Sun 9th May - C ride - 68 miles to Chesterton Windmill - RIDE FULL

[CeGi]

Route will be https://ridewithgps.com/routes/35287366 . Nice 68 miles - 109 km at something like 13.5 mph - 22 km/h average (and my usual 6 mph when uphill where you'll have to wait for me at the top ).

As always with me, there will be NO LONG café stop. No 45 minutes stop for 3 course meal, so please do not join if this is not your cup of tea. I propose :
- a first 10 minutes pause at the windmill (29 miles/47k) for pictures/selfie/and nibbles
- and a 20 minutes pause in Stratford upon Avon (43.5 miles / 70) where there are quite a few café next to the main plaza where cakes/hot drinks could be taken away

Meeting at the BH from 9:00am for a departure at 9:10 sharp. Approx 5 hours ride time. With stops, we should be back around 14:40-15:00

Cédric Gioan (L)
Lewis Singleton
Noel O Dwyer
Chris Yan
Adrian Low
Joanne Congerton
Mark Stammers

[Lewis]

Sign me up please Cedric!

[CeGi]

Sign me up please Cedric!

We'll try to get another pic of you with a bigger windmill in the background this time

[Noel]

Cedric,

Can you add my name to the list as well please.

Noel

[ChrisY]

Count me in please Cedric

[CeGi]

You're both in Noel and Chris.
I hope the weather will be better than today's, else I might call it off as I am not that keen on catching a pneumonia

[Adrian431]

Hi can myself an Joanne join in the ride please

[CeGi]

Hi can myself an Joanne join in the ride please

Hi Adrian, been ages I haven't seen you. Will be a pleasure

[MarkS]

Hi Cedric,

If that space is still available can you add me to the list?

Cheers

Mark

[CeGi]

Hi Cedric,
If that space is still available can you add me to the list?
Cheers
Mark

All yours Mark

[Simon Woodward]

A great location Ced, I take it your starting The British Cycle Quest
https://www.cyclinguk.org/british-cycle-quest

[CeGi]

I take it your starting The British Cycle Quest

Nope, too risky if I caught he 'disease' for good

[CeGi]

My dear fellow riders, the forecast for tomorrow morning is far from exciting.
Are you all still interested even if we get drenched for the first 3 to 4 hours?

I would be tempted to postpone or to move it to the afternoon when it's much more likely to be dry(-ish) but that might not fit others' agenda.
Your thoughts?

[Adrian431]

Hi Cedric were both happy to postpone to the following week if OK as we don't fancy a drenching. We will probably go indoors as a replacement tomorrow rather than go in the afternoon
Hope this is helpfull

[MarkS]

Hi all,

I'm not desperately keen to spend hours slogging through the rain either. The weather forecast does look better for the afternoon so if others are interested I'm happy to push the ride to the afternoon. Otherwise we can do it next week.

Cheers

Mark

[ChrisY]

My dear fellow riders, the forecast for tomorrow morning is far from exciting.
Are you all still interested even if we get drenched for the first 3 to 4 hours?

I would be tempted to postpone or to move it to the afternoon when it's much more likely to be dry(-ish) but that might not fit others' agenda.
Your thoughts?

Hi Cedric
I would prefer to postpone it too. I won't be able to make the afternoon unfortunately

[CeGi]

Many thanks for your answers. I got Lewis' via another channel and he concurs with us.
I'll keep an eyes on the weather forecast tonight, but I think it's pointless and near impossible for it to change substantially with so little time left.
I am glad we all seem to agree. Let's try to keep this hobby as a pleasure and not a call of duty.

Tomorrow afternoon looks dry and a bit warmer than the morning from 2 pm onwards. So I might go out for a little spin, but obviously not as long as What we had planned. Something like 2 hours max. If some are interested, just let me know. Not guaranteed yet as I will play it by ear. Obviously I fully understand that most would have commitments in the afternoon. Just proposing.

Not sure about when I'll reschedule that ride to Chesterton Windmill. Next week-end looks wet so far (but the forecasts could evolve still). Stay tuned.

PS:
So happy you seem to have the same view, I feared I would have looked like a coward.
As a result I propose to rename the club rides as follow
A -> Absolutists-Activists
B -> Borderline-Bunch
C -> Cleverly-Cautious

[Noel]

Cedri,

Forecasts are looking better from 10am onwards, suggest starting around then and a possible shorter route to allow all be back around the same time as originally planned. Happy to go with whatever is decided.

[CeGi]

Hi Noel,
Very sorry, I thought everybody had replied and now I just realise that your ballot had been delayed in the post.
I prefer to stick to the cancelation for the morning as the vast majority wants to keep it enjoyable as in dry and fair.

Both weather app I use on PC and mobile only seemed to show improvement from 1pm onwards. So I was a bit surprised by your earlier time.
Just went online to check other sources and now I am properly confused . The met office website (possibly the most reliable) is actually showing a much better picture than I thought from 9am !!!

10% rain from the met office, 76% from my mobile app and 87% from my PC app!! What the Heck?

So, to the risk of looking inconsistent, I'll retract my cancelation and just put 'pending' in the title and awaits assessment late tonight.
If some have made alternative arrangements already, I fully understand. No worries, even if the weather will end up nicer than I feared and I end up running the ride tomorrow, I'll run it again very shortly anyway (Mariana wanted to take part)

[ChrisY]

Thanks Cedric I'll stay tuned

[Adrian431]

Well check in later if it on

[CeGi]

Hi All,

both my mobile and PC weather app are still quite pessimistic, but the metoffice website still shows only 10% rain probability from 9am onwards (despite the 8am having gone from 20 to 50% since this morning). So no much changes since this morning.
So not wanting the C ride to mean Cautious-Coward I will hope the metoffice site is correct and that we'll manage to ride reasonably dry.

So unless really bad downpour tomorrow at around 8:30 I propose we meet at the BH at 9:00am and see there how we feel. If the weather becomes unfriendly we can always shorten the ride underway.
If some of you are not there at 9:10, we won't hold a grudge against you.

See you tomorrow

[ChrisY]

Sounds like a good plan. I'll be there (probably)

[CeGi]

My dear fellow riders.
I am so happy Noel instilled doubt in my mind about these pessimistic weather apps yesterday and that we did not cancel our ride after all.
We would have missed on a great day out. Thanks to you all for coming and well done to all of you for your efforts on this long ride (special kudos to Chris and Lewis who both got their longest ever ride on strava with it). I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.
I gathered everybody's photo here
Please download the one you want within 2 weeks after which I might clean my google account.

If some of you fancy doing it again one day, please note that I've edited the beginning of the route so that it includes less city road and goes more directly into the countryside. I left the end which we did not do unchanged. I went back to test part of it after our ride and it's nice and uses roads not usually used on club runs. So if you fancy a change, still same link: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/35287366

[caashford]

Looks like a great route, and would work well for a club run with stops at Wellesbourne or Stratford.

Just a quick note that the route around Lowsonsford (27k) attempts to take you off onto tracks via Mill Lane, as well as just after High Cross. Stick with the main roads and all will be fine! Same with Warwick - straight through town and all is good:-)

[CeGi]

Just a quick note that the route around Lowsonsford (27k) attempts to take you off onto tracks via Mill Lane, as well as just after High Cross. Stick with the main roads and all will be fine! Same with Warwick - straight through town and all is good:-)

Hi Chris,
indeed. This explains why some of the group tried to take me off course
How on earth did a better version of the route make it to my garmin without my route bank being updated is a mystery
Anyway, thanks to your eagle eyes, the route is now corrected on these 3 little mishaps. Thanks