Saturday 1st November - Podimore via Langport 8:45 meet!!!

wow, if the BBC are right then we're in for a real treat on saturday; sunshine and 15c in november ain't to be sniffed at.

given the forecast, i was tempted to go further, say sherborne, but the later meet time probably makes this a little imprudent. nevertheless we can still take the long route to our famous olympics by have a bit of fun up high ham and then buzzing through piss a'huishcopi (before it gets flooded again.)

we'll head out pretty direct via sandford, winscombe, cheddar then westhay, shapwick so latchers on can meet us on this route.

mileage should be 75-80, but you've heard that before

tri-options will be truckers or langport.

don't forget...8:45 meet (mr. burns)

PS if anyone is around this friday, the forecast is for 19c and sun. chris (fabian) and i are planning a little jaunt so contact me if you want to join in the fun (saturday's ride will be much more enjoyable with a 60 in your legs from the day before.)

got home ok, just before dark as well so it all worked out. thanks for all the help and hope the ride back was ok.

on another note, not always a massive fan of shops selling things, especially bike shops as they tend to cost me lots of money but the fellas at the tri bike store in Yeovil were excellent and had me back out the door and on the road in 43.5 minutes...masses (sooooo many) bikes in their shop to keep me occupied and also a nice little coffee shop inside, worth perhaps a look in the future? I received no discount whatsoever for mentioning their shop in this post, from them over at Tri UK, Yeovil http://www.triuk.com.........

cheers all
cs

Do you live in the Antarctic Chris? Your post to the forum was logged at 3.56 this morning and it's the only place on earth I can think of where it would still be light at that time. Must have been one hell of a ride home. I reckon if you headed in a south westerly direction at about 3,000 mph it probably would stay light. Fair play to you for maintaining that pace into a headwind on your own.

Richard - have you got a time machine as your post is dated 20:18 tonight!
Almost twenty riders for yet another warm day which reached 19 degrees - not bad for the 1st of November.
We enjoyed a brisk pace going out into the wind. At the petrol station in Cheddar Carlos was met by his fan club and then again at Wedmore. After regrouping we set off up the hill where Nick managed to overtake a car going uphill!
On entering Shapwick Ivan tried to bate us with a break off the front but we weren't interested. Then the sneaky tactics really began when Nick went off the front. At first Ivan seemed to give chase but we soon realised he was actually slowing us down to allow Nick to get away. Adrian and I gave chase and finallly manged to catch him but just after the bridge Ivan put in a supurb sprint and Nick latched on so they both made it to the bottome of High Ham way in front of everyone else. Adrian managed to catch and pass him to take the KOM. We split in to two groups at Langport and seven of us continued on to Podimore. Chris suffered a broken spoke about 2 miles from the cafe. After some phone calls he set off for Yeovil to get the bike shop to fix it. We did suggest he phone Sam's wife to come and pick him up as apparently she's good at locating stranded cyclists.
The return leg was fun with a good strong tail wind. An attempt was made to take the Strava record for 'Butleigh Straight' which is the road south of Glastonbury. We organised a typical Weston Chain Gang effort with good intentions of doing a 'through and off' and the first half went well as the speedo was showing 30mph but the second half can only be described as a shambless. When Nick and I looked back to see who was coming through there was no one. So according to Strava Paul is still in second place followed by Ivan, me, Adrian and Neil.
The average speed for the ride was 17.8mph!

TTC - 4/5 - the pancakes were ok and the maple style syrup was sufficeintly sweet.
OJC - 5?
KF - 4.7/5
Stats - http://ridewithgps.com/trips/3716316

Richard, I like the science. Hey Chris, did you happen bump into Ranulph Feinnes whilst on your travels yesterday?

Nice detailed report Martin - as usual. Yes, it's a shame we couldn't take the Strava segment on Butleigh Straight, but with quite a few 'rant miles' in our legs (including Friday's for Paul & Ivan) we shouldn't be too despondent. I'm just glad we're not a bunch of anally retentive Strava grabbing geeks. Unlike some sad fuckers we don't drive out to a location, get the bike out the boot and sprint down the road to get the KOM. We might just happen to take some whilst killing ourselves on an 80+ miler.

Also . . . check out the slightly longer 1.8 mile 'Butt Gas' segment. We've still got the top 5 placings. . . and whilst you're on there you may notice that I've amended the club info. Thrown the gauntlet down to the local Strava geeks.

Until next time then.

I didn't spot the 'Butt Gas' segment - nice!
I like your Strava club introduction update - " Try & take them off us if you think you can!"

Ok, i just checked on the forumotion forum and they have made a change to how Timezones work in their software. Basically it looks like the have made a change so the default Timezone is wrong - Port_Moresby or somewhere obscure like that.
I have changed our forum Timezone to London as the default but apparently all users also have to change their Profile Settings Timezone which is a real PITA.
The adminstrators as basically saying that although the timzones are all wrong thats just tough and all the users will just have to suck it up!!!!

http://help.forumotion.com/t136371-new-timezone-management

happy to live in port moresby, sounds much nicer than here and about to enter summer i believe.

how ironic that yesterday's mile eater travelled to tri-uk.

not tested the tri-uk link yet as i'm not sure what excuse i could give the wife if the police ever confiscated my computer.

I've updated my time zone. London sounded boring so I've gone for Ouagadougou (80's band I think). Think the time there is the same so shouldn't cause any problems!

yes, i'm going to change my timezone to central africa as i hear the temperatures are just right for me.

Ranulph says hi....a long but steady slog to get home but happier riding bike than sulking on the train. ended up up getting a car ride about 2 miles away after i left you guys as i spotted my tube bubbling out of the side wall of the tyre where it had been ridding on the frame, so to save a nasty accident i called up the team car (unmarked Jaguar i keep along for just such accessions although why they keep giving me white leather interiors I don't know...) and got a sneaky ride down to the shop....not a bad escape considering.
cheers all.

Glad you made it to the bike shop but didn't your mum tell you not to accept lifts from strangers :-)
But if your new friend wants to be our official team car he's very welcome I'm sure Ivan's wife wouldn't mind.