Unchained Coffee

Coffeeneuring 2020

The Coffeeneuring challenge is now an annual event for Team Brevet Bird.  Since Digby joined the team in 2019, it is an even bigger must-do as good coffee and excellent cake are seriously important to him.  Coffeeneuring can and does take place all year round. It is very much a part of our bike riding as you can’t beat sitting in a fab coffee shop relaxing with a top-class mocha and an excellent piece of gluten-free cake.  It has also gone international, so a great way of keeping in touch with friends who might ride a long way or perhaps not so far.

The annual coffeeneuring challenge, where you can earn yourself a patch for your saddlebag via your coffeeneuring exploits, takes place in autumn each year.  It’s like a randonneuring brevet where you visit a number of checkpoints but, in this case, drink coffee.  For coffeeneuring, there are effectively seven checkpoints you must visit to complete the challenge. Each checkpoint is validated by taking a photo and sharing it on Twitter, Instagram or the Coffeeneuring Facebook page. As in randonneuring, this happens within a set time limit.    You can also write up your exploits in your blog and share that via various social media platforms.

This year, we set ourselves the challenge that all seven coffee houses would be independent.  Sandwiched between the outer limits of suburban London and the M25, independent coffee houses and good cafes are somewhat thin on the ground.  The locals seem to prefer Costa, Café Nero and the rest.  Therefore, a steely eye was kept out in the run up to this coffeeneuring to find some unvisited local coffee places.  Due to COVID, one turned into a hearing aid shop!

The three highlights of this coffeeneuring were:

The Buntingford Coffee Shop This is usually a bit outside our usual orbit but, as we were riding out to Cambridge for an overnight stay prior to an Audax UK brevet, it was an opportunity too good to miss. As per our last visit excellent coffee, GF cake and friendly helpful staff.

Koho is our top favourite local coffee house.  It serves the world’s best mocha and the GF cake is pretty awesome.  This turned out to be our last sit-and-enjoy visit as shortly afterwards, KoHo was back to COVID safe takeaway coffee.

Rumsey’s is a chocolatier with a coffee shop.  We’d had our eye on this place for a while.   I picked the most amazing November day to visit this during a 100km round-trip ride, again prior to the COVID shutdown of eateries.  Sitting outside, with the sun beating down on us, Digby was blown away a mug of white coffee came with a chunk of chocolate to turn it into a mocha.  To top this out there were a handful of mini chocolate buttons to nibble on. The GF cheesecake was pretty amazing as well.

We also threw in a wild card option with a ’carry your own beverage’.  I work for the NHS and currently this is from my home office, as I am classed as ‘high risk’.  During this coffeeneuring, I was able to spend 3-4 hours per week on site.  To cut down person to person interactions and satisfy the need for tea, I got a thermos flask bidon for the bike.  Thus, I could carry my own hot beverage to work and not futz around in the office kitchen.

Top tip for thermos bidon – providing you swill it round with hot water first, make your beverage directly in it and add the milk last, it keeps liquids hot for many hours.  .

Coffeeneuring ‘brevet’ card:

Control 1	16 Oct	Buntingford Coffee Shop
Control 2	13 Oct	Oserley House coffee shop
Control 3	25 Oct	Daisy’s in the Park, Pinner
Control 4	22 Oct	Muddy Boots, Rowan Garden centre
Control 5	28 Oct	KoHo, Little Chalfont
Control 6	04 Nov	Ramsey’s, Wendover
Control 7	10 Nov	Rusty Bike Café, Uxbridge

For the complete Coffeenuring 2020 photos go to FLICKR

Rapha Festive 500 #10, Part II

Team Brevet Bird rides for Harrison’s Fund

To catch up with the story so far click HERE

Day 5

The Evil Coldness

The view out of all windows at Chez Hirondelle confirmed cold.  Cars were thickly covered with frost, as were roof tops.  The birds huddled in big, fat leylandii trees rather than venture out to the bird feeding station to feast on fat blocks, dried mealworm and other delicacies.  There was only one sensible option; to watch the world change from white back to technicolour.

Slowly the frost cleared and the temperature on the weather station rose.  The coming together of these two things was such that I could schedule a post-lunch ride.  Road conditions improved sufficiently to choose Beryl the Kinesis with her almost-skinny fat tyres over Scotti the MTB with fat Big Apple tyres.

I alighted onto one of my regular home office commute circuits.  New Year’s Green lane was surprisingly OK (no slush-puppy corner) but with the ford in full spate.    Keeping to the main road passing through West Hyde and Maples Cross saved sloshing through the streams in the lanes.  I didn’t need to cross the Great Lake of Deadhearn Lane which I feared may have exceeded bottom bracket height, courtesy of Storm Bella.  Then a needless climb to immediately descend into Rickmansworth and back home.

For the whole ride I was in tier 4, with a significant amount of traffic passing me.  The opposite could be said of walkers and cyclists.  As I exited Rickmansworth to Moor Park and home, the number of lycra-clad males on road bikes increased.  More Festive 500-kilometre chasers?

Arriving at Chez Hirondelle, we were so cold that three of the team jumped onto the full-blast radiator to warm up.  Alas, I am not a suitable size for the radiator so a superhot shower for me.

58km for the day, running total 351km

Day 6

Time to go and visit the vampires

My vasculitis check-up was going to be a New Year’s Eve treat.  Therefore, time to visit the Charing Cross Hospital vampires and get a blood test.  The morning was stupidly cold but without frost.  As Charing Cross Hospital is one of the sites I work at, it was auto pilot and alight onto my commuting tramlines at stupid o’clock.   From home to Hammersmith, the temperature didn’t get to 1c.  Tier 4 all the way and traffic was rare as hens teeth.

The next part mainly follows the river to West Middlesex Hospital, the other site.  The highlights of this 12km are the Capability Brown statue, Hammersmith Bridge and a rather good coffee shop, The Coffee Traveller.  From there, I took the roughstuff lane alongside Osterley House and the M4.  It was packed with walkers, dogs and kids on bicycles, but is a moment of escape from grey suburbia.  After this it was the Uxbridge Road, accompanied by motorised traffic with the occasional utility cyclist.

With Uxbridge behind me, I was at a critical decision point – 100km or 80km?  Beryl pointed in the direction of the longer route, so up the lanes to slosh through the streams I went.  There was no alternative to the Great Lake of Deadhearn Lane and it seemed to be peak hour with cars and cyclists in both directions.

The last choice near Chorleywood – straight on at the crossroads to go into Rickmansworth or turn left for bonus kms and extra hills?  The cold plus the call of the teapot were the deciding factors.  Rickmansworth then almost directly home as I couldn’t resist rounding the day up a bit more.

102km for the day, running total 453km

Day 7

Arrivee

The riding window is always pre-defined by necessary things, then reshaped by the weather.  Today, more frost and silly low temperatures but by 10am, I was good to go.  Keeping onto known ice-free roads, I headed for the Ickenham Pump, then over to Uxbridge and Denham again.  Another section of main road and into the lanes for a bit as the temperatures rose.  Again, lots of traffic, not many walkers or utility cyclists but quite a number of MAMILs who looked like Festive 500 folk.

Rolled up to my front door, pressed the Garmin button which whizzed the kilometres to Strava.  A virtual reality patch popped up on my phone and Festive 500 number ten in the bag.

48km for the day, running total 502km

Day 8

Into the freezer

A late start was a double guarantee, thick frost over night plus a telephone consultation.  The pedals didn’t start turning to almost three o’clock, what with lunch and the neurologist running late.

Given the conditions, I decided to trundle round one of my small standard loops from home as I was quite sure it was ice-safe.  Leaving suburbia’s relative warmth i.e. almost 2c and out into the lanes where the temperature rapidly dropped.  It settled under zero, so a touch chilly.  The pond in Harefield confirmed the Garmin’s temperature – covered in ice.

With 42km on the Garmin when I was nearly back, it was way too tempting to go the long way home.  50km is such an attractive number.  The reward was lots of beautifully Christmasly-lit houses.  The reindeer with his mask on was rather good.

53km for the day, running total 555km

Round up

I’m very happy to have bagged Festive 500 number ten.  This was certainly one of the more difficult overall.  Trapped in a reduced playground due to COVID and no coffee shops to warm up in with a good mocha and accompanying GF cake.  Also, my vasculitis currently causes a lot of pain and generally unwell and tired. It increases sensitivity to cold, particularly my feet.  I had to manage my riding time carefully to ensure that I didn’t get too cold.  If I got too cold, the result would be increasingly greater pain.

The challenge of telling the rides’ stories in photos in an area that I know so well was something I really enjoyed.  It makes you look more carefully at scenery you normally take for granted.  Some of the ride routes were based on visiting something that I wished to photograph, such as Ickenham Village Pump on day 7.

The thing I have not been particularly successful with is the fundraising.  Many people believe that this sort of thing is a pushover for me, so the riding lacks the ‘challenge’ that is generally required for fundraising.  The unseen disability is always problematic.  Do you keep quiet and just get on with it or bore the pants off people about it?  For the last three years, I have taken the approach of ‘just get on with it’, which has bitten me on the bum for this fundraising challenge.

Raising funds for a rare disease such as Duchenne, doesn’t resonate with people as say breast cancer.  From a research perspective, it is fantastic that technology such as genome sequencing is readily available and that the cohort for this disease is big enough for meaningful outcomes.  Hopefully finding out how it can be treated isn’t far off.  I understand why sponsorship is low but I take my hat off to Harrison’s Fund for their persistence in such a difficult task.

If you would like to contribute to Harrison’s Fund click HERE

Rapha Festive 500 2014 – Numbers within Numbers

This year’s Festive 500 unintentionally acquired a theme – numbers.  Like a Russian doll within 29,000 would sit 500 and within this 8 would sit and within this 4 would sit.

The journey to the two biggest numbers, 29,000 and 500 would be accomplished by working through to number 8 which would lead to 4.  Here’s how things unfolded.

Day 1

The day started quietly with a ride to work on near deserted roads.  I was let off early as ’it twas the night before Christmas’.  With time on one hand and a bike on the other, the lanes beckoned. From Fulham I shimmied along old father Thames, then through to Syon Park.  Then there was the endless grey of Southall and Hillingdon, temporarily broken up by a short stretch along the Grand Union canal.

Finally into the lovely lanes of Buckinghamshire as twilight arrived.  Not as many houses decorated with festive lights as in Essex on the weekend, but enough to make the night bright and warm.  A small chunk of local suburbia and then I was at the door to the bikeroom.  102km

Day 2

Christmas Day and a brilliantly sunny day waited, so time for a festive spin.  Scotti (MTB) was taken out of the bikeroom for his second Festive 500 ride.  Rack bag with inbuilt co-pilot was attached and the Garmin set in motion.  We headed for one of my favourite local loops, which contained ample skog and leaf chutney for Scotti to enjoy himself plus some super lanes.

The sunshine had brought out lots of folk walking, some of which shared season’s greetings.  The roads were as quiet as a mouse, which was rather nice.  I spotted three topless Noddy cars despite temperatures being somewhat nippy.  The count of fellow bike riders was seriously sadly no more than the Noddy cars. 72km

Day 3

This wasn’t just Boxing Day, but provided 62km could be ridden the number 29,000 would appear.  The day dawned cold and grey.  I dug ZoeC out of the bikeroom and off we went, with the co-pilot in winter cycling coat in the rack bag.  I zigzagged through my local lanes, pinging in and out of three counties (Middlesex, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire).  Unfortunately, the weather forecast was right and bang on schedule it began to rain.

A watchful eye was kept on the Garmin for 62km to turn up. This happened just at the Croxley Green prime sign.  The biggest number of the numbers within numbers had been reached.

Despite the rain, stopping for a commemorative photo was a must.  With only 12km to go until reaching home and with the 29,000 captured, the trundle home was really quite jolly despite the rain becoming heavier. 80km

Day 4

A short errandonneuring ride with Scotti and the Gecko trailer.  Quite cold, but towing a fully loaded trailer of groceries up hill home kept me warm.  As that well known supermarket says ‘every little helps’. 14km

Day 5

The quite cold of Day 4 was blasted into old news by the super cold day of Day 5.  By 3pm the roads had defrosted enough to venture a-wheel.  Using some well-known former commuting routes, a swift two and a half hour ride was put in.  Thoughts of Pat Kenny, AUKs late great super mileater creeping out into the dark of the night to come by some illicit miles came into my head as I zoomed through the darkness.  Did normal people go out for night time bike rides I asked myself?  Answer still pending.  51km

Days 6 and 7

For these days I was back to the commute.  So just bog standard days.  However, I wasn’t to know that Day 6 would up the ante on super cold and that Day 7 would lift the bar higher.  Frost masqueraded as micro snow and some Big Apple ice dancing was performed in tandem with Scotti.  Thankfully we remained up-right.   128km

Day 8

The cold of the final morning of the Festive 500 hit an all-time high, er low of -2C.  The roads were seriously quiet which translated into super icy as there weren’t enough cars to chase away the ice and frost.  Work were being kindly and I was able to leave early.  The icing on the cake was that the weather had changed its mind and had decided not to be cold.  Without hesitation I headed the long way home to enjoy the extra free time a-wheel.  Before reaching home the number 500 was past and then added to.  92km

And the numbers as that old C&W song goes;

• 29,000   is the number of kms that I have ridden this year
• 500   is the number of kms that you need to ride to complete a Festive 500
• 8 i  s the number of riding days for the Festive 500
• 4   this is now the number of Festive 500s that I have completed

It’s been a rather splendid Rapha Festive 500.

Photos on Flickr

A Mileating Start to 2015 – Steve starts chasing Tommy

I’ve known Steve Abraham for so long now, I can’t really remember a time when his antics both on and off the bike haven’t been a part of my life.  Riding a November 600 with Steve and Ian Hennessey particularly stands out.   Steve’s ability to cover lots of miles, usually on brevets, and to eat large quantities of food is legendary within the Audax UK community.  Steve is putting both of these extra-special talents to take on Tommy Godwin’s long-standing year mileage record of 75,065 miles, set in 1939.

Being an audaxer used to riding his bike at odd hours of the night and not wanting to waste a minute of the 365 days he has to accumulate more miles than Tommy did, Steve started turning the pedals of his Raleigh bicycle at 00:01 on 1^st January 2015.

After spending the night a-wheel, Steve rocked up at 10am to ride his club’s New Year’s Day 10 mile time trial.  Well, every little helps!  Donning a number befitting the winner of the Tour de France, Steve sped (relatively speaking, with 116 miles in his legs) down the North Bucks Road Club course.  Playing with a rather evil headwind and sleepy tiredness, Steve returned to the time keeper half an hour later.  After speaking to the men from the telly, it was time to get pedalling again.  As Nev Chanin used to say, time is miles.

Steve departed with a small peloton of AUKs in the direction of Bicester.  One of these being Drew Buck, well-known super-AUK for his exploits on various crazy machines around Paris Brest Paris.   Bunch banter was good with Drew telling us various stories, including the PBP where he and Steve shared a triplet bicycle with Nigel Winter as their middleman.  The persistent headwind was a bit pesky and the appearance of hedges and houses to slow the wind down was much appreciated.

After a night feasting on flapjack, the hunger gods tapped Steve on the shoulder and it was time to head to a source of food.  Cue an early visit to Bicester on top of the one planned at 3pm for a mega feed before heading back to Milton Keynes.  Steve’s encyclopaedic knowledge of food emporiums was deployed and a baby KFC was chosen.  Standing in the queue, Steve enjoyed a brief moment of normal life.  Once replete with chicken (sans tea or coffee, as the machine wasn’t working), it was time for Steve to ride in circles until his next scheduled rendezvous with Bicester’s eateries.   I swung in the opposite direction to meet up with the Bike Butler and then home.

Score on the One Year Time Trial door for 01/01/2015: 222 miles (358km in new money) – mine was considerably less.