Scene from Ben Hur

(Steve and Kev)Drove down to Milton Keynes on Friday(posh Skem) to spend a weekend training with Olly and the MK Don's End to End riders. Also a good opportunity to catch up with Steff (Olly's wife) and the kids. Planned a decent ride on Saturday and headed off at about 9.30 with rain in the air and more forecast. Waited for the other MK lads to join us (James and John).
Set off towards the Brickhills and Woburn area. Quite tough first hour or so with rolling countryside and a few naughty climbs thrown in for good measure. Hit with some rain and more hills as we headed out towards the Chilterns. The MK lads are totally addicted to Marathons (sorry, Snickers), each of them had about three in the first few hours of riding!!!
It was quite strange riding with these MK lads (no offence if you read our blog boys), they are road riding novices and rarely rode as a group. James stayed in the big chainring and hammered up the hills and on the flat (although he paid for it later with sore knees). He was constantly a good 50 -100 metres ahead of us. John (who I christened Wobbly Bob, for reasons you will discover) has only been on the bike for 4 rides and did remarkably well to stay with us.
We passed some beautiful, picturesque 'Olde English' villages, which included George Harrisons stately home and Frank Bruno's pad.
We counted at least four pubs called The Five Bells, But decided on The White Horse to water and feed us. One of the other MK lads called Dave managed to catch up and join us here. So six set off towards Ivinghoe Beacon (Anglo Saxon) and the heavens really opened as we started the climb. Found the climb quite easy, but passing over the top for a few miles through the trees it happened!
The MK lads have been sponsored by Trek UK, who have supplied training bikes. Unfortunately these are fitted with the cheapest mudguards and as John aka Wobbly Bob was getting a mouthful of mud and rainwater from Olly's back wheel, he decided to suddenly slow down and move offline. I (Steve) saw him coming and used my shoulder to push him away from me. Unfortunately, he kept coming and jammed his hub into my front spokes. Bang, two snapped, I had a big wobble, but managed to keep upright, despite a buckled wheel. (It was like that charoit scene in Ben Hur).
We were a good 40 miles from MK and stuck. Dave called his South African buddy with a van who came out and picked him and my bike up. Cheers Donald. Dave passed his bike to me to finish the ride, which was good of him. Unfortnately, it was way too big and I have ended up with an aching neck, not to mention a tender rump with a foreign saddle.
Headed off the Chilterns and Olly's iffy navigation skills got us spotting M25 motorway signs!!!!!
Still, we found an interesting route back and after several more challenging climbs and who knows how many more Snickers bars for the MK lads, reached home (Monkston MK) with 77 miles clocked.
A shame we didn't get back to back rides in.
It's a trip to get my wheel sorted at Middleton's before next weekend and hopefully another decent two days of riding.
Thanks to Steff and Darren for their wonderful hospitality. That Spag Bol didn't touch the sides last night Steff and sorry about eating all the Nan bread on Friday.
Congratulations to Lee and Ell with their new addition to the family. Keep on spinning mate and get some road miles in as and when the baby allows.

housebound, but in a good way

The Big Eze is settling in, El and I are now remembering what it was like to have a small child to look after. We're more relaxed than last time but it's still exhausting, more so for El of course....but we are very pleased to have the boy Eze with us, he's simply spectacular. BUT to cycling matters and last night I managed to put the CycleOps Turbo Trainer together. The instructions to build are terrible and if you let yourself get bogged down by the complex language you'd never manage it so I decided to throw the instructions away, metephorically, and just look at the bits and put it together. This was by far the best option. It took me little more than 1 hour to assemble but I waited until today to give it a go. So Eze was asleep, El was asleep and the Cup Final was about to start, so I stuck the telly on and got on the bike. 50 minutes later it's half time and I'd kept a good pace going throughout. The trainer is quiet and sturdy but without the great outdoors cooling you down you sweat buckets. Had a rest at half time and then got back on for the second half. Another 50 minutes at a good pace (well I never left the kitchen obviously but I was pedaling hard) at this point Ava came home with friends who subsequenty thought the site of her dad in lycra pedaling a bike that doesn't go anywhere the most ridiculous and therefore funniest thing she'd ever seen. Granted she's only 4 and will no doubt see many funnier things in her life, but today it was me. Laugh? Yeah she laughed, and laughed, and laughed. Still I have to say, even taking into coonsidertion the ridicule, the CycleOps is a success and it means I can try and catch the northern alliance up at least in terms of conditioning if not actual miles on the road. Hope you enjoyed Olly's, Kev and Steve, and Olly if you are reading, hope all is well and see you soon I hope. Happy days.