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You'll be too fast for me, but I could also do with a partner. Adam? Tim? Maybe James (but you're probably too strong for me now)?

Our first open event of the season is the 25-mile time trial on the morning of Sunday 13th March. It's on the E1 course: click here for the route
You can enter the event solo, but most of us take the opportunity to do this as a two-up (i.e. a team of two riding together). If you're looking for a partner, try to sort it out here - it would be useful to give an indication of what kind of time you think you can manage.

I think that worked pretty well? The 'fast-fast' group got to go at their own pace, but we still did about the first 10 miles all together, and giving the 'not-so-fast fast' group a headstart meant that we saw each other again later on. Once we had turned into the headwind our group (which was pretty big - 12? 13? 14?) started to fragment after Ongar. We regrouped near Toot Hill and decided to split into two - the faster ones doing all the hills as planned and the slower ones taking a more direct and less vertical route back. I think that worked out best for everyone. A bit of footage here: https://youtu.be/DMpk6R6LI_U

It's Kodjo. It's always been Kodjo. I've asked him several times over several years if we could change it. He never uses strava as far as I know and doesn't know his password. We might have to start a completely new team on there.

Hi Chrystyna. It's the route linked to in the post where it says 'This is the intended route' (just click on the word 'This'). Just to be on the safe side, here is the link again: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/12052097

I reckon you'll be alright - the whole point of having a not-so-fast fast group (as well as a proper fast one) is to cater for the people who want something moderately fast, but don't want to turn themselves inside-out trying to stay with David/Pedro/Carsten until they get dropped out in the wilds. You've done the Ride London 100 miles at 20mph, so 50-odd miles at about 17.5mph isn't going to be an issue.

You know Paris is in France, right?

Following some discussion, depending on numbers, we're going to try having two fast groups this Sunday: one going at a training for racing kind of pace (probably 19mph?) and one going moderately fast, but not all-out (probably between 17 and 18mph). This
is the intended route - if you're planning to join us and you have a Garmin, please download this route and stick it on your device.

What we will probably try out this week is riding as one bunch on the way up through Chingford and Sewardstone. Then, when we get to the early climb of Mott Street, people can go up that as fast as they want and we'll regroup at the top. We'll pause briefly at the Green Hut in High Beach and set the slower of the fast groups off first, with the faster group setting off again two or three minutes later. From there it's downhill to Theydon Bois, a bit of a climb back out of the village up to the road under the M11, down the other side to Abridge and then up the long draggy climb of Hoe Lane. By this point I expect the faster group will have caught the slower group - if not, we can pause at the top again to regroup. This is about 16.5 miles into the ride - by now people will know if they've chosen the wrong group and can switch between them and we will split up for good. Though, as both groups will be following the same route, if you get dropped from the faster group, you'll probably get swept up by the slower group eventually.

If you're new to group riding, it's worth having a look at this. Listen out for shouts about cars up ahead or coming from behind, go single file when we have to let things get past, most of the time ride two abreast not overlapping wheels, signal to warn people about parked cars, potholes, slow riders to be overtaken etc. Make sure you've got spares & tools to deal with the most likely mechanical problems (a puncture being the obvious one) - we'll stop for this, but generally speaking the faster groups won't keep stopping for people who get dropped so choose a group that whose pace you can manage. No cafe stop, I'm afraid.

Leaving from the gates outside Waltham Forest Town Hall at 9:00am - some of us will be in this cafe round the corner from 8.30am. The aim is to back in Walthamstow some time between 12:00 and 12:30.

By the way, when I started this thread last summer it automatically inserted a map image of the routes from ridewithgps under the links. I don't know if anyone else can see them, but I can't any more, there's just a gaping void below all of my route links. Any idea what's going on there???

Thanks again, David. Yeah - I've gone that way through Broxbourne myself two or three times, it's the best way of avoiding major roads (you go over a bridge to avoid the A10). It's annoying how Enfield spills out into Cheshunt / Broxbourne /Hoddesdon - it makes it always feel like a pain to get into the Hertfordshire countryside, but you don't want to go to Essex every single weekend.

Cheers, David. Barnaby (or User62031 as he prefers to be called) put a couple of his up on the routes thread yesterday as well - can these be added? He has his own route out of London which I've only done once, but I liked it. You know your Herts ride route (or 'West' as you've called it)? The only bit I didn't like about that was the bit in the town of Hertford itself, especially the roundabout where you join the A414 - is there any way of avoiding that?
I don't think we need to restrict ourselves to rides all in the 50-55 mile range. There will be times when some people want to go further and I know various people have done rides out to the Blue Egg and back.
On another note - if John is poorly and off the bike indefinitely, that will have an impact on club runs as there will be quite a gap between Ed's group and the fast group.

Good points, Huw.

I agree with David that once we have worked out what the 'rules' are, we should have a permanent page on our website (which can be linked to each week from Facebook) outlining the etiquette/expectations of the faster group rides, then we don't need to spell it out every week outside the town hall.
Also, settling on a route by, say Thurs/Fri, and then uploading it and publicising it will mean that (hopefully) most of the people on the ride will know exactly where they are going.
As for the two fast groups thing - there are several different ways we could do this and a lot of it is going to depend on who is actually out on any given weekend. Another option I thought of (though this may just overcomplicate things) is to give the 'faster fast' group and extra 2 or 3 mile loop to do at the mid-point of the ride, so that the 'slower fast' group can overtake them - then we might all see each other again.

This is a first - an actual discussion on the forum!

David, am I right in thinking you've got some kind of premium membership of ridewithgps? You might find it easier to sort out the 'short reference names' than I did - I think I got there in the end, but it took me hours to sort out and I can't remember what I did now. If you're able to collect together the various routes and give them recognisable names, that would be really handy.
Re: two fast groups on the same route at the same time - that might work. Or, alternatively, the faster of the two groups sets off a couple of minutes later - by the time they catch the slower fast group there may be some people who will be happy to take that opportunity to switch groups?

Thanks Martin. I don't think that would work because our slowest group will always do a shorter route, plus John's group will always be heading to a cafe (while the faster groups don't have that restriction on their route planning).
A variant on that - a looooooooooooong time ago (1989) when I was a teenager I was briefly a member of Bishop's Stortford CC. At that time they had a lot of active riders including some decent racers. There might have 30-odd riders out for the club runs and they split into three groups. All three groups rode different routes but (unless my memory is playing tricks on me) all aimed to arrive at the same cafe stop at approximately the same time. So, say they all set off around 9am, and all aimed to meet up at the same cafe around 11am, the fast group might have done 38 miles to get there, whereas the slow group might only have done 25 miles.
Another club, Horsham Cycling (down in Sussex), has no less than SEVEN different groups with distinct roles and name ride leades - see the details here: http://www.horshamcycling.co.uk/joomla15/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=47&Itemid=65 I went out with them once a few years ago and it was well-organised, but they probably have 50-100 riders heading out each Sunday so it's easier for them to have so many groups.

My thoughts on these points:

1) I'm very happy for more people to add their routes to the thread I started last summer to build up a bank of possible rides (in fact, I've been a bit surprised that nobody has added to it already)

2) I don't know how feasible it is to organise a rota with routes and ride leaders decided a whole month in advance, not least because of the vagaries of the English weather, but it would be good to get things settled by Thursday or Friday each week so that this can be publicised via the main Facebook page. At the moment, Steve M posts the default message each week with the same reference to 'a chaingang', but there's no guarantee that it's happening or indication of the route / distance / pace - it would be much better if we could put this info out there.

3) There may well be a case for two fast groups. A moderately brisk one (say 17-18mph) and brutal training one (say 19-20mph). Obviously this depends on numbers. It also depends on time of year - are people getting ready for the racing season or winding down for Christmas? All kinds of other factors kick in as well - some people might have race on the Saturday and just want a recovery ride on the Sunday, some people might be preparing for a lengthy sportive / Ride London and want to do a longer ride than just 55 miles, some people might specifically want to do lots of climbing or lots of sprints or through and off.... If this can be discussed and sorted out midweek, it would definitely be an improvement.

Anyway, let's move the discussion here so that more people can take part...

Here is the recent discussion on the Facebook group:
"In the weekly debate at the town hall about what groups are going where and at what speed, do you think its possible to be a bit more organised?
I was thinking we could perhaps formalise Jamie's club run routes thread on the forum in a table with reference, description, length, RideWithGPS link etc, and then have some kind of rota (maybe done a month in advance?). We could then could see where we're going and download the route.
As to different speed groups, I don't know what the solution is to this. Maybe there isn't a problem, but we always seem to fracture.
If we do start out together on a general 'fast ride', perhaps we point out a few LVCC people with the route that people can stick to, and maybe a broom wagon rider? If more people have the route on their Garmins, this would be a bit easier."

"how many people are going out at the weekends? I can certainly add some routes. Having seen other clubs they are quite specific about what sort of ride it is. We're not a massive club. So a slow one will wait for everyone newcomers etc, medium 28/29km/h will wait for people then 31-32km/h not waiting? These are just suggestions thrown out there. I think you're right it does need to be organized a bit better especially for newer members of the club or people wanting to join"

"As to group speeds, it's already sorted informally isn't it? There's already a long and short ride and now there's the faster group going regularly, we have a fast group. Could just call them A, B and C groups and assign a ride leader for each."

"Agreed, create a few routes first. have a rota (obviously things come up last minute). We used to ride at the pace of the slowest rider but people have got faster and slower. maybe have a Training ride and a fast group. fast group waits training ride stops for no man..."

The fast group rides differ from the other groups in that:
a) they rarely go via High Beach to do a second pick up at 9:45am
b) there's hardly ever a 'cake stop', it's normally just three hours or so of continuous riding
c) there isn't a 'no one gets left behind' rule
The main reason for (b) (and to a lesser extent (a)) is that many of the people on the fast group rides are 'time poor' people with family duties, so they need to cram as many miles in as they can before getting home for lunchtime. In a perfect world, I would be happy to 80 miles with a lengthy coffee break somewhere, but it tends to be 55 miles with a brief roadside banana while someone changes an inner tube.
Another reason for (a) is that it restricts you in terms of route. We often choose to go out to Navestock via Chigwell Row instead. We have been known to do a second pick up at The Castle in Woodford, though. Perhaps this could be formalised?
The most problematic thing is (c), because there are invariably newcomers coming on their first group ride who want to try out the faster group. If those people start dropping off the back, you're in a bit of a quandary - do they know where they are? Can they get back OK? So then no one is quite sure what to do, things can get very stop-start, or the group fragments into sub-groups.
The other question is 'how fast is fast?' There's a huge difference between 17mph and 20mph, but the group often ends up trying to accommodate people who want anything between these. The last couple of times I've been out on the group rides there has been talk of setting up a fourth group - a kind of 'faster than John's and no coffee stop, but not actually spending the whole ride in the red desperately clinging to someone's wheel' group. The other Sunday I ended up leading a de facto fourth group which detached itself from the back of the fast group at Navestock (via the cunning ruse of turning left instead of right) - this might be one solution? i.e. to suffer on the back of the fast guys for an hour and then break off?
Another issue is choosing the routes. No one likes hanging around in the cold outside the Town Hall trying to agree who is going where. For this reason Ed has started to organise a meet up in the Wynwood Art District Cafe (just round the corner from the town hall) from 8:30 so that people can work out the plans over a warm drink. I must confess, I've never made it to the cafe, I struggle even to get to town hall by 9:00, so I've no idea how well this is working out.
(more to follow...)

Over the last three years or so the club runs have got more popular and instead of having just one group, there tends to be three groups setting off. Depending on their availability, Edward usually leads the most beginner-friendly group on a relatively short and easy-paced ride (I think about 30 miles at 12-13mph?) and John the Pres usually leads a longer ride at a slightly higher pace (maybe 60-70 miles at 14mph?) which goes out, has a social cafe stop, and then returns. The ethos of both of these groups is that no one gets left behind. Then there has been the emergence of the 'fast group'. At first this was somewhat sporadic, as it depended on people not actually racing on that weekend, but as numbers have swelled this has become a more or less weekly occurrence. There is a 'LVCC Race Squad' group on Facebook where race plans etc. are discussed and some of the fast group rides are planned (to some extent) on there, but nothing terribly organised, just ad hoc. A discussion has started up about whether plans for the fast group rides should be more formalised. More to follow in the next post...

I also rode out to Eastbourne around the same time. This is not the most direct route - I wanted to take in some of the best scenery in the South Downs rather than get to the town as quickly as possible (and I wanted my ride to hit 100 miles once I added on the ride home from Victoria station). Down to the Woolwich foot tunnel same route as above, then a not particularly pleasant section on the South Circular, before heading out of London via Chislehurst. My route took me on the A224 out near the M25 at somewhere called Badgers Mount, but looking at the map there's a more pleasant smaller road ('Old London Road') that runs parallel here which would be better to take. Then out into Kent and it gets hilly. Up Ide Hill and bomb down the other side. I stopped at a nice pub in Markbeech. Head down to Ashdown Forest in Sussex and then up Kidds Hill, known locally as 'The Wall'. Once you get out of The Weald you have finally have the respite of 20 flattish miles. I stopped at another pub in Laughton. Then down through Alfriston and up yet another vicious climb called 'High and Over'. Into Seaford and then turn left to head east for the rest of the ride. More climbing in the South Downs, some great views - take a breather at Birling Gap to look at the Seven Sisters chalk cliffs, stop again at the top of Beachy Head (I got fish and chips from the pub here), then finally plunge down into Eastbourne. There's no reason not to go straight to the station without following my strange detour in the town - I was just having a look at where my grandparent used to live.

Route here: http://ridewithgps.com/routes/9423963

Some video of the last part: https://youtu.be/0WFLm0dtLPo

A report on the Len Cooper circuit race (with plenty of video and photos): http://leavalleycc.tumblr.com/post/137842824638/len-cooper-circuit-race-15th-november-2015

Is it wise to redesign the club kite at the same time as the club kit?

Here's another route which I did at the end of July last summer (but I've only just got round to editing down the video). Walthamstow - Hastings in about 76 miles. Down through Stratford, Plaistow and the Royal Docks to the Woolwich Ferry (though, to be honest, it's faster to use the foot tunnel instead). For most of the rest of the route from Woolwich onwards I used the route planner on the LCC website which was brilliant - first of all in getting me out of the south-east London suburban sprawl on loads of back roads, and then getting me out onto obscure little lanes in Kent. It's all a bit ugly for the first 25 miles or so, but a few miles after leaving Dartford you get out into decent countryside. There's a lengthy bit of climbing up to a village called Fairseat and then a worryingly steep descent on the other side on Vigo Hill on the way to Trottiscliffe. Lots of villages with pubs that you could stop at - I think I had a lunchbreak at one in Yalding and another break in a pub in Seddlescombe. The mid-section of the ride is flat, but the last 25 miles are relentlessly tough - you're always climbing or descending, with a welcome plunge down Elphinstone Road at high speed into Hastings itself. I only had time for a quick look at the sea before heading to the station.
Here's the route: http://ridewithgps.com/routes/9519678

Here's the video (four mins): https://youtu.be/IloicWfe5Qw

The annual meal and prize-giving, this year in Walthamstow, featuring a guest speaker. Please contact Joe to book your tickets ASAP. Booking form here . Menu here

Autumn round up - riding the Yorkshire Dales, a whole host of time trials, the club hill climb, video from club runs and road racing reports: http://leavalleycc.tumblr.com/post/132734715303/autumn-2015-roundup

As you may know, Sunday October 18th is the date for the Gordon Attwell Tourist Trial, an annual attempt to disperse our clubmates round the Essex / Herts country lanes, by means of some canny clues
and other map-reading devices. Our organiser, Ian Taylor, assures me that it is just over 21 miles and all on tarmac.
Start at 10am, and finish by 2pm.,leaving from the Burton End hut, site of Gordon’s greatest exploits.
There will be a hearty Belgian beef stew awaiting on return, or a puff pastry pizza for the veggies. Max. price of £5.00 and (obviously) good company and, if you wish, an explanation of just who this Gordon was.
Please let Ian know if you are entering, or even just coming up for a feed on iantaylor54@btopenworld.com and can the veggies please make themselves known for catering purposes.
Thank you, Frida

Full results now available, see attachment