Three Fields 108 km 13/3/10

[αdαmsκι]

I am planning on doing the Three Fields ride with my folks. I imagine it'll be a nice, leisurely ride and the route looked good, which I'm now trying to rescue from bikehike.

Anyone else riding?

[Chris N]

I might do - looks like a good candidate for ECEing into a 200.

[Androcles]

I'll be there, fourth time of riding it iirc.

Simon sent me my .gpx files from Bikehike which includes the Three Fields (and most of the other audaxes out of Alfreton).  If you would like a copy send me a p.m. and I will mail them to you.

Now for a shameless plug:   if you enjoy the Three Fields you may like to try the Sleepy North Notts Villages 150 which I am organising a fortnight later.

[αdαmsκι]

Now for a shameless plug:   if you enjoy the Three Fields you may like to try the Sleepy North Notts Villages 150 which I am organising a fortnight later.

Yeah, I'd noticed your ride and I like the sound of it, esp. if I can turn it into a 200 km ride. However, the 27^th March is also the day of the The Dean from Oxford and I am going to be force to decide between these two rides.

[Aidan]

Now for a shameless plug:   if you enjoy the Three Fields you may like to try the Sleepy North Notts Villages 150 which I am organising a fortnight later.

Im  going to do both if diary allows

[αdαmsκι]

Accuweather is predicting a good day tomorrow with a toasty 8 °C. Surely that's warm enough for ice cream at the Haughton Park Ice Cream Fram that's the first control?

[Ray 6701]

I should be riding tomorrow & hopefully will be riding the north Sleepy North Notts Villages 150 as well 

[Aidan]

Cant come out and play this morning

[Climberruss]

I rode this today and it was a cracking ride in nice weather - I swear the sun actually felt warm for the first time this year!. A good turn out too - 107 starters.

[αdαmsκι]

Bloody hell, that was hard work. One of the rear spokes in my back wheel snapped on the way home from the cinema on Friday night*, which meant my attendance was in jeopardy. However, my housemate kindly leant me his sit up 'n' beg 16+ kg city bike, complete with hub gear and brakes. So at 23h30 last night, when I'd rather had been in bed, I was fitting my SPDs to his bike and checking out train times to Alfreton because riding to the start no longer appealed.

This morning came around far too quickly, esp. as I had to be up by 06h30 to catch the 07h45 train to Alfreton, but at least I was able to do the ride and I'm really glad I did. From the start to Southwell was absoulely lovely. I've cycled a little bit in that area and the villages are beautiful. Getting back from Southwell was hard work because of the nasty headwind and it was also uphill a lot of the way, and I was starting to suffer on the silly bike.

In the end, an excellent day out and I ride I'll remember that was saved from a DNS by my housemate.


*That's the second spoke that's broken on my bike in a month. In Feb. one of the spokes in my front wheel broke. I'm not impressed.

[Chris N]

Shame I missed this - was painting the conservatory instead.

[PH]

However, my housemate kindly leant me his sit up 'n' beg 16+ kg city bike, complete with hub gear and brakes. S

and a chainguard?  I think I saw your bike at Southwell, thought it was a practical looking machine
It was a lovely day, my first Audax for a while and my first time using the ECE system, what a great idea though the ride to Wirksworth for a control on the way home was tougher than I was expecting. 
The only downside was the display of poor road manners at the start, loads of riders going straight through two sets of red lights, blocking the junction, riding three and four abreast for the first few miles... what is it that makes people think this is OK if there's enough of them?  Some light relief supplied by the guy who overtook 20 or so waiting at the lights, straight over the white line, then decided he needed to stop anyway and promptly fell off, red Mercian, anyone you know?

[αdαmsκι]

Yeah, the bike you saw in Southall, complete with chain guard, will have been the tank I was riding! My back is sore today, which is probably from the upright position of that bike.

Having the set of traffic lights at the start of the ride was quite good because it spilt the field up and prevented a bit of the "whacky races"  that can occur at the start of a ride. I hadn't noticed people going through the red lights, but I was near the back of the field. I've no idea who was riding the red Mercian, but I also managed such a trick on the way to the station yesterday morning. I put some SPDs on the bike from my bag of spares and I didn't checked their tension. At the first set of lights I discovered they were far too tight - *splat*   .

[Androcles]

Did you get your ice cream?

The wind on the last section is often a pain, last year on this ride I was overtaken on the hill after the lights before Kirkby by a runner.

Overall it was a good ride, although yet again it highlighted a the loss of fitness over the winter, and a few bugs still to be ironed out on the bike before the longer rides in a few weeks.

PH, thanks for your comments about the start.  I will be sending out the letters and routesheets for the Sleepy Villages 150 over the next couple of days and I'll put in a little reminder about road etiquette, particularly in Alfreton itself.  I'm not expecting many above 50 riders and we are starting at 8:00 rather than 9:00 hopefully this will be less of a problem.

[αdαmsκι]

Did you get your ice cream?

Nah, it was still too damn cold! (The weather that is, not the ice cream.)