That was a pleasant day.
I don't do enough riding on my own. I love riding with other people and it's the social aspect of cycling I like the best, but the past two Sundays have involved, between them, about 100 miles of solo riding and I thoroughly enjoyed every one of them.
CTC organised rides seem to attract an awful lot of cyclists who don't fit the traditional CTC mould. I know nothing about racing, but I wonder whether people of a racing persuasion use the South-East Essex Group's 75 mile ride as a training run. Good luck to them if they do, no problem at all, and it it does mean that the different disciplines get to rub shoulders with one another whereas most of the time they wouldn't. I've not noticed clubs treating audax rides in the same way, which is perhaps surprising.
Of course I was one of the slowest today, but without me putting in any extra effort my traditional position as the lanterne rouge of any ride is coming increasingly under threat. Today, my target was to complete the 75-mile ride in under 7 hours, which makes it a bit tougher than a typical 100k. I'm pretty sure I was at the back for most of the first half, although of course riders who had opted for a 6- or 5-hour ride started later than I did and, if they were part of a club, came thundering through leaving me in their wake. Tokamak was one such, with the Chelmer Cycling Club whose peloton must have been the biggest of the day. We greeted one another briefly just before Pleshey and then they were gone.
Del was on checkpoint duty outside the Leather Bottle, but sadly it wasn't open because it was only five past ten. Not long after I was on roads around Felsted, where Annie and I rode yesterday, and it was a completely different proposition. All the ice had gone, there was little sign of the sun and if there were any anti-social gits out driving their cars thankfully they avoided me.
I had taken a couple of marmite sandwiches with me which I consumed in the Great Bardfield Town Hall, along with a Snickers bar and an unripe banana (ugh!) and then off I went again. Along this stretch I started to overtake riders, mostly victims of faerie bites, although there a couple of young lads from our local group had overtaken me several times, on at least one occasion because they had misread the route sheet. Later, one of them was suffering a bit of knee trouble. There was a headwind now, as this stretch of the ride took us south-west, and it was quite hard work.
The great thing from my point of view was that I was familiar with every road. I had the Garmin set up but hardly had to look at the route sheet all day. This is a very cleverly designed ride because the whole lot fits onto just one OS map - Landranger 167. I spent a few minutes looking at the map on the train this morning, but had no need for it for the rest of the ride.
The ride was generally uneventful. Early on, I saw a kestrel with a victim in its talons, a mouse, I think, and the poor creature was still alive. I could see it moving its head from side to side, its body caught in a vice-like grip. Much later on, as I stopped to relieve myself in some woodland on the outskirts of Margaretting, I disturbed a hare, which presumably was in the final two weeks of madness rehearsals.
I arrived back at Lake Meadows after about 6 hours and 55 minutes riding, and there were at least eight people who finished after I did. Tokamak, who had finished some 80 minutes ahead of me, was still drinking coffee. He and I adjourned to the Railway Hotel where the IPA wasn't up to much (IPA rarely is in my experience).
Quote of the day: "Cor, we can tell you're on the CTC ride, riding a bike like that!" It was the Mercian.
