All posts by Alan

Event, Frontpage

Ladies Underwear, A Motionless Dog And An Iron Lung

HEART OF THE WOLDS SPORTIVE – 23/04/17

I had resisted entering for a few weeks pleading poverty….

“…. I am a poor pensioner …the cat needs an operation….the boiler has gone kaput…..we are down to our last 25Kg bag of porridge…..what about Brexit ?!!”

But in the end there was no escape. I knew it was April and therefore I had to do The Heart Of The Wolds sportive. It’s the law.

It was The Classic route for Annette and I again this year, 60 miles in the Yorkshire Wolds over a range of terrain…

Flat….. no problem

Downhill……positive pleasure….as long as it’s not too steep as my eyes start to water at 30 mph and I get a bit scared.

Rolling…….yeah OK so long as the uphill bits don’t go on for too long

Challenging ……you mean steep hills don’t you !? Oh come on !

This year we would be doing the event with Rich who luckily turned up in his Cottingham Road Club jersey giving me the wafer thin justification I need to call this a club ride and therefore put this blog on the club website.

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Club ride, Frontpage

Treachery, The Roman Empire And A Foggy Club Ride

FOGGY CLUB RIDE – 07/01/17

What better way to kick start the new year and make headway into your New Year resolutions ( let me guess … lose weight and improve fitness? …me too ! )  than to go for a bike ride.

Club rides had been suspended during the festive fortnight so we could all pile as much weight on as possible prior to our determination to start losing it.

I for one was racked with guilt at eating the best part of 2 Christmas cakes.

On reflection, however,  I had decided I was a victim.  It was, in fact, all Annette’s fault.

After all if she didn’t make the Christmas cakes I wouldn’t eat them. She practically forced those Christmas cakes down my neck !  That’s abuse.

In recognition of the fact that this was the first ride after a period of excess and over indulgence Chris had arranged a relatively short 37 mile ride from the Humber Bridge to Brigg and back.

We couldn’t avoid all unpleasantness though and on the return leg we would sample a few of the short and very sharp hills around the villages of Worlaby, Saxby and Horkstow.

Welcome to  2017 !

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Club ride, Frontpage

A Deluge, A Bus Shelter And The Dying Fly

CLUB RIDE TO FITLING – 06/11/16

In the summer there is very little motivation required  to go for a bike ride. In warm and sunny weather you can’t wait to don the lycra and get out there and pedal.

Some people even jet off to sunnier climes such as Majorca and Tenerife where the conditions are so perfect they are transformed into cycling gods biking near 100 mile bike rides day after day. 

Amazing. 

( Note to the Missus : I’m not going Annette. The plane will go into the sea like a dart ! ) 

Hull in November is a very different story.

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Double Entendres, Death Corner And Stupidly Steep Hills

NORTH YORK MOORS RIDE – 10/09/16

Cycling is a great way of keeping fit and healthy. We all know that.

It has other benefits too.

You can meet new people, make new friends and generally get out there interacting with the world.

But let’s be honest. Sometimes it can get a bit boring. The same roads and lanes day after day, week after week. After a while you are yearning to try something just a little bit different

So when Chris put on the club’s Facebook page that he was going to arrange an “away day” it certainly got my attention.

As soon as I read the words about  a relaxed and social ride I was sold and I replied declaring that I was definitely up for it.

The route would be based on a sportive that Chris had taken part in previously called the White Horse Sportive.

Yeah yeah whatever.

What an adventure this would be going on a road trip to find some new and exciting cycling territory.

If only I had read Chris’s post a bit more thoroughly. Later when I had deigned to read the whole post properly and checked out the route the awful truth dawned on me.

I had just volunteered to go on a ride in the North Yorkshire Moors.

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Event, Frontpage

Wildebeest, Sprint Trains And Ride London

RIDE LONDON SURREY 100 – 31/07/16

Nature provides us with some truly inspiring events. Epic migrations of thousands or even millions of individuals over land, sea and air.

Driven by instinct they move across vast distances facing untold perils, hazards and predators in order to find new habitat on which to roam and survive.

Take the mind boggling annual wildebeest migration. Over 2 million animals moving from the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania to the greener pastures of the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. ( For Fawlty Towers fans you will definitely not see that out of a Torquay hotel bedroom window ! )

These amazing journeys driven by primeval urges take place across all species be they insects, fish, birds or mammals.

But now a new species has evolved that also feels that urge to undertake an epic annual migration.

They are the MAMILs.

Once a year at the end of July or early August they come from all corners of the UK and indeed farther afield and they head by land sea and air to a the concrete jungle of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford.

Along the way they shed their normal clothing, don garish brightly coloured lycra and climb aboard push bikes of all types, shapes and sizes ( although tri bars are definitely not allowed ! )

En masse they all then spontaneously cycle 100 miles.

This incredible spectacle of nature has now been given a name.

They call it Ride London.

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