Yes. Trying to persuade her to do the Sarfend ride, if possible.
FNRttC Friday Night Ride to the Coast - Felpham October 10th
- Thread starter dellzeqq
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Yes. Trying to persuade her to do the Sarfend ride, if possible.
srw
It's a bit more complicated than that...
The kidnapper agrees to your harsh demands, on condition that a decent drink appears on the table in front of the intermediary.Yes indeed it's mine!
I'll need to get it's mate out of the dustbin now.
I'll pm you my address @srw , if you would be so kind to pop it in the post
Wobblers
Euthermic
- Location
- Minkowski Space
What a night that was. I got to Victoria, after only a few wrong turns (surely I can't have forgotten the way after a three months?!?)... only to find no one there! What's happened to all the Usual Suspects? They eventually showed up - though not before I double checked the date to be sure I hadn't managed to get the wrong Friday (or month). But, such slacking!
As Flying Dodo has said, despite the rain, we were lucky with the weather. The wet roads and puddles mean that we must have narrowly avoided a lengthy torrential downpour on the way to Faygate - and I for one was keeping an anxious eye on that rather onimous looking cloud to the south of us. But it headed eastwards, so it wasn't until Horsham that the rain started. To answer @srw, long hair helps - rain drips off the ends onto your jacket rather than down your neck: though I must confess I deployed the hood so as to stop too much water dribbling down my neck when the rain was at its worst. It was just as lucky that the rain stopped before we reached Bury Hill, so we had a chance to dry out - and admire yet another dark cloud to the west which was sporting a rainbow.
Breakfast, as usual, was one of the highlights, in the splendid company of rich p and ianrauk [1]. We agreed that the one thing missing was @martint235: hope you can make the Southend ride, Martin. It was nice to see @itsbruce, though I didn't recognise you at first because you were riding a bike with gears!
Other highlights: the bread pudding, riding full tilt down Lonesome Lane in the mist - magic! - seeing the mist patches cling to the hills before Bury Hill and enjoying the company of many friends I've missed.
[1] Probably the only time you'll get a compliment out of me, Ian, so savour it, gitface
As Flying Dodo has said, despite the rain, we were lucky with the weather. The wet roads and puddles mean that we must have narrowly avoided a lengthy torrential downpour on the way to Faygate - and I for one was keeping an anxious eye on that rather onimous looking cloud to the south of us. But it headed eastwards, so it wasn't until Horsham that the rain started. To answer @srw, long hair helps - rain drips off the ends onto your jacket rather than down your neck: though I must confess I deployed the hood so as to stop too much water dribbling down my neck when the rain was at its worst. It was just as lucky that the rain stopped before we reached Bury Hill, so we had a chance to dry out - and admire yet another dark cloud to the west which was sporting a rainbow.
Breakfast, as usual, was one of the highlights, in the splendid company of rich p and ianrauk [1]. We agreed that the one thing missing was @martint235: hope you can make the Southend ride, Martin. It was nice to see @itsbruce, though I didn't recognise you at first because you were riding a bike with gears!
Other highlights: the bread pudding, riding full tilt down Lonesome Lane in the mist - magic! - seeing the mist patches cling to the hills before Bury Hill and enjoying the company of many friends I've missed.
[1] Probably the only time you'll get a compliment out of me, Ian, so savour it, gitface
Wobblers
Euthermic
- Location
- Minkowski Space
"What plank spoiled the caption competition by telling everyone what I was saying?"
U
User10571
Guest
Excellent.
More elbow to your persuasiveness....
StuAff
Silencing his legs regularly
- Location
- Portsmouth
In terms of weather, that was a suitably damp squib ending to my week off- plans to get two or three tons in aborted in favour of short runs when it wasn't p***ing down. In terms of enjoyment, however, it was a large ray of sunshine as per usual.
Was intending to ride up, as I usually do when I have time off, but the forecasts suggested it was going to be something like this....
The ride from Pompey is, in decent weather, a thoroughly enjoyable 75 miles. In the wrong conditions, anything but. So I opted to get the train, and bought the ticket before I changed my mind. The afternoon was punctuated by frequent heavy showers, so certainly looked like the right decision. On account of forecasts for the night, the bike with mudguards and disc brakes seemed like the correct option. Sorry to be proved right....
Got the last fast(er) service into Waterloo, and then over to Victoria for the early meet-up and carb loading. Lovely, as others have noted, to see so many returnees (@rich p ! @thom ! (and several others)...GWS @itsbruce ). Not surprisingly the turnout at HPC seemed somewhat reduced but still healthy.
First half thankfully stayed dry. In view of the forecast, the Portnalls Road- Reigate Hill option was definitely the best one, main roads and better lighting the order of the night. The weather held out for the first half, unfortunately Frank's wheel didn't. And as for @Captain Defect and his steed for the night...oh dear. It started with massively worn brake blocks (NOS? I Saw You Coming more like, the ones I take off after thousands of miles look in better shape) and it got worse, that thing all too reminiscent of certain other bikes we've seen on previous rides, in a looked-like-it-was-falling-apart-before-it-did way. Comedy arrival at the Lobster Pot was some recompense though...! Mark and team at the Cabin did their usual exemplary job (for those who think the bread pudding portions are too big....NOOOOO! Some of us need the calories).
Not long after that, the heavens opened, and stayed open for most of the ride. Time for the rain trousers, which did their job well as usual. Team Hatler not surprisingly went as soon as they had arrived (boo!). Bury Hill the same old motononous dreadful bottom-gear slog (hiss!). Lobster Pot breakfast fab as usual (hooray!).
After breakfasting outside, it started raining yet again, but a brief break in the weather and apparent clear skies west seemed opportune to head home. A bit later and slower than Joe, I'd got just east of Emsworth before the taps came on again. I really couldn't be bothered to make up the mileage for another ton, so back home in two hours and 95 miles on the clock. And then a nap. And general lethargy. And yet more rain today...oh well.
Thanks all!
Was intending to ride up, as I usually do when I have time off, but the forecasts suggested it was going to be something like this....
The ride from Pompey is, in decent weather, a thoroughly enjoyable 75 miles. In the wrong conditions, anything but. So I opted to get the train, and bought the ticket before I changed my mind. The afternoon was punctuated by frequent heavy showers, so certainly looked like the right decision. On account of forecasts for the night, the bike with mudguards and disc brakes seemed like the correct option. Sorry to be proved right....
Got the last fast(er) service into Waterloo, and then over to Victoria for the early meet-up and carb loading. Lovely, as others have noted, to see so many returnees (@rich p ! @thom ! (and several others)...GWS @itsbruce ). Not surprisingly the turnout at HPC seemed somewhat reduced but still healthy.
First half thankfully stayed dry. In view of the forecast, the Portnalls Road- Reigate Hill option was definitely the best one, main roads and better lighting the order of the night. The weather held out for the first half, unfortunately Frank's wheel didn't. And as for @Captain Defect and his steed for the night...oh dear. It started with massively worn brake blocks (NOS? I Saw You Coming more like, the ones I take off after thousands of miles look in better shape) and it got worse, that thing all too reminiscent of certain other bikes we've seen on previous rides, in a looked-like-it-was-falling-apart-before-it-did way. Comedy arrival at the Lobster Pot was some recompense though...! Mark and team at the Cabin did their usual exemplary job (for those who think the bread pudding portions are too big....NOOOOO! Some of us need the calories).
Not long after that, the heavens opened, and stayed open for most of the ride. Time for the rain trousers, which did their job well as usual. Team Hatler not surprisingly went as soon as they had arrived (boo!). Bury Hill the same old motononous dreadful bottom-gear slog (hiss!). Lobster Pot breakfast fab as usual (hooray!).
After breakfasting outside, it started raining yet again, but a brief break in the weather and apparent clear skies west seemed opportune to head home. A bit later and slower than Joe, I'd got just east of Emsworth before the taps came on again. I really couldn't be bothered to make up the mileage for another ton, so back home in two hours and 95 miles on the clock. And then a nap. And general lethargy. And yet more rain today...oh well.
Thanks all!
There was a lot about this ride to like. The weather forecast predicted large amounts of rain, but, looking beyond the numbers at the maps it seemed to me that we might get drenched on the way to Faygate, or, if we were lucky, we might stay dry. So....with the Sutton and Betchworth route ruled out by road works, I had to choose between two old favourites - the A24 down to Dorking followed by cross country to Newdigate and Rusper, or any one of six or seven variations going through Coulsdon. If it had been tipping it down at the start we'd have gone from Mitcham to South Croydon, then down through Purley and Gatwick to the outskirts of Crawley and taken the A264 to Faygaged. As it was I we went on the slightly trickier, but shorter A237 to Coulsdon and then, with the rain still holding off, we went up Portnalls Road, down Reigate Hill (not good in the rain) and along Lonesome Lane. Lonesome Lane was misty, just as it had been on the first FNRttC back in April 2006, and I knew then that Ifield Wood would be just as misty. And so.......that's the way we went. And very ghostly it was too.
The Cabin was as awesome as ever and I chatted to Mark. We stopped to put our rain tops on in Horsham. It started raining in earnest as we whizzed down the A264 to Five Oaks, stopped when we found shelter, and started again once we'd passed Billingshurst. The last few miles in to Pulborough were really wet. For some of you. My new £5.99 Decathlon top was worldbeatingly dry and comfortable. A lesser man would have been smug. Bury Hill seems to have lost its menace, and not a few people got to the top with smiles on their faces, having been rewarded with the most wonderful view over the Arun valley. The descent to the A27 and our passage through Yapton and Middleton to Felpham was as smooth as smooth can be. And, having ridden on wet roads for something like 65 miles we came to the Lobster Pot with only about five miles of rain to wring out of our socks.
It has to be said that there was a lot about this ride that makes giving it up easy. The Fridays was, probably, the first internet based cycling club in Britain. It has no real geographical base - people came from as far afield as Cambridge, Merseyside, Swansea and Brussels to take part, and I'd guess that not much more than half of you were from London. It has one of the more diverse memberships of any club in the country. That's some achievement, and I'm quite proud of that, but it didn't grow in the same way as cycling clubs usually grow. It isn't grouped around a few friends who establish a regimen. The regimen, such as it is, resides in the blog and the e-mails, and, perhaps that's why the ride (or, expressed more traditionally, the club spirit) stutters from time to time. And, on Friday night, it stuttered. Which meant that people were getting cold beside the road, or that I was riding north to look for the back of the ride. The bulk of the ride got away with it, in the sense that we were no wetter in consequence, but the TECs did get caught.
One of my companions on the train ride home analyses processes. His take on it is that after a certain time, often about six years, people look at what they do in isolation, and not in terms of the incremental effect that it has on others. And that's the time to do something else.
That isn't to say that the majority don't get it - they get it in spades. There was the usual sterling TEC work from the regulars and some irregulars. One of the joys of organising these rides is seeing new or newish members take stuff on, and there was plenty of that. Good humour abounded. There's a satisfaction there that I can't adequately describe.
The Cabin was as awesome as ever and I chatted to Mark. We stopped to put our rain tops on in Horsham. It started raining in earnest as we whizzed down the A264 to Five Oaks, stopped when we found shelter, and started again once we'd passed Billingshurst. The last few miles in to Pulborough were really wet. For some of you. My new £5.99 Decathlon top was worldbeatingly dry and comfortable. A lesser man would have been smug. Bury Hill seems to have lost its menace, and not a few people got to the top with smiles on their faces, having been rewarded with the most wonderful view over the Arun valley. The descent to the A27 and our passage through Yapton and Middleton to Felpham was as smooth as smooth can be. And, having ridden on wet roads for something like 65 miles we came to the Lobster Pot with only about five miles of rain to wring out of our socks.
It has to be said that there was a lot about this ride that makes giving it up easy. The Fridays was, probably, the first internet based cycling club in Britain. It has no real geographical base - people came from as far afield as Cambridge, Merseyside, Swansea and Brussels to take part, and I'd guess that not much more than half of you were from London. It has one of the more diverse memberships of any club in the country. That's some achievement, and I'm quite proud of that, but it didn't grow in the same way as cycling clubs usually grow. It isn't grouped around a few friends who establish a regimen. The regimen, such as it is, resides in the blog and the e-mails, and, perhaps that's why the ride (or, expressed more traditionally, the club spirit) stutters from time to time. And, on Friday night, it stuttered. Which meant that people were getting cold beside the road, or that I was riding north to look for the back of the ride. The bulk of the ride got away with it, in the sense that we were no wetter in consequence, but the TECs did get caught.
One of my companions on the train ride home analyses processes. His take on it is that after a certain time, often about six years, people look at what they do in isolation, and not in terms of the incremental effect that it has on others. And that's the time to do something else.
That isn't to say that the majority don't get it - they get it in spades. There was the usual sterling TEC work from the regulars and some irregulars. One of the joys of organising these rides is seeing new or newish members take stuff on, and there was plenty of that. Good humour abounded. There's a satisfaction there that I can't adequately describe.
BalkanExpress
Legendary Member
- Location
- Brussels
Thanks to Simon, the TECs, the waymarkers and everyone else who made it a great night out, not least whoever ensured that the clouds stayed just that little bit in front of us for most of the ride.
My first ever FNRttC to Felpham, but it was a bit like coming home. My aunt used to have a caravan in Bognor and so I spent many weekends and summer holidays down there.
The roundabout at the top of Bury hill was always the sign that they journey was nearly over and so it proved again on Saturday morning, a sign of blessed relief. Not this time becuase "Mum, I need a wee wee" but because Bury nearly buried me. I knew a lack of riding this year would catch up with me and so it was into the granny ring and pray for the top of the hill.
But, as they say no pain, no gain and the rest of the night was a wonderful ride: smooth tarmac on Lonesome lane, bread pudding and a rainbow to greet our arrival on the coast. My only regret? That I had to dash for the train and missed breakfast, next time there is ramakin of baked beans with my name on it.
And if Rich P wants to see the fateful moment his glove wasfound taken for ransom it is captured in one of Flying Dodo's photo's above.
My first ever FNRttC to Felpham, but it was a bit like coming home. My aunt used to have a caravan in Bognor and so I spent many weekends and summer holidays down there.
The roundabout at the top of Bury hill was always the sign that they journey was nearly over and so it proved again on Saturday morning, a sign of blessed relief. Not this time becuase "Mum, I need a wee wee" but because Bury nearly buried me. I knew a lack of riding this year would catch up with me and so it was into the granny ring and pray for the top of the hill.
But, as they say no pain, no gain and the rest of the night was a wonderful ride: smooth tarmac on Lonesome lane, bread pudding and a rainbow to greet our arrival on the coast. My only regret? That I had to dash for the train and missed breakfast, next time there is ramakin of baked beans with my name on it.
And if Rich P wants to see the fateful moment his glove was
Agent Hilda
The Babe
Agent H Ride Report – Felpham
I spent Friday lunchtime with my Aged P. She is pretty fragile. She is also absolutely beautiful. She has perfect pink cheeks and deep blue eyes. She has the most wonderful sense of humour and although some witchiness about her ways, like any other nearly 82 year old, is pretty wise. We had soup together and discussed how frogs get out of ponds. She suggested that my lack of frogs, even though I had made them a frog ladder, was down to the fact that I hadn’t put a sign on it saying ‘Frogs Exit This Way’. It would make you smile if you knew her.
I thought about her a lot on Friday night.
In between other stuff.
Some of which was a little unkind.
Some of which I said quite loudly in a petrol station.
Sorry about that
I couldn't help it
Can I just say that cycling up massive long hills in Spain is worth every single little moment of doubt when you come back and fly up some old enemies? I literally swept up Portnalls and noticed that my normal breathlessness had almost disappeared. Bury Hill which has defeated me repeatedly over the years was actually enjoyable. I actually enjoyed it. I am a Hill Climber Dudes a Hill Climber at last.
Anyway . . .
Highlights for me then
1. Wearing my new Rapha longs
2. Good chats
3. Paul R’s jokes
4. My new wheel spinning round perfectly
5. The ham sandwich
6. Hanging around the Cabin Café and not getting cold
7. Legs feeling great
8. Not being cold
9. Des
Lowlights for me then
1. My new longs getting oil on them
2. Running out of battery on my red light in the darkest bit and not having any replacements
3. Going down Reigate Hill using BRAKES as the people in front were dawdling
4. Standing on the pavement watching clouds of gas emitting from a failed widget to pump up a tyre. Twice.
5. The big pishhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh as the air came out of the tyre again
6. Standing in the gutter watching people put on their wet weather gear whilst water ran up my arms and into my shoes
7. Standing on a grass verge in the dark in the pissing rain realising that people actually ride bikes that don’t have quick release wheels
8. Losing my temper and yelling at everyone
9. The old git sitting on the bench so I couldn't have an emergency wee
Here is Sir Simon
Love you
Agent H
I spent Friday lunchtime with my Aged P. She is pretty fragile. She is also absolutely beautiful. She has perfect pink cheeks and deep blue eyes. She has the most wonderful sense of humour and although some witchiness about her ways, like any other nearly 82 year old, is pretty wise. We had soup together and discussed how frogs get out of ponds. She suggested that my lack of frogs, even though I had made them a frog ladder, was down to the fact that I hadn’t put a sign on it saying ‘Frogs Exit This Way’. It would make you smile if you knew her.
I thought about her a lot on Friday night.
In between other stuff.
Some of which was a little unkind.
Some of which I said quite loudly in a petrol station.
Sorry about that
I couldn't help it
Can I just say that cycling up massive long hills in Spain is worth every single little moment of doubt when you come back and fly up some old enemies? I literally swept up Portnalls and noticed that my normal breathlessness had almost disappeared. Bury Hill which has defeated me repeatedly over the years was actually enjoyable. I actually enjoyed it. I am a Hill Climber Dudes a Hill Climber at last.
Anyway . . .
Highlights for me then
1. Wearing my new Rapha longs
2. Good chats
3. Paul R’s jokes
4. My new wheel spinning round perfectly
5. The ham sandwich
6. Hanging around the Cabin Café and not getting cold
7. Legs feeling great
8. Not being cold
9. Des
Lowlights for me then
1. My new longs getting oil on them
2. Running out of battery on my red light in the darkest bit and not having any replacements
3. Going down Reigate Hill using BRAKES as the people in front were dawdling
4. Standing on the pavement watching clouds of gas emitting from a failed widget to pump up a tyre. Twice.
5. The big pishhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh as the air came out of the tyre again
6. Standing in the gutter watching people put on their wet weather gear whilst water ran up my arms and into my shoes
7. Standing on a grass verge in the dark in the pissing rain realising that people actually ride bikes that don’t have quick release wheels
8. Losing my temper and yelling at everyone
9. The old git sitting on the bench so I couldn't have an emergency wee
Here is Sir Simon
Love you
Agent H
Fab Foodie
hanging-on in quiet desperation ...
- Location
- Kirton, Devon.
You probably always were ... you just hadn't realised it ;-)
Fab Foodie
hanging-on in quiet desperation ...
- Location
- Kirton, Devon.
Damn your perceptiveness!
(I retain a fond memory of another hill on another rainy night)
I don't like doing wet rides (unless we're chasing cars/lorries to Brighton) but I really enjoyed this one, RichP, Des,Lee and Luke just to name a few who have been missed but it was great to see them.
Anyways back to buisness
aHsk5jvaX6
see y'all next month
tc1
Anyways back to buisness
aHsk5jvaX6
see y'all next month
tc1
Dogtrousers
Kilometre nibbler
srw
It's a bit more complicated than that...
@Agent Hilda. #4 & #5. Sorry.
The CO2 holder was mine, as were the cack hands that pulled out the valve. But the pump was also mine, and it was the same one that rescued Simon's tyre at the Cabin. To think I nearly didn't bring it.
The CO2 holder was mine, as were the cack hands that pulled out the valve. But the pump was also mine, and it was the same one that rescued Simon's tyre at the Cabin. To think I nearly didn't bring it.
