"Hi there..thought I'd write my thoughts about the past two weeks from an 'old geezers' perspective (and yes 50 IS old folks..but not yet decrepitude!).
I wanted to do this ride to celebrate turning the big 5-0 a few weeks ago. We talked about it since the start of the year and Jane planned out a route for us and stops along the way. She's good like that. Little did I know just what following the CTC B&B route would involve! I might have had more incentive to input had I realised that scenic meant avoiding almost all the flat roads in the UK in favour of the rolling variety!!
Training was pretty minimal. The usual commute by bike through Clapham and along the embankment to and from work most days was about all I could squeeze in with work/business and children eating into planned rides. I did one London to Brighton and a couple of other mild 50-60 mile rides in the preceding 6 months. Jane and I cycled to Paris two weeks before the big event which I found OK but a good indicator of a lack of fitness on my part.
So when we began on Day 1 with a short ride from Penzance to Lands End I knew I was in for a hard two weeks as the hills were punishing my 16 stone frame with their gravity clawing angles of attack!
Panniers loaded with what I thought was a relatively small amount of stuff we set off properly on the Sunday and the job was on.
Jane has documented the trip well so I won't repeat it all. What I will say id that seeing her ahead of me every mile of the way was at times quite difficult to deal with.. she rode the climbs with relative ease whilst I wheezed and puffed and sweated buckets stomping the pedals or spinning in lowest gear if I could to crawl up gradients or push up the 20-30 degree monsters we encountered throughout the first few days.
Each morning my stomach would fill with twitchy butterflies at the thought of the distance and effort involved on that particular day. Once underway I could deal with the effort and Jane reassured me that just making the stops each evening was all that was required.
We had to hit our mileage each day regardless of weather, fatigue or unforeseen problems which put quite a lot of intensity into our travels..with some days of almost constant motion for 8 hours or more.
I did suffer with sore throats on more than one day..due to sucking in vast amounts of allergens no doubt..and I took paracetamol on a few occasions to dull the symptoms. Luckily nothing progressed to a cold. Knees (my weak point) didn't suffer any problems nor did wrists (I have had tendonitis in these in the past) which suggested my bike set up was good. I was conscious of protecting my knees on the way..I used a wrap around brace (maybe more for psychological comfort than anything else) but I was glad to have no real pain.
On the second big 100 mile ride, in the heat and barren hills east of Kendal I suffered a real crisis of confidence. I was really tired after a long 105 mile ride the day before and had empty legs. We had big rolling hills and 100 to do and I just couldn't see how I was going to make it after the first 25 miles... The rollocking I got from Jane would have been fitting from any Sergeant Major at Aldershot and slowly and painfully I dragged myself the distance with some music in my ears and a lot of daydreams to take my mind off the difficulty of turning the pedals..!
After that day I rode a pretty fast 100 to Edinburgh and once we hit that target I think we both felt we had largely cracked it..
However..expect the unexpected! We almost got caught out at the Cromarty (sic) ferry crossing in the highlands (it was broken and time was getting on before dusk with a detour of 35 miles to do before dark through hills,wind and cloud)..that was scary and probably one of the hardest rides I've ever done. I had to keep moving as fast as I could to make it over the hills to Bonnar Bridge..and this was compounded in difficulty as Jane was suffering from a tendon problem and was really in pain.
This injury hampered her normal high speed over the next two days and I was all to eager to use my bulk and new found fitness (yes..I got stronger quite rapidly after about 8 days) to shield her from the high winds we began to encounter at times, and through rain and mist along the coast to Wick and finally up to John O'Groats.
I finished with lots in the tank.. strong legs and about 7lbs of lost weight despite Full English brekkies each day..bike was OK but gears were prone to slipping quite often..(SRAM APEX) especially in the wet. I do my own maintenance so adjustment was easy but an irritation none the less. Front shift derailleur was most prone to problems changing from low to high with chain either not wanting to engage of jumping right off..
So..lessons to learn.
Train and eat well before hand. Drop weight from your body. Expect it to be hard work.. particularly if you must make predefined stops on route. You'll get hot, tired and wet en route and I got very saddle sore too! But if you keep pedalling and moving forwards..applying the chammy creme and keeping clean you'll make it like we did."
No comments:
Post a Comment