Defunct Doncaster-based rides...
AArgh! I still have nightmares about Bernie's Long Flat One.
Don't know why, the Great Eastern provided even moar flatness...
Yup, rode that as well. The horror of the 600 might be related to the fact that I rode it on fixed.
My first 600. I remember it well. I picked up some bloke on fixed, who'd become detached from the bunch around Goole. We bridged to one group, then dragged that group to the front.
We then spent a long time under the Trent embankments in a group of about 25. The odd thing was that whenever I got off the front I only made it 5 places to the back, Dave Yates was especially canny in this regard. I shot off at the turn by Nottingham, and got lost.
I saw the front group coming out of the Little Chef at Caenby Corner, tried hanging on without a feed break, bonked, had some fish and chips, and picked up a group led by Mick Potts. He tore me off a strip for riding off the front, which was fair enough, but I was keen and inexperienced.
My functional definition of a 'flat' ride is one where you can spend most of it in a group of more than five riders. That will vary with your condition, and the strength of the wind. It's actually more likely that you will end up in a group if there's a headwind.
Climbers don't like flat rides because they have to concentrate on the wheel in front a lot, as the pace drops if they lead, so the rouleurs don't let them play the locomotive. It's boring for them unless the hills make the selection. There is no absolute measure of flatness, it depends on your size, strength, fitness and resolve.
The result is that you rarely get a straight answer to this question.
