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Got the Garmin 605 set up yesterday. To say it was a bit of a faff would be an understatement; mostly this is due to the need to get the latest version of the MapSource software, the driver for the device and the firmware, as well as a (albeit very clever) browser plugin. I gave up on this when using my 3G card, but my 100Mbps internet connection at the office was more than sufficient ; )
MapSource only reported 1GB free of the 2GB data card when I tried copying the maps on. That wasn't too much of an issue.. I'll get a new SDMicro card soon (this was probably due to the card not having been freshly formatted), I was just being impatient, so I "borrowed" the one from my mobile.
In that 1GB of space I managed to get an incredibly high proportion of the UK on to the card - quite impressive. Having got the Dawg Primo back from Freedom (it is running like a dream!), I was happy to see that the mount was identical to that of my previous Garmin Edge 205, so I fitted it to the bike and rode home.
It's quite cool that the base map (built in) includes street names - as I was only riding locally it didn't help with navigation as such, but may prove handy when the area is not so familiar.. like when I'm in Winchester tomorrow, in preparation for the South Downs Way Randonnee.
I also discovered that home is only 3.67 miles away from the office, rather than the 5 I thought it was ; )
I have a days leave tomorrow to ensure that I get down to Winchester in plenty of time, so will probably not write again until after the Randonnee - TTFN!
My new (slightly off-topic) web site: Jim's Brighton Fishing Diary.
Took the bike in to Freedom today, to get the gears adjusted due to the stretch of the new cables fitted during the service at the beginning of the month. Should be good as gold after that - the effect of the stretch was definitely noticeable.
I've just taken ownership of a brand new Garmin Edge 605 colour GPS device, complete with Topographical maps for the whole of the UK. I'm having issues getting it to work with Vista at the moment, but will aim to get that sorted tomorrow. Looks fantastic so far, with a nice clear display. The battery life is quoted as being 15 hours, so I'm expecting it to last the whole of the Randonnee.. a major shortfall of the 205, which only lasted around 8 hours, or the Winchester to Brighton leg of the Randonnee.. not much when a very hard 35 miles is still to go. Can't wait to have more of a play!
I'd decided on the Brighton to Eastbourne route as my last long distance training ride. This was the ideal distance, at 35 miles, to ramp down from the last few rides that I'd done.
Ross and I set off from Devils Dyke at 8:30 on Saturday. This ride differed from my normal rides in that I was aiming to use energy gels almost exclusively for fueling, along with lots of water for hydration. This wsas absolutely fantastic for a high proportion of the ride - I never felt underfueled, and had the benefit that the gels don't sit in your stomach like the Alpen bars and such that I normally eat.
At about the 20 mile point, I had a banana, and at some point, a packet of crisps too ; )
Alfriston is the 25 mile point in the ride. Here we stopped off for some food and to top up on water - I put another 1.5l of water in to my hydration pack and bought a packet of fig rolls.
Up to this point in the ride I'd been feeling fantastic, but shortly after this, be it due to dehydration, not having had enough energy gels, or the fact that I'd been riding at a faster pace than I normally would, I started to slow down. My hydration pack also started to leak, causing me to have to stop to sort that.
Once that was sorted I rode the slog of a hill up from Alfriston, meeting Ross at the top. A few more energy gels in this time sorted me out, until the next hill, when again I slipped behind.
Was ultra relieved to get to the station in Eastbourne, and promptly tucked in to my fig rolls.
Upon arriving home I made up a "Rego" recovery drink and downed that. This is supposed to be done within 20 minutes of finishing exercise, so although I'm sure it helped, it didn't stop me getting the post-ride headache that was a feature of the previous weekend. It would have been good to take it easy for the rest of the day, but I had some fishing to do.. I slept well once I got home from that!
I've worked out a few things over the last few weeks of training. I already knew that training at a higher intensity than usual is how you progress at something. And I've certainly been doing that on my rides with Ross. But both of the rides we've done has resulted in my feeling distinctly hungover from dehydration afterwards, despite not having been drunk for four weeks now. So on the day my priority will definitely be to ride at my own pace, which may be a little faster than the last two years for a percentage of the ride, but will not be at training pace.
One thing that will change from previous years will be my use of supplements. I will definitely be aiming to make the majority of my nutrition from the ride come from energy gels.. I currently have 16 of them stocked up. I will also be using electrolyte drink for the first time. This is something Ross used on the last ride, which he swore by. I have a bottle of that ready for mixing up throughout the ride, along with a new Bontrager bottle cage and a bottle (Kona branded, of course..)
I will also be taking two "Rego" sachets with me on the ride, in order to ensure that I can mix up and drink one within those vital 20 minutes after finishing, with the option of another within the hour. I will be aiming to increase my water consumption on the ride too compared to what I've been drinking in the last few weeks. It quite simply hasn't been enough, and if I'm not careful, I'll probably be getting my "hangover" before even finishing the Randonnee!
This year I decided to get the day before the Randonnee off of work, to ensure that I get to Winchester in plenty of time to feed myself up and get *plenty* of sleep, a lack of which proved a big problem last year.
Less than a week to go.. Gulp!
Stats are looking good:
- Distance Goal: 200
- Miles so far: 180
- Miles remaining: 20
I'll make up the 20 miles riding to and from the bike shop when I take the Dawg in for a service, and then have a quick spin on Friday once I get to Winchester, making up my target 200 miles of training in July!
The memory of the "45 miles of misery" fresh in my head, I decided to have another quick ride on Sunday. I'd already been to Halfords to buy some Muc-Off (currently on "3 for 2" - bargain), and thoroughly washed and lubed the bike.
So I ended up sticking a litre of water in the hydration pack and setting off at about 20:30, with relatively limited daylight left. Rode to Hove Park and completed a quick lap, then went down to Hove seafront and rode along the cycle track, then back up to my house.
This was a 35 minute ride, with an average speed of around 11mph - total distance was 7 miles. A great little ride for purging the memory of the Winchester ride, and a good opportunity to spin the legs again, and have a good stretch afterwards. Updated training stats below:
- Distance Goal: 200
- Miles so far: 145
- Miles remaining: 55
Caught the 6:38 train down to Winchester on Saturday, with Ross and I having planned to ride from Winchester to Brighton.
I knew that rain was forecast on the day, but naively figured that it wouldn't be too bad, being July and all. I was wrong. Typically, I'd only taken along my "windproof" jacket, which is shower resistant too, but nowhere near able to stand up to the non-stop, and sometimes quite hard, rain.
Result? After about an hour I was pretty much soaked to the skin, even my SealSkinz supposedly having given up.. my feet were soaked too. The ride soon became a struggle, and the rain situation didn't improve for most of the day.
To make matters worse, the South Downs Way has been re-routed quite drastically from the actual route, which i know off by heart. This slowed us quite drastically, as we became lost a few times. It was good thing that we'd decided on this route though - otherwise, I'm assuming that we'd not have found out about it until the day of the Randonnee - not good.
We got to Cocking and had a decision to make - either push for the 10 miles off-road to Amberley, or ride 10 miles down the (rather fast) road to Chichester, with both options involving catching the train back. We decided on the Chichester option, and rode it as fast as possible, keen by this time to get the ride over and done with.
So overall, another 45 mile ride. Quite disappointed, but given the conditions on the day, and the re-routed SDW having slowed progress, there wasn't any other choice.
Training stats now looking like this:
- Distance Goal: 200
- Miles so far: 138
- Miles remaining: 62
Another 35 miler, in the form of Eastbourne to Brighton, planned at the weekend, which is the wind-down before the big event the following Saturday. There will undoubtedly be a few after work rides before then too, and I continue with my 4-5 gym sessions a week.
Planned to get the train to Arundel at the weekend, with a view to perhaps riding back to Eastbourne. Just after setting off, however, it started raining, so I thought I'd hang around for a bit to see what happened to the weather.
As a result, I ended up missing the train by about 3-4 minutes, with a 30 minute wait for the next one. So I rode up to Devils Dyke, started following the South Downs way and ended up deciding to ride to Chichester. The weather improved significantly, and it turned in to a beautiful day - I can still feel my skin frying from not having got the sun lotion on early enough!
At one point I'd contemplated riding to Cocking from Amberley, and then riding the ten miles back again, then the further 3-4 to get back to Arundel. However, due to evening plans, I decided to ride down to Chichester from Cocking, and get the trasin from there.
Total distance was 45 miles, including about 13 on-road. The bike behaved superbly, feeling really smooth throughout the ride, thanks to the recent service.
Had planned to ride slightly further, but still quite happy with the 45 - have now eaten a fair chunk in to the 200 mile goal. I've also tentatively agreed to the 65 mile Winchester to Brighton on Saturday with Will and Ross which will also be a nice chunk off the goal, leaving a few shortish mid week rides and one more weekender. Figures below:
- Distance Goal: 200
- Miles so far: 93
- Miles remaining: 107
Got the bike back yesterday, total damage for the service £161, just over half what I'd budgeted for. Bargain. Replacement parts were two sets of brake pads, XTR bottom bracket, a free hub body, and a full strip and rebuild, included in the service.
Went out today and bought some new bike riding shorts, also budgeted for this month. The Endura Singletrack got a 10/10 in the most recent MBR magazine, so popped to Evans and snapped up a pair. I wasn't sure whether or not they had a liner included. They didn't, so I got a compatible Endura padded liner short too - these have poppers which enable you to fix the two garments together.
Also started stocking up on some energy gels; bought 7, although with my riding this month I envisage these'll be used up during training so my supply will have to be replenished before the Randonnee.
Rode to and from the bike shop yesterday, so am boshing another 10 miles on the total distance ridden this month; I don't intend making up my target distance with small rides like this but it all counts I guess!
- Distance Goal: 200
- Miles so far: 48
- Miles remaining: 152
The Dawg has gone in to Freedom Bikes for a service today - before I left the shop we'd established that the drive train was OK; the bottom bracket was screwed and needed replacement (Shimano XTR on the way), and brake pads were needed both front and back. I've budgeted £300 for the service so hopefully it won't come to more than that, but the above mentioned items plus the cost of the full service tot up to about £140, so there's room in the budget for a little more ; )
Rode the 35 mile Devils Dyke (Brighton) to Eastbourne route on Saturday. This was treated as more a recreational bike ride than a training ride, but due to the blistering temperatures, will serve as good practice for the Randonnee, which, being in July, usually takes place on a hot day.
We didn't realise when arranging the ride, but it happened to be the day of the years first of two Randonnee's - we met a fair number of riders along the way, but these were mostly doing the 35 mile event. We'd got to Devils' Dyke at about 12:00, so had a fair old start on the 100 mile riders, although a few did catch us towards the end of the day.
Based on this ride, I've decided that 250 - 300 miles training before the Randonnee may lead to excessive fatigue once the event arrives. I've therefore decided to do 200 miles max, keeping the 50ish mile off-road rides on two of the remaining weekends, with 20ish mile road rides in the evenings, and a 20-30 mile off road ride on the last weekend before the Randonnee.
So far then:
- Distance Goal: 200
- Miles so far: 38
- Miles remaining: 162
So, only four weeks to go until the Randonnee. I have to confess to once again, having done a minimum of on-the-bike training again this year, which doesn't lend itself well to an attempt to complete the ride faster.
I've been going to the gym more regularly, and working harder whilst there, than I did last year, so I'm hoping that my improvement in general fitness will have some effect.
I've now put a plan in place. To kick off, D and I are riding Brighton to Eastbourne tomorrow. This will enable me to re familiarise myself with the difficulty level of the hardest stretch of the ride.
I'm aiming for a 50 miler next Saturday, which will be another stretch of the SDW, undecided at the moment which stretch this will be.. may make it Amberley to Eastbourne, which should be about right distance wise.
That will leave me with just two weekends of training - the 3rd week will be a 50-60 miler, with the fourth reducing the distance to around 35.
I'm also aiming for at least one 20 mile+ ride each week, during the evening, although I'm not sure how practical that will prove to be.. with 5 gym sessions a week I'll need to be wary of burnout too.
So all in all, I'll be aiming for at least 250 miles of riding in total during July, with 300 the preference.
I'll log my training miles here to keep track. Gulp.
Rode the Downs Link Trail with D on Saturday. We decided that it would be best to start in Guildford and ride back to Shoreham, the "home" end of the trail, rather than go from Shoreham to Guildford and have to mess about with trains on the way back. Definitely felt like the best way to do it.
We caught the 9:19 from Brighton station up to Clapham, and then another train to Guildford from there. I wasn't entirely sure of the route from the station to the start of the ride, having only ridden it the other way before, but we got there within 10 minutes and promptly set off.
The trail is pretty well signposted, so most of the route was easy to follow, which is as I remembered it. There was one point (Southwater), where we had a bit of a mental block and couldn't work out where to go - asking a local soon sorted that and we were quickly on our way.. as you come out of the tunnel, follow the sand coloured cycle path ; )
We stopped fairly regularly for food and drink - I took some random photos, but nothing suitable for a route guide.
At the beginning of the ride we'd decided to aim for two separate targets - one according to the average speed of my GPS, and one that of D's cycle computer. The difference is that a cycle computer only counts time when the wheels are moving towards the average speed, whereas the GPS is constantly calculating the average. So the GPS is more realistic, and better for determining how well you're doing towards a distance goal in a certain time, and the speedo is better for morale ; )
The difference over the 5 hours or so was about 2mph, with the GPS recording 8.2 average and the speedo abut 10.2mph. Total distance, including riding to and from the stations, was 40 miles, a good start to my training for the Randonnee.
Finally got my hands on a new Maxxis High Roller. I originally went in Evans Brighton for one of these, but they didn't have a *single* off-road mountain bike tyre, apart from a few folding models. They offered to order one in but if I was going to do that, I'd rather order it from the web. So I eventually got it from Halfords Hove, along with three slime filled inner tubes - Halfords were doing 3 for 2 on all tubes, bargain.
I think the highly worn tyre I had on previously was at least partly to blame for the puncture nightmare, so this should go some way to improving puncture resistance for the near future.
Also got the bike booked in at Freedom Bikes for a full service on the 1st of July, in preparation for the 100 mile South Downs Way Randonnee (now booked!), which is on the 25th. Gulp.
Had a slightly eventful bike ride with D - our planned route was to get the train to Chichester, ride to Cocking to join the South Downs Way, then head to Arundel once we got to Amberley.
I ended up suffering the second worst puncture nightmare I've had yet (the first one this one) - half the valve cap was blown off of the valve by air pressure as I undid it. Relying on the fact that I'd have plenty of spares, I threw the top half of the valve in to the bushes.
I ended up regretting this when, for some reason, the only spare tube I had, despite having 1.75-2.1" printed on the side, wouldn't inflate nearly as much as was needed - we gave up on it and had to stop a rider as he came down the hill, to ask if he had any spare inner tubes that he could sell. Thankfully he did have a spare - which I proceeded to puncture severely - I'd thought the flattie had been due to a faulty valve, so hadn't checked for thorns - of which there were several.
After 3-4 puncture fixes, with the tube still going down, we got fed up and stopped a second rider to ask the same thing. We eventually got going, but due to plans for the evening - simply rode back down to Chichester and got the train from there.
Not the most successful mountain biking ride ever - a distance of about 23 miles in total with only about one of them actually off road!
Completed the 10k Superheroes run in 48m 47s - dressed as Bananaman instead of Spiderman. This, I thought, was slightly more original, and as a two piece outfit, resulted in less chaffage than the one piece Spiderman jobbie.
Had a ride with D, consisting of a train ride to Eastbourne, from where we rode to Friston Forest over Beachy Head to ride round the mountain bike Trail. This has evidently now turned in to the "Red" mountain bike route, rather than the "Purple" route - the colour of the arrows on the trail markers has changed ; )
Really good bike ride - the day was pretty overcast, but the rain held off, so riding conditions were spot on.
Have just signed up to a 10K run along Brighton / Hove prom - with all participants dressed as superheroes! I'm going as Spiderman - if I can find a suit big enough to fit my 6'4" frame!
This is in mid May, and I'm aiming for the June Randonnee this year, so I'm sure the training for the event will be beneficial for that [note to self: need a new rear tyre!].
I normally only put links to external sites on my Links page, but I thought this one worth breaking the rule for - for routes around Brighton and the surrounding areas, including both road and off-road rides: Bikely.
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