bikes and things

That’s what the text said from Magnus. I was completely shagged from driving to Bath and back for teaching the day before. A 5.30am start and not back to the house until 9.30pm as well as a lot more driving required on Sunday. Magnus is pretty fit and is a bit crazy when it comes to cycling. We’d talked lots about riding together but I’d been off my geared bike since early Dec and always had that excuse to use to not join him. But then I had told him at the pub on Thursday about how I was just using the fixed for everything, even longer rides and sprints round the park at lunch.

Somehow I’d run out of excuses to have a good thrashing from Magnus. I’d planned a relaxing day of little bits and bobs. I liked the idea but couldn’t help but invent more excuses… What if my chain snapped? What if… etc etc. Anyway, fuck it. I went. To hell with it.

So we set off from his house near Brockley, out past Catford, Bromley along some awful dual carriage ways which I really wasn’t keen on. Anyway, at the end of that the houses spread out a little, became smaller in scale (bungalows) and then lo and behold we were in Surrey on our way to Kent. My legs felt like lead for the first 25k. But a stop with some water and a gel as well as spinning out down a massive hill seemed to sort that out.

In fact the most alarming thing about the ride was riding down the hills. Whilst going up was hard, spinning out down the hills and feeling ever so slightly out of control was pretty freaky. I generally ride around London fixed so rarely ride down for more than a few hundred metres at a time. The urge to un-clip and let it spin out was tempting but trying to get clipped back in or the risk of the front brake failing was just too much to think about.

A few hills later we ended up under the M25 via a pretty little village that had a pub with the aroma of chips. Mmm chips. Unfortunately we weren’t stopping. We kept pushing on and we kept a pretty decent pace – around 30km/h (I think that’s decent for a fixed ride). We soon realised that Magnus was running a far higher gear than me as I was spinning out a little on the flatter sections. But I preferred that as some of the hills were still a big grind. I found getting on the drops and pushing out of the saddle helped a little. A couple of them I felt the urge to jump off and walk but the thought of defeat in front of Magnus, the loss of pride as well as trying to start again mid hill was far too much to think about so I kept on. I rode through the pain and made sure I looked as un-phased as possible for Magnus when I met him at the top. Being unfamiliar with the route didn’t help either. It’s hard to know when to give it gas and when to hold back for a longer slog.

We managed a quick stop to get more water and some Haribo then back up onto where we’d left off and followed our route sort of the same way back. We had a few sprints on an open section each sitting on each others wheel to keep up the speed. At points we were hitting 40k on a flattish open section. We also had a quick stop to admire the M25. Clearly far better to be on a bike above it watching it all go by than to be driving around it!

We then found our way back towards the more urban area of Bromley without event. Apart from one bit where I sprinted up a short hill and then my brain being so tired forgot to keep spinning around and I felt a jolt and the bike coming up behind me. Fortunately I held it and rode it out but I haven’t forgotten to pedal on a fixed in years! A lucky escape. As we got closer to home it was clear that it was going to be a bit more than the 60k promised. The dial read just over 81k by the time I’d got back to mine with 960m of climbing. Not bad really for a few hours out from the front door. Can’t wait to get my proper bike back this Sat and do some even longer rides! Thanks Magnus.