Flanders rode up, immediately dismounted, lifted his bike, spun the rear wheel and pressed his ear to the frame. He started muttering under his breath, leaving us suitably impressed that we were in the presence of a “Bike Whisperer”, but thoroughly bemused by what words of encouragement he might have been impressing on his machine.

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop: Having ridden fast and arrived earlier than usual, we had to dawdle through our café visit so that the G-Dawg collective wouldn’t arrive home too early and be confronted by one of those “Well, if you can get back at this time today, you can get back at this time every week” arguments. As it was they had a contingency plan that involved loitering around outside the house for twenty-minutes or so and hoping the neighbours weren’t in a curtain-twitching mode.

So, more time than usual this week for the unending, ceaseless cascade of drivel, banter and waffle that is hugely entertaining, but only to us…

Taffy Steve dropped his home-made purse/pouch onto the table, a formless lump of thick, much worn, creased and crumpled, pachyderm hide of uncertain age and origin. When Son of G-Dawg asked what the hell it was I guessed elephant foreskin, G-Dawg demurred though and suggested, given its age and general condition that mammoth foreskin was more likely.

Although no one seemed to have been tempted by Black Friday excesses there were several tales of acquiring TV sets bigger than rooms. Son of G-Dawg recollected buying one before he moved out that filled his bedroom and took up one entire wall. He could only take in the whole picture by sitting pressed up hard against the opposite wall and found it badly affected his Call of Duty game-play as he kept getting fragged by people creeping up on him outside his peripheral vision.

This was accompanied by reminiscing about the “good old days” when TV’s were deeper than they were wide and even the portable ones weighed about as much as an industrial washing machine.

Talk of Christmas meals prompted the Red Max to reveal that he’s the only source of culinary competence in the house as Mrs. Max manages to regularly burn even beans. If there’s any doubt about the provenance of a meal the kids won’t eat it before conducting a thorough parental interrogation to re-assure themselves that Max has actually prepared it.

Completely independent of Laura Trott’s Twitter posting of sweet potato cremation by microwave, the Red Max recounted how Mrs. Max had so completely incinerated a potato in the microwave that it looked like slag from a blast furnace and took 6 hours to cool down enough to be safely handled. She had then indignantly declared that she didn’t know what could possibly have gone wrong as she’d “pricked it beforehand!”

An imaginary chapeau was doffed to local legend, the septuagenarian veteran Ray Wetherall, still riding every week in all weathers, despite being regularly blasted with chemotherapy.

Ride Profile

The Waffle: Following last week’s sub-zero excursion, today felt positively balmy with the temperatures around 5-6° and no danger of ice. The wind was high and gusting however and everything was predicted to deteriorate as the day wore on with gales, lashing rain and sleet all forecast for later. It was more a case of when exactly the bad weather was due to arrive rather than if, and whether we would make it home before then.

potato — Laura Trott – following in the august footsteps of Mrs. Max

There was a decent turnout of 16 lads and lasses pushing off, clipping in and rolling out, bolstered by a couple of late arrivals who just caught the back of us disappearing up the road and managed tag on before we took a couple of less traveled routes out into the countryside.

I drifted around the back of the group as we set a fairly hard pace into the wind, catching up with the Red Max who had risen from his sick bed to ride, but seemed to be feeling pretty damn chipper. In between gasping for breath as we pounded up several hills at near maximum warp, we spent some time discussing super-skinny pros and how small and weedy they looked in real life.

Seen “in the flesh” even those we think of as big, hulking brutes like “The Gorilla” Andre Greipel probably wouldn’t give you pause if you encountered him alone in a dark alley (apart from the fact Herr Griepel seems like a perfect gentleman and all-round nice guy anyway).

I mentioned the photos of a Garmin-Slipstream Wiggins looking dangerously unhealthy and frighteningly malnourished during his 2009 Tour de France break-out ride, as if he’d just been rescued from the Burma Railroad. We decided such radical weight loss simply wasn’t healthy and how extremely unnatural it is to be a cyclist and deny yourself pizza and cake. We also pondered why none of the women pros looked quite so unattractively gaunt.

The conversation reminded me just how weak and puny we cyclists actually are, with no discernible upper body strength to speak of. Hell, I even have to get Mrs. SLJ or one of the kids to help open bags of crisps for me these days.

I remember watching one of those ageing, menopausal motorcycle gangs congregating opposite our meeting point last year, all brand new, shiny Harley’s in the hands of middle-aged, balding, white-collar professionals, strapped into identical black leather to support their low slung paunches. I wondered aloud if it might lead to a bit of a cyclist vs. biker turf war, or what the American’s rather strangely refer to as gang-banging (or at least they do in a world informed only by The Wire and NYPD Blue.)

Crazy Legs snorted in derision at my idle musings, suggesting it wouldn’t be much of a competition, a dozen or so “160 pound skinny guys in lycra-underwear” against eight or nine burly bikers dressed like extras from Mad Max. Sometimes the truth is harsh.

On recounting this discussion and its rather sobering conclusions to someone, the “ageing motorcycle gang” was misheard and morphed into an “Asian motorcycle gang” which somehow sounded much more exotic and threatening. Maybe I should stick to that version for future re-telling? I’m not sure who the bikers opposite us were, but they were most definitely not the Black Emperors.

e594468b05b9da03c7a2174d1442dda0 — Sometimes my mind makes connections I don’t quite understand. I wonder if I should be worried…

Meanwhile, back on the ride we eventually hit the Quarry climb at top speed and we split on the fly, most turning left at the top, but G-Dawg swinging right and declaring “an experiment” to see which route to the café was the quickest. The left-hand route is longer but has a long-straight downhill run to the Snake Bends, while momentum on the right-hand route is interrupted by several leg-sapping inclines, dodgy corners and blind road junctions.

e62de4f0e5e40f385835283455cfe02d — We enjoyed an extended cafe break – no doubt to the great delight of the other patrons.

I took the right-hand option with Son of G-Dawg and we were joined by the Red Max with, I think, a couple of others trailing in his wake. I tried to tell him what was going on, but all Max heard was “experiment” and “race” – this was enough for the red mist (appropriately) to descend and the competitive juices to kick in.

Max immediately engaged the turbo and hit the front, dragging us all along on his madcap venture to beat the other group. There then followed about 7km of balls to the wall, on the rivet, crazy-assed, pedal-pounding as everyone else tried to just hang on.

Throwing caution to the wind, Max barely slowed for junctions and was swinging wide, right across and onto the opposite side of the road to find the best line through the corners. As Taffy Steve remarked we would still have heard him giggling madly as he slammed into a car coming the opposite way, but luckily the roads were clear and he pulled out a sizeable gap on those with a more, shall we say “sober” approach.

max — Somehow, some way, Max survived some vertiginous cornering

I passed G-Dawg on the last downhill section as his legs reached terminal velocity on his fixie, slowed for the junction then tried to pull as hard as I could up the last drag. Son of G-Dawg jumped away to ultimately hunt down and overhaul Max, while I heard the metronomic, swish-swish-swish as G-Dawg ground past me, turning his massive gear in slow motion and with apparent ease. I ducked onto his rear wheel and just managed to cling there, on the limit with burning legs and lungs that felt short-changed of oxygen.

Behind us the other group, playing fox to our hare, could now see us and were in full-on pursuit with two of our young prodigies, Josher and beZ spearheading the chase. We were able to quickly re-gather the momentum lost at the last junction though and held on to prove the right hand route is quicker (but there’s not that much in it.)

The return from the café was a rather civilised, somewhat sedate affair, but the sky was growing increasingly dark as we pressed on. After a not-so-mad Mad Mile, I turned for home and straight into the teeth of a punishing headwind. The long drag up past the golf course saw me drop down to the inner ring and run quickly through the gears, searching in vain for something I could turn with ease.

I pressed on, with no company except the irregular, desultory rasping of my front mudguard, as an icy, wind started peppering me with stinging, frozen rain and the sky darkened further until it looked like late evening and all the cars were driving with full headlights.

As I made my long and somewhat torturous way up Heinous Hill I think I could have been overtaken by grannies pushing wheeled shopping bags, or mothers with pushchairs. Luckily though the wintry rain had driven everyone indoors and there were no witnesses to my embarrassingly slow, dragging crawl homeward.

aea20c8728b3f00cfb890cfd53c137b0 — Climbing slow enough to hinder pedestrians is never a good sign…

Another fun ride, but for the third week in a row I felt utterly drained, heavy-legged and exhausted by the end. I can’t decide if this is a result of the cold weather, the wind, the pace we’re riding at, lack of recovery time, the winter bike, some lingering, indiscernible ailment or just creeping age and decrepitude. Maybe it’s all of these combined?

Oh well, I’m obviously going to have to keep trying until things improve.

YTD Totals: 5,873 km/ 3,649 miles with 65,767 metres of climbing.

Winter’s Blast

Club Run, Saturday 21^st November, 2015

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 100 km/62 miles with 1,004 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 12 minutes

Group size: 12 riders, no FNG’s

Weather in a word or two: Wintry

Main topic of conversation at the start: The Prof was bemoaning the breakdown of the padding and insulation in his aged lobster-mitts. He thought they still made him look like a large, benign, marine crustacean, but I suggested the resemblance was more Danny De Vito’s Penguin than something cute and cuddly from Spongebob Squarepants.

He then spotted the Cow Rangers gloves, massive unwieldy mittens that were secured with elastic bungee cords wrapped multiple times and tourniquet-tight around wrists and forearms, and queried what particular sport they were made for. I helpfully suggested boxing, cage fighting or Mixed Martial Arts. The Cow Ranger himself couldn’t clarify, but admitted that, although fantastically warm, they made braking and gear changes a bit of a lottery.

OGL declared we should all be sectioned for turning out on a day like this and for once no one disagreed. One of the guys then rolled up and instantly made everyone feel warmer as he was wearing just a short-sleeved jersey, arm warmers and shorts. Shorts! Now that’s true madness. It’s as if he helpfully wanted to prove that we weren’t the crazy ones, but that they are most definitely alive, riding bikes and living amongst us.

OGL then mused about how a Belgian-style lock-down here would impact on the Metro Centre and Eldon Square shopping. Personally I’m all for anything that shakes the excessive, mass feeding frenzy and orgy of shopping that now seems de rigueur at Christmas.

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop: OGL recommended the soup, which he suggested was delicious and warming and just right for a day like this. “Yeah,” Son of G-Dawg countered, “But it isn’t pie is it?” tucking into a massive slice of hot bacon and egg flan.

Meanwhile, at another table, a rival club were served up ridiculously healthy platefuls of grilled bananas on wholemeal toast, with green tea and super-skinny lattes all round. We quietly sniggered at these poor, deluded amateurs – don’t they know real cyclists are fuelled by cake?

We dissected one of last winter’s crashes on the lane just past the Snake Bends, where one of the girls started a domino effect sliding on the ice and bringing just about everyone around her down. G-Dawg and Son of G-Dawg were the only ones to survive, sailing carefully on while repeating the mantra – “Don’t stop, don’t look back, don’t brake, don’t even try to steer…”

We then discussed post-ride showers, how long it was possible to stay in the them before the family complained, the pain of blood returning to your extremities and at what point you felt warm enough to actually take some clothes off. The bad days are ones where this is only happens after huddling under the hot water for 15 minutes or so.

G-Dawg has had to give up Sunday rides because he’s committed to looking after two new additions to the family – a pair of young dogs that need constant exercise. Somewhere in the deepest, darkest recesses of my mind a thin candle of hope still flickers with the improbable idea that they are called G-Dog and Son of G-Dog.

Ride Profile

The Waffle: A storm passed through overnight with howling, gale-force winds, accompanied by driving snow and rapidly plunging temperatures. The morning was grey and bitterly cold with strong, capricious and freezing winds still whip-lashing around at irregular intervals.

Temperatures were bumping along just above freezing, but the polar gusts meant a wind-chill of around -2°C or -3°C and it felt like it. Perfect weather … for penguins. Speaking of which:

penguin — Lobster mitts – super-villain style

I dressed accordingly, long-sleeved summer base layer under a long-sleeved winter one, windproof jacket with a gilet over it, buff, headband to keep my ears warm but not overheat my noggin, bib tights, thermal socks and overshoes. On my hands I went for silk glove liners beneath winter weight gloves. I thought I might have overdone it, but just stepping out the door was enough to convince me I’d judged things about right.

The cars parked up around me still had a thick band of snow rimming the bottom of their windshields, like mini barchand dunes, suggesting at least the possibility of ice on the roads. I pushed off and began a very tentative descent of Heinous Hill, a little more confident once a car went past and I heard the reassuring tinny rattle of grit and rock salt bouncing off its undersides. At least the council had been out and treated the roads.

I battled my way across the river, mainly into a strong headwind, occasionally being buffeted from the sides and rear as the wind swirled around me. Any exposed flesh was instantly chilled and I became acutely conscious and a bit pre-occupied with a hairline gap between glove and cuff. Meanwhile, the tops of my thighs, lips, toes and thumbs burned with the cold as an unpleasant prelude to turning numb.

The last mile to the meeting point brought a sudden flurry of stinging, driving snow to slap me directly in the face and I was grateful to roll into the car park head down and find some shelter. A few were waiting already and more slowly trickled through in dribs and drabs.

snaey — Winter riding – a bit challenging

Impelled by a seeming need for symmetry, Crazy Legs was hoping we’d get an even dozen, but after waiting as long as we felt practical and watching the snow shower pass over, we were an odd eleven who pushed off, clipped in and set out.

At the last moment though, Richard of Flanders saved us, sailing through the traffic to join us and perfectly timing his arrival to minimise waiting time and exposure to the harsh elements. Now a Dirty Dozen formed up to ride.

We’ve reached an uneasy compromise with the Great North Road Cyclemaze and Death Trap, with the inside line of our pairs peeling off to carefully thread their way through the tank-trap like orcas and Rommelspargel, while the others only have to negotiate the much less hazardous surging traffic. Well, at least we use the Cyclemaze until the route throws you up onto the pavement to slalom around a bus stop and then drop back onto the road. It tends to get abandoned at this point.

We rotated the front pair more regularly than usual as the wind continued to batter away at us, finding the road conditions variable with many major roads strangely untreated while some of the minor ones had been gritted. There were occasional patches of ice and some thick deposits of melting snow in the gutters and along the verges, but nothing causing too much concern.

11d21267fdc0796cada331240bdb3fe5 — Perhaps we’re missing a trick when it comes to riding on ice?

Somewhere down the line a merciful Crazy Legs departed for a shorter route to the café, taking our under-dressed colleague with him in an attempt to beat the onset of hypothermia. I did my stint on the front with Richard of Flanders, finding the wind finally starting to drop and the going not quite so hard.

OGL complained of freezing feet and declared an urgent need to pee – I couldn’t tell if the two were somehow related and whether he wanted to stop to pee on his feet to try and warm things up a little. We prudently left him to his own devices, continuing on to the end of the road and the junction to sit and wait for him to re-join.

On re-grouping OGL and a couple of others turned directly for the café, sticking to the largely ice-free main road, but a half a dozen or so of us decided to risk pressing on for a slightly longer ride as the wind seemed to be dropping away, the clouds were breaking apart and a very low, very bright sun started to bounce blindingly and uncomfortably off the wet road.

We encountered a couple of dangerous patches of ice, and endured a couple of sketchy descents with the sun striking glaringly off the surface of the road so you were never quite sure if it was icy or just wet under the tyres. We pressed on fairly carefully and cautiously and there were no mishaps.

As we turned for the café, Son of G-Dawg suggested a sober, restrained run in to the finish with no sprinting heroics. I was more than happy to agree to a temporary cessation of hostilities, but noted the Cow Ranger was still with us and he would surely want to flex his muscles, so I doubted the truce would be binding.

We dragged ourselves up a steep climb and started to pick up the pace a little around the lake, only to pull up short. Ice hadn’t stopped us, the wind hadn’t stopped us, the cold hadn’t stopped us, the snow hadn’t stopped us. The massive uprooted tree lying across the road though, that was an entirely different matter.

Weaving our way through the blockade of seemingly abandoned service vehicles, we found the local version of Leatherface standing, mute chainsaw dangling uselessly in his gloves as he surveyed the fallen behemoth he had been sent to clear by hand.

Asking for his assessment of the situation and recommendations for how we should proceed were met with an incomprehensible grunt – I think he was struck dumb by the enormity of his task and close to tears.

Taking the initiative ourselves, we hauled our bikes over the fence and battled through thick, entangling undergrowth skirting the massive crater caused when the trees roots were ripped from the earth. Fighting, pushing, slipping and sliding, hauling, tugging and carrying our bikes, we circumvented the fallen giant, clambered over another fence and finally re-joined the road, mounted up and pressed on.

ebc08f70598ea593e4e1f3ed24ab57ce — Bikes and fences – never a good combination.

The pace picked up as we swept down through Milestone Woods and over the rollers. As we hit the final climb the Cow Ranger surprised everyone (no, honestly) with a completely predictable attack, the G-Dawgs bit hard and set off in pursuit, while I just eased back, relaxed and watched the chase unfold.

At the café we picked up young phenom Josher for the return ride. He was showing off his new cyclo-cross bike in a fetching shade of green which perfectly matched his phone case. I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d bought the bike to match his phone or vice-versa. Either way it’s an impressive show of dedication to colour co-ordination.

Once again as the pace wound for the Mad Mile before everyone split, I sat back and let them go, content to ride at my own speed as I picked my way carefully homeward.

A good ride, but like last week I felt somewhat heavy-legged toward the end and had an aching back and shoulders. I can’t decide if this was a consequence of some inner huddling to try and stay warm, or tensing up when encountering ice and slippery conditions. I think I’ll have to learn to relax more.

YTD Totals: 5,735 km/ 3,424 miles with 64,345 metres of climbing.

The Gastone Nencini Chapeau Awards

More coveted than the “coveted Pointless Trophy”, more glorious than receiving kudos on Strava, occasionally a bigger slap in the face than the Carbuncle awards and more opprobrious than a Razzie, it’s time for another (drum roll, trumpet fanfare) Chapeau Award.

Highlighting the brave, the absurd, the whole-hearted, the mad, the bad, the glorious in the cycling world – from the famous to the futile, international hero to the unheralded local, the omnipresent giants of the sport and those gad flies that occasionally flicker across our consciousness before disappearing forever.

This week we salute pro-rider Kris Boekmans.

Boeckmans was put into a medically-induced coma following a horrific crash on stage 8 of the Vuelta a España that left him with a concussion, a torn lung, and severe facial fractures. His team spokesperson, Arne Houtekier reported, “Everything is broken in his face, his nose, his jawbone, teeth… Everything.”

The good news is Boekmans is now out of danger and recovering from reconstructive surgery, but he faces a long, hard and very uncertain road back to the pro peloton. We wish him luck.

Karl Boekmans – Gastone Nencini salutes you – Chapeau!

The Road ID App – Review

I guess I’m a marketeers worst nightmare – I’m not really all that interested in forcing my opinion on others and much happier to give someone the facts and let them draw their own conclusions. This makes me one of the worst brand advocates out there and could perhaps explain why, despite several appeals, Apple and Samsung so diligently shun my offers to test –trial their latest, bleeding edge products.

In fact as a professional market researcher, nothing irks me more than seeing a survey with that hoary, clichéd, dull and unimaginative question, “Would you recommend XXX to your friends and family.” This to me is very, very lazy research and completely misses the point that even if I found XXX wonderfully life-affirming and a sure-fire, can’t miss, can’t-live-without product I can’t say I’d actively recommend it to anyone. Of course if someone asks me directly what I think of something, I’ll gladly tell them as honestly as I can, but I’m just not comfortable foisting my opinions on others.

It wasn’t my intention on setting up this blog to review and opine on cycling “stuff” – there’s plenty of people out there on the web and blogosphere who will, and can do it a lot better than I can. The best will give you great, first-hand and honest, user reviews that I’ve greatly benefitted from in the past and no doubt will again in future. Brilliant. I’m just not wired that way though.

I will however make at least a couple of exceptions; one is for a review (eventually) of the foul weather jacket I bought a couple of weeks ago. I’m genuinely interested to see if it solves the age old cycling dilemma on keeping you dry from both the outside elements and the heat and perspiration your body generates under exercise.

The second is a simple app from the Road ID people that I’ve downloaded to my phone and started using for all my rides. I have no problem recommending this because I think it’s good, it works perfectly for me and it’s free.

But first, let me back-track with a little history. Road ID was started by a guy called Ed Wimmer who barely escaped being pancaked by a pick-up truck while training for a marathon. While lying in the ditch at the side of the road where his desperate evasive manoeuvre had dumped him, he finally realised his father was right all along (yes, my daughters, this moment will come to you too!) to insist he carry ID so family could be notified in the event of an accident.

In Ed’s own words, “Luckily I was OK. But, what if the truck had hit me? I would have been rushed to the local hospital as “John Doe.” Without proper ID, family members and friends could NOT be contacted. Likewise, my Medical records could NOT be accessed at the hospital. How long would I lay there unidentified? This freaked me out.”

From this experience the Road ID concept was born, a simple wearable id bracelet that could be customised with your personal details, emergency contact numbers and basic medical information, any known allergies et al.

I can honestly say this is the only bit of cycling kit I’ve ever bought that Mrs. Sur La Jante actually approved of and that didn’t make her eyes involuntarily roll heavenward in that long-suffering way. In fact when I lost my original one (Mrs. Sur La Jante helpfully filed it away with the paint tins and decorating equipment, where it lay mouldering for a couple of years) it was her insistent nagging that drove me to buy a replacement.

The original Road ID bracelet – it’s super-tough, secure, incredibly hard-wearing and near indestructible. Sadly Mrs. SLJ lost mine for me.

Originally I was attracted to the Road ID as I’d just got back into cycling, hadn’t yet joined a club and was doing a lot of miles out on my lonesome. The ID became an essential bit of kit that was comfortable, unobtrusive, but reassuringly always there – as the marketing blurb says – it is far better to wear ID and never need it than to need ID and not have it. I still wear it today on every ride and strapping it on has become as second-nature as pulling on my cycling shoes.

It was therefore as a registered customer that I was emailed with details of the Road ID App when it was launched. I’m sure there are comparable products out there, but this type of thing is not something I would ever have thought to look for, and my trust in the Road ID crew translated to this app and reassured me it would be worthwhile and reliable.

There are 3 parts to the app, an eCrumb tracker, a stationary alert and a custom lock screen creator. The eCrumb tracker is the clever bit. This can be set to send alerts to your contacts, informing them that you’re about to embark on an epic ride and telling them how long you expect to be away. They can then use a link from this message to follow you on your route, on a map and in real-time. Effectively they can track your progress and know exactly where you are at all times.

Once you complete your ride you get an email with a neat summary of your route, distance, speed etc. – all the usual stuff you’d get from your Garmin or other GPS device.

The optional Stationary Alert doesn’t actually tell you when office supplies are running low (check the spelling, guys) but acts as you might suspect, pinging an alert to your trackers if you become motionless for a set period of time.

Useful I suspect if you crash and are lying unconscious in a ditch, but not something I’ve trialled as we often have to stop for punctures, unexpected mechanicals and in consideration of certain club mate’s infinitesimally small bladder. Of course no club ride goes by without also the pressing need for a mid-ride halt for coffee and cake and that shouldn’t be enough to ring alarm bells.

The Lock Screen creator gives you a template for setting up your phone wallpaper/screen-saver with all the personal and emergency contact details you have on your Road ID bracelet. I use this, but must admit it was the hardest part to set up on my phone and required the expertise of daughter#1 to help me with editing and re-sizing the resultant image so it was a perfect fit.

Customised Lock Screen and Stationary Alert

The app is available on both Google Play and iTunes and downloading and installing it to my Moto E phone was a breeze, even for an old technophobe Luddite like me. As I mentioned, it’s completely free, easy and intuitive to use, and could be a real life-saver if you haven’t already got something that does a similar job. There you go – for once I’m not afraid to recommend something.

So, size does matter after all.

Club Run, Saturday 27^th September, 2015

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 109 km/68 miles with 941 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 15 minutes

Group size: 30 plus – no FNG’s

Weather in a word or two: Grey. Cool.

Main topic of conversation at the start: OGL turned up to solemnly inform us that one or more of the FNG’s had been in touch to tell him they’d joined a rival club because the pace of our rides was too high right from the start. While OGL’s tone was one of mild censure, surely I wasn’t alone in thinking this was a positive result all round. The FNG’s now get to ride with a group maybe more suited to their current level, while we don’t have to constantly nursemaid riders who need to honestly assess their own capabilities before signing up to a club run.

Although that might sound harsh I’m not actually convinced the speed on the first parts of our ride are any faster now than they were when I was the struggling FNG, and plenty of others since have started, found it ok and still continue to come out with us. In fact I worked hard riding on my own to make sure when I rocked up the first time I wasn’t going to embarrass myself too much. Despite my preparations I still remember the hammer blow of that first climb, or being tailed off and constantly chasing while trying to keep the last rider in sight, along with all the encouragement and aid of others.

While there is a great deal of goodwill and help doled out to new starters there has to come a point where slowing the pace too much is simply going to ruin the ride for everyone else. At what point do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few? A certain, smart, but entirely fictional, pointy-eared alien would have a very clear answer to that.

This does suggests that a “once size fits all approach” doesn’t always work and we should consider splitting the group much earlier (goodness knows it’s big enough) and have different groups to match different abilities and desires. This suggestion isn’t universally popular though and has led to schisms and rancour in the past. Answers on a postcard, please – I haven’t got any.

On a different note, apparently the Prof fears that he’s being dealt a duff hand by Father Time and is increasingly worried by a loss of elasticity in the skin on his legs. He’s been going round inspecting and comparing the calves of anyone in the same approximate age bracket who’ll allow him to get up close and personal.

According to Red Max the Prof has so much loose skin he’s pulling it up from his ankles and over his knees a bit like a pair of baggy socks with perished elastic. For whatever reason, my twisted mind immediately conjured up an image of two legs like flaccid, wrinkled, elephant foreskins, though I wasn’t even marginally tempted to look for a suitable photo to illustrate it.

Anyway, if you’re ever accosted by a fella on a small-wheeled bike of curious design asking to feel your calves, try to let him down gently. He’ll probably tilt his head back to peer myopically at you from under his dark glasses, then just shrug and pedal off. Don’t be alarmed, he’s mostly harmless.

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop: The Red Max demonstrated his hard won, encyclopaedic knowledge of cake, by correctly identifying a Viennese Whirl, despite it being incorrectly labelled as a Malteser Tray Bake.

He gambled on this new confection being to his tastes, and it duly transported him to unforeseen heavenly delights. I’ve never seen him eat anything quite so slowly, as he delicately nibbled away like a bulimic teenager, savouring every morsel and pausing for long periods of deep contemplation. On finishing he promptly declared it was much too good for his son, the Monkey Butler Boy who he would now have to ban from ever seeing, let alone tasting such forbidden fruit.

The wasps had again disappeared – but someone obviously mentioned their absence 5 times, and like Clive Barker’s Candyman this seemed to be sufficient invocation for them to suddenly swarm our table and remind us that summer wasn’t quite over.

The pair of punctures led to a discussion of pumps, shot through with dubious double entendre’s which concluded it was all about the length, girth and hand-action as well as course of how hard it would get (your tyre , obviously.) Oh. Dear.

Crazy Legs then fished in his back pocket and delicately pulled out the smallest, frailest looking micro pump known to man, holding it carefully aloft between a thumb and forefinger. It looked like it could barely deliver sufficient volume to give CPR to a sparrow, let alone inflate a tyre. G-Dawg raised an eyebrow and asked how big it was when extended, “It is extended,” was the flat response.

Then Szell started talking about his sweaty helmet and we knew it was time to make a swift exit.

Ride Profile

The Waffle:

Saturday brought a dry, but chilly day with the sun barred and barricaded behind a flat, iron-grey blanket of cloud. Another day ticked off where shorts still remained a viable, comfortable option. Everyone feels like a bonus now.

I reached the rendezvous point early, so did a quick spin around the car park, coming back to the start from a slightly unusual direction and converging with 4 other riders, all arriving from different angles like a highly choreographed Red Arrows manoeuvre.

Thankfully we narrowly missed an embarrassing mass pile-up and as our well-published start-time rolled past we hunkered down for the inevitable wait for everyone else to show – which they did in increasing numbers, until the concourse was awash with brightly coloured, skinny limbs, shiny plastic bikes and the hum of unrepressed badinage.

Eventually over 30 guys and gals pushed off, clipped in and set out, in a long snake and I chuckled as an unsuspecting lone rider appeared at the back and had to surge over pavements, jump kerb’s and hammer down side-roads to try and get past our extended train.

We’d just left the urban sprawl behind when Son of G-Dawg punctured, and we all huddled in a lay-by as repairs were effected. Half a dozen strokes from Taffy Steve’s mighty frame pump had us rolling again, although Son of G-Dawg would later complain his tyre felt squishy as we hadn’t quite managed to inflate it to his usual 140 psi!

"A real pump? You couldn't handle a real pump!" — “A real pump? You couldn’t handle a real pump!”

We rolled along merrily for a while, until the puncture curse struck again, this time it was Crazy Leg’s turn to get that sinking feeling as his rear tyre sighed one last gasp and expired. Repairs took slightly longer this time as the sidewall was gashed and needed a bit of emergency patching. Again we regrouped and pressed on until we reached a suitable splitting point.

Here a large contingent looked set to head straight to the café, until OGL revealed the route travelled down a farm track, through closed gates and over cattle-grids, before delicately picking a route between extensive, steaming piles of cow ordure. A few changed their mind at this point, figuring it was just an evil ploy for OGL to rack up sales of inner tubes, and concluding the pain of the longer ride was preferable to off-road adventure’s and the need to deep-clean and sterilise the bike on returning home.

An audience just adds to the pressure of a slick tube change. Whenever I puncture I try to slip slowly out the back to fumble around on my own. — An audience just adds to the pressure of a slick tube change. Whenever I puncture I try to slip quietly out the back so my inept fumbling remains hidden.

It was a large, unusually disciplined group then that hit Middleton Bank, and for once we churned up it in tight formation, at a fairly respectable, but not blazing speed, losing only one or two out the back. I was alongside Red Max, who seemed at ease with climb, although he later admitted just hanging on had been fast enough to blunt his enthusiasm for a Forlorn Hope long attack. We regrouped over the top and no one was really pressing hard as we swept through Milestone Wood, over the rollers and down toward the final climb to the café.

Rounding the last corner, Shoeless and Son of G-Dawg kicked away, and I dug in to follow on G-Dawg’s wheel, but he didn’t respond. Somewhat surprised I slowed, waiting for a surge that didn’t come and trying to recover from the shock. I then somewhat apologetically did the unthinkable and passed him on the inside, trying to build some lost momentum back up.

Goose, Ovis and maybe a couple of others swept over me at this point, and I gave chase with my front wheel skipping and skeetering on the broken surface near the gutter, managing to hold them without actually closing the gap as we ground up and over the final rise.

Luckily we got into the café and served before it was mobbed by a twitchy herd of arriving pensioners, who managed to mill around aimlessly and glare at anyone they thought might have been queue jumping.

I went into the car park looking for the coach which had disgorged this ominous horde, but they had either all air-dropped into the café, or travelled there independently – perhaps part of a pensioner flash mob co-ordinated months in advance through the pages of their radical ‘zine, The People’s Friend.

Fearing a Sanatogen-fuelled riot we sent G-Dawg in for re-fills, reasoning he’d be the most likely to intimidate them into silence, and somehow he managed to pull it off.

Don't mention Mr. Wasp... — Don’t mention Mr. Wasp…

It was at this point that attention was drawn to Szell’s bike which he’d dropped and abandoned in the middle of a flower bed, before staggering away weak-limbed, shaking and utterly spent from his efforts to hang on in the sprint. Red Max tutted disgustedly however , arguing you were never truly spent, until it’s you found lying on your back in the flower bed with the bike in the air, still cleated into slowly turning pedals and occasionally twitching and buzzing like a freshly swatted blue-bottle.

We left the café before the pensioners kicked off, and I found myself riding on the front with Taffy Steve. We were just debating if anyone was going to surge past and push the pace on Berwick Hill, when Szell suffered either a puncture or an assassination attempt, his tyre exploding with a retort like a rifle-shot.

Once again we stopped, and sprawled across the road while repairs were undertaken. This was somewhat delayed as Crazy Legs first paraded the offending inner tube which had ruptured as badly as the Kalamazoo Pipeline.

“Molto piccolo!” The peloton’s verdict on Crazy Legs’s pump was suitably disparaging.

Back up and running, I resumed the vanguard position with Taffy Steve and we crested Berwick Hill and dropped down again in a fairly close ordered, compact bunch, managing to keep our discipline and everyone together until we all split up for home.

YTD Totals: 4,848 km/ 3,012 miles with 54,961 metres of climbing.

The Last Hurrah?

Club Run, Saturday 19^th September, 2015

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 118 km/73 miles with 1,083 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 26 minutes

Group size: 28 cyclists at the start. 3 FNG’s.

Weather in a word or two: Practically perfect.

Main topic of conversation at the start: Whether wearing clothing emblazoned with the Campagnolo logo should only technically be allowed if accompanied by a complete change of groupset to match.

The shocking, eye-wateringly and prohibitively expensive cost of tickets for the Rugby World Cup, even just to see the minor nations where you’re unlikely to recognise a single player. A stark contrast to the Tour of Britain where you could see, meet and mingle with some of the World’s top cyclists for free. To be fair to the RFU, their concession policy does allow kids to get in for only £15 … once the accompanying adult has forked over £150 for a ticket.

The Great North Road Cycle Maze and Death Trap™ continues to prove fantastically divisive. A photo of our Sunday morning club run studiously avoiding its perils was one of several snapped by ever vigilant, eternally law-abiding RIMs, no doubt using completely legal, dashboard and hands-free mounts on their mobile phones. The “incriminating” photos quickly found their way onto a Faecesbook page, where they started an all too predictable flame war, which rapidly grew in vitriol. The whole argument was neatly summed up in one of the most mature, astute, devastatingly logical and proportionate responses I’ve ever had the pleasure to read: “Well, if they’re going to ride in the road, I’m going to drive on the pavement.” Sigh.

Elsewhere, a local motorcyclist group also condemned the GNRCM&DT™ to the local press and the story was picked up by the RCUK website, where the comments section found even cyclists bitching amongst themselves, though without the same degree of creative swearing, searing insight and deep reflection the more general public had brought to the debate. I’ve got the feeling this one’s going to run and run…

The 6½ minutes of sheer hell, commonly known as our club hill climb (chrono-escalade if you want to be suitably pretentious) is looming large. Is it too late to file excuses? I noticed a handful of regulars have already reported conflicts with hastily arranged events elsewhere.

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop: As expected, the wasps were out in force and anyone having jam with their mid-ride scones or tea-cakes was universally shunned like a leper and exiled to a remote table in the corner. They should be grateful we didn’t take it as far as Son of G-Dawg’s suggestion of smearing them with jam and setting them loose as some sort of wasp decoy.

The fallout (seepage?) from last week’s rain-sodden, “godless ride” continues: Crazy Legs and I both agreed there had to be a better way of staying dry on both the inside and out. His solution was a new 2½ layer, foul weather jacket, though none of us could quite comprehend what half a layer might look like. I had to go one better of course, and went for the triple-layer Galibier Mistral jacket. I’m guessing both are indisputably and impressively waterproof, the acid test is how breathable they are. I’ll report back when I know more.

We were also chastised because some of the more incontinent “godless” amongst us had soaked through the seats at the café last week. It seems the pads of their shorts acted like giant sponges throughout the ride, sucking up a veritable flood of rainwater and road spray, which was duly squeezed out when they slumped their tired bodies down to enjoy hard-earned coffee and cakes.

Now on rainy days black bin bags to sit on will be issued to one and all, not just those who request them. There was some wild speculation that if things didn’t then improve there would be no choice but call for Bottom Inspectors a la the fantastically juvenile, but intermittently hilarious Viz comic. Heaven help the waitress who draws the short straw and gets such a truly thankless task.

Halfway through our stay one of the potential Bottom Inspectors came outside to look for used mugs to take away and wash as they were running short. Our table couldn’t provide any, but Carlton and Richard of Flanders conspired to helpfully load her tray down with a teetering, super-Jenga construct of used plates, dirty cutlery, glasses, saucers, milk jugs, teapots and empty cans – everything in fact except a single one of the needed and requested mugs.

Great, now they probably think we’re incredibly obtuse, as well as hell bent on sabotaging all their seating.

Ride Profile – [Now in glorious technicolour]

The Waffle:

The contrast with last week’s deluge couldn’t have been more marked, as Saturday morning dawned with faultless, clear and pure blue skies vaulting from horizon to horizon. This was the kind of day one of my friends would typically refer to as having a “Battle of Britain sky”, lacking only the contrails of a lone Spitfire or Hurricane to complete the suitably cinematic image.

Nevertheless, the air still had a real bite to it as I rode out early for the meeting point, and the long descent down the Heinous Hill had the cold wind dragging tears from my eyes and chilling my fingers. Thankfully things soon warmed up and before too long the arm warmers were dispensed with.

Why, oh why, oh why do we have to put up with such reckless, selfish and criminal behaviour, potentially holding up traffic, and enjoying themselves at the same time. What is this country coming to? — “Why, oh why, oh why do we have to put up with such reckless, selfish and criminal behaviour, potentially holding up traffic, and enjoying themselves at the same time. OMG what is this country coming to?”

At the meeting point a competent looking and enthusiastic Irish FNG turned up, bang on 9 o’clock. We had to explain that the 9 o’clock start time listed on the website was technically accurate, but actually represented a fantastically fluid and elastic concept of time that meant we would, of course, be leaving at around 9:15. He looked at us as if we were all ever so slightly mad, but seemed to accept our general tardiness with good grace, if a slightly furrowed brow. He’ll probably try and find a more punctual group to ride with next week.

Not surprisingly the perfect weather brought out a good sized bunch of lads and lasses to supplement the ranks of last week’s hard-core Rain Dogs, and despite missing a few students, it was a large complement of 28 that pushed off, clipped in and rode out en masse.

The first distraction of note came somewhere out in the wilds, where we swept past a big directional sign pointing to a wedding, but all we could see was a big tractor rolling round and round in circles in a somewhat overgrown and otherwise empty meadow. I guess that’s a rural wedding Northumbrian style?

The Prof spent a great deal of time and energy playing mother-hen to a couple of the FNG’s, who he recognised as exiled flatlanders of some ilk, which might explain his affinity for their struggles. They just couldn’t seem to get the hang of even the gentlest of slopes and slipped inexorably backwards whenever the road rose up. I’m guessing his efforts weren’t all in vain, as I’m fairly certain they at least made it as far as the coffee stop, although they may still yet be struggling to get home.

The usual stop and group split saw Taffy Steve sidling shamelessly away with the amblers on a direct heading straight to the café. Although he proclaimed some excuse about family commitments and having to be home early, he didn’t have the requisite signed note in triplicate. The consensus was that after winning the sprint last week he had decided to retire while still at the peak of his game, a little like Alberto Contador, but obviously far more successful and with much greater kudos.

A big bunch of us pressed on, before our middle group split away from the Racing Snakes. At the bottom of Middleton Bank I drifted to the back until the slope began to bite and the initial surge died. As a gap developed I pushed up the outside to latch onto the small leading group and let it pull me upwards and away.

Over the top we regrouped as Szell wasn’t around, so the strict Szell Game rules weren’t in play. Shoeless then hit the front and started piling on the pressure, and the pace was so fast that even the Red Max’s Forlorn Hope attack never materialised. He stayed firmly planted three back on G-Dawg’s wheel as we were all strung out while I tucked in behind him.

As we swept up the final hill G-Dawg kicked past Shoeless and Max slid back. On the limit, I held on for as long as possible before pulling over and watching Son of G-Dawg surge across the gap. He went straight over the top, sweeping past G-Dawg on one side, as Shoeless dived down the other to snatch second.

With the sprint done and dusted, there was only time for Ovis to briefly flirt with death and destruction show some sublime traffic filtering skills that scared the crap out of me, before we were rolling to a stop and some well earned cake.

Potentially on their way to a cafe near you!

As we were packing up to leave the café Crazy Legs floated the idea of an extended, longer and shockingly novel, alternative route home to Red Max, rightly reasoning that if anyone was daft enough to agree it would be Max, and his participation might “encourager les autres.”

With this being perhaps the last hurrah of summer and much too fine a day to waste, around eight daring and extreme radicals swept left on leaving the café, while everyone else turned to the right. The first few miles were into a hard headwind and everyone took a turn pulling as we slowly built up to a cracking, leg-burning pace and rode with remarkable (well, for us) discipline and organisation.

It was interesting to travel the roads back to the Quarry in the opposite direction to the way we usually do, and realise just how much it actually climbs. This isn’t really noticeable charging the other way down to the café, where the favourable incline no doubt fuels our mad capering and pushes us toward dangerously terminal velocities.

Despite the extended ride we quickly ticked off the miles until reaching a point where I had the chance of taking a slightly shorter way back. As the group thundered around a sharp left turn I got slingshot out of the back, like some forlorn probe on a deep-space mission to parts unknown, and set fair for home. Yet another great ride. Thanks fellas.

YTD Totals: 4,679 km/ 2,907 miles with 53,134 metres of climbing.

The Godless Ride Out

Club Run, Saturday 13^th September, 2015

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 98.5 km/61 miles with 968 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 1 minute

Group size: 14 cyclists at the start. No FNG’s.

Weather in a word or two: Stottin’ doon.

Main topic of conversation at the start: I rolled up to the start point, which had temporarily shifted 10 metres north into the dim bowels of a multi-storey car-park, where I found the usual, grinning suspects sheltering from the rain, but ready and waiting for a business-as-usual club run. Weather be damned!

As a dripping OGL rode up we were expecting an immediate club sermon about inappropriate choice of gear, last week’s poor riding display or some such, but he was distracted by new cleats that held his feet to the pedals in a death grip. Narrowly avoiding an embarrassing pratfall and almost dislocating an ankle trying to dismount, we were given a brief reprise while he loosened the tension on his pedals.

It wasn’t until these critical adjustments were completed that he roundly cursed us all for having godless bikes! Oh, sorry, no – “guard-less” bikes – bikes without guards – mudguards, fenders, crud catchers, now I get it.

Charlie Bird got a “Chapeau!” for setting a Strava record for a lap on Saltwell Park Boating Lake, although I’m a little concerned anyone would think to take a Garmin on a pedalo. Sadly, but perhaps unsurprisingly there was no corresponding KOM prize to claim.

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop: That awkward moment when you’re diligently cleaning your bike chain and your partner asks where their toothbrush has disappeared to …

Crazy Legs then gave us a vivid description and demonstration, replete with Mr. Bean facial contortions and appropriate gurning, of how he had futilely struggled to pull a sodden glove onto a wet hand with his teeth while riding at the back of the group.

This reminded me of the time Dave “Le Taxi” tried to doff a rain jacket with a ¾ length zip only to get it caught on his helmet halfway over his head. Having finally extricated himself he castigated me for being of no useful assistance as he wobbled all over the road and teetered blindly on the brink of disaster, but to be fair I was too paralysed with laughter to be of help to anyone.

We then asked Charlie Bird why he’d disappeared on the shorter, amblers ride and he muttered about his front derailleur not working so he couldn’t select the inner ring. G Dawg’s utterly baffled, uncomprehending expression was priceless.

Ride Profile

The Waffle:

For once the BBC weather forecast was spot on, predicting heavy rain all morning and uncharacteristically obliging, Mother Nature duly delivered. I was already resigned to the winter bike and had selected appropriate clothing the night before, including overshoes and my most waterproof rain jacket. I’d even given the winter bike a once over with an oily rag last weekend, so had nothing to do except check the tyre pressure before rolling out into the morning’s deluge and watery grey light.

G Dwag — G-Dawg not only eschews all use of the inner ring, but largely denies its very existence

Despite all the careful planning and preparations, leaving the best bike behind for a club run in September somehow felt all wrong, a little like sneaking off from your partner for a quiet date with an ex-girlfriend (or boyfriend, depending on your own personal preferences.)

At the RV point I found the usual suspects taking brief respite from the rain in the bottom of the multi-storey car park, and we might have been persuaded to stay there all day if the Strava KOM between the ground floor and top wasn’t so challenging.

Despite the weather Taffy Steve eschewed the thrice-cursed winter bike and bravely brought out his titanium love-child, while elsewhere there was a mix of the new and old, a few fixies and a smattering of mudguards, ass-savers and the like.

14 brave lads, no lasses (apparently rain plus helmet is murder on the hair) pushed off, clipped in and set out for a drenching. OGL’s plans were instantly washed away as the first mishap of misdirection saw us sailing blithely past the very first turn he wanted us to make.

Aboard a shipwreck train ... — Aboard a shipwreck train …

We sped onwards nonetheless, tyres cutting through the surface water with a hiss like tearing silk, and everyone settling as comfortably as they could into the ride and conditions.

The second mishap of misdirection saw us reach a big, wide-open roundabout that RIMS like to orbit at maximum warp without slowing. With no clear instructions we hit the roundabout and Ether shouted left on the spur of the moment. Twenty seconds later and while the front group were leaning well into the turn, OGL bellowed straight-on and our organisation exploded like a water-filled balloon dropping 20 feet onto concrete.

more raine — Gave my umbrella to a Rain Dog …

Taffy Steve pulled around 7g circumnavigating the entire roundabout at speed, while a half dozen of us had to cut a sharp U-turn on a major feeder road which is notorious for kamikaze traffic. By the time we re-joined the right route I could barely make out the winking red lights of the back of the pack as it disappeared into the rain and so began a long, long chase into a headwind to catch back on.

Typically, I’d just bridged across when BFG punctured and we were forced to stop anyway Milling idly around, shooting the breeze, getting rained on and obliviously sprawled across about ⅔ of a narrow country lane, we waited for repairs to be made.

It was at this point that for some reason the Prof decided to flag down an approaching car. As the driver pulled up alongside us and wound down his window quizzically, we all looked nonplussed at him, and then at the Prof, then back at the driver. The Prof mumbled something, we apologised and the guy finally realising we weren’t in need of emergency assistance and we had stopped him for no apparent reason, drove away. I’m just guessing here, but suspect that isn’t the best way of befriending your average motorist.

Repairs made we were back up to speed again when we heard a loud clunk, rattle and bang, which Crazy Legs surmised was either a serious mechanical, or an ultra-smooth Campagnolo gear shift.

The sound repeated itself a short while later, but no shout drifted up, so we mentally shrugged and pressed on, shedding riders like a comet’s tail. First beZ shot off for a lone, long, self-flagellation ride, then OGL, Ether, Cowin’ Bovril and Carlton decided they’d had enough rain and took off on the direct route to the café.

Charlie Bird seemed to hesitate, then turned to follow, as Crazy Legs squealed after him, “Come back Chuck, come back!” like the erstwhile heroine of an 80’s Chewits ad – but to no avail, as like Chuck in the advert he pressed on to join up with the amblers.

By this point the BFG had disappeared who knows where, having perhaps succumbed to that all too audible mechanical failure and slipped away unseen from the herd with a quiet dignity – (or perhaps acute embarrassment?) – to seek out his very own elephant’s graveyard.

Now our somewhat depleted group wound ourselves up the Quarry climb and struck out for the café, traversing decidedly sketchy road surfaces into a tearing headwind and lashing rain.

Moose Bumps jumped away and Red Max and Taffy started to wind it up for the usual Forlorn Hope. I tried hanging onto their wheels, but the legs were leaden and unresponsive and they slowly slipped away, with everyone else piling past in earnest, but futile pursuit. There it was, proof if ever I doubted, that last week’s burst of almost human strength was but a flitting mirage.

In one unexpected turn however, the Forlorn Hope was spectacularly successful, as with a last burst Red Max bridged up to Moose’s back-wheel and Taffy Steve clinically delivered the coup de grace.

We regrouped at the café, earlier than usual following a somewhat shortened ride, to find much to G-Dawg’s disgust that his customary ham and egg pie was still in the oven. Sitting round the table with the Prof’s untenanted jacket presiding over us like Banquo’s ghost, we slurped coffee, talked nonsense, laughed a lot and no doubt annoyed everyone else in the café while we waited for G-Dawg’s pie.

The amblers left long before our vigil was complete, exiting the café to find the rain pelting down with a renewed vigour. When our turn came to leave Crazy Legs half-jokingly suggested a longer route home, but with the rain still unrelenting there was no great enthusiasm for a detour. The first few minutes were uncomfortable, but we soon warmed up and quickly clipped off the miles back to base.

I turned off for home accompanied only by a recurring Tom Waits song and arrived at the river crossing to find the skies, if not clearing, then at least no longer weeping. I was thankfully able to shuck the boil-in-the-bag jacket before my assault of the Heinous Hill and I stuffed it into my jersey pocket. It may have sat like a cold wet sponge in the middle of my back, but it was good to be free of it, no matter how briefly.

All in all an enjoyable run despite, or just maybe, perhaps because of the foul weather.

YTD Totals: 4,679 km/ 2,907 miles with 53,134 metres of climbing.

Jabbering babble and babbling jabber …

Club Run, 18^th July, 2015

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 85km/53 miles with 709 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 3 hours 9 minutes

Group size: 27 riders at the start. 2 FNG’s.

Weather in a word or two: Blustery.

Main topic of conversation at the start: The BFG has given up on his wooden rims which can warp faster than a Constitution-class starship and no amount of araldite, solder or exotic spoke weaving-patterns seemed to help them stay true. They’ve now been consigned to the Cheryl Cole: “nice to look at but serving no functional purpose” bin.

Despite his wooden wheel setback, BGF himself however continues to press boldly onward and kept me royally entertained with his tale of taking his latest vintage frame to Boots and press-ganging a bevy of beauty clinicians into helping find just the right shade of pearlised-blue nail-varnish to touch up a small scratch in the paintwork.

JC Peraud’s jersey, shorts and skin shredding crash at the TdF got a mention, especially his X-rated exposed crotch, which thankfully the TV pictures managed to cover with a pixelated-blur. I thought comments that the blurred area was “very small” to be quite mean-spirited.

We then had to disabuse one of our newer members from suggesting our rendezvous point was a lowly bus station – everyone should realise it’s nothing less than a truly magnificent Transport Interchange Centre.

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop: There was some suggestions that this very blog should only be available via the Darknet. Come on… it’s not that bad!

One of our newer riders commented that he was unaware other rides existed outside of our normal routes, was quite surprised to find that the whole of Northumberland was actually open to us and that our collective Garmin’s didn’t spontaneously combust once we turned away from the OGL approved rides.

In a reprise of the “blowin’ in the wind” club run, an exceptional limbo act into the gusting wind narrowly preserved a tray precariously loaded with coffee, cake and other goodies – earning a heartfelt round of applause from all assembled.

Ride Profile

The Waffle:

With OGL yet again in absentia, this time providing transport, DS, coaching, mechanic and soigneur services to a couple of our promising youngsters competing at the National Junior Road Race Championship, we were again given a little more freedom to pick our route and again seek out roads a little less travelled – and typically a bit hillier.

The weather was a mixed bag of sunny spells, showers, warm patches, icy cold blasts, overcast, then high broken clouds and blue skies, always changing from one corner to the next. The one constant throughout though was an ever present, strong and gusting wind that had us planning to frequently change lead riders from the off. Pre-planning? Surely a first for the club.

Pushing off and clipping in we instinctively avoided the Great North Road Cyclemaze, which has mutated yet again. It now appears to be designed to not only trap unwary cyclists, but also sacrifice befuddled pedestrians and unwitting, wide-eyed school children directly to the gods of the speeding motor vehicle. We await further developments of this sadistic urban planners wet dream, with very faint hope that it will eventually metamorphose into a sensible and safe means of negotiating the insatiable traffic.

The planned tribal cannibals have yet to be installed in the Great North Road Cyclemaze, but planners are confident they will be the final solution to ensuring that none who enters can escape.

I did my stint on the front pretty much from the start, and just for the benefit of those who have accused me of exaggerating my own efforts on these rides it’s worth noting that this was almost exclusively uphill, through a full-on, unrelenting headwind and at a pace that touched the terminal speeds of our typical late café sprint.

Meanwhile, in an alternative universe and much closer to reality, Crazy Legs drew my attention to the incessant chatter, guffaws of laughter and nonchalant whistling drifting continuously up from the bunch behind us – a sure-fire sign that despite my breathless toiling into the fierce headwind, no one else was having to work remotely hard enough behind me. Admitting defeat I swung over and let someone else have a go at a bit of ceaseless self-flagellation.

Well into the ride, we swooped down into the Tyne Valley like a pack of rampaging Huns, disrupting the genteel Saturday morning routines of the sleepy villages, only to disappear in a whirr of spinning freewheels and buzz of jabbering babble (or babbling jabber, depending on if we were approaching or passing) – escaping long before the watch beacons could be lit and church bells rung in warning.

Climbing back out of the valley brought us to the A69 dual carriageway, loaded with speeding cars and lorries, and giving us the opportunity to play real-life Frogger. (For those of us yet to reach pubescence, Frogger is a classic arcade game, a bit like Crossy Road but, way cooler, with better graphics, more engaging gameplay and not burdened by having an infantile name that a Nursery Class might discern as being a little too unsophisticated – even for them.)

frogger — Crossing the A69 – Frogger-style.

Having, eventually crossed the dual-carriageway safely we climbed, then climbed some more, on single-track roads with crumbling surfaces until finally escaping the valley. More miles rolled past, until we hit one of our usual routes and everyone got strung out on the Quarry climb.

At the top we turned right, straight into a fierce headwind, with no chance for recovery. The pace picked up as we burned for the café, then were whipped along by a tailwind at a pace so high it even precluded the Red Max’s traditional, Forlorn Hope attack.

In the final miles I pressed on somewhat distanced from the front group and unable to close the gap, pulling a string of other riders behind me. Easing and sitting up to take the twisting bends was a relief and a chance to catch my breath before rolling into the café.

A totally relaxed run from the café and shortened ride all around got me home in good time to head off on the family holiday. Mission accomplished.

YTD Totals: 3,661km/ 2,275 miles with 40,544 metres of climbing.

Sur La Jante

The Chronicles, Confessions and Idle Musings of a Club Cyclist

Tag: road cycling

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The Godless Ride Out

Jabbering babble and babbling jabber …