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.

Training & Bike update

I have put an ebay bid on another bike (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220872207869&category=33503&_trksid=p5197.c0.m619) but am thinking it wont be mine (oh no, it wont).  At this point it is probably still January before a bike will hove in to view.
Until then I am, as previously advised, concentrating on other parts of the essential training program.  Just now I appear to be bulking up on what I am assuming are essential winter fat stores (or I am 14 months pregnant and due to drop a baby elephant any time soon.)
I also recently re-read, well to be honest re-skimmed, Lance Armstrongs auto-B.  I thought I must have missed the chapter on his drug regime, but it turns out he is saving that for a future edition, so I was left with the bit about whether I like apples or not.  I thought hard about it, I went and ate an apple (apple crumble to be honest, with creamy custard) to confirm my thoughts and can confidently let you know that I DO LIKE APPLES.
With that bombshell, I shall away and watch the end of Scotland's interest in Euro 2012.

Stuart

P.S. Tim,  have you been cycling to work?  We are interested in hearing what canines have chased you along the tow-path recently.

Not starting to Train

Thought I should bring everyone up to date with my training progress.

I have a bid on a bike on ebay - if I get it I might start cycling soon.

That's it.

Well, I suppose I could say that I am concentrating on the mental bit of the journey (most people reckon me to be about 95-100% mental so I am on schedule).  Seriously though this is the tough bit, you know, looking at really expensive bike frames,  wondering if a top gear of 53-11 is practical, wondering if a cycling bib will suit my fine physique, trying to work out if there is anyway to fit a helmet cam into the budget, looking idly at pre-packed energy bars, remembering that the route has lots of uphill.

It is only 218 days to Embo....

Stuart

I didn't get the ebay bike - still need to be working on the mental side of things

Starting to Train

When approaching such a mammoth task as cycling 179 miles, training is very important.  But training is challenging at the moment since I am riding a rickety mountain bike (I have been assured that it works perfectly well but it doesn't sound happy when I push the left pedal down.).  As previously mentioned, I'll get a road bike in January and really get going, but if I don't cycle at all until then the chances of me doing this wild challenge diminish by the day.

So, to the point! I was out riding my rickety bike home from work, which should be an 11 and a half mile journey.  Yesterday I was cycling into a strong headwind on the way home. And about 60% of my journey is uphill. And I tried a new route. And got lost. And I vowed never to cycle again. A vow I'm sure I'll make a fair few times between now and May the 5th.  So I think I cycled about 12 miles because I got a little lost but (and now the good bit) my theory is that surely cycling 12 miles on a mountain bike, into the wind and going uphill is like cycling about 30 miles on a road bike on flat terrain with no wind. Based on this calculation I would only need to cycle 71.6 miles uphill with the wind against me on a mountain bike to match the Embo challenge.

Now that I read that back, I think I might rather 179 miles on a road bike.  Unfortunately, I realise that large parts of the 179 miles will be uphill and there could well be a headwind.

Now that I read this back again I would like to vow never to cycle again.

Tim

First post

As we won't have bikes until January, there won't much in the way of blogs until then.  In January we'll update how our training is going and how much pain we are in.  Until then, feel free to support our efforts for charity by buying us our bikes (see link below). Cheers.

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=57227 

On a more serious note, we are doing the cycle for charity, more details of which will be on the way.