Week 14 ... here we come

After her "lucky break" Pomme Anglais has continued pedalling consistently (maybe even slightly frantically) indoors in her preparations for the ride. Tulip and I decided that come rain or shine we would clock up the final 90 miler on Saturday. The weather forecast even looked promising, which is really saying something! It has rained all day every day for the last month ... and apparently we are still officially in "drought", with hose pipe bans still in force, which makes washing the Ark by hand a rather arduous task!!

Naturally at 6am on Saturday morning it was raining AGAIN ... so we geared up and off we went muttering about predictions for May saying it will be the coldest in something between 60 and 100 million years!!  It was, shall we say, unpleasant and even the little bunnies trying to make hazards of themselves criss-crossing the road in front of me didn't really do much to lift the gloom of the sky or my enthusiasm.

I could tell Lara was feeling the same way, as she just wasn't as smooth and responsive as she usually is and every gear change seemed a little hit and miss.  We preserved until, I said to Tulip "this is horrible, why don't we turn around at that place with the pub" (which yes .. ok could be anywhere in the UK I admit) and she said "I was hoping you'd say that but shall we try the tea shop just before the pub".  We worked out that would mean a 70 mile ride, and given the terrible conditions we decided that was good enough. 

Then we came across a cyclist called Clive, who was out training for the Lands End to John O'Groats 9 day ride he is doing at the end of May.  Clive had a puncture, and while he and Tulip fixed it, I finally figured out how to get my bike computer working again (tap tap tap).  Clive had one of those gas bottle things that you re inflate your tyre with ... word of warning here - when you engage it make sure you are wearing gloves as the rapid expansion of the gas makes the cylinder freeze and consequently Clive got a nasty dry ice burn on the palm of his hand ie just where you don't want one ... bon chance for quick healing and the ride Clive.

After drying out in a lovely country tea house while scoffing Victoria sponge we headed back.

 As we tackled the last hill before a 7 mile run home things went horribly wrong. As I changed down the chain went over the last cog and the rear derailleur pulley twisted into my back wheel.
I hauled on the brake (the right hand one which is the front brake, as I was frantically trying to unclip my left foot) came to an abrupt stop and almost went over the handlebars.  Got off to find the derailleur at a very funny angle and the pulley wedged on a spoke eeekkkk!!! Tulip rang home for the Volvo Estate bicycle rescue services, while I carried Lara up the hill to somewhere safe for pick up.

Lara is home now, feeling very sore and unable to move.  She goes into Condor on Tuesday for an assessment and ordering of parts so all will be there for her full overhaul next Saturday ... meantime she's off the road all of this week ... We are not happy, but we are both still in one piece, so I guess we should be grateful for small mercies ... and that if it had to happen at all it was now and not on the ride!!

   

Cyco-logical.. those hills, it’s all in the mind!

Well, today dear readers, I decided it was time for me to up the time I am spending in the saddle and the miles I am putting on the clock to get my head down and do a ‘real’  40 mile cycle ride.

I decided on Richmond Park again, and worked out that if I pedalled 4 times around the park, with the miles to and from home there, I should clock up the 40 miles I should have achieved last week, if I change a habit of a lifetime and follow a training plan (and the wet weather ride to Watford was more like 32 miles for me – whatever would we do without cycle computers)... 

So, off I set.  The morning weather was lovely – not too hot but not too cold and I ‘cyched’ myself up to the fact I could get over those lovely undulations in the Park (again, ‘undulations’ have a more positive impact on ones ‘cyche’ than that dreaded word ‘hills’).  The fact I had only cycled round the Park twice before was a little unnerving ..

However, the Park looked lovely.  Very quiet in the early mornings, apart from the mostly male cycling lycra brigade who all look over 7ft high and ultra-trim and fit as they speed past me at a rate of knots (but I keep telling myself that I will be like that soon .. OK, maybe not the 7ft bit, or the male bit or indeed the ultra-trim bit, or the speeding bit .. but I digress..).

The cycling down the hills was, as ever, ex-hill-arating..

wind at my face and the ability to click to the far extreme of my gears to keep the speed up.

But, as we all know, what goes up, must come down – or in this case – vice versa – and those hills kicked in, and again, am I pleased to have 20 gears to choose from and maybe one day I will hit the right one in time for the right hill..

But anyway readers, that is the short blog for today.  After the ride I have sore elbows and my little fingers are numb (if anyone has any constructive ideas how to resolve this for subsequent rides, please let me know!) and, although I am somewhat anxious that the Paris ride is around the corner, and, of that, Day 1 will be over double what I did today (yet alone that being followed by a further 3 days of more miles than I did today) the fact I have just peddled 40 miles have not yet got me running to the hills, more like singing from the hills ..  

(And Dame Julie says ' please sponsor us if you have not already done so ..'!  Thanks Julie, Pomme Ed.) ..

Singing in the rain ...

... and the tune was "this is all terribly unpleasant, cycling when it's dreadfully inclement, but in the best of British tradition, we shall keep calm and carry on".  Being from the colonies myself I was thinking of an updated version of the classic. It goes like this ...


Yes dear dear reader, today was a 40 mile day and it had to be done come rain, hail or shine, and rain it did. We were undeterred  (or at least we pretended to be much more undeterred to one another than we actually were) because after all May can be a very wet month in both the UK and France, so best we had some experience of cycling in the rain.  Almost more importantly, we needed to test out our wet weather gear to see if it was all up to snuff and would actually keep us dry(ish)! On went the wet weather trousers and jackets, the all important overshoes and the gloves. Yes well I forgot my waterproof gloves and so I had on a wind-proof pair in fetching fluro.

As we got into the ride and saw who else was actually out and about on such a miserable day we also realised that the day belonged to a) the dedicated in training for whatever, b) families with small children suffering from cabin fever, and c) the shall we say the "differently wrapped", mostly out walking their dogs in the rain.

Much to her chagrin, the "differently wrapped" appeared to want to take any and all opportunities to have words with Pomme Anglais whether she was stationary or not. For some reason they didn't accost me. Could have been that my glasses were both fogged up and covered in rain, that I didn't appear stable on my bike, or that they mistook my look/grimace of "this is fun this is fun" as a signal that I should be given a wide berth!

 Pomme Anglais, being all British and terribly polite, was duly approached by several people in the course of the ride and informed (amongst other things) that "she should not look at people walking their dogs while she was talking to her fellow cyclists because the person walking the dog could think she was talking about them". Another goodie was that she should not be cycling on the cycling path when there were people with pushchairs on said cycle path, as opposed to the perfectly good footpath for pedestrians opposite.

I laughed, and was duly rewarded by a car driving at speed in a fit of really sensible and defensive driving given the conditions thru a deep pool of water, which duly saw me wear about 40 litres of it full on (you pillock whomever you were!!).  Pomme Anglais then further exacted revenged on me laughing at her by braking unexpectedly in the subway and I rear ended her and yes down I went again at zero kms an hour.  So now that's four bite the tarmac incidents since the arrival of cleats! Actually, it's five as I fell off again later at zero kms when trying to press a pedestrian cross signal - different knee skinned this time yah what a bonus!!!

So taa daahh - the results of the wet weather gear trials, noting of course that we were biking in rain that began to feel like needles because we were going so fast!  Trousers and jacket rock! Over shoes must be made by angels and windproof gloves are definitely not waterproof.  Right, I am off to Norway to see the Northern Lights, sailing up the coast on a mail boat.  Pomme Anglais and kiwifruit numero deux will be keeping you entertained in my absence.