A big group of 16 of us rode out to Rye Harbour.
Had a slow puncture in my front tubular.
Rye Harbour (SFA)
Hamstreet (SFA)
Rain, hail and a broken chain…
Trosley Country Park (SFA)
Wet and windy ride to Trosley Country Park, via the Medway Bridge
Hawkhurst Lakes (SFA)
Sunday Inters ride to Hawkhurst Fish Farm
Four Elms 2 (SFA)
Distance: 70.1 miles. Elevation: 3197 ft.
Another club ride with the Sunday Intermediates. It was a cold (8°C) morning with almost no wind. It was a dull, grey day with a mist that ultimately turned to fine rain. The roads were dry though and I took the Colnago.
Due to possibly snoozing my alarm-clock in my sleep, I was very late leaving. So I sprinted to Marden, averaging 19.2 mph. I got there at 08:57.
There were 6 riders out today. We had a good, although uneventful, ride to a garden centre café in Four Elms that was packed with other cyclists. On the way back we got pretty damp, cycling through the fine rain.
When I got back home, I had covered 68 miles so I rode up and down a few times to round it up to 70! Job done!
Wye (SFA)
Distance: 66.4 miles. Elevation: 3082 ft.
Another club ride with the Sunday Intermediates. It was a cold (7°C, feeling like 4), windy morning. So it was on with the winter gear: skull cap, Roubaix longs, base layer and winter jersey, The roads were quite dry though so, unlike last week, I didn’t feel the need for mudguards and I took the Colnago.
I was late leaving so I rode with haste to Marden, averaging 19.2 mph. Just as I got into the village, the church clock was chiming 9, so that was good timing, or cutting it fine, depending on your perspective!
There was a good turn-out of 8 riders. We set off soon after and made our way to Wye. It was a windy day and the wind was mainly behind us for the 28-mile ride there. It was sunny but chilly. My feet were cold and my body wasn’t that warm either. I’d had nothing for breakfast again, so I was really ready for some food by the time we arrived at Wye. But, to our dismay, the café was closed, possibly for good by the look of it. Plan B involved riding 8 miles to Great Chart Golf Club, which took us another half an hour. By now I was even more ravenous. But the small snack bar at the golf club wasn’t geared up to serve eight hungry mouths in a hurry. It took another 40 minutes before I finally got some food inside me, in the shape of scrambled eggs on toast.
Eventually we set-off again, this time mainly into the westerly breeze. Just as we left Staplehurst, with about 5 miles of the ride remaining, we rode into heavy rain. I didn’t have my rain jacket and I got drenched, which was particularly uncomfortable due to the chilly wind. Despite that, and various other delays that we had on the way back, we averaged 15.4 mph on the return journey
Faversham (SFA) or “The Day Before the Storm”
Very windy ride on a very mild day.
Challock (SFA)
Distance: 59.5 miles. Elevation: 2699 ft.
Another ride with the Sunday Intermediates. It was a chilly, misty morning with the promise of sunshine later. As I cycled down into the Vale of Kent on my way to Marden the mist got thicker, enough to get me and the bike wet. My fingers were also cold for the first time since last Winter. The upside was that the misty landscape provided plenty of evocative scenery.
I met the others at Marden as usual. There were seven of us on the ride. As we made our way to Challock Glider Club, the mist gradually cleared and the sun did indeed come out. It turned into a lovely morning. A couple of miles before Challock, the group split to take two different routes. Two of the guys were on fixies and wanted to take a less steep, off-road route. The rest of us took the longer, steeper, on-road route. This caused a bit of confusion in the numbers and when the group I was in arrived at the glider club, we realised that a rider had gone missing (we had become quite stretched out on a steep hill about a mile beforehand). Two of the guys went back to search for him but returned about 20 minutes later empty-handed. Luckily, the missing rider turned up about five minutes after that. So we all sat in the sunshine watching the gliders being launched into the blue sky as we scoffed our grub.
On the way back, I left the group to take a more direct route home, instead of going to Marden. About three miles into my solo journey, I took a wrong turning. I realised that I was heading too far to the South, so I turned around to retrace my steps back to a turn-off I had missed. As I was making my way back, lo and behold, the rest of the group came up the road behind me! I rode with them for another couple of miles and peeled-off again, for a more direct route home. Joking, one of them shouted after me “see you in 5 minutes!”. But they didn’t. This time I didn’t get lost.
I was really flagging over the last few miles. I struggled up Barn Hill, recording one of my slowest times for ages! Maybe it was yesterday’s hilly ride that had worn me out.
Ham Street (SFA)
Distance: 72 miles. Elevation: 2209 ft.
Another club run with the Sunday Intermediates. The day started off cloudy but the sun broke through later for a while. Roughly 14-16°C. I wore my arm warmers for the first leg of the ride, but took them off after the café stop, but it wasn’t as warm as I thought and I wished I had them back on again. Guess I may as well concede that Summer is over and it’s time for long sleeves!
I had fitted a 12-30T cassette to my Colnago the day before, to make sure I wouldn’t get caught out on the hills again. However, today’s route turned out to be extremely flat, taking in the Vale of Kent and bits of Romney Marsh.
I decided to cycle to the start this morning instead of driving. When I got to Marden, the group had just set off, so it was good timing. A minute later and I would have missed them! There were eight of us out today and we rode at a good pace of over 17 mph despite a constant fresh westerly breeze. We stopped for food at a garden centre in Ham Street. Scrambled eggs on toast was the popular choice of the day!
The pace on the return journey was even more frantic, at 18.2 mph back to Marden, again with that breeze hindering us much of the time. The average speeds of the Sunday club runs are steadily increasing, it seems, and are now often significantly higher than the 14-16 mph that’s advertised as the norm for this group. This is no doubt helped by the younger riders that have been attending. While these higher averages are nice for those that can manage them, I feel there is a danger that it could deter some members who would otherwise choose to ride with this group.
An enjoyable ride!
Ride notes:
Don’t take your arm-warmers off too early
Remember to re-start the timer on your Garmin when you start riding back
It will save you 90minutes+ of rebuilding the ride data in Excel later!
Hawkhurst (SFA)
Distance: 51.6 miles. Elevation: 3291 ft.
Another club run with the Sunday Intermediates. It was a very mild, by recent standards, overcast day. There were nine of us this time and we rode a roundabout route to Hawkhurst Fish Farm for our brunch.
It was the first decent ride using my new bike. The bike was great; however, I suffered a bit on the hills with its 11-25 cassette. My other bike, with its 11-32 has two more lower gears. So I was going up hills in what I consider to be third gear! Not impossible, but a lot more effort. I’m definitely going to change the cassette to gain at least a 28 on the back. Two youngsters on the ride were telling me that you can go up any hill with a 25 on the back! I politely explained to them that when they get as old as me they will need lower gears! Regarding the electronic shifting, it worked flawlessly except for two occasions: at one point it dropped the chain off the front small ring, but I managed easily to re-thread it by operating the front mech towards the big ring; at another point in the ride, it wouldn’t switch to the big ring at the front despite repeated efforts on the levers – I ‘fixed’ this by switching to the small ring (even though it was already on it) and then back to the large ring.
The ride back after our food stop was particularly lumpy, and I found this ride pretty tough-going really. We achieved an average of 15.3 mph, which was good considering the amount of hills, some stops, an off-road section and getting lost a couple of times (blame the gps!). There was some joking about my new bike getting dirty and maybe scratched by all the stones flying around as we cycled off-road through some woods near Bedgebury!
As usual, despite the exertion, I still really enjoyed the ride.
