Hitting the road

At last. The weather was good and despite my best attempts to not be ready to go on time, I finally managed to get out on the bike this last weekend.

It didn’t start well. When you’re not used to those clip in pedals you have to be conscious that you need to unclip your feet before you stop. What you don’t want to do is fall over. Like me.

Only done about a half mile when I realised that my helmet wasn’t fastened. Slowed down…came to a stop and then rememebered that I hadn’t unclipped. It must have been quite funny to watch, tbh. Guy rides up, stops, falls over. It was like domino going over…as I wasn’t going at any speed (at all) I didn’t hurt myself, but just kinda went over. I did laugh about it though.

Then it started to rain – that nasty, drizzly, crap rain that seems to soak you. I very nearly turned round and went straight home, but as I had 4 compadres to meet, I soldiered on.

After that it was brilliant. Getting the confidence up to hurtle down the hills started to come by the end of the ride, but at first it was quite odd — feeling how the bike handled etc. Have to say it felt great and rolled along really nicely.

Was surprised that by the end of the sojourn I’d we’d clocked up close to 50 miles and with my leg back from Horwich to home I reckon I did about 53 in total.

Really enjoyed it and didn’t suffer much at all really. The backside ached a little whilst on the bike, but didn’t last…peculiarly though my hands were numb-ish for a couple of days afterwards. Just down the little finger side – it’s worn off now, but I think I need to vary my hand position on the bars a little more.

So, with The Cheshire Cat looming in four weeks I’m pleased that I’ve broken my duck. Next on the agenda is Westhoughton to Glossop (and back) over two days and then Glossop to Sheffield and back, again over two days. That means the Snake Pass though…gulp!

The downside is that the training on the turbo is less than thrilling now. Staying in the garage just isn’t as much fun.

-pc.

BTW, the route was Westhoughton to Martin Mere nr Southport, back to Howrich, then Westhoughton. We took in Aspull, Haigh Hall, Burscough, Wrightington and I’m sure a few other places.

Good stuff.

Fund Raising

A few people are starting to ask me about fund raising and how they can sponsor me…well, that’s a very good question. Obviously, because of the technical geekery tha fills most of my time much of this will be done online. I’ll likely use JustGiving and raise awareness through Facebook, Twitter etc…but the bigger question is over timing.

When exactly should I open this up to individuals and start to approach potential corporate sponsors? I think the latter comes first, personally as individuals will likely think that it’s a long way off (7 months) and it’d be better to start that effort closer to the date of the ride. Corporate sponsors are a little different, well a lot different, and we should start to ping them fairly soon to get into the ‘machine’.

I hope that the economic downturn doesn’t affect our efforts too much. Many people and companies are feeling the effects of the lack of confidence in the future. We’ll see…but the needs of charities like Rosemere and Fanconi Hope don’t stop because of this – in fact they likely get exacerbated as raising funds for themselves is obviously made more difficult.

If you’ve got any thoughts on this let me know. When would you kick this effort off?

The slow train…

I figured that because I’m kinda new to this cycling lark that a bit of training might come in handy before setting off on a 900+ mile trek from one end of the country to the other. I’m no couch potato by any stretch, but 12 odd days in the saddle will mean the legs (not to mention the derriere) are gonna get, ahem, pummelled.

So, training goals were needed. If I just say “I’ll do 3 or 4 days a week” I won’t do it as there’ll always be something better to do. Goals, goals, goals – something to aim for. The first was to do 800 miles on the training bike in November and December. I did that one and I was quite pleased. 800 miles is quite a lot…then I remembered that I have to do that in two weeks, not two months. Gulp.

Anyway, I’ve lost about half a stone and have toned  up quite a bit. All good.

Since Christmas though I’ve been on the slow train. Even though I set a new goal – 1,000 miles up to the end of March, got the new bike and been raring to go it’s just been a bit slow. There are mitigating circumstances, which I’m not going to go into (yet), that meant I had to have a week off and take it slow the following week and obviously the weather has been pants.

Thus, I’ve not been aboe to go out on the road. This weekend just gone would’ve ben perfect, but the left shifter on my new bike broke and had to be sent back to the store. So, no bike. As I walked in the sunshine lots of cyclists passed me and I was somewhat irked.

Getting back on the cheapo bike hasn’t filled me with glee and I’m only about 275 miles into my 1000 target. Meh.

Anyway, I need to get out on the road because coming soon is The Cheshire Cat. duh – duh – duuuuhhhhhh!

-pc.

The bike debacle

It’s been a hectic month and I’ve been silent here and on justonething. I hope to be able to keep up the pace of the blog posts going forward…I think I need to carve out a little time each week to keep you guys posted on what’s going on. Must. Try. Harder.

Anyway, I have to tell you about the bike debacle and how honesty, often/always the best policy, doesn’t always get you the best deal. Not where your conscience is concerned anyway.

I ordered a Specialized Roubaix Comp 2008 from an online retailer. I won’t name them for someone may get in trouble. the order went in on teh 23rd or something of December and when I got back from Sheffield it rocked up on a TNT delivery van. Excitedly I lugged it into the house and opened the box.

“It’s the wrong bike!”, I said to Jax. “They’ve sent me the wrong bike – this is a Roubaix Comp 2009.”

That’s a £1,700 bike. The one I ordered was discounted to £1,000. I immediately thought about this situation and mulled over just keeping it and seeing if they would call me, wanting it back. Only a couple of minutes passed before I was on the phone. I figured that if they’d sent me a cheaper bike, then I’d be calling up immediately and asking WTF.

“You must be the most honest man in the country” came the response down the line “we’d never have known.”

Cue me shoving my fist into my mouth and muffling out something like “FFS”. The guy didn’t know what to do about it, so said he’d call back…which he duly did, offering me a discount on the bike but that he’d confirm the following day.

When they called the next day, they said I could keep the bike and they’d turn a blind eye. I was so staggered by this that I muttered something about “having to think about it” (duh) and that I’d call back. I obviously just wanted to keep the saga going.

Seems ridiculous, I know, and I guess most people would just have said “thanks” and kept the bike. But I wasn’t sure whether someone would get in trouble for sending out the wrong bike and in the financial climate, a £700 loss on one bike is pretty hefty.

Yeah, lame I know. I should’ve just kept the bike.

Anyway….when I called back the (now different) guy said “oooooh, this is a mix up. Send us the bike back or we can knock you £400 off it” – not a bad discount but at £1,300 it was still more than I wanted to spend.

So, I figured that by this point I didn’t have much to lose and asked if they could do me a deal on the Roubaix Elite 2009. “Sure, we can sell you that for £1,130″.

I snapped his hand off as I wasn’t going to look this particular gift horse in the mouth twice. The £350 discount was pretty good.

So, in the end it all worked out. I got the bike I really wanted, I did the right thing and my conscience is clear. If I’d have been riding around on that Comp 09, I’d never have felt comfortable.

Yeah, right. I’d have gotten over that pretty quickly I think. (who am I trying to kid…going all gangsta there and pretending I could’ve toughed it out).

Here’s the bike I ended up with

Fanconi Hope

I’ve mentioned before that I’m aiming to raise money for the Rosemere Foundation at the Royal Preston Hospital, but I’ve also decided to add another charity into the mix.

It’s Fanconi Hope. Here’s a little information about what they’re all about:

Fanconi Anaemia is a rare genetic disorder that affects young children leading to bone marrow failure and bone marrow transplantation, with a very high risk of leukaemia and subsequent head & neck cancers.

The Fanconi Hope Charity is a national charitable trust set up by parents of Fanconi Anaemia (FA) affected children and clinicians with an interest in FA:-

• To support a UK Fanconi Anaemia National Registry so as to ensure Fanconi Anaemia affected children and their families are kept track of and provided with the best care.
• To promote awareness and understanding of Fanconi Anaemia among affected families, the medical profession, and the general public.
• To encourage translational research which may directly benefit Fanconi Anaemia affected children and their families.
• To encourage research in the area of Fanconi Anaemia that may have benefit for the general public, e.g., in the treatment of cancers in general.

You can find out more about Fanconi Hope here - http://www.fanconi.org.uk/

I think the Prof is going to join us on a leg (maybe even two if I can twist his arm) and I know that Fanconi Research is close to his heart. 

For Rosemere, we’ll be arranging a meeting with them early in 2009 to talk about any specific fundraising goals that they have at the moment. I think it’d be better to raise towards a specific piece of equipment rather than just general funds. Still not sure on how much we’d like to raise in total but it should surely be several thousand pounds. 

Even in these hard economic times I hope that people will be able to donate a little (or a lot) to our efforts. All that online fund raising stuff will get set up early in the New Year and we’ll start raising in earnest then.

But for now it’s back on the training bike. It might be Christmas Eve but the training must go on!

Merry Christmas y’all, 

-pc.

start date

We’ll be starting the ride, from Land’s End on September 5th, 2009.

Umm, not sure when we’ll finish. Sometime between September 5th and 17th I expect

-pc.

Legs

I wonder how long it would take, how much training, how much gym work and how much pain to get legs like Jamie Staff? Like me you probably think that it would take a helluva long time, effort and pain.

Which is good as I have no intention of trying to get legs like Jamies. I’m quite happy with the ones I’ve got and I’m sure that they’ll hold up to the punishment quite well.

So, on to the kind of legs I’m talking about.

The record for the LEJOG is something like 1 day and 20 hours. That’s one long leg. We have no intention of doing it in one long leg and like most sane people, we’ll be breaking it up into a number of legs. Probably 10 or maybe 11.

Peter and I met the other week to look at the map and at least get an idea of where we’d be staying. We’ve reversed our original plan to do north – south, in favour of the more sensibel south to north. Peter really wanted to end up in Land’s End as he thought it would be more ‘glamorous’ than arriving in John O’Groats…not sure what he means by ‘glamorous’ – maybe he was going to have a song and dance down there. Who knows.

Back to legs.

I thought it would be a good idea to invite people to do individual legs of the trip with us. Each day will probably be around 90 miles, so if you are up for a long bike ride, then drop us a line and we’ll get chatting about where each leg will be starting and finishing. As a rough guide, if you are in the Bristol, Manchester, Kendal or Edinburgh kind of areas then you’ll probably be in a position to join in. And as I know people in all of those places and because it pretty much covers all the route, I’m kinda sorta hoping to get a few people to join in. I suspect that nobody will want to drive to Lands End or John O’Groats though.

We’ve already got the Prof and big bruvver carruthers lined up and I have a few ideas of who to ask next.

Up for it? Do a little fund raising of your own on your leg, perhaps?

More to follow when I have more definitive idea of the route.

-pc

“You must be joking”

I just bumped into Stevo – he asked me if I was joking about cycling the length of the country.

“Nope, it’s to raise money for Cancer Research.”

“There must be easier ways to raise money, cruvvers.” said Mr Stevo.

That’s a good point…there must be, but they wouldn’t be half as much fun. (Keep telling yourself it’ll be fun, Paul, keep telling yourself it’ll be fun. You’ll be OK.)

It’ll be fun. It will. Really.

(If it’s dry, downhill, there’s a good following wind and I can attach an engine to my bike)

-pc.

The first mile is the hardest…

Is that true? Is that even an adage that is used? Have I made it up?

The first mile on my training plan was completed today. Actually, the first 20 miles. I headed out to the garage this morning, jumped on the bike and made my legs go around a few times until 20 miles was done. Then I had to get home…hmm, I thought, perhaps I should have gone 10 miles and then turned around?

Fortunately, I hadn’t actually moved at all. The 20 miles was done on the training bike that I’ve rigged up in the garage. It’s just a road bike mounted on a CycleOps Magnetic training wheel, but it allows me to train in all weathers without actually going anywhere. I could be misguided, but I think the first couple of months will be spent building up the hours and distance on the trainer.

I guess it’s totally different from training by actually going out on the road. I’m going to save that for when I get the bike that I’ll do the JOGLE on. Seems logical to me – and of course I’ll also be training up by doing other stuff – squash and hitting the gym. I’m not an unfit guy, really, but my body isn’t used to pumping out 80 odd miles on a bike day after day, so I need to build up to it.

Have had some great advice coming in too (thanks Martine) – mainly about bikes, where to get them from (like Paul Hewitt in Leyland), getting it setup precisely and some other events to take part in. So, early next year, when I’ve got the bike, I’ll look at maybe join a road bike club round here and going on some decent length rides.

But one step at a time.The next thing to do is get a decent saddle for the training bike – my backside is telling me that it’s a necessity.

-pc.

“You don’t want to get chafing”

Damn straight, I don’t.

I went to the bike shop on Saturday, Harry Hall in Manchester to be precise, to get some general advice on what kind of bike I’m going to need, other equipment and some kind of check as to whether I wasn’t just a bit nuts.

The chap didn’t flicker when I told him what I was doing, so I’m obviously not mad. Nor did he look me up and down and make a snap judgement that there was no way I could possibly complete this. So, I think I’m on good ground.

Anyway, he suggested that I think about a Specialized Roubaix bike – which at about £1,500 is no quick decision, but it’s built for long journeys like this and has a more upright position for the rider.

I could see that this was going to be a long series of lessons for me even before I get on the road next year.

Then we got onto the gear I’d need. After all, he said “you don’t want to have to give up after 300 miles because of chafing”. Erm, no you’re right, I don’t.

Chafing hadn’t crossed my mind. What is it? Where will I get it (I assume he didn’t mean somewhere around Penrith) and will it affect my performance (catch my drift?). Who knows…

When I recounted this today, the same friend who suggested that I track the girth of my thighs, now switched attention to some kind of chafe-o-meter. Umm, you’ll be glad to know that I’m not going to do that either.

I’ll just buy some decent shorts. That’ll nip it in the bud(s).

-pc.