Our last training ride..food for thought

...our so very last training ride
Today was to be our last training ride. We (all) agreed to meet on Saturday rather than Sunday to do some miles to conclude our training for next week's challenge - 1100 miles - Lands End (Cornwall) to John O"Groats (Scotland).

Getting up at 7.30 on a Saturday continues to prove a difficulty for me as my sweet baby Amy (8 months) still wakes up in the night to be fed. Thankfully, I'm just waking up to see my partner Pam feeding/ attending her. With months of interrupted sleep sacrificing yet another Saturday to go biking is something I just did not get used to. But, what had to be done - got done.

On the road to Richmond I got a call from Damian that he's not going to make today's ride due to other work commitments and setting up the Garmin for next week. 10 minutes later, still in the car to Richmond, I got another call that Jorrin wasn't going to make it, excusing himself with 'pressing' work to be done... hmmm, what just happened to our training ride I though.

Well, well... I got to Richmond to have a quick coffee at Jorrins and to go over to Oli's place to check our box of goodies from Brixton cycles which were in the car. We had chains for the various different bikes (8,9,10 speed), some rear cassettes, inner tubes, socks, t-shirts, drinking bottles and much more. By this time it was 9.45 and Oli and I decided to go to Boxhill (Surrey) and back as we both had things to do in the afternoon. The ride itself was about 40 miles there and back along the River Thames, past Hampton Court, along the A244 and then into some spectacular countryside (South Downs). With Oli on his brand new bike I really had difficulty keeping up with what was probably half of Oli's daily average commuting speed. Oli's internal compass functioned excellent and got us close to Boxhill. On a pretty narrow country road, going up a steep hill Oli pointed to the 20% sign indicating this road was going to turn into a serious downhill. The challenge was the road, narrow, steep, sidelined with trees and shrubs. There were patches of dirt and old leaves which were to be avoided (I thought...).

We probably did between 35 - 40 Km/h (20 - 25mph) which was quite fast on that road. We overtook to Sunday cyclists probably doing half that speed - being very sensible. At maximum speed we turned into a right corner and all I could see was Oli drifting out onto the debris, then completely off track onto the curb (RED DOT on the picture above). At this speed he was faced with 2 decisions. Go straight into the undergrowth and into the trees lining the road or continue on the curb somehow making it back onto the road. He decided for the latter. With the curb increasing in height to about 1.20m (4 feet) the challenge was now to get off it. He kind of jumped (with his brand new racer) but didn't quite manage the landing. C R A S H!!!!! man and machine hit the ground at top speed. The bike flew onto the road again and into my line. I stood in the saddle and my only chance was to ride over his bike as I couldn't circumnavigate it. I kind of jumped going right over his bike and onto the road again, slamming on the brakes, turning around - and seeing Oli struggling to get off the ground. Pretty shattered and shaking he wobbled towards me, and towards his, well, not so brand new bike... whilst dusting him off, the 2 cyclists we passed earlier came by with that "I told you so" look. One stopped to check if we're ok - we said yes, asking for the nearest train station as this was going to be the only way we're gonna get home having had a quick look at Oli's wrecked bike.

This was probably the most spectacular fall/ stunt I've ever witnessed whilst being part of it a few seconds later. Oli's knee looked pretty bad but the man himself seemed indestructible. The bike on the other hand was reduced to a heap of carbon, spokes hanging out, brakes bent in all kinds of directions... Of course we forgot to take a phone and the quick lunch (banana & dates) Oli had turned into mash. We saved the dates and continued our walk (2 miles or so) into Boxhill village. Fellow cyclists rode past - we walked. Both my wheels were buckled riding over Oli's bike with the front wheel still functional but the rear wheel bent to such an extent that I had to dislocate my rear brake to be able to ride. At some point I stopped a small van to ask if the van man could take Oli to the train station. This kind person stopped saying he was just about to go mountain biking and agreed to take Oli and bike to Boxhill train station. As we arrived there we treated Oli's wounds and waited for the train. Changed at Clapham Junction to Richmond, picked up my car and taking man and machine back to his home. I took the bike back to Brixton Cycles who quickly assessed that it was worth coming back on Monday when the shop was less busy. This kind of concluded the day's training ride.

What did we learn?
- probably not much.... apart from don't go too fast downhill if you don't know where you're going....

....check out the blood on the front fork - now how did he do that?