FNRttC Friday Night Ride to the Coast - Southend on Sea 7th November

[Gordon P]

Agent H Ride Report – Southend Nov 2014

FOR DAISY

For all the daughters and sons and husbands and wives and girlfriends and boyfriends and best friends and bosses and mothers and sisters and brothers.
Yes it is all true. Yes, everything you worry about is true. They are having a brilliant time and you aren’t there. They are falling out and falling in. They will come home and sleep the sleep of the dead and smell of beer. They will sleep through The Scouts, A Wedding Feast, The Family Lunch, The Nativity even The Football. They will be messed up for days and work at 60%. They will fall off and get broken. They will spend money they haven’t got on clothes they don’t need. They will row and laugh and be totally happy and live it up all through the night. Without you.

But in those dark moments, in lanes by themselves, rounding the corners and searching for the train of red flashing lights. They wish you could see them fly. Could be proud of how they share and care for each other. Could join them for the best and worst of times. Could buy those drinks and take them home.

I promise they do.

‘til the next time

Agent H x

Lovely AH - you & wot you wrote.

 

[srw]

apologies to those of you drinking vino tinto - the RSBB wine turned out to be a poor choice on my part. I have to admit to being more taken with the camp white-and-gold label stuff, but the order was firmly given for RED. Even if it was already broken.

 

[slowmotion]

The clothes were tucked just under the path we were on. Given the proximity to civilisation, the careful pile and the good weather a few days earlier, a happy explanation is more likely.

A local might like to contact the cops?

Without wishing to be a keyboard detective, the highest Spring tide in November was on the 8th. I doubt the clothes will still be there (if they have not been collected).

 

[swansonj]

...., one day in 2011 I signed up for a solo Brighton jaunt. By that stage I'd developed an online rapport with a few Fridays, but very deliberately kept stumm about having signed up. It was August, but a very cold August, and the half-way stop was very slow - and some young thing called Andy was riding a BMX.

Flipping heck. Andy-on-a-BMX and the slow stop were my first Friday too. But I've always assumed you were about ten years more experienced at Fridays than me....

 

[Mice]

When a friend wrote a book Barring Mechanicals, I read it. Not because I love reading, but because he had written it. I didn’t understand quite a lot of it – including the title. The book referred to people with funny names, parts of the country and the bicycle I had never heard of along with something called Lycra and had many references to things called zip ties....... My ride report

Thank you @dellzeqq and @Agent Hilda for making these rides so spectacular and achievable when so often I thought they were out of my reach. @arallsopp you are a gem. An expensive gem but worth it. To all you other lovely Fridays Peeps, thank you for your fine company.

Mice

http://www.the5milecyclist.com/apps/blog/show/42810120-the-fridays-go-full-circle

(The inclusion of the pic @iLB ascending Ditching Beacon on a BMX is so special that I include it as many times as I can)

 

[Fab Foodie]

Agent H Ride Report – Southend Nov 2014

FOR DAISY

Well now.
Simon once told me that cyclechat is like watching television, only better. I work in television. So think of this ride report as a piece of television.
It’s a single documentary, in a primetime slot with a primetime budget. It’s made up of several parts as its being shown on a commercial channel (they pay more). It could almost be a shiny floor show, or an episode of University Challenge or a modern tragedy, but it’s really just the tale of a group of people going out on bike ride adventures together through the night.
And all of it is a conceit and none of it is real. I have edited it to suit my own means, to tell my own tale.
Here it is.

Part 1
I am laying star shaped in our bed. I hear rain on the window. Then the clunk of the front door as Daisy pulls it shut and creeps in to the kitchen to make spaghetti on toast. A soft whisper of a ‘night mum!’ Then silence. Sometime later I get a text.
‘Arrived Whitstable. All good. Home by mid-day. Love S’
I am in Peter Jones on The Kings Road. Buying an orange and white blouse with floppy cuffs and a waterfall collar (check out the date man!).
I get a text
‘Having a pint or two. Home soon. S’
I sit in the bistro on the third floor watching the numbers on the tops of double decker’s and the wind and the rain in the trees on Sloane Square.
Ping!
‘Home. Miss you. Sx’

Part 2
We are living in a Victorian Terrace in Battersea. The neighbours have rows. The woman across the road puts a red light in her window and men come and visit. Madeline next door gets mice when Thom moves in.
We just got back from shimmying about in Surrey on The Rube. She is so zippy it’s marvellous. I whoop when we go down hills. I can’t stop laughing she is so brilliantly wonderfully fun.
I send a text
‘Got new bike. Having fun. Where are you kiddo?’
‘Out Mum’
‘Oh’

I am cycling up Bread and Cheese Hill – a bit disheartened by everyone overtaking me, when I get to the top he is waiting and delighted that I made it all the way up without stopping. My heart soars. I did it!
I text the kid
‘Finished my first ride! Whoop! I feel great. See you later?’
‘Cool! See you later’

Part 3
We have moved to The Hill. The neighbours are circus girls and fire eaters. Thom goes on patrol. The tree is vandalised and we get another one. Someone makes him a birthday card. We drink Prosecco.

I am wet. All the way through. The water is running up my arms. I cannot stop shaking
I reach for my water bottle and shake it. The water is frozen. My chin is blue. I am freezing
I nearly faint and sit on the roadside and cry
I fall off in a foreign land and cry.
I am zipping down Reigate Hill or pounding up Turners
I am helplessly laughing at someone laying in a ditch with their feet still in cleats
I am the boss at the back
I save my special smile for the least popular person on the ride
I am heartbroken in a bus shelter.

The sun comes up. It peers through the mist.
It rises sharply against the hill
It creeps around the corner and weakly pushes itself through the drizzle.
It pours out of the sky and burns my arms.
It rushes across the water in a million glittery sparkling flashes to the white lighthouse
I send a text
‘Arrived Southwold! Huzzah! Am I bloody brilliant or what?’
‘You’re ace Mum’

Part 4
I am in Brixton Cycles to meet the The Rube 2. I think she looks like a Victorian bathing suit. She is so brassy and red. But my! She’s a smoothy.
We take her to Paris, to Normandy, to Southwold, to Wittering, to Chichester, to Wiltshire, to Spain and to Belgium. She goes on trains and trams and A roads and B roads. She rattles over bridges, under bridges, by canals, by the sea, by the moon. She takes me down a dozen of those sinewy lanes. She listens to stories of Bataville and Princess Margaret. She splits her wheels and gets repaired. Someone washes her down and oils her up and puts 120 into her tyres.
We take her out to meet the kids.
‘oh here’s my Mum and Simon, they go night riding. She’s well fit’
Whoop

I send a text
‘In Paris! It’s hot! Saw a Hare. What you up to?’
‘I’m busy. I love you. You are fabulous Mum’
‘Oh’

Part 4
We meet up at HPC to say goodbye. I am less of a person than I was before. There are hugs. Orange is the new black. I have no job to do but zip around the ride. It’s cool. We slip into the night. We yawn a lot. The roads are lovely. We chat. I am sent to the back. The dawn is bleak and wintery. The gin is too strong. We go home and crash.
I send a text
‘I’m ok. It’s over. You don’t have to worry about me anymore. Do you love me?’
‘I utterly adore you Mum. Everything will be ok’

For all the daughters and sons and husbands and wives and girlfriends and boyfriends and best friends and bosses and mothers and sisters and brothers.
Yes it is all true. Yes, everything you worry about is true. They are having a brilliant time and you aren’t there. They are falling out and falling in. They will come home and sleep the sleep of the dead and smell of beer. They will sleep through The Scouts, A Wedding Feast, The Family Lunch, The Nativity even The Football. They will be messed up for days and work at 60%. They will fall off and get broken. They will spend money they haven’t got on clothes they don’t need. They will row and laugh and be totally happy and live it up all through the night. Without you.

But in those dark moments, in lanes by themselves, rounding the corners and searching for the train of red flashing lights. They wish you could see them fly. Could be proud of how they share and care for each other. Could join them for the best and worst of times. Could buy those drinks and take them home.

I promise they do.

‘til the next time

Agent H x

Damn you, you've made my eyes leak.

I am a mere Friday's ligger of just 4 rides. It was bad timing you see, kids in the nest whilst the years rolled by .... but I've felt and been touched by the warmth and thespirit of the endeavour and cycling has never been the same.
It's not about the destination, that's just a raison d'etre. I don't really think it's about the journey either. I've come to thinking that it's about releasing the spirit and the bestest goodness that's in people .... that's what I've begun to think it's about.
So thank you Simon, Susie .... the ever faithful TEC's and the regulars. You've led me to places I had never imagined possible of in the warmth of your spirit.

 

[StuAff]

Agent H Ride Report – Southend Nov 2014

FOR DAISY

Well now.
Simon once told me that cyclechat is like watching television, only better. I work in television. So think of this ride report as a piece of television.
It’s a single documentary, in a primetime slot with a primetime budget. It’s made up of several parts as its being shown on a commercial channel (they pay more). It could almost be a shiny floor show, or an episode of University Challenge or a modern tragedy, but it’s really just the tale of a group of people going out on bike ride adventures together through the night.
And all of it is a conceit and none of it is real. I have edited it to suit my own means, to tell my own tale.
Here it is.

Part 1
I am laying star shaped in our bed. I hear rain on the window. Then the clunk of the front door as Daisy pulls it shut and creeps in to the kitchen to make spaghetti on toast. A soft whisper of a ‘night mum!’ Then silence. Sometime later I get a text.
‘Arrived Whitstable. All good. Home by mid-day. Love S’
I am in Peter Jones on The Kings Road. Buying an orange and white blouse with floppy cuffs and a waterfall collar (check out the date man!).
I get a text
‘Having a pint or two. Home soon. S’
I sit in the bistro on the third floor watching the numbers on the tops of double decker’s and the wind and the rain in the trees on Sloane Square.
Ping!
‘Home. Miss you. Sx’

Part 2
We are living in a Victorian Terrace in Battersea. The neighbours have rows. The woman across the road puts a red light in her window and men come and visit. Madeline next door gets mice when Thom moves in.
We just got back from shimmying about in Surrey on The Rube. She is so zippy it’s marvellous. I whoop when we go down hills. I can’t stop laughing she is so brilliantly wonderfully fun.
I send a text
‘Got new bike. Having fun. Where are you kiddo?’
‘Out Mum’
‘Oh’

I am cycling up Bread and Cheese Hill – a bit disheartened by everyone overtaking me, when I get to the top he is waiting and delighted that I made it all the way up without stopping. My heart soars. I did it!
I text the kid
‘Finished my first ride! Whoop! I feel great. See you later?’
‘Cool! See you later’

Part 3
We have moved to The Hill. The neighbours are circus girls and fire eaters. Thom goes on patrol. The tree is vandalised and we get another one. Someone makes him a birthday card. We drink Prosecco.

I am wet. All the way through. The water is running up my arms. I cannot stop shaking
I reach for my water bottle and shake it. The water is frozen. My chin is blue. I am freezing
I nearly faint and sit on the roadside and cry
I fall off in a foreign land and cry.
I am zipping down Reigate Hill or pounding up Turners
I am helplessly laughing at someone laying in a ditch with their feet still in cleats
I am the boss at the back
I save my special smile for the least popular person on the ride
I am heartbroken in a bus shelter.

The sun comes up. It peers through the mist.
It rises sharply against the hill
It creeps around the corner and weakly pushes itself through the drizzle.
It pours out of the sky and burns my arms.
It rushes across the water in a million glittery sparkling flashes to the white lighthouse
I send a text
‘Arrived Southwold! Huzzah! Am I bloody brilliant or what?’
‘You’re ace Mum’

Part 4
I am in Brixton Cycles to meet the The Rube 2. I think she looks like a Victorian bathing suit. She is so brassy and red. But my! She’s a smoothy.
We take her to Paris, to Normandy, to Southwold, to Wittering, to Chichester, to Wiltshire, to Spain and to Belgium. She goes on trains and trams and A roads and B roads. She rattles over bridges, under bridges, by canals, by the sea, by the moon. She takes me down a dozen of those sinewy lanes. She listens to stories of Bataville and Princess Margaret. She splits her wheels and gets repaired. Someone washes her down and oils her up and puts 120 into her tyres.
We take her out to meet the kids.
‘oh here’s my Mum and Simon, they go night riding. She’s well fit’
Whoop

I send a text
‘In Paris! It’s hot! Saw a Hare. What you up to?’
‘I’m busy. I love you. You are fabulous Mum’
‘Oh’

Part 4
We meet up at HPC to say goodbye. I am less of a person than I was before. There are hugs. Orange is the new black. I have no job to do but zip around the ride. It’s cool. We slip into the night. We yawn a lot. The roads are lovely. We chat. I am sent to the back. The dawn is bleak and wintery. The gin is too strong. We go home and crash.
I send a text
‘I’m ok. It’s over. You don’t have to worry about me anymore. Do you love me?’
‘I utterly adore you Mum. Everything will be ok’

For all the daughters and sons and husbands and wives and girlfriends and boyfriends and best friends and bosses and mothers and sisters and brothers.
Yes it is all true. Yes, everything you worry about is true. They are having a brilliant time and you aren’t there. They are falling out and falling in. They will come home and sleep the sleep of the dead and smell of beer. They will sleep through The Scouts, A Wedding Feast, The Family Lunch, The Nativity even The Football. They will be messed up for days and work at 60%. They will fall off and get broken. They will spend money they haven’t got on clothes they don’t need. They will row and laugh and be totally happy and live it up all through the night. Without you.

But in those dark moments, in lanes by themselves, rounding the corners and searching for the train of red flashing lights. They wish you could see them fly. Could be proud of how they share and care for each other. Could join them for the best and worst of times. Could buy those drinks and take them home.

I promise they do.

‘til the next time

Agent H x

And now for Part 6........

 

[slowmotion]

And why not.

He's on one of the FNRttC videos too, with some suitably stirring music as he hits the summit..

 

[thom]

He's on one of the FNRttC videos too, with some suitably stirring music as he hits the summit..

Absence of music & strange rotation, floating to the top:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/tommers/5727646569/in/set-72157626737351570/

 

[slowmotion]

I think this is the rather wonderful speedy clip....
[media]
View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oK6volZa2cA
[/media]

 

[Aperitif]

I'm glad someone else has said that. I didn't see them, but I found that photo very troubling.

However, there was another pile - less so, a bit further along, and also a few odd bits and pieces along from that - all in plain view and not seemingly concealed. The Southend Echo had nothing much - except historical incidents of a similar nature, and there have also been 'religious' ceremonies held. (Fruit etc plays another part in that type of thing). Local runners, dogwalkers etc were not 'phased' by the sight so I think it might have been there a while...Again I assume that a 'fresh' scent might have attracted one of the dogs passing...(also not a keyboard detective but I suspect something saucy - Leigh and Perrins rather than Reginald Perrin)

 

[Tim Hall]

@User13710, adding on to what Aperitif said, I did have a look at the pile of clothes and couldn't see any footprints leading away (or leading to it for that matter). I'm sorry if you found the picture upsetting, but I think there's an non-sinister explanation.

@Mice, great report, as ever. The link to your pics is broken though (colon missing between "https" and "//".

 

[Fab Foodie]

Are you sure that that isn't the journey?

In a deeper, mental way rather than a physical way, yes.
A journey can be appreciated on many levels, not all will change the way we think about something.

 

[ceepeebee]

Agent H Ride Report – Southend Nov 2014

FOR DAISY

Well now.
Simon once told me that cyclechat is like watching television, only better. I work in television. So think of this ride report as a piece of television.
It’s a single documentary, in a primetime slot with a primetime budget. It’s made up of several parts as its being shown on a commercial channel (they pay more). It could almost be a shiny floor show, or an episode of University Challenge or a modern tragedy, but it’s really just the tale of a group of people going out on bike ride adventures together through the night.
And all of it is a conceit and none of it is real. I have edited it to suit my own means, to tell my own tale.
Here it is.
.............................

I promise they do.

‘til the next time

Agent H x

Post of the decade right there, I sent a link to my wife (who doesn't currently ride - am working on that - but who does worry) and it put a little something in her eye....

 

[dellzeqq]

Agent H Ride Report – Southend Nov 2014

FOR DAISY

Well now.
Simon once told me that cyclechat is like watching television, only better. I work in television. So think of this ride report as a piece of television.
It’s a single documentary, in a primetime slot with a primetime budget. It’s made up of several parts as its being shown on a commercial channel (they pay more). It could almost be a shiny floor show, or an episode of University Challenge or a modern tragedy, but it’s really just the tale of a group of people going out on bike ride adventures together through the night.
And all of it is a conceit and none of it is real. I have edited it to suit my own means, to tell my own tale.
Here it is.

Part 1
I am laying star shaped in our bed. I hear rain on the window. Then the clunk of the front door as Daisy pulls it shut and creeps in to the kitchen to make spaghetti on toast. A soft whisper of a ‘night mum!’ Then silence. Sometime later I get a text.
‘Arrived Whitstable. All good. Home by mid-day. Love S’
I am in Peter Jones on The Kings Road. Buying an orange and white blouse with floppy cuffs and a waterfall collar (check out the date man!).
I get a text
‘Having a pint or two. Home soon. S’
I sit in the bistro on the third floor watching the numbers on the tops of double decker’s and the wind and the rain in the trees on Sloane Square.
Ping!
‘Home. Miss you. Sx’

Part 2
We are living in a Victorian Terrace in Battersea. The neighbours have rows. The woman across the road puts a red light in her window and men come and visit. Madeline next door gets mice when Thom moves in.
We just got back from shimmying about in Surrey on The Rube. She is so zippy it’s marvellous. I whoop when we go down hills. I can’t stop laughing she is so brilliantly wonderfully fun.
I send a text
‘Got new bike. Having fun. Where are you kiddo?’
‘Out Mum’
‘Oh’

I am cycling up Bread and Cheese Hill – a bit disheartened by everyone overtaking me, when I get to the top he is waiting and delighted that I made it all the way up without stopping. My heart soars. I did it!
I text the kid
‘Finished my first ride! Whoop! I feel great. See you later?’
‘Cool! See you later’

Part 3
We have moved to The Hill. The neighbours are circus girls and fire eaters. Thom goes on patrol. The tree is vandalised and we get another one. Someone makes him a birthday card. We drink Prosecco.

I am wet. All the way through. The water is running up my arms. I cannot stop shaking
I reach for my water bottle and shake it. The water is frozen. My chin is blue. I am freezing
I nearly faint and sit on the roadside and cry
I fall off in a foreign land and cry.
I am zipping down Reigate Hill or pounding up Turners
I am helplessly laughing at someone laying in a ditch with their feet still in cleats
I am the boss at the back
I save my special smile for the least popular person on the ride
I am heartbroken in a bus shelter.

The sun comes up. It peers through the mist.
It rises sharply against the hill
It creeps around the corner and weakly pushes itself through the drizzle.
It pours out of the sky and burns my arms.
It rushes across the water in a million glittery sparkling flashes to the white lighthouse
I send a text
‘Arrived Southwold! Huzzah! Am I bloody brilliant or what?’
‘You’re ace Mum’

Part 4
I am in Brixton Cycles to meet the The Rube 2. I think she looks like a Victorian bathing suit. She is so brassy and red. But my! She’s a smoothy.
We take her to Paris, to Normandy, to Southwold, to Wittering, to Chichester, to Wiltshire, to Spain and to Belgium. She goes on trains and trams and A roads and B roads. She rattles over bridges, under bridges, by canals, by the sea, by the moon. She takes me down a dozen of those sinewy lanes. She listens to stories of Bataville and Princess Margaret. She splits her wheels and gets repaired. Someone washes her down and oils her up and puts 120 into her tyres.
We take her out to meet the kids.
‘oh here’s my Mum and Simon, they go night riding. She’s well fit’
Whoop

I send a text
‘In Paris! It’s hot! Saw a Hare. What you up to?’
‘I’m busy. I love you. You are fabulous Mum’
‘Oh’

Part 4
We meet up at HPC to say goodbye. I am less of a person than I was before. There are hugs. Orange is the new black. I have no job to do but zip around the ride. It’s cool. We slip into the night. We yawn a lot. The roads are lovely. We chat. I am sent to the back. The dawn is bleak and wintery. The gin is too strong. We go home and crash.
I send a text
‘I’m ok. It’s over. You don’t have to worry about me anymore. Do you love me?’
‘I utterly adore you Mum. Everything will be ok’

For all the daughters and sons and husbands and wives and girlfriends and boyfriends and best friends and bosses and mothers and sisters and brothers.
Yes it is all true. Yes, everything you worry about is true. They are having a brilliant time and you aren’t there. They are falling out and falling in. They will come home and sleep the sleep of the dead and smell of beer. They will sleep through The Scouts, A Wedding Feast, The Family Lunch, The Nativity even The Football. They will be messed up for days and work at 60%. They will fall off and get broken. They will spend money they haven’t got on clothes they don’t need. They will row and laugh and be totally happy and live it up all through the night. Without you.

But in those dark moments, in lanes by themselves, rounding the corners and searching for the train of red flashing lights. They wish you could see them fly. Could be proud of how they share and care for each other. Could join them for the best and worst of times. Could buy those drinks and take them home.

I promise they do.

‘til the next time

Agent H x

blimey! To think I only married her for her bottom!