Monthly Archives: July 2009

It’s the Final Countdown…

My last ride before the “big one”. I managed to find a member of the ACG to join me – my instincts were telling me that going out on my own was a bad idea, but I needed to test out the bike post-service and me post-accident – so I was really pleased to have company. Instincts are there for a reason you know, and whenever I ignore them, well, that’s when I come a cropper, and I can live without doing that again for a while! *grin*

We did one of my usual easy training loops ’round the levels, not pushing it, just enjoying being out and having a chat. I felt a bit wobbly early on, especially going down a wet Winscombe hill, but after a while I got a bit more into it. I’m still a bit more cautious than I was I think, but hopefully that will wear off. We nearly missed the rain…but not quite, and got soaked from Wedmore home. Ah well…I guess that will have washed any dirt off the bike!

Cycling time: 2:01:47
Distance: 29.76 miles
Avs: 14.6 mph
ODO: 1263 miles

I don’t plan on getting on the bike again before the L2P now. I need to get my kit all washed and sorted, and my packing done. There’s a pile growing in the front room…which I plan on finishing tomorrow night. So, nearly there now then. 3 whole days and that’s it…and in a week’s time, it’ll all be over already. How weird is that?! 🙂

Getting better all the time

My brand new helmet arrived first thing this morning, which is pretty cool as I only ordered it on Sunday using the free – not express – delivery option. Thanks Wiggle! It’s the Black/Pewter colourway this time – just to make a change. It will also match my kit and the new black handlebar tape that A in his Scorpion CS role fitted for me today. Well – the white stuff was looking distinctly shabby pre-accident, and worse afterwards. He also adjusted various bits, cleaned out the bottom bracket and re-greased it, fit reflectors (obligatory for the L2P), and even washed it! He’s put a lot of hours into sorting me and my bike out, and I’m very grateful. My bike is all shiny and ready to go now 🙂

I’m not feeling quite so shiny as my various aches and ows are taking their time to clear up – I have NO patience – so I’m going to stick to the gym for today at least 🙂

Sunshine on a rainy day

OK girlfriend, time to get back on the horse. Well, to be fair, I had to, because I was picking up the car we’re borrowing from my folks and the most sensible logistic solution to this was to cycle over there, bung the bike in the bike and drive home.

So at 9:30am this morning, I headed out, somewhat apprehensive as to how this was going to feel. Having resolved to take it easy, my aches eased as I warmed up a bit, which is what going up the hill to the Webbington does to you. Out and over and up Bleadon Hill, getting into my stride now. I noticed a tendency towards increased caution, and a little less nerve than usual, but nothing too dramatic. Through Uphill, along the main seafront road at proper head down speed, and out ’round Sand Bay to Ebdon Cemetary where I was due to meet Dad. A pretty good hour really, nice warm weather, with what wind there was mostly behind me, and an avs of 16.5mph. Nice 🙂

I rang Dad, who said he wasn’t far off…and between then and him ringing me to confess to a slight case of location malfunction, the heavens opened in a big way. Just what I wanted today – wet muddy roads! *grimace*. We arranged to meet again and actually managed to this time, up by the main road to Yatton. We zoomed along to Yatton as the rain cleared (too little too late!), and then through Congresbury to cross the levels to Clevedon. Up the final long hill from the valley and there we were, in Portishead, in time to drink coffee and drip all over the furniture 😉

Cycling time: 2:04:11
Distance: 32.42 miles
Avs: 15.6 mph
ODO: 1230 miles

I actually hurt more now than I did this morning – I think some of the aches are surfacing as they settle in. My shoulders hurt – both sides oddly, though more so on the RHS, recalling echoes of my broken collar bone… My cuts are ouching up a storm – I think I may still be carrying some road in my elbow one somewhere so I’ll be dealing with that later. I could carry on, but I think that’s likely to be quite boring…*grin*. I’m pleased the ride went well though, and I’m pleased to have stayed on the bike – especially as it brakes really badly on properly wet roads! I’m off to A to get a pre L2P bike check tomorrow, which is clearly more important now than it was before, and I’m tempted to just stick to the gym for the rest of the week and wrap myself in cotton wool. We’ll see 🙂

Hit the road, Jack…

… should that be Jennifer?

I persuaded S to come for a ride this morning, being a tad bored of cycling the same old routes with the same old company – just me and my mp3. We met in the Square and headed off around 8:30am. It’s always lovely to leave the route to someone else, so I just followed S…down the main road, round Brent Knoll which he meant to go up but missed the turn (darn…) over to Mark Causeway and off towards Bridgwater. We were aiming for Pawlett Hill. S likes hills and fancied trying a new one…there’s no accounting for taste you know 😉

On the way we came across a group of that particular kind of gentlemen who wear a certain kind of clothes and take photos of obscure things, standing by the side of the road on a bridge over something. Was there a special LBJ (little brown job) bird lurking? Were we going over a river? No, a railway line. Little neurons fired inside my brain, and it occurred to me that…yes…confirmed by a gentleman walking towards the bridge – this would be a train thing! I convinced S to come stand on the bridge with me, and 5 minutes later the Tornado came steaming down the long straight and under our bridge. Totally made my morning 🙂

Off we went again, pootling around unfamiliar lanes perfecting the art of the U-turn and dismally failing to find the aforementioned hill. We did find an “up” eventually, but I’m afraid it didn’t live up to its billing (darn again… ;)). So we headed back for home, out Cossington way and back across the levels along one of those roads that you just know is going to join up with somewhere familiar sooner or later. Sure enough, we popped up on the Burtle road and headed back towards Mark, having a brief chat with another Tor rider we encountered.

Up into Mark, out the other side, where we took the left towards Chapel Allerton…followed by a white van. (I’m starting to think white vans have it in for me). There’s a bend at the bottom of the little hill there with a little bridge over water and a fairly sharp right… Down on the drops, little bit too much speed, farm dirt (let’s call it “dirt” anyway)…and bye bye back wheel, hello road. Instand Thud. Right hand side of me meets road. Hip, shoulder, head…in that order. Hands still on drops, in vaguely foetal position. Although I closed my eyes briefly and spent a couple of secs mentally checking I was still here and it was ok to open them again…I stayed conscious this time. S was right there to help check me out, and luckily, considering my time frame, I appear to be pretty much ok. Some great road rash, gonna have a kick ar*e bruise on my right thigh, and there’s a gash on my arm. My head has a minor bruise and popped an interesting vein in my right temple…and yet again I have totalled a helmet – cracked right through again. I think I should take out shares in Giro at this rate…but hey, they seem to do the job!

After a little while of checking me and the important things out – like the bike – we headed back. Poor S, it’s clearly not a lot of fun watching people fall off bikes. To be fair, it’s not much fun doing it either! *grin*. However apart from an increased element of caution near bends on the way back – the roads were recently wet – I seemed to be ok. And it would have been a shame to waste my favourite stretch of road, so (however ill advisedly) I put my foot down and kicked it back from Wedmore to home 🙂 I really do enjoy getting up some speed down there, though I prefer to be in front, cycling close behind someone was worrying me even more than usual, even if the drafting was helpful! 😉

Cycling time: 2:46:43
Distance: 44.67 miles
Avs: 16.0 mph
ODO: 1198 miles

S saw me to my door, in true gentlemanly fashion. It’s hardly his fault I’m inept – (so stop blaming yourself!) – and it could have been a lot worse. I have ten days to recover in and the bike is due to be checked by A on Tuesday anyway. I’m all cleaned up, am a bit ouchy and am looking forward to seeing how the bruises develop but on the whole, I think I’m ok 🙂

Which is good because I’m supposed to be on the bike tomorrow morning….I guess we’ll see how I feel when I stiffen up. Apart from that – it was a pretty good ride. It was nice to catch up with S and I enjoyed the route. Well…you gotta laugh *grin*.

Doing the rounds

The family car needed looking at, and I was due to cycle so, in a two birds with one stone kind of way, I bunged the bike in the back of the car, drove to the garage, re-assembled the bike, and headed off.

I headed out from Cheddar, ’round the back roads to get to Nyland Hill, and then back up to the main Wells road. A little wiggle off the main road via Westbury, and then left in Easton to go up the long hill and then ’round the back down to Wookey.

I’m not good at descents, and I’ve been trying to practice…so was hurtling down the hill into Wookey Hole…trying to be a little less cautious…only to go ’round a bend and find the road completely blocked by a horse box lorry coming towards me squeezing past a parked van. I braked…a lot…a small part of me becoming aware of the fact that the back wheel has locked up and is skidding around and…haven’t I been here before…?! Only this time I managed to come to a stop without coming a cropper, which is nice. Still, I think I’ll stick to descending my way – I appear more likely to stay in one piece that way!

I took a quick five minutes to visit hubby at the prison camp and nick some of his coffee whilst regaining my sangfroid, before heading off into Wells, round the back to Glastonbury, back via Godney to Wedmore and back to the garage in Cheddar where they were just finishing off my car. Result! Bike back in car, and me back home 🙂

Cycling time: 2:02:55
Distance: 33.13 miles
Avs: 16.1 mph
ODO: 1153 miles

I was trying to go faster, and was flying on the flat…but sadly it wasn’t all flat *grin*. It was however pretty scenic, without too much wind, nor too much sun, so fairly ideal cycling conditions really. There can’t be many training rides left now…!

I’ve made an appointment with a physio person for next week, and decided to save the massage for another time. My ouchy thing is twinging but a couple of the stretches that she’s given me seem to help so that’s good.

Jeremiah was a bullfrog

Time to get back on the horse…well, clearly the bike in this case. Yesterday’s gym session was not a good one, so I approached today’s ride with a certain sense of trepidation. Having done my flat loop a couple of times last week, I decided to do a seaside loop today and just to take it easy and see how I got on.

Cycling time: 2:05:41
Distance: 34.36 miles
Avs: 16.3 mph
ODO: 1118 miles

As you can see, it went pretty well. It took a good 30 minutes to get warmed up, as opposed to the usual 20 or so. The wind was stronger than I’d been expecting, but I managed to avoid it a lot of the time, as well as enjoying it when it was behind me 🙂 I deliberately wasn’t pushing it – I dropped right back on the hills and just took it easy – but my legs have clearly recovered ok, hence the speed… About half way ’round I started to feel like my cycling mojo was back – the Merlin Ride really did knock the stuffing out of me a bit – which came as a relief.

On the downside – my left hand side shoulder pain thing cut in REALLY early on and is still there now. I guess it’s not had time to recover, though I was hoping yesterday’s yoga class would have helped. There’s a distinct possibility that I have a trapped nerve thing going on there, as suggested by G from the ACG a while ago, and I’m hoping to see someone about that and try and get it a bit more sorted before the L2P. I’m going to treat myself to a massage too…ooh, the decadence *grin*.

PS: In case you were wondering Jeremiah was a Bullfrog…is aka Joy to the World. Joy to the World – because I can still cycle and enjoy it! *grin*.

The Merlin Ride

I woke up, in my B&B this morning, at 6.00am and looked out of the window. Fine, sun rising, looking ok… I performed my ablutions, looked out the window, and it was hammering it down! My heart sank, but I got myself sorted anyway, knowing that since I hadn’t brought my waterproof with me, wearing it wasn’t an option anyway!. Breakfast, 2 weetabix, low fat yoghurt, milk and black coffee, was thankfully pretty much what I’d have had at home, so that set me up ok.

I loaded the car, and headed off in the rain to the National Botanical Garden of Wales where I parked up, signed in, and joined the gathering throng. By now the weather had cleared, the sun was coming out, and I was down to just two layers – sleevless + windproof gilet/jacket. After some official speechy stuff, I was near the front of the 8:00am massed start, and we headed off.

The first 70 miles were fine. Not too hilly, mostly quite scenic. The Black Mountain – the big climb of the day – came about 20 odd miles in. A very long slow slog up, followed by a scary too steep, too bendy, too “oh my god that’s a cliff edge” for me…I think I actually preferred the up! I chatted to quite a few folk along the way, even getting a donation to my charity – so that was nice. After 68 miles or so, at the 4th feed stop, the Merlin 1 route headed for base along with the guy I was chatting to, and my Merlin 2 route heads off on its own…

And that’s where the trouble began. I didn’t see another cyclist for an hour and half. There was a punishing headwind, on uninteresting, built up, frequently major with traffic, roads. I realised I’d miscalculated how much further there was to go, so that I had considerably longer left than I thought. There were very few “repeater” signs so I was almost constantly convinced I was lost. I didn’t eat my lunch roll – it just didn’t appeal, so I picked the ham out instead, which in retrospect was a BAD idea. My morale just sank, and sank. Between 5 and 5 1/2 hours was a VERY black time. It always amazing me just how low you can get in the middle of one of these events…which is probably why I just had to pull over, check the map to see that I wasn’t actually lost, and have a brief howl.

Luckily just as I was getting myself together, I saw two cyclists coming up behind me a way back. Reassured that I wasn’t actually lost in Llanelli, I got back on, cycled along to the next feed station, where they met up with me. We chatted a bit, and headed off together. Sadly I and 174 (never did get the name) dropped the other chap fairly soon, but there was no way I was doing anything other than trying to get me “home”. I can’t tell you much about the last however long. Me and my new mate stuck together – he helped me keep going by being someone to talk to, and I helped him keep going by being in the lead. My eating went to pot – I didn’t want to. I had to make myself drink. There were a lot of grinding ups, and not enough lovely downs. It was just a long hard unremitting slog all the way back…

And 112 miles actually turned out to be 122 – which ain’t funny. Having to retrace a chunk of the beginning of our route didn’t help, or make much sense and again – not enough signs left us nearly ready to call it quits before we found the left turn that rejoined the Druid route. I had to take a gel near the end as the end kept being not quite yet..and I was starting to get that wobbly faint feeling which is generally considered to be a bad thing….

If I’d known that only 22 out of 250 starters (according to the food station man) people were doing the longer route, and that those 50 miles would be so bad, I’d have stuck to the 70 mile Merlin 1 route. I can’t blame the weather, as we only got rained on twice – and briefly at that. There were plenty of feedstops (6 in total), staffed by very friendly helpful Macmillan folk (I believe), so my bottles were kept topped up, and I did eat bananas. A lot of the road surfaces throughout were bad, which didn’t help. It was just a world apart from the first section of the ride… If you’re thinking of doing the Merlin Ride, I’d recommend you stick to one of the shorter routes!

We finally got in after yet another bottom gear uphill grind – probably last as the broom wagon was sweeping up those few remaining. The show had packed up, everyone had gone…it was not the most wonderful way to end an event. We did have a nice chat with the organising folk, after having pointed out (not the first to do so unsurprisingly) that 112 miles is not 122. They asked how it’d gone and being less than tactful I believe I said that “the last 40 miles sucked”. To excuse my tactless behaviour, I did clarify, and hey, I was tired and very ouchy! I’m not sure I’d have made it without my mate’s help, nor him with mine, so that was very equitable – and should he happen to be reading this – many thanks 🙂

Stats for you:

Cycling time: 8:10 ish (me)/8:32:50 (officially)
Distance: 122 miles
Avs: 14.9 mph
ODO: 1084 miles

Food consumed : 2 Torq bars, 3 *750ml Torq Energy, some ham, 1 1/2 bananas, 1 High5 with caffeine gel. (Yes – not enough!).

After all that, my average speed was pretty good – faster than the Dragon Ride – but it felt SO much worse. I was kinda chuffed to see my new bike tick over to having done 1000 miles though 🙂 And there was one particular lovely downhill early on which I was flying down only to discover that there were traffic lights and queued cyclists 2/3 of the way down and…….just as I approached, the lights changed, and I just flew past them all on the outside… A very nice moment *grin*.

Right now lots of me hurts – lots. I’m relieved to say that’s my last LONG distance sportive this year…and I shall now be chillin’ until the L2P which is all of just over 2 weeks away! Sponsor me – now!

PS: why is it when ever I end up cycling with a fellow male cyclist, they’re always full of how strong I am, and powerful, and so forth? If that’s the case, then why the bejesus aren’t I any darn faster? 😉

Variations on a theme

A small contingent of the ACG met in the Square on Friday evening…small mostly because someone called Murray was hitting a yellow ball somewhere… Luckily there were just enough of us to fall into the two groups required, so 3 of us took the high road, and 2 took the low road…

We did a very similar route to the one I did on Wednesday, albeit with the odd variation and slightly more hilliness. Due to the wiggles, we actually managed to meet up with the low road group twice, which was fairly impressive.

Cycling time: 1:08:46
Distance: 31.91 miles
Avs: 14.8 mph
ODO: 960 miles

It was definitely cooler than of late, though that may have been due to the head wind, which meant that I could keep my zip up and prevent all but the most persistent insects from using me as their preferred method for committing hari-kiri. It was a very pleasant ride all in all. We were fairly evenly matched, had a nice chat from time to time, and generally had the kind of ride that I wanted the ACG to exist for. Even now there’s noticeably less light in the evenings, so it won’t be long before evening rides are a thing of the past which is a shame as they’re very enjoyable. My civic duties are going to keep me away from the next couple of ACG rides too…but I’m sure they’ll do just fine without me! *grin*

Speed machine

As the Merlin Ride looms large on Sunday, I’m supposed to be taking it easy this week – tapering down in preparation. So I deliberately planned out my shortest training route – very nearly the original loop I started on all that time ago when a bike was a new thing…

I headed out in the already warm weather this morning, grateful of the fact that I would at least be generating my own head wind, and thus gaining some cooling effect from it. It was warm and humid, but not that sunny, which wasn’t too bad.

Apparently, knowing that I was only planning on being out for two hours, and that it was a flat route, my brain subconsciously decided to make up for this by swapping distance for speed and going faster instead! I was trying not to push it, but there wasn’t much wind, and it was mostly flat, and…ah well, best intentions and all that… I blame being down on the drops – that’s gotta be it, right?

Cycling time: 1:55:52
Distance: 31.77 miles
Avs: 16.4 mph
ODO: 928 miles

By the time I got in I was dripping, and I actually had to cool down for 15 minutes or so before there was any point having a shower, as the sweat continued to pour off me. I’m also getting bored of scooping out small dead black insects from my cleavage… It’s even worse when you get a biter on board – you try fishing one of those out from inside a sports bra as you’re riding along!

I saw the cutest family of stoats/weasels out crossing the road with me on the levels near Mark – that’s my third such sighting this week. This summer seems to have less birds than usual, but more mammals, and butterflies. Oh, and suicidal insects. And sometimes you got past a garden or corner and get the most amazing scent of roses. Odd how things change from year to year isn’t it?