Richard's Cycling Blog: The most wonderful week of road cycling!

It really has been fantastic to make use of the better weather this week and get out for four really great road rides. I've already blogged about Tuesday so I'll just do the last three today. Before I get going I just want to say a massive thanks to our club leader Andy Ferguson for planning the "week of rides." It really was a genius idea, with a combined attendance for the week of nearly 100 riders.

Thursday night was a bit last minute with regards to planning as we needed to plot a route to avoid all the clubs out on Time Trials. We like to get on with the neighbours so taking a group ride through a TT was not something we wanted to inflict on anyone.

It was a stunning evening, more like June or July than April at the end of a hot dry day. There was a good sized group of us out and it felt just great to be messing about on bikes with my mates new and old.

It's been a theme for a couple of weeks that my legs felt absolutely great. I am absolutely determined not to let this level of fitness slip. I'm also determined not to forget the ethos of the club that no one gets left behind!

Lord Vader, the undisputed King of C&D!

Glynn and his amazing tattoo

Riding highlights for Thursday include crossing the Holcot causeway and zooming along that lovely run into Loddington. The riding lowlight is that we ended up losing each other as a group with around 2/3rds taking a wrong turn. Eventually we all got back together but that's always a pain on a road ride.

There's my beautiful Giant Propel in an equally beautiful sunset. Just like on Tuesday I was absolutely buzzing by the time I got home. I also hatched my plan regarding socks. I have always ridden wearing trainer socks, because I like them. I constantly get comments from others about my lack of sock, I've been nicknamed the 'sockwomble,' and they quote velominati at me: Socks should be like Goldilocks...not too long not too short! What my cycling friends don't know is that I like socks, I have lots of socks and due to many factors I'm about to unleash full sockage!

On Saturday morning I arrived at C&D Cycles for the traditional Saturday morning shop ride. Initially I was like the bloke from the Subway advert and opted for the safe 'meatball marinara,' of the banter bunch and then just like that fast food hero I decided NO, today I will go for the beef and cheese or in this case the fast group (Richard fact: I have never had a subway.)

I knew the route would be good when I looked at it the night before and committed it to memory because I don't own a navigation device. This one was easy for me to remember because I have a mostly visual memory and knowing the roads well I could see the route in my mind. I was particularly looking forward to testing my new found legs on a couple of hills, but the main event was Hazelbech Hill which featured in last year's Women's tour. It does in fact still have names of riders painted on the road. I might be lighter and fitter but that hill still hurts.

Due to the weather lots of people were out and about. In addition to us lycra loonies there was also a lot of walkers, joggers and horse riders. We learned from some of those horse riders that they want us to be noisy when approaching horses. That might seem counter-intuitive but the ladies on the dobbins told us that the horses are less likely to be spooked by us if they can hear us!

Something much much worse than Pete Squires suggestively eating a banana happened at the top of the hill. Poor Mark got in a right pickle with his banana and the generously shared around jelly beans. Both his banana and a handful of beans ended up on the floor! The three second rule was applied to the beans, then it was extended and then totally ignored. The banana however remained on the floor!

Once the excitement of dropped food had subsided, attention shifted to Bruce's magnificent new steed. The wheels alone are stunning. Bike envy spread like the plague as we had a really good look at this spectacular Cervelo.

On the way back to the shop w had a practise go at chain ganging. This is alien to the club because we traditionally pass on the right rather than let people through on the inside. It's also dangerous if the whole group doesn't know what's going on. We made it work though and had some great speed at times.

Because I needed to go back to the shop I stayed with the group through Rothwell and up Bunker Hill for the second time in the day. It's a much better climb on warm legs! My reason for going back to the shop was that I need new cycling shoes. More on that later! It was really nice to have one of those splendid Ice coffees before I headed home.

So what about the sock thing? Well the picture above is from last Sunday when I ripped my ankle open yet again on a bramble. It's time I leaned that lesson, trainer socks are for trainers. Longer socks are needed for cycling to protect ankles from this sort of thing. I've always thought that socks and shorts look silly...we're in lycra with a helmet on...it's impossible to look more ridiculous! Therefore I am going to wear proper socks from now on!

The socks above are from a sexual health promotion! They say: "put a sock on it!" The only way you can get them is to take a Chlamydia test! The sexual health team are not interested in testing the over 25s so I had to make a bargain with them. They let me have a pair for promoting the test to late teens that I work with.

At the shop on Saturday I tried to buy new cycling shoes. However they didn't have the size 11 (47) of the shoe I wanted in stock. However more are coming on Tuesday so I just need to be patient. My current shoes were purchased in 2013 and they have been the exclusive shoes for both my road bikes currently registered on Strava. That means that those cycling shoes have done over 20,000km! In the words of Fatboy Slim...we've come a long long way together!

Sentiment aside those shoes are knackered. I very nearly didn't go out on a road ride today because of the shoes. However it was suggested that duck tape would both work and be funny. So I taped them up!!!

Once the shoes were sorted my attention turned to socks. Staying with a theme I opted for a pair of oddballs socks today. If you don't know, oddballs are a company who sell undercrackers to raise awareness and money in aid of testicular cancer. They've branched out into some truly spectacular socks. Here's more about the cause and as we're a 98% male club, lads you need to check your tackle! oddballs

For the first part of the ride we were joined by Marcus and his 15 year old daughter Amy (apologies if this is misspelled). We need more ladies in the club and we also need to encourage as many young riders as we can. I did try to recruit Amy for cyclones but apparently she helps out at Brownies on a Monday so it's a non-starter.

I'd like to say that with young impressionable people around that we behaved ourselves. Of course not! A joke was made about not wanting to be our friends on facebook...it was then pointed out that young people only use instagram and snapchat. All that banter aside I really hope that Amy continues to ride and that we get to help her progress further.

Marcus and Amy left us at Mears Ashby not long after we'd ridden along a section of road called Moonshine Gap. I'm intrigued as to the origin of that name and will do some research to find out! A few miles earlier I had done some segment chasing on the short sharp ramp into Little Harrowden. I actually tried to chase down a moped to the amusement of all. It seemed like a good idea at the time!

From there we were the four amigos! Andy P, Mark C and Mike had what I can only describe as the best of rides. This was Andy's route and kudos to him for it. We ventured to places that don't feature on club rides often and to places that I haven't ridden since we did our massive 200 mile ride a few years back. The climb of the day was at Great Houghton.

Salcey Forest was lovely to ride through and if you watch the video at the end you'll see that a number of classic cars passed us going the other way. The miles just flew by.

We also passed a rider whose socks, in vivid orange, were even brighter than mine. He was also in full winter kit which must have been boiling. Mark hypothesised that he must be from a hot climate!

If you've read the blog recently you may have seen that a couple of weeks ago on a Sunday ride, Mark, Andy F and I (now known as the three fivers,) burst into a repertoire of theme tunes from the 80s and 90s. Mark said he was holding one back and as I thought I was doing quite well on a hill he came flying past doing the theme tune to the Six Million Dollar Man top quality ride banter from Mark!

The planned cake and coffee stop was the Boathouse near Earls Barton, they also have a facebook page here! This place is superb.

On Mark's recommendation, and perhaps we were all titillated by the name, all four of us had a Dirty Chai Latte. This is my new favourite hot dink in the world. No more flat whites. I'm a Dirty Chai Latte man now!!!

The cakes were also wonderful and just because I needed to try it, I had a sweet potato, feta and avocado muffin. The staff here are very nice and we very nearly recruited another rider for the club! Apparently we're not the only cyclists to have dropped in. I can see that this may become a regular for many cafe rides! It was a lovely spot, especially in good company.

From the cafe stop it was only another 15 miles back to the shop. We had a lovely burn up going the other way on Moonshine Gap and then came back into Kettering via Burton Latimer and the sweet smell of Weetabix. At the shop we met up with Nat and Andy and the banter ensued. In the best of British traditions it is not the done thing to over compliment a person. Therefore the congratulations I was receiving for my riding improvement are now being replaced by accusations. I mentioned that my new high cadence low gear approach on hills was an attempt to be more more Froome than Contador. This was instantly met with the comeback that only one of those is a PROVEN drugs cheat. There's also a theory that the duck tape holding my shoes together is in fact a sophisticated EPO patch delivery performance enhancing drugs via my big toe! Look everyone...that's not my jiffy bag...my wife has asthma, it's hers!

Another topic of conversation in the shop was about the need to ride to a round number. The bigger the number gets, the rounder we need it to be. For example, none of us would be happy with a 97 mile ride. You'll all be pleased to learn that I rode up and down the hill outside my house until my bike computer said 60 miles!

I also have to say yet another thanks to Andy Ferguson for yet more top service. The only thing wrong with my Giant propel is the stupid saddle stem adjuster bolt. I have a bicycle specific torque wrench but it won't fit into the bolt. This makes me anxious to adjust saddle height. So Andy did it for me as I wanted to try a slightly higher position.

Here's some video from today (only about a minute long so no need to save for later!)

I'm going to finish by thanking everyone I've ridden with this week. It's been an absolute blast. I know we can't do that every week but I think there's a lot more to come this year. Oh Mark...sorry I nearly forgot...