Girls on Cogs

Preparation: Roadside repair course and did some route planning
Training:…ermmmmm, bit lacking
Miles: 17
Punctures: 1!

It’s the weekend before LEJOG, and again the sun is shining. Em is away for the weekend, but I thought I should try and get a few miles in anyway.

Friday:
I’d booked a roadside repair course at Bikes4All, conscious that we were doing the ride unsupported and didn’t want to be completely helpless should anything happen apart from a puncture. So, I learnt how to replace my chain, the brake cable and the gear cable. Very good!

Elaine was over for the weekend, so obviously we went out on Friday….we met up with Stav, Caroline and her friend Ruth, visited a couple of bars, went on to the fan club for a little dance, and were home by 4am!

Saturday:
After a hearty brunch in the garden sunshine, we made a plan. Elaine was up for a little bike ride, so we drove over to Rutland, and set off around the water. A nice leisurely ride in the sunshine, clocking up 17 miles (we didn’t do the peninsula as time was a bit short…. we’d got a folk festival to get to!) and managed to get caught by a man training for a charity ride in august where he was going to do 2 laps of Rutland! This was obviously a big deal for him and he was very excited about being sponsored £1 a mile from the lady in the ice-cream shop, so we made some encouraging responses and didn’t flatten his achievement by mentioning LEJOG, although it was quite tempting after the third time he’d told us!!

Sunday:
I’d planned to cycle over to Calke Abbey to meet Pen at the food fayre..however, after fixing the first puncture since my puncture resistant tyres had been fitted, it was looking a little overcast and raining heavily over in the Abbey. So instead I watched the men’s tennis finals, planning a little ride later…it was very gripping even for a non tennis fan and didn’t finish until after 6, by which time I’d lost my enthusiasm..so no training today. Meanwhile, Mat, Stav and Anna had completed 120 miles in the Dunwich dynamo over Saturday night so did feel slightly shameful with my lack of training…oh well.. will be doing plenty of miles starting next weekend…. Tried to redeem the situation by doing some route planning, and got as far as Land’s end to the Lakes, so feeling a bit better!

Part 1 Route planning, (Sat 16th May):
Planning hours: 2-3
Cups of coffee: lots!

It was a wet Saturday, so thought I’d make a start on the LEJOG planning. I settled down with a cup of coffee and booted up the laptop to search for a few blogs of previous trips, noting down ones with similar daily miles to those we’d planned…This was going to need a spreadsheet!

I started with a list of our dates, the YHA site, a road atlas and google maps to get an idea of miles. After a couple of hours and lots of cross referencing, I’d got some youth hostels located around 80 miles apart. This would take us up from Land’s End, through Cornwall, Devon, Avon, Worcestershire (where we could take advantage of bed and breakfast at my Mum and Dad’s), followed by a night at Em’s Dad’s (maybe we’d even acquire a couple of nice packed lunches as well – brilliant!), the Lake District and into Scotland. That was the first week sorted! Week 2 would take us up the west of Scotland, heading east past Loch Ness, and following the north coast up to John O’ Groats. Total mileage – approx 900 miles. Well, if we’re going to do a big trip, might as well go for the round 1,000 miles, (sorry Em!), so option 2 needed…

Part 2 Hostel booking, (Sun 25th May):

Planning hours: a couple
Trains booked: Leicester to Penzance..online ,with bike reservations (after several attempts!)
Hostels booked: 3 Scottish hostels and Scottish YHA membership! Best to start at either end and fill in the gaps later, giving the option to change our minds about the route!
Bottles of wine: 1

OK, so we’re up for some serious progress on the planning. I arrived at Em’s on Sunday evening for some food, a little glass of wine and to crack on with the planning. Mat had advised us the only site he’d managed to book online train tickets with bike reservations was National Express East Coast (thought they were coaches!?), Anyways, we worked our way through the booking stages about 5 times and eventually managed to secure the journey for us and the bikes – hurrah! So, onto hostels. We were struggling to find availability and on-line booking via YHA for Devon and Cornwall, so gave up (we’d have to resort to phoning them during the day – very inconvenient) and moved on to booking the final Scottish leg. Well, booking up either end first and filling in the middle bit later seemed more sensible. So we booked John O’Groats, Helmsdale and Carbisdale Castle. Would be nice to stay in a castle (still a hostel) and it would give us the luxury of 2 short mileage days at the end of the trip – marvellous! So a very successful start!

Part 3 Hostel booking continued…(Wed 10th June):

Planning hours: 2-3
Trains booked : 0 (Edinburgh to Leicester still coming in at over £100 so holding on for that one to come down.. ) I had previously managed to get John O’Groats to Edinburgh for around £13 each, by going into the train station and phoning Scottish Railways to confirm bikes – impossible to reserve online – very frustrating!
Hostels booked: 6 (+ 3 Em had phoned to book for first leg from Land’s End) so all sorted!!
Bottles of wine: 1

I headed round Em’s for tea, (and the customary bottle of wine to aid the stressful planning process) and we made great strides in our accommodation by completing the English leg of the journey and the first stretch through Scotland to join up the dots. We had to make a slight adjustment to our rest day as the hostel was full, as was the hostel with the hot tub (very disappointing), and B&Bs were coming in a bit above budget. So, rest day is now 1 day later than planned in Oban instead of Loch Lomond, but all accommodation is booked –much self-congratulating! And all in a couple of hours! Brilliant!

Well its been a beautiful weekend and perfect for cycling…… so I spent the weekend at home and barely left the perimeter of the house!
Feeling a little jaded after my recent fleeting visit to Hong Kong for my step brothers wedding and returning straight back to work, I decided not to head off to The Lake District with the gang and stockpile sleep instead!
Although I thought it would be an ideal opportunity to look for and hopefully order my new bike….. apparently not! Trying to find a womens road/touring bike is proving difficult. All the info I did find for women was the abc of buying your first bike. When I finally decided to take the plunge and order one from Ribble Cycles the website proved impossible! I realise I am no computer wizard, but even I can order stuff on line….. apparently not!! Might have to call in some help from some computer wizards that I know!!

Job number 2 – Look at the route for ‘The Big Trip’. Helen has already started and made great strides in planning and is coming round tonight, so I better make some progess.
Tried to book several YHA’s on line but not available on line so need to phone YHA directly…….shut for bank holiday…. brilliant!
Oh well will cook Helen something nice and try and detract from my lack of progress…. brilliant!

Freshly back from a fantastic ski trip, Em and I decided to go for a bike ride the day after our return, while still feeling fit from skiing. So, after a well-deserved lie in (as we’d been up and on the slopes by 9.30 every day the previous week) we headed out to Staunton Harold, at 12.30. (Well, we had been out on the Saturday night for a couple of drinks to finish the holiday off – and managed to fit in 4 pubs and rolled into bed after 2am again…although Em had very virtuously had a big pint of water in the last one – in honour of the impending bike ride).

Navigating out of Leicester was a little shaky, but we were soon on the right road towards Newtown Linford and Copt Oak. It was quite a hilly route and there was a strong northerly wind (against us, obviously), and our high altitude training from the previous week which we were initially confident should have made the ride much more comfortable, was sadly not having much impact on our performance. So an hour into the ride, we had covered a meagre 7 miles. Not good! We soldiered on (with the help of a few nuts and raisins) through Whitwick, and a little stretch of downhill (hurrah!) to arrive at the Ferrers Centre on time, to meet Claire and Caroline for afternoon refreshments. After a quick look round the craft shops, we had a very healthy bowl of hot soup (to warm us up) and were not envious of the coffee and cake Caroline and Claire had chosen. We left the other two to enjoy the Centre and climbed back into our saddles for the journey back – on which, the wind would be behind us and there would be lots of downhills – easy! Ummm, bit more uphill to start with, then a slightly easier ride back, although the sunglasses were making it a little difficult to see where we going at that time of the late afternoon. Still, we had got another cycle ride in, and maintained an average of 10 mph.

Alcohol the night before: Lost count…but no shots involved!
Miles: 40
Navigation: 98%
Weather: Cold and windy

Day 1:
Temperature: 3OC
Bevvies the night before: Probably too many!
Miles covered: 70
Closed roads: 2
Punctures: 0
Navigational errors (ermm 3)

The first training weekend was a cycle ride to Droitwich to my parents on the Saturday, returning to Leicester on the Sunday. We were on the road by 10am, and feeling confident. There had been a really sharp frost overnight, the temperature was barely above freezing and we had been very sensible the night before. ….(the plan to see a little comedy show had ended up falling into bed around 2am after several pints of ale and a few glasses of wine between us – there was a little ‘note to self’ in which we concluded this may not have been the best preparation for the ride ahead….).

We set off along Fosse Way and made good time (considering neither of us could feel our feet), stopping at a country pub, just outside Warwick at 1pm and 32 miles into the ride. We ordered a hot drink and a light meal and tried to warm ourselves through for the next part of the ride. Back on the road around 2pm, we cycled past Warwick castle, through the town centre and tried to find our route out towards Alcester. Unfortunately, the A4189 did not reveal itself and we found ourselves at the busy Longbridge roundabout giving us the option of the M40 or A46! Not wishing to try any of these options, we found an alternative minor road on the map to bring us back on route and headed off to find it. In the middle of a load of road works, we found the road, which had been closed to traffic, pedestrians and cyclists! Undeterred we weaved through the traffic cones, lifted our bikes over the barriers and carried on. This little navigational issue had cost us about an hour, but we met up with our planned route again, and wound our way to Alcester. It was starting to get a little dark as we cycled through the town centre, but we were on the last stretch and started to visualise a nice warm house with an open fire and a good, home cooked meal…The road from Alcester was long with some challenging hills at this stage of the day, and we still had around 12 miles to go – bummer! The next signpost then teased us by saying 13 ¾ miles – not very funny! The country lanes were now pitch black and we were hitting a lot of pot-holes, one which bounced open my headlight, losing a battery to the darkness. Quickly fitting a spare battery (very pleased about that) we conquered the last few miles, stopping only to take a photo of the sign to Droitwich (to send to Stav – in your face, we made it!!). Seventy miles in 8 ½ hours – but it had been icy cold all day!

We had a big mug of tea and a hot shower my parents and then since they were already on the G&T’s, it would have been rude not to! We ate a lovely big roast dinner, with a celebratory glass or two of wine, apple pie and bakewell with custard and then sat in front of the fire, feeling a bit too full for cheese and biscuits.

Day 2:
Temperature: 6OC
Bevvies the night before: 3 (much better!)
Miles covered: 65
Naviational errors: None!
Punctures: 0

After a leisurely breakfast of a big bowl of porridge, we were back on the road by 10.15am. It was feeling much warmer and we were confident of being back in Leicester by daylight. We made really good time over the first couple of hours and had a little break for food. We decided stopping every couple of hours for some calorie intake was a good plan. We made light of the country roads, passing horsey types, and other cyclists (all men, and chatting away as they cycled – no ipods there). We breezed our way through Warwick, and picked up the Fosse Way again. Stopping by a little stream to have our baguettes with brie, we were over half way back and it was only 2pm! Marvellous! The pace was much faster, (after a good meal the night before, less alcohol and regular food stops) and we were very pleased to see a sign saying Leicester 15 miles just after 3pm. The road from Cropston to Narborough was a bit dull so we looked out for wildlife – seeing lots of birds of prey (which we decided must be buzzards), seemed to frighten lots of pigeons out of the trees along the roadside and even saw a few stags. It started to rain a bit so we cracked on along the Fosse Way and hit Foxhunter roundabout at 3.55 – brilliant! Being very chuffed with ourselves, we raced down Great Central Way to Braunstone Gate and phoned round to tell people we’d made it back and to join us for a beer and a big pie in the pub! The journey back was 65 miles and had taken only 6 hours!! Much self-congratulating!

Ready for the cycle back from Droitwich to Leicester

So, the first ride of the year was not entirely successful, however, we have learnt some lessons…the cunning plan to beat punctures with slime inner tubes didn’t beat any thorns hidden in muddy canal paths – rubbish! However, there was some comedy value the next day when trying to repair the tube….Rich was kindly helping to pump up the slime tube to locate the said puncture when a large bulge appeared in the tube, shortly followed by a large bang! and Rich was splattered with bright green slime! Looking rather surprised he suggested that we didn’t need to relate this episode …which of course I duly honoured! Very funny!!

Well its our first ride out of the New Year. The weather is cold but blue skies and being the serious cyclists that we are, nothing is going to put us off.

Slightly late night last night so started a little later than planned. In fact I massively overslept and we set off about midday! Although at least I made it, only 3 of us out of a possible 6 made it. Rich has a slight hangover, but nothing a bit of fresh air won’t cure!

Anyway we decided on a route and headed out of Leicester. Slight navigation problems so took longer than expected! Mmm need to work on that!

Finally hit the open road…. this really is what its all about.

We hit a very steep hill and I have a small panic about whether or not I can get out of my cleats whilst cycling up hill very slowly…….. Yes I can, shortly followed by Helen who also leaps off. Rich helpfully takes a picture of us pushing our bikes. Might not of bothered blogging about that, but now there is photographic evidence.

20 miles later we arrive at Foxton Locks and have lunch.

We decide to head back to Leicester along the canal path and quickly discover its a bad idea. I fall off in the mud and Helen discovers a puncture. Puncture fixed and whilst Helen picks her bike up I discover I also have one. Cunningly I don’t have a spare inner tube so I have to  hang over the canal to fix it instead.  Oh well this is all good experience!

Unbelievably 5 metres and 5 punctures later, the experience is waning. It is cold and getting dark. We head back to the pub and phone Stav who kindly picks us up.  Fitting 4 people and 3 bikes into a Peugeot 306 is another challenge.

Miles= 20

Punctures= 5

What we have learn’t= Our navigation needs some work, carry inner tubes, don’t ride down the canal and don’t allow Rich to take incriminating photo’s