The flat earth society

It seemed like such a good idea.
Find a bit of the UK that's nice and flat, like Sweden, and do a nice long training ride in readiness for the Vatternrundan in June. The prospect of riding on a nice flat route was appealing after the undulations of the London to Brighton --how wrong we were.
Sue, Paul, Luca, Matt were chatting to a Swedish photographer from the Vatt's PR office when I pulled into the car park of the Holiday Inn, Newport Pagnell. The journey up to Junct 14 of the M1 had been a roadwork nightmare, but with the sun shining and the ground dry a good day on the bike seemed preordained.


It wasn't until I got out of the car that I realised how the wind can whistle across the flat expanses of Beds and Herts. As I changed into my final bits of cycling kit I had to keep an eye on the bike which looked as though it could be dislodged from its position by the wind at any moment. I took comfort that this was because my new carbon fibre machine was so light -- a transparent dillusion.
Undetermined after a photocall and a chat we were off.
The 90 mile route took in the collection of beautiful little villages nestled between the fields in the area bounded by Bedford and Northampton. The route zigzagged its way through the countryside out towards East Anglia. Never spending too much time in any one direction saved us from the worse of the wind and despite a dead-end detour, up a shockingly poor road to what looked a disused RAF base, all went well. I had my suspicions that this was a ruse by Matt to seek out some old WWII aircraft stationed there.
The detour added 5 miles to the route but more significantly gave a us a taste of what riding into the teeth of the wind was like. Clearly we had been assisted by nature to this point in the route, a sitiuation that would shortly change as we headed back home.
By the lunchstop (it was 3 O'clock) next to the water at Harold a more serious tone on the remaining third of the mileage was being taken. (NB Let's get organised for Sweden.)
Food was devoured, water bottles were filled and potions mixed.
As the route went on we made some feeble attempts at riding as a group. This was both good practice but also a practical attempt to to shield Sue from the wind which was getting stronger by the minute. At times this group approach seemed to work well and gave us an idea of the discipline that will be needed if we adopt this strategy for Sweden. At lunch we chatted about possible plans for the Vatt and agreed in principle, if not detail, the need for a bit of organisation.
Back on the road; by 5.00ish it was all going a bit Pete Tong. The wind was up, we were on the biggest, businest roads of the day, during rush hour, and it had started to rain.
I was particularly distressed as this was the first time my nice new bike had got wet, something I had been trying to avoid. Having said that it was necessary experience and I was very happy with the bike. The daftest comment of the day came from Paul who remarked on the onset of rain. 'It won't make any difference':It did.
I was not happy with the weather. I very quickly got cold and my hands rapidly fell into a white-knuckled torpor that only the car heater could wake them from.
However, the worsening condition actually seemed to gee the group on and the speed appeared to rise as the desire to a: get out of the rain and wind, and b: get back to the warmth of our cars, set in.
Barely had the rain permeated every last inch of our freezing bodies than we were back in the car park of Newport Pagnell's finest low-cost corporate dormitory.
In all 95 miles covered in a moving time of six and half hours. Not the best stats but frankly, on a day like that, who cares.
What it did test was everyone's mettle to stay in the saddle for a full day in some pretty poor conditions.
(Thought for the day)
It also reminded us that as a group we can perform better than we can as a group of individuals, but we will have to get orgainsed if we want to see those benefits.