There were two riders called Ade and Lee

Who developed quite a rivalry

Over which type of gears were best

As all around them will attest.

The constant sniping on the blog

About shimmying or campagnog.

Is it perhaps a continental thing

Where Italian gears are seen as bling?

Or maybe the shrewd ‘Nihon-jin’

Craft the gears for bikes to win.

What’s the difference?  A gear’s a gear!

So why pretend we have any idea?

Let’s just wait and watch the show

As Lee and Ade their trumpets blow.

In my experience it’s legs that count

Once lycra is seated on a mount.

Of course, it is open for debate

For the next installment you’ll have to wait! 

(Nihon-jin = Japanese)

Because I know it’s important to some of you , here are the stats for unique page views on the team profiles for last week. The top 5 are

1. Adrian – 27
2. Jane – 18
3. Jenny – 12
4. Sean – 11 (best get your profile up mate, your fans want you)
5. Ian – 9 (something fishy going on, see below)

What was curious about Ian was that every page view resulted in a “bounce”. This is when someone visits that page directly (ie not by clicking on a link on the web site) and then doesn’t visit anywhere else on the site.

Has Ian got his page saved in his favourites? Is he trying to manipulate the stats? Is it his home page? Is one look at Ian all these visitors need? Perhaps we’ll find out on Thursday.

We did it!  Ian claimed his second 1oo and Simon and I exceeded our previous bests by quite some margin.Wind!  Lots of it.  Why does it always seem to be a headwind and why does side buffeting totally sap me? Despite the wind and the hills Simon, Ian and I completed the route, which had been masterfully put together by Ian and I.  Ian’s bits had far more hills than mine! Ian on his hybrid campagnola/shimano bike sporting trackie bottoms and trainers was on a mission and flew up and down the hills.  Both Ian and Simon were encouraging all the way and the cake stops were a blessing.At one point Simon asked the question, “so Zoe, what made you choose to do your first 100 miler in Derbyshire, where there are hills?”  A very good question and at one point during the ride I didn’t have a bloggable answer. We’ll share windy/hilly stories on Thursday. Tres bien allof us today.  

It was a brilliant effort by all this morning, even the sun came out to warm our backs. The ride was fairly flatish until Wirksworth and then those Derbyshire hills came into sight, the wind got up and made difficult riding conditions.

Mark did a very creditable 50 miles (25 out and 25 back) for his first outing (without padded shorts). I think TFN will be the first port of call on Monday. Brad who hasn’t been out for a few weeks due to work and study made it to 42 miles and still had the home journey to make so must have cracked 70. Adam and Graham made it all the way round. A brilliant effort by, all including a solo burst for several miles up hill into the wind to Wardlow by Adam (although the “I’m going to be sick now” probably wasn’t what he needed).

We went up one of the steepest hills I have ever encountered from Matlock to Stanton Peak, I guess the clues in the name. Respect to Brad who made it up no problems. Adam has a pictorial representation on his Garmin, boy was it steep. It was one of the toughest rides I have done as the wind was relentless until we reached Ashbourne. It always seemed to be a headwind? How does that happen?

We will be able to wax lyrically to you all on Thursday.

As well as the blendabike how about a set of rollers so that we can have a roller race at the music evening on 16th May …..

http://www.bikecult.com/works/rollers.html

You may recall me saying that I have booked the restaurant section at The Victoria for next week’s meeting. We need 20 people to book the section and have nowhere near that. Can you confirm if you want to eat as if there are not enough we’ll resort to plan B and go back to school, I think.

UPDATE

We have : Adam, Lee, Jenny, Richard,Jane, me, Tim, Zoe,Dave J, Mark R, Steve, Mark N, Debs, Graham

I think that will be enough to carry on with the booking at the Vic. SO 7pm at the Vic and they want us out of the restaurant by 8.30pm. …….

I have got the tandem from Ride wise and we have use of it until the children’s cycling day. Would you like to borrow it? Some photos would be good for the web site. It seems suitable for an adult on the front and small adult/larger child (Lewis is fine on it). Lewis and I brought it back from Nottingham and he loved it. I found it a lttle wobbly to begin with but got used to it fairly quickly. e-mail me if you want to try it …..

adrian.pugh@nhs.net

Oh and one for Adam: www.mi-sport.net

I am planning  a 70 miler in 4 hours on Saturday. 7 am start and open to discussion re route (ie I will follow you!). It seems the weather God is looking down on us again and dispensing wind and to top it off this week, rain!

Can I get together a final list of riders wanting to do the 100 plus ride on Sunday 30th March.

The plan is to meet up at 7 am at Argos, although I can pick up along the way. We’ll do it in 4 easy 30 mile chunks with breaks. It will be towards Chatsworth so there has to be some hills, but that is no bad thing.

Two weeks off in cold, wet, windy March – great! So I wrote up the route Paul and I mapped in February.   For your information here it is: