I'm sure some of you will have been very disappointed in the last couple of blogs. "What about the luggage cliff-hanger?" I imagine you are wondering. Well, wonder no more, you'll be pleased to hear that I have gone with a rack and panniers. I had initially chosen the handlebar bag option but it turned out it didn't fit my bars and I had a change of heart as I might get more use out of panniers in the future. The two 9 litre panniers should also give me a little more room and will carry the weight in a better position on the bike.
I tested them out on Sunday riding out to marshal at the Wheelers Road Race and back on what was an extremely wet and windy day. A couple of hours sheltering under trees and popping out every 15 minutes to hold a red flag isn't the most fun way to spend your time and I for one was very pleased when the commissaires decided to shorten the race due to the conditions. I think some of those racing were of the same view given how long it was taking them trying to warm up again back at the race HQ. The panniers held up ok though holding my change of clothes and multiple waterprof layers.
All I need to do now if cram everything I need for my LEJoG into them and as such I have been finalising my equipment list. It currently stands as follows:
Bike clothing:
2x bib shorts, 2x long sleeve base layer, windstopper short sleeve base layer, jersey, gilet, rain jacket, arm warmers, leg warmers, 2x socks, windstopper gloves, waterproof gloves, overshoes, SPD shoes, glasses, helmet
Off bike clothing:
Long sleeve t-shirt, 3/4 length shorts, socks
Tools & maintenance:
3x inner tubes, tyre jack, patches, glue, tyre levers, mini-pump, pump adaptor, multitool (allen keys, screwdrivers, chain tool, spoke key), zip ties, chainlinks, tape, possibly spare chain & foldable tyre
Accessories:
Garmin, maps, 2x rear light, front light, 2x water bottles, lock, batteries
Other:
FOOD! (flapjack, malt loaf, energy gels), energy & recovery drink powder, chamois cream, first aid kit, money, cards, keys, phone, phone & Garmin chargers
I did have some summer gloves on the initial list I drew up a couple of months ago but unless the weather changes dramatically i think I can forget about them - I am now considering taking my winter jacket! I'm also pondering taking a spare folding tyre in case I have a tyre related disaster and a spare chain just in case but that will depend on room in the panniers.
I'm hoping I haven't forgotten anything important!
https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/alangibsonlejog
Monday 30 April 2012
Thursday 26 April 2012
The route
With the last of the big training rides completed this week I have been putting some flesh on the bones of my route and it is looking like this:
Day 1, Sunday 6th May: Land’s End - Hele (136 miles)
Day 1, Sunday 6th May: Land’s End - Hele (136 miles)
Day 2, Monday 7th May: Hele - Playley Green (123 miles)
The second day will see me skirt around Bristol via the Cheddar Gorge to Playley Green, which is about 10 miles north of Gloucester. A shorter day and, other than the Gorge, a relatively flat route should hopefully give me chance to recover a bit from the difficult first day.
Day 3, Tuesday 8th May: Playley Green - Manchester (135 miles)
Day three takes me up to my home in North Manchester. A longer day at 135 miles and, whilst initially the route will be quite lumpy, once I get to Cheshire the roads will flatten out and knowing that I’m not far from home should give me a psychological boost.
Day 4, Wednesday 9th May: Manchester - Gretna (129 miles)
After leaving the home comforts behind I will set off through Bolton up to Preston and then on through Lancaster and Carlisle to Gretna. The morning will see a bit of climbing over the West Pennine Moors before flattening out on the A6 until it gets to Shap Fell and once that climb is crested the remaining 46 miles will be mostly downhill.
Day 5, Thursday 10th May: Gretna - Callander (119 miles)
Scotland. Home of the Scottish. The first part of the day will be on the B7076 which runs parallel to the A74(M)/M74 with the road gradually climbing until past Moffat. From there it's downhill to Hamilton before heading over the Crow Road giving a few nasty kicks up towards the end of the day in the Trossachs National Park.
Day 6, Friday 11th May: Callendar - Drumnadrochit (133 miles)
The majority of Day 6 will be spent on the A84 as I wind my way out out of the National Park towards Fort William and then up the lochs to Drumnadochit. This will see a fair bit of climbing in the morning but the second half of the day will follow the lochs and hopefully shouldn't have too many significant climbs.
Day 7, Saturday 12th May: Drumnadrochit - John O'Groat's (135 miles)
The final leg starts with the biggest climb of the day up to Muir of Ord, which I suppose is a boost as it gets it out of the way, before joining up with the A9 at Tain. I follow this road (which seems to have a lot of hills for a coastal road!) past Helmsdale and up towards Wick before branching off the A roads for the last 30 miles into John O'Groats. With around 910 miles to cover in the week I might end up being glad of the fact that the days get longer as you head further North.
https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/alangibsonlejog
https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/alangibsonlejog
Monday 23 April 2012
5 things I learnt at the weekend
1: Be prepared for any weather
On Saturday the weather forecast showed heavy showers all day and fairly low temperatures. Winter jacket weather, thought I, as it would be ideal for those conditions as it’s fairly waterproof and would mean I didn’t have to keep stopping to put my waterproof on/take it off again. As it turned out I barely saw a drop of rain all day and ended up roasting away in my big jacket as I was either that or strip down to a short sleeve jersey with the jacket tied around my waist! A few different clothing options would have been great.
2: Don’t get carried away
On Sunday there was a Wheelers club run starting from Clitheroe. An ideal opportunity to get some extra miles in by riding out to the meeting point (rather than getting the train/driving out like the the others were doing) and a bonus that another Wheeler, Will, decided to ride out with me. Unfortunately for me he is a much faster rider than I am and in keeping pace with him I arrived in Clitheroe after 27 miles of what probably equated to a mild warm up for him but a brisk training run for me. This probably wasn’t the best preparation for the 85 miles that were still to come. Which leads on to:
3: Eat
Don’t forget to eat. Upon arrival at Clitheroe I was hoping the bike shop/cafe would be open and I could grab a bite to eat and a drink. It wasn’t. Never mind, I had plenty of flapjack in my pocket to keep me going. Which it did until about 70 miles into the ride when I hit the (metaphorical) wall, the rain hit me and my bike hit the Trough of Bowland. Luckily one of my fellow riders saw I was struggling and gave me a helping hand (literally), propelling both me and himself up the hill. I had made the mistake of ignoring the rumbling in my belly, thinking I could make it to the cafe stop ok, before cracking and barely being able to open an energy gel to keep me going. The torrential rain didn’t help, obviously the ride out hadn’t been too beneficial and I arrived at the cafe in Dunsop Bridge a shivering wreck of a man struggling to even eat or drink. I cannot thank Arnas enough for keeping an eye out for me and getting me up that hill. Once I’d got some food down me and got back on the bike I was ok (the liberal use of a nice warming hand dryer also helped!) but it was a pretty stupid mistake to make and one I’m glad I didn’t make when I was on my own.
4: A week is a long time in cycling
Or at least it is when you compare my planned journey time to the End to End cycling records. At the weekend I watched a documentary about former Manchester Wheeler John Woodburn who in 1982 broke the record for cycling from Land’s End to John O’Groats, completing the 848 miles in 1 day 21 hours and 3 minutes. It entertained me to hear John’s deadpan take on the ride and his no-nonsense approach to cycling, his response to the question of what he wanted to eat on one of his few short breaks during the ride being along the lines of “I dunno, biscuits or something”. Whilst John obviously put a huge amount of work into training for the ride and had many years of cycling behind him when he did it (he was in his forties at the time and a former national champion) he maintained that all long distance cycling is a case of mind over matter. Plenty of inspiration if any were needed. Incidentally John is still the record holder for the fastest time for riding from London to Bath and back - a record which is considered unbreakable - and has been doing 25 mile time trials in under an hour well into his seventies!
5: Appreciate the high points
I’m pretty much at the end of my training for Land’s End to John O’Groats now. I have clocked up over 1,600 miles since I started in February and whilst there have been low points they have been vastly outnumbered by the highs. Each slog up a hill has been rewarded with a downhill on the other side and often a wonderful view at the top, with Anglezarke, Longridge Fell and Sunday’s views over the Yorkshire Dales being prime examples. The encounters with irate drivers have been vastly outweighed by the companionship of those I have shared rides with and the courtesy of most people I have met on the roads. On Saturday’s ride one driver even pulled over to let me past on a descent when I was cycling faster than she was driving (unfortunately the roles were soon reversed when I reached the bottom of the hill!). Whilst I have been doing all these rides as part of my training it would be a bit of a misnomer to call them training rides when they have been so enjoyable to do. I can only hope that the Land’s End to John O’Groats ride itself is as much fun.
https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/alangibsonlejog
https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/alangibsonlejog
Monday 16 April 2012
Going the distance
Three weeks to go until the LEJoG and Saturday was my longest ride of the year so far; I managed to cover 127.5 miles so it was bang in the range of what I'll need to be doing come May. I didn't feel too bad considering this was 25% more than I'd done in any other ride this year, although the fact it was out on the Cheshire plains rather than in the hills helped. Having said that, the North Easterly wind didn't do us any favours on the way back - I hope the wind change back to the usual prevailing South Westerly by 6th May.
On Sunday I decided I would benefit most from a relaxed recovery ride and did a 28 mile loop in the hills. Sometimes it's difficult to stop yourself from going as fast as you can but Sunday I managed to take it easy, although when you're hitting 15%+ gradients it is never that easy. I was particularly pleased that I managed to rein myself in on the Radcliffe New Road climb on which I had recently lost my Strava King of the Mountains title on! It will be mine again one day!
I also booked my remaining nights of accommodation over the weekend so I now have a rough outline for the route and need to get down to the detailed planning. I have plotted routes for the first couple of days whilst the 3rd and 4th days will be into and out of Manchester so should be easy enough to sort out; it's when you start looking at Scotland that things start to get interesting. Whereas around here there are plenty of route options once you get North of the border the choice is far more restricted and I'll have to be more meticulous in choosing roads, because if the route needs to be changed mid ride it could end up costing me an extra 20 miles or so.
Another thing that I really should have sorted weeks ago is my luggage. Initially I was planning on getting a bar bag and using this combined with a large saddle bag, thus ensuring I didn't end up taking too much stuff. I have recently been having second thoughts on this though and may end up going down the more traditional route of rack and panniers. Tune in next time to find out how this cliff hanger ends!
https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/alangibsonlejog
On Sunday I decided I would benefit most from a relaxed recovery ride and did a 28 mile loop in the hills. Sometimes it's difficult to stop yourself from going as fast as you can but Sunday I managed to take it easy, although when you're hitting 15%+ gradients it is never that easy. I was particularly pleased that I managed to rein myself in on the Radcliffe New Road climb on which I had recently lost my Strava King of the Mountains title on! It will be mine again one day!
I also booked my remaining nights of accommodation over the weekend so I now have a rough outline for the route and need to get down to the detailed planning. I have plotted routes for the first couple of days whilst the 3rd and 4th days will be into and out of Manchester so should be easy enough to sort out; it's when you start looking at Scotland that things start to get interesting. Whereas around here there are plenty of route options once you get North of the border the choice is far more restricted and I'll have to be more meticulous in choosing roads, because if the route needs to be changed mid ride it could end up costing me an extra 20 miles or so.
Another thing that I really should have sorted weeks ago is my luggage. Initially I was planning on getting a bar bag and using this combined with a large saddle bag, thus ensuring I didn't end up taking too much stuff. I have recently been having second thoughts on this though and may end up going down the more traditional route of rack and panniers. Tune in next time to find out how this cliff hanger ends!
https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/alangibsonlejog
Wednesday 11 April 2012
And Relax...
So, the week of training is over. 330 miles in 7 days, I think I can safely say that's the most I've done in one week. The only problem is that will only amount to 2.5 days of Land's End to John O'Groats! It ended up being slightly shorter than planned mainly due to the weather not being particularly inviting. It also got to the point where I started wondering what benefit I was getting from just churning out the miles.
Saturday was actually quite a nice day weather wise and I got out in the morning for a spin round Rivington and back. My legs had taken a bit of a battering over the first three days and felt really heavy on Friday's club run so I just took it easy on Saturday and used the ride as a bit of a recovery.
It seemed to do the trick as on Sunday I felt the best I've felt for a while on the bike, it was one of those days when you feel like your legs have endless energy. I ended up setting new personal bests up a couple local climbs without ever feeling like I was absolutely hammering it. Maybe watching Tom Boonen solo to victory from 50km out in Paris-Roubaix that afternoon provided a bit of motivation or maybe the night out on Saturday actually helped!The only regret I have was not going out earlier on Sunday and getting some more miles in, especially given the weather we had on Monday.
Given the choice of spending the day in front of bank holiday telly eating Easter eggs or riding my bike for 80 miles in the rain I know which I'd usually choose. And it was apparently the former that the majority of people chose given that I didn't see one other road cyclist out on their bike on Monday. I had to get the miles in however so out into the rain I went and it wasn't too bad a day until I was cycling back through Manchester after 70-odd miles.
Spending the amount of time I do cycling on the roads you get used to drivers getting annoyed when you hold them up for a couple of seconds. Usually this only amounts to a honking of their horn or a hurling of abuse from an open window. Monday was my first experience of a driver who not only did both of these things but also seemed to think that attempting to run a cyclist off the road is an appropriate course of action. Once the adrenalin has died down these incidents don't normally affect me but it depresses me that he saw fit to do this whilst he had two small children in the car with him. I'm also left annoyed that I didn't get his numberplate so I could report him.
That just left Tuesday for another short recovery ride and the week was done. I still feel like I need to do more preparation before the ride and I'm conscious that I've got less than four weeks to go. The next two weekends I will be packing the miles in with long back to back rides before taking it a bit easier before the LEJoG itself. I also have lots of planning to do in terms of finalising the route, booking the last couple of night's accommodation and sorting out my equipment I need. I best get cracking!
https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/alangibsonlejog
Saturday was actually quite a nice day weather wise and I got out in the morning for a spin round Rivington and back. My legs had taken a bit of a battering over the first three days and felt really heavy on Friday's club run so I just took it easy on Saturday and used the ride as a bit of a recovery.
It seemed to do the trick as on Sunday I felt the best I've felt for a while on the bike, it was one of those days when you feel like your legs have endless energy. I ended up setting new personal bests up a couple local climbs without ever feeling like I was absolutely hammering it. Maybe watching Tom Boonen solo to victory from 50km out in Paris-Roubaix that afternoon provided a bit of motivation or maybe the night out on Saturday actually helped!The only regret I have was not going out earlier on Sunday and getting some more miles in, especially given the weather we had on Monday.
Given the choice of spending the day in front of bank holiday telly eating Easter eggs or riding my bike for 80 miles in the rain I know which I'd usually choose. And it was apparently the former that the majority of people chose given that I didn't see one other road cyclist out on their bike on Monday. I had to get the miles in however so out into the rain I went and it wasn't too bad a day until I was cycling back through Manchester after 70-odd miles.
Spending the amount of time I do cycling on the roads you get used to drivers getting annoyed when you hold them up for a couple of seconds. Usually this only amounts to a honking of their horn or a hurling of abuse from an open window. Monday was my first experience of a driver who not only did both of these things but also seemed to think that attempting to run a cyclist off the road is an appropriate course of action. Once the adrenalin has died down these incidents don't normally affect me but it depresses me that he saw fit to do this whilst he had two small children in the car with him. I'm also left annoyed that I didn't get his numberplate so I could report him.
That just left Tuesday for another short recovery ride and the week was done. I still feel like I need to do more preparation before the ride and I'm conscious that I've got less than four weeks to go. The next two weekends I will be packing the miles in with long back to back rides before taking it a bit easier before the LEJoG itself. I also have lots of planning to do in terms of finalising the route, booking the last couple of night's accommodation and sorting out my equipment I need. I best get cracking!
https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/alangibsonlejog
Friday 6 April 2012
Winter is Back!
It seems that I was wrong about spring being here! A week after writing about getting sunburnt and temperatures being in the twenties today it was a question of fighting through the snow. I went on a clubrun today with the Wheelers up into the Peaks and most of the roads had only been cleared of snow yesterday. In fact on one minor road we ended up trekking through about a foot of snow, luckily it wasn't too far to the next main road. I suppose we should have expected it with the road being between the second highest pub in England and the highest village.
We managed to get a bit of spectating/supporting of our riders in the Buxton Mountain Time Trial up at Flash, although I spent most of it fixing a puncture I had somehow picked up whilst pushing my bike through the snow. It's never particularly fun having to fix a puncture at the side of the road but it was made more bearable by it being immediately before our cafe stop and having the knowledge that a bacon butty and a coffee were awaiting me.
Today was day 3 of my 7 day training block I'm doing in order to get used to riding back to back for a week and consisted of lots of hills over 79 miles. Days one and two were shorter affairs, the first being a few loops around a local circuit in Birch in order to avoid the snowy and windy hills. Yesterday I ventured into the hills north of Manchester only to find that one of the hills on my route was closed, not due to snow but because they are still resurfacing it. Given that it gets up to 25% at it's steepest maybe it was a blessing in disguise.
Tomorrow will be a shorter ride at an easier pace in order to help me recover from today's efforts. Sunday will again be a short ride fit in around watching probably the biggest one day race in cycling, the Paris-Roubaix, on tv before doing another longer ride in the Peaks on Monday. It is sobering to think that the mileage I have done over the last three days amounts to little more than one day's riding on the LEJoG, a reminder if any were needed how much of a challenge the ride will be.
https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/alangibsonlejog
We managed to get a bit of spectating/supporting of our riders in the Buxton Mountain Time Trial up at Flash, although I spent most of it fixing a puncture I had somehow picked up whilst pushing my bike through the snow. It's never particularly fun having to fix a puncture at the side of the road but it was made more bearable by it being immediately before our cafe stop and having the knowledge that a bacon butty and a coffee were awaiting me.
Today was day 3 of my 7 day training block I'm doing in order to get used to riding back to back for a week and consisted of lots of hills over 79 miles. Days one and two were shorter affairs, the first being a few loops around a local circuit in Birch in order to avoid the snowy and windy hills. Yesterday I ventured into the hills north of Manchester only to find that one of the hills on my route was closed, not due to snow but because they are still resurfacing it. Given that it gets up to 25% at it's steepest maybe it was a blessing in disguise.
Tomorrow will be a shorter ride at an easier pace in order to help me recover from today's efforts. Sunday will again be a short ride fit in around watching probably the biggest one day race in cycling, the Paris-Roubaix, on tv before doing another longer ride in the Peaks on Monday. It is sobering to think that the mileage I have done over the last three days amounts to little more than one day's riding on the LEJoG, a reminder if any were needed how much of a challenge the ride will be.
https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/alangibsonlejog
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