[HAMR] Hosting Teethgrinder

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Some guidance for future hosts:
- Some of Steve's clothing is merino, so needs a cool wash and little or no tumble drying. Make sure you can get it dry by 4am when he'll be getting dressed.
- Steve prefers uploading his track via a PC, rather than a Mac.
- Find out the latest weather forecast (particularly wind!), so that Steve can plan where to go for the next couple of days.
- He enjoys chatting so you have to keep an eye on time for him, both in the evening and the next morning.
- Nobody knows your local roads better than you do. Ideally you should give the routemaster 1 or 2 tracks to/ from your place (depending on wind direction) and they don't have to be the most direct ways from X to home. We supplied a route that was about an hour long. It should be easy to average 15+mph along the route. If there are too many traffic lights, hills or tricky junctions, it is the wrong route. If it has more than 750m altitude gain per 100km, it is definitely the wrong route.
- Take account of ice/ flooding/ crappy surfaces in choosing roads and remember when Steve is likely to riding (perhaps 8pm and 5am).
- Watch the tracker for when Steve is likely to arrive and put a flashing light out the front of your house, to help Steve find it.
- Have chargers for at least 4 x AAA and possibly AA plus a couple sockets for mini/ micro USB chargers

- Make lots of tea!

[Fidgetbuzz]

Flashing light -- brilliant suggestion -- even on bog standard calendar rides - if I am following a track and organiser has not waypointed the control - there have been occasions  when I have ridden straight past without noticing ( rescued by companions ) .  Maybe I was brain dead -- but Steve could be too after 15 hours or so on the road.

[Jethro]

Not sure whether I can get the (Collingwood) hotel (Bournemouth) to wash his clothes at the end of the month. He will have the luxury of an en-suite room all to himself though as I have given him my room for the night as I will be heading home after evening dinner.

Tell him not to be late for dinner though (7.00) as it will be well worth waiting for (5 course). Drinks will also be supplied.

[Kim]

- Nobody knows your local roads better than you do. Ideally you should give the routemaster 1 or 2 tracks to/ from your place (depending on wind direction) and they don't have to be the most direct ways from X to home. We supplied a route that was about an hour long. It should be easy to average 15+mph along the route. If there are too many traffic lights, hills or tricky junctions, it is the wrong route. If it has more than 750m altitude gain per 100km, it is definitely the wrong route.

As I suspected, that rules us out for hosting, then.  It's either hills or urban roads with lots of tedious junctions and traffic lights that slow you down even at those times of day (or inappropriate off-road routes), neither of which he's going to want to waste time on.  Except in the unlikely event that he ends up needing to be in Birmingham for a media thing or hospital or somesuch, I suppose.

[Wowbagger]

There is a decent route into Southend which avoids junctions and what-not. If he needs an overnighter here, he's welcome. It's very much a dead end, though, and a direct route form MK would be a lot shorter than his basic daily mileage. I suspect that it would require a considerable amount of creative route faffage to make it work.

[zigzag]

same here, i could provide everything but flat or traffic-light free routes - that's london.. if he doesn't mind first/last half an hour a bit slower i know few good and fast routes that you can clock a decent mileage on.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Under-distance between MK and the host isn't a problem. It gives Steve the chance to take advantages of changes in wind direction over the day (laps or zigzags), rather than plugging into a headwind for 300+km.

A route that averages at least 15mph is quite important. Remember that he is averaging better than 16mph now and is aiming to get faster through the year. He can't lose too much time in getting to/ from a host or his daily mileage suffers too much.

[Basil]

Way too hilly in SA39 to be of any use to Steve, and what Kim said for B30.
Again, as she said, unless he particularly needs to be there.

[Polar Bear]

Hmmm, interesting.   

[duncan]

Way too hilly in SA39 to be of any use to Steve, and what Kim said for B30.
Again, as she said, unless he particularly needs to be there.

Ditto SA48. I'd offer to host, but if I were Steve, I wouldn't be visiting here.

Basil - you're really not very far away!

[Nuncio]

He's already politely declined an SA8 offer.

[LEE]

Steve is more than welcome to stay over at mine if he has plans to head South West.

Andover, NW Hampshire. It's fairly handy for a number of onward journeys if Steve is after some variety.

Just PM me with some warning.  I have bike-fettling stuff in the garage and some usable spares (wheels, saddles..)..etc if desperate. There are a couple of bike shops within 5 mins of my house.

[Hummers]

Some guidance for future hosts:
- Some of Steve's clothing is merino, so needs a cool wash and little or no tumble drying. Make sure you can get it dry by 4am when he'll be getting dressed.
- Steve prefers uploading his track via a PC, rather than a Mac.
- Find out the latest weather forecast (particularly wind!), so that Steve can plan where to go for the next couple of days.
- He enjoys chatting so you have to keep an eye on time for him, both in the evening and the next morning.
- Nobody knows your local roads better than you do. Ideally you should give the routemaster 1 or 2 tracks to/ from your place (depending on wind direction) and they don't have to be the most direct ways from X to home. We supplied a route that was about an hour long. It should be easy to average 15+mph along the route. If there are too many traffic lights, hills or tricky junctions, it is the wrong route. If it has more than 750m altitude gain per 100km, it is definitely the wrong route.
- Take account of ice/ flooding/ crappy surfaces in choosing roads and remember when Steve is likely to riding (perhaps 8pm and 5am).
- Watch the tracker for when Steve is likely to arrive and put a flashing light out the front of your house, to help Steve find it.
- Have chargers for at least 4 x AAA and possibly AA plus a couple sockets for mini/ micro USB chargers

- Make lots of tea!

Cheers Dave 

The flatest route to me is from the east i.e from Chichester, the west from Winchester (Twyford/Bishops Waltham) or from the north down the A32. There is also the route parallel and to the east of the A3 frpm Guildford which is not too challenging and to be honest, you can dive onto the A3 for about two miles to avoid Buriton/Kiln Lane which can be a shock to the system for the unwary 

H

[LittleWheelsandBig]

LEE, Hampshire is a bit lumpy from memory. Are there many routes from your place with at most 750m altitude gain per 100km?

By the way, I am not the routemaster or the host bloke, so this thread is intended for general information for hosts. Specific hosting offers and suchlike should be direct to specific people on Steve's team.

[CrinklyLion]

For anyone considering being a host at some point in the year, the previously published info about what is likely to be needed is here.  There's an email link on this page to contact the hosts manager if, after reading, you're still interested.

The CrinklyHotel has offered its services and provided a list of nights with vacancies up to the summer holidays (so far), although from a quick look at the calendar on the website I suspect that Steve's provisional routes will be taking him elsewhere for most of the dates that we have a bed available so it may be that he'll only be coming here in the event that circumstances such as Weather mean a route change and we get a relatively short notice call!

[mcshroom]

I have a feeling just about all CA postcodes will be blacklisted because of the hills round here. There is a route in and out that is flatter than LWABs guide threshold, but  I think there's only one (or variations on the same theme), and runs along the coast for long streches so isn't good in a strong wind.

[LEE]

Hampshire is a bit lumpy from memory. Are there many routes from your place with at most 750m altitude gain per 100km?

You can head into the New Forest and then perhaps follow some river valleys north toward Salisbury and Malborough but, from Salisbury, you start cutting across river valleys.

It's hard to find anywhere <1% average gradient around here apart from the New Forest without careful planning along river valleys.

At 200 miles a day it's difficult to keep it flat as that's the sort of mileage that crosses 7 Counties.

[Hummers]

Hampshire is a bit lumpy from memory. Are there many routes from your place with at most 750m altitude gain per 100km?

You can head into the New Forest and then perhaps follow some river valleys north toward Salisbury and Malborough but, from Salisbury, you start cutting across river valleys.

It's hard to find anywhere <1% average gradient around here apart from the New Forest without careful planning along river valleys.

At 200 miles a day it's difficult to keep it flat as that's the sort of mileage that crosses 7 Counties.

Unless Steve means to clock up the 76000+ miles around the Fens, New Forest or the Somerset Levels, I think we are all in some sort of 'rolling' terrain with some bits of the country lumpier than others. One of the hosts (Andy H) lives in Blandford which is at the eastern side of Dorset - a region not renowned for flatness.

I am hosting him in March and once I know which way he is coming, will try to guide him in the quickest possible way.

H

[CrazyEnglishTriathlete]

Some guidance for future hosts:
- Some of Steve's clothing is merino, so needs a cool wash and little or no tumble drying. Make sure you can get it dry by 4am when he'll be getting dressed.
- Steve prefers uploading his track via a PC, rather than a Mac.
- Find out the latest weather forecast (particularly wind!), so that Steve can plan where to go for the next couple of days.
- He enjoys chatting so you have to keep an eye on time for him, both in the evening and the next morning.
- Nobody knows your local roads better than you do. Ideally you should give the routemaster 1 or 2 tracks to/ from your place (depending on wind direction) and they don't have to be the most direct ways from X to home. We supplied a route that was about an hour long. It should be easy to average 15+mph along the route. If there are too many traffic lights, hills or tricky junctions, it is the wrong route. If it has more than 750m altitude gain per 100km, it is definitely the wrong route.
- Take account of ice/ flooding/ crappy surfaces in choosing roads and remember when Steve is likely to riding (perhaps 8pm and 5am).
- Watch the tracker for when Steve is likely to arrive and put a flashing light out the front of your house, to help Steve find it.
- Have chargers for at least 4 x AAA and possibly AA plus a couple sockets for mini/ micro USB chargers

- Make lots of tea!

Thanks for the tips LWaB and will bear them in mind for TG's visits in the summer.  Already plan to have some AUK Controle signs on the last fiddly 100m to our house.   The Routemaster has sent some v useful instructions on routes - so spent an hour or so at the weekend plotting fast flat(ish) TL free approaches.  (Although I see he is quite happy using the A4 in Thatcham which I avoid due to the 6+ badly sequenced lights  ) 

What I used were not my favourite routes, but ones where I needed to get a long way in a hurry.  I wasn't too fussed about avoiding busy roads as when TG arrives they won't be that busy, but I did avoid obvious death traps such as narrow A-roads with high volumes of truck traffic.  Most of the tracks were about 15 - 20 miles, but one was close to 30. 

The one I wasn't thinking of was the battery chargers   

Does the PC need any particular software or will TG be able to log on to Strava and do everything that is needed from there?

[LittleWheelsandBig]

As long as he has internet access with a computer, he is fine.

The A4 Thatcham thing is probably due to his lack of local knowledge.

[loadsabikes]

We are only running Macs, is that a problem or is it a preference thing?

[Jaded]

I'm on Mac but do have a Parallels Virtual PC on it. Might help if we knew a little more about the process needed to upload the data? Maybe a Mac walkthrough can be generated for Mac hosts?

[Fidgetbuzz]

Drinks will also be supplied.

VERY CAREFUL HERE.

There was a major team panic when an unopened bottle of wine was pictured beside what was assumed to be Steve's supper.
UMCA have some very odd but specific rules -- and no alcohol for Steve or his Crew Chief all year is one of them.

This is clearly b*llocks for a year long ride and applying to a bloke who lives over 200 miles away from Steves home -- but UMCA  overlooked  amending the rules that are really meant to apply to rides such as RAAM.

Steve has signed up to these rules -- so we must abide by them

[hellymedic]

But do supply LOTS of TEA!

[LittleWheelsandBig]

PC is a preference, not a requirement. We had both running when he arrived and asked which he preferred. He had only used a PC before.