A ride in the February sun

Weather seems to be improving quite significantly in the last few weeks, so much that on February 23rd we nearly reached 20 degrees centigrade (68 degrees F). I could not resist the temptation, and given that I had the day off, I went for a ride.

I chose a route that we did a few months ago, a 100 km loop starting and finishing in Potters Bar.



It took me a little while to decide what clothes to wear. I eventually went for knee warmers, sleeveless shirt, long jersey and full gloves. It turned out to be on the warm side of things, but I was late for the train, so went with that.

Quiet lanes

 I did the loop anticlockwise, and the first 40 km flew by, with averages of almost 28 km/h. I guess it being downhill and the tailwind helped quite a bit. The roads were relatively quiet, with only some cars on the first half, mostly retirees. Saw a few machacas and what it looked like cycle tourers, all sharing smiles. Being out on a weekday, with warm temperatures and in February cannot get any better than this!

The second bit proved much tougher. It was here that I realised that it was the tailwind, and not my fitness, that pushed me to averaging >28 km/h on the first part of the loop. Looking at the profile I cannot see any more "hills" in the second 50 km that in the first ones, but it really got me knackered towards the end. Also, the km seem a lot longer when you are on your own, something that I had completely forgotten about. It is probably the first road ride in many years that I was completely solo, and it is kind of weird. I guess you can get used to it, and probably I should, given the upcoming audaxes that I have signed up for and could not get Lucy along.

Sun was hitting hard here!

In the last 25 km I entered a closed road section, and soon was asked to stop by some of the workers. Even though I was already preparing an apology for being riding on a closed road, they were actually quite nice and interested in all my gadgets! They warned me of the lorries ahead and the gravel on the road, and wish me a good ride!

These thatched cottages abound in Hertfordshire

Roads were getting busy at this point, not sure why as it was still 3 pm and most people should be at work? But it was people (in the fancy SUVs!) picking their kids up after school. Hit the A1000 towards Potters Bar and even got stuck in a small traffic jam. 100 km on the computer by the time I got back to the station.

Overall, I rode for 100 km, at an average of 24.8 km/h, for 4 hours and 5 min, with a maximum speed of 50 km/h. The profile says about 3000 feet climb, but I can hardly believe it was that much! I really enjoyed this mid week ride, although I have to admit that doing this in company is a looot better.

Falling into Fall: The first cycle ride of autumn

On Saturday we wanted to get out and do some training in preparation for next week's audax. Unfortunately, Alberto needed to get back early in the afternoon to work on his thesis, so we settled on a 100km route through Hertfordshire and decided to try to push the speed a bit.


We got a very early start, catching the 07:41 train from Finsbury Park, and managed to start cycling from Potters Bar before 8am! As soon as we got on the road, we realised that it is indeed Autumn. The forecast called for a beautiful, sunny, 22 degrees C (71 F) day, but now that the sun is rising later in the morning, it takes longer for the day to heat up. For the first two hours of the ride, we could see our breath and our fingers were very cold in their fingerless gloves. There was also a mist in some areas, so we turned on our back lights.

We moved along very quickly for the first half of the route, averaging around 23 kph. But around the midway point I noticed my legs were feeling tired and I was sore in the back as well -- a consequence of not having ridden the Boardman in two weeks. Still, we made good progress, and stopped in Dane End to fill out water bottles in a village shop -- the problem with riding early in the morning is that the pubs aren't open yet to fill you up!

In the last third of the course, we encountered some unexpected big hills! Fortunately they were compensated for by some equally big downhills -- Alberto reached 62 kph and I broke my all time speed record at 56 kph. The countryside was beautiful, especially with some of the leaves starting to turn for fall. The roads were pretty quiet and the drivers surprisingly respectful.

You could almost say it was a perfect day out on the bike, until about 5km from the end, when I again had a clipless fall, resulting from trying to do a U-turn. Virtually a repeat of the one at the end of my first century! I again was not too injured, but feeling annoyed that I had fallen again and ready to be back at the station.

All in all it was a great day out. 101km with a moving average of 22.5kph (14mph). Our moving time was four and a half hours.

In total it took us a bit over 5 hours to complete the 100km, with an overall speed (including stops) of 19kph. This should stand us in good stead for the audax next week, which is twice as long and needs to be completed in under 14 hours (for a minimum overall speed of 15kph).

Caught in the Rain AGAIN: A Hertfordshire metric century

This may surprise our readers, but we have only been caught in the rain on three occasions in the entire time we have been cycling in the UK. The first was Easter weekend 2010, on our first ever mini-tour in the Isle of Wight. The other two times have been in the past two weeks--the Friday Night Ride to Bognor Regis last weekend, and on our most recent ride around Hertfordshire on Sunday.


We had planned a 110km route for Saturday. We wanted to get back to London before the afternoon so that Alberto could get some work done, and we were taking Rachael (of triathlon fame) out for her first ride in the countryside and her first metric century!
We met at the train station at 8am, and by 8:20 we were in Potter's Bar. We knew that rain was forecasted for the late afternoon, but we were pretty sure we'd be back from the ride by then, and besides, we did the loop clockwise to take into consideration the direction the weather was heading! The first few km's were fantastic, as we rode through farmlands and forests, enjoying the lovely sun which was pleasant without being too hot.

Shortly before midday, we met Hitchin, the halfway point of the ride. An attempt to avoid the main street through town resulted in a very hairy situation in which we were stuck on a very busy road for a few minutes. We managed to turn off and take a route through the centre of town, but this was just as unpleasant as the cars didn't seem to think we belonged there. Fortunately it was all over in about 20 minutes and we were back in the countryside.

A few km's later we stopped at a pub in Weston to fill our water bottles (it was the first open pub we had passed). There were some tables in front of the pub, and they looked very inviting in the sun. We decided to have some soft drinks and relax for a few minutes there before heading on our way.

Clouds roll in, if only we had noticed!

By early afternoon, we started to notice the humidity in the air and we could see that it was getting a bit cloudier. I honestly didn't think we'd get caught in the rain, but then it started...first a few telltale sprinkles, building into an all out downpour. We only had about 20 km to go at that point, but they were tough! There were some minor hills that had to be ridden up, which was difficult enough, and then down, which was even harder as we worried about how our brakes would work in the rain. And then there was the minor incident of turning up a road only to find out that it was actually a route through private parkland with a locked gate! Fortunately the diversion didn't make the journey much longer anyway.

We made it back to Potter's Bar and then back home, and, obviously, about 30 minutes later the sun was shining again!

Overall, 118 km for the day, 22.2 km/h average (this had significantly dropped due to the last 20 km in the rain!), and nearly 5 h on the saddle. We hit 55 km/h on some of the downhills, still quite far from the pros...but getting there!

Hertfordshire: The land of machacas

Today we discovered the land of machacas--Hertfordshire, to the North of London, on a Sunday morning.

We had somewhere to be in the afternoon so Alberto planned a quick 68km loop (42 miles) in Hertfordshire, starting and finishing at Potter's Bar train station. It was a lovely route, with many quiet lanes, and though mostly flat, it had a few challenging hills, especially towards the end. The only negatives were two non-paved sections, which were especially hard to navigate after yesterday's rains.

However, the most notable thing about this ride was the number of other machacas we passed! There were loads of cyclists out on the lanes, of varying levels of ability (from what we could tell), and we also passed (or, more accurately, were passed by) three pelotons of club rides. Two in matching jerseys, how professional!

We normally try to get a bit further away from London for our day rides, but today we learned that sometimes cycling closer to population centres also means you'll be close to other crazy cyclists. From now on, when we need to do a quick ride that doesn't take too long to get to, we'll definitely think of Hertfordshire!