Who'd have thought it?

David and I both took the day off on Thursday and took advantage of Sheridans kind offer to drive us and the bikes to Bath so that we could cycle back. This was an ideal training trip. It was just over 100 miles and generally could be considered and easy ride as the route is fairly flat and we had a forecasted tail wind.
By the time we had travelled to Bath and fiddled around in a cycle shop it was 1.00pm so we decided to get cracking and stop for lunch after the the first 30 miles. This seemed to work well as we were approaching Marlborough at about 2.45pm and spotted a pub sign that looked very welcoming. We turned off the main route onto the country lane but could still not see the pub. We went down the road, down the hill, round the corner but could still not see the pub. By this point we were a bit frustrated but in the distance we could see a village. Sure enough we arrived in the village and saw the pub despite it now being well out of our way.. However, it looked good and we were ready for our late lunch after a couple of hours of cycling. The garden was sunny and we found a place for the bikes but the backdoor of the pub was closed. And then....would you believe it the front door was closed and it turned out that the whole pub was closed at 2.45pm on a sunny Wednesday. When we saw the name of the pub it all made sense.

The trip was routine and we finally arrived home a little weary in the early evening and I am glad to report the the kitchen at "The Beacon" was not closed.

Fundraising

Fund raising is going really well. We have raised over UKP 4,500 and still going strong. One of the donors has offered to donate again if I get to my UKP6,000 target which I am fairly confident of doing. A huge thanks to everyone who has donated and a quick scroll down the justgiving page shows how generous people have been. The UKP 6,000 that we are planning to raise will send two very sick kids on a holiday of a lifetime which is just fantastic.

I have taken the day off work today so that we can do a long training ride. My wife Sheridan has arranged a day out in Bath and is taking David and I and our bikes down with her in the car. This is great as we get to ride a pleasant 110 mile one way trip. With luck the weather ( and my dodgy knee) will hold out and we will get to enjoy a ride that is roughly equivalent to a day of the Ride Across Britain.

We will let you know how it goes.



The link is www.justgiving.com/Jonathan-McKay1



The Fox and Hounds makes your heart beat faster

We had an brilliant ride out on Sunday morning. It is only the second time that I have cycled during the weekend with warm sun and encouraging air temps. This is our normal Sunday loop that is between 50 and 60 miles depending upon any small variations that we make to the route. There are several climbs that get your attention. The first is a long slow grind between High Wycombe and Stockenchurch. This is a 5.7mile stretch of which two thirds is probably uphill with a mile and a half needing some commitment. The gradient is not quite steep enough to get you standing on the pedals but the distance is enough to get your heart rate up to max by the crest. I have a new Garmin (Edge 500) gadget on my bike that measures all manner of things. It is the size of a match box but contains a GPS, Altimeter, and sensors that measure speed and pedal cadence (pedals revs per minute). The rough guide to your max heart rate is 220 less your age. In my case this is 220 – 55 = 165 and although I used to be able to get my heart rate up to 182 on the rowing machine a couple of years ago I think 170 is a good working max for me now.

The route takes us out through Turville and up to Christmas Common with a much steeper hill through an idyllic country lane. David gets to show his climbing prowess on these types of hills and manages to leave me for dead. There is a great pub at the top of the hill called the Fox and Hounds but we have not managed to get beer and serious cycling to work well together – yet.

Follow my Ride Across Britain http://oldmeninlycra.blogspot.com

Every week we try and get out in the evening for a session of night mountain biking. This involves fitting a very powerful light to the bike and then heading of into the woods for some scary high speed trails. It is amazing fun and hard to describe the sensation correctly. I think its a bit like skiing as you"zone" into the light path in front of you.

Last night it was such a warm barmy evening that David, Matt and I left at 7.00pm which is well before it gets dark and cycled through the woods in the twilight. There are still bluebells out in the woods and the warm, calm night was hard to beat. We are creatures of habit on our night ride and tend to do the same route every week. One of the highlights is a steep climb out of Little Missenden. It is a stony bridle path that gives you 5 mins of very hard climb. My heart rate gets up to max (180 bpm for an old guy) but it does mark the end of the hard stuff and once we are at the top we can glide back down thru the woods to the pub.

When we had completed the climb and worked our way into the woods my chain snapped which can be a big problem if you don't have specialist tools with you....and we did not. However we did manage to limp to the pub and as we pulled in to the court yard two other drinkers looked over and offered to help. They both happened to be bike mechanics from Cycle Fleet in Great Missenden. Even they could not fix the chain without the tools but they did give me a lift home and we lived happily ever after. So thanks to Andrew and Nigel from Cycle Fleet and we will come out and see you as new customers!

how about this

Just by coincidence....... it turns out that one of my colleagues, Calum Noble at Tribold has a good friend who also travels with Dreamflight (he is the guy on the left) as a helper.
I thought it was a great picture that really captures the spirit of the event.

Thanks Calum

Fit that bike!

We spent and interesting day yesterday with a guy called Mike Veal of Bike Dynamics in Leamington Spa. Mike runs a small business that takes all of the guess work out of fitting a bike to a rider. Over the course of a couple of hours he videos and measure you so that a series of small adjustments can be made to the bike.

Correct bike fit is the key to minimising injury and I wished I had done all of this a year ago. My left knee is a problem currently and I hope that the changes that Mike has made are enough to sort me out.

The picture shows how he measures the rider geometry and can therefore calculate the modifcations to the bike set up. He also discovered that my left leg is 8mm longer than my right leg and suggested that I dont get lost in the desert.

In the begining

There is nothing better than a full english breakfast, on a sunday morning, when the kids are out of the house and you have time for the third cup of tea and a good read of the weekend papers. This was the scene in the late summer of last year when Sheridan, my wife handed me the "weekend" section of the newspapar and said."....here, this might interest you". It was a large article about the 2010 Ride Across Britain and it captured my imagination. This was going to be the first large event, sponsored by Delloitts (the large accounting firm) that echoed the hugely popular ride across America. Sure, the distances are a lot less but the US event is usually completed by relay teams of 8 people that cycle about 400 miles each and the RAB was an event that you could do solo and cycle the whole 1050 yourself.

After a quick ring around I found there were a bunch of friends and aquantainces interested and we booked our places. Just as well as the event was sold out by September 09 as more people found out about the event.

And so started the slog to prepare. I had cycled to Paris earlier that summer and so I had my taste of long distance cycling and knew that I would have to cycle through the winter to get in shape.