Ride London

Anyone doing this at the weekend? Female elite race, 100/60/30 mile soirées into Essex and a traffic-free 8 mile central London loop.

If the weather is good on Sunday we’re planning a trip into the smoke for a Junior parkrun, a quick trip on the new CrossRail and at least part of the 8 mile central London loop.

Will be logistically challenging but it gives me an excuse to get to a North London parkrun on the Saturday as well.

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I believe @Whisk, @stenard and @Hammerer are

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How did everybody find it? Central line suspension meant I missed my start wave (6am) and only got going at 07.40. Then got caught up behind a major crash unfortunately which took the wind out of my sails a bit. Hope everybody is OK.

Enjoyable new route though!

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Looks like @stenard had some serious cramp - seen some absolutely rapid times on my Strava feed, 43 kph average etc

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Yep, that was not a great day. I’ve ridden an Ironman bike split at a faster average speed. The surging nature of trying to stay in the wheels is just not something I’m trained for.

Cramp wise I’ve never had anything like it on a bike. When it first kicked in I still had about 25 miles to go. I was genuinely wondering how I’d get back to London. Even tiny little bumps had me having to drop down into the easiest gear and lightly spin. And I couldn’t use the drops at all from that point…the added hip angle just caused my hammies to lock up immediately.

I’ve never had to freewheel downhills with both legs dangling out of the pedals before either :see_no_evil:

The first 15miles were pretty epic tho. They’re big wide roads (three lane highways in large parts) so whilst it’s very busy with numbers, it never felt particularly unsafe. That didn’t mean there weren’t what looked to be some fairly nasty crashes though

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Mamils where the closest they’ve been to a peloton is TdF highlights on ITV thinking about average speeds for Strava. :see_no_evil:

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Got caught behind the accident too, must have been about a 20 minute delay at around 41 miles?

It had been getting fairly strung put st that point.

Also had cramps but in my quads. Im not sure too many beers and a kebab friday was the best prep.

Also couldn’t find a consistent wheel to suck either, either. The better ones were slightly too quick up hill and slightly too slow down but i suppose the viggest problem there is that im currently 2 stone overweight :rofl:. I celebrated at the end with 2 sausage rolls from Greggs at London Bridge station, so im.not helping my own cause.

Did ok at 5.30 but would liked to have averaged at least 20 mph on what was a relatively flat course. The climb back up to Woodford was a killer as well.

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