London 2 Paris in 24 Hours - Two more weekends training

Dirty Wknd - Bakery 2 Bakery

Dirty Wknd is a cycling club with a difference. Most clubs in London seem to be pretty hard core and concentrate on racing or really long rides. Dirty Wknd concentrates on being more accessible and having fun. It does have some hard core rides, but all the rides are tagged with a colour, much like a ski slope. Different colours annoyingly. A red ride will kill you, unlike a red run on the slopes!

Bakery 2 Bakery

 

 For my first ride I wanted something not too challenging as I was unsure of how much my usual solo average speed would be affected by riding in a group - riding in a group is much easier than riding by yourself.

So a Yellow ride made sense. Unfortunately none were available when I came to book, so I managed to talk myself into thinking I could keep with an Orange ride (one under red).

I met up with the group in Victoria Park and was surprised to find that there were only four others on the ride. Apparently the previous days atrocious weather and the amount of wind we'd be riding in had scared everyone away. It turns out that there was a red ride starting from the same point as well but the ride hadn't happened. Two of the riders were refugees from the red ride.

We took off with a hiss and and a roar. These guys were fast. The ride was supposed to achieve an average of 24km/h and we were sitting on 28 - 30, which for me fast. However while it was hard, being in a group made a massive difference and I was able to keep up. At the half way bakery we had averaged a massive 27km/h!

Heading home that all changed as we had a headwind all the way back. The speeds tumbled and the two red riders eventually disappeared into the sunset, the speeds were obviously too show for them. I had to console myself with the fact that we were still well above the planned ride average.

The ride leader told me at the end that it was a "pacey" introduction! Apparently if the group had been bigger we would have been under the average speed, given the amount of wind we had. The take home; There's hope for me yet!

Rowe and King South London Rideout

Rowe and King are the training organisation work has used to try to whip us commuting cyclists into some kind of shape. Surprisingly they seem to be succeeding. 

This ride was the latest in a series that have included a Velodrome session (loads of very fast fun), the Chiltern 100 and an earlier ride out.

There were three rides: short, medium and long. I decided that given the L2P is getting close I should be doing the long ride of 125 kms. The sentiment was good, however the thinking-it-through bit was sadly lacking. I already knew from the velodrome session that we have some spectacularly fast cyclists at work. It didn't occur to me they would all do the long ride.

I soon realised my mistake! I found the pace quite quick from the off but was comfortable keeping up as long as I was in the group, however all that lovely wind assistance disappears when you hit a hill. The pack simply vanished. I wasn't the only one having difficulty. Fortunately the downhill speeds were fairly low so I was able to catch up, but I wondered how I was going to last the day.

Fate to the rescue! The medium and short groups had left before us and we caught the medium group before we turned off to our longer route. I quietly switched groups and found a pace that I could cope with. Annoyingly I was still one of the slowest up the hills, but with the slower pace it was much easier to catch up after the hill.

Then the heavens opened. It was really, really wet. Proper rain, the likes of which England rarely gets. We were in the middle of tiny lanes through hills and the edges of the road quickly turned to mud. The result was a couple of crashes. One we all stopped for while it was sorted, however the second the message didn't get through. Two of us stopped to help and when we got going it was clear that we were on our own. It was slower going as we didn't have the benefit of a group, but the sun came out and we had a lovely ride for the last half of the ride.

Fundraising

As usual, there is the usual request for sponsorship! Cancer is a worthy cause, one that touches us all in some way. I'm working hard to make this charity ride a reality, so I'd really appreciate any help you can give to get me to my sponsorship goal. Please see my sponsorship page for details on how to donate. 

Thank you!