Training Ride Number 3
Saturday 12th May 2012
Distance: 68 miles
Top Speed: 42.5 mph
Average Speed: 14 mph
Altitude Gain: 4658ft
Avg Gain Per Mile: 68.5ft
Avg Gain Per Mile: 68.5ft
Weather conditions: Sunny, but
windy at times
As you can see a bit of time has
passed since our last training ride, unfortunately normal life has got in the
way over the past few weeks which has prevented us escaping on our bikes for a
few hours, until today at least.
Starting off from Darren’s caravan
our plan today was to up the mileage since our last ride and stick to the back
roads heading towards Hungerford, Newbury and then back to base for a bbq.
Special thanks to Dazza as the route he planned was good, hardly any main roads
and hardly any cars on our travels. Our route:
Special thanks also goes to our
friends at Rocket Fuel, we were powered round the route today by their special
self-heating cups of coffee. I’m not entirely sure how it works but when you
are in the middle of nowhere its great to have a nice warm cup of coffee
whenever you fancy, without the need for anything to heat it up! Open the cup,
wait a few mins and magic – coffee is hot and ready!
For the first 30 miles we were
faced with a headwind, this made the going tough and both of us often looked
down to see if the bikes were in the right gear as at times it did not feel
like we were hardly moving! I was still feeling the effects of a mate’s stag do
the previous weekend – this made the riding extra tough (I appreciate it was
nearly a week previous but as I’m getting older it takes a lot longer to
recover!)! At times the only thing driving me on was the thought of a bbq once
we got back, mmmm burgers…!
Dazza’s extensive bird watching
experience once again reared its head as we saw several large birds over the
fields, I’m told several were buzzards, and buzzards especially like wearing
thermals – or something to that effect. Big, steep hill conquered towards
Inkpen and we sat down for a well earned bite to eat and a 5 minute breather at
around the halfway point.
Luckily the halfway stage meant
it was time to turn around and have the wind behind us for a change, I’d even
prefer pouring rain to constantly riding into a headwind, it just makes
everything such an effort – even riding downhill! We plodded along through lots
of quiet country lanes, neither of us was exactly full of energy so we just
cruised along rather than putting the hammer down. Past Thruxton race track and
towards Middle Wallop we hit the wall, zero energy left at about 10 miles from base.
A quick dive into the petrol
garage for some scoff and extra drink soon sorted things out, amazing what a bit
of food can do! Soon we were off heading towards casa Dazza on the last 10 mile
stretch, ready to taste that bbq food. Unfortunately because we’d been out for
longer than expected the women folk decided our bbq was a no go as it was
already way past lunch time, however the saving grace was that the burgers were
already under the grill, nice work!
All in all today was a success,
some good miles covered but neither of us had eaten anywhere near enough food
before we set off. Our training continues with lots of gym work, plus we’ll
squeeze in as many long rides as we’re allowed to between now and August! We
also will up the mileage commuting to work, plus we need to ride some big
distances on consecutive days to see if the legs still work!
Positives:
- Some good hill training covered, although nothing was too steep on this ride we still racked up a decent amount of altitude gain.
- Mark using decent bike for the first time in a month (it only comes out in dry weather!)
- Discovering the ability to knock out a further 10 miles even when completely knackered!
- Spending nearly 5 hours on the bikes, good to get used to lengthy stretches in the saddle.
Negatives:
- Neither of us were prepared properly in terms of food or drink.
- No BBQ when we got home!
PLEASE SPONSOR US!!!:
