25/10 - KCA Reliability Trial

My old brain seems to have suffered a bit of an end of term melt down this week. First I  emailed everyone to remind them about the clocks changing but told them the clocks were moving forward instead of back! Within a couple of hours a plethora of emails on my mobile informed me I had got it wrong. Trying to correct my mistake I sent out another email only to get it wrong again! It was only only on the third email I finally got it right! However I then had to worry that someone had read my original emails and would arrive at the KCA 'two hours' early!!!

I was giving a lift to Malc C and Andy T in my faithful old MPV. Unfortunately the old dear is on its last legs (176,000 miles) , it has a faulty automatic gearbox that wont change gear until its fully warmed up . As this was the first proper cold day for some time, we had to grind our way up to Ore village in first gear and couldn't get into fourth until we reached Icklesham. Then, instead of following the instructions on the sat nav we thought we knew better  and headed towards Rye before  finally obeying its directions. All this meant we arrived with just eight minutes to spare before the official departure time. This meant that I had to forgo my usual faffing about and get over to the start with the official entry cards pronto.

Arriving at the HQ, our numbers were a bit lower than I expected with a number of club members that were DNS, although nine riders is still a good turn out . JV and Nigel had already ridden 30+ miles from Hastings while Steve B (on a fixie) had ridden 20+ miles from Hawkhurst. Also putting on the miles were Patrick and Peter Baker who had  ridden 90 + miles on the pre BBR special the day before.

We all set off together at a nice steady pace but being the oldest it takes Malc C some time to warm up and he was dropped on the first long drag. Malc has become my standard training partner and I knew Malc had no gpx route to follow so I waited for him to catchup before speeding up to chase down the others, hoping that Malc would now have warmed up enough to keep up. I closed the gap on the others to about 20 metres but Malc was again some way back and by the time he reached me, the others had gone round a bend and were nowhere in sight. Oh well, I couldn't have stayed with hem for long anyway!

Myself and Malc settled into a nice steady rhythm and despite getting dropped by the others I felt that we were riding really well as we kept passing rider after rider from different clubs, fitness is all relative , I would say that HSLCC can now boast some of the strongest riders in Sussex/kent.

Meanwhile the main group stayed together for about 30 miles before JV , Malc D and Nigel put the hammer downs and dropped the others. Andy T (on his first ever reliability trial)  gave chase but ended up in no man's land between the two groups . His gps unit was playing up (that damn redirection setting again!) so he rode on hoping he hadn't taken a wrong turn. Fortunately some time later , Nigel had a puncture which gave everyone the chance to regroup and they decided to stay together for the rest of the ride.

Myself and Malc enjoyed an incident free ride in the sunny windless conditions .Having changed the original 120mm stem for a 100mmm one, my  CAAD 8 fits me better than ever and I no longer get the shoulder/upper back ache that I just thought was old age . I felt as if I could ride all day , although my Morton's neuroma in my left foot didn't seem to like the cold weather and was playing up badly!

The first half of the ride was on really well surfaced roads but this all changed when we reached the far lumpier second half. There were few potholes but the top road surface was so badly eroded that riders were subjected to a great deal of vibration  and there was one downhill road section that ended up on a give way, but there was no warning sign and the give way markings had been completely worn away. I had visions of shooting out directly into the path on an oncoming car so slammed the anchors on as hard as I dared without losing control and with some skidding came to a stop  about a metre over the junction.

Despite this, I really enjoyed the steady succession of undulating climbs on he way back, the one up to Goudhurst was particularly memorable as a group of about 13 riders all wearing the same club kit swept past us in an impressively fast and well orchestrated fashion.

Using Up Some Unwanted Time At The 'Gun & Spit Roast ' Inn!

 Steve B ( a long way ahead) was now paying the price of doing such a lumpy/ long ride on a fixie and his back was playing him up badly as he lumped the bike over the climbs.This was far and away the longest fixie ride he has ever done.

The main group had agreed to follow Malc D's plan and stop at the lovely 16th century inn 'the Gun & Spit roast' . Malc and I arrived there about 25 minutes later but still had time for a very enjoyable pint of beer in the sunshine before we all set off for the final couple of miles to the HQ at Claygate where we arrived with perfect timing to be declared RELIABLE!!. yes you heard that right , for the first time in goodness knows how long we had actually done it.!

Still A Bit Stunned After Being Declared reliable!

This was another great day out in perfect cycling weather. I am particularly pleased that Andy T enjoyed it so much and wants to come on more of these externally organised rides.

Steve C