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@doppelkorn well done. It's good to hear about the 100k rides. Some of us aspire to riding the longer ones but whether through time, fitness levels or injury we can only do the shorter ones.

I was also on the ride yesterday. Did it on gears for a change as I'm still getting used to riding gears. Great day for it and great turn out. The Islington guys made for quite a big group. One of them was wheel client of mine.

Stayed a bit longer than I wanted at the halfway control but nice to have a proper sit down meal and a chat with someone. I rode with them for the rest of the ride.

Got caught in the thunderstorms on the way home from the ride.

@AngelD This tensiometer looks the business but I wish you'd posted this about a week ago. Just shelled out for the Wheel Fanatyk one and had to pay £50 import VAT.

Yes, I remember saying hello at the Velodrome and remembered you from the Boulters Bash. The chap I didn't recognise had a green top and shades. I'm sure I'll bump into him again on another ride.

During the post ride tea many of the riders said that they'd booked on the Thames Bridges ride. Looks like it may be another social one.

Organiser here. There's also a 100K event, 10 Thames Bridges at 0900 same place and date, that I reckon is doable on fixed, even by me, with a couple of short walks on Chiltern Lanes, and a pretty flat 60K ride too. See http://www.willesdencyclingclub.co.u...k_eason_rides/

Organiser reckons it's doable fixed. Cool. Fixed it is then. Along with a heavy pannier full of shite.

Just booked on the 10 Thames Bridges. Three quid - bargain. Is it fixed friendly?

Got in around 17:50 which is 8h 20min I guess. Lots of stopping and chatting. One guy taking photos of everything. We stopped to watch the changing of the guard as well as we arrived just in time. Good to meet some new people.

One guy in the group was 72 and said that he'd done every audax both UK and abroad. Still cycles at least 200 miles a week.

What a lovely day out. I had five riders in tow as I had ridden the route before and I had also mapped the route sheet as a gpx file. Never been on the Emirates Air Line before so that was nice. Being able to ride to and from the start was also good rather than rely on trains. No significant hills so did it fixed and with a ton of stuff in my pannier than wasn't needed.

Someone addressed me by name and asked how I was enjoying the ride. I answered, "good thanks", but then realised that I didn't know the person (or at least didn't recognise them) only later on when they had gone. Anyone here?

No it's not. It's clockwise. Blimey. Better get to bed.

It's anti-clockwise. Should be going along Upper Ground between 2.00 and 4.00 according to the route sheet fastest and slowest times. Just been doing a DIY gps by mouse clicking using the route sheet. Almost as long as the ride itself.

Apart from the velodrome and the cable car ride the rest is much the same.

Annual plug for the Suburban Breakout, 100k audax from London N2 on July 20th. New route this year, all you need to know at www.centrallondonctc.org.uk/audax

Did this last year. Remember that it was a very hot day. Great day out. Apart from getting lost and getting stopped by police. All part of the fun though. Will more than likely do it again this year.

London Midweek sightseer tomorrow. If you have tomorrow off that is. Route sheet is 9 pages long. Midway control at the olympic velodrome. Going to ride to the start as I don't want to get scuppered by trains again.

So gutted to have missed the Devil especially with such gorgeous weather. Someone please post some pics. As the route is a perm I'm sure I'll do it at some point this season.

Did you guys do the hop garden?

I bailed. Too scared of the wind.

Very windy. Wondering about tomorrow's Hop Garden ride. Did a short training ride into Kent yesterday and felt like I was going to get blown over. Hmm. What to do?

I was on an audax last year and there was an NHS dietitian riding with us. To ascertain whether you were really hungry or not he suggested that you should consider whether your least favourite food would be appetising. Mine is rice pudding. The rest of the ride was - "Would I eat rice pudding now?". When we got to the finish and tables full of biscuits, cakes, crisps etc. there was a big bowl on one table full of rice pudding. The guys riding with me got a bowl full each and waved it in front of me and cracked up. Makes me nauseous just thinking about it. I went for sausage rolls and crisps instead.

Mavic Open Pro - 604mm. At least that is what I've used to calculate lengths for all the builds that I've done. Chrina is more like 608.

Anyone doing the Dinton 100 next week? Sent off my entry in good time with the 2 x SAE's but haven't had anything back yet. Hopefully it's still on.

Also doing the Hop Garden on the 11th. Fancied doing the 200 but couldn't find any trains that would get me there before 08:00 so have opted for the 160 instead which starts at 08:30 and the earliest train I could find gets into Meopham at 08:06.

Just a quick review of yesterday's Boulters Bash 100km ride from Maidenhead. Did in on fixed (67") with a ton of luggage. Why the luggage? Was working the day before and stayed over at a friends who lives close to Paddington.

First half was rolling and fairly smooth. Just before the midway control some challenging but doable climbs. Second half was hilly and had to get off and walk up a couple. A steep windy one and another where there was no pavement. There was one gravelly descent which was a bit scary too but also good fun. Good ride all in all and one more point for the FWC.

May well do the Dinton in a couple of weeks time but perhaps geared this time and sans luggage.

I've entered the Boulters Bash ride on the 23rd. It's old skool entry with 2 x SAE. It's midweek though so only if you are free during the week. I've got the routesheet and have created a gps route if anyone wants it. Took ages but think it will be worthwhile no w that I'm more used to it than the route sheet.

Ride - http://www.aukweb.net/events/detail/14-275/
GPS - http://www.gpsies.com/map.do?fileId=oqbhziepaswamuwk

10 am start so should be easy to arrive on time. 100km with only one climb. Fixed I reckon.

Bit of a late start to the season but did my first audax of the year today. The Wormingford Wyrm 100km. A few bumps but no killer hills to speak of and absolutely gorgeous weather. A lot of riders. My first audax on gears.

Again, IIRC the Jobst Brandt Retrogrouch™ wisdom is that spoke breakages are almost always fatigue failures due to too many stress cycles. Spoke tension doesn't affect how many stress cycles the spoke undergoes or how many it can withstand before failing (I think). His recommendation is to keep tensioning the spokes until stress-relieving them puts the rim out of true, then backing them off a touch, re-truing, and stress relieving them again. If they stay true that time then they're good to go, basically. I don't think he made different recommendations for different wheel uses.

If you haven't tried this technique which is to ascertain the amount of tension a rim can handle, I would do it very carefully. What you're doing is going over what the rim can take and then backing off. But how far is safe so that you can see that you have indeed gone over? If you go too far you can ruin a good rim. It's happened to me a few times so I'm generally careful when the tension is reaching that point.

+1 for Sputniks being strong and durable. Had good feedback from heavier riders and from those carrying luggage.

I aspire to the 10 - 14 hours recommended in the audax handbook but realistically I manage more like 8 - 10 hours. My training, if you can call it that is to have one long ride, one hilly ride and one fast ride a week. The fast ride ride could be just a short series of sprints for half an hour even. Interval -ish. The hilly ride again not too structured but just going up and down nearby hills over and over again till I get fed up. The long ride outside of audax could be just a 30 mile loop so I get used to riding non-stop for a couple of hours. So not that long at all compared to audax distances. That kind of works for me in terms of training.

This year my plan was to ride two big ones each month but have been scuppered due to injury. But slowly regaining fitness. Good luck.

Always measure if possible. I have a few videos on how measure the rim ERD and hub specs.http://yogarup.com/wheels/measuring_videos.php

Buying spokes can be a bit scary especially if it's your first time as you're putting money down and it feels like a bit of a gamble. If you build lots of wheels it's not a massive issue as you can probably use them on another build. Some places will take them back if they are unused.

After the number of holes and spoke pattern changes to the ERD will give rise to the greatest changes in your spoke length calculation. If you are a couple of mm out with your hub measurements it doesn't matter so much. Try it yourself in the spoke calculators and you'll see.

The calculator on my own site is one that I wrote based on the formulas in Damon Rinard's spokecalc.xls. I use it for all my own builds and it's spot on.

http://yogarup.com/wheels/hubs

I've renewed my audax membership and have booked on this one as my season starter.

http://aukweb.net/events/detail/14-32/

Did it last year. There was a tailwind for the first leg and everyone was bombing along but it was against us for the rest of the ride.