Two reports for this one - the first from Alicia and the second from Dave

I am a relative newcomer to the LCC and the rides they organise, so perhaps a good person to describe to an outsider what to expect. The rides are organised by difficulty, and thus far I have only gone on 1* or social rides – I suspect that the 2* rides are probably beyond my bike and I – but I have enjoyed them enormously. In case you wonder if you need to be semi-pro or have all the latest equipment – at least for the 1* rides, the answer is emphatically NO. They come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, so read the information on the ride first. Often it says what sort of mileage is on the cards, and whether or not there are many hills. Definitely pay attention to the number of stars!! If you need more information, then just text or e-mail the organiser. I usually enquire about hills and if there will be many stops. There are many rides which are just a few miles, to go and see or do interesting things, and usually they involve lots of yummy tea stops. I recently enjoyed very much the "Museums of East London" ride which was only a few miles, maybe 10 or 15, with plenty of stops, and well within most people's capability.

Never one to start at the shallow end, the very first ride I rocked up for was a 45 mile ride on my 1963 3-speed bike with a big wicker basket on the front, no helmet and no lycra in sight. I was even wearing Birkenstocks, none of those fancy clippy Shimano bike shoes some people were wearing. I'm not sure I would have had the nerve to go, but Caroline the organiser was very encouraging on e-mail, even after I'd spelled out quite clearly my zero experience of touring to date, and also my semi-pro "tour de France"-y cyclist friend told me to go. In fact, to be precise, he said "You'll be fine. All sorts show up to those sorts of rides. Some people even show up on shopping bikes" in a rather derogatory tone. I pointed out that actually, a shopping bike was all I had and what bike was he expecting me to use?! So I went. No-one really batted an eye although most people had nicer bikes, general kit and an awful lot more gears than I. And I'm not sure anyone else at all had a basket. I made it round, though some of the hills were hard going and I wished I had at least one more gear...AND I didn't break down (that was someone with a newer and more fancy bike), which I was quite proud of. I wasn't capable of helping to fix it, but there were many that could.

In terms of experience, that was by far the longest ride I had ever done, although I cycle a minimum of 6 miles daily and have cycled up to 20 a day (rather spread out) occasionally (like, once every few months, not once a week). Despite my daily cycling (to work and back), I wouldn't class myself as particularly fit. I cycle very slowly – actually about 2/3 the pace that TFL seems to think I should cycle at, given the times they suggest I should be able to get from A to B in and the times it actually takes me. But I am used to my bike and particularly the saddle – which can very literally be a pain in the backside if you are doing a long ride, believe me, I rented a bike once and it was no fun – so I thought I'd be better off taking my daily 3-speed for a long ride than a borrowed or rented bike. I think that was the right decision, given that there were no massive hills on this ride.

There were an assortment of people, that was for sure. Some young, some old. It seemed like around 2/3 of the people had some knowledge of each other from other rides, but only maybe a 1/3 seemed to know each other well. I wasn't the only total newbie, and there was plenty of scope to fit into the group without feeling like you were trying to break into a clique. I've been on other rides since and I think that's fairly representative. The organisers are so nice and have done so much research.

So how did I get on? Well, I made it round, and I didn't suffer too much the next day. Also, I wasn't the slowest. I don't even think I was the 2nd slowest actually. So that was pretty encouraging. We had a lot of rest stops for tea and delicious fish and chips which I knew about so that was good. But what was really noticeable about the whole thing was that, although there were clearly several people there who could have got round in half the time it took me – young fit men and women who didn't have an ounce of fat on them – they didn't seem to mind waiting at all. There was always one of the more experienced cyclists bringing up the rear. At one point I was struggling up a hill and there was a patient (and obviously not huffing and puffing) cyclist behind me. That made me a bit suspicious. I turned and said "oh dear, am I the last?" He said "yes, but don't worry about it, just keep going at your own pace", and kept on keeping up with me till we got over the top of the hill and I got a bit of help from gravity. Sometimes I would panic that I couldn't see anyone ahead of me, and that our little tail end of the column had gotten lost – then I'd round a bend and the whole group were there waiting for us. Everyone kept saying how well I was doing and near the end, when I was really flagging, one of the most experienced cyclists cycled with me, encouraging me and keeping my spirits up, when every bit of my body seemed to hurt. Then all of a sudden I got a second wind and shot off to the front of the pack, overtaking everyone and making "vroom, vroom" noises whilst doing so (so childish), and ending the ride with the leaders. The others sagely nodded and said "Ah, that'll be the cream tea kicking in then".

Alicia

They say that the Dunwich Dynamo is London's classic bike ride, and it's certainly quite an experience, but we've been there, done that, and nowadays tend to prefer a classic of our own - to the world's classiest jam factory, who are also purveyors of legendary cream teas. So, instead of riding through the night, Wheelers had a leisurely Sunday morning, and rode the train to Colchester, where 23 assembled for a gentle cruise around the river Colne.

The objective was lunch on Mersea Island, followed by tea at Tiptree. However, when planning the ride, a check on the tide tables revealed that accessing Mersea via the causeway could be tricky around lunch time, so we decided to add an extra twist to this tale, and take the (not very large) ferry from Brightlingsea. The harbour office booked us in, and all looked good for the day.

And it was. We followed the excellent cycle track south from Colchester along the Colne - traffic-free with a good surface all the way to Wivenhoe, and from there followed lanes to Brightlingsea. Slight snag with the ferry, which can't actually take the promised 12 bikes, so our scheduled two trips turned into three, and the first and last riders arrived on Mersea about an hour apart. Not to worry, the sun was shining and the boat trip was great. Another slight snag for the middle boat-load, who overshot the lunch destination by quite a long way, but eventually everyone got to the SeaView café at West Mersea, for an outstanding fry-up.

No time for the hoped-for paddle unfortunately, as lunch didn't end until nearly 3pm, and we had an important appointment with some scones fifteen miles further on. So we cracked on (by our standards), and made it to the tea stop on time. You can get the full range of Tiptree jams here, including James Bond's favourite (Little Scarlet) and various things that normally go for export and will not be found in your local supermarket. On arrival we found that Central London CTC were also on a mission to Tiptree - great cycling minds think alike!

Panniers bulging, and on to the station at Witham, where we didn't quite all fit on the train (bit of a pattern emerging here), and eventually all got to Stratford, and then onto the Palm Tree in Mile End for further refreshments. If you include that, elapsed time on the ride was about 12 hours. We could have got to Dunwich in that time, but actually we only rode 35 miles...

An excellent day, expertly co-ordinated by ride leader Caroline, thanks to her, and to back marker Bob, for rounding everyone up on the road, and to everyone who came really, for a great day out.

Dave