Road

The end of Peryl!

Well its taken me a shockingly long time to let you all know but I'm afraid Peryl is no more. Way back in October, I discovered a fairly major crack in the frame of my airnimal chameleon ultegra. That was not a particularly good day for me. I had an OU maths exam in the morning but I was up early and thought I would take my mind off things by washing the airnimal in the shower.

Aaaaargh! Just look at the damage....

Can you believe that? To top it all I missed my exam with all the stress and trying to contact airnimal and Ben Haywards to get some kind of response.

Continue reading "The end of Peryl!"

Road

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.

Road

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.

Road

Audax riding and new challenges

New plan is start long distance challenge rides. Audax is a name given to such rides that are controlled by a national body AUK, and can lead to awards if you like that sort of thing. Of course I do.

An audax is not a race but you do have to complete the course within a certain time frame - neither too fast or too slow. I think a typical average pace (to include rest breaks) is 15 - 20 kph. The distances involved vary, I will be sticking to 100 km rides before trying 200 km. The sky is the limit though, there are grand 1400 km rides like London to Edinburgh (and back to London again) and another biggy is London-Paris-London. Ridiculous eh?

The rides seem a bit like orienteering, you are given a route card at the start line and have to find your way to assorted checkpoints where you have to get your card stamped and information points where you need to answer a question - to prove you were there.

The AUK organise awards to encourage participation in ever longer rides, you can have a badge for completing 10 100 km rides in a year or become a super randonneur for completing a 100, 200, 400 and 600 km in a year.

Details can be found on the AUK website http://www.audax.uk.net although be warned it is a bit tricky to navigate. The main point of interest is the calendar so you can find any suitable rides in your area.

I've signed myself up for the West London Sightseer, a 100 km trip around the London tourist sites.

Continue reading "Audax riding and new challenges"

Road

The Airnimal Has Landed

Well it arrived, a beautiful yellow dream machine. It came flat packed but I managed to keep singing throughout my frustrating attempts to put it together. Really it shouldn't have been that hard, I'm just rather unfamiliar with all the road bike components - never heard of a Ring-go star.

Anyway, I better stop calling her it and introduce you, she's called Peryl and she has taken to living in my bath. Either I'm going to get pretty smelly or we'll have to get over our inhibitions quickly and start showering together.

I took her out for a ride today and I'm pleased to say we got on well. Its going to be a bit of an adjustment for me, moving from my hybrid cannondale designed with comfort and more comfort in mind. The new Airnimal Chameleon Ultegra Ultra is very much more hardcore. Light, fast, sexy, although that is not how I feel after sitting on the saddle for an hour.

I really need to up the ante on the diet front again. I am not designed for sitting on a knife edge and the new bent forward, aerodynamic seating position brings my knees perilously close to my tits (which are certainly not my most aerodynamic feature).

The wheel size turns out to be fine, much better than the Brompton style wheel. It handles like a big bike and isn't too jittery on the steering. Not quite sure about powering myself out of the saddle yet but I think my fears are because the bike is so light (and I'm not) rather than because of her diminutive size.

Not sure how the speed compares yet, it feels fast, my throat was burning in under a mile so I must have been going for it. I will try and rig up the polar S725 tonight and then I can tell for sure.