Herefordshire Road Ride II - Saturday 23rd July 2011

Call it "the breaking of a tashier"

Still dropping bike off and off to collect me heap from adrians

Will add my summary later :cool:
 
Bit tired , but the high points were :

Great sunny day out in the hills around Hereford.

How to win the Bike of the Day award - make sure every other bike is hidden behind a bin/tree/furniture etc. - I'm not bitter.

Lots of cheese at the pub stop.

Daj's "Extra Dry" chain lube.

Fantastic seeing a quality American bike up close. Nevada's Ritchey was an eye opener.

Back to Ed's for a pile of food.


Low points :

I angered the puncture fairy by blabbing on about how good tubular tyres are. Vengeance was swift and I got two punctures in the next 5 miles.

We attempted a schlecktastic breakaway in the last few kms but Ed ( obviously out of his head on wine gums and dried mangos ) was unstoppable.


Other news :

daj's rear tyre started to mutate into something horrible. We could see it was about to kick off so we got out of there ..
 

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My summary with some pics will be in the morning

Ed has done me in , I'm all tucked up in bed !

We did work out on way home that someone voted for there own bike !!!! :eek:)
 
Great day, Ed did a great job of organising it and tending to his flock of riders throughout the day - he must have done an extra few miles going back to find me/daj/simplex!

Was the furthest I've ridded for 20 years or so, and with hardley any flat bits that made it tough but rewarding, the Ritchey was much more up to the job than me proving to be a comfortable ride and more than met my aim in building it :D

Memories for me:

Meeting more fantastic new people and putting faces/names to avatar/usernames. :D

Figuring out after 10 miles or so that whenever Ed prefixed something with 'Just' it meant 'HILL'. :?

Daj finding a new way to squeak, BSO Merida drive chain being more noisy than LTS linkage! :x

3 superb top end steel road bikes from the 80's, gotta love that Bianchi colour and the craftsman ship was something else. :cool:

Seeing Eds shed or bicycle goodness, pity he has not got any GTs in there, he will learn one day ;)

Eds good lady laying on a fine spread of pastry and pork based products at the end of the day, i could have easily sat there all evening un the sunshine, pity Daj and I had to rush off to pacify our respective other halves for being late home AGAIN. (Daj's grovelling down the phone on the way home was pitiful :LOL: )

Daj's mutant tyre :(

Thanks again Ed!
 
Thanks to all for a smashing day out, looks like no need for an 'Aftermath' thread as everything ticking along nicely here.

A few photos and memories:

- bravest man of the day was Dave for showing up on a modern, lube free bike ("fully prepped" according to the hire shop) and the squeaking round in good humour. The mutant tyre was something else though.

- the two Alex's on matching his'n'his 'turquoise' Bianchis.

- the lash up

- although charming, the speed of service at the pub was bewildering; first it was "a bit late for lunch" (1 p.m.?), then "we've got a lot of people in" (modest estimate 8 apart from us). Still, well worth the weight even if the cheesy chips did sit heavy after lunch.

- the apres ride feast of processed pork products featuring the holy trinity of mini pork pie, mini Scotch egg and mini sausage roll, all the good work undone in 5 minutes. Splendid.

The Herefordshire Grimpeur will 3peat next year, penultimate day of Le Tour, so get the date in your diary now.
 

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A couple more photos (and yes, that is a granny shawl for Dave)
 

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Its the morning after lets have a summary :cool:

-High points

-Learning what "Breakfast in a bottle" is
-Riding with old faces and meeting some new ones
-lashings of bikefood products before we set off
-quickly remembering how hilly the area is
-Still thinking ten miles in that watching 7 years of Armstrongs TDF`s the previous week made me ride like him
-The views and car-less roads were awesome (even more impressed with the condition of them
-Stopping for lunch at the "Busy" pub and enjoying various discussions including how sh@t my hire bike was :LOL:
-The extra loop from hell (if only I could of read adrians "bugger this lets get the hell out of here" eyes
-The climb to the ever moving telegraph pole (what was that all about!?! )
Again the scenery at the top was stunning
The desent back to Ed`s house (would of been better if not wobbling of course)
oooowww not forgetting the dodgy voting for Bike of ride ;)
The hospitality back at HQ was brill as ever





-Low points

-Arriving late and frantically having to assemble the hire bike
-Having a complete meltdown when having a punture and changing the innertube
-realsing after 10.5 miles that watching Armstrongs TDF does not make you ride like him
-Hitting the wall what must of been 20 times
-shocked how bad my fitness has become :cry:
-Ashamed of actually holding people up
-Riding scared witless for last 10 miles on the comedy tyre (decending was proper scarey)
-Realising that too many Energy gels can actually effect your vision rather than effecting your legs :LOL:
Being told I was "Pathetic" after grovelling to the mrs ha,ha

All in all a brilliant but VERY hard days riding, Totally self-inflicted on the hard part but glad I did it all the same. Big thanks to Ed for organising and Adrian for driving.

Here is a idea Ed . Maybe next year a Cav sprinters style route? :LOL:


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