Preparations

There’s less than a week to go until we leave to start our ride now, and I think we’re pretty much ready. The accommodation was booked some time ago, the route has now been checked in some detail, we’ve re-routed some sections (we’ll now take in Dartmoor and the Shap Fells), our credit cards have been duly employed in the purchase of various bits of Absolutely Necessary cycling gear, and it’s raining incessantly. Everything is in place.

We’ve also been doing a fair bit of cycling over the last few months.

In Al’s case, between looking after the kids, he’s cycled down to the allotment a few times. The courgettes are doing very nicely apparently. The last few weeks have seen his road bike retrieved from the attic, and he assures me that the number of training miles is now in three figures.

Most of my cycling training was directed towards preparation for this year’s Dragon Ride, which I rode with Dave and Matt at the end of June. We’d done this ride a couple of year’s before, but as the organizers proudly announce on their website, it’s now ‘Longer routes with even more climbs than before!’. Great. We duly opted for the ‘shorter’, 85 mile route.

I do love that ride though, through some beautiful Welsh scenery, and taking in several long mountain climbs which are great to tackle. This year, despite the apparent certainty of torrential ride, the weather was remarkably kind (to the extent that I managed to get slightly sunburnt), my pace surprisingly quick for me, and I was pleased to only find myself starting to suffer on the final climb of the day. They even gave us Welsh cakes at the food stops! Certainly the way to this cyclist’s heart.

I haven’t really done too much specific training for this ride, other than continuing to ensure I’ve put the miles in. Over the last few weeks I have tried out my new set of panniers, which are going to carry all my clothes, equipment, maps, and, most importantly, my new book. Having been used to cycling on a lighter ‘racing’ bike, without mudguards, rack, and panniers, I have been testing what difference the weight and air resistance makes. The scientific method employed was to fill each pannier with a dumbbell weight, a football, and a wad of old clothes. My conclusions are that the added weight and air resistance slows you down… genius.

I’ve also been trying long rides (50+ miles) on consecutive days to get used to the shorter rest time, and this weekend has given me ample opportunity to remind myself what cycling through monsoon-like conditions is like.

So all in all, I’ve got just under 1,000 miles under my belt this year, slightly ahead of where I’d normally be, and I’m reasonably confident that I can do the ride physically, even if I’d rather not have to drag my panniers up some of the climbs, or get absolutely drenched. It’s the navigation I’m worried about. Have I mentioned that neither myself nor Al are very good at reading maps?.. oh.

Onwards to Penzance on Friday.