your daily bicycle log

Got some solid miles in at the weekend - rode with my son from Brighton to Winchester and back over the local chain of hills (the south downs), 145 miles all in one hit, 99% off road and 15,000 ft of climbing. Still didn't manage to wear the lad out, he only struggled during the last hour really and that was totally due to a lack of sleep (we left home at 3AM and got back at 11PM). Weather was kind and the puncture gods were lenient (only three, all poxy thorns). Stats and photos and shit here: https://www.strava.com/activities/2397156214

holy shit, guy

Oh man. that looks brutal.

Saturday I did an mtb ride (3000ft of asphalt climb/descent as access) with two really strong guys, only did like 7500ft climbing total tho. bonked _again_ like an hour from done.

i actually ended up passing out in a tamale shop after eating a huge smothered ground beef and potato burrito with two cans of coke. I was alone, in full gear, and i finished eating.

the next thing i knew a kindly 60 y/o was waking me with “sir?” *my head snaps up* “sir your sunglasses are on the floor, i dont want you to step on them— are you ok?” so that was humiliating and hilarious really.

missus hunt3r, who strongly disagrees with my riding at all pretty much, just eyerolled. “has to be _drama_, every time.” 😕

in hunt3r’s head “aw cmon, that’s good drama”!

Haha, you take care out there hunt3r! :D

Great ride, Nick

A friend of a friend who puts on cycling events took over the management of the "Great Western Bicycle Rally" a few years ago, so my wife and I joined with my friend and his girlfriend last weekend to ride it. It was started by the Los Angeles Wheelmen club in the mid 60's and has been going strong since then, taking place mostly in Paso Robles (wine country town in central California). My wife and I, at 43 were about the youngest people there, to give you some idea about the crowd. The rally has the use of the Paso Robles fairground, where everybody camps out and goes on any number of rides throughout the weekend, depending on what they're into. Real Fred hours. We took our gravel bikes and did rides on routes through mostly gravel vineyard access roads on Saturday and Sunday. Sunday's ride took us through some really amazing gravel canyon routes under partly cloudy and intermittently sprinkling skies. Amazing roads and views, very much the epitome of central California terrain. Ended up with a bottle of wine and crackers at a really nice local vineyard, cooked a meal on my camp stove and told stories around the campfire. Pretty good stuff.

My buddy's strava of the ride, with photos: https://www.strava.com/activities/2400364795 (I'm on the Giant with yellow bartape)

That looks really fun. Kiler/Cypress/Santa Rita seem pretty legit for Freds with wine. do they still use that term in CA? i heard it _a lot_ at end of 80s on east coast and when i rode transcontinental, but i don't think i've really heard it in CO (91-now), even when i was racing.

i was so pissed about my second bonk of year last saturday that i _re-rode_ the same course today. i think i only took like 25 mins off my riding time, but i ate and drank constantly. i haven't been so anal about 250cal/hour in 20 years. but i was so much more comfortable. a highlight: double flour tortilla rollup filled with thin-ish layer of nutella and 3 slices of turkey. salty sweet savory bready: tasty tho supermessy around 5.25 hrs.
https://www.strava.com/activities/2412669001

Dignity restored :D

that is some serious strongo hulkington nuevo cuisine

so for a lot of reasons I don't ride during the week any more, just run or do gym stuff. then one ride on the weekends.

today i realized that even though i'm once riding once a week i'm still finishing a flattish 50 miles with plenty left in the tank. so i have no excuse (apart from lack of riding buddies) for not doing my old favorite 60+ mile hilly EPIC RIDES.

going a big bike tour next week lads - 1300kms + 18km vertical. 9 days of riding - all on B-roads, canal paths and wind farm/logging access tracks. wish me luck : |

Nice one, have a good time! I’m heading off on a trip with my son tomorrow, we’re riding from Brighton to North Yorks via some sustrans routes plus the Pennine Bridleway over the Peak District / Yorkshire Dales. Slightly apprehensive, I’ve had the most banging of headaches for the last two weeks solid, hope I can shake that soon. Hope the weather perks up a bit and all, we’re going to be sleeping out under the stars, so could really do without getting pissed upon all day long

Those both sound fun! Man, what region is that first one? it's 2000m of vert a day.

I'm nearing the end of a bike-obsessive "big day" period. The season for high country exploits is closing, so I sorta have to just go, or shut up.

Friday I at least got over 4000m elev once. I wanted to do 2 separate crossings over 4k, but I ran out of time and energy. I may retry it solo. More people is funner and safer, but slower, even if I was the slowest in my small group.

bottom of scotland (mull of galloway) to the top (dunnet head). route here:
http://www.albannach.cc/thefaultlinetrail/

says 14km up there. still chunky

crivvens!

sounds cracking/daunting

this link says 18.5k up so who knows. will hurt regardless no doubt
https://www.komoot.com/collection/888199/-thefaultlinetrail?ref=wcl-m

aye - deffo daunting. been enough of a mission already just mapping out evenly spaced cafes/restaurants/spars/londis’s

I’ve done multi-day 80+ mile rides before - though typically on silky smooth mallorcan tarmac so I’m not underestimating the challenge. nutrition and the mental game will be key - that and not pushing it like an idiot and instead trying to enjoy it at a decent (but not slow) touring pace

day 1 was HOT HOT HOT. scotland currently basking in a heatwave (25C+). 80 miles in the heat led to a long day - riding partner had never ridden proper gravel either so when we hit that at 70 miles in - ... not good. 5/6 miles that should have taken about 30 mins took about 1h15. got through it though - big effort from her, v proud

I hear you. Did 95 miles today down to Hastings via many hills in baking heat and feel dead now.

my eldest got interviewed by cycling weekly (long-running uk mag) at the weekend (!) - a couple of weeks back he did the south downs way double in a crazy fast time (second fastest official time for the route and he's only 15) so they wanted to talk to him about that. the south downs way is ~96 miles offroad trail with about 11,000 feet of climbing, so twice that. i tried to do a road version at the same time, but totally blew up trying to get ahead to meet him at the road crossings (had to get rescued by my wife). super proud of him, not sure i'm ever going to get my bike back though

stats:
https://www.strava.com/activities/2708866153

amazing !!

holy amazing. *bows low*

it's completely bonkers, it just boggles me how fast he is now

how does one roll out an offroad double metric+ concept to parents? does he have a crew that rolls like that because, man.

“dad, I am both a weapon and a hitter, so...”

he did it all unsupported too - carried all his own food, spares, lights and clothes. no drafting and insisted on opening every single gate himself (and there are millions of those to go through). planned out where he was going to start from and at what time, all of it was on him. i was just there trying to keep an eye on him as a concerned parent, and you can guess how well that went down

he did a little write-up of it for the south downs double website:
https://www.southdownsdouble.co.uk/2019/09/14/unbelievable-ride-by-bill-and-he-is-just-15-years-old/

tell him he needs to do a one day/fkt of kokopelli, i’ll drive and wrench, youre on h2o drops, and we’ll try to abduct gbx as medical backup (which won’t be needed but he needs to be there).

tell him he needs to do a one day/fkt of kokopelli, i’ll drive and wrench, youre on h2o drops, and we’ll try to abduct gbx as medical backup (which won’t be needed but he needs to be there).

:)

Saw this a couple days ago- white rim is a cool one day exploit, this guy’s time is pretty insane. Aside from getting lost or left without water, it is not dangerous as is described imo. For 3 olds screwing around with a lot of headwind and photos and hangovers it was like 11hrs riding, 13 all in. No support, we had one water stash like 2 hrs in.

https://youtu.be/La8-Qqio0rU

Very impressive, Nick

Thanks! And thanks for the link hunt3r, I hadn’t seen that yet. How much elevation on that loop?

Says here like 7500. It's not even that much by "mtn" standards- there's really two stiff climbs in it, going CW-- Murphys and Hardscrabble. Come touring man. I told my sluggard 15 y/o about yr kid's exploit and he was v impressed (he is musical, not endurance-sportive).

https://www.strava.com/activities/1261622712

https://www.relive.cc/view/vPv4PXZBRv8

actually three climbs- i "forgot" the last one out of the ditch-- mineral canyon. it was dark when we got to it, i think i just repressed that memory, though i did hammer it with what i had left.

https://vimeo.com/365575458

i played with my iphone on a ride and on imovie

Cool. A lot of that doesn't look remotely rideable to me.

Ha a lot of that is not rideable to me. A lot is, in fact, not rideable, as it exists. I did a lot of that style of riding/hiking this year.

The more fakey-built shit I see, the more I am inclined by nature to dismiss the trail as space-mountain-feature-flow-track bullshit. (Reminder to me- almost all trails are built, my rules are my arbitrary rules). But I'm obviously not gravity-oriented anyway (I try to avoid hurting shit, though even on that ride, I fell on the 8 stitches that were 10-days-onward on my elbow. I got a little loose at that bizzaro 4x4 piece of random wood in the video. So I tore right through 2 of the stitches, and the rest were not so bueno either. I was almost back to civilization, but still remote enough to make quite a mess on the way). I'm not...so good at riding and since my TBI have about 97% of my previous balance and proprioception imo.

All, I'm planning on taking a year off from riding if I can. A YEAR. I don't know who I need to be, but I guess it's more than this. Just between ILTRMB and me lol, my partner melted down so much at seeing the condition of my limb, which is obviously the latest in a perpetual string of pretty-very bad abrasions, lacerations, fractures, and lesions, that I'm not so sure we'll survive together anyway. True irony, I was planning to try for a year off anyway, before going in on the trip.

Bottom line is that I'm way out of balance in a few ways. I don't know ~what it means~ though.

I'm gonna need everyone's therapy.

Good luck. You've been through a lot.

Aw Hunt3r, hope you get back on an even keel soon but a whole year sounds pretty extreme. I mean that’s a brave call and obviously you’ve gotta do whatever it takes but I dunno, maybe there’s a different way of channelling your cycling that hits on a good compromise? But good luck with sorting things out anyway. Get on with your running, Kipchoge’s thrown down the gauntlet for you there

Thx guys. I am gonna keep running and turn that up a little. i’m neither good at it nor well built for it, but it’s not from zero, i run occasionally now. Plus winter has skiing, and if i have some days, i may resume xc skiing more often, which i’m pretty terrible at but enjoy a lot. I’ll allow any commutation locally that saves time, also.

These look niiice

http://shop.larryvsharry.com/

That’s some big ££££s. Way outside my area of experience as some fietsy shit. I tried to determine whether the Nexus referred to a hub i know, but cannot.

Speakin of nexus, the IRO bike with nexus rear upon which i was struck in 2015 is in my garage. I keep thinking of salvaging/rebuilding the wheel and selling it, but i dont want to touch it. It ruint me enuf, nothing good can come of it.

Has anyone here ridden or owned such a cargo?

I am about to head out as support crew on this.

https://teamabana.com/

that looks great. good luck and stay well in support.

fwiw i made it to yesterday, 160 days, 205 days short of target. throughout abstention, i felt no better, only depressed. the ride was nice.

i dunno, i’m very bikey? fractures don't stop it, tbi didnt stop it, even my inflicted emotional distress of loved ones doesn’t stop it. i guess i can only hope to contain it.

still wanna be better and different, but i also need to feel happy and myself.

Maybe a pandemic will stop it? I'm hoping they don't ban solo cycling here in London. The weather was so bad here that I had scarcely ridden this year even before the coronavirus really kicked off in the UK. Now I'm wondering if I'll ever get out this year or possibly even longer. In the big scheme of things, I've got bigger worries, but it would do me some good if I could escape to the countryside every now and then.

idk man can you bike but like ... in a less risky way? i have a friend who kept skiing in terrain parks even after the first shattered everything, the results were not great.

NBS feel the same way you do - a bit guilty to be focusing on cycling *now* but yes I selfishly hope that it continues to be an option. It feels kinda scandalous idk.

maybe everyone working from home can do their commute to work on zwift every day

*our internet is mostly shit so that's out of the question for me