13/4 unlucky for us

weather looks pants on saturday.

bbc hold on to hope of a dryish start followed by wall to wall rain from noon.

just got back from a soaking in THAT cloud at 6pm tonight on way back from that bristol so not feeling is a very sunny frame of mind, but don't be surprised if we go no further than sweets, though the italian in wells might be an option if it starts out nice, could go up charterhouse again as we need to up the puncture count.

open to ideas really, don't care

Weather does look mildly crap tomorrow. Anywhere into the wind before it rains would be good - so Sweets or Heaphy's would suit me. Don't mind Wells apart from the lack of space to park up.

Race Report: 15 riders out for this Spring Classic, LeWorle-Fenney-LeWorle, otherwise known as the Hell of the North Somerset. No Cancellara today - apparently he's on holiday - so opportunities for someone else to actually win something.

A dry ish start in LeWorle took the riders out towards Banwell, Loxton and Christon. No early break aways today, just a few kit kats and chocolate fingers. As for the riders, the peleton stayed together until the Col de Webbington when Martin, having already suffered a mechanical, abandoned at the side of the road.

The favourites kept within themselves with no-one exposing themselves in front of the bunch, possibly due to the presence of female participants. There were no mis-haps on the first section of pave in Axebridge with all the riders successfully negotiating the first narrow cobbled section. The speed then hotted up to a staggering 17 mph towards the foot of Mont Cheddar before rapidly coming back down to about 10! Neil (Team Stubble) and Nick of team Leek 'ee' Gas Farta Lotto pulled away up the climb to win some sort of KoM prize. Not sure what it is yet but the smell of success still lingers.

The bunch came together over a windy Mendip before setting off again towards Wells. Long John Burns tried to get away on the descent of Old Bristol Hill but Nick, Neil and Ivan soon blasted by to the sound of the horns and hooters of spectators on the road. All attempts at a break-away failed to materialise and the riders entered Fenney en mass (great care needed here with the spelling of Fenney!).

At the feed zone, Nick almost failed to collect his musette and despite riding hard an elderly lady from the cafe jogged along the path to meet him with his bag of sweets before planting a kiss on his cheek and telling him not to eat them all at once.

The thought of the second section of pave (Foret de Dung) caused two inner tubes to pop in sympathy. After much smuttiness about small pricks, penetration and Mars and Jeannie feeling deflated despite Stu's vigorous pumping the bunch rolled on through the delightful Somerset Countryside. By now the rain was steadily falling, not that I've ever seen it go upwards, and a small break made use of the conditions to power ahead into Wedmore. It was only then that it became apparent that another rider had suffered a puncture. I say another rider but in fact it was Mars - again! Fearing tacks on the road among the rocks, pot-holes, gravel and other general shit, the race leader and wearer of the Yellow Pants (sponsored by I P Daily Sanitary Towels) decided to nutralise the race, suggesting we go into the nearest cafe and leave the others to fix the puncture!

This made the return to LeWorle a gentle roll in to the finish, apart from Nick's show of power up the Axebridge by-pass and various other bursts of speed by Neil and Ivan etc. We said farewell to Long John Burns who abandoned at Banwell leaving three riders to sprint it out for the finish.

Total distance - don't know, bike computer fell off at Cheddar.
Average speed - yes.
Max speed - reasonably quick.
Max Heart Rate - about 215 with all that smutty talk - disgusting!

Excellent ride report, very funny.
Apologies for dropping out and sitting out the ride in the team bus.

Give us a cake rating as they are usually pretty good at Fenny Castle.

Oops. Forgot the cake rating etc. Thanks for reminding me.

I was contemplating some kind of formula to calculate the Knacker Factor - something along the lines of: Distance + Average Speed + Average Wind Speed + Vertical Ascent (in metres). Add 10% to the total if it rains and 50 bonus points for each rider who either falls off, vomits or passes out. Subtract 5 points for every rider on the basis that we share the work!

We don't have to make the score an 'out of' something, it can just be a total. That would make today's ride:

56 + 16 + 18 + 260 = 350
350 + 10% = 385
385 - (15 * 5) = 310

I might be getting a bit carried away with this!

Cake rating would be 9.5/10 - nice tea cake with copious amounts of butter and jam. Plus warm coffee and walnut cake - mmm.

great report richard.

richard, give up the day job, you're hired.

martin, you're fired.

only one thing to add for comprehensive coverage....

ojc* - 2

....it must be getting warmer (or perhaps it could be linked to the fact that i gave out 10 jerseys at the pub last weekend, who knows?)

pleased we all won something today, pleased to have got the decent into wells, again ('though it's not really a level playing field as my weight advantage downhill is probably more extreme than martin's going uphill!!)

*official jersey count

Throwing down the gauntlet . . . . . .

Hey Martin, shame about you opting for the broom waggon on Saturday.

Cheddar Gorge would have been a nice little tester for some of us who were feeling frisky . . . . . not that we noticed your absence at all.

Your hill climbing prowess is being challenged. I suggest you get some secret training in, but better not tell anyone about it or it won't be secret anymore.

Oh, and remember to limit your sugar intake !