Saturday: Gorgeous weather held out for the LFGSS Tweed Ride. It was a fantastic day of cycling all over central London with about 150 riders dressed in tweed or retro outfits. I’ve never, NEVER seen so many pedestrians, drivers and police smiling at a bunch of cyclists before. It’s like the tweed clothing makes riders such a novelty that people forget they hate you for a second. Absolutely fantastic fun riding all over town.. EVERYONE was having a great time, I don’t think I stopped smiling for the entire day, which for me, must have caused a terrible strain on those particular facial muscles 🙂
There were prizes from Huntsman on Saville Row for best dressed gentleman and dame, best ‘tache from Geo F Trumper, best bike from Tour de Ville and Hendrick’s put on some Gin and Tonic for us at the Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club
eyebrows’ bike-cam video of the ride
It appears the tweed trend has gone global now..
arkitipintel.com (Le Car’s blog)
thewashingmachinepost.net – “break out the fixed velocipede, jeeves”
“All that remains is for these bamboo freaks to band together and take to the streets, like those Tweed Run weirdos in London.” (bikesnobnyc)
For lots of images from the LondonFGSS Tweed Ride click here. They’ve been tagged with “lfgsstweedrun”.
Sunday: Harp Hilly 100k. The forecast was 6am Heavy Rain, 9 Heavy Rain, 12 Heavy Rain, 15 Heavy Rain.. and the actual weather certainly didn’t disappoint!
I didn’t get as lost as last year on the way to the start so made it with time to spare. It was ?10 entry this time since they were running it more like a sportive than a reliability ride and had marked the course, had electronic timing and food, etc. The ride itself was a bit messy but good fun. I’d forgotten my glasses and it seemed I was almost the only rider with full mudguards.. the spray off rider’s rear tyres made drafting with open eyes quite difficult!
The rain let up for a bit but then started again towards the end of the 100k ride. This time I did some of the ride alone and some of it with bunches. I didn’t get lost and managed to ride over Bison Hill and Ivinghoe Beacon this time. Unfortunately I got excited near the end at the 95k mark and took off from the bunch I was with in a dash for the line. In typical hippy fashion I must have gone straight past a turn and around the 103k mark I was in Hemel Hempstead itself. Hmm.. this can’t be right.. at 110k I was half way to Watford! Arrrgh! So I decided to forgo the nice cup of coffee and some food and my finish time and head straight home.
Now my route sheet was trashed from the damp so I ended up on some major roads.. wondering where to turn. In the end I found the A4008 and did a large about-face back to Watford, before finding a sign that said “Harrow”. So at last I was heading in the correct direction! One more wrong turn (although I picked this one up early) and I made it home with 183k on the clock! I’d taken my GPS but fat lot of good it did, running out of juice after 20k :S
Looking at my Powertap data I appear to have done about 3:50 for the 100k, which is pretty good time considering the nature of the ride and the conditions. Will be taking this week easy to recover and then Hell of the Ashdown on Feb 1st.
Hey there mate!
I haven’t read the article, but noticed that you look very pasty and… well… British I guess.
Good to see you’re smiling!
It’s hard to maintain a tan when the country you live in has no word for "sun". 😛
It was a day of smiles. Seriously.
Never got the reaction to a bunch of bikes like on that tweed ride and I’ve never ridden so slow and enjoyed it so much. It was like a critical mass but without any agro, politics, etc.
Great comments. Thsnk you for hsring this information.