Fastest ride of the year

Did a reliability ride with the usual suspects plus a few more.... Knew it was going to be a cheeky one when Dangerous Dave appeared on his gleaming white carbon bike and not the steel winter one, saying it would be 'frisky today', and he pointed out the ex Cat 1's and elites in our group
It certainly was and I was immediately regretting the fact I had my steel Club Racer and not the Parlee
The former is a wonderful bike, and with its steel fork and 25mm tyres perfect for training rides
But the Parlee is my weapon of choice for 'races' and not 'rides'

The route was 100k and we left at 9.15
By 9.40 our group of 25 riders had been whittled down to 10
A knackered rider re-joined us as we waiting at a traffic junction - trying to cheer him up his mate shouted "at least you made the selection".
I was taking my turn at the front of a climb and asked the chap next to me what events he did - he replied he was getting the miles in so that he could defend his title as the club hill climb champion ! I knew then it would be a long day in the saddle.....

The route went down to Ashdown forest and then returned back to Halstead via the 'harder' approach of Toys Hill
But it was the first half of the ride where the damage was done. My recorded max HR is 179 and it was consistently above 170 for long drags - hitting 175 at places

I thought this was madness for early Feb. On the rollers, if it gets above 160 I try to back it off, so this was the hardest I had pushed myself in many, many months
In 4 hours riding I only ate 2 energy bars - there were so few places where my HR was low enough to swallow food....

But it felt great to hurt !
I had an iphone and was going to take some photos - fail
I was going to remember some place names to give some colour to this blog - fail
But what was a big success was the sense of contentment as I got off my bike after the ride. The endorphins were flowing through my body

I am off to watch some football on the TV now, indulging myself by eating as many chocolate muffins as I want
After the suffering comes the glory !