July 2005

3 Parks Challenge

I was supposed to be doing the London to Cambridge bike ride this morning. I got up at 6.30 ready to cycle the 25 miles across London to reach the start. Found I had a flippin p*n**ure so was late setting off, and then it started pissing it down and my motivation started flagging and then I got to High St Kensington and thought what the hell.

At least I didn't turn back though, I carried on and came up with a new route - henceforth known as the 3 Park Challenge. Its about 44km or 27 miles and really quite a nice circular route.

Continue reading "3 Parks Challenge"

July 2005

Bachelorette Lifestyle

The good thing about living alone is that you get to perform your cycle maintenance in the front room. Today I had Peryl upside down on the living room rug while I cleaned her bits and pieces with cucumber facial wipes. I then got to watch Lance winning the time trial stage while sitting on the sofa and peering between the spokes of her back wheel.
How appropriate!

July 2005

New Tyres for Peryl

I've just taken Peryl in for a bit of a service, her gears aren't changing too well and no amount of fiddling by me is making much difference. The guy at BikeFix reckons that brake cable has been used for the rear mech instead of gear cable so he is going to change it for me. So long as it fixes the gear change I don't really care.

While I was there I decided to invest in a pair of the new tyres now available for the Chameleon. They are the Panracer Pasela touring tyre, they apparently have a little more tread than the Technova although they look very similar. I'll let you know what I think later.

I damaged my tyres on the Sightseer audax, I got the wheels caught in a ridiculously fine grid - a bit like a cattle grid that spanned one of the roads. Everyone else seemed to sail over it but the combination of small radius and width left me stuck. It has ripped the side of both tyres and gauged my rims.

No puncture incurred though which is amazing. Having said that I will get hundreds now.

July 2005

Amazing Women Cyclists

I've just been faced with a question of whether there has ever been any women riders in the main Tour de France.
I think there has been a single woman but I can't find any proof - please send me a comment if you know.

Anyway while searching for great female cyclists I came across Beryl Burton, now she is a real star and what's even better is that she's a British star!

"In 1967, she set a new 12-hour time trial record of 277.25 miles – a mark that also surpassed the men’s record of the time by 5.75 miles. She also set about 50 new national records at 10, 15, 25, 30, 50 and 100-mile distances; her final 10, 25 and 50-mile records each lasted 20 years before being broken, and her 12-hour record still stands today. Her prowess led to the rare distinction, for a woman, of an invitation to compete in the Grand Prix des Nations in 1967."

Check out more about Beryl on Wikipedia.

She unfortunately died of heart failure while on a training ride just before her 59th birthday - I hope I'm still thinking about cycle training at that age.

July 2005

Explosions in London Centre

Terrible, terrible day for London. Explosions were spreading across the centre as I approached UCL. Most of the chaos had already hit before I cycled through the centre so there was an unusual number of dazed commuters trying to navigate the streets. I'm glad, given the circumstances that I didn't curse the folk wandering into the cycle lanes.

10 mins after I arrived, the bus on Tavistock Square exploded - just around the corner but strangely I didn't hear anything. I'm sure you've seen the pictures - just horrendous!

Fortunately all the group arrived safely and despite all the networks being down we managed to contact loved ones and confirm safety.
It won't be the same for everyone today, I am so sorry to say.

Some people must have suffered terribly on the affected tubes and bus, it really has been very frightening just to be a distant witness. I wish strength to all those shaken by the events.

July 2005

London Sight Seer Audax

Well, after my second long distance ride in a week I can say that I am well and truly knackered. I got home this evening after a 75 mile day trip and was so tired that I sat on the loo and remained there for the next 30 mins just taking refuge.

It was my first audax ride - the so called West London Sight Seer. The route took us too and from Hampton Hill via Kingston, Richmond Park, Putney, Westminster, London Bridge, Greenwich, Millenium Dome, Mudchute, The City, Hyde Park, Nottinghill, Hammersmith and Isleworth. A real sight seeing route.

It was a complex ride with 4 pages of detailed route notes but very enjoyable. I stuck with a group of 4 guys and they were an absolute pleasure to ride with. I would certainly recommend it. Quite a slow tiring ride but very interesting, I saw a new and different side to London - it was the first time I'd used the Greenwich foot tunnel for example.

The route came in at 65 miles but we made a few minor errors in route which probably amounted to the extra 5 miles. The riding time was 6 hours and 8 mins although we added extra time with essential tea breaks. That amounts to an average speed of 11 mph - not so great eh?

I damaged Peryl's wheels by getting the rear tire stuck in a narrow cattle grid type thingy, thats the trouble with narrow race tyres. Just scored the rims, no real problem.

I will definately do more audax rides, I found it to be very friendly and quite manageable, there was just one hill on the way into Greenwich park that caused my heart rate to go through the roof. Other than that I managed to keep with the pace.

July 2005

London to Oxford

I did my first challenge ride today, I joined a group of about 2000 to do the London to Oxford bike ride. It is a charity ride organised by Bike Events, www.bike-events.com, most people are sponsored but you can pay your entry fee and join in for fun and sport.

I found it to be a bloody challenging ride and I have a lot of respect for any novice rider who took this on and completed it. Although it is my first ride of any length – 60 miles – I do cycle 100 miles a week consistently.

It was a lovely day and the route took us through some beautiful places but crikey moses there were some hills.

I am quite good at the short hills where I can just power up and over but give me a hill like the one outside Marlow that just seems to go on forever and I die – I got about half way up, ran out of gears, struggled to my feet to give it my all, which wasn’t much by this point and then just keeled over. Should have got the triple Chameleon!

Check out the route profile:

So for every up hill struggle there was a downhill of equal proportions, I hit 32.4 mph before wetting myself and throwing on the breaks. I didn’t notice myself decelerating much though – very scary. I better replace my break blocks before I ride again.

10 minutes before arriving in Oxford I was alone and exhausted a could easily have burst into tears and then on the corner appeared a marshall who told me I was nearly there and that I was only the 10th woman to near the finish that day. This spurred me on, and I managed to pass another woman before the finish line, making me 9th to finish. Of course this isn’t a race and we all start at different times so it doesn’t count anyway but all the same I felt good.

Overall riding time for the 60 mile trip was 4hrs 45 mins and I spent another 40 mins resting at assorted stops. Maybe I will be able to break 4 hours next year?

It was a really well organised ride, every corner was signposted and most had marshals to help at the junctions and provide motivation, there were a number of pit stops as well, a particularly welcome one was at a primary school providing hot dogs burgers and home made cakes – delicious. There was mechanical back up too.

July 2005

Tour de France

I'm going to be glued to the Tour for the next 3 weeks, I have my C+ wall chart ready to record the highs and lows.
It's Lance Armstrongs final Tour before retiring and I want to support this inspirational guy.
Anyway here are a good few links to keep an eye on the results:

Live tour on the web - http://eljapolak.nl/pivot/tour.php

Official Tour de France site: www.letour.fr