Scotland (for) The Brave

It seems Scots go to Mexico for their holiday. This year, some have been bringing back Swine Flu in their suitcases. As luck would have it, The family and I are off to Edinburgh tomorrow to visit Jacky and Paul before their impending move to Sheffield. Paul is due to take delivery of his new bike this weekend, and is keen to get it dirty as soon as possible. He has arranged for us to go to someplace called Glentress, a name that gets proper mountain bikers all sweaty with excitement. I hope to get a bunch of real riding under the training belt. Apparently Nik is jealous. Have finally got the family YHA membership sorted, and now need to concentrate on clothing/kit. (Mental note, get keyboard replaced. dodgy C key getting annoying.)
Shall report back next week.
James

Well I made it to Beachy Head

Sun is shining and 100 miles behind me. Looking forward to bath and bed tonight. I'll sort the blog out tomorrow, probably.

Sandwich stop

Loking south-west to the lovely newhaven. Climbed up from south-ease station nearly at firle beacon. Saw Karen and the girls near ditchling beacon, that cheered me up no end. Only 20 miles left.

1st checkpoint reached

Devils Dyke 12 miles down. 40 to go. Felling stronger today. Even waking at 4am freezing cold in the tent. I may need a new sleeping bag or more clothes if I do tis again! Beautiful day. Overheating ad sunburn could be a problem. I think I've swaeted off the sun cream now.

GPSed Track "sdw day 1 again"

View my new track "sdw day 1 again" started in United Kingdom, England, Portsmouth.

Powered by GPSed.com - Free Mobile GPS Tracking Service

GPSed Track "SDW-day 1"

View my new track "SDW-day 1" started in United Kingdom, England, Southampton.

Powered by GPSed.com - Free Mobile GPS Tracking Service

2 Days until the SDW for me...

So the idea for this week was gentle excercise, eat well, early nights to prepare for the weekend.

OK, it's 10 to 11 and I'm blogging the fact I haven't gone to bed, I've done no exercise except Pilates this week, and the chips and curry sauce last night were lovely. I need to be in Winchester for 8am on Saturday. So tomorrow night I have to put a new cassette and chain on the bike, find my sleeping bag and rollmat, pack my gear for 2 days riding and one night camping. Charge the batteries, go to be and get up at 6 on Saturday and drive to Tesco's on the edge of Winchester.

To be honest apart from the forecast for rain after it's been beautiful all week, I'm starting to fret about it. I want to be confident that I've done it before and I've been doing loads of riding over the last few months, probably more training than I've ever done for anything since I left school. 

Still it'll be all over on Sunday night, when I get dumped back in that Tesco's car park to drive back to Brighton. Sunday will be hard, riding within 3 miles of home and carrying on to eastbourme, not looking forward to that bit at all.

Anyway night all.

Sunday Training Ride Experiment

This should show my tracked ride, it also showed a live track earlier but the GPS got confused and thought I'd gone to Royal Tunbridge Wells at 175 mph! It was going so well too.What I actually did was 41miles, just over 4000ft of climbing and 4 quorn scotch eggs.

clicky linky thing

Quick update on t'weekend

Well, I managed to get the bike together and went out with the brightonmtb crowd and as you can read managed to fall off a log (pretty easy) and bumped into a tree,  worst damage to ego though. It did however mean that riding my bike hurt my wrist particularly when braking (hence bumping into a tree). So I spent the weekend off the bike, until Monday morning when the turbo got another outing (inning?). Back to work today and another session tonight. I think I'm going to have to get a fan or start riding in the real world though as the conservatory is starting to get warmer with the season. 

The Route in Pictorial Form

View C2C4U2C Route in a larger map

Better up the pace a tad

Realising its getting a bit close, I need to get out for some longer rides. Somewhat limited by time & stuff on Sundays, I opted for usual route & hopefully putting in some laps. Getting a little creative again with the return leg, managed to avoid repeat of course & even got a nasty ascent into the equation. 32 miles & just over 2000 ft of climing. Bizarrely more decent was logged.

Our five year old has just got going on two wheels, and now there is no stopping him, other than the occasional inconvenient wall & hedge. A visit to local skate area was arranged, Saturday morning, so all the sk8r kds were still in bed. An area of around 30m x 30m with a half pipe, some ramps & obstacles to practice steering around. (Note to self, ramps lethal when wet). I followed him around on my bike, a sort of follow-the-leader incentive etc etc. Forgot GPS was still tracking. Kind of pretty, dont you think?

Crikey not long now...

So I've been trying to keep my average up, although March seems to have been overrun with all sorts of reasons not to. I managed nearly 30 miles and 3000+ft on Sunday along the downs to Alfriston and rounded off with a nice lunch in the Singing Kettle, sounds like something out of Enid Blyton. Anyway, Tuesday night saw a turbo training session, see right me looking at my best, and tonight my more gentle Pilates class.

Tomorrow should see me out with BrightonMTB assuming I put my bike together again in time, my old forks are back on while the new(er) ones are off to tftuned for a service and my seatpost donated its clamp to a guy in Alfriston to allow him to sit down to Eastbourne, a luxury he'd not enjoyed since passing Brighton several hours earlier.

I've been tinkering with the route for months now, but I'm bored now so here are the figures:

Day 1 St Bees - Ambleside 38.5miles  6174ft

Day 2 Ambleside - Kirkby Stephen 36.1miles  5648ft

Day 3 Kirkby Stephen - Grinton 26.5miles  3572ft

Day 4 Grinton - Osmotherly 32.2miles  820ft

Day 5 Osmotherly - Glaisdale   33.2miles  4539ft

Day 6 Glaisdale - Robin Hoods Bay 24.9miles  2391ft

That's 191 miles and 23144ft of climbing (and presumably the same down). Now what the vital statistics work out as at the end who knows, the bad weather route for day 1 for example is over 40 miles, but a lot less climbing and all on tarmac. I plan to show the route on Google Maps just as soon as I can make sense of how to embed it in the html.

Oh and tubeless, should I or shouldn't I, I can't decide?

Give us yer money

A fairly unremarkable riding week, lighter evenings hopefully giving more riding opportunity with some more creative routes home.
I have, however, got my finger out, and sorted out the sponsorship page here
I am collecting for MacMillan Cancer Support, a worthy cause, particularly in supporting the families of those with cancer.
You are welcome to add a few pennies if you like.
If you want to gift aid, then please remember to put your full home address on the form too. This gives an extra 25p for each pound donated from the taxman!
This means, then, its 'No backout' time. Much to Nik's relief.
Sundays big ride didn't happen, for a number of reasons, but mainly due to it being really sunny, so pub lunch called.
I did, however manage 45 minutes out, with three laps of my local hill up & down. 931 feet, about 9 miles. I will attempt to go the other way round next time, as the fun steep decent ought really be used as a training ascent.
Backson. J