stapfam

I am an off roader, but for part of my training for an off road randonnee in 7 weeks time, we decided to do a road ride last sunday. An organised charity ride of 25 or 40 miles, 25 miler not too hard, not too many hills, extra loop for 40 miler that took in a long drag that made me puff a bit. We decided to blast it--we by the way is me and Stuart on the offroad Tandem. All we did was change tyres to slicks.

To cut a long story short-- 2hrs 30 minutes for the 40 miler, no stops except checkpoints, and at no point did we overexert ourselves. Too many tight turns and short sharp rise's,(Can't call them hills) to get a high average speed, but top speed on the flat was 34mph , average on the flat when we were not slowing for the corners was around 22mph, and heart rate was kept around the 155 mark most of the ride. (I treat my max as 165 but saw 169 on one occasion when we were chasing a bunch of roadies at one point).
To say we were chuffed about the speed we did the ride in is an understatement. All that extra gym work is paying off.

The great thing about this ride was the number of youngsters doing it. By youngsters I mean 10 to 12 year olds. All sort of bikes aswell, mainly mountain bikes, very few road bikes, but most of the older riders were on a Hybrid bike. I say hybrid but these were different. They looked like a road bike with straight bars. Some of these were foolhardy enough to try and stay with the Tandem. Sorry but a Tandem, even our heavy weight Mountain version, is very fast and I defie any one to keep up the pace we were going at for long.

At long last I have found a reason for road riding. We did the ride, got home checked the tandem for any repairs or adjustments necessary and then polished the frame and cleaned the bike. No adjustments were necessary and no getting out the hose, and scrubbing the thing clean. What a joy to be sitting down watching the F1 race on the TV 10 minutes after getting home.

FarHorizon

Awesome! Congratulations & go do it again - I'll be trying to keep up in spirit, if not in person.

TrailRider

I'm unsure of the British vernacular "chuffed" - an expression of elation I take it. In any event, congratulations! Well done!