The Cheltenham Flyer 210km

After hearing about the weather conditions Matt was facing yesterday up in Scotland, yesterday’s drizzly, miserable weather in the Southwest really didn’t compare! At the time of writing this, I have heard on the radio that it looks like the weather is moving down this way with storm warnings and forecasters advising people to only travel to coastal areas if absolutely necessary!

Yesterday I travelled up to Cheltenham for an 8am start and a 210km event – my longest this year. I actually did this ride back in 2001 and didn’t remember it having the 2000m of climbing that the route included this year. Either I was fitter then or the route has changed.

After riding on my own for the first few kilometres I caught up with a group at the first control at Didbrook. From here the route went uphill at a good gradient for several kilometres. This is the sort of gradient we will be tackling on the passes in France and I was pleased to be reeling in and overtaking several riders. I rode with a group of strong riders through places such as Clapton on the Hill, Sherbourne, Aldsworth, Bibury and Poole Keynes. The route from here passed very close to where Doug and Chantal’s wedding was held near Lynham and Wooton Bassett last week. The quick pace meant that we reached the halfway control in under 4 hours.

What had started off as an overcast day turned into a very wet day at this halfway point. No choice but to ride the other half as we were at the furthest point from the finish here! So waterproof on, I pushed on with the group through Compton Bassett and Heddington. Although feeling comfortable at this pace, I dropped off the back as one rider took the lead and wound the pace up. Training for endurance rather than speed requires keeping your heart rate below a certain level and, at my present fitness, mine was above this so the sensible thing was to back off. No point pushing it hard with a long way to go only to pay for it later on! This meant a lonely ride through the gorgeous little village of Lacock, and on to Biddestone and Castle Coombe (one of my favourite villages). The route actually went past the motor racing circuit which I hadn’t seen before.

Continuing through Tetbury, a husband and wife team overtook me on a tandem and I failed to stick with them. On the hills, however, I caught them back up again. From then on it was like I was attached to them with elastic…being dropped on the flats and downhills and catching back up on the uphills. The last part of the route continued through Cherrington and Winstone back to Cheltenham.

I have to say I have had better days! I pushed it a little too hard early on meaning I had little in the tank at the end. However, in order to improve it is necessary to push your body through your comfort zone and I certainly did this. The miserable weather was disheartening but makes the ride more challenging and is a good test of mental toughness. 210 km (131miles) at 16.0mph average.

Nasty horrible West of Scotland weather!

Now as you may have realised through some of my earlier blogs, I cycle mainly because I throughly enjoy it and because of the sense of achievement you feel at the end of a ride.

Today, however was not one of those days! I set out to do about 100 miles heading due South on one of the routes I did a few weeks ago down towards Sanquhar. However, after 2 hours of trudging into what must have been a 30mph gusting headwind, in the pouring rain, I'd had enough. It just wasn't enjoyable and I wasn't getting out of the ride what I needed - so I turned and headed back.

Now I still managed over 45 miles in just under 3 hours so it wasn't a total right off - but I don't feel great at having packed - but there's no way I could have coped at being nearly blown off the road for another 4 hours.

Still, there's always tomorrow - the BBC is forecasting snow (but then their weather forecasts are always rubbish anyway). They got the wind direction wrong by an impressive 90 degrees this morning.

I hope Ian has managed better!

Rosewell 200k

Well, apologies for the delay in getting this post up as I rode this event last weekend. I'd had a nice long weekend with my old uni friend Chris coming up from Warwick with a Thursday night gig seeing Eels (who were fabulously quirky, by the way!) and relaxing Friday and Saturdays before an exceptionally early rise on Sunday to drive to the South of Edinburgh (near the now infamous Roslyn Chapel - thanks to the atrocity that was The Da Vinci Code).

It was a breezy day with steady winds of 20+mph coming from the West. This was the first Audax I'd done for a good few years and I was fortunate to get into a group of four and we toddled along at a steady 15mph sharing the workload fairly well before reaching the first check at 30miles. Bacon rolls and tea made for anice break here but the tiny hall in the rolling hills of the Borders soon swelled with sweaty, smelly cyclists and the view was much more appealing outside so the group of four I had been in left soon after the first group.

The road rose briefly to the side of a reservoir before climbing very sharply over the hills to descend to the next valley. The climb here was 1mile long at 20% and was the toughest climb I'd experienced so far. I had small enough gears and was able to catch and pass one chap and was gaining on another - felt pretty good I must say.

I joined with one of the four I'd been travelling with earlier and we passed the leading group as they stopped to wait for one of their punctured colleagues. We were whizzing along at a heady pace before my travelling partner began to accelerate away as I watched my heartrate. A long gradual climb saw the larger group of fast riders pass me but I soon caught up after a sweeping descent to the second check.

The third leg was lightly rolling before turning left over Witchie Knowe, a pleasantly testing climb which went on for a long while and up which I was able to catch and pass one of the group ahead of me for a good 2-2.5 minutes as I found my climbing legs.

On the descent, I caught up to my previous travelling partner but couldn't hold him as the larger group of faster riders overtook me again. This was the last I saw of them as the weather began to close as I approached Peebles and then headed along a river valley to Innerleithen and Clovenfords where I turned north to head back up towards Edinburgh for the last 30 miles or so up the A7.

The wind was a struggle but I managed home in 8hours 50 with 7hours 50 travelling time at a 15.9mph average. Most of this was by myself so I was pleased with this and enjoyed the majority of the ride though it was a shame not to have more company. It turned out I was over 30 mins ahead of the next rider so the difference in pace was quite significant.

I shall be attempting about 190 miles this weekend, while enjoying my work annual ball on Saturday night and the Rugby on Saturday afternoon - it's a hard life! As if to add to the challenge, I've got to go and find some furniture for the flat as well.

No rest for the wicked!

Bristol-Gloucester-Monmouth-Chepstow-Bristol (A hilIier alternative!)

Firstly, well done Matt for having the balls to appear on live radio! Must have been a fairly nerve-wracking experience but you sounded good matey!

This week training has been somewhat limited as I had a wedding to go to. Congratulations to Chantal and Doug! Twas a very nice day!
I did a couple of turbo-training sessions mid week, and thought that I’d better make up for the lack of training this week by putting in a tough ride today. I was partly spurred on by the fact that Matt was going to do an extremely hilly 200km event so I altered my Gloucester-Monmouth-Chepstow circuit to make it hillier and longer. No events available to enter today so it was going to be a lonely ride!

Essentially the first leg from Bristol to Gloucester was fairly similar, though I navigated my way around the lanes rather than time-trialling along the A38. This turned out to be a lovely route, stolen from an Audax event I did a couple of months ago. The route goes via such places as Littleton On Severn, Olbury on Severn, Berkely, Slimbridge and Framton on Severn. Although windy, these lanes are reasonably flat and I averaged just under 17mph for the first 45 miles.

From Gloucester, the route was identical to my usual, going along the busy A40 before turning off left onto the A4136 to Monmouth. This bit is hilly and unfortunately I was riding right into a fairly stiff headwind. After the swoop down to Monmouth I had a choice, either to go along the A466 Wye valley road which I normally do, or cross the river and turn left along the A40 for a bit before picking up a hilly B road to Chepstow. I decided to do the latter and make the route tougher. About a third of the way along this road, between Mitchell Troy and Trellech, the is a long winding hill, the closest I have seen to an alpine ascent for a while! I remember cycling along this road in December, although I didn’t realise before I got on it today. Once over this the undulating road continued to Chepstow. From here it was a case of crossing the old Severn bridge and heading back to Bristol. I decided to take the lanes rather than the monotonous straight roads back through Avonmouth. Hillier but infinitely more interesting.

All in all, quite a testing route and a really nice day. Sunny, not too hot but very windy! 109 miles, averaging just under 16mph and a decent alternative to the usual loop.

28th February 2008 - BBC Radio Scotland - 10:15am

All listen in to Macaulay & Co on Thursday on BBC Radio Scotland at about 10:20am tomorrow - Matt is being interviewed together with recent Round-the-World Record Breaking Cyclist Mark Beaumont!

I shall be sure to get plenty of tips!!

Lancashire Bike Exchange and Four Seasons in a Day

It was a hectic one this weekend, with a meeting arranged with my parents to exchange bikes around Lancaster (about halfway between Glasgow and Hereford). After Christmas, my Dad (my perennial mechanic - thank you Dad!!) had decided that my training bike needed a bit of a sprucing up and had kindly taken it upon himself to do this (knowing fine well I'm incompetent!)

So this midway meeting was arranged so that my folks could take my racing bike and I return with my training bike. It also coincided with their wedding anniversary - congratulations all round!

So we had a pleasant lunch and catch-up before we went our separate ways again.

Sunday then required a longer ride having had Saturday "off". So on Saturday night I sat down and planned a route to the North over the Campsies through Callander, up the A85, left onto the A84 to Crianlarich and then South along the A82 and the bonnie bonnie banks of Loch Lomond and back into Glasgow.

I've decided to call this ride "The Three Cs" - Callander, Crianlarich and Clydebank! The route profile included a long climb out of Lennoxtown followed by a windy descent down to Kippen with stunning views back to the South. A nice bit of flat through to Callander and then a shallow climb to Lochearnhead. Having experienced glorious sunshine to this point, it started to rain in a pleasant springlike way. Shortly after this, while descending at a heady 30+mph, the sleet and freezing rain started. At this point it would have been fairly easy to locate me - simply following the cries of "Ow,ooh,AArgh, B*******d, ow..." and other choice expletives as my face and body were pounded by the freezing winter weather.

This soon disippated however on the long climb up Glen Ogle, followed by a sharp descent and a headwind to Crianlarich. The last time I was in Crianlarich was about 10 years ago following a 100mile day in the course of Andy Kitchen's and my End-to-End adventure so it quite interesting to see it again. It's a tiny wee one-horse kind of town with a train line and beautiful views across the valley to the southern Highlands.

I stopped for a five-minute breather here, having covered 68.5miles in 4hrs 25 mins. I knew there was a short climb out of town and then a long descent to Loch Lomond and then a (pretty-much) pan-flat 45-50 mile ride back home.

I totalled 124.75 miles in the end (just shy of 200km) and averaged 15.9 mph - a speed I was very pleased with.

More than that though, this was an amazingly enjoyable ride. The scenery around Glasgow is simply breathtaking and to be able to ride around for the best part of 8 hours with a smile on your face is something special. It's pretty odd to be cycling on an A road which is so narrow cars can't overtake you if something is coming in the other direction - but that's what it's like - so quiet and peaceful and with stunning scenery to boot! I'm a lucky chap to have all this on the doorstep (admittedly most people wouldn't think that riding 125 miles to enjoy this is lucky, or even sane, but I'm odd!).

Big thanks go to my Dad for sorting out me bike - it rides like a dream (and seemingly goes quite fast too!) and to my Mum for putting up with him being in the garage fixing me bike!

The picture (for those of you interested) is taken between Fintry and Kippen looking South West at about 10:00am - doesn't do it justice, mind!

Gospel Pass 160km and Dunkery Dash 102km

Firstly, I'd like to second what Matt said, and say a big thank you to everybody who has sponsored us and helped us raise £1000 so far. This is really motivating us to train hard!

Following on from Thursday's hilly 65 miles, I decided to make it a weekend of hilly events:

Saturday's "Gospel Pass" 100 mile event started at 8am in Chepstow, just over the bridge from me, and headed out to Hay on Wye, Abergavenny and back to Chepstow. The first 30 miles was fairly undulating but the fun started after Hay on Wye. After turning off the main road you head into the Black Mountains and over the Gospel Pass. This is the second highest road in Wales going up to 582m. You really wonder where you're heading as the route becomes single-track and just goes on and on! Once up the top the wind was unbelievable. It was hard keeping upright, several times the gusts nearly blew me off the road. Even the downhills needed constant pedalling just to keep moving. It was here, apparently, that Gerald of Wales preached the Third Crusade in medieval times. Once over the top, the wind died down for some very impressive views of the Black mountains. After Abergavenny, the route was very undulating ending with an 8km drag to Chepstow. Somehow I managed to average 15mph with 2500m of uphill.

Sunday's route started in North Petherton, near Bridgwater. Basically an out and back route heading out to Dunkery Beacon in Exmoor National Park. This event included 1300m of climbing including about 2 miles at 18% before the long drag up Dunkery Beacon. Just when I thought it couldn't go on for much longer, the control loomed into sight on the top - a 4x4 with horsebox! I took this opportunity to scoff some delicious home-made bread pudding and spiced apple cake. I did this route in just over 4 hours. It certainly wasn't a dash! My legs really ached today but I managed to climb the hills strongly. The first bloke back did it in under 3 and a half hours which is impressive for that distance, especilly over that terrain.

So I've clocked up 227 miles this week with a serious 4000m of climbing. With 4 months to go, this is looking hopeful!