Today's ride

Things that made me happy on today's cycle:
1) Tim says "we were doing 22mph and you accelerated away"
2) nothing else, I can't cycle up a hill and Tim can't take advantage of a downhill

so in the next 82 days we have to learn how to cycle a long distance without dying

that should be easy then...

Training Begins! (Huzzah!)

Stuart and I finally got a start on training together by cycling a Crieff to Comrie loop that was just over 18 miles. It has revealed a few useful pieces of information;

1) I have girly little chicken legs.

2) Stuart has girly little chicken lungs.

3) I can climb not too badly and

4) Stuart accelerates like a beast. (much to my annoyance)

Fun times though. The big cycle in May is only just short of 10 times the distance we cycled today. There's a heartening thought to end on.

January update

I took my bike to Centre Parc when we were there a few weeks ago.  Round around the park a few times and up and down the hills and I am feeling worse than ever.  Tim now has his bike and has been hassled to putting up a picture.  I am putting a Feb 1 start date for training, and will be posting some sort of training schedule up, with updates of how far behind I am falling!

Also my first poster goes up on Tuesday - a big thanks to Paul & Jackie at JAVA LAVA in Crieff.

First Ride

I psyched myself up for a ride, donned some ridiculous clothing to keep warm and headed out.  Thwipping along comfortably on the road out of Crieff towards Comrie when 'pedunck' or some such noise and all of a sudden my chain is dragging on the road.  Five minutes riding followed by a fifteen minute walk home.

So I got a chain-link fixing tool and this morning with a little effort, a little frustration and a little gentle coaching and encouragement from Annie I fixed the chain, gave it an upended pedal test and now just have to start juicing myself up to get back in the saddle and out on the road.

I Ordered My Bike!

So Stuart thinks he can outdo me by getting a cool yellow bike does he? Well he can. But I went to the Edinburgh Bicycle Cooperative today and ordered my bike and accessories. The bike is nothing too fancy but it fitted me nicely and will do what's needed. Here's a link to it if you want a look ...

http://www.edinburghbicycle.com/ebwPNLqrymode.a4p?f_ProductID=12967&f_FullProductVersion=1&f_SupersetQRY=C438&f_SortOrderID=1&f_bct=c003155c018341

As you may have noticed, it's nice and reduced as well.

Unfortunately, I can't pick it up until January 20th as I'm getting it on Cyclescheme through my work and the voucher to get it won't be issued until then. So until then I am using visualisation techniques. I believe that means my training is going better than Stuarts. Awesome.


*have added picture Tim

I GOT MY BIKE!!!

So, my bike arrived today - bright yellow and lovely.  Now I have to re-attach the saddle and pedals, set the saddle and handlebars to the correct height and start some cycling.  I will log these on map my ride, so anyone interested can see how little I am doing.  For anyone local, please don't knock me off as you drive past helpless with laughter.

Tim - the pressure is on.

Route plan

Ok, I have a bike, that is I will have a bike when it gets here next week (pictures will follow).  So now I have to start thinking of real training - Well I have some routes on Mapmyride, I'll start with of those.

But of course the training is for a purpose and to that end I include below target mile markers and timings for the ride up.  From experience the first two should be on track, but it gets tougher after that.

Miles	Ends
1-17	Perth	1 mile past Perth	0-60 mins
18-34	Kindallachan	1.5 miles before Ballinluig junction	61-120 mins
		15 minute break	121-135 mins
35-51	Pitagowan	B847 junction	136-195 mins
52-68	Dalwhinnie	1.5 miles before A889 junction	196-255 mins
		15 minute break	256-270 mins
69-85	Kingussie	0.5 mile after A86 junction	271-330 mins
86-102	Carrbridge	2 miles before A938 junction	331-390 mins
		30 minute break	391-420 mins
103-119	Daviot	2 miles before Daviot	421-480 mins
120-136	Duncanston	Top of Black Isle B9169 junction	481-540 mins
		15 minute break	541-555 mins
137-153	Kildary	1 mile before B817	556-615 mins
154-172	Embo		616-675 mins

So on the above schedule a 0600h start gets us in about 1715h, or an annoying 15 minutes after the sauna closes.