2007 Ghent 6-Day

The view from the stands in Het Kuipke by Emory Ball

Winston and Caspar from Rollapaluza decided to arrange a trip to Ghent to watch the 67th Ghent 6-Day. I’d already expressed an interest in travelling there on lfgss so was keen when they said they had a trip on the cards.

Ghent 6-Day..

zesdaagse.be

cyclingweekly.co.uk – GHENT 6 / KOKSIJDE CROSS: A VERY BELGIAN WEEKEND

The plan is for about 6 of us to leave Whitehall this Saturday at 9am, drive to Dover, catch the ferry to France, drive into Belgium, watch the Cyclo Cross World Cup at Koksijde, drive to Ghent and watch the 6-Day until it finishes around 1am then drive home, arriving London 8am-ish Sunday. Oh and drink/buy loads of Belgian beer! Party time!

Koksijde Cyclo Cross World Cup..

cyclo cross Koksijde

World Cup Cross at Koksijde by LCS

Dunes, Beer and Chocolate by Andrea Hofling

French Champion John Gadret finished 12th

UCI Cyclo Cross World Cup, Koksijde

Program – UCI Cyclo Cross World Cup, Koksijde

Twatster.. another singlespeed joins the ranks..

2006 Specialized Langster aka Twatster

More pics of the Twatster (and a 650C Spinergy Rev-X that I kinda accidentally bought on ebay): 2006 Specialized Langster aka Twatster

The Langster is the most hated off-the-shelf fix known to mankind (or at least lfgss).

What does this mean? It means I have to have one! (It’s that compulsion to get under people’s skin – no wonder I’m so loved)

“It’s aluminium” and “the geometry is all wrong” are uttered frequently. The fact of the matter is that it’s black, blending in with the other non-descript commuter machines near the office, it’s fixed, which is great for London traffic and it’s not likely to be cried over when some buzztard nicks it, allowing insurance to cough up for something nicer at the same time!

All in all it makes sense to use the Twatster (christened thusly in honour of their typically dangerous newbie riders.. and murtle.. the original owner :)) along with the GT for commuting. So, thanks to 31trum/murtle for the Twatster – it will be ridden drunk and crashed regularly as is required to honour the previous owner.

London 2 Brighton (Fixed)

lfgss fixed wheel ride to brighton

“Interesting” ride today with one unfortunate soul going home in an ambulance with a broken clavicle and rib.

Fixed Tip #123and4: Don’t ride to Brighton on a bike built Thursday, your first fixed ride, without brakes, on tubs with 50×14 gearing! I’m just glad the injuries weren’t more serious.

The rest of the ride was pretty cool, definitely harder work fixed than on the road bike. We stopped at 11am for a minute’s silence. I made it up Ditchling Beacon without dabbing, 72″ fixed. Someone said we had SEVEN p_nct_res by the end of the ride! BMMF and I set off the speed cameras spinning into Brighton at over 48kph/30mph. Impressive as BMMF was running 67″ gearing and I was on 72″.

flickwg Nuts To Rapha lfgss London to Brighton Ride

flickwg’s “nuts to rapha” spoke card designed for the ride

flickwg’s pics

MA3K’s pics

Roberto’s pics

Object17’s pics

Stats:

124k (42-16T, 72″ fixed) Total

90k Hyde Park Corner to Brighton

7 hrs 20 min Total Time

4 hrs 1 min Riding Time

57.9kph Max Speed

22.4kph Avg Speed

184rpm Max Cadence

Archies Grobags

archiesgrobags.co.uk

The discussions have commenced. Scott not Scot from lfgss and Archie’s Grobag fame is at least vaguely aware that I want a courier/messenger bag. 🙂

At the moment my favourite option is looking like this. Mostly black, with red straps, a reflective strip along the bottom of the flap, reflective danglies hanging off the buckles, orange or red liner. The red cog is currently optional pending embroidery/reflective stuff.

Excuse my lack of Photoshop skills..

archies grobag for hippy

London to Nottingham Solo Cycle (Sat 27th October)

Friday night Harvey said there was no rain forecast for Saturday and the wind was blowing from the South.

“Maybe I should do it” I thought. Finally made it home that night and fumbled around with google maps trying to cut out some A roads from the Ealing to Nottingham journey. I prepped the Soma for the ride after speaking to Mal about coming up for the weekend. She was keen so it was go!

Mal suggested I take the Ribble road bike rather than the Soma. I’m not sure why but I think she doubted I’d make it if I rode fixed – maybe she was paying attention to my detailed report of the evil that was Dunwich on the fixed Soma and the associated pain? Got to bed around 1am after getting bored writing out map directions.

5.30am and I was up. Toast and coffee while packing and kitting up. Bag with warmers and windvest options, some food and tools. The usual. I re-jigged the map again to drop some more of the ‘A’ roads and swap them for ‘B’ roads. Out the door around 7am.

The last minute re-jigging of maps messed up my written directions so within 20 minutes I was lost! One hour later, after going past the White Hart round-a-bout three times, I was finally in Harrow.. all of 7k away! Fsck.. great start.. no wonder I never do rides that rely on my own navigation! :S

Around 10am I was hungry and I still hadn’t woken up – I was literally dozing off on the bike! Pulled into a service station and bought a chicken salad sandwich an iced coffee and a chocolate bar to throw in the bag. A short while later I punctured somewhere around Hemel Hempstead.

Puncture in Hemel Hempstead

Stopped on the A4146 at Pedley Hill near Dagnall for a photo of the lovely fields. Phone cam, no justice, etc.

Ribble at Pedley Hill on Dagnall Road

I was using A roads quite a bit but these were mostly quiet (helps clearing London early). I jumped onto B roads when I noticed them heading in the right direction on the map.

Not having a lock with me meant I was forced to have lunch at a chippie (no, really, my arm was twisted!) so I could watch the bike. This was around 2pm, after Kettering in a town called Market Harborough. Chips and a chicken & mushroom pie. Well needed!

Market Harborough chippie

There were some interesting buildings here..

Old Grammar School in Market Harborough

On from here it was getting a hillier. I’d be crawl up at 10kph and fly down at 70kph. Good fun. I’d also stopped reading from google turn sheet and was just picking appropriate A or B roads that headed in the right direction. I’m totally in the market for a good cycling GPS! Through Melton Mowbray I didn’t see any pork pies.

Coming in to Nottingham it was raining and the traffic was a lot heavier than for most of the ride. I was really moving rapidly as Mal was close to arriving at the Igloo hostel. In town, after a stack of directions and wrong turns I finally made it to the hostel (certainly not the Hilton but very nice staff and cool vibe here, btw!) after 11.5 hours, 8.5 hours riding and 230k on the clock! The biggest solo ride I’ve ever done. The staff and some of the residents at the hostel were very impressed (and so was Mal). I cleaned up and we went out for some exploration.

Nottingham was partying hard tonight – I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many short-skirted, boob-tubed drunk women going mental in one place. It’s true what they say about Nottingham having all of England’s hot girls. Perve factor was very high. Mal was annoyed she didn’t bring prettier clothes 🙂 I was happy we were both warm. We couldn’t get into the one place mentioned in Lonely Planet so we ended up having a huge feed in Pizza Express. It was pretty nice. The tiramisu was huge!

Sunday I was trashed. We left the hostel early to find coffee but it was after we found everything closed we remembered that daylight savings ended the night before. Some more wandering around – the city was very different without the semi-clad lasses everywhere.

COFFEE!!!!!

We spent the rest of the day doing some touristy stuff and trying to take photos for Sharon.

As an ex-competitive archer, I had to visit the Robin Hood statue!

Robin Hood statue

We explored the castle grounds and the museum..

Nottingham castle grounds view

Lunch was in Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalum, one of the contenders for the oldest pub in England..

Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalum

Into the caves located under the Broadmarsh Shopping Centre!!

Broadmarsh shopping centre nottingham caves

Click here for all our London to Nottingham Cycle Pictures

Here’s the Google Maps – London Nottingham route though it’s not really the one I followed.

One hour record attempt

one hour record woman

No, not me! Spotted on Lawrence’s blog..

This is about the ups and downs I anticipate will take place on my journey from dream to actuality. The dream is to create a record for the most distance cycled on an indoor velodrome in one hour for women 60-64yrs old. Currently there is no record and the ones set in the younger age groups are around the 40-41km mark.

onehourrecordattempt.blogspot.com

TV License Thieves

BBC TV License licensing

It’s not enough that we have to pay ?130 license fee just to watch TV.

It’s not enough that the BBC keep the richo’s in management but sack the reporters.

No, they want to charge me twice as well! Fkn morons.

They can take my money without blinking an eye but now I have to wait for a refund form to claim the excess back.

Keep an eye on your bank statements people! (end rant)