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!

£1,000!

Thank you very much to all the people who have sponsored us so far - on the 22nd February we have surpassed £1,000 in money pledged.

A heartfelt thanks from Ian and Matt and all those at CLIC Sargent and Macmillan Cancer Support.

Keep those pledges coming - the training is getting harder all the time, and it's really keeping us motivated!!

Matt and Ian

Tasty Cheddar Gorge

This week Evans Cycles have kindly offered us 10% off all cycling components and accessories from their stores.

Today I adapted the “Tasty Cheddar” 101km Audax, that starts near my house, to make it a little tougher. This is a fairly undulating route anyway but I thought I would stick a long, hard climb in right at the end to really hurt the old legs.

A very scenic route (scenic = hilly!) starting at my house, crossing the Clifton suspension bridge and cycling through the lanes to Clevedon and past the sea front. From Clevedon you get a fairly flat secton across the Somerset levels towards Weston- super-Mare, turning off to Winscombe. Powering along the lanes into a headwind, a very kind muck spreader driver decided to pull out in front of me, and being as wide as the lane I was stuck behind him enjoying the lovely aroma that was passing into my nostrils with every breath. Turning onto a wider road, and him travelling at around 15-20 mph, I decided I’d had enough of this and promptly shoved my bike into a big gear and powered past him, leaving him to drip “muck” all over the Somerset lanes.

On to Cheddar via the lovely little town of Axbridge. On joining the main road up Cheddar gorge, this time an open-top tour bus pulled out in front of me. He could have let me past but no, he had to go first and stop every time he came to a car coming the other way. Luckily he buggered off as the road started to climb and I could get into a comfortable rhythm without having to suck in lungfuls of diesel fumes. I climbed Cheddar gorge without any problems, feeling strong all the way up. At the top of Cheddar gorge, you fork left and then the fun starts, with some real short, sharp ups and downs before reaching Dundry and a very long climb up to the top. From here you can see the Clifton suspension bridge and both Severn bridges. Today I wasn’t interested in the views and continued back to Long Ashton and the long climb up to the top. At the bottom I passed some mountain bikers walking up and decided to go for it and ground my way up it. A fairly flat run in back to Clifton finished off a decent ride. 65 miles. A good warm up for some serious events at the weekend.

Holy Bouncing Bottles, Batman

Ah, the joys of cycling of a weekend - eating excellent (and plentiful) amounts of food to make up for it.

This weekend I intended to have two shorter rides and so on Saturday I went North over the Campsies which involved a good long climb out of Lennoxtown. Once over the hills I ended up heading towards Stirling on very flat (if exceptionally bumpy) roads. After about 2 hours I was rounding a bend and hit some especially poor terrain to feel my water bottle take a giant leap out of its cage and meet an untimely end on the tarmac. This left me with no drink, 3 hours of riding ahead of me and two ruddy big climbs. I confess I may have said a naughty word!

Fortunately about 8 miles up the road I hit a small village where I was able to replenish my water bottles. The remainder of the ride was uneventful apart from slow moving cars coming off the last hill of the day which took all the fun out of the descent and the exceptionally hairy ride into Glasgow past St Rollox shopping centre (you have to be in the outside lane of 3 on a 40mph limit or you end up on the M8 - this hence involves maintaining speeds of over 30mph for a considerable distance after having cycled 65miles).

So that was a good 71 miles on Saturday. Sunday was an uneventful and fairly flat ride along the National Cycle Route #7 to Irvine, through Paisley then I hung a left to Kilmarnock before dropping by Galston and back to the A77 and a welcome descent into Glasgow. It was 67 miles in all at a rapid 17.1mph but I felt pretty good and have had a darned good weekend all in all.

And some excellent news on the sponsorship and media front from Ian as you'll see from his latest blog too.

The Cotswold Corker 106km and Hereford (Climb on Bikes) 48 miler

Two good bits of news off the bike this week:
Firstly, Science in Sport (SIS) has kindly offered us 40% discount on energy supplements which is a great help because we will be going through a hell of a lot of it!
Secondly, the Bristol Evening Post published a three-quarter page article yesterday covering our plans to ride the Tour route. This can be found here.

Before I got to see the article in the paper, I was riding an extremely hilly event yesterday called “The Cotswold Corker” Audax. A 9am start in Cheltenham and the thermometer read -1C! This event involved 1900m of uphill in just over 100km. The route was very scenic and a real tester. Two 1 in 4 gradient climbs within the first 11km didn’t really allow for a decent warm-up and I had to work my way past several riders who had started off quite fast and then decided they couldn’t ride up the first hill. This was long and narrow with ice along both sides of the road and in the end I had to get off and walk as it was impossible to get past everybody. The second hill started with ice at the bottom so, after negotiating this, I made my way up to the top. The route passed through places such as Winchcombe, Stow-on-Wold, Chedworth, Daglingworth, Frampton Mansell, up another long, steep hill up to Andoversford, and then back towards Cheltenham. Hillclimbing must be improving because I didn’t struggle too much even on the steep ones!

Today I was in Hereford, and after staying with Matt’s parents, Chris and Paula, rode a hilly 48 mile ">route organised by a local bike shop:

I rode this event with Chris and a friend, Dave. At 9am the thermometer read -4C! This was fairly flat for the first 20 miles and we were flying along at just under 18mph average through places such as Bishops Frome and Ledbury, but the hills kicked in after half way with a nice 1 in 5 climb up from Hoarwithy where Paula, Kate and Dave’s wife Jane were waiting in a car to cheer us on! From then on it was very undulating to the finish back in Hereford. Unfortunately, I inadvertently dropped Chris and Dave, thinking they were in my group of riders and finished in just under 3 hours. I later found out that Dave had punctured. Including the ride to and from the start, this made the total up to 60 miles today. Chris and Dave rode well and have expressed interest in accompanying us on one or two stages in France! After yesterday’s efforts, my legs were beginning to complain towards the end of today’s ride but overall felt strong and averaged 17mph. This was followed by an excellent lunch around Dave and Jane’s.

A new county

Well it's taken me a while to update the blog from my ride at the weekend but I managed just under 112 on Saturday starting just after dawn and heading South on a new route which took me through Darvel, Sorn, Auchinleck, Cumnock and New Cumnock. This was all into a headwind (for a change) but I prefer to go out in to the wind to get the easy ride back.

I'd planned the route in advance on the old computer so I knew I had 2,700m of climbing to look forward to so tried to keep the old heartrate down as much as possible but with a couple of short sharp climbs in there it wasn't possible! I'm beginning to feel a bit better on the hills now and have found some longer hills as well.

Having passed through New Cumnock I then headed down into the valley of the River ???? and passed into Dumfries and Galloway (a county I had yet to cycle through in the course of training) which made me realise how far I'd gone!

It also represented the point at which I would shortly turn back to head with the wind. Travelling along the rolling A76 I wasn't feeling all too great and turning North with what should have been a healthy tailwind and struggling up the lower valley slopes of what I knew was a 13 mile climb was not inspiring. However, I soon picked up the wind and was whistling along at 20mph up the valley and the average was shifting up from a miserly 13mph to crest 14mph by the top of the valley and some more sharp climbing. I was now on known roads around Muirkirk and North to Starthaven and began to enjoy myself - except for feeling a little bit of the bonk at around 95 miles.

I stopped for some jelly beans purchased the previous evening from my freindly corner shop and I canhonestly tell you that I've never felt food work so fast. The sugar took about 30 seconds to kick in and I suddenly felt gloriously awake and ready to tackle the remaining 15-16 miles.

By the end of it all I had reached 15mph and had been going for nearly 7.5hours and felt really good (stupid endorphins confusing my body again!)

I managed to drag myself to an excellent Richard Hawley gig that evening though with Mark (and his parents) and partied into the wee small hours - I thought I'd earned it after all!

So a good ride all-in-all.

Two shorter rides this weekend as I'm having a "tapering" week (i.e. recovering by riding less - I've only done 2.5 hours on the turbo so far this week - it's been a joy!)

Till next time folks!

Malmesbury Mash 208km

This 130 mile Audax officially started near Cardiff and followed a figure of eight route through Chepstow, across the old Severn bridge to Malmesbury in Wiltshire, heading back via the old Severn bridge, Chepstow and Cardiff. As the route passed close to Bristol I decided to start it here and then follow it all the way round back to where I started. (We shall ignore the fact that I slept through my alarm and woke up at 7.10am, meaning I had no chance of getting to Cardiff for the 7.30am start!). I drove to Iron Acton (North Bristol) and was on the bike at 8.30am. I knew I had little chance of completing the route before sunset but luckily this bike has good lights.

The description of the route was “Only one big hill, a good early season trainer”. I don’t totally agree with this! There was a long drag out of Caerphilly and a few short, sharp climbs near Newport and on the way back from Chepstow to Malmesbury. Near Tytherington I was rapidly running out of water and thankfully came across a snack van parked along the A38, which was closing up for the day, but the lady in charge kindly sold me some Coke and water and this really helped! I was getting quite dehydrated by this point. The route, overall, was stunning and I will be using it again. I stopped to watch a spectacular sunset from the high spot between Hawkesbury Upton and Horton in Gloucestershire.

I got an answer phone message from a reporter from the Bristol Evening Post and, on phoning him back, was told that the paper is keen to publish an article about our Tour ASAP. This is great because the more coverage we can get, the better.

So far our sponsorship is up to £750.00 so thank you to everybody who has donated and please keep passing the word around. Powerbar have kindly offered us 30% off all their energy supplements as way of support.