The 'Uts Feb / Mar 2010

A series of 3 rides on successive weekends, all of them from a collection of bike huts (or 'uts, in Essex) in Ugley, Essex. These typically mark the arrival of the common or garden cyclist who hangs up their shoes in October, returning in March (to be distinguished from the fair weather cyclist who only comes out in May...) and it's nice to see the numbers on the ride rise from 20 ish over the winter months up to around 100 or so for these rides.

Feb 27th, 100km: A fast way to a did not finish.

Alas my first did not finish for a while, albeit after a bit of a blast. The ride was two (different) 50km loops from the HQ - for the first 50km loop I (along with some others) were told to set off a bit early (to avoid mass congestion on the roads) and hadn't got far before I was caught by "the train", a fast moving mini peloton of around 8 people from the Bishops Stortford http://www.bs-cc.org/ and the Victoria cycling clubs: http://www.victoriacyclingclub.co.uk/. The guys from Stortford seemed entirely content to just sit at the front and do the hard work so I shamelessly sat at the back, flying along, dispatching the first 50km in 1hr 45, an average of 28km / hr, pretty decent for February.

I was however experiencing increasing problems with gears, one by one my gears were skipping and by the end of the first loop of 50km my 30 gears had already been reduced to around 22. Deciding to press on and go back out for the second loop was the right decision at the time, albeit I was now on my own as the rest of the guys were tucking into heaps of tea and cake (in their defense, their usual ride is only 80km or so, it would have been entirely natural for them to have a 10 minute stop after a 50km blast, but if you are used to riding 200km+ then at 50km it feels like you've only just got started, I always crack on, only stopping properly at 100km).

Alas though after each extra km more gears disappeared before at the 65km mark all the moving bits of metal on the bike just gave up, twisting themselves into a small pile of expensive scrap. I gave the tea and cake boys a wave as they flew past me 10 minutes later, my bike now in bits at the side of the road.

With thanks to my long suffering wife who came to rescue me - go straight to the bike shop, do not pass go etc. All very depressing, but nice to have had a blast at the beginning.


March 6th 210km. Bonking all the way home.

£200 later and my bike is back from the bike shop. Still, the old chain, gears etc had done circa 10,000km since new a couple of years back so that's not bad on a pence per mile basis I suppose.

A 207km ride, this one being of two loops of circa 100km. The first 100km loop was spent being tugged aroudn by Ed "the jugernaught" Nevard, a well known local rider who for once was setting a pace somewhat too fast for the ever diminishing pack - at one stage is was around 30 strong, by the 50km mark it was down to around 12, at the 100km mark there were just 4 of us left and then it became 3 as I conceded defeat and "let them go on ahead".

Alas the last 60km were into a cold and stiff easterly headwind, the baron hertfordshire rolling farmland offering very little protection or place to hide. The whole leg felt like I was dragging a sandbag behind me. Part of it I'm sure was not really eating enough throughout the day and my body starting to eat itself instead - the classic cyclists / runners "bonk". A very tired and weary finish, 206 km in 8 hours 54 mins, average 23.1. Ed had pulled us so around the first 100km so fast that we were (literally) miles ahead of everyone else - but by the time I got back he was long gone. And just to add insult to injury he did the whole thing on a "fixed" (just one gear).


March 13th 215km Tri Tri and Tri again

The third and final 'Uts ride, a 3 "lap" route of 110km, 70km, 40km, each out and back to the clubhut. I found myself in a little group of 6 or so from the Cambridge triathlon club, 4 guys, 2 girls, all of them ironmen. I spent around half the ride with them, bumping into them on each of the legs and staying with them for a while. It was truly humbling that at the 180km mark when we're all feeling tired and drained that instead of gettig back on our bikes for the last 40km they would (in an ironman) run it instead - ironman is 4km swim, 170km ride then a full marathon (40km). Hats off to them all. Duly researched I see one of them was Lucy Gossage who gets a nice puff piece here. It was nice to think I would have matched her on the bike part of ironman (she finished 7th overall last year in UK ironman) though alas my marathon time would have been "somewhat" outside her 3hr 23...

http://www.tri247.com/article_6069.html

Finally for me the first ride of the season where I felt I was getting up to pace again - 215km in 8.5 hours for a very respectible average of 24.8km / hr.