VCF Ride report – Sunday 4th August – the long route (almost) This report is brought to you in homage to ‘the rules’, which can be found here velominati/the-rules/. Lets start with #19 – ‘introduce yourself’ – a big rule with the VCF, second only I think to ‘no-one gets left behind’. We applied #19 most generously and were very happy of the opportunity to do so on Sunday when 16 of us turned up for the 9am big one (as opposed to the 10 am small one). I, of course, refer to rides in this context and not the pre-ride prerequisite motions of love Stephen. Gi Tri members rocked up en masse and after good mornings, many repeats of the route and the final clicking of stravas, garmins and smart phones we set out with a gusty tail wind blowing us all hard up the 46. Not a euphemism. The wind was to play large and prevalent roll in the ride as was the range of speed across the group – the two combining to pretty regularly split us up and stretch us out. BUT we always re-assembled under the collective wheel of paddy the daddy who marshalled us well and kept us en route. Nipping down the 616 past the sugar factory someone shot ian. He held bike and body together as he rather rapidly decelerated in the soft stuff and we heaved a collective sigh of relief when bullet became pinch flat. Note – 110 psi, 80+ muscly kilos and 28” tyres do not a happy collective make. Rule #84 ‘follow the code’ was generally applied to the extent that if you’d stopped you were helping – everyone weighed in and we were done in a jiffy. Well, about 10 jiffies actually. This was helped by the decision to replace said flat next to a decaying and maggot infested bird. Which was nice. Replaced, repumped (post valve location) remounted and off. 16 lining out on a very busy road made more so by the 617 closure and consequent traffic diversion. Two problems – 16 and heavy traffic. The strung out peloton consecutively braked, this accelerated towards the rear right at the point that our rear guard sam was getting buzzed by a car. The result – a pretty spectacular coming together and a messy end for sams family of jelly babies. It was jelly mageddon to be honest, not pretty, full on jellycide. Sam was pretty bashed up too, his rear mech was now at a ‘jaunty angle’, ami was holding together really well and to be fair to the driver closest to sams head he didn’t run over it. We now come to wilful application of Rule #5 ‘HARDEN THE F@#K UP’!. Sam applied it, Ami applied it, the jelly babies would have applied it but instead and unfortunately were forced into ‘SQUASH THE F@#K UP’! which alas was taken to its full extreme. Sam was leaking a lot but simply squirted on a bit of water, whipped out his tool, fettled his mech and got back on his bike. Hard core. Ami nailed it too, she got back on and got on with it. It was an accident, a nasty one – but just that, accidental. Chapeau guys, you rock. Re-grouped we pulled off the main road to hit the nice, quiet, traffic free back roads up through Caunton to Southwell. Rule #5 continued to be applied – this time by Tina and Antonia from Gi who dug deep to ride out the hills – challenging riding made harder by the head wind – even at times dipping into #67 ‘do your time in the wind’. They stuck at it all the way to Southwell where they could no longer resist the urge of cake. Cake well earned! We grouped again for the long climb out on the Oxton road. Strava gold was mined and liz whizzed up the thing – justifying long mtb hours with cliff up the pines??!!!. Eldorado awaited us in the garden centre at the top of the hill where the biggest cakes in the universe were sold, admired and devoured. We very purposefully made a mockery of #91 ‘no food on training rides under 4 hours’, we ate that rule. Caffeined and cossetted we hit the 12% descent, did bit more mining, definitely embraced #85 ‘descend like a pro’ and waved good bye to sam at the bottom who went in search of tlc, plasters and a new jelly baby family no doubt. The headwind continued to bother as we tapped out through epperstone, gonalston, lowdahm and then finally at east bridgford the wind gave us a push. What with punctures, crashes and, well a feast frankly, time had turned against us so we turned for home knocking the final 10 off the planned route to finish on just over 40 miles. Throughout all of this patrick lead from the front and all riders pulled together to help, comfort, fix, chat , ride (obviously) and of course eat. What a day! Brilliant turn out for a challenging ride across a lovely (albeit busy in places) route in rapidly declining weather. Great work everyone and more battle honours for the vcf. And remember when in doubt - #4 ‘its all about the bike’!
Posted on: Mon, 05 Aug 2013 17:09:31 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015