Long Ride to the Coast - Sat 28th May

[Flying Dodo]

Today seems even windier, so we were lucky. Also, a lot of the time we were shielded by the trees.

10 of us set off from Hyde Park Corner, although we picked up a few more along the way.

And now, by popular demand, here's Louise's breakfast:-

She only managed about half of it!

I was very impressed with the pub, and how quickly they produced the food, so we ended up being quicker out of there, than at Andy's in Rochester. Sadly, I don't have any photographic evidence, real or fake, about Barry

Chilham really is a very pretty hamlet, although no time for an ice cream.

I didn't however get a photo of what must be an ancient Kent tradition, of hanging your duvet out of an upstairs window.

I've just remembered an amusing incident, heading into Faversham. After going past the new Sainsbury's, I was following behind a huge Jeep vehicle, which was in turn following a few other cyclists. I noticed the driver pointing to the parallel cycle path (the one that goes over people's drives and stops at intersecting roads). So I point down at the road. She then points more firmly towards the cycle path, prompting me to point repeatedly down onto the road. She then started to point to the cycle path again, but had to stop, as the cycle path had ended! So I just merrily pointed down onto the road again with a big grin.

I would have liked more time to sit and reflect at the Battle of Britain memorial, but we had a High Speed train to catch.

Well done to everyone for participating.


The rest of the photos can be seen here.

 

[Mista Preston]

Lowlights: Davy's extra long "pit-stop" at Andy's Cafe.

I blame the pot of tea for that !

 

[Flying Dodo]

I blame the pot of tea for that !

 

[Aperitif]

"Are you talkin' about me?"

Nice photo Adam. "Davyteapots" is much more apt than 'walnuts'.
Here's a tip: If you are out on a ride with Davy and want him to go away for fifteen minutes or so, just say "OK, everyone ready to go now?" Guaranteed to provoke a Pavlovian response in Davy, causing him to abscond.
And Matt, we love you, in a manly, deep voiced sort of way. Yes.

Matt takes the biscuit. Luckily he was hung over, parched and feeling 'off colour'.
I was looking forward to the Battle of Britain thing as my elder sister was born on that day in 1940. Still managed to gather all the images to report to her later,and yes, like adam said, it would havebeen nice to 'reflect' a while, but the train was equally beckoning by then. Impressive monument though, and I imagine lots of ex fliers have spent a long time on the benches in front of the 'roll call' of names.

I did a brief bit of history lesson with Hary, to explain the bit about Vera Lynn, The soldiers homecoming and significance of The White Cliffs of Dover. No Adam's Amazing Adventure would be complete without an abstract facet so a glimpse:

and a gentle reminder:

[media]
]View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUx3MU9iM6c&feature=related[/media]

 

[Aperitif]

There are some hip rouleurs on the CC circuit (Davy's hips being enough to send most into raptures) with Des and Matt's twin 'Solos' invariably on display, causing one or another of them to mince off in a fashion huff; User10571, The Master, with the always neat look - yesterday an Assos top with contrast front panel (it also helps to have the figure for 'close-quarters' stuff, otherwise one can look like a sack of coconuts ).
One of the rising stars in Dudeville is redjedi / Luke, despite having to sit on a peppermint bike (there were two on display yesterday - it has got to stop! ). Here he is, playing cool hand with Garmin, in front of a famous South East Football club. ("Away fans - clear off" )

The Specialized dial-a-fit footwear (Size 48 - room for an inner tube or two)

And the man in action - even stylish apparel can't hide a stylish rider!

 

[redflightuk]

Thanks Adam for another great ride, and thanks to all for making it a great day out. The wind was a bit of a downer but once out of the red light district we were treated to some very nice views along the way. Nice to put a few more names to faces. The pub was a good find and as has allready been said, the food was served very quickly. More lovely quiet lanes followed with with some long stretches without left or right turns.
After the Battle of Britain Memorial the downhill into town was fun, just managed to stay on the road around the bends. While Adam sorted the tickets i folded and packed the trike in record time and we made the platform in time for the HS1. After saying our goodbyes at St Pancras i carried the trike to Kings Cross and straight onto the train home, arriving just in time to see Barca collecting the champions league trophy. Even better news when i heard that Stevenage won their playoff final. So a very good day finished off with Fish & chips and a bottle of cider.


all. till the next time.






ps great photo's .

 

[CharlieB]

I have to start with an apology, to the guys I left stranded at Folkestone train station, because I do feel genuinely rotten about this.
I'd offered a share of my Network card to get some cheap fares, but suddenly got called off to catch the HS1 arriving in 4 minutes and was not able to follow up on the deal.
What more can I say?

Ride-wise, thanks to Adam for a great, but seriously undulating, route through some parts of The Garden I never knew existed.
The monument was, as already mentioned, quite moving.
Thank you all for great company and the interesting facts and snippets of information that always get exchanged on these rides.
I've never seen anyone bidding on eBay on a bike until I saw Davy at it. Unfortunately, he never got his Sora shifters after all that.

And thank you for Adam for waking me up 3 minutes from St. Pancakes, after I went out for the count shortly after he showed me the speed we were moving at on his Garmin.
I'm told my snoring kept anyone else in the same carriage from falling asleep.

 

[Martok]

Thanks to Adam for organising the ride yesterday.

We set off a little later than planned from HPC, partly due to Abs & me being 10 minutes late (it was all the traffic lights, honest!) though we weren't the last there, were we, Davywalnuts.

Getting out of London was slow due to the number of red lights we hit. I think I've got a built-in red light activator as I always get caught by them.

After a pause at the top of Shooters Hill whilst we waited for Origamist to arrive, we set off and made the cafe in Rochester for an early lunch. Then we set off for the countryside. By this time we had realised what sort of day it was going to be - windy. There was shelter at times but the wind was generally unrelentless and I certainly found is energy-sapping.

We eventually arrived at a pub not far from Selling for a late lunch around 3pm. Before this I was struggling somewhat and I must thank Aperitif and User10571 who stuck with me and my slow pace to the pub whilst the rest of the pack sped on. Even though I asked them to go on several times as I had the route in my Garmin, they refused to leave me. Thanks for the company, guys.

I was ready to bail at the pub. With 35 miles left to go and my pace so slow, I didn't want to hold up the others (which to some extent I already had done, so thanks to everyone for their patience). However, Abs persuaded me to complete the ride and agreed that she'd drop off the back of the pack with me to complete the remaining miles at my pace.

We said our farewells to the others when we left the pub and set of for the remainder of the journey (though we did catch up with them for a time in Chilham). The wind continued to blow and I swear it was stronger than before. It was also colder and I had my arm warmers as well as my gilet on. We continued at my slow pace and we were OK for much of it though a couple of the hills (especially Capel-le-Ferne) beat me and i had to walk up them.

I am pleased to say that we did make it to Dover and got there around 7pm. We jumped on the 7.44pm HS1 to London St Pancras which arrived just after 8.50pm. Abs left her Garmin on and it showed the train reaching 140mph! We then cycled the final 5 miles home, making the total for the day 108.42 miles.

A really big thanks to Abs for persuading me to finish the ride and foregoing some speed for the final third of the journey with the rest of the Cyclechat gang. She's amazing and I'm a very lucky guy.

As proof, here's some pics of us by the Dover cliffs.

Garmin data for the ride: http://connect.garmi...tivity/88675175

 

[User10571]

Wow! You did well, Andy.
Really well.
Don't take this the wrong way but if truth be known, I was expecting to hear from you about the details of Selling railway station

.
No mistake, the wind did get stronger.
The train you caught was only a few minutes later than the 19.36 one which we did - so you cannot have been very far behind us.

Well done!

 

[HaloJ]

Not much more I can add Andy's post other than to say that I'm immensely proud that Andy agreed to and completed the ride.

Some lovely backroads but the amount of gravel and detritus on them hindered safe quick descending. I'll admit that I walked the final segment of Capel-le-Ferne rather than push on. Once more my right knee was intermittently twinging. I'm going to book a bike fit in an attempt to sort this out. We had a great blast on the way into Dover afterwards though.

Thanks for organising Adam it was a great ride. Shame the weather was a goit, it's been that way on all the long rides I've been on this year. Not sure which is worse, Andy's curse of traffic lights or my curse of weather.

Abs

 

[Aperitif]

Yeh - good on you Andy. Abs is banned from future rides if her weather voodoo is true, but we'll happily 'park up' in the pub with you... until the night falls (or the last Eastender has staggered out) The usual AAA rides are bathed in sun and sobriety ah damn, wrong again... and yes, watching a Garmin counter whizz up the mph is an amusing thing - we did the same! (I think this is really why Adam is in love with HS1 ). As you mentioned red lights, Andy, we collected a fair amount of those yesterday at one time, through Bexleyheath et seq.

 

[Mista Preston]

well done Andy ! !

 

[Davywalnuts]

Am finally home! Ha, only kidding. That was some meaty hills we had to conquer and I dont think I even do that much climbing in a month of Sundays.

However, great to see again old face and new ones and thanks again Adam for the great ride. Sometimes we get good weather, sometimes bad, sometimes atrocious, but it never beats us, troopers we are, love it. Thanks again.

Big well done and very chuffed with Martok, bananas mate, bananas!

 

[Mista Preston]

It wasn't just us battling with the wind.

MarkCavendish Mark Cavendish Is there anything much worse for a cyclist than when the last 90mins of a 5hr ride is into A BLOCK ****ING HEAD-WIND?! #saddleupmyarse

 

[LouiseL]

124 miles of putting up with my windswept locks averting the wind, Louise!

I have to say a massive thanks for being such an effective windblock Aperitif! I wasn't sure of your "nom de net" so couldn't couldn't name you as the hero who deliberately planted himself in front of me and rode at my slow speed when he saw I was struggling into the headwind. A true gent! Thank you so much. My legs were already protesting at the unaccustomed earlier pace so that stretch with the fierce headwind threatened to make them go on strike altogether.

I was out riding yesterday too (believe me getting out again took some doing as I was shattered and my legs were rather sore) - 146 miles- but at my usual pace and very lucky with the wind direction this time.

It was great to meet you all and put names to some faces recognised from FNRttC. Especially well done to Martok for completing the ride. That took guts. I probably had more appreciation than most of how you were feeling!

Great pictures too.