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

[frank9755]

Then again, I'm the chump who left poor McWobble all alone in the scary Welsh countryside* 3 years ago, so I'm not perfect.

I thought it was supposed to have been me that had left him there! I never quite worked out how it had happened though.

 

[redfalo]

I recall a Southend ride several years ago that got cut in half, as well as a Burnham one a while ago. Stuff happens, humans make errors, and the probability of errors increases with sleep deprivation.

So what?

I honestly cannot share the impression that the Fridays have been falling apart over the last two years. Quite on the contrary, my personal feeling is that the bond has become ever closer and the spirit spread beyond the FNRttC "classic".

Think the Caen-Bordeaux tour this summer, Els' Brussels night ride, the Fridays contingent on the DunRun and on the DunRun lite in early October.

I also don't share the view that the Fridays is all about a process. For me - among other things - the Fridays is first and foremost representing a very special form of cycling ethics. I hope this will survive.

 

[Aperitif]

I thought it was supposed to have been me that had left him there! I never quite worked out how it had happened though.

Well, Adam was 'rested' Frank...so maybe he could carry the collective can - just this once...

 

[mmmmartin]

the Fridays is first and foremost representing a very special form of cycling ethics. I hope this will survive.

It will survive because we want it to. Be in no doubt.

 

[hatler]

And we will keep supplying coffee at the Ditchling Coffee Stop as long as the rides come that way.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Fridays rides were like CB de Mille epics. There were the big star actors (Victor Mature, Hedy Lamarr, Charlton Heston etc), the supporting actors ... and then the cast of thousands of extras: Those of us who turned up for a ride here and a ride there, rode across the conveniently parted Red Sea, and then went home again. There will be some remakes. They will star some of the original casts, but I doubt whether they'll employ so many extras.

 

[dellzeqq]

<boggle> Really?

it's not quite like that. On some rides I've looked over my shoulder and said 'right, it's volunteer time', and seen something like a dozen people (actually, men) who a) are not offering and b) I wouldn't want to entrust with a junction anyway. So I started to say 'if you're not up for a bit of wayfinding, drop back a bit'. Which they didn't.

I entirely reject the idea that the Fridays became less inclusive. The rides were carefully calibrated. Some were clearly more testing than others, but the range of people who did the Southwold ride (122 miles, or 124 if you use the Agent Hilda Rounding Up Mechanism) is testament to our ability to cover long distances with cyclists of all abilities. LonJog was tough for some, but, thanks to the kind of teamwork that made it our finest hour (take a bow, Marcus), everybody made it, and some of the people who found it a stretch said afterwards that it had changed their lives for the better. And, to go back less than six weeks, the reason why Northern Spain is not going to be a Fridays tour is that it would, of necessity, be insufficiently inclusive.

I'm not angry or even exasperated about it. I reckon nine years is a good run, and, to be honest, I knew it was coming to an end eighteen months ago. I just think that if people are going to take it on then they need to think the thing through again and come up with something different (but please see symphonic form above).

I've got a couple of ideas on the go that will need a bit of putting together.

 

[rb58]

I spend my working life trying to make relatively complex things simple - well, complex in the eyes of PR and comms folks - but probably not complex in the eyes of, say, rocket scientists. And I can't help thinking we're doing the opposite here - trying to turn something relatively simple into something complex. We're in danger of over-thinking it.

One size rarely fits all, but in my experience FNRttC comes close to it - you want to go fast, you can; you want to pootle along at the back - you can. I do both.

My glass is definitely half full and I have every intention of continuing to do night rides in 2015, in whatever form The Fridays take. I sincerely hope that I will get to ride with all of you at some point, because, in the final analysis you are my friends and that's why I do it. Well, that and to ride my bike and way-mark dark roundabouts in the pouring rain of course.

 

[StuartG]

I was with @User13710 in being surprised you had a bad time to Southend DZ. I and the riders around me in our bubble somewhere in the middle of the ride (do I get the club shield for 'most middling rider'?) noticed nothing amiss. We seemed to have stopped less than normal, the route combined the best of the old connected by some new interesting stuff, the weather was fair, the timing was special. It was a great ride. No, it was an ace ride. That's for me and, I guess , for most riders.

Part of the trick of the Fridays, and I think most of us now realise it, that perfect rides for us are built on an enormous foundation of research and planning. That plans go wrong. people go wrong but somehow (and we still don't know how or need to know) things are recovered and put back together. We just know you are magic DZ. Magic that is rather harder to perform than observe. Thank you (and AH) for that. The result, for me, has been life transforming.

I was surprised at the word 'process' too. But I thought about and now, I think, understand a bit of it. And why you and indeed TMN saw things going wrong. I blame it on the insurance issue. The issue that forced an informal ride programme to become a club. A process that I saw as taking bumbling commuting or leisure cyclists with a bit of ambition in at one end and, a couple of years later, producing perfectly formed audaxers and more at the other. As a process that is great project and could conceivable continue on forever. Becoming a club put a stopper at one end. It wasn't a process of people moving on to do either more impossible things in other systems or staying to help bring on the next generation..The club became a destination in itself rather than just a way of getting there.

Hence a clubbiness which may be more intimidating to newbies. People, as you say DZ, start to think they know better and 'helping' is for others. I say that with feeling not being much help myself. And I did note how you carefully only gave me wayfinding duties only when the tail was almost in sight. Thank you for that. Thank you for everything.

So I think you are right to smash it. In confidence that the bits will pick themselves up and move on. And one day you will begin another process to transform cycling (well just a few thousand cyclists will do).

 

[mmmmartin]

I was with @User13710 in being surprised you had a bad time to Southend DZ. I and the riders around me in our bubble somewhere in the middle of the ride (do I get the club shield for 'most middling rider'?) noticed nothing amiss. We seemed to have stopped less than normal, the route combined the best of the old connected by some new interesting stuff, the weather was fair, the timing was special. It was a great ride. No, it was an ace ride. That's for me and, I guess , for most riders.

Part of the trick of the Fridays, and I think most of us now realise it, that perfect rides for us are built on an enormous foundation of research and planning. That plans go wrong. people go wrong but somehow (and we still don't know how or need to know) things are recovered and put back together. We just know you are magic DZ. Magic that is rather harder to perform than observe. Thank you (and AH) for that. The result, for me, has been life transforming.

I was surprised at the word 'process' too. But I thought about and now, I think, understand a bit of it. And why you and indeed TMN saw things going wrong. I blame it on the insurance issue. The issue that forced an informal ride programme to become a club. A process that I saw as taking bumbling commuting or leisure cyclists with a bit of ambition in at one end and, a couple of years later, producing perfectly formed audaxers and more at the other. As a process that is great project and could conceivable continue on forever. Becoming a club put a stopper at one end. It wasn't a process of people moving on to do either more impossible things in other systems or staying to help bring on the next generation..The club became a destination in itself rather than just a way of getting there.

Hence a clubbiness which may be more intimidating to newbies. People, as you say DZ, start to think they know better and 'helping' is for others. I say that with feeling not being much help myself. And I did note how you carefully only gave me wayfinding duties only when the tail was almost in sight. Thank you for that. Thank you for everything.

So I think you are right to smash it. In confidence that the bits will pick themselves up and move on. And one day you will begin another process to transform cycling (well just a few thousand cyclists will do).

Stuart - have been drinking diesel oil again?

 

[StuartG]

Stuart - have been drinking diesel oil again?

Wasn't a Friday ride intoxicating enough before they even open the bar? But you are right in detecting the effect lasts even longer.

 

[mmmmartin]

TMN you win the prize for the best sig line EVVA

 

[theclaud]

That is because the rest of us just quote yellowtim, and that is inevitably going to be shoot.

Speak for yourself! I liked your old sig line better...

 

[theclaud]

Sig lines are rubbish now because they don't come out as proper quotes.

That's true. I'd sorta noticed that and failed to notice it at the same time.

 

[Fab Foodie]

That's true. I'd sorta noticed that and failed to notice it at the same time.

I'm still confused about the present ....