2010 1000MC Training Ride 1 - Richmond Park

LEJOG Training day 1.

Sunny and dry. 5C. Objective: 10 Laps of Richmond Park (120kms)

08.30. Dirk turns into my road and over a coffee laced with honey we quickly set to changing his touring bike into a roadbike. We get tubes and tyres onto his new wheels, switch gear cassettes over and take excess weight like luggage racks off. Oliver joins us at 09.00 for a coffee and a little later we’re off. 09.30 Roehampton Café, Richmond Park. We meet up with Damian and Oliver’s brother in law. Deuan had a meeting so unfortunately could not make it today.

After a bit of ogling Damian’s new PlanetX carbon racer we click into our pedals and head out onto the cold but sunny and dry tarmac. Oliver and I quickly settle into a 35km/h pace and take the headwind. Half a lap later we look back to see who will take their turn at the front but it turns out we pulled a big gap. So big in fact that we can’t see the other guys anywhere. We slow down a little but by the time we complete the first lap there’s still no sign. Rather than stand still in the cold to wait up for them we decide to hammer it and to lap them to join the group back up. So we push it. Lap2. Lap3. Still no sign of them, so we push it a bit harder. Lap4. Still nada. Lap5. Where are these guys? We turn into the parking lot at the Roehampton Café to wait. And find Dirk and Damian standing there with the entire front end of Damian’s bike in pieces. Turns out PlanetX installed the headset in Damian’s new bike wrongly, making steering very heavy. Luckily I have gotten to know bikes very well while building up my own, so I whip out an Allen key and 10 minutes of tinkering and we’re ready to go again. Damian needs to head back to Ruislip though to prepare for a gig later that night, so Dirk, Oliver and myself head out again into Richmond Park while Damian tackles the 22mile ride home. Now chilled to the bones due to standing around in sweated up cycle gear in low temperatures, we just can’t get warm anymore and find it difficult to get back into a rhythm. Two freezing cold laps later we give in and head back over to my place. Not a great start as we were 3 laps short of the objective, but we did cover 95kms total. Dirk confessed to doing only half laps with Damian though, cutting through past the Royal Ballet School. It explains why we never saw them again - they probably turned onto the main straight just after we had passed the short cut every time...