The Sunday Training Ride

An unofficial ride was also planned for Sunday, to remind us about what getting up the next day & back in the saddle. Ouch. The battle pants obviously help a great deal, but still.......

With just the two of us, we set off just after breakfast(ish) with the aim of being at Nik's MIL over a Rottingdean in a couple of hours. Although not as knowledgeable with the trails, I seemed to have recognised some of the ups from the South Downs Way ride last September. Oh yes, how familiar they were. Thankfully, with the first stage of the ride ending at the coast, alot of down soon followed. 13 Miles & a piece of cake followed with chips on the beach with the family. Luverley.
A straight forward flat ride back along the undercliff, plus running the gauntlet with Brighton's standstill Sunday traffic, a long steady incline north plus the obligatory steep ending. All done. 50.02 miles over the two days. Need to do more...

The Saturday Training Ride...

Circuit training after effects ruined most of the rest of last week for me, I was OK, except for stairs and getting up, so Pilate's was fun, after 4 flights of stairs.

Thursday night I bailed out of the planned ride as my legs were still smarting, and I was saving myself for the weekend.

So the training ride, how did that go? Well James and family arrived shortly before midnight on Friday, so obviously a couple of glasses of wine and a catchup, and it was far too late all too quickly. Still the children woke us up at 6am so that was fine.

Ollie and Roger arrived at the allotted time after Ollie had used a can of GT85 getting his front mech moving the night before. Off we set only a few scant minutes behind schedule, blue skies sunshine and more GPS navigation equipment than a military operation.

The plan was 37miles 4500ft climbing, taking in Devils Dyke, Lewes, Rottingdean, Stanmer Park and back to Brighton.

So we did Devils Dyke, then down my 'cheeky descent' off the downs near new timber, well last time it was fun, it would appear the winter has been unkind to that trail, still only the navigator went over the bars so everyone was happy.

and on along SDW to black cap, nice cruise down to Offham and into Lewes, however not at all on schedule, 1 puncture, 1 seized front mech, 1 dodgy knee all factors I guess.

At this point Roger disappears to meet his SO for lunch and the 4 become 3. I offer to cut the route short and am persuaded to keep cutting until we go pretty much straight home, although we still have to get over the Ditchling Road, from there however it is downhill all the way to the pub. not all bad. 27 miles, 3150ft climbing, not a bad ride, but still light compared to St Bees to Ambleside at 37 miles and nearly 6000ft of climbing.

That'll do for now or I'll never make it to work tomorrow..

Right that's circuit training off the list.

Well I said I'd give it a go. No one told me there was running involved, bikes made running obsolete surely. All that lunging and sweating, not pleasant. It took me back to school and not in a good way either, in a big echoey hall, with someone shouting instructions. It made me realise one of the reasons I like mountain biking so much is the lack of structure, discipline etc. you just do it, and if you do it more you get better, to a point. But mainly because it makes me smile more than it makes me grimace, and there's shiney kit to drool over. Rather than just drooling because you;ve done too many squat thrusts and push ups.

I pick up my bike tomorrow with shiney new SLX brakes fitted, now thats exciting. Oh yeah and I've started a Pilates class on wednesdays, much more 'brighton'.

I must start booking accomodation for May too, looks like youth hostels all the way, apparently youth isn't a requirement, which is lucky. Nearest one to the start is Ennerdale, which is 10 miles into the route, not sure what to do about that. hey-ho as Joey, Deedee, Johny and Tommy used to say, let's go.

James' thoughts

Since Nik has kindly set this whole shebang up, I really should consider adding some comments.

As the least experienced rider among the pack, I head towards this adventure with a weird mixture of enthusiasm,apprehension & concern.
Reading about others' circuit training, club rides & the like, sort of pales my 4.5 mile each way flat road commute into some sort of insignificance. Whilst it might help with reducing my 'Christmas Tyre' (not that sort), it certainly doesn't improve my ability of being able to breath at the top of some unpleasant incline.

Hardware wise, I have taken steps to decrease the likelihood of wheels vanishing beneath me, the puncture fairy & the lack of braking in the wet. A pair of chunky tyres, tubes made from shoe leather, & a cheap set of disc brakes have come my way & are now installed.
A trial ride out yesterday presented me with road, deep sticky mud, puddles, and still some frozen snow. Bike seemed to behave well, although brakes needed adjusting as the travel at the brake lever increased over the ride. I put this down to a mixture of maybe not tightening the cable clamp sufficiently, new cable stretching and/or pads bedding in. Either way, its such a luxury of not having to worry about whether I will hit the tree trunk or not on my way down a track.

I have this feeling that Nik's training ride this weekend, is going to be more of a shock treatment, beneficial only to get us out there more frequently & to up the intensity of the terrain we experience. I am sure he wont be disappointed.

James

The story so far...

Last year, myself and James cooked up a plan for 2009, we were going to do a challenge in what would be our 40th year, James being only 4 days my junior. It was to be slightly different to the way we spent our 21st back in our student house. This time there would be wheels involved and probably less alcohol.


So what to do, there's a world of opportuinity out there, organised events you can opay the money and sign up for. none of them seemed quite right. I've wondered about doing the coast to coast (C2C) many times, and an article in What Mountain Bike last year reawakened that interest. I discussed it with James and he agreed it sounded interesting.


We then roped Paul, Roger and Ollie in to our not very sacred quest. Now at this point the details were a bit sketchy, about a week, about 200 miles, St Bees to Robin Hoods bay. Great, smashing super.


So I started doing some research, and poring over the maps, re-reading articles, buying Tim Woodcocks C2C booklet and realising there isn't a definative C2C mountain bike route. There are as many routes as there are people that have done it. So with the restriction of 1 week for ride and getting to and from the end points. I made one up, a hybrid (mongrel?) of the various inputs, then changed it, then changed it back again.


Now by this time Jacky and Karen had volunteered (?!) to be the support team, driving around the north of englands finest tea rooms occassionally fetching the odd inner tube, was their interpretation, more of this later no doubt.


So to set a date, near the end of May seemed like a good chance of reasonable weather (or is that a reasonable chance of good weather?), the week before Spring Bank Holiday and half term, so the touristy bits should be relatively quiet.


So the date is set, the route is set, everyone is signed up. As 2009 dawned, so did the realisation that the lake district, the pennines, the yorkshire moors all had a certain degree of altitude in places, that would have to be gained and lost repeatedly, although the net result of C2C is zero, I'm guessing it may feel different.


I started going out with the brightonmtb group on Thursday nights, Pilates on a Wednesday, and spending quality time on the downs or the turbo trainer in between as time and weather allows.

Roger and Ollie are doing circuit training every Tuesday, James is ramping up his commuting miles, and I know Paul is already as fit as a butchers dog, and with Glentress on his doorstep he should be getting the miles in too, although I've not heard anything from North of the border for a few weeks.


Next week 21st will see the first group training ride, with James down for the weekend, myself, Roger and Ollie all getting together for a hack over the downs, unfortunately it;s a bit far for Paul to make it. I've a fun route planned with lots of climbing to emulate a day in the lakes, although our hills are littler we'll have to go up and down a lot.

The Longest Journey begins with a single blog

Well this is where the blog begins. 3 months and 5 days from the appointed start of our 5 man crusade to cycle completely supported offroad (except when we don't fancy it) from St Bees to Robin Hoods Bay.