Ian Holms

Hope your okay Ian, knee looks rather nasty.  Falling off is character building you said :)  Lol

Sorry for the no-show guys. This working malarkey detracts from the cycling malarkey :-S Hope you have a good run.

Oh no,Morna knows that I crashed !

Is this post ride refreshment becoming a 'thing' now? Maybe we should all add on a couple hours to our ETA.

Oh no,Morna knows that I crashed !

Oh no,Morna knows that I crashed !

Oh no,Morna knows that I crashed !

Great day on the bike, nicely rounded off with a couple of pints in the Bishy Inn with Iain Carvill

A good ride today that changed its description and evolved as we went along!
 
Big bunch of 12 kicked off and enjoyed largely quiet roads and a dry warm day (home before the first shower!), outside tables at BB once again for the café stop. Pleased to see Brisbane Glen open to traffic at last and nice new tarmac on part of the higher stretch.  

A heads up on the train front. When i took my bike from Inverness to Glasgow the train had a maximum of two bike spaces and your bike need a ticket to get on the train/through the gate. That was last year on Lejog but this might have changed since then.

Very enjoyable wee run this morning. 6 up from the clubrooms, but Ken Mac was feeling poorly and turned round after the rocky road. The Dalgarven Mill cafe passed Graham's £5 test, and they've adopted the JWCC too - a photo of a clubrun group now on their menu.
 
Coffees drunk and then home via NCN and the track. Good to see and have a quick chat with John and Rita Montgomery who were out with a number of other youngsters from Glasgow Wheelers and the Ivy. 
 
At Kilbarchan Morna persuaded me to add on an extra wee loop so we headed up Burntshields road while Dave, Carol and Boyd headed their own ways home.
 
73km in the legs and home before the rain. Great stuff.

The weather forecast for the day was due to be a mixed bag for our planned route, but it did begin with a tailwind down to Ardrossan. Andrew, Graham and myself met at Millar street and were joined by Jaki and Paul a little further down the cycle track. We made it down to the ferry on time but still last to board, Eric and Ian were already there and found us on board.
 
Good progress was made initially at a steady pace, but a snapped chain gave us our first break. Our next stop was a bit more eventful when Ian and Andrew coming off their bike on a comer at Corriecravie, probably the tarmac lurching up at them. As we Wheelers are made of tough stuff, both picked themselves up, compared road rashes and torn clothes and we were on our way again. Lunch was at Cafe Thyme outside Machrie, a bit of a slog into the wind, a measure of things to come afterwards. The remainder of the run to the ferry was going to be tough, into the wind with thankfully only occasional rain despite the menacing dark clouds hanging over the mountains like the gateway to Mordor. After the expected drag out of Lochranza, leaving a streak of our pain and suffering on the road behind we all managed a well ordered and brisk return to the 1640 ferry.
 
A decent rest on the ferry was needed for the band of five's return home, we were all clearly tiring, but kept the pace up well. As is the way with these days out as we all peeled off to go our separate ways, each hopefully with a warm welcome home and lots of food (I know I did!).

I'll be at Ardrossan for ferry, and I'll will decide my return on the day.
I've got an empty on Saturday..................

I'll be at Castle Semple loch carpark 08:20 to meet those cycling from the club.
I aim to catch the return ferry at 16:40 so not bothered about the pub stop.
At the moment forecast showing wind ENE so that will help us on our way to Ardrossan.

Here is a quick summary of Saturday's social ride round Arran
 
Meet at the club rooms for 0800 if cycling to Ardrossan
Cycle track to Glengarnock then on to Dalry and the B780 to Ardrossan
Meet early at Ardrossan for the 0945 ferry, I called CalMac and they know we are coming but they do not do reservations.
Cycle round Arran going clockwise
Cafe Thyme just past Machrie looks good for lunch and I called to let them know we will be coming. They do not do bookings as such but I can call on the day and check it is okay.
A pub stop before the ferry home will be welcome, but is dependent on which ferry we can get.
I expect a group of us will cycle home and I will be taking lights just in case.
 
Coming so far are:
Graham
Paul
Ian
Karen
Jaki
Karen
Eric
Myself
I do not know who is meeting us or where or if anyone else is just holding out to last minute, but if you are not on the ferry....

5 of us Boyd, Morna, Dave, Newbie Stevie and myself headed for Drymen lovely route going. Unfortunately had wee pile up Poor Morna and Boyd and myself Morna Boyd got this worst of the fall I managed to land on my feet and stand on poor Boyd's hand. Anyway got to cafe for a welcomed cup of tea. The other bunch came in to the cafe so nice to see all the guys. Our wee bunch left then the other bunch caught us up and cycled most of the way home together. 56 miles for Dave and me. Nice weather apart from the wind

Crikey Carol, you stood on Boyd's heed :-/ I remember he doesn't usually wear a helmet too, god that's must've hurt! :-)
 
Hope all is well with everyone involved!
 
Cheers
 
Chung

A good dry but windy ride to Drymen.
A new café for me - very cosy!

Great to be out with the bunch this morning. 4 intermediates gathered at the bridge and after a few wrong turns managed to find 5 30 milers (trade description act, surely) at Skoosh in Drymen.
 
They set off again heading for Balloch and the bike track back where we caught them again and rode together back to the bridge. Heavy work into the wind up the Georgetown, with riders heading their own way home from Houston.
 
65 for me in good company, Inc new start Stevie.

What distance is this ? Sounds mega !!

Evening all.
 
Well, here's the report from one of the 'also rans'
 
I had been keen for Roubaix this year until Geo talked me into the Marmotte.
 
"11 months to go" I thought....what could go wrong!
 
A combination of work and a 2yr old meant I didn't get as many miles in as I would've liked...I had ridden a couple of 75 milers in the previous couple of months but my last century was at Flanders last April.... but before I knew it, we were flying out to Geneva!
 
As George said, a bit of delay getting to the Alpe but a nice wee ride down the Alpe on Sat, along to Allemont and then a climb up to Villard Reculas and into Huez village. It did made me think about the day to come!
 
The descent to the start wasn't as bad as I feared and we were soon off and blasting through the valley. I was with my friend from Dumfries and we were staying together as he has been on the bike less than me.
Up and over the looooonnnnnnggg drag of the Glandon into the cold and mist. Not much hanging about before the neutralised descent.
Neutralised because it's dangerous.....it also didn't help that visibility must've been down to 50ft! Interesting!!
 
I had lost sight of my mate and found myself on a wee train along the valley. Hanging on a bit as I didn't fancy being stuck on my own into the headwind.
We collected Greg, who was doing exactly that, just before the feed stop and we were joined by my mate before tackling the Telegraphe.
The Telegraphe itself isn't too bad a climb but then we were onto the Galibier. At this point my mate said he was chucking it and as Greg and I spoke to Ramsay and Elaine....who had caught us for about an hour!!...I lost of sight of him and we eventually thought he must've turned round.
 
The Galibier was ok to start with but the last 8 or 9km is a pretty hard slog. Think it was about 4 or 5mph all the way up!
 
To surprise and delight, my mate was at the feed station at the top! It was blowing a gale so we headed off down the descent which wasn't too nice in the wind.
The Galibier soon turned into the Col du Lautaret and it's fast, majestic sweeping bends that went on for km after km.
Good for the morale and the sun had came out by now!
We realised we weren't as far ahead of schedule as we had imagined so it was a race on to make the time cut off of 6.15pm at the foot of the Alpe.
We dug in and made it with 10 mins to spare. We had dug in because we had decided we weren't going to ride the Alpe after all.
 
Then we decided that that would be daft......so off we went!
 
It was in the 20's by now so off came as many clothes as was decent and we agreed it was every man for himself so I continued on my 4mph slog upwards and got closer and closer....seeing a lot of folk looking in a worse state than yourself is a strange morale boost!!
 
I eventually got to hairpin 1 and had some new found energy so had a good run in to the finish line.
 
Total time from start to finish was 12hrs and 20 mins so a long day in the saddle.
I was delighted to have finished because I had my doubts. It was a tough mental battle at times.
 
I was less than delighted to be told that they didn't have any medals left!!!
I'll see how the organisers reply to my e-mail!
 
What Ramsay didn't tell you was that he still managed to climb the Alpe in 1hr 10 after everything that came before!! Chapeau
 
As the others have said about the Fred, not sure if I'd do it again but glad to have ticked it off!
 
Thanks for reading....and goodnight

Thanks to Iain C and Ian H for timekeeping,
Well done to Gerard and also Alan after a tough ride at the weekend. I surprised myself with that time!

Just a small reminder to everyone there tonight that, despite the cold air it is actually July. Well done to Scott on a fantastic run and to our esteemed timekeepers on the night. Thanks to Alan for his effort too.

Count me in.

A good run today with Ian H, Graham, Peter, Karen, Andy, Mia (refugee from cancelled 30 milers run) and me.
Only serious rain was about 15 mins between Old Kilpatrick and Dumbarton.
Café stop at Balloch was welcome after 50 miles (for me). Need to find something sooner next time.
A new café has opened at Rhu marina - might give that a try one day.
Peter and Karen bade farewell to me at Inchinan turnoff and then I had 11 mile hard solo slog into the wind to LW.
Got a bit damp again cos rained from Kilbarchan to LW!!!  78 miles on the clock - longest ride this year.
Thanks to all participants!