Four days to go!

Just 4 days till we set off on the G2P ride so no more training, its time for the main event (gulp).

Having ridden over 2400 miles since March I was feeling pretty confident that my body was ready, especially after last weeks 70 miler but a 30 mile ride home on Wednesday gave me a big scare as my bad knee decided to resurrect itself at around the 15 mile mark and I limped through the rest of the ride in excruciating pain. 

My knee tends to flare up from walking and driving thus our holiday in Edinburgh has probably been the main contributor so I have been resting my leg since Wednesday.  I wanted to see how the knee was doing yesterday so Stacey, Joy and I went out for a light ride yesterday morning.  I was very careful not to put any power through the legs until they were warm and still generally took it easy and the knee seemed to be OK for the short 25 miles we covered so hopefully won’t give me too much grief o the G2P ride. 

After writing the Edinburgh rides below I decided to take a camera yesterday as its impossible to put the views I get to see on the bike into words so here's a couple of snaps from yesterday.

View  from the top of Suffield Lane in Puttenham looking towards Elstead / Godalming

Stacey makes Joy and I laugh

New Longest ride (70 miles)

We drove back from Scotland on Saturday and I had a clear plan in my head to do at least 50 miles on Sunday but my knee was playing up (my knee gives me pain if I walk or drive and we did lots of both while away) so I didn’t expect to manage much more so decided to stick close to home so I could easily cut it short if needs must.

Set off in glorious sunshine in the morning and soon caught myself speeding up to catch a cyclist I spotted a few hundred yards ahead.  Caught up with him intending to have a chat to find he had earphones in and was choosing to ignore my attempt to strike up a conversation but was happy to streamline me so I left him for dust as soon as the road started to incline.

Did my standard 31 mile route first of all and got a puncture around the 23 mile point.  Not impressed at this as was on the same stretch of road as my last puncture and yet again it was from flint, this time a small piece which got through the tyre.  I was attacked by some huge bug which decided I was breakfast whilst I was fixing the puncture and despite my dancing around slapping my knees like I was in the Austrian Schuhplattling championship I think he got away with it to.

Took me a while to change the tube and when I got home I also took a bit of a longer tea brake than normal as I packed a replacement tube and pumped the tyre up to full pressure.

Fruit, Twix and Red Bull later I headed back out in the direction of Frensham Pond, was amazed to see the river bank crowded with families enjoying the cool of the river as I passed Tilford Green for the second time and there must have been at least 400 people at Frensham Pond when I got there.  Having done 50 miles as I approached Elstead Green for the second time I was aware of my knee now being a bit numb (I see this as a good thing as its not painful) so could possibly extend the target to 70 miles but was low on fluids so I stopped at Spar next to the Green to get supplies.  There is a tree with a bench built around its trunk there so I sat in the shade for 10 minutes whilst enjoying my treat of a Mars Milk and a Pastie.  The last 20 miles where pretty hard going as my knee had decided to let me know it was not happy so I concentrated on mainly using my left leg for the last 10 miles.

Got home pretty exhausted but feeling great at the same time for going the extra distance.  My bad knee and the muscles in both legs felt like they were burning so having seen lots of sports people have ice baths I ran a cold bath after having a shower and submerged my legs (shiver) for 12 minutes.  Once in it was actually quite pleasant and I think it helped as the burning stopped and my knee seemed to ease a bit. 

Did you have a nice holiday?

Joy and I drove up to Scotland last week for a holiday and I didn’t want to take a week out of my training just three weeks before the G2P ride so after a lot of trial and error to fit it in whilst still having room for luggage I packed the bike into the back of the TT and took it with us.  

First day into the holiday and we had been very kindly invited to a family BBQ at one of Joy’s cousins houses in Linlithgow, not far from where we were staying with Joy’s aunt and uncle in Queensferry.  We stayed with Joy’s cousins a couple of years back and I remembered how Linlithgow backed onto some fantastic countryside so with the assistance of Google’s streetview I plotted a 20 mile route off the beaten track taking in some potential scenic spots around Beecraigs.  The sun was shining and the views where breath taking, the road surfaces where generally smoooooth tarmac and despite the constant undulating terrain the ride was a complete pleasure, I even went off route to tackle a stonking climb at Cairnpapple Hill as I was enjoying the ride so much.  I got to the cousins house a little early so headed back out and did another 10 miles to notch just over 30 miles for the ride.  Joy’s cousins laid on a fantastic BBQ and we had a great afternoon so all in all pretty much a perfect day.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/209773194

Got out on the bike first thing on the second day of the holiday as the weather man was showing sunny for the morning followed by rain for the rest of the week so I wanted to get out whilst I could.  I had spotted an alternative road to Beecraigs that looked interesting the day before so planned a route around this and taking in the Forth road bridge whilst keeping the mileage down to 30 miles as we had plans to visit The Hill House in the afternoon.  Whilst it was dry when I headed out it was not sunny and there was a pretty strong wind.  The road where smooth and quiet again and he route didn’t seem quite as hilly, the heavens decided to open about the ten mile mark and I was then heading straight into wind five miles later so the combined wind and rain made the ride a little unpleasant.  Coming across some road works on route was not ideal in view of the time I was allowing myself on the ride and I didn’t like seeing my virtual partner go past me (virtual partner just ignored the roadwork’s) so I picked up the pace to get back in front of it.  Going across the Forth road bridge was an experience as I had to lean over to about 75 degrees due to the side wind and stopped on the bridge to discover that whilst it looks like the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco it is not as stable as the Forth wobbles a lot.  Managed to beat the virtual partner back to base so pleased with ride.  http://connect.garmin.com/activity/210594531

I gave the bike a rest for a couple of days to stick to holiday activities and headed back out on the Thursday.  Turned out that a friend of Joys uncle is a keen cyclist and he sent over a few good routes to try.  One which particularly appealed included a loop around Loch Leven so having woken up to a glorious morning I loaded the course onto the Garmin and located a bird sanctuary Joy and I could meet at for lunch next to the loch.  The route was pretty much a constant climb for the first 18 miles, followed by an awesome twisting 2 mile downhill with just small climbs for the remainder.  Scenery was spectacular and Joy was waiting for me with sandwiches, fruit, tea and some of her auntie’s home-made tiffin (yum) just after the 30 mile point.  Got back to base having done 50 miles and decided to tag another ten miles on but the clouds dumped a torrential load on me which had me soaked within seconds so I called it a day and headed back.  http://connect.garmin.com/player/211339176

Thoroughly enjoyed the cycling in Scotland, you see so much more on the bike and tackling a challenge of a killer hill gives an instant reward with the view from the top, really pleased Joy told me to take the bike.

Fifty fifty

In between the torrential rain of the weekend I managed to squeeze a hundred miles on the bike spit 50/50 for Saturday and Sunday.  Saturdays ride was staggered as having ridden 7 miles to Stacey’s I got there a few seconds before the heavens decided to drop what seemed like a month of rain in half an hour.  We therefore stayed in his garage and fettled with the bikes for an hour before making a break for it once the sky looked promising. 

We rode 35 undulating miles and I remembered to glance at my cycle computer on the way up the killer of a mile long hill at Holybourne, it started off at 11%, increased up to 18% then 20%, down to 15% and then up to a bonkers 21%!!!!!  I was up to 42 miles when we got back to my brothers and I headed straight home from there planning to go out on the bikes with my wife for another ten or so to take me up to 60 or so miles but I got home to collect Joy just as it was starting to rain again, needless to say we didn’t bother. 

 

Got up late (7.30) on Sunday and Joy and I got ready to head over to Stacey’s but we got a call from him telling us it was raining cats and dogs in Fleet and seemed to be heading our way, sure enough 5 minutes later it was chucking it down so we decided to wait till the afternoon.  It seemed to be clearing up at lunch time so we chanced it and headed out.  Joy wanted to see something other than the Elstead / Sands / Puttenham area I have taking her over previously so I figured the Fleet / Church Crookham / Dippenhall loop would make for a nice change.  Stacey joined us at 7 mile point and we headed from his place towards Ewshot hill.  I warned Joy about the climb as we approached the hill and she did a fantastic job of pacing herself up it.  Going down the other side Stacy went flying past me as always and Joy was telling me to speed up out of her way too!!!!!

Joy had made a lovely coffee and walnut cake the day before so Stacey and I had some with a cup of tea before heading back to Stacey’s.  We ventured off and tried a variation on the way back to Fleet which turned out to be a nice alternative, especially for the downhill section approaching Farnham.

The afternoon turned out to be glorious and after doing 50 miles the day before I took it easy and really enjoyed taking in the scenery as well as chatting with Joy & Stacey.

Both Stacey and Joy did great as they rode a very hilly 34 miles and 23 miles respectively with me so big thanks to them both.

I made sure the ride back ended with me covering just over 50 miles for the day and was really pleased to have covered the distance after doing the same the day before.

What a difference a cake makes

Following on from Mondays starved abandonment to the ride I packed a cake in my bag on Wednesday morning and set myself a reminder to eat it with some coffee 15 minutes before heading off for a planned 30 mile ride.  I could feel the sugar and caffeine rush flowing through my veins as I headed off from work just gone 4pm but made sure I took it easy as the 12% and 15% climbs at the 2 mile mark and 5 mile mark could easily sap all my energy if attacked at full pace.  I took a route I have covered a few times before as wanted to see how the performance would compare.  In short the coffee and cake made a huge difference, I felt good all the way round and knocked 1 minute 29 seconds of the previous personal best for the route. 

Education’s what you need……

Have learned a few things over the last week.

Thursday I did a 30 mile ride home from work and got a puncture at around the 20 mile mark.  This was the first puncture I have had on the road since I started riding back in January 2011.  I have ridden over 3400 miles over these last 18 months.  I was riding with some Specialized Nimbus Armadillo tyres for the first 2200 miles and whilst these where almost invincible and still have plenty of life in them they did have a hefty weight to them and I have been using some lightweight Schwalbe tyres for the last 1200 miles so think this to be a fair trade off in terms of puncture resistance to weight at the moment.  I got the puncture from a 1 inch piece of flint in the road which sliced through the tyre.  Lesson this day was to look out for flint stones as encountering them does not always lead to a gay old time!

On Saturday, Joy and I cycled out to Ripley to watch the men’s Olympic road race pass by.  It was a great experience to see them and to feel the positive vibe that came with the event.  We cycled on to Guildford once the peloton had passed by to look at helmets to see if they had one in Joy’s size. Before completing a 30 mile loop back home (Joy did fantastically and I had to remind her to reduce the pace a couple of times when she took the lead).  Saturday’s lesson was how Joy’s head is so small that she can get a child’s helmet (pink with cartoon rabbits & carrots) on!

I cycled 10 miles to Stacey’s via Mytchett and Farnborough on Sunday morning.  Stacey and I then did a nice 30 mile loop, during which it went from glorious sunshine to pelting with very heavy rain back to sunshine in the space of half an hour.  After a Graeme Obree recommended energy fix (Jam Sandwich) I then did a 20 mile route past the Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice to complete a total 60 miles for the day. 2 lessons from Sunday, 1) it is worth stopping to take your socks off and wring them out when you have been drenched.  2) do not under any circumstances attempt to dry the touchscreen of the Garmin 800 with your hanky whilst it is switched on as you can inadvertently press the buttons to delete all previous activities (all the rides over the last week) and the confirm button!

I cycled to work on Monday and come the evening I started off on an intended 30 mile ride home.  All was good for the first 18 miles especially as Paul Finning joined me for the first 12 miles but then around the 20 mile mark it started to feel exceedingly hard work to keep any momentum going, at first I thought it was just the effect of cycling for three days on the trot but I then realised that it wasn’t my muscles complaining that was making it hard and how I was not cycling in a straight line!  Having now realised that I just had no energy I cut the ride short and headed straight home.  This is the first time I have had such an experience and whilst it is a potential concern as my “slight” build means I have no reserves I am glad to learn about this now so I can make sure to carry something (jam sandwich / flapjack etc) going forward.