Oh the other thing Ads is most people do their easy rides too hard and their hard rides too easy - always riding in the middle ground.  i know I do this!  So last night you did a hard ride, you felt spent at the end so that means you were working at the right intensity.  On the next ride try and ride nice and slow, spin up things (really low gears) stop if you can't hold a conversation as that is way too hard.  This will umprove your endurance.  Added to hard rides helping you on hills you'll soon be uber fit. 

Now I just need to take my own advice.

I think a lot of what I was going to say has already been said I'll say it again anyway.

• Try and ride regularly, several days one after the other will benefit you but do remember to have rest days and recovery days there is a difference!
• Vary the routes and the intensity of your rides don't go flat out on every ride, recovery rides are low intensity rides usually based on a level 1 or 2 heart rate. 
• A heart rate monitor will tell you if you are going harder than you wanted to or if you are tired and should be resting more. If you can vary between group and individual sessions so you have some control, a fitter group will help you push your limites but doing it all the time to be demoralising if you get dropped regularly.
• It will take time to see improvement, test your self on a route you don't ride often to see how much easier/faster you are say every 6 weeks, it is a bit like not weighing yourself everyday when you are trying to lose weight

However the one thing that has really allowed me to make really impressive improvements in a short space of time was going to a sports physio and being given some very simple excercises to sort out the imbalance between my glutes/quads/back muscles. I was in no pain I just knew I should be going better than I was given the riding I was doing, in essence the power I was trying to produce was coming from the wrong location and tiring me out more quickly than it should have been - the end result was that in a race this weekend my legs were screaming at me to stop before my back/glutes were saying it for the first time in the 4 years since I have been back riding seriously. In a funny way that felt really great

Daphne- you have just reminded me about the first time I went on an mtb holiday.  One of the guides changed the postion of my saddle and the height.  Also went I got home he advised me to put on  a shorter stem.

These things all helped with the way I was cycling.

Hope to meet you soon Ads.  Can you come on the June 1st ride, Marple? 

hiya Ads

some sound advice already, but I thought I'd add my two pennath

As a lot of others have already said, riding with the same people all the time means it's difficult to see improvement as they may also be getting fitter too.  When I first moved to the peak last March I hadn't done any exercise for about 3 months with all of the moving house and job senario and I went out on a night ride with Mrs NBT, India, Ros etc - it was the Hayfield ride, and I was in my lowest gear pretty much as soon as we started to climb up the side of the quarry.  I was at the back for most of the ride, and felt really, slow and crap and my arse hurt.  ... So I know how you feel.   

As you might have noticed, I'm quite competitive and knew that I could be faster and more comfortable.  I sorted out my saddle pain - playing around with different saddles and padded shorts, and I started riding home from work about 3 times a week (and catch the train in).  It's only 8miles, with a couple of biggish hills.  It took me 45mins the first time, and it hurt. I aimed to be able to ride it without using granny at all. I now ride it in and back in about 35mns on a single speed.  It still hurts, but you just get more tolerant of it as you know the more you tolerate it the easier it'll get.  So I would say, be patient (that's really important, you can't be super fit overnight), and keep riding at a good pace.  But most importantly, make sure that you enjoy yourself.

The other thing is food whilst you're out riding.  Topping up your glycogen regularly throughout the ride - fig rolls, nutrigrain bars etc, and make sure that you drink enough.  If you want your body to keep going it needs fuel and hydration.  I went out with the boys the other week for 4 hours, I only ate 3 fig rolls, and drank 1.5l of water.  I was wasted by the end of the ride.  Normally 4h with the boys doesn't trash me that much....it was lack of fuel and dehydration - so I need to take my own advice there.

....oh and one more thing, that does actually help is clipless pedals.  You actually pedal in circles, and use the pull as well as the push.  It makes a big difference when climbing and I feel happier when decending clipped in.  But you may not be comfortable with that.  I know that India has problems with her knees and so doesn't clip in and it can take a while to get the hang of it. 

Hope that helps.  Hopefully see you next week for the Hayfield ride