Sometime has passed since our last blog update but things are moving on at a pace!
Tom rides to the coast on a solo mission training ride:
The training miles are being racked up with regular rides going out between 50 - 80 miles of a weekend and many solo hours being racked up on turbo trainers, down the gym or if you are like Tom taking the most indirect route to work possible.
We are all proficient in the repair of punctures but unfortunately not tyres and some gaffer tape has been added to the tool kit following Saturdays ride with a double side-wall blow out leaving one of us who does not wish to be identified sat on the side of the A4 waiting in the sunshine for the rescue bird to come out and find them.
We have started getting used to riding in places where we do not have a clue where we are going and relying solely on our GPS for turn by turn navigation. This has had its pitfalls as one of our recent rides turned out to be a bit like the Paris Roubaix! When we got to the next town for the obligatory Ginsters and Bluebear we mentioned the road was a bit non-existent and the lady behind the counter laughed and told us, "this is the Cotswolds lads, if sheep can get up it, its a road". At this point a small but invaluable investment was made into a road map so we could check these so called roads on the Garmin were actually roads in the first place. This will save so much time its not funny. On a good smooth road we can average about 16 - 18mph, on the pot hole ridden, rough, broken minor roads we go down to 14mph max, if you have 100 miles to do that's a big difference.
We have also learned that the Garmin Mapsource programme we used to plan the route has a small error in its mileage calculation and was spitting out a total mileage about 7-10% shy... sorry lads was all I could say when they realised all the 80 mile days were about 85 and the 90 mile days were Century rides!
Here is our first day:
We always knew we would have to start making camp site bookings and that's started now and we have got some of them booked - its a nightmare trying to get hold of these people but once you start paying out cash you are nothing but fully committed.
So in summary we now have:
Tom rides to the coast on a solo mission training ride:
The training miles are being racked up with regular rides going out between 50 - 80 miles of a weekend and many solo hours being racked up on turbo trainers, down the gym or if you are like Tom taking the most indirect route to work possible.
We are all proficient in the repair of punctures but unfortunately not tyres and some gaffer tape has been added to the tool kit following Saturdays ride with a double side-wall blow out leaving one of us who does not wish to be identified sat on the side of the A4 waiting in the sunshine for the rescue bird to come out and find them.
We have started getting used to riding in places where we do not have a clue where we are going and relying solely on our GPS for turn by turn navigation. This has had its pitfalls as one of our recent rides turned out to be a bit like the Paris Roubaix! When we got to the next town for the obligatory Ginsters and Bluebear we mentioned the road was a bit non-existent and the lady behind the counter laughed and told us, "this is the Cotswolds lads, if sheep can get up it, its a road". At this point a small but invaluable investment was made into a road map so we could check these so called roads on the Garmin were actually roads in the first place. This will save so much time its not funny. On a good smooth road we can average about 16 - 18mph, on the pot hole ridden, rough, broken minor roads we go down to 14mph max, if you have 100 miles to do that's a big difference.We have also learned that the Garmin Mapsource programme we used to plan the route has a small error in its mileage calculation and was spitting out a total mileage about 7-10% shy... sorry lads was all I could say when they realised all the 80 mile days were about 85 and the 90 mile days were Century rides!
Here is our first day:
We always knew we would have to start making camp site bookings and that's started now and we have got some of them booked - its a nightmare trying to get hold of these people but once you start paying out cash you are nothing but fully committed.
So in summary we now have:
- Transport donated by the Coleview Community Centre - thank you!!
- 4 virile, lean, mean cycling machines ready to take on the challenge
- 1 once virile support team member, Dave Carr who has kindly taken 2 weeks off from his self-employed business to spend it with four sweaty and lycra clad urchins
- Campsites being booked - thank you to Lorraine from Cossburn, Peebles near Edingburgh for two nights donated free of chage!!
On the more serious side the next thing on the agenda is to start making some money for Scotty's Little Soldiers. If you would like to make a donation of 1p of £100 then please feel free. We are punishing ourselves with a 1000 mile ride and coupled with the at least double this in our training rides it would be great to something good come out of it all. The easiest way to sponsor us is to make an online donation at http://www.bmycharity.com/endtoender . We are paying for all of our own expenses and any money raised via the website goes straight to the Charity.
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