The old squit 200km: three seasons in one day

Saturday Feb 13th, 202km out of Colney, nr Norwich.

This ride was cancelled last year, the course being under 6 foot of snow. This year it was a little touch and go with fresh snow on Wednesday putting the ride in doubt though by Friday it had thawed enough for the ride to get the all clear. Truth be told, this ride had mentally beaten me long before my legs got tired - after just 15km the early morning sleet turned once again into proper snow, via a nice hailstorm. We had a chat amongst us about which was preferable - riding without glasses and getting your corneas treated to hailstone dermabrasion every nano second or riding with glasses and getting a layer of sleet on the outside and condensation on the inside, making them impossible to see through. After much debate we decided that neither was preferable.

The course, duly coated with snow on top of hail on top of sleet on top of ice then became "a bit tricky", slowing everything down to a crawl. Somewhere in the middle of slithering through the white stuff came my first "sod this" moment and I almost turned for home. We then turned off the rural backlane onto a slightly more used road which had been gritted so on I ploughed to the first stop at 50km for a lovely bacon and egg sarnie.

The next 50km took a different route back to the Colney HQ, by now the slush had melted and the Norfolk country lanes had turned from white to brown - very very brown, in parts the lanes were more akin to fields / ditches than roads. If you want to know just how mucky the ride became, this should give you a good idea:

90km into the ride and just 10km from the HQ (and half-way point) the hail returns once again bigtime, and all of us in our little group of 6 say in unison "sod this". Back to the HQ at 100km I was close to just jumping in the car & going home (a number of people did) but I was neither all that cold nor all that wet (thanks mainly to some fab winter cycling kit) and it felt churlish coming all this way to just give up half way round.

Out again for the next 50km leg and winter turns to spring, with an hour or so of weak sunshine warming up the spirits. Alas then spring turned to autumn with a nasty stretch into a stiff arctic headwind slowing progress once again. By this point I was feeling a little physically unwell (remnants of a cold) and with a sagging heart was just about to call it a day and turn for home when an old cycling buddy caught me up (he's a lovely guy and super fit but he's twice my age so I know I'm struggling a bit whenever he catches me...) and a little chat took my mind off feeling unwell and perked me up again.

In and straight out of the 150km stop as it's starting to get dark now AND ONCE AGAIN SOME IDIOT LEFT HIS MAPLIGHT AT HOME SO HE CAN'T READ THE DARN ROUTESHEET ONCE IT GETS DARK... and I press on for home. Alas probability finally caught up with me 30km from home and after riding for 8 hours through sludge, grit, hedge trimmings & rocks the tiniest little flint managed to sneak in and puncture my rear tyre. Only now do you realise just how cold it is, standing around fiddling with wet tyres, fingers numb in just a few minutes. I didn't help myself by freezing my CO2 canister (they are fab, pump a tyre up in 2 seconds) onto my fingers - as the gas rushes out the canister goes instantly ice cold, sticking to anything wet.... Fool.

So by now it's properly dark, I'm cold from having fixed my puncture, I'm covered in shite from head to toe, I'm not feeling too well and I can't read the directions any more - but apart from that all is dandy. Once again I am picked up by another rider and chatting along as we ride perks us both up for the last hour or so back to the HQ.

Ride stats: 203km, ride time 8hr 45 mins (total time 10 hrs), average 23.1km / hr.

Feb '10 - Winter 1066

Feb 7th, Hailsham - The Winter 1066. 100km, 1980m of climbing

One of the many rides organised by Dave Hudson out of Hailsham. His rides are always a little more expensive than most (OK, I'm talking £6 rather than the usual £3) but in return you get to stuff yourself silly at every stop with as much stodge and sugary stuff you can manage. He even brings along seats, toasters etc to the rest stops. All you do is sit on one of his seats, open your mouth and he just shovels in calories. Most people end the ride having put weight on...

Very much a ride of three thirds, the first third being the bit I get on least well with, a real bumpy continual up and down though Sussex lanes. None of it extreme, just up hill, round bend, down hill, round bend, up hill, round bend... for 35km to the first of the stodge stops. The next 40km were more my style of hills, long grindy steady climbs, each of them a few km long. This took us down to Hastings (the clue was in the title...). I've always wondered if a cyclist will (with sufficient speed etc) set off a speed camera and after a long grind to a ridge above Hastings we them had a 75km / hr blast down the other ride to the sea front, complete with the speed camera flashing away to it's hearts content. In hindsight I wish I had clocked it beforehand as I could have given it a "special wave" but I wasn't about to turn around and go back up the hill (not yet, anyway...).

A lovely cruise along the seafront at Hastings for about 5km, winter sun was out, sky was blue, then sharp right turn, up a 1 in 5 that leveled off to a 5km climb back up (& a bit further along) the ridge we'd come down and back to Dave for another helping of stodge.

The last 30km were dead flat, just a few m above sea level, across (not literally) the marshes along the sea front back to Hastings.

All in all a lovely ride, the sun came out and it's nice to feel fit again after the winter break.

Ride stats: 107km, climb 1,980m, ride time 4hr 50, average a bumpy 22km / hr.

200km out of Norwich this coming Saturday. If the newly arrived wintry blast doesn't shift that ride will be "a bit cold".