Saturday, 11 February 2012

Evening all,



Today Storm Trooper George Rolls and Nigel braved the minus 6 degrees and met up at George's "pad" for a training ride in the Hampshire frost and snow. George wore his new traffic light jacket and Nigel his "London to Monte Carlo" branded cycling jacket (anyone want one?) we managed to do a 20 mile ride averaging just over 11.3mph and climbed just under 900 feet in the process. Whilst George's cycling speed is 1.5 miles and hour faster than Nigel's, nevertheless this was a good effort in pretty poor conditions. 

The ride was great and the countryside was fantastic - if a little slippy in places. But the overriding thoughts that pervade our mind as we recover by the fireside are three fold. Firstly, we discussed the fact that what we did today was less than 1/45th of the total distance required in just 11 weeks time. And that each day of the ride we will need to do 3 and a bit rides equal to what we've just done. That will not be easy and 11 weeks of training needs to be put to full use. If we didn't know it before we certainly do now: this is one heck of a challenge. 


Secondly, and importantly, is speed. Whilst it is so very east to zoom off sometimes when the energy is there, cycling at a comfortable speed - crucially one that will allow you to do 3 rides of 20 miles each day - is essential. But of course this has to be fast enough to cover the distance in time. 12 mph is the magic number and that's not quite what we did today. But by April 29th, it'll be fine. We hope.

Finally, after one more valiant attempt, Nigel has abandoned clipped pedals. Trying a new softer shoe today, they still hurt like mad and are clearly not for him !!  So toe clips it is.

A fantastic day, learning all the time. Tomorrow we are going to attempt two 20 mile rides. Wish us luck !!

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