Orleton - Hardwick Hall - Sunday 2nd September

I slept well, and woke at the normal time. Full breakfast, can I have the works please, and straight on the road.

I was still tired, I could feel it in my eyes, but the first gentle downhill stretch cleared that, especially as I looked over to the right and saw the first and highest climb of the day. Turn right and start the climb up to Clee Hill. It is one of those long pernicious ones, just as you think it might give up, it is still there round the corner. The impression is not helped by it being two lanes, one each way, all the way to the top. I was going slowly enough to have a chat with a farmer, who told me I will heve earnt my breakfast by the time I got to the top, I agreed along with lunch and tea. Fortunatley this climb this soon after breakfast was not disturbing said breakfast.

The view back

There was a great view from the top, looking back from where I had come, and I road across the common on the top shouting at sheep to “STAY THERE” before a 40mph plus descent. Still having got to the top and feeling fine, I concluded I would get to the end of the day.

The day continued with an up and down theme. Rolling, but proper rolling, good long dragging ups and downs, not the short sharp stuff I prefer. There was really no change in scenery to report, other than Cannock Chase. Here there was trees and a good patch of heather, which was on anther 40mph downhill, so no stopping for a photo.

I did stop at a mountain biking place, off road trails, café, big car park etc. I rode in to curious looks on my skinny wheels. Ice cream and “can you fill my water bottle please” Sat in the sun eating my ice cream waiting to be asked where I had come from and wehre I was going, but sadly let down.

I did notice a change as I got into Derbyshire with stone walls starting to replace hedges. Odd how quickly it happens. I was thinking this as I came across a cow looking over one of the walls. We had a chat about this and that, and I took her photo.

80 miles in seems to be about the time when I begin to feel the ride, my body says it has had enough now, but some extra food and water along with easing back for a bit seems to help. This break point is either going to get further out or come earlier, and either could happen

Finally I saw a sign for Hardwick Hall, my destination. Denise had been at the house there for the afternoon, and as I had done the 100+ miles I text her and asked if she could meet me at the bottom of the mostly uphill 3 mile drive. She did, for which I thank her.

 

Home to Orleton - Saturday 1st September

 

 

 

 

As I write this I am tired. It is 8.15pm and I would like to go to bed to sleep.

 

The day started easy enough. It was quite odd leaving home just after 8.30am and riding out on the same old roads, but in the knowledge that I wasn’t coming home today, or for the next week. A nice cross tail wind pushed me on over the flat of the levels, and to the Mendips.

 

I had decided to take the Sustrans cycle route option, so part way up the first rise onto the Mendips I pulled off left onto the disued railway line now a cycle cum walking route the Strawberry Line. In reality it is mostley used for dog walking, and as it was Saturday morming there was a few of those to negitate my way past. After turning off the road there is a light rise up the valley and tehn a short tunnel. I concentrated on the pools of reflected light in the water and watched them closer. There are raised reflectors in the floor, just a single line of them, but you need a torch to light them up. I didn’t, it was dark, I hit them one after another. I couldn’t do that if I tried.

The surface of the path is generally good, no tarmac, but a hard consolidated surface with grit on top. Not at Congresbuey though, where you slide 400 yards on mud and puddles. I meet a family coming the other way here. Father at the front, guiding the young daughter on the bike. Mother behind with the trailer, full of young child. Why do they do that? He should have the trailer. I told her she should have a medal, I heard him ask what I had said, and a triumphant reply as she shouted “I should have a medal!”

 

After Yatton it was on the road, and I realised quite how heavy and slow the cycle track had been and for the same energy how much faster I was for the same effort. New roads now, and up the Gordano valley. This was odd. I knew the motorway was high up above me, I could hear it, but only quietly. Then it was there, above me, the elevated section on concrete legs, houses tucked close under. Quite surreal.

 

 

Onward, crossing the main road by the Gordano motorway services, but I was in control. Pressing that singel button, changing the lights red, and I was safely across, and onto a now redundant section of road and the hill down to Pill. The hill was a great descent, so much so that I missed the turn, and deciding not to go back up I tracked round to the River Avon and was rewarded by my mistake with a view of the Avonmouth bridge carrying the motorway over the river. I was going up there. Through some uninspiring housing estates and onto a path, a quick dodge of a runner and some dog walkers and there I was, going against the flow of the south bound traffic, riding a track which I have only seen I moped rider on. Ambition for the day ticked off.

 

 

The sustrans route continues through green areas to the back of housing, the GPS convinced that I was on the road, finally I restarted its tracking and it was back with me, Turning left to go over the motorway for the 5^th and 6^th time in the day I was on my way to Avonmouth and the industrial joy that I recall from 20+ years ago. The sutrans route through picks its way through, yes there are the back of buidlings and car parks, but the path is wide, and there is a river, only marred by some fly tipping, This was really quite nice. Picking up the road, I stayed on my cycle path and then back through reclaimed land around an incinerator. It was really quite pleasant.

 

In Severn Beach I was caught up by another cyclist, he was turning back to Bath. The only rider to catch me all day. That said I only caught two others, one who promptly turned off! I saw loads of cyclists going the other way though, mostly men, and loads of runners, mostly women. It seems to be a pattern.

 

Then it was onto the old Severn Bridge. I stopped half way across: my it bounces, and not just when a car/lorry goes past.

 

Chepstow, and the second cyclist to be caught climbing up from the river. My does it go up, steep and then seemingly forever. I must say after this it all is something of a blur. The hours ticked by quickly. I don’t get bored on my own, not on new roads. There is too much to do, mind that car, which way next, was that a place to stop to take a picture, how long is this hill, saying hello to cows, sheep, telling dogs to shut up.

 

Still Leominster came and went and it was 6 miles to go, no more turns on the sat nav, and as I came to the B&B Denise was outside realdy with camera and a sleeping dog. I was pleased it was over. The first half was flat traffic free but heavy going, the second hilly and with cars. Still at least the wind was with me.

 

Tomorrow is another day, and I am off to bed. Recovery is what I need.

I'm off again!

So here we are once more, you may have come across this blog through one on the links out there on various websites, or, and most likely, the fact that I sent you a link inviting you to have a look to see what madcap plan I have embarked on again.

The plan is made and the time is nigh. Actually this is plan B. Plan A was to ride up the west coast of Scotland, Gretna to Cape Wrath, round all the crinkly bits. Lovely yes, but potentially very wet and windy for a week, and Denise would be sat there in the car waiting for me with two dogs and the mother-in-lawn with not much else to do but breath in the smell of two wet dogs whilst wiping condensation from the windows. This plan will need to be revisited in the form of staying in a cottage with bike and going out on a bike ride for a couple of days.

 

Plan B then came into operation. I am going to cycle to Scotland whilst Denise and entourage follow, drive on ahead and wait at National Trust type places. They have somewhere warm to wait for me, and can mist up the car with cups of tea and stuff.

 

It isn’t really that far to Scotland, or Pirlochry in fact, so the route is a somewhat of a wiggle up the country. The challenge is to ride 100miles or more daily for 8 days, so I will in fact be cycling the equivalent of Land’s End to John O’Groats, but cutting out the hilly bit of Cornwall and Devon, and going somewhere different. I will be cutting across the SEWN up ride a couple of time and plan to stay in the same B&Bs twice. Mostly though it is totally new roads, and one day that may well be epic (for epic read painful) in the northern Pennines.

 

Yes, I feel grossly unprepared, but I’ll be fine once I get into the rhythm of 7 to 8 hour days of cycling, or grinding it out as it is likely to become.

 

There is no intention to take any money off of anyone this time, but will be accompanied again by a bee, who may well feature on the pics. As some car drivers are not that kind to cyclists, and L E Bee will be riding shot gun in the car, with me on the bike will be his dangerous cousin, Hepatitis B.

 

So Saturday morning the flag will drop and I will wander off up the back lane, join me sometime Saturday evening (wifi permitting) to see how the day went, and where I’ve been.

 

Thank you.

 

Greg

Hello 2012

Well hello, I’ve been away from a while - not much to say really, just ticking over. The second half of last year was just a few Audax’s and a plan for 2012. I enjoyed my All SEWN up ride, and in discussion, somewhat to my surprise did Denise as she drove around as support and general source of encouragement. I imagined that she would be bored waiting for me, but it seems that I forgot the 100 miles can take 3 hrs or so to drive off main roads, and by the time you have lunch, shop for food and walk the dog, the day goes quickly.

So a plan was hatched to go the Gretna and cycle up the west coast of Scotland in 7 days. This is feasible, and lovely scenery given the weather. Ah the weather, Scotland is not known for heady days of sun, blues skies and calm winds, and rarely all at once. Also Denise was more likely to have to sit and wait in the rain, albeit in the car, with a wet cold dog.

So an amended plan is hatched, and remains the current plan, to cycle from home to Scotland for a week, and then stay for a week in a cottage. The challenge is to do a minimum of 100 miles a day, for 8 days. Now it is ‘only’ 860 for the end to end going direct, so there is going to have to be a bit of winding my way north. But what route? Well I tend to like to cycle to something, so the basic plan is to work the National Trust membership hard and ride between NT properties, giving me a target and Denise somewhere to park the car, walk the dog and have a tea shop to hand. I do also fancy riding over the Humber Bridge (and why not), into the North York Moors National Park, and of course into the Yorkshire Dales, whilst remembering riding into the Dales coincided with my worst day on the SEWN up ride.

This plan hatched lead to a prolonged period off the bike due to that viral cough thing that seemed to do the rounds this winter. It hung on for weeks, I felt better, did a short ride, cough came back and turned into a mild chest infection. So antibiotics and more time off the bike. So overall I am around 500miles behind last years mileage at this time. Still I have only this ride in September and the Dartmoor Classic to prepare for this year.

So I continue to steadily build back up to backing up 4 hrs rides. On the way to this has been the Dunkery Dash on the 11^th of March which remains hilly, but with better weather this year. Finished in the first 15 of 106 riders on the day so pleased with that.

Last weekend was the Exmoor Spring Colours from Porlock. We started up the toll road which turns out to be about 6 miles of up, followed by a bit of flat some steep down and another almightily up. The theme tuned in we carried on up and down. Sarah and I were in the front 10, but at the second stop food became necessary, so we stopped for a sandwich, oh alright, a mighty wedge of bread with home made fish fingers. We lost 20 mins but only maybe 6 places and rode on. My body decided that it had not recovered and had not sorted out my blood suger levels. Sarah was riding strongly and lead the 4 other males riders off up the steady gradient of the river valley from Dulveton to Dunster. I couldn’t hold the pace and let go and rode at my own pace. I rode the last 25 miles on my own, to my surprise I wasn’t caught up riders from behind, and Sarah told me I was only 5 mins behind them in front. That said she had drunk her tea and eaten the cream scones before I got back. I was happy with my place and overall time of 4hrs for 65 miles & 4700 miles of climbing. I had doubted my ability to finish at about 20 miles to go, but persuaded myself to keep going and the slower pace helped.

Next audax is the Merry Monk which is another 65 miler. This time it is a ride out and back job too, so it should be about 95 miles on the day. The food after this audax is legend, last year I ate cake and then had crumble and custard. I am very much looking forward to more crumble.

10 Hints and tips for LEJOG or JOGLE

Here are my hints and tips, bearing in mind that I am not a coach, and am commenting only from my experience and in the spirit of cycling comradeship. So what’s my experience? I have been riding my bike since 8, and when I was 13 it really developed into the way to get around. When I was 18 I did my first end to end, solo with tent, stove and all. The bike weighed 35Ilbs and the load was 40Ilbs. I didn’t walk a step! There was dip when I got my first car at 22, but it recovered in my late 20s, and I now have over 82,000 recorded miles since 1982.

I am told I am a good club cyclist, and you know from this blog I did the End to End the long way last year. I did it on my own with a support car. I did 1353 in 16 days being 13 full days and 3 half days. It rained on 13 days. I enjoyed it immensely, even when it hurt. I wasn’t ever tired as such, but deeply fatigued at the end which took about 3 weeks to recover from. Yes I would do it again. Why not?

Generally I do sportives, and shorter Audaxs. The longest I have done is 5 yrs ago and was 330m in three days (tour of Wessex), with the last day 130 mile with 8000ft of climbing. Took 8 hrs, the whole 330 was 20000ft climbing in 20hr45mins. Did it again the year after. I’ve done the Dartmoor Classic three times, and will do it again, best was 105m in 6h45m with 9000ft of climbing on Dartmoor. First finisher was 5h42, slowest was over 10 hrs. Oh and I am 45 and a half years old. The photo on Twitter is me at the top of the highest point of the 330, with 65m left to go, and with a tail wind :-)

1 Training:

I think it is common to think that ’you’ haven’t done enough training. That said I think the reason why so many people do the end to end is that it is attainable by ordinary people, its just a case of how long/easy. The more training you do the easier you will find the ride and the more you will enjoy it. If you are a regular cyclist then it really is a case of extending the rides, and backing them up. I build up in half hour steps. So maybe 2.30hr on sat, 2hr on Sun, and a couple of 1 to 1.5hr during the week, these can be faster rides. Then step up the weekend rides 30mins at a time until you can comfortably back up 4 and 4 sat to sun.

The general advice is don’t try to increase your mileage by more than 10% at a go, listen to your body. If it hurts it is trying to tell you something, stiff and sore muscles is different to painful knees and joints. If they continue to hurt then get someone who knows to check your position, cleats, saddle height etc.

2 Hills:

Learn to love hills, there will be a few on the way, so you may as well love them as otherwise your going to spend a lot of time being miserable. Use the gears on the bike to allow you to spin up the hills, then over time, try and ride one gear higher than is comfortable. This will help you build strength. Don’t choose a big gear and grind up the hill. You don’t go at a steep hill in 5^th gear in a car, it really labours, your body is the same.

3 Rest:

Is as important as training. Slowly increase the hours over 3 weeks then back off for a week, then pick up again, doing a bit more than the first week. Also take days off during the week. Exercise stresses the body, the recovery period allows it to grow. If you don’t rest, you will overtrain, go backwards and ultimately get ill. So give it a rest too.

4 Kit:

A bike that you are comfortable with is a necessity. Get someone to help you with your position. After that I would advise proper padded shorts, stiff soled cycling shoes which are either clipless, or use top straps. There is loads of choice, you don’t need to have racing shoes and walk like a duck. The recreational shoes set the cleat (the bit on the shoe) in a recess so you can walk normally.

I don’t generally use any sort of chamois cream in my shorts. Keep your contact points with the saddle clean, and clean shorts everyday. Use non bio washing powder least the bio part of the bio is not rinsed out fully and it starts to digest your cheeky bits. On the end to end after four days of rain I got a bit sore from being wet all the time so got some sudocream (look in the baby section, they use it for nappy rash) which I applied, and no more problems.

Otherwise dress to stay warm in the rain, but don’t overheat. A raincoat wide open as it is now not raining will simply slow you down and use energy. Take it off.

If you get cold then your body will use energy keeping warm, not moving forward. I’ve seen people abandon rides as they got cold and miserable. Stay warm, even if wet, and don’t ride with your clothing acting like a parachute slowing you down. Bus shelters are a great place to shelter in poor weather.

Take tyre levers and a couple of tubes with you daily and consider taking a spare tyre and oil to keep the bike moving after the wet.

5 Eating:

On the ride eat! Eat today, for today and for tomorrow. Eat within 30mins of stopping and make it carbs with some protein. 80/20% is good. Then eat again within 2 hrs. This is because your body is most ready to replenish itself immediately after stopping and will really put it away, after two hours this tails off. Eat whilst riding, and eat before you are hungry.

Your body carries enough glycogen for about 2hrs of exercise, less if it is intense. You can improve this by becoming fitter and hence more efficient, which means training your body to run more off it’s fat stores. But you also need to feed it during the ride to keep the glycogen in the muscles up. If you don’t feed it you will bonk (cycling term) or hit the wall, if you are a runner.

Food that I carry is Frusli bars (cheaper than the ‘special’ energy bars) and I use PSP to drink, but I use the unflavoured as it is cheaper and you can flavour it yourself with squash if you want. I keep a few power gels in case of need. I also ate quite a lot of cake on my end to end!

Also drink before you are thirsty. Get into the habit of drinking, and target maybe a bottle every two hours, more if it is hot. Giving yourself a target will make sure you drink it.

Continuing on the food theme. At some point you may feel awful, in a kind of general crapness. This is ok. DO NOT PANIC. Slow down and eat and drink. Your body will come back to you, but will need a little time, so treat it gentle and be nice to it.

6 Head:

Believe that you will do this ride and complete it. At the same time don’t think of it all at once in case of overwhelming yourself with the challenge. Break it down into blocks, days, villages, turnings, hours, summits, lamp posts if need be. Make them achievable, but always believe. It is not IF you do it, simply how long. Do not allow your head to give in. If there is a group of you, you can help each other, just be aware that you may need to. Be aware that as you all begin to tire, your moods may well become affected and you may say things that none of you might normally say or indeed mean. Cut each other some slack and look after each other, both on the road and emotionally. As I said it is achievable, but it is hard, and that is what makes it worth it. If it was easy, they’d all be doing it.

If there is a group of you, you can also help with taking turns riding into the wind. Give it 5 mins each and you only need to be there twice in an hour which is maybe 10 to 12 times a day. Easy huh?

7 Gearing:

My general advice would be to start on cog bigger than you would normally ride, let the legs spin a bit, rather than push on. As the days go on you will find you have much reduced power anyway, so you may have to drop the gears. I ride 53/39 on the front and 13/27 on the rear and I can get up most hills on that. If you are laden with kit you will need lower. Many people now ride with a compact chainset on the front which gives a much lower spread of gears. Just remember as the days go on you will lose power in your legs.

8 Route:

Routes are available from various sources including the CTC and

http://www.pewseys.co.uk/ . 

The GPX files for my All SEWN up #lejog is at: https://sites.google.com/site/gregcycle/gpx-files-for-the-all-sewn-up-tour

I would recommend that you stay off the main roads, especially if there is a group of you. I never fail to be amazed when I come across cyclists on dual carriageways and many A roads. On my lejog I picked direct minor roads, rarely anything bigger than a B road. Google Earth and its Street view are great for looking ahead at roads.

My main suggestion is that north of Inverness that you consider following the Sustrans route 1. It is pretty direct and on tracks beside the main road and then close to but off the A9. When driving back from JOG we saw cyclists on the A9 in amongst the cars, whereas there is no need.

9 The Start/Finish

I am convinced that the start/finish at John O’Groats is not the car park and sign post but is at the lighthouse at Duncansby head. If you don’t get there, the other pointy end, then I am not convinced you have done the full route.

10 Apps

I would recommend the free rainy days app, so you can at least see where the rain is and which way it is going. Google earth streetview is great for looking at roads in advance to see if they should be avoided.


Websites include http://www.raintoday.co.uk/ for where the rain is now and an indication of where it is going, and for wind see http://www.xcweather.co.uk/ 

Well I hope that has helped, I don’t know what your knowledge level or experience is, so sorry if you have found it patronising. I do believe you can do it if you want to. Do remember to enjoy it on the way, and anything hard or difficult is just part of the experience. My view was short of total mechanical failure of the bike or me I was going to get there.

Good luck, take care and stay alive, play nicely with the cars and most of all enjoy.