Training: EF-Welwyn-Bulls Green-L.Berkhampstead-EF

Decided to skip the group ride this weekend, take Saturday off the bike and spend Sunday doing some base training.

Perfect day for just cruising along and enjoying the scenery - warm sunshine made the ride really enjoyable. Had fun, but found it difficult to keep my HR in zone 3 - especially on the hills! In all a great relaxing ride and ended up with just a bit of cramp in my left calf.

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Training: EF-Dancer's Hill-Mays Lane-EF

Pitched up at the meeting place for the Finchley group ride. Where there would usually be no less than 8 of us, there was just me. The reason: hard rain that didn't look like it was going to let up. I felt miserable being there and now even more miserable that I had no one to share my discomfort with.

I waited 10-minutes and then took off for a quick 20-mile session. The rain was horrible but I succeeded in keeping my pace pretty high. I wonder if this is how winter base training will be - mostly solo?

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Training: EF-Colney Heath-Radlett-Whetstone-EF

Fairly slow pace today with the Finchley group. Spoke to Stav about joining up - looks good, just have to commit to racing a couple of events at Hillingdon this year then do some proper races next year.

Werner flatted and came in a couple of minutes late to the coffee shop. In all a nice chilled out ride.

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Training: EF-Ware-Furneaux Pelham-Dane End-Brickendon-EF

Tough ride with the Finchley group again. Nice new route through Ware and out toward Essex - which was mostly flatish then swinging back westward to Dane End, Hertford and into the hills at Brickendon.

We worked very well together on the flatter sections but things started breaking up on the hills towards the end, with me being shot out the back a couple of times. Caught the group again outside Potter's Bar on the way to Barnet, finishing with a nice cuppa coffee in Whetstone.

Today was a lesson in pain - my limitations are showing. With only a year of serious cycling under my belt, I've definitely improved a lot, but my strength is not what I'd like - especially on the hills

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Training: EF-Colney Heath-Radlett-Whetstone-EF

Saturday group ride with the Finchley Racing guys. Quite a high pace all the way through with me and about 4 other guys (including Werner) and a woman (pretty fast rider!) broke away from the main pack after about 20km covered. We worked fairly well together until the last hill where the woman (must get her name...) and I were dropped and the main pack was catching up.

As I knew the last 5km very well (through Mays Lane) I attacked as they caught us on the long twisty decent and stayed away until the end at the cafe in Whetstone, just about catching the guys who'd I'd originally went on the attack with.

Good hard but short ride - looking forward to tomorrow's longer group ride.

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Training: Group ride through the Chilterns

What a ride - what a day!

The temperature played a big part in today's ride with the Finchley Racing boys but little was I to know that the hills would play just as big a part until, when about to depart from our meeting place, someone suggested we take an excursion through the Chilterns. Now I've done a ride through these hills before, but that was on an overcast day with very cool weather and I was just out on a solo day trip. Today was supposed to reach 27 degrees and the players looked hungry for some punishment. My previous night's late night drinking session was looking more and more like a bad idea.

The pace was fairly brisk from the start with one or two guys keen to push along at the front. We caught a couple of other riders and some latched on who arrived late and we had about 8-9 guys by the time we went through St Albans. Feeling relatively fresh, I didn't have any problems over the first 40km or so... that's when we started hitting some gradients and things changed a bit.

Werner was impressive, staying at the head of the group as we started the first of the hills and predictably it started breaking up. There were consistently 3-4 guys who couldn't stay with the pace (me among them) whenever the hills got a bit too steep and long, but we'd usually limit any ground lost on the descents. The tempature was soaring to almost unbearable levels by the time we reached our water stop at about 75km covered.

The next 20km the pace was set at a fairly high level and I was eventually dropped rather badly on the last big climb of the day before getting to Barnet... so badly in fact that I came to a t-junction and lost sight of which was they went. As I knew the area, I made a right and headed back toward home - totally cooked. Definitely a ride to remember (or forget depending on which way you look at it!)

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