ERC Racing's Epic weekend

[Jarlath]

A positive beginning was had this weekend for the ERC Race squad’s challenge to the 2012 racing season.
It all began on Friday night with social at 62 Montgomery St , ( Thanks to Calum for his excellent hospitality….although the music system on show for the evening had to be switched off as even at its lowest volume level it rendered verbal communication impossible…. Modern technology eah!!)

With over 30 in attendance good food and drink was had by all  
Over the past few months ideas and plans had been laid out for how we should best go about our business in 2012. These plans had been chopped and changed over the past few week as feedback from riders was added to the mix.  We all sat around and discussed our ground rules and discussed more ideas that some of the new faces in the group wished to add.  A very positive vibe was felt in the room as solid dates and a wide variety of activities has been nailed down for the next 3 to 6  months. There was a general acceptance of ERC really grabbing the bull by the horns this year and giving it a good go.  Following the team discussion is was down to the more social aspect  of the evening with a trip to the pub.
The next morning bright and early a group of +20 riders  assembled at the rv point.  The ride planned for the day was the 2 Bridges ride, out over the Forth Road Bridge and back via Kincardine.  A nice steady pace was maintained by the group with much banter being had. The epic ride had all the usual incidents from locals with “No Teeth” swearing out the windows of passing cars to a few punctures to mishaps with chains.   Three of us riders waited behind to pick up the dodgy chain casualty only to discover that we  were about 5 or 6 minutes in arrears of the main bunch once we got going again.  It was going to be a tough chase and to be honest we knew we would not catch up with the block head wind to contend with. So a few short cuts through Bandit County and a monster hill which poor stu had to contend with on his fixie, we intersected the main bunch at exactly the same time that they were passing the only point for 15 miles that we could have crossed paths. We had a nice easy run back into Edinburgh with Colin leading the way by taking us home via  Edinburgh’s bike path network.
All in all a good hard workout was had a good start to the ERC winter training schedule

[seanN]

Sounds like a great ride, I would have loved to come, but I was Manchester track this weekend for training and a bit of racing - Friday night track league, then watched Revolution on Saturday night and then today a BC training session (doing flying 200m and Keiren exercises) with other Scottish and North England racers.

Was it Ayrton who's chained snapped (again)?

Please keep me posted on any future ERC racing training rides, and also, I asked to join the ERC  Facebook page.

cheers
Sean

[Jarlath]

Thanks Sean, I'll get you on the facebook page asap.

Ayrtons chain was fine this time around ... it was Dougal's chain that had the mishap