LondonEdinburghLondon 2013

needs planning.......what shall i do....i'm doomed

Jan      2 x 100K
Feb      1 x 100K + 1 x 200K
Mar      2 x 200K
Apr       1 x 300K + 1 x 400K
May      1 x 200K + 1 x 600K
June     2 x 200K + 1 x 600K
Jul        1 x 200 then LEL

Training plan for LEL below:

2012

Week beginning Nov 26, Training begins. 60k

Week beginning Dec 3, 60k

Week beginning Dec 10, 80k

Week beginning Dec 17, 80 k

Week beginning Dec, rest and enjoy Christmas!

2013

Week beginning Jan 1, cycle 70k, then 80 following week, then 90, then 100, then 120.

Week beginning 4^th Feb cycle 90k, then 120, then 150, then 100

Week beginning March 4^th cycle 150k, then 200, then 100, then 150

Week beginning April 1^st cycle 200, then rest a week, then cycle 100, then 300, then 200

Week beginning May 6^th cycle 400, then 400, then rest a week, then cycle 200

Week beginning June 3^rd cycle 600, then 200, then 200, then 600

Week beginning June 1^st rest, then cycle 400, then 200, then 150

Then LEL!

Isle of Man End 2 End

off road mountain bike carnage

http://manxe2e.org/event

Date:

Sunday 8th September

Idea:

Long weekend in Isle of Man

3 days cycling perhaps

Main event is End 2 End on the sunday, a 75km, 1500m climb, mountain bike race

loads of other off road and road routes including perhaps a lap of the TT course on a road which used to be an event back in the day

This could potentially be a family trip/holiday as well

September is potentially sunny

Access to a 6 seater long wheelbase Sprinter van could prove useful for carrying us and family and bikes to my favourite place in the world

costs to consider:

ferry crossing

accomodation...if just blokes, then bunkhouse could be a good option

fuel and food

cost of entry to race

lots to plan for this one

Coast 2 Coast

Idea:

Coast 2 Coast roughly from whitehaven to sunderland on and off road

Distance works out to be about 150 miles

This assuming a road route which deviates roughly accordinging the info on this link

http://www.c2c-guide.co.uk/off-road-sections/

which means about 20 miles of full on off road plus bridleways etc

this keeps the speed up and the entertainment high at nice intervals without it turning into an expedition

Halfway point is approx 76 miles in at a place called Garrigill, a tiny village by all accounts which has a pub and a couple of B&B's, this could be a suitable overnight stop point

this B&B has a 3 person room for £26 and they do pack lunches for £4+

http://www.bridgeview.org.uk/

Potential timeline

Friday evening 

travel from windsor to studley to Penrith

(100 miles windsor to Studley 2hrs)

(200 miles Studley to Penrith 3hrs)

Whats at Penrith?

Friends from church who might let us stay the night and leave a vehicle outside their house

Saturday

Cycle to Penrith train station

Train leaves at 8:07am to arrive at Whitehaven 9:40am (cost is currently £14:50)

Faff about for a bit and touch wheels in sea at Whitehaven

Set off at 10:30am latest

Cycle for 12hrs on and off with food stops 

22:30 arrive in Garrigill (76 miles) earlier if possible

faff about a bit, pint in pub

23:00 bed

Sunday

05:00 wakey wakey

faff about a bit

05:30 set off

Cycle for 12hrs on and off with food stops

17:30 arrive at Tynemouth Castle perhaps

Faff about for a bit and touch wheels in sea

either

cycle from Tynemouth to newcastle approx 10 miles

or

get on the metro which leaves at 17:25 and arrive at newcastle station at 17:57

 

last train from newcastle to Penrith is 18:10 which arrives at Penrith 20:21 (cost is currently £21:50)

either 

enjoy a little bit of hospitality from church friends and a meal in the pub next door and go home in the morning 

or

quick shower if possible and get on the road to get back to studley by midnight

alternative options include:

driving to start on the saturday morning (like BearBones 200)

wild camping on saturday night (like we were going to on BearBones 200)

driving back to Studley on sunday night (like we did on BearBones 200)

I think 1/2 day off on Friday and 1/2 day off on Monday and take a bit longer

Costs are: 

£36 trains

£26 divided by 2 or 3 for accomodation

£50 approx divided by 2 or 3 for diesel 

£? food should be similar to 2 x 200K audax

£62 + food total approx cost per person assuming 3

Question is......Can 75 miles be done with some off road on a loaded mountain bike in 12 hrs each day?

Route information:

info here

http://www.c2c-guide.co.uk/off-road-sections/

I already have all the books required and can therefore get the tried and tested GPX files

Food required:

??????????????

Equipment List:

?????????????

Dates:

i'm thinking June, good training ride for LEL even though no points awarded for RRtY

Week 6 2013...singled out

Single speed

Having ridden so little last week I was determined to get back on it this week with a vengeance

Don’t know why but I had no interest in getting on my road bike, the idea just repulsed me, so on Monday morning I loaded my single speed in the mota’ with the intention of a lunchtime blast.

What a blast it was, I am lovin’ riding my single speed, so much so that I racked up 4 lunchtime rides and a night ride on Thursday with a chap from work, all in the woods behind my office, added excitement was to be had by all the army bods on exercises, so much gunfire was to be heard and land rovers to dodge, such fun!

It certainly is a work out and even in such a short space of time I seem to be developing muscles in my arms which look decidedly odd, I was thinking Van-Damme biceps and triceps but no, muscles popping out the sides of my arms, just lucky I guess

I was getting faster and faster on the usual single track bits, spending less time in the saddle and more out of the saddle, peddling hard. 

The down side to this was the realisation that as much as I might like to kid myself that old skool V brakes are still good enough, after all it used to be, they are not, single digit braking afforded by nice hydraulics means I can hold on better and just feather the brakes if need be. Brakes were kind of on or off and after a weeks use, the brake blocks were seriously worn down again, v brakes were going to be an expensive option if keep wearing them out this quick. I must concede therefore that the Avid Juicy 7’s which were going to find their way onto eBay are going to find their way back on to the evo.

Another discovery of “retro” riding was that rigid forks are quite scary but lots of fun, again there is a downside which I will have to keep an eye on, I have limited use of some of my fingers on my right hand, this I have experienced many times in the past from riding old “vibey” motorcycles, i don’t know why it happens only that it is caused by excessive vibration. Moderation may be required in the deployment of the single speed, I’ll be gutted if I have to put suspension forks back on as well, which of course I do have cos I haven’t gotten around to putting my Fox Talas 32’s on ebay either.

I guess it wouldn’t be the first time that I have gone on a crusade to prove that progression had been made for the sake of progression, I really am seeing the benefit of these developments, but I’m hanging on to the single speed drive train, that’s as cool as 10 dead bears

That was the working week…

Plan for Saturday was get up early and do another secret ride based on the routes which the bloke gave me who is writing a book, well Saturday started with getting up later than I wanted but I went anyway.

 

Scotty the Cyclocross was dragged out for this one.

To start the route first I had to get to the start, the route though goes almost past my house so it meant doing the first 8 miles in reverse to get to the start, this was really nice, followed the jubilee river until hooking up with a cycle network route and then back onto some tow paths before getting to the start, which was a secret train station, of course it’s only secret to you cos I aint tellin’ ya which one it was. On arrival I then turned round and cycled back again, as I got nearer to the vicinity of my home I can almost hear the kettle boiling and tastes the digestives being dunked in my tea….the nearer I got the more rain fell and guess what happened….i bailed, went home and had a cuppa, it was a nice cup of tea and although we didn’t have any digestives I could remember the taste of my virtual one, half hour previous.

I had planned to pick up this ride again on Sunday but it was really naff weather so I didn’t bother, not that I am a fair weather rider but I had done alright this week so reckoned I deserved a day off

The week was finished off with a visit to my cycling buddy Tim to see his new baby "Lunar" and what a little sweety she was too.

Target for the week: 90K

Total distance achieved : 92.3K

Week 5 2013..... It's all about the bike

All about the bike indeed.......

.....not just any bike....THE bike

Back in July 2012 i enrolled on a course at Downland cycles in Canterbury to build my very own bicycle frame.

I deliberated much over the months on what i would build, getting caught up in the 29er mountain bike craze for a while then when thoughts came of entering LEL 2013 that set the theme of the frame build...it would be an audax bike but with disc brakes. i also opted to build my own forks so that i didn't stuff up the geometry by putting an aftermarket fork on.

Saturday was the first day, it started really well, lots of stuff about health and safety and running through how to safely turn the bottles on and off etc etc. chopped up some bits of metal for welding at a later date, then Martyn the teacher explained about the tubes selected for my bike.....Columbus Spirit no less, equivalent to Reynolds 853 but some say better, i was well chuffed, although i reckoned my bank balance wasn't going to be so happy about it.

Was taught how to use a lug holder for preparing the lugs  and the dremel for grinding stuff, it was all very cool, getting my hands dirty again :-)

Day 2 (Sunday) starting with a bit of geometry sorting and then  almost straight into welding the practice pieces for brazing lugs....now i like to think of myself as being at least a bit mechanically minded but by the end of the week i couldn't tell you whether what i was doing was welding or brazing or what, all i can tell you is that i seem to be good enough to get the silvery bits (steel) to attach to each other with the goldy looking stuff (bronze) or champagne stuff (silver). The quality of my whatever my joining method was was good enough to get most of the front triangle together...progression :-)

Day 3 (Monday) I had progressed well and was offered lots of praise at all the right moments to keep the motivation up, so much so that i was permitted to run the brake hose internally through the top tube, very very cool. I had thought that given the shot time of the course that this frame would be function focused rather than form, this was to be the first feature which would change this thinking and would make it quite a special looking machine.

Got this all done, top tube fillet welded in and got the chain stays prepped for brazing.

Day 4 (Tuesday) checking the alignment of my back end was the first job!!!! next up was cutting and facing the headtube, this should have been relatively simple but the bronze in the weld was meaning the facing tool was really struggling so this took ages longer than it should of :-( Loads of other odds and ends to be done today like 'braze-ons' for cable stops etc, tidied up the internal cable routing but was concerned that my seat stays were not started and the frame was supposed to be finished tomorrow.

Day 5 (Wednesday) Last day for frame AAAaaarrrgggghhhh.................Martyn and Bryan (the other teacher and owner of the shop) casually asked me how i wanted the seat stays to look/terminate at the top by the seat post, the options were between a variety of "eyes" or mitre them in, i casually responded, i think I'd like to mitre them in to match the other fillet welding, well let me tell you, this is no casual affair, i had previously seen Sam (the other chap i was doing the course with) sort the top of his seat stays out in what seemed like about 1/2 an hour, I'm sure Sam would disagree, anyway the mitreing of my seat stays took me nearly all day, the last part of the day being to actually weld them in, i felt well and truly in the crap!, end of day 5, frame not finished, Bryan however wasn't concerned and reassured me that we had loads of time to finish it off and get the forks done the next day on the "fork" day, i have to say though the seat stays look the absolute dogs bollox IMHO and i am really pleased with the result and that is what will endure, not the stress of getting behind.

Day 6 (Thursday) the final day for forks and frame.

Today i had a get the Brake bridge cut and fitted, mudguard mounts on, cut, face and slot seat tube, loads of clean up and then the fork. all of the above was fitted in around the forks......but there was more, because i was fitting disc brakes an extra brace had to be made and fitted, same problem on the forks, i was slightly envious of Sam and was really feeling the pressure, he had the fork to do and he wasn't fitting mudguards, i seemed to have little bits and bobs coming out of my ears, this meant everything was a rush and inevitably mistakes would be made...and they were but correctable. The forks went quite well although some serious "calibrating" had to be done after the disc mount was added :-(. some frame checking and some cutting and facing done and it was all over.....feeeewww, time check 9:00pm Bryan had stayed on to finish it with me and it basically was finished...lots of clean up to do at home and i didn't get to drill the forks for the rim brake mount, again i could do this at home.....i was exhausted and a bit fed up when i left but as i drove home and thought about the last 6 days and what i had achieved i grinned more and more...i had made my own disc brake audax bike with internal cable routing to ride LEL 2013 on, proper chuffed, not many people can lay claim to such a thing :-)))))))

With regards to actual cycling...a bit of a disaster, i did cycle to the shop from the park and ride car park which meant i did a grand total of....wait for it.....drum roll........9 miles, yep, 9 whole miles or 15K, yer that sounds better.

Target distance 120K

Total distance achieved 15K

Week 4 2013.... Snow Time

To commute or not commute……..

Not commute

Despite having snow tyres I wasn’t keen on the whole commute to work thing this week, the temperatures were so cold and despite significant surfing of the tinterweb I was still didn’t have a good option for keeping my toes warm

I knew this meant it was to be a tricky week to get my training miles in

Day…Monday, weapon of choice….Evo single speed, destination….woods at the back of my work. My Evo had already proven itself in the snow so I was really looking forward to a blast around the woods and I wasn’t disappointed, the sky was blue, the snow was perfect, it felt like being in the Snowboarding in Alps, I was disappointed to not have my Gopro with me as it was just stunning. I followed my usual route but noticed someone elses tracks at times so deviated occasionally for the better. The ride was only an hour but a really good one that I shall remember for a long time.

Tuesday was a chance to repeat Monday but with the inclusion of the afore mentioned GoPro, sadly the cloud was back and I couldn’t be bothered to faff about so I just went out and retraced the same route. It great fun, knowing how the terrain was meant I could pick up the pace, but it was pretty tiring, single speed offroad is a work out on a dry sunny day, let alone in the snow. Got back to the bike sheds and gave the bike a quick checkover and bash the snow off, only to find that my brakes were down to the metal…..downer!

Wednesday was to be a road day on account of the knackered brakes issue, time to really test the snow capability of “Scotty’s” tyres. Went out to do my road loop, haven’t done it for quite a while, it’s a lovely ride through hampshires country lanes, these are sometimes a bit grubby due to farm equipment use so I didn’t know what to expect. It was pretty hairy, the tyres were fanatastic, no loss of grip in a straight line no matter how hard I tried, I was impressed, got a bit tricky though when snow and slush were deeper because of the amount mass of the stuff I was trying to “plough” through, bit like riding through sand, not the tyres fault, just physics. This meant a great deal of concentration was needed on some of the roads, the farm used country lanes were a bit naff too, worse than I thought they might be. Overall I completed the route but didn’t enjoy it.

The rest of the week was to be made up by a couple of walks, something I do not do, so it made a change and walking to the bike shop was one of the chosen destinations to get new brake blocks for evo.

It occurred to me that as mountain bike miles are often considered to be like riding twice as many road miles, therefore I thought I might be able to tenuously justify a completed training week……If I convert exercise completed into time instead of mileage and convert that back to road miles I might just be in…..so ….my commute is normally about 2hours, give or take, and its about 28 miles, so 14mph, this week I have done 2 hours on single speed, 1 hour on scotty  and walked for 1 ½ hours so that’s 4 ½ hours so that equates to 63 miles…105K….sounds plausible

Saturday and Sunday were not be cycling days as I would be on my Frame Building course….exciting or WHAT

I shall log the full frame and forks journey at a later date

For now….

This is how it starts

Target mileage 100K

Total distance achieved 105K (theoretical)

Week 3 2013 Brrrrrr

Over the weekend i received an email about a competition to win a "Merida" bike through cyclescheme by recording the most number of commutes....

initially I took this to mean distance as well as commutes , so i thought "who else would be crazy enough to cycle to and from work 28 miles each way for 2 weeks" i might be in with a chance!

With low tyres from previous audax on my new winter tyres a purchase was necessary "Topeak Joe Blow Max HP floorpump" I was reluctant to purchase "cold" from halfords, initially thinking i would purchase their cheapo one, however it looked like junk and a waste of £12.99, bit of a check on the web whilst in store revealed that Topeak is almost fixed price so nothing lost by spending my loo laa in store, purchase made, tyres pumped up, sorted

Up early Monday, bike prepared, loaded up with laptop and clothes for the day (normally all of this would be at work so i could cycle light) 

To say it was chilly would be an understatement but i have cycled in the cold many times so all was good, many colleagues were surprised to see me arrive in cycling gear, additionally to save on weight my attire for the day was of a summery nature, again prompting lots of raised eyebrows.

Journey home was nice, as was the journey back in to work the next day and i felt pretty good.

It occurred to me to check the rules of the competition again as it kept ringing in my ears "number of commutes" this didn't concern me terribly as i thought i was doing the maximum number of commutes a day anyway...to work and back.

Closer inspection of the rules and an email later and it was now clear that the highest number of commutes was to decide the winner and in the event of more than one person having the same number, the winner would be chosen at random......"what a crock!!!!"....so someone who has a 1 mile commute has equal chance....balls!!!....worse than that loads of people were claiming 4 commutes a day, how is that possible, so i quit!

journey home was not so enthusiastic and was quite tiring, so to be fair a week of commuting may well have been a bit much on top of working as well, then the real cold came and the snow, so just as well i reckon

No Business like Snow business

I was all geared up for a lunch time blast in the woods at the back of work on Friday, alas this was not to be as we were sent home early...Saturday however was a different story.....

Single speed out, GoPro mounted, Game on

 

Before

After

My attempts at extreme sports cinematography of the very same expedition can be seen here, the route was a simple blat along the edge of the Jubilee river near my house, bike was fast rolling over the snow, it was great to be out even if it was just over 6 miles.

My cycling week didn't end there, Bike show London was on at the excell, The show was quite good overall but nothing like the images of eurobike, worth a visit if you haven't been before but i think my cycling tastes and interests departed the main stream years ago so it left me wondering if i had wasted my afternoon and the admission fee, although the shoulder massage i was duped into having by Ibiza Angels was fantastic and fixed aches i didn't realise i had :-)

Target for the week 90K

Total distance achieved 181.86K