Ride(l) - Forth and Clyde canal

Just a quick one today, finally back on a bike after two days lounging around, being snotty, and generally hating that the weather was wasting its niceness whilst I was stuck inside.

With my bottom bracket still in need of replacement, I took the tourer along the canal - a pan-flat ride that can hardly count as training, but did at least get my legs spinning. It was also a perfect example of the cycling maxim "If you're not sure if the wind's blowing with you or against you, it's blowing with you", as was confirmed when I turned back into it.

Despite this, though, I was still, tragically, untroubled by anyone overtaking me. Considering how brilliant a city for cycling Glasgow can be, I actually find it disappointing that I have yet to be properly scalped here. Every time I see a likely-looking character turn off my route before I can catch up on the way home, I get a little bit more disappointed.

Cycling for cycling's sake is fun, but, sometimes, you just want a bit of challenge.

Good trails!

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/robrideswales

Ride/Hike(l) - Ben Lomond

Today went rather differently to the hundred-miler I had planned, due to a worrying development in my bottom bracket. As I was washing it on Sunday, I noticed it had developed some lateral play. I had been detecting a bit on this since Friday, but had assumed that it had something to do with my ancient pedals, which I know to have developed loose bushings. No such luck. So, this, combined with a rather worn outer chainwheel, have caused me to shift emphasis temporarily away from the road bike.Luckily, I picked up my tourer from Gear yesterday with a brand-new headset, which hopefully won't come loose every 25 miles now, so I decided to ride on up to Ben Lomond and do some hiking.

At 974m, Ben Lomond is the most southerly of the Munros, and, whilst it is heavily touristed with superbly kept footpaths, it is certainly still a bloomin' big mountain, and you have to climb all but the first 30m from sea level as you start on the shores of Loch Lomond at Rowardennan. The eastern approach is the most obviously marked out of the car park, and is a fairly easy, if persistent, climb to the summit, which dominates all nearby peaks. Views to the south encompass the whole of Loch Lomond down to small glimpses of the Clyde, whilst to the north the Highlands seem tantalisingly close, and the almost Victorian architecture of the Loch Sloy Hydroelectric dam provides a bizarre regularity against a skyline of jagged peaks and a land patched with lochs.

The western route is far more precipitous, and takes you first up the Ptarmigan, a 731m high mound that itself outclasses everything to the south of it, but next to Ben Lomond looks puny. This was the route I chose to descend, and in anything other than perfect weather and visibility I would have considered myself underprepared in just trainers and carrying only a few essentials in my rucksack. Once again, I seemed to descend far further than I had climbed - a full hour after leaving the summit, I was surprised to still be over a hundred metres above the loch.

It took me around 90 minutes to reach the summit, and 80 minutes to get back down again, in perfect weather, where the higher I climbed, the warmer it seemed to get. I felt pretty good about the whole thing - it's empowering to cycle for a couple of hours, and climb a mountain, and know that you have plenty of time to ride back again, and, moreover, to be able to do everything at your own pace. As I marched past family upon family slogging their way up the hill, I'm sure I caught many fleeting glances in the fathers' eyes as they wished to be back at an age with this little responsibility.

Back on the bike (without an ice-cream, something I felt was sorely missing from Rowardennan after a hot couple of hours on the hill), I started to feel decidedly leaden. It probably didn't help that, loaded as it was, my tourer probably weighed around 20kg, easily double the road bike. It became an exercise in shifting to the lowest gear acceptable and just spinning madly - which is no bad thing to get back in the habit of doing. I've been too complacent for too long on the bike, and it's about time something started to tire me out.

Unfortunately, I don't think the reason behind my poor form was just down to fatigue. Once at home, I started to feel unusually cold, my face flushed, and the sore throat that I thought might have been the result of my broadcasting on Friday has developed into a full-blown cough. I'm hoping an early night and an easy day tomorrow will settle things.

Good trails!

Ride(s) - Milngavie-Strathblane-Lennoxtown loop

The day after a 235km epic, and I feel fine. Well, evidently not perfect - the "formality" of completing a run at over 32kph still eluding me - but it does seem like progress has been made, as even a couple of months ago the idea of doing a ride at 30+kph after a day like yesterday would have seemed completely absurd (and, yes, it was 30+, once you take into account lights, to which I lost almost 5 minutes today. Incidentally, I don't know why Runtastic hasn't been uploading the full ride data for the past couple of days. It's definitely displaying it on my phone. Hmm)

The loop is my most level 40k+ ride, consisting of the Balmore road up to Milngavie, then straight up the A81 to Strathblane, where I turn right to Lennoxtown, and then take the Torrance Road to rejoin the Balmore road, close the loop and go home. It's a fairly good run, with only three sets of traffic lights on the main loop, one of which (touch wood) has never interrupted me, and has both the fastest bit of almost-level road I know, and the slowest bit of descent.

The road from Strathblane to Lennoxtown, with the wind slightly behind you, is blisteringly quick even though the gradient barely ever gets above 1%. It's what I imagine the pros feel like all the time, 40kph coming and going with only the breathiest touches of the pedals. The drop down on the Milngavie road into Strathblane is just the opposite - no matter how steep it gets, you really have to jam on the pedals to get above 50kph. By the time the road really noses down and stays down, it throws in a steep, sharp, blind left-hand hairpin with far too much traffic coming up the hill to dream of running wide, and then a quick, shady run into the village itself on a surface so broken up I've lost a front light to it before.

Overall, though, the run is a good one for a local, with the climbs mostly consisting of short, sharp, rolling starts which you can just stay in gear and jam on the pedals for. One of the things I've noticed most coming from a background of heavy, poorly-built bikes and a heavy, poorly-built me is how I now seem to descend far further than I remember climbing in the first place.

Perhaps this is the first step in developing a form of cycle-psycho-analysis. Instead of having a glass half full or half empty, perhaps one could ask whether a mountain had a long ascent or a long descent.

Of course, cyclists being the perverse buggers that they are, I suspect that many might choose "a long ascent" as the more positive option.

Good trails!

Ride(e) - The Cowal Peninsular

Well, I promised something suitable epic, and here it is. 9 hours of ride time, and 235km covered (not a good ratio, but I've got excuses! For some of it). Naturally I am now feasting on whatever I can get my hands on, and infinite cups of tea (infini-tea?). And just because I like lists, here is a list of the lochs I have seen and cycled by today:

1. Loch Long
2. Loch Goil
3. Loch Fyne
4. Loch Eck
5. Holy Loch
6. Lock Tarsan
7. Loch Striven
8. Loch Riddon and Loch Ruel
9. Loch Lomond
10. 

So, here's the tale of the day. As I left for Queen Street Station, a cold mist hung over the city - so cold, I began to worry I wouldn't be able to do any serious passes. The train was packed with cyclists heading to Fort Bill and Oban, none of whom (including myself, for once) had pre-booked our bikes on, because it's a Scotrail service, and it doesn't matter on Scotrail. Apart from when it's Good Friday and there's only one useful train per day to the highlands - which happened to be the same train I wanted.

I squeezed on for the hour-long journey to Arrochar and Tarbet, where things began to brighten slightly, and headed straight for Rest-and-be-thankful, the only paved pass into the Cowal peninsular. The name had struck some trepidation in me, and I was consciously holding myself back as I shot past a couple of other riders. About ten minutes later, I realised I shouldn't have bothered.

The road rose at a steady and smooth 4%, for maybe 100-150 vertical metres, and that was it. Bored of the A83 already, I turned off onto the B828 and things instantly improved, with a short, sharp 10%+ climb leading into a 16% decent on singletrack tarmac. At the junction with the Lochgoilhead road, the road starts climbing Hell's Glen, another name that I don't mind admitting worried me a bit, but in reality is just a long 10% climb into a series of steep switchbacks that take you back down to the Loch Fyne road.

The minimal elevation of the loch road grew wearing quickly, and at the long, thin freshwater Loch Eck took the road to Ardentinny, which kicked off with a few sharp 1:5 rises. The loose gravel in the centre of the road doesn't invite craziness on the decent, but I was touching 70k at times, into the wind.

Another long, flat coastal drag took me to Dunoon, the southernmost "useful" point on the east coast of the peninsular, where ferries dock from Gourock. With 75km on the clock, it seemed a fine time for lunch, though I still felt fresh, having ridden well within myself, putting almost no stress on myself up the climbs. An egg roll and a muffin later, and I decided to cut across the peninsular to Otter Ferry.

The road to Bailliemore is fast and smooth, especially with the wind behind you, and the descent from Loch Tarsan to Bailliemore is superbly fast, especially if you can get a leading car to clear the way for you - though hopefully they might travel fast enough that you don't catch them!

From Balliemore the climb over to Auchenbrook is brutally steep, but the descent has such smooth corners that it's impossible not to get up to stupid speeds.

The pass to Otter Ferry is deceptive. As you get to the turning, you see a rocky cleft perched high on the barely undulating ridge to your left, and you think "that can't possibly be it".

You'd be right. The real pass goes on much higher.

For kilometres at a time, the gradient barely dropped out of double figures - whilst my speed quite happily did. As I began, I was cursing myself for being so conservative about climbing, and holding myself back so much. Later, I was just cursing.

The descent is over far too soon, and watch out for the loose gravel as you turn onto the B8000.

Along this road, with the wind against me, I started feeling it. At about 4 1/2 hours, 125km, I began to realise that I couldn't really set my own speed any more - the power I was putting down was pretty much the power I could put down, without my quads having a go at me. As expected, then, I don't have the same endurance form as I used to have. Nevertheless, I had decided to show my legs who's boss, and ride fully back to Glasgow rather than wait until 8pm for a train that might -indeed, probably would - be full of bikes.

Then things began to happen.

I had decided to go back to Arrochar directly along the A83, with the hope that the gradient would be more gradual than Hell's Glen, and missing a pointless descent/climb. After practically freewheeling down the the junction, however, my plan was scuppered by a single police car. There had been an accident on the road, possibly fatal, and it is perhaps indicative of my state of fatigue that my first thought, rather uncharitably, was "they never think that putting in diversions like this costs cyclists some serious energy." Nevertheless, I, personally, wasn't dead yet, so I headed back up to Hell's Glen, where it became clear that something had gone wrong.

Traffic was backed up the entire incline, caused by a pair of lorries smack in the middle, unable to pass each other. All the traffic would have to be cleared to allow one of them to get out of the glen. Suddenly, I'd gone from bitter and knackered and annoyed with cycling (I'd just passed 180km at the top of the hill, at about the 6 hour mark) to being the only guy who could get on or off the peninsular.

I spent most of the next half hour pedalling very slowly and telling everyone who I could get to stop to turn around. When I got into Arrochar for a cheap dinner of sandwiches and a surprisingly tasty 50p ice-cream, I was informed by the shopkeepers that this happens about 5 times a year. There has to be a weight limit on that road, but somehow seriously HGVs reckon they can take it on. Smart.

The rest of the ride back into Glasgow was uneventful, flat, slow and boring. For the first 5 miles or so as I went past the tailback for the closed road I took to shouting whenever I saw an open window that going west was right out. It was tiring, but I hate sitting in queues and not knowing what's going on.

Well, that's enough for now. 235km might not seem all that far for a round-the-world cyclist, but hey. I'm training.

Run(r) - Botanic Gardens and Dawsholm Park. Goals

I know what you're thinking - day 2, and I'm already on a recovery run. Well, I do have an excuse, which is that I didn't strictly start training just yesterday - today's been my first slower day since Saturday. So there. And I'm taking tomorrow off, and you can't stop me. Besides, I'll make it up on Good Friday with something suitably epic.

Today was a rather slow run from the botanic gardens up to Dawsholm Park, where I did a few loops, up and down the hill, before heading home. Dawsholm is a shady park in the nicest sense of the world, and a good place to run on a day when the outside temperature was considerably above that inside. The large number of dirt steps might give you pause for thought if you're weak-kneed, though, and I certainly had a few twinges by the time I jogged home.

One of the nicer byproducts of spending a lot of time on the trail is a considerable amount of time to think about pointless and arbitrary things, and with that it mind, I've come up with a list of goals to hit - because if something's worth doing, it's worth doing with Science! (or at least measurement).

Zeroth Goals -

These are the goals that I pretty much can't avoid hitting, but are worth stating anyway.

1. Finish the stage (duh)
2. Ride faster than I can now (i.e. don't stop riding between now and then)

Primary Goal -

1. Finish the stage at an average speed of 35kph

Secondary Goals -

These are goals which might take over if the Primary starts looking too certain (don't laugh!)

1. Finish faster than anyone else on a sub-£750 bike
2. Finish faster than anyone else on an Allez
3. Finish faster than anyone else on an alloy bike

Tertiary Goals -

Because, although I don't believe in miracles, strange things can happen...

1. Finish faster than anyone else
2. Solve world hunger

The solve world hunger thing is interesting, actually, because it makes me think whether having everyone using an extra 1000 calories per day cycling would improve or worsen things. Probably depends on how it effects the fuel price. Anyway, that's a topic for another time.

So, to hit any of these goals, I need some targets to get me there.

By T-100 days:

Complete a ride of longer than 1 hour at an average speed greater than 20mph (32kph). (This one seems achievable on any day with decent enough weather, but I've thought that for the past three weeks and never actually gone for it).

By T-50 days:

Complete a solo ride of 100 miles (or longer) at an average riding speed of greater than 20mph.

By T-30 days:

Complete a solo ride of 35 km (or longer) at an average riding speed of 35kph or greater.

So, there's my targets. I realise that I'm leaving getting my speed up until quite late, but I'm honestly expecting drafting to help a lot on the day. With regard to speed/endurance, the balance probably needs to be towards the latter after a winter characterized by sub-40k rides.

Good trails!

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/robrideswales

Day 1 of 124

So, here we go. Welcome! This will be my training diary/place to moan about cycling, drivers, roads, weather, health... well, anything I want to, really.

The general gist is I'm going to ride the Welsh stage of the Tour of Britain on the 21st of August as a Tour Ride, in part for the Prostate Cancer Charity, and in part for me.

It's 180km, from Welshpool to Caerphilly, arguably the hardest day in the 8-stage tour, and I aim to do it at an average speed of 35 kph - not just far faster than I've done that sort of distance before, but far faster than I've cycled for any distance at all. Why 35? Because it's half-way between the 30kph I can maintain now, and the 40kph I expect the pros to do it at.

I'm going to have to work pretty hard to get up to that sort of level, so this blog is here to keep me focussed and hopefully prove that I'm not just dossing off and hoping for the best! The widget on the right will update whenever I do a recorded ride, but it's not necessarily an accurate reflection of my complete training schedule (I can't use it if I don't have the pocket room, and it tends to bug out sometimes) or the speeds I ride at (it doesn't stop for lights). The general trending is good, though.

So, there's a sort of baseline ride up there now that I did this evening, over the sort of terrain I expect to be hitting on the actual ride.

There's a long way to go.