What happened next...

Here we are, then. End of the season; nothing but a long drag of longer nights until things get fun again. It's been a fun one, to be fair, and don't think I've been taking it easy since Wales...

In the first week of September, the great Scottish run took place in Glasgow. It was my first 10k when I took part last year, and seems as good a yearly benchmark as any. With a couple of weeks to go, I finally got around to getting a new pair of trainers that I could run in for more than 3 miles without painfully aggravating my knee, and worked on my pace. My previous time had been about 47 minutes - a time that I had set up to thrash. So long as my legs held together.

Despite being in the first group released, it was still a huge fight for position as we ran up the hill. Dodging and weaving, accelerating and leaping; getting space to run was tiring. Nevertheless, I got to the first kilometer marker just as my four-minute song ended - right on for my aims, and only slightly infuriating that instead of repeating that same song as a pace marker as I had thought I had set my player to do, it skipped on randomly. Oops. Oh well.

Nevertheless, I had marked out a couple of guys who I thought were pretty likely, and just kept with them as we trundled along. Not wishing to deal with the cramps of last year, I eschewed all the water pickups, and only started to crack a bit coming into the last 2k. With 500m to go, the guy on my shoulder started off, and I followed, which was my only really big mistake. We gasped, spluttered and crawled our way over the line as the clock ticked to give me 40:25 and 94th position. Good, but no sub-40.

The next weekend was Pedal for Scotland, a 94 mile route from Glasgow to Edinburgh - explicitly not racing. The wind was strong from the southwest, and the first 30 miles into it were tough. I had a little help from a chaingang for about a dozen miles, which was very handy since I'd buckled my front derailleur at mile 20 and was stuck in the big ring. The few climbs were slow, rocking ordeals, but the long flats with the wind behind were fast enough to be running me out of gears. I ran straight through on what bottles and gels I had to cross the pads as the fastest recorded time of the day, averaging about 20mph. It was emphatically not a race, but it was not a race that I happened to win.

The weekend after, it was Bute cycling weekend - emphatically a race. Or four of them. It was to turn out to be more of a learning experience than a triumphant emergence onto the scene, but I'll take that any day.

The hill-climb was a short sprint up Serpentine Hill - about two minutes of teeth-gritting and pedal-pummeling. I had trained on it a few times before, but never on my road bike - and, therefore, never with clipless pedals. Sure enough, despite all the warnings, I pulled up too hard on one of the hairpins, jumped my rear sideways violently enough to dislodge my chain, and wasted almost a minute getting it back on. I powered to the finish anyway, and, if I hadn't have lost the chain, I might have actually been competitive. But so it goes.

Next up was a 2-up team time trial on the 20mile loop around the island. Bolting on the tri bars, I teamed up with a random gent who, unfortunately, went out a bit too hard for himself and died half-way round. I don't think our time even got recorded, for some reason - though we put in a respectable enough average of 21.5mph.

The next day, the 10 mile time-trial. Given the number of full time-trial bikes with disc wheels, I knew I had no chance here - what I hadn't anticipated was that I wouldn't even be able to put in a PB. My time of roughly 27 minutes was far too close to average for my liking, and I couldn't even be bothered to correct the officials when they confused me with the next rider and
put me down for an even slower time. It was a wasted morning, and, as I struggled to reawaken my legs, was going to prove hugely detrimental in the APR that afternoon.

The wind was behind us as we set off in group 1 of the two-lap race, and I was surprised to find, as I tried early on to push to pace, that I had popped off the front. I had no intention of time-trialing for forty miles, so I sat up and let the group come back as they may. With the wind behind, though, I was flying, and they were a long time coming - we were practically at the hill to Mount Stuart before they caught back up. My heart had been racing, but I didn't feel like I'd been pushing that hard.

I maintained the effort, taking regular turns at the front, pushing things on, especially on the downhills when far too many people were sitting back and idling. I wanted things to splinter - to get a half-dozen in a breakaway and go for it. It wasn't happening, though.

About a dozen miles in, number 10 popped off the front yet again. He'd been marked as dangerous, but the group was just letting him go. I could feel the tiredness beginning to get to me, but I couldn't stand for this. I pulled for a mile or so up an easy incline, slowly reeling him in. Nobody wanted to take a turn.

With a snap, I was through.

Out of the back of the group like a shot, there was no way to reel them back in. More than a minute down at the turnaround, I time-trialled for virtually a lap, delirious with exhaustion, before a gent I'd met the day before finally caught me and talked me through a few miles. Back up to Mount Stuart, though, there was nothing left. There was no letting anyone go - there was just absolutely nothing to push with. I wheeled my way in to goodness-knows-what position and left it at that. I had a quick debrief with some of the more experienced guys, and learned my lessons. Can't wait to put them into practice.

The last bit of action this season was the River Ness 10k. My flatmate suggested this one to me, as a very fast 10k that would give me my first taste of a sub-40 time. It didn't disappoint. I took it steady and even, plummeting like a stone down the descents and holding a pace on the flat to come in at 37:55 and 41st position. I can go faster, without any doubt, but it'd take some serious dedication to break the top 10.

I might give it a shot, some day.

Good trails!

Fin de cycle

Job done, in its way - a way that might be described as a 'qualified failure,' given that, even though I didn't manage to do any of the things that I was aiming for, were it not for a few unfortunate occurrences, it could have been a very different story.

First worries came before I even got out of glasgow, as my fresh chain failed to mate with my now-that-I-come-to-think-of-it rather aged cassette, resulting in a panicked purchase in Birmingham and a lack of re-indexing that left me without a top gear on the day. Not that I really missed it.

After a heavy night's sleep (after a heavy night's dinner) my bleary mind forgot that I'd left my brand-new bidons in the fridge, only being alerted to this fact when I started reassembling the bike from the back of Rhodri's car in Welshpool. Shockingly, there was nowhere to pick up a bottle at the start line, and I was forced to resolve to ride dry. This was not a good start, and as I reset the wrong distance on my computer, robbing me of the ability to monitor my average speed, was symptomatic of a lot of the day. Nevertheless, I got away safely, only having to double-back a hundred yards or so when I shot past a turning having blasted past my group, the third leavers of the day at a quarter past 7.

The first hour was unreal. Strong coffee still gumming up my dry mouth, I was focussed on getting to the first feed station quickly. It took me about 40 minutes to catch the tail end of the previous group, and as we started climbing past newtown I slid by unhesitantly, no-one making any effort to match my speed. Judging by numbers, by the top of the climb I was in the top ten, having badgered a bidon off a helpful hero on a red allez. The numbers (such that I could read) were scary - my heart rate was at hour-in-the-gym levels, and average speed was climbing faster than I was. As I assumed the David Millar wrists-on-the-bar time trial position running down the valley, it was clear I was passing people putting a creditable effort in.

Turning off the main road at the first feed stop, something didn't seem right. With enough fluid to keep me going, I didn't want to stop, but after a short, steep sprint to an unmarked junction, I had to double back and ask directions.

'Just head straight over, and there's a right-hand turn' was the confident response. Right.

Cranking up the 20% slope, over cattlegrids and moor, there were no signs. I couldn't remember seeing any of this on the route profile. 'Assassines!' I hissed as I passed a right hand turn with a very conspicuous absence of signage. As it turned out, being so early and so fast was my downfall, as it was the downfall of several others. Being so stubborn, however, was what cost me twenty miles.

The steeply undulating country didn't invite backtracking. Or telephone signals. When I found a payphone, it helpfully informed me that it didn't accept coins, and had no other method of payment. Fantastic. As I pottered about there, another lad caught me up, and I took him to the A road before realising just how far off we were, and blasting back to pen-y-bont. I was fuming.

Unfortunately, anger could only get me so far. The extra, unexpected undulations had taken it out of me, and re-taking riders that I had passed hours before was a soul-sucking experience. By the time I got to brecon, and roads I really knew, Dad had already packed up and gone home, figuring he'd missed me, and the long drag to storey arms started to hurt. I was still passing people, and no-one so much as got on my wheel, let alone overtook me, but as me odometer indicated that I should have been finished by now, both in time and space, it was difficult to keep my spirits up.

Back in the valleys, and roundabout after roundabout made it into a multi-sprint event, the lights and traffic through the 'Brad being particularly infuriating. Nevertheless, I passed a few riders going into Caerphilly, and cheerfully welcomed them to the pain ahead.

How nobody passed me on that mountain I don't know, but whilst my mind was shouting 'Attaque!', my body was giving up. I hadn't ridden it on a 34-25 before, and those three fewer teeth don't half make a difference. I bullied my body up there, past riders with miracle bailout gears slower than walking, and dived back down into town, trying desperately to catch a bunch that was always one set of lights ahead.

At the castle, we were diverted onto a grass hundred-metre finish, presumably to discourage sprints for the line. Instead of the rehearsed air punch, I had known for the past two hours how I was going to cross the line - my hands came up to my face in exhasperation and disbelief. Almost 7 and a quarter hours for a ride that could have taken 5 and a quarter. To rub salt in the wound, the fastest time recorded until I left was just over six hours. If they'd actually had all the signs up in time, I could easily have beaten that.

Just to top it off, I contrived to lose my multi-tool in the car park. Perfect.

So there you go. Four months of training and nothing to show for it. But it's not the end of the year yet. I have another sportive in three weeks' time, a hundred miler from Glasgow to Edinburgh. I have a lot to prove.

Good trails!

Two more days

So, I guess I didn't get around to writing those posts I promised. Oops.

The last weekend before I started "tapering" didn't go well. The ride out to Bute on Friday was informative, telling me that I certainly didn't want to be using tri bars without putting in some serious time with them, and sorting out my position a lot better than I had. Unfortunately, I didn't recover, and the weather went downhill fast - unlike me. The 10 mile TT on Saturday was just an embarrassment, being completely unable to even raise my heart rate. The climbing session through the rain on Sunday was no better - I was just shattered.

Now, after almost two weeks off the bike, with only brief spins in the gym or on my tourer to keep the legs moving, I can't wait for Sunday. The bike's been scrubbed from brake levers to dropouts; every part that can sparkle, sparkles; anything that can gleam, gleams. I've put a couple of kilos back on, but I kinda expected that as I replenished my energy stocks. Hopefully it won't make that much of a difference.

Might as well give a breakdown of where things stand, then. More for posterity than anything else.

The rider:

Height: 182cm

Weight: 76kg

Threshold Power: ~280W

5 Minute Power: ~400W

Instantaneous Peak Power: Haven't really measured. Over 2000W.

The bike:

Model: Specialized Allez 2009 (58cm)

Weight: 9.5kg (plus 2*750ml water bottles and small saddle bag)

Wheels: Easton EA50 SL

Chainset: Shimano Sora compact (50-34)

Front Derailleur: Shimano Sora

Rear Derailleur: Shimano Tiagra

Cassette: Shimano Ultegra (11-25)

Shifters: Shimano Sora

Brakes: Unnamed

Headset: Cane Creek integrated

Saddle: ?Specialized road comp

Seat post: OEM carbon-wrapped alloy

Tyres: Continental GP 4000 s

Bars: OEM alloy 440mm

Stem: OEM 110mm @ -16 deg

Pedals: Time RXS

Chain: SRAM PC991

That's about all I can think of short of getting a tape measure out, and I can't be bothered with that. So there you go. A mixture of spec that adds up to a bike that isn't exactly light, doesn't have a very low front end, but at least is quite comfortable. This is being ridden by someone who isn't exactly light, doesn't have a huge amount of power, but at least does love riding it.

Good trails!

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/robrideswales

The final build-up

Sorry I haven't blogged for a while, but I've been away from the computer for a bit, and training has taken a turn for the seriously painful. Can't help feeling that I should have been this tired a lot earlier. Lessons for next year. For now, though, there isn't enough sugar or sleep in the world...

Last week I was busy touring from John o' Groats to the Clyde wind farm with a couple of mates - not exactly high-intensity riding, but worthwhile. I'll write up a bit about that next week once I start on my taper, as well as a few other topics that I've been meaning to get around to.

This weekend, then, is the last hurrah for my training. I'm cycling the long way round to Bute on Friday then, weather-dependent, doing a 10 mile TT on Saturday, and an even longer cycle back on Sunday. Once that's over, that's pretty much it - a few, very short, intense sessions over the next fortnight, and then I'm into the event. Whatever my legs have in them, they'll have - whatever they don't, they won't.

For a brief period, I was feeling pretty buoyed by some fast times, but I'm coming down from that now. Going fast is hard. I'm having to work for every second. My threshold power still hasn't increased as far as it should have - as far as I've been able to measure, I'm still below that magical 4W/kg. My climbing is so much better than it was when I began, but it's still not there, and my aerodynamics are so bad that it's going to be a compromise between how hard I push on the flats to keep the speed up versus how much I leave myself on the mountains. I'm giving serious consideration to fitting tri-bars - the extra 500g on a bike that weighs 11kg with water bottles isn't really that huge, but I need to properly quantify the benefit. It does feel a little against the spirit of the thing, though.

I'll do some proper updates after the weekend. Just letting you know - I aten't dead yet.

Just very tired.

Good trails!

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/robrideswales

Rides - Trossachs and Crow - Le Bonk

With the surprise holiday of Glasgow Fair being dropped on me at very short notice, the past couple of days have been a hectic blitz of shower-dodging training. On Friday it was a 90+ miler into the southern Trossachs, and yesterday a painful threshold session up the Crow road.

To be totally honest, the Trossachs were a little underwhelming. No doubt this wasn't helped by the overcast skies that flattened the whole landscape, driving the mountains into background for photographs that were lacking subjects. As for Duke's pass - don't get me started. The pass certainly didn't. I was under the impression that it'd be some sort of masochistic endurance test only slightly preferable to self-flagellation with razor wire, but in fact the whole thing only raises about 200m, and the gradient barely beats 10%. This, plus my good legs, meant that the climb I had been "saving myself" for was over before I'd even raised my heart rate.

It was a bit of a peleton day all told, really. I had meant to go out harder, but just wasn't feeling it. I seem to be "coming into form" (I think - having never had "form" before), which is both a good and bad thing. Good in the sense that climbing feels absolutely fantastic; bad in the sense that it's temporary, and might disappear by the time I get around to Wales.

I suppose it was a good thing I held back, though, because with about twenty miles to go I had a bonk so large radio telescopes will have to be recalibrated to ignore the repercussions of it. Scientists in the future will have theories as to what the universe was like before a bonk of this magnitude; some will even refute the existence of such a bonk, even though the evidence is all around them. Somebody might even write a book about it.

With a snap like someone closing a ring binder, I had no energy left. My pace dwindled to 10mph, and my numbed legs spun loosely. It wasn't a case of pushing being too hard - there was simply nothing to push with.

It wasn't as surprising as perhaps it should have been. Since my legs have been so good, and my climbing so much better lately, I had decided to keep an eye on what I was eating with a view to dropping a couple of kilos for the big climbs come Wales. Running a 300-500 calorie deficit over the previous few days, with no preparation for a hundred-miler, and only a couple of sandwiches to keep me company over the ride, it was no shock that I ran stocks dry. Nevertheless, I felt awful. Not because anything hurt, but because nothing hurt. Here I was, in the most intense training period before the ride, completely unable to push; had my legs been in meditation, they would probably have been empty enough to reach Nirvana, and they certainly felt that far away from me. I cringed and hung my head apologetically as cars passed me, my computer accusatorially informing me that I was spinning along (in second-to-bottom gear) at less than half my normal speed.

Long story short, I'm not dieting any more.

Yesterday was a quick threshold session up the Crow from both sides, in the rain. It's fair to say that I preferred the climbing to the descending, despite my embarrassing thousand-yard-stare, needing air so badly I couldn't even close my mouth to swallow through the hardest parts. Yes, I climbed with stupendous purpose, desperately painful even on my good legs, but at least it was warm. Descending, I was in the odd situation where it was more comfortable to adopt an aero position and drag the brakes rather than sit up, since it brought my warm legs into closer proximity to my sodden and chilly belly. The descent also took an excruciatingly long time. I didn't want to take any risks, but, come the day, this caution might actually be a bit of a problem. I really need to learn where my grip limits are - but preferably keeping my collarbones intact.

The outcome of the past couple of days, then, has been that my monthly average has utterly collapsed. Looks like I've got some work to do to drag it back up!

Good trails!

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/robrideswales

Ride(tt) - Lennoxtown Loop (new PB - 34.4)

That's all you're getting from me.

Sae thayr.

Really, I don't think I can do any better. The TT this morning was technically as close to perfect as I've ever done it. I've nailed the descent into Strathblane a little better, and I dozed off on the approach to the mini-roundabout, costing me a few seconds. Overall, though, it felt fantastic. I was floating up hills at 20mph that were cramping me up months ago. There was barely a climb that I wasn't 3kph faster than just a few weeks ago, though the flats and descents weren't quite the fliers I'd have hoped for. I rode to my heart rate, and never came close to blowing up.

Perhaps that was the problem.

Overall average heart rate was 165 - the only time I've been higher on the road was on that first dash past 20mph. But I wasn't hurting. I wasn't thrashing. I wasn't eking out every last ounce of force from my legs. I was just riding to a computer.

Is it worth one last go, then? Maybe, if I get time, but I might have to let this target slip. I have a week remaining to go 35k in an hour, but I don't think unbridled aggression is going to better what I put in this morning, and I need to focus on training. Overall intensity needs to be high now, which means I can't take sessions off to prepare for TTs, and good weather needs to be matched with rides out to the long climbs to get me ready for Wales, which takes time.

If you're thinking I'm sounding remarkably upbeat about potentially missing this target, you'd be right. Not wanting to blow my own trumpet too much, but what I've achieved so far has been huge. In two months I've gone from 111.5s per kilometre over my TT to 104.7 - a saving of 6.8s per kilometre, or almost 11 seconds per mile. People use £2000+ TT bikes to make improvements of that sort of magnitude, and all I've done is just ride more!

Pictures speak a thousand words, though, so check out the graph below. It's heavily averaged, and includes all the time I'm stuck at lights or checking maps, but the trend is so obvious it could take your eye out. So, for now, I'm focusing on training, and then - who knows? Come Wales, miracles might happen...

Good trails!

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/robrideswales

Ride(tt) - Lennoxtown Loop (new PB - 33.1)

Well, things are definitely improving!

I'm sorry that things have been so quiet around here lately, but there's been little news to deliver. Last week's bad weather and time constraints meant that it was characterised by three absolutely epic, leg-destroying back-to-back gym sessions in the week and a long, restful weekend.

After getting back into Glasgow at about midnight, I failed to respond to my 4.30 morning time-trial alarm with anything more than an entirely sub-conscious hammering of the "dismiss" button - a situation that I wasn't aware of until another alarm sounded off at gone 7. With the danger of hitting rush-hour, I elected to doze for a while, then set-up some work remotely and do my run after the worst had passed.

It would have been a good plan - the roads were quiet enough, and the weather perfectly warm and still - but for the hyperactive traffic lights that conspired to mar my progress. There wasn't a set that didn't stop me - even the pelican crossings got in on the action in some cases. Moreover, my heart rate monitor chose today as the day its battery finally died, so I was riding on Rate of Perceived Exertion only - something I'm not used to when I have legs this fresh.

Excuses aside, I felt brilliant. The whole ride, I felt like I had a following wind, and it was almost laughable how easily I blew aside my old PB. I still felt fresh as I arrived home. That, of course, was the problem.

That I've improved clearly can't be doubted. Whether I'm capable of 35kph is a little more uncertain. I'll hopefully try again on Thursday morning, weather permitting, but 1.9kph is a lot to make up. Things couldn't really have been any better than this morning, but my time-trialling just wasn't up to scratch.

It's not actually just fitness. My inability to accurately judge my exertion meant that I peaked-and-troughed over a scale of minutes, and on a sub-second scale my laziness with gear changes meant that my cadence frequently dropped below 90. The rhythmic surges of power being put down on the flat sections, followed immediately by gaping, silent dead-zones, would be enough to make a person sea-sick. I was mashing. Whilst I was pleased with my descent into Strathblane, my overall technique left a lot to be desired.

Whilst I'm generally at best ambivalent towards the idea of electronic shifters, I can't deny that they have a place when time-trialling. The long throw of my sora shifters, and the necessity to jump to the hoods to knock the chain back down the sprokets, played a large part in my poor leg speed. Nevertheless, I can't blame them - I must just use them better.

Another 10 days or so to beat my 35kph target.

Good trails!

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/robrideswales

Century! - Isle of Bute x4.5

Today is T-50 days. A big milestone, with an equally big target to hit - complete a solo century in under 5 hours. At 10% slower than the tour ride, and about 10% shorter, under the toughest conditions it'd leave room for improvement. I didn't have time for the toughest conditions, though. My timetable mix-up with the Arran ride a fortnight ago meant I had one serious attempt remaining. Do it today, or not at all.

To give myself the best possible chance, then, I picked out my route to be on the flattest, least complex, least trafficked roads available - 4 loops of Bute and a TT up to the north ferry and back. The weather was to be virtually still, with a small breeze oscillating from the south, and dry. With a mixture of luck and perserverance, this would be possible.

Knowing the the major threat on the day would be drag, I popped off the peak of my helmet to make such tuck as I could get on my rearing beast of a bike more comfortable, and chose my smallest, lightest jersey as my only top layer. At ten to six, I wheeled down to central station in the glorious early sunshine and waited.

And waited.

Things were off to a bad start, as usual. A points failure just outside of Central had scuppered transport to the ferry ports. I would have almost 90 shivering minutes to wait before the situation was resolved. Good thing I wasn't in a rush.

After the connection between the train and ferry - at a mere 5 minutes - was missed, I hung around with a bunch of other cyclists doing an island-hop in a similar situation, ate a bacon butty, and chilled out.

I didn't really need the food - the quantities I had consumed the night before we gargantuan, even by my standards - and I don't think anyone who knows me would be under the impression that I am a frugal eater. The knowledge that cycling burns a lot of calories gives me a fair license to eat what I like, but because of my poor dietary discipline, I do have to cycle rather a lot. This is a vicious cycle, but unlike the type of vicious cycle that has only a few millimetres of trail and no bar plugs.

We arrived onto an island bathed in sunshine, but with an air temperature pleasantly below 20 degrees, Not having anything better to do, it was straight onto the bike, a left turn, and away. My inhaler bobbled out of my pocket shortly afterwards, but I figured I'd retrieve it on the next lap - which I did, without it having moved an inch.

Once I was rolling, all doubts were stripped away. The road was almost flat, and at around 160bpm, 35kph seemed like a lower limit. The hills crossing over and up the west side were short, sharp and frequent, but with the first few k under my belt, there wasn't any danger of the average dropping below 32.

The low farmland was pleasant and homely, an almost golden tinge lended to it by the strong sunshine. The roads were generally well-kept, and apart from loose stones on junctions and tractor trails, there weren't any hazards to be concerned about. I didn't feel the need to "push it" on the downhills anyway.

With conservative riding and a slowing for roadworks outside Port Bannatyne, the first lap was completed at an average speed of 33.4kph. I almost became apathetic to the point of giving up - this was going to be too easy!

By lap 3, I needed to put some food in me, and the combination of faffing with a plastic bag and the heaviness of the banana flapjack I had made meant that I started fearing for my average. The lap itself may have been under 20mph. Good fuel though flapjack is, as well, this heaviness is becoming a recurring theme when I'm putting effort in. Maybe the packaging is partly to blame - 4 squares in one bag become an amalgamated mess that I struggle to pull out, and eat in one sitting. More research needed. At least I've worked out that I can stomach and actually quite like powerbar gels - the only downside to them being their relative expense, and the awkward, square shape out the pouches that makes opening difficult if you're trying not to litter with the tear strip, and leaves plenty of goop in the corners if you're not careful.

Apathy was probably my biggest enemy, but I can't deny there was a certain tiredness in my legs, and the wind, though light, was certainly still effectual. Added to this the lack of water - I hadn't spotted an easy fountain, and wanted a record regardless of stops, so (perhaps inadvisably) had decided to stick to my original 1.5l of juice - and the target was by no means certain. I turned onto the north ferry road with just over 20km still to run, and went for it.

Definitely beginning to look a bit more like a cyclist ->

With the wind slightly behind, even at this late stage 35kph+ was comfortable. Coming back, 30 was more of a struggle, but I had plenty of time - I could have averaged somewhere in the 20s on the return and still come in good.

My concern became the distance. I might make 160km by the ferry port, but was that 100 miles? I couldn't remember the exact conversion. Best keep spinning until the time's up.

At 5hrs exactly, I unclipped the computer with 163.02km on the clock. 101.28 miles, 20.26mph. Done.

I know that I gamed this a little. But I also know that I could have done it better. I could have risen to worse terrain. It was far from easy, but I was also far from spent as I sat on a pier gulping tea and nibbling a scone.

Honestly, I expected to miss this. I hate missing targets, but I accept that it happens sometimes. So, I expected that I would try so, so hard at this, but still fail. And that would lead on into the event, and I'd fail there, and I'd think - it's because you fell behind your plan. Your completely silly, arbitrary plan - but a plan nevertheless.

I haven't missed it, though.

This is still possible.

Oh, dear. For the first time ever, I actually think I can do this.

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/robrideswales

Ramping up

I'm well into the final eight weeks of training, now, and have been trying to up the intensity to reflect that. Tuesday was an 80km, multiple hill-climbing leg-buster, whilst yesterday was more of a sprint, chasing Ribble riders in a high-drag T-shirt and shorts combo. Neither ride had an average of over 30kph, though, and my thoughts have increasingly turned to this weekend's time-trial.

Some of you may know or have realised that Saturday marks the 50 days to go point, which, according to a foolish post made way back when promises were a dozen for a penny, means that I should have completed a 5-hour solo century. I choose to interpret the wording of this target as liberally as possible, and say that it means by the end of said date, which gives me Saturday to accomplish it.

Somehow.

I am not ready for it, that's for sure. I've given my legs a spin today, and shall completely rest them tomorrow, but there's no getting around the fact that 20mph for more than an hour is still a challenge for me. I need every advantage I can get.

I'm going to get a few of said advantages, touch wood. I've selected the Isle of Bute as my parcours for the day. With a 22 mile main loop, any time I post would be illegal according to the British Road Records Association, but traffic is light, there is a single set of traffic lights and one mini-roundabout, and somewhere around 150m of climb per lap. Weather is set to be overcast, with 6mph winds from the south-east. Couldn't ask for better.

Some advantages, though, I won't allow myself. Whilst the road is hardly representative of Wales, I want my ride to be as close as possible, which means carrying two bottles on the bike plus food in my jersey and repair kit in the saddle bag. I'll be wearing my peaked, cross-country helmet, and won't be attaching bar extensions. For a course where weight will make marginal difference, but aerodynamics will feature heavily, I'm basically just sticking one finger up at my lower back and saying "get on with it".

Bute is the best chance I've got. If I miss this target, I don't know how I'll recover in time.

This blog is in danger of becoming rather depressingly negative sometimes, so I feel I should point out that I'm not purely a swirling vortex of thought-electrons. True, I have some doubts about how rapidly my speed is increasing, and, indeed, threshold power seems to have been stuck since shortly after Christmas, but I do also have nice thoughts.

One of the more bizarre ones is one that I've noticed echoed by other cyclists in literature. A road cyclist spends a lot of time staring at various parts of their body in various states of mental instability, (stop sniggering at the back), and it's not uncommon to hear that some find that they derive pleasure from strange things. There's the obvious rhythm and speed (again, stop it!), but some start to find their wrists, or their arms, or hands, rather beautiful. It's not necessarily narcissism - it's just a by-product of looking at things for a very long time in a very weird state of mind.

So, then. My thing that I like about me when I cycle: my knees. More specifically, the shadow of my knees into my lower legs with the sun behind me as I piston my way eastward at the end of a day. I got to see this a lot in Cornwall, so I suppose it's only natural that I find some pleasure in it. The thought of transmitting so much power and strength through a joint that appears half the width of the calf that swoops out beneath it, descending and rising roughly three times every two seconds, is as much a picture of home to me as a front door. I've seen that shadow scudding across so many roads as I make my way towards wherever I'm to lay my head for that night that it joins together every one of them - every ride, and every night. All roads are one.

I'll just keep riding them faster.

Anybody else have a favourite part of themselves whilst cycling?

Good trails!

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/robrideswales

Ride (hc) - peak district

So, here I am, finally writing up something that happened last weekend...

The weather had certainly taken a turn for the worst up here - rain was forecast for the whole weekend, and, for once, it wasn't budging. Thanks to the persistence of the forecast, I was able to plan accordingly, and got myself and my bike down to Manchester, leaving me under humid, muggy but rainless skies with plenty of time to wonder how I can justify training expeditions like this once Fiona moves away.

Sunday cleared the skies with a fantastically warm puff of parched air from Spain, an event I was actually rather unprepared for as I headed for the hills with bare arms and legs. I considered several times stopping, but it seemed a terrible waste to buy an entire tube of sun block only to throw most of it away because I had insufficient pocket room.

It was clear, as I made my way up the rolling hill from Tintwistle with the wind firm behind me, that I wasn't the only thing parched; with the exception of Torside, which houses a sailing club, all the reservoirs in the Etherow Valley were looking too low to extract from. I swigged again from my bidon and took the turning for Holme pass.

The climb was a good start to the day, especially with a couple of wheels to catch. I couldn't quite get the leader before the crest, cursing that I had forgotten to use my Salbutamol inhaler that morning. As he stopped to wait for his mate, though, I began down the far side.

Wow, the peaks are steep.

As I've said before, I'm no demon on the descents - especially ones I haven't ridden before. Braking into the hairpins from the top, even with good visibility, was an exercise in precise judgement of traction and luck. For those not used to descending on a road bike, the basic compromise is that all of your weight wants to go onto the front wheel (not necessarily a bad thing) which means almost all of your braking wants to be done on the front wheel (if you want it done quickly), but you really want to avoid the front wheel washing out during turns. Hence the fundamental rule: get all your braking done before you turn in.

Easier said than done, especially on steep switchbacks.

After a breeze down the valley, I turned around at Honley to take the A616 into Sheffield, where heavy traffic on Ecclesall road made the long slog out a baking nightmare. Not a lot to be said about this portion of the journey, other than it wasn't as bad as it sounds. Just nothing special.

At Hatherage, it was time to stop to refill bottles and grab something to eat. That something to eat turned out to be about 200g of yogurt-covered peanuts - a decision I regretted later in the sweltering heat on the pass, my stomach having no fun whatsoever in extracting instantly usable energy from these dairyfied oil pellets.

So, speaking of the pass, then. Winnat's pass. Oh, yes. I'd heard of it, I'd clocked it on the map - I knew I had to try it. For about a kilometre, the average gradient must be somewhere around 20%. Yessir, this is the biggun.



It broke me.

No exaggeration, no hyperbole at all. My bike was fine. I wasn't. For the first time in years, I was forced to stop on a climb. I couldn't breathe, I felt nauseous, my legs were giving way and there were absolutely no gears left. I struggled up to just over half-way, not even having the spare capacity to yell and curse, then collapsed, panting, over the bars.

This was pain. Real pain. I could not do this pass. Not on a 34x25. I was beaten, by a road, and it hurt.

I wasn't going to walk.

No way I was going to walk.

Two minutes later, I stood up again. I false-started, then got going, for once my cleat just popping into the pedal without fuss. The grimace on my face would have scared small children and animals, but the two walking cyclists who I passed merely offered me a cheerful "keep going".

I did. I dread to think how many miles I put on that chain, stretching it up there, but I kept going. I got to the top. I had meant to take a photo, but my legs were on the verge and I knew I had to keep spinning.

Winnat's pass. My new nemesis.

Next time, it'll be a 34x28.

It took me a full 90 minutes to recover from the effort. The average speed of the second half of the ride, which came in at 160km (almost 180 including getting to and from Hyde) was down at 25kph. I have never been that thoroughly broken on the road before, but I'm proud to say that I kept going.

I really, really hope that effort was worth it.

Good trails!

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/robrideswales

Renfrew bunch - getting dropped

With the late evenings and (unpredictable) good weather, we're well into that time of year when it becomes worthwhile and enjoyable to go out on group rides after work. After hearing about a fast group in Renfrew from a few of the Glasgow United guys, I decided to try them out for speed yesterday, an atypically bright but blustery evening along the Clyde.

After only getting lost once for each of my digits, I managed to get to the meet-up point, where people slowly turned up in drips and drabs. They weren't a particularly loud bunch, but I wasn't really in it for the banter. Most of them seemed to be racing fairly regularly, and the surprising lack of truly 'bling' bikes I saw I took to be evidence that a lot of these guys had separate training and race-day wheels. Hairless legs and zero-percent body fat were side-by-side with alloy frames and 200mm steerers.

We were off with almost instantaneous approval, leaving me without time to even turn my gps tracker on (not that it would have counted towards anything, being a bunch ride). For the first half hour, progress was swift and easy into the wind, the group turning over well on flat ground, averaging above 35kph. At least - it felt easy. Occasional checks of my hrm revealed I was actually running in the low 170s coming up toward the front of the pack, but I didn't think too much of it. Word was, we'd just be taking it steady.

As we turned south and started to climb, I started to slip toward the back, but, hearing heavy breathing on my shoulders, I knew that I couldn't have been exerting myself much more than the others. At the top of the climb, I was a bike-length or so back, which was a shame, but not totally unacceptable.

The big surprise came as we hit the descent/flat with the wind behind us. The speed picked up rapidly, and, not knowing the road at all, I started feeling uncomfortable in the bunch as speeds topped 30mph. I allowed myself to slip to the back, to give me room to manoevre.

Then I started to drop off the back.

Hang on, what's going on here?

I couldn't work it out. I wanted to blame it on aerodynamics - on the tall head-tube of my bike, of the peak on my helmet. The basic truth was obvious, though. These guys had an extra 20 or so Watts in the legs that I didn't have.

It was excruciating. With the benefit of hindsight I can see several places where I went wrong - I wasn't changing gear, and as a result my cadence dropped down into the 70s - way off my optimal. I should have sprinted back and tried to hold on, but I was too worried that I would blow up before I covered the distance. I could have found a way to go faster. Surely.

I guess perhaps part of me was expecting them to wait somewhere, but they didn't. As a matter of fact, they turned around at some point and passed me in the other direction, but not knowing the route or where they individually lived I thought better of turning and tagging on to an unknown destination and instead took the road that I knew.

It was a humbling experience. It's been a long time since I've been dropped like that, and I can't even remember the last time it happened on the flat.

I don't want it to happen again.

My average speed for the ride was 34.6kph, so despite the moving wind shield the whole time we were riding west I still couldn't hit my Wales target. I did stop a couple of times to wait for people or navigate, but that in no way compensates for the shelter I'd received. Without the bunch, that average would collapse.

My legs hurt a rare amount the following morning, so perhaps it was worth something. At any rate, I have a new target.

Good trails!

Http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/robrideswales

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Arran (x1.5)

***The next few posts may be out of chronology a bit***

The Scottish weather can be awkward. Not because it rains all the time, but because it doesn't. Raining all the time, or at predictable times, I can deal with. It's the unreliable forecasting that gives me problems.

From Thursday on, this weekend was being predicted as a washout for Scotland. Sure enough, on Saturday, it piddled down all day, and, figuring that it'd be my only exercise, I went down the gym and duly thrashed myself.

That evening, the forecast changed.

Let's be clear here - I don't have weekends to spare. In the rare event I have 'nothing else on', and I get given a training opportunity, I have to take it. It's the only way I can progress. So I went to Arran.

Initially, I wondered whether the weather had reverted to the original forecast - light drizzle in Glasgow was an ominous portent. Nevertheless, I figured that I'd be heading out from under the cloud, and, full of optimism, I wore nothing but a jersey and some xc shorts. There was a chance I could best my century, after all. Regrets could come later.

My legs were heavy, but I felt in good spirits as I pushed the bike onto the ferry, noting with appreciation that there were lighter skies in the west. A couple of laps around the island - roughly 110 miles. If I went clockwise, that'd only really expose me to a so'wester when it could help me, and would get the lumpy terrain out of the way early. A perfect plan. Best check the timetable, though.

Ah.

In order to make the last ferry, I would have to average over 30kph. Overall. Inclusive of stoppages.

Well, maybe I'd be onto a flier. And I'd get lucky with mechanicals. Maybe.

I don't particularly fancy commenting on the weather throughout this - the only reason I brought it up was to explain that I wasn't approaching this century with anywhere near fresh legs, so I'll just say now that it was dry throughout with a low ceiling of cloud, and be done with it. There.

I shot south out of Brodick and instantly started suffering on the hill. My heart rate monitor was mounted on the handlebars (where I'd wrapped a sock to provide the strap with purchase) , and after this first warm-up indiscretion, I tried to make sure I stayed below threshold for the rest of the ride, no matter how slow I was going. This ride was genuinely going to be on my limit, without question. I took a couple of inhaler puffs and pushed on.

The south side of the island seemed to drag on, a headwind componding the Cornwall-type terrain. Whenever the road started to point downhill, it would always seem to throw in a few sharp bends and the road surface would deteriorate into something that buses would fear to roll on. Once I got onto the flat on the west, though, it'd all average out.

I got to the flat on the west.

It wasn't averaging out.

I'm not sure if the wind was against me or what, but it was a huge slog to maintain 20mph on what should have been flat terrain. After miles and miles of this, I crested a very, very sharp hill, and everything changed. Suddenly the wind was behind me, and the same effort was netting 37kph. This was brilliant.

Well, it was brilliant for a while. Then it became euphoric.

Riding bikes is a funny old hobby. You work so hard, consistently, putting your body right on the limit of what it can sustain, and then sustaining it, maybe for hours at a time. Add to this the freedom and lonliness of the road, the beauty of the world around you, the speed and the sensation and... maybe it's just a sum of all these things. Maybe it's something more. I don't know. All I know is that there are times when riding a bike can make me feel like nothing else on earth can make me feel.

I'm not talking about it just making me happy. Yes, riding bikes makes me happy, sometimes very happy. This is different. It's happened less than a dozen times, usually after more than an hour's cycling, generally with the wind slightly behind me to provide easy, flowing speed, often with music in one ear. It's chemical. It's bliss... euphoria is the only word adequate to describe it. It happened today as I came over the crest of the last of a second set of yumps along the coast, the wind behind, accelerated easily up to 40kph and held it there. Dry tears welled up in my eyes, a lump formed in my throat, and a beaming smile forced its way across my face. Anyone nearby would have thought me insane as, for a period of about half a minute, great, sobbing, hysterical bursts of laughter issued forth from my mouth. I was giddy. I was ecstatic. Nothing else in the world makes me feel quite this way. It is utterly irresistable and fantastic and if you have never felt that way before, and you are capable, I urge you to develop a comfort for riding for long periods alone on a bike, and see if it does it for you. If anyone else has a similar experience, I'd love to hear it.

I don't ride for that sensation - it isn't common, and cycling is good enough anyway. I am wary of writing about it, though. Don't let the government get wind. I'm sure anything that feels that good with no adverse affects would be bound to be deemed illegal.

The rest of the ride was a very mixed bag. Crossing back over the island, I overtook a dawdler in a car at 75+kph, which was exciting. However, my flapjacks in my jersey had amalgamated into one sticky mess that thudded into my stomach like a cannonball. Deciding that I was too tight on time to do a second loop, I crossed the middle of the island to repeat the north loop - a crossing that was considerably steeper than expected. I reached for a gel - an sis smart 1 for my personal records - which I found tasted pleasantly like a slightly rubbish berry yoghurt, but didn't sit well in my stomach and left me feeling unable to even get into a comfortable tuck through most of the last hour. Clearly, further research is required here with respect to feeding on the bike.

My final average was 29.9kph over about 90 miles- disappointing despite my excuses. I had only unclipped once the whole way around, to inspect a phantom flat tyre, and the loop is ideal time-trial territory. I'm just straight up not where I should be right now in terms of fitness.

I apologise for the lack of photos - I was utterly focussed on the ride. Arran was looking well, but, with the low cloud, not at its most picaresque through my happy-orange glasses.

Good trails!

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/robrideswales

Low-impact riding

Things have been quiet around here for a while, now. It's not that I'm not doing anything - it's just that I'm not doing anything particularly notable. I'm feeling good, the graph's on an upward trend (though nowhere near fast enough), but I haven't exactly been putting in any epics, at least in part because it's nice to have a life.

If I ever had a training schedule, it's been entirely forgotten as the (previously) unwritten rule has become "if it's dry - ride!" It's difficult to know whether this type of low-discipline, varied riding is the most effective way of going about things, but I feel that any time on my real bike is worth far more than in the gym. I might test that hypothesis a bit more in the future.

Anyway, then. What I mostly wanted to write about today was a genuine look at the carbon impact of cycling, with genuine numbers. Not a "most people" sort of analysis, mind - this one's looking squarely at me. So here we go.

What set me wondering about this was an interesting article about the bicycle component manufacturer Hope (http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/hope-technology-behind-the-scenes-30437). Since Hope machine most of their bits, there is a lot of resulting off-cuttage that must be sent back round the recycling loop, and I wondered how much this would affect the carbon footprint of the bike.

As it turns out, this part isn't as bad as I had feared. According to the Inventory of Carbon & Energy materials table, creation of virgin aluminium emits 12.79kg of CO2 equivalent per kg of aluminium, whereas recycling requires only 1.81kg CO2e/kg, so an order of magnitude reduction in energy required to recycle rather than extract aluminium. However, the overall number is still large: this is a far cry from the 2.89/0.47 of steel, and not all that much better than the 20.6-42.5/14.7 of titanium.

Let's say, for simplicity's sake, that my bike is 10kg, and consists primarily of aluminium, and, as a worst-case scenario, the average number of times that the aluminium has had to go around the cycle is 3 (i.e. virgin, then 3 recycles) to account for machining. This means that that material cost of my bike is 182kg of CO2e. A pretty big number, but only the same as emitted from burning 80 litres of petrol. Two tanks, and you've paid for your bike. I'll be conservative and say 400kg all in for manufacturing and transport, and then amortise that over the projected life of the bike - again, I'll be conservative, and say 10000 miles.

So, at a guess, for my road bike, I've got an embodied carbon footprint of around 40g per mile, or 25g per kilometre. Compare this to the 130g+ of the average family car on the market today, and we're already looking pretty good - especially considering that the full lifecycle emissions of the car have been ignored.

What about my fuel, then?

For better or worse, I mostly feed myself bread, getting through over 1000 calories a day of the brown stuff. This is my main cycling fuel, along with pasta and rice.

• Assuming 1000 calories per hour, at 20mph (i.e. 50 calories/mile),
• and a calorific content of bread of 2600 calories/kg (http://www.alfitness.com.au/food-calorie-counter.asp?id=443&foodName=Bread&page=),
• emitting 0.75kg CO2e/kg bread (http://timeforchange.org/eat-less-meat-co2-emission-of-food)

that comes out to 19.2g of bread per mile, and 14.4g of CO2e. Per kilometre, then, that drops to 9g.

So, here we are then. A total of 34g of CO2e/km. Not a bad ratio, for a single person. As soon as you double it there might be issues with the 60g/km target that vehicles may one-day hit, and with 4 of you, you're getting into the region of currently achievable emissions figures (again, we're ignoring embodied costs in the car, somewhat unfairly).

So, there's what I consider to be a realistic figure. It's noticeable, though, just how much it is dominated by the embodied carbon in the bike. Merely by switching to steel, you can downgrade that a good 5 times, and, of course, how you fuel yourself can make a significant difference.

Carbon fibre? Well, I just don't know about carbon fibre.

Now I'm starting to wonder what happens when we include the embodied carbon in the road infrastructure.

Good trails!

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/robrideswales

Ride(tt) - Lennoxtown loop (new pb)

Ok, so I know the computer doesn't say any different to last time, but it was on 32.4 as I got stuck behind a car coming into the courtyard, and I lost at least 0.2kph to not being able to engage my pedal properly after each light. The speed peaked at Lennoxtown, at about 33.8kph, with a westerly wind behind me.

Without any traffic, I reckon I could have gone 33 clear.

Next time, eh?

Good trails!

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/robrideswales

Ride(l) - Galloway

Ok, so this weekend wasn't exactly training, but it did have a direct impact on it, so I'm going to write about it anyway. This might take a while...

It being a bank holiday, my touring bike being in good nick, and with nothing in particular to do, I decided to take advantage of my surroundings and explore some of the parts of Scotland that aren't directly linked to Glasgow or Edinburgh.

With the weather closing in from the north, the obvious direction to head was due south, into Ayrshire, and, ultimately, Galloway.

Saturday morning started fresh and bright, and after a short session of swearing lugging the absurdly heavy frame downstairs, I was ready to go on to nigh on infinity. The bike was well packed, with both panniers bulging (mostly with food) and sandwiching my tent on the rack. Up front, nothing unusual except a couple of bar extensions that I'd had sitting in my cupboard for years. I wasn't expecting to set any time-trial records, but I thought they'd make for a useful additional hand position, and were certainly a good map mount.

Less than ten minutes in, and they had already contributed to one of my life's most terrifying experiences on a bike - very nearly the last. The handling of the bike whilst loaded hadn't gotten any better for time, and the light front end was exceedingly twitchy in the sporadic crosswinds. Heading down to the heliport, I decided to see whether leaning on the exceedingly narrowly-spaced extensions might stabilise things a bit.

Tentatively, I shifted my left hand across and took a white-knuckle grip on the extension. No, this wasn't stabilising things at all. Maybe if I brought across the other hand? Look, I'm just coming to a downhill now, that ought to make it easier. Just shift it across....

OhmygodI'mactuallygoingtodierightnowandIhavenobrakesandnocontrolandmyelbowsaretouchingandthebarsaretwistingandarglebarglearggh!

With a terrified flinch, I withdrew my hand from the extension and brought it back onto the bar, sending the bike half-way across the road as I did so. I had been millimetres from clipping the curb, with no brakes and no real influence over which way the bike was pointing. That settled it, then. These extensions were going to be essentially overweight map-holders for the rest of the trip.

It took an excruciatingly long time to spin my way out of Glasgow, up the preposterously long hill that makes up roughly the entire south side of the city, stopping at every other traffic light and losing sight of the commuters I was tailing. Bursting out into rural Renfrewshire was a sudden, though not unexpected, relief, and by switching to back-roads I instantly found myself lost amongst not-so-gently rolling farmland, well out of sight of the motorway. A trio of road bikers towed me into Stewarton against the headwind, vastly increasing my average speed, but from there I was on my own.

After several attempts, I found my way onto the number 7 cycle route at Irvine, to avoid the worst of the dualled A-road. The stretch of coast between there and Ayr is dominated by a paper factory, the smell of resin and sawdust tackily clogging your nostrils as you weave back and forth by small nature reserves surrounded by heavily managed forestry land. The area isn't entirely charmless, and as I turned off the coast road just south of Ayr to cut across the Carrick hills to Maybole, the view was clear enough to just about make out Arran across the water. Still, I had more interesting places to visit than Ayrshire.

The smell of resin and sawdust

My speed down to Irvine had been so horrifically low that I'd actually stopped bothering to track it, and the short, steep rises and dips of the Carrick hills weren't doing it any favours. Despite the weight over it, my rear wheel seemed to have a worrying lack of traction that made going downhill a far more cautious undertaking than I would have liked (though not slow, by any stretch of the imagination). By the time I got into Maybole, I was in severe need of a caffeine boost to see me to the end of the day, but since the only coffee shop in the village had decided to close already (at 3 in the afternoon), I decided to try my luck at Culzean Castle.

This wasn't the first carriage I'd seen on Saturday

The castle is a Scottish National Trust property, and, as I drew up to the entrance gate, I was confronted by a large billboard with far too many long numbers on it informing me how much gentrified coastal piles of stones and the associated grounds cost to scum like me. Worried more than slightly, I flashed a nervous grin to the gateman and did my best to look like a bedraggled, world-weary traveller (not hard) who really only wanted a coffee.

He took a look at his watch.

"Yeah, alright."

As I whizzed down to the visitor's centre, I realised how rubbish a tourist I was being. I didn't even see the castle as I downed some coffee and cake and got back on the road. I felt like I was taking too long, but I wasn't really going anywhere... so what was too long? Regardless, I felt like I didn't really have time to explore. This was more about finding the shape of the country than its colour.

The bike by the overly-ornate visitors centre at Culzean castle

Back on the road, with some of my energy back, I headed on towards Galloway, thinking that maybe if I crossed that imaginary line it'd mean that I maybe wasn't as horrendously slow as I had thought. I was hardly pushing, but this was still a disappointingly short distance for the first day.

At Girvan, as drizzle moved in, I turned off the coast road and started climbing again. It wasn't that the coast wasn't lovely - it certainly had a sort of agricultural charm - but it didn't exactly feel very Scottish. I was surprised. I had expected the land of Robbie Burns to have a bit more... granite to it.

The long wind to Barrhill swiftly got over its vertical intentions and turned into a (mostly) flat run along the river to Barhill, the valley walls isolating the occasional farmhouse and village from anything more than the odd train running down to Stranryaer.

At Barrhill itself, I climbed steeply out and onto the moors, passing the bizarrely isolated train station that required a bus shuttle to get down into town - Barrhill hardly being a large one at that. Suddenly, I was in a world of space that was uniquely Scottish. You just can't fit this sort of landscape into any other part of the UK.

It just goes on and on

It was getting to that time of day when I wanted to be setting up camp, but there just seemed to be nothing up there to stop me. Open moor went into forestry went into even larger moor, with nothing for miles on each side but the odd crofter's cottage and wind farm, which, to be fair, looked entirely in scale with the landscape. There was just so much nothing that the turbines acted as a nice point of interest, a patch of white rotating trees in between the forestry lands.

I was well into Galloway when I finally spotted a gate through a low stone wall, and headed up the the back end to the field, where there was an almost-flat, almost-dry area. The wind and rain was closing in fast, so I set up quickly, downed some pasta, and fell almost instantly asleep, shivering in my increasingly damp sleeping-bag. The silence beyond the tent was astounding, until the rain started.

First night's camp

My long night, waiting for the rain to cease, was filled with strange dreams about what was going on outside my tent. I must have thought I'd woken up a half dozen times, only to find that someone had, completely logically it seemed, set-up a disco outside. When I finally, fully came-to, the rain had almost given up for the day and the cloud was rising. The wind and my shivering didn't make taking the tent down a particularly easy experience, but I was back on the road by 8, and for a full hour as I made my way down to Stranraer I didn't see a single moving car.

Stranraer being the lovely place that it is, I didn't stay any longer than was necessary to get a cup of coffee and a bacon sandwich at the Morrisons, then headed straight on down to the Mull of Galloway.

The useful thing about cardinal points is, of course, that it takes one through an awful lot of the country to get to them, giving just a little flavour of everything between you and them. This part of Galloway was very much the home of the Caledonian Cheese company, with every farm being dairy and proudly displaying its approved credentials. A long line of small turbines oscillated on the ridge of the Rhinns, powering the milking plant with the strong westerly.

The bike at the mull

The mull itself tapers attractively to the white Stephenson lighthouse, and though I had to frequently pull aside for mobile homes to lumber past me on the singletrack road that leads down to it, I was satisfied with how picturesque it was. The Isle of man was just visible to the south, but Ireland was sadly invisible on the day, so I couldn't do the romantic thing and get to the end of one land mass only to look out to the next. One thing I wasn't satisfied with was finding out it is a whole 5 miles from Drummore to the Mull - an unfortunate sting in the tail that climbs steeply from the coast to get back onto the ridge.

As I turned back, the wind had picked up strongly. Pushing the bike off the peninsular was laboured and slow, but as soon as I got back onto the flat and turned west, I was practically flying.

I took the A75 to Newton Stewart - a fairly unremarkable A road that probably sees much more traffic than I saw on that Sunday - which I noted because it had a brand-new section of dual carriageway. As the signs counted me down to it, I rolled my eyes and shrugged my shoulders, expecting several uncomfortable miles of holding my own against 70mph traffic. To my surprise and delight, this was not the case!

Forn both of the new duallings I road along on my trip, the developer had put an actually pretty decent segregated cycle lane alongside. Getting to and from them still required the nerve to ride a busy single carriageway A-road, and there was enough sharp gravel dragged onto it that I would worry about taking my road bike along there, but it was a pretty good start. Dutch-style segregation along a British road - it really is possible!

At Newton Stewart, I had the chance to turn the map over to the next page... and notice that I was an entire glen further west than I thought I was. Not that I was running slow or anything - I just hadn't noticed there was an entire extra section of hills when I had done my planning-at-a-glance session the previous night. I would have to get a move on, and the next stage was Galloway Forest Park.

For the past hour I had been watching the disturbingly high mountains of the park creep up on me, and now was the time to head straight through it. I could feel premonitions of pain as I slipped onto the start of the Queen's Way, noting the 8 ton weight limit.

Apparently red squirrels like blind corners.

The road rolled on, and the mountains got larger, and I got more and more nervous. When was this going to kick off? With the wind behind me, and a gradient of only 1 or 2 percent, things were nowhere near as difficult as I was expecting. There had to be a sting in the tail.

Galloway forest park - seriously underused

There had to be, but there wasn't. The road just flowed on and on, through epic, beautiful, fantastical, jaw-dropping scenery, and there was no challenge at all. I rolled through with the sort of insane smile on my face that you only expect to see on a serial killer who's just discovered a machine gun. This was just insanely good. The wind, the weather, the fact that I had just downed a can of energy drink - maybe all of these factors played into the hands of the park, but as it was then, that road became one of my favourite of all time.

The best road in southern Scotland?

I won't claim that it was an exciting road, but my goodness was it beautiful. It was just a few over-trimmed forestry sections away from me just saying "forks in my eyes" and leaving it at that.

It's arguable that in terms of land area, you could fit Scotland into England several times over. Well, you can't. Landscapes like this just don't fit. They can't. I can't believe that there's enough space in Britain full stop for vistas like this. I cannot believe that such a road was ever built, and am astounded by my luck to have the opportunity to ride it on such a beautiful day. Riding these roads - it feels like what I was born for.

It's the sheer scale that gets you

The end of the road, when it came, was abrupt, and left me clamouring for more. After a wrong turn at New Galloway, though, I was quickly back onto another A road that, well, just wasn't. It was a bit steeper getting onto this one, but after a short lumpy section, it was back into big glen country. A hundred spots a mile looked perfect to camp in, but I couldn't stop my legs, and didn't want to, either. The rolling green hills, the burn on my right or left, the sensation of gliding through a landscape so lightly inhabited that the time between villages could stretch into reasonable fractions of an hour - why would I stop?

The bike was in its element, and so was I.

As I stopped to check my map at a rare junction, tiredness hit me, and I was forced to contemplate finally stopping for the night. I made it to the far side of the valley, and found a campsite where I could get a shower and leave my stuff if necessary. The original plan was to stumble into town to find a pub, but I was tired enough that it didn't seem worth it, so I decided to leave a perfect day to end with the sun.

The second night was spent in slightly more civilised surroundings

The following morning, I didn't exactly get off to a rapid start. I had picked up a thorn through my front tyre, and repairing this seemed to set the rim slightly off, touching the brake. As I fiddled with this, I noticed how stiff the hub had become. Damn, this was bad.

I hadn't serviced my front wheel since I had picked the bike up, second-hand, thinking that I would replace it soon enough, anyway. Except that the parts were never in stock, and I forgot about the wheel... and now I was in trouble. All of that feedback through the bar that I had thought was just road buzz was, in fact, this hub telling me it was into its last days. I hoped it'd get me home without seizing.

The last day, then, went by with no small amount of trepidation on any downhill, as I worried that a bearing might fracture and skid the wheel, leaving bits of me and the bike all over the road. I took the most direct route back, straight up through Wanlockhead, the highest village in Scotland.

Up, up, and ever more up

What an isolated place to live. Despite only being 1530 ft above sea level, the climb seemed to last forever. With all the weight on the back, I was forced to just set the gearing low and spin for what seemed like hours. I was rewarded with a drab cluster of low houses that looked like they'd be just as at home outside a mining town somewhere in Canada, and I suppose the conditions probably wouldn't have been all that different. Getting chilly already, I decided not to hang around, and shot straight off down the other side of the mountain.

Wanlockhead. It's a really, really high village

To be honest, I wasn't really that bothered about getting home, which was an issue, since I did have to, and my legs seemed content to just keep on spinning along. As I joined the number 74 cycle path, I was overtaken by a couple of guys who seemed happy enough to settle about 200 metres in front of me.

Curse my competitive nature. I finally found a way to use the aero bars - by taking off my light, I could get my elbows wide on the normal grips, and hold onto the extensions from the sides. It was enough to get me past the two leadout men, but it still didn't feel safe enough to do any real descending - not least because going for the brakes might snag my coat on the bars and spin the whole thing. Nevertheless, I was glad that I had finally made use of the things.

The rest of the journey doesn't really seem worth commenting on. Sure enough, I took a few wrong turnings to get between Hamilton and Glasgow, but that was to be expected. I'm sorry to end the post like this, and I'm sorry that my account hasn't been particularly interesting, but, to be frank, I just wanted it down and out of the way. I might come back at some point and edit it to make it more intelligent, entertaining and insightful, but for now, at least it's something.

Good trails!

Ride(r) - Stockiemuir and being (not) a weight weenie

Sometimes, I really don't think this blog is getting my best. After a month or so of wanting to "step things up", I've actually got my act together and started proper interval training. Or, at least I would have, if I actually had a clue how to do so on the road. In the gym it's fairly obvious - set resistance, set speed, go until time's up. On the road, though, that interval could be at any time, and my rest periods could be into a heavy headwind. Even assuming I can scale things appropriately, I have the issue that when I do intervals, I don't kid around - anything less than full, leg-bursting effort isn't worth my time. This generally involves at any time longer than 90 seconds a heck of a lot of head-down tooth gritting and occasional gasps of pain (yes, in the gym. I know it's a bit distracting and funny, but that sort of effort hurts, is supposed to hurt, and that's how I deal with it, so go about your lives please). On the road, that's not generally an option - even if no-one else was around, I'd run the risk of falling off the tarmac. So far, then, for my really intense sessions, there's no record, and most of what goes up here are (to some degree) recovery rides. I'll work on it.

Today was just a quick jaunt up Stockiemuir (which I managed to storm without dropping below 14 kph on the first 3 switchbacks - not bad for a "recovery" day) in sporadic wind and squally rain. Even I couldn't stand going out without a coat today, despite the crosswind apparently of the opinion that it'd look better on the hedge on the opposite side of the road.

I wasn't the only guy out today, though. I was struggling with engagement on my new pedals when a young lad drew up alongside me before I'd even got to Ruchill park. Depressingly for him, at exactly that moment I "clicked", and was gone with a cheeky grin. Alas, he didn't chase.

The second was a gent on a steel frame climbing out of Milngavie, and as I breezed past him, I could tell from his wheezing that I was well away. I'm going to have to go on a club run soon, I think.

So, yeah. I have new pedals, and shoes to go with them, because (bless 'em) my venerable old set are a bit past their best and, to be frank, the creaking was getting a bit distracting. The shoes have been with me for 5 hard years, and the pedals 4, and together we've probably gone 25000 miles, off-road and on, so I can't complain about their durability. I'll probably still use them on occasions when I don't want to be skating on the floor whenever I arrive somewhere. I primarily bring this up, though, because I'd never actually thought about their weight.

As most people familiar with bikes know, the majority are sold without pedals, and their claimed and sold weights are sans pedals. The reason for this is fairly obvious - whilst a human body will contort to fit almost any saddle type or stem length you show it (though not necessarily comfortably), there's no way a round cleat will fit in a square retainer, so to speak.

Now, I'm not a weight-weenie. No, really! I like things to ride well, and if they happen to be a bit lighter then that's good, but I am well aware that I am by far and away the heaviest component in the system, and my weight alone can fluctuate by up to a couple of kilos in a day based on hydration levels. My basic philosophy, then, has always been: if it's less than the weight of a water bottle, don't sweat it.

Having said all that, Curiosity is my middle name, and with my complete pedal-shoe system off the bike and a kitchen scale near at hand, I decided to see what I'd been lugging around.

One and a half kilos.

That's two water bottles.

On my feet.

Alright, so I had a particularly heavy set-up. The shoes and cleats alone weighed over a kilos, and though I haven't weighed the pedals for the new set-up, the shoes plus cleats only come to 600g, so I'd expect the whole lot to be around the 900g mark. It still shocked me, though. At a very generous estimate, my bike weighs about 9kg (I don't have a scale big enough to know for sure at the moment), so I was lugging around an extra 17% of bike without even thinking about it!

So, there you go. Next time you're thinking about whether you want to put titanium bolts on your brake rotor, remember what's on your feet. Kind of puts things into perspective.

A very low perspective.

Good trails!

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