Broken Bones and Life Resolutions

A few things have happened since my last post, the most prevalent being that I came off my bike during a TT warm up just before Christmas. I cracked my ulnar, crushed my triquetral, and sustained severe concussion, along with all the usual cuts and bruises. Obviously this put a stop to my riding, as I am in a cast for 6 weeks (only 2 weeks to go, as I write this!). This not only impacts upon my physical fitness, but also my 'psychological fitness'. For me, riding a bike is not just about pushing my body, seeing the world around me and shouting at car drivers, it's about clearing my head and sorting through life's troubles. I hadn't really realised just to what extent I rely on cycling as an almost spiritual part of my life, it really is like meditation. This is the part of riding a bike that I have missed the most. 

As with every new year, resolutions have been made. Rather than 'new year's resolutions', this year I have made 'Life Resolutions'. Being in my last year of university and faced with the prospect of finding a job and moving into the 'real' world, I have been feeling both extreme excitement and trepidation about my future. I have been very complacent with myself in the last few years, rather than actually chasing and achieving my goals. This is changing. 2013 is going to be a new beginning for many different reasons. 

The planning for my Norway trip (an example of a previous goal/dream that I am actually going to achieve this year!) is progressing, the route is basically finalised now, and once my exam timetable is released at the end of the month I will look into booking flights. It's getting real, which both excites and scares me. Training will resume as soon as the cast is off, not just for Norway, but I am also riding from London to Paris in 24 hours in April, which will be another, although very different, adventure!

So much to look forward to; I would say that I cannot wait for it to begin. But it already has.

Back On The Road

Dean Moriarty, in Jack Kerouac's On The Road, said that 'it's an anywhere road for anybody anyhow'. Although the Tour Divide won't be happening for a while yet, that's not the end of the road; other adventures are on the horizon. 

After an extremely vivid dream involving my late grandfather, I have been inspired to cycle the length of Norway next summer. Roughly 3500km of incredibly undulating terrain going from Bergen to Kirkines (on the Russian border) is not going to be an easy undertaking, especially considering I'll be riding on my own for the bulk of it. There's the possibility of Amy riding the first few days, but the rest will be just me and the bike. 

Talking of the bike, I am currently building up an old steel frame my dad has had lying around into a touring bike. The picture shows it in its current state (tactically chosen titanium-coloured paint...), post being stripped and re-sprayed. Hoping to complete the build over the Christmas break to give me and good few months to hone everything before setting off. 

I will hopefully keep this updated fairly regularly with how planning is going, but now, I am off to fail miserably in a 5 mile TT and probably throw up. All for a good cause, I guess...

A Rather Major Update

I really haven't been very good at keeping this updated. Lots to report, but I'm going to keep it quick. 

After carrying out a full and cynical (read: realistic) budget, we've come to the unbelievably reluctant decision that riding/racing the divide in 2013 is not something that we can financially afford to do. This isn't to say it will never happen, because it will. Whether it's in 2, 3, 5 or 50 years, it will happen. In the mean-time, we're going to set our eyes on some smaller (read: cheaper....) challenges.

Tomorrow we collect our new (and first!) road bikes, so expect a flurry of new posts in the coming weeks!

For now, as someone once said, "life's too short not to take these adventures". 

A Quick Update (With Photos...)

This week's long ride was a fairly last-minute affair, mainly due to the change in weather forecast meaning that Saturday was the only day over the weekend without heavy rain and gale-force winds. If I learned one thing this weekend, it is that online route planners cannot be trusted when gauging the difficulty of a ride...

What was planned as a fairly leisurely 55 miles turned into a grueling 6 hour ride. We left a couple of hours later than planned (my fault for not sorting out the chain earlier in the week) but made it to the lunch point on time. One cooked breakfast, a bowl of nachos and a baked potato later, we headed back out. Some beautiful moorland, some brilliant descents and a mile long section of 20% followed, but at around 3:30pm it was started to get dark and we were still about 10 miles from home, without lights. The decision was made to ride 5 miles to the nearest station and get the train the last bit, rather than ride the main, unlit, road back home. 

The hills (roughly 1600 metres of climbing) really took it out of us. Where neither of us had ridden this distance for a few weeks, we weren't expecting it to be easy, but the online planner certainly underplayed the gradients in many places....

Apologies for photo quality; my phone camera isn't the best!

On the way to Princetown

Dartmoor, so desolately beautiful

There is a rainbow pretty much in the centre of this, but barely shows up

The bottom of the 20%

And the top! Notice who started second and finished first.... BOOM! (to be fair, Amy's thigh was playing up....)

More climbing!

What makes the climbing worth it

My (generally...) trusty bike

Ups and Downs

The main positive to report is that my bike is sorted! After dismantling (with the help of my illustrious dad) the cassette and playing with the freewheel, we came to the conclusion that the problem was a combination of a broken spokeguard and a worn-out chain. So now my chain is sorted, I can get back to riding properly! 

I am entering the Spam Biking Winter Challenge (http://www.spamwinterchallenge.co.uk/) with both my mum and dad and one of their friends (Amy doesn't currently have a mountain bike, so is giving this a miss). Since none of us have done any offroading in a while, we went for a casual 20 mile ride on Saturday (I borrowed a bike for the day) on some of the trails that the ride takes place on. Despite a wobbly start that entailed losing the front wheel on a couple of steep leafy drop-ins and injuring my knee, the rest of the ride was good. I always forget how much I enjoy mountain biking, and it was reassuring to see how well my road riding fitness transferred itself, particularly up the hills, one of which maxed out at an unbelievable 42%....! One thing it did show me was that I massively need to work on my core and upper body strength.

My knee is now virtually healed, so (report write ups permitting) I'll hopefully get out a couple of times this week. A quick update on Amy's training is basically that she's doing better than me! She did 2 rides over the weekend, and has been riding in the week a lot more than me. Now that my bike is sorted, I'm determined to get out more so I can get some payback on the hills....

A Slight Setback...

Slightly longer between these two posts than I originally intended, definitely going to stay on top of it from now on! 

The major thing to report here is that my bike is broken! Me and Amy were out for a 55 mile ride on Sunday when, completely out of the blue, my rear hub seized up. Fortunately it happened going up a really steep hill at around 5 mph; if it had happened going 40mph downhill I'd probably be in hospital right now. After dropping the wheel out and playing around with it, we managed to make it rideable. Luckily (I guess...) this happened 15 miles into the ride, so we took the short, main road, way home. 12 miles on A roads isn't fun at the best of times, let alone when you're worried about your drivetrain completely seizing up....

I'm heading home to Wiltshire this weekend, so will have a proper look at it then, although, due to the cost of hubs and having a wheel rebuilt, it is probably going to result in hunting down a second hand rear wheel. 

Talking of Wiltshire, I recently got in contact with a 2011 Tour Divide racer, who happens to live very close by! We've exchanged emails and will hopefully be meeting up over Christmas for a chat to gain invaluable first-hand insights into racing the divide. 

We have also decided to try and raise some money for a worthy cause through doing this event. We haven't fully decided on a charity yet, but I will let you know when we do...!

Til next time....

Humble Beginnings...

I'm starting this for mainly my own benefit. I think it will be a useful tool for looking back over past training and keeping on track to reach my goals. 


The main goal is a fairly straightforward one (I'm not sure it will be straightforward to achieve, but it is certainly straightforward to lay out), to complete the Tour Divide in the summer of 2013. The current plan is for Amy (my girlfriend) and myself to compete (I say compete, but the only people we will be racing are ourselves), with the idea to see some of America after the race is finished. 


For those of you that don't know, the Tour Divide is a 2711 mile mountain bike race from Banff, Canada, to Antelope Wells, on the Mexican border. It has over 210,000 vertical feet of climbing (more than climbing Mount Everest from sea level 7 times...). For more information, the official site is here: http://tourdivide.org/.


I plan to update this fairly regularly, after rides, and when I have other thoughts that could be relevant. 


So, the adventure has begun.