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!

£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.