The Willy Warmer 200 - Jan 2011

Hooraahh!! No rain! But that is because we got sleet instead.

It may not have been that bad, but for somebody who wears glasses, rain or sleet is twice as bad as for those who don't wear glasses. First you have the rain in itself, then you have the droplets settling on your lenses. So you already have double the dose there. It may have stopped raining hours ago, but the spectacles wearer doesn't realise this until you are so fed up, you go to shelter in a bus stop. As you sit down and clean your glasses, you look up ... hear nothing, see dead flat puddles without ripples .... Oh! Typical, its just stopped raining! Every time, every time, you go and take a break from the rain it just stops! In reality, you've experienced not only double the dose, but double the dose in time also!

The trouble with sleet also, is the temperature of course. Its going to be around freezing right? So my tweeting got a bit weird. It became a little cryptic, SOS like. I didn't bother with capitals anymore. With shivering hands, you do a staccato on the keypad. Hitting the capitalisation button just twice is not easy. After trying to get it right and hitting that key probably and involuntary about 7 times, I thought nobody would care about capitals anyway. Anything that needed extra key strokes got left out, that is why the mileage was dropped also. So next time you see a: "halfway hungerford", please ready: "Freezing cold, hungry, can't see, don't ask, probably in Hungerford, probably around halfway ... I think".

A huge thanks to Anton. We cycled the whole way around together. We took turns to shout hole! pothole! hole left! hole right! hole middle! manhole! There were potholes left, right and centre. Centre?

We had some excellent views of kites. There were some low flying ones, but the one hunched on an antenna, calling to another, was unusual.

I did stop to take a picture of pheasants and partridges on the back of a truck. Anton, as a vegetarian, was appalled. There were many shoots going on, it is a little unnerving to hear those gun shots around you.

We said a quick hello to Iddu at the Hungerford Tutti Pole (nobody calls it that), and had a quick snack outside the bakery. That must be where I did the in-voluntary staccato in C minor.

It is really nice to now know so many people, compared with 3 years ago. And the world of audax is blurring with FNRttC, with Tim, Andrij and Pavel present.

This map gives an idea of the route: Chalfont St Peter, Henley, Pangbourne, Lambourne, Hungerford, Kingsclere, Risely, Winnersh, Chalfont St Peter

Double click to enlarge

A few pictures are on the slideshow till the next ride or here:Clicky

23 Jan - The Willy Warmer 200 - Saturday update

Less than 2 months since the last big ride and you feel like a novice again. But after about 130km into the ride, it begins to comes back to you what it is about.

I found the first half quite hard. Maybe because I was cycling on my own? Maybe because the first half is quite hilly for a flat ride? Maybe because my bike and I had a couple of niggles playing on our minds? My right knee was a bit sore. And the mudguard of the rear wheel was rubbing. After spending a good part of Friday evening putting on 'winter tyres' and adjusting the mudguards to perfection, I was quite annoyed to hear the 'not enough' clearance noises. At the Pangbourne control, MattC came to the rescue and lent me his pliers so I could adjust them again. Hummers helpfully pointed out, that I probably knocked the mudguards whilst putting my bike in the car. True, and if I had taken up kcass' offer of cycling to the start ...

I took a good break at the Tutti Pole in Hungerford. The young waiter had hints of a cute young Prince Harry look-a-like. Batteries were re-charged and I was settling into the rhythm. Noises were gone, knee wasn't so bad after all. I had stints of riding with people which was great. At the last Winnersh control - which I remember vividly from last year because it was sooo cold - I took another break. Hummers and Phil suggested that a threesome would be the way to spend the last dark section. "I would be in safe hands!" And off we went. Bez joined us too. We hadn't discussed reasons for doing PBP for too long (!), before a mechanical stopped us in our tracks. "You better carry on with Bez" said Hummers - so much for being in safe hands!

Some time after that my GPS stopped. I was so disappointed, because it was the first ride where everything was working as I wanted, it was brilliant. If I had stopped and played around with switching off and on, it probably would have been OK. But being with Bez and his GPS, we finished off the ride together. I tried to take a short cut through 'the car park', only I got the wrong car park way before Chalfont village. Ooops, "after you Bez"!

There were quite a few punctures, blow outs, wheel problems, other mechanicals, GPS failures, muddled routesheets and off-route instances on this ride. Not surprising in the conditions, but it seems the hiccups weren't well distributed and a couple of people got more than a fair share (Bigsybabie and damerell)

Other photos are on the slideshow till the next ride or here: Clicky

23 Jan - The Willy Warmer 200 - Friday update

The weather forecast isn't looking too bad for tomorrow:

I've decided that I don't mind winter weather any more. Because I've put winter tyres on the bike now. And as far as I am concerned, it can be winter for the next six months, because after all the effort putting them on, I'm not going to hurry to take them off! No, of course I don't really mean that ...

Really looking forward to the ride. A good turn out is expected. There will be a few known regulars like richforrest, hummers, pete, kevin and El Salvatore!

23 Jan - The Willy Warmer 200

Lets try again to do a 200 in January. All the snow and ice has gone now - that is at least here in west London. It was a lovely and mild day today. Would have been perfect for cycling. I enjoyed my commute to work and am wishing for such a day on Saturday.

I cleaned my audax bike yesterday. Later in the week, I'll put new outer tyres on, and new brake pads. The routesheet has arrived and I have downloaded the route onto the GPS. And so I am getting geared up to launch into the new audax season.

Last year's Willy Warmer took me 11 hours. I am not going to try and beat that. Instead, this time, I'm going to take the opportunity to take photos. I'd still like to get around in 12 hours, then I could be home by 8:30PM. Of course, we also have to bear in mind the current road conditions which no doubt would slow us down. I reckon I am a bit fitter than this time last year, despite not doing the Poor Student. The Poor Student brevet card arrived today - so that is a ride I can do any time before end of February. I am eyeing up the weekend of 6/7th for that, but am going to play it by ear; see what develops on the YACF forum.

This is the route: Route. Starting in Chalfont St Peter, to Pangbourne, Hungerford, Kingsclere and back to Chalfont St Peter (anti-clockwise).

Here is the elevation profile, taken from bikely.com

You can also expect some tweets again: Twitter