So you wanted pictures

Let’s start with the ongoing last month preparations for the tour.

This week was supposed to be a week of reasonable training, and getting to grips with the packing, ahead of next week being one of 5 days away from home.  Well, it didn’t quite turn out that way, and as they say, flexibility is the key. 

The original plan was

• This week, at home, short training rides up to 2 hours, but with some loading
• Next week, take my yoga mat and running shoes to Aberdeen and a couple of short weekend rides
• Following week, at home, ease off, focus on kit and packing, bike handling loaded.
• Tour

Reality

• This week “can you do a short job for me, go and visit a ship”.  Well it turns out ships move, who’d’a thunk it eh? This morphed from fly to Rotterdam on Tuesday, back Wednesday to, “the ship’s going to be late to Rotterdam, can you do the weekend?” NO!, to “we have another ship heading for Marseilles, probably arriving Wednesday, to fly to Marseille on Tuesday, hang around Wednesday morning because the ship is delayed, peruse various options and then finally, take a launch out to the ship at anchor Wednesday afternoon, back to Marseilles on Thursday, overnight and back home Friday.  At least I had my yoga mat with me and a new first of floating yoga! 
• Next week has morphed from 5 days away to “Oh f&@k there’s an airport strike on Friday”, cue rev 4 of the audit plan and a return on Thursday.  In my view that makes Friday MINE, all MINE, and I intend to take an early, heat avoiding ride.
• Week after that, normal so far!.

This is where I stayed overnight on Wednesday, with a very welcoming and accommodating crew, all Indian so great food as well, if just on my limit for chilli

 

The yoga was very welcome, I sometimes disregard that part of my overall fitness, and then as soon as I pick it up again regret having done so.  Still, two yoga sessions this week will have done a power of good.

Moving on to the kit for the tour.  First we have the “living luggage” clothes, snacks etc and the “tour luggage” maps, hotel bookings and so on.  In terms of what you are seeing here – one change of cycling gear, overnight gear, minimal washing kit, maps, snacks, hydration tablets and so on, and the banana bags to pack into.  Everything will be sub-packed into plastic bags or boxes to keep it dry just in case – all those bags my wife criticises me for saving!  What’s missing from here is my electronics as that stuff is used all the time when I travel and at home.  I’m hoping to be able to attach my camera case to the boom, dangling in the space between the headset and the front wheel. 

Note also the general first aid kit with the usual plasters, larger dressings for anything a bit more serious, water purification tablets, sudocrem for nose and ear sunblock and the, er, ahem! nether regions should there be any chafing.

I plan to navigate with the GPS, having spent the last month to 6 weeks riding without using the HRM, it’s giving pretty good battery life.  I will ALWAYS carry a paper map as backup, luckily (actually by design) there is a single NCN map that covers my entire route except the islands, in case of either GPS conflict, brain fart, or satellites falling from the sky.

Then we have the emergency kit I take on audax with me, you’ll note the repurposed airline business class amenity bags – every job should have at least a few perks surely?

• Puncture repair kit, two tubes, CO2 cartridges, will be supplemented with a spare tyre as well
• General spares including chain links, cleat bolts, zip ties, multi-tool, emergency spoke etc, with the smallest of small items in the tin.  The tin is labelled of course, or I’ll forget anything that went in there
• Some other general bike related things such as the bottle of chain lube will also go in there of course
• A few strategic spare gels – these are not general consumption. As a T1 diabetic, a “bonk” is not simply inconvenient, but potentially life threatening.  I have enough experience over the last 5 years of the condition to generally manage blood sugar above the critical 4.0, but there are occasional surprises.

This stuff generally lives in the rack pack, which as you can see also has little drop down panniers.  With my pretty light travelling, I’ll hopefully be able to fit everything in there, but will I have room for  a couple of bottles of single malt whisky?  Who knows, perhaps the distillery will do mail order?  

The top of this expands to fit in perhaps a bit of lunch, a bottle of beer or so, and still leaves room behind for my water bladder clipped to the headrest.  I may pack the electronics in a padded box in here as well, as this seems the most secure location in the (touch wood) hopefully unlikely event of an “off”.

Finally, the stem bag, sufficient for on the road snacks between “controls”.

So there are a few photos for you, plus here, another one I took this week in Marseille, walking on a piece of scrubby undeveloped land behind the hotel which serves as a local nature reserve.  My first ever praying mantis.  He (it?) was so well camouflaged I nearly stepped on it and only noticed, when it moved.

 

 

 

How cool is that?

plus the only bit of colour around in a single flower

Oh, and a few picture of me on a cruzbike

 

 

Preparation is the Key to Success

Preparation is Key to Success

Having now proved to myself that the S40 is indeed a suitable long distance beast, I’ve been setting about proving it again and generally preparing for my summer tour to Scotland, or more precisely the Isle of Islay where there are several excellent distilleries, and then riding back down the West Coast of Scotland, across the border and to my parent’s home where I will have left my car.   It’s going to be a great experience, and a journey of cars, bikes and ferries, more on that later.  Firstly the preparation and planning.  

Since building the S40 I’ve been aiming to get in at least 100km per week, with at least one ride of that being 50km plus.  Including weeks of no cycling or just a couple of snatched one hour rides, I’ve been pretty successful and have about 1500km in total on the S40 since finishing the build in March. 

One of the May bank holidays also saw me take a ride from home near Ely, across to a cycling café near Bury St Edmunds and from there to Cambridge, or at least that was the plan.  I ended up turning right instead of left at the final turn, missed the café by about a mile and ended up stopping at a pub for a pint and a packet of crisps instead.   I’ve also been riding some more routes with COR* value in places, and rough and ready fenland roads in other.

 

Lesson 1 – route planning is as important as physical preparation

Lesson 2 – beer is a great isotonic drink
Lesson 3 – if you ride in a generally clockwise direction in the UK, on a sunny, cloudless day, you get a very good sunburn, but only down your left hand side.  Cue unexpected stripe.
Lesson 4 – when faced with a slow approach due to rough ground, a 90 degree bend and immediate humpbacked bridge, get off and push.  Failure to do so can bounce you out of your seat and the bike off the vertical. 

All that aside, the progress on the Cruzbike has been at least as good as I hoped, I’ve got the fit dialled in where I want it and it’s riding comfortably.  Since the last audax I’ve added a 12-32 cassette and a ventisit cushion.  The latter needed a tweak to the bar position as the ventisit moved me slightly forward, so boom out by about an inch and bars back towards me a touch to prevent knee strike.  All other systems are GO, with the rest of the bike performing well, including dynamo hub and lights.  I’m now on version 3 of the light mount though, as I wasn’t happy with V1 and V2 failed from fatigue caused by rattling around the Fens.  I feel V4 coming on sometime soon.  

I’ve also changed the chain, surprising how much stretch there was, even with my limited power.  I’m also rebuilding the Giant that donated itself to the S40, and as a result have put the old brakes back on the Giant, with a set of slightly longer drop ones on the S40.  Lastly, remaining adjustment will be to the mudguards, as the chain rubs on one of the stays in certain gear combinations.  Last resort will be to take a dremmel to the stay and rely on the other three and zipties.

 So, the plan

• Day 1 – Get to Islay – Drive from my parents to Ardrossan on the West Coast, they’ll load me up into their camper van and then spend a couple of days touring themselves.  From Ardrossan, it’s three ferries to Arran, Arran to Mull of Kintyre, Mull of Kintyre to Islay, arriving in time for dinner, I hope
• Day 2 – Saturday, an easy day I think, with a plan to tourist around Bowmore in the morning, and then head over to Bunnahabhain in the afternoon for a whisky tasting, with a steady ride back to Bowmore.
• Day 3 – the Ride of the Falling Rain – a planned group ride around the island of about 150km-ish.
• Day 4 – starting at Audax o’clock back on the ferries to the mainland, that’ll be about 50km and then another 114kmm from Ardrossan to Newton Stewart.  This is really the only pressure day, with ferry timings quite critical to get to the hotel for dinner.  The only really lumpy day as I head over the Galloway Forest
•  Day 5 – Newton Stewart to Gretna, a fairly flat run along the coast mostly, about 150km, should be a breeze, as long as the wind is in the right direction, or an absolute slog if it’s not.
•  Day 6 – the shortest day of not much more than 100km, from Gretna back to Kirkby Stephen through the fairly busy city of Carlisle.  A day to take it easy, as although there are a few hills, there’s plenty of time in hand to get back to my parents for a nice evening in the pub.
• Day 7 – drive back home again.

Total should be about 650km over the 7 days so will be challenging but do-able and with enough time to sightsee on the way for most days
 

I’m planning on doing it as a credit card tour, i.e. staying in hotels, no camping – maybe next time if I don’t put myself off!   Kit list is therefore minimalist, but adequate would be how I’d describe it, but complicated of course by the need to carry my various spares for the insulin pump and blood glucose testing, plus enough carbs for emergencies as well as my usual ongoing top up.

Lesson number 5 – stick to the solid bars and gels. I tried liquid carbs yesterday for the first time in about a year and found my blood glucose all over the place and legs lacking oomph. Time to find a home for the unused sachets I have. 

A good note here - NEVER, and I mean NEVER make a change to nutrition on the day of a big event.  ALWAYS try things out with plenty of time to see if they work or not.

So, kit list for the tour is based around three main things

1)     Minimal clothing, two changes of cycling kit, one being worn and then washed, to dry ready for the next day plus one; lightweight change of clothes for the evening, walking trousers that convert to shorts, tshirts etc
2)     An Audax sparing philosophy, enough to get me to the hotel or an LBS coupled with a robust bike to start with (no 16 spoke racing wheels with carbon spokes for me!)
3)     GPS, backed by physical maps.  Mostly following NCN routes which are well signposted generally, so ease of routefinding should not be a significant issue.  I’ll leave major route planning to another time
4)     A bit of inevitable electronica to record it all

Here’s the list in full, all to be packed into my Carradice rack pack with little drop down panniers and my small radical banana bags.  I have pretty much all of it now and test packing has started – an essential part of the prep (see earlier audax report re trying to fit a bike in the car for the first time!)

1) Tools, spares equipment	2) riding gear (have all already)	3) Evening gear	4) Nutrition and health
Multi tool	Cycling jerseys x 2	convertible trousers	Insulin and cannulae
small flat spanner - pressed metal	Baselayers x 2 - LS	next day's baselayer	2 tubes hydration tabs
2 x tubes	MTB Shorts x 2	socks x 2	2 x 750ml bottles
1 x tyre	Lycra undershorts (no pads) x 2	pants x 2	water bladder
tyre boot material	Arm warmers	Light merino jumper?	Selection bars, nuts, dates plus buy en-route
co2 inflator + 3 cartridges	leg warmers	altra sampsons – very lightweight running shoes	Gels x 2 per day
pump	Shoes
emergency spoke	Socks 2 x
chain links	waterproof
quick link	gloves - fingerless plus long fingered summer gloves
glueless patches
chain lube	Plan
cable ties assorted	wear set 1
spare brake cable (long)	Evening - wash set  1
spare gear cable	next day wear set 2
rear mech hangar	evening wash set 2
wire - various lenths and diameters	wear set 1
lock	etc.
baby wipes
first aid
clothes washing soap
Leatherman multi tool
Camera
Tablet
Phone
charger + cables
Garmin 800
Power bank
Wallet
hard-copy map
keys

 

And of course, as important as training is the rest – something I learned to great effect during my ultramarathon running days is the use of the taper.  As I write this, D-Day is Thurs 2^nd August to drive up to Cumbria.  That gives me about 5 weeks to go with a general plan of

- Week 1 – multiple 50km rides, squeezed in around work, taget 200km week

- Week 2 – away on business, train accordingly, maybe a single 60km ride and a couple of shorties
- Week 3 – home again, practice packing and short laden rides
- Week 4 – away all week, rest, yoga, maybe a short run or two with a 50km at the weekend
- Week 5 – home, final kit checks, final packing, buy any last minute additions, a couple of short rides only
- Week 6 – Start doing it, legs nicely rested.

 

That’s about enough of it for now, will report back again as I get a bit nearer the time.

Next: some photos from the new camera I treated myself to for the trip

 COR – Comedy off road – An audax term for taking a normal road-going bike down inappropriate tracks, bridleways etc