Cycling

Thursday is bike day for work, and again I had a whole lot of time with clients scheduled - at their premises rather than mine, so that meant sensible, civilised cycling. I’m sure I could have planned this better, but I ended up doing nearly 40 miles . . . . . . and...
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65 mile bike ride: Just exactly how can the chuffing wind be in my face the whole way round? And given that it’s nearly the middle of May, why is it so sodding cold? And why are the road surfaces still in such shamefully poor condition? And how come no-one told me that when the sun shines,...
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So my Decadent In-laws are here to stay and it’s the school holidays. Normally I’d do my long ride on a Sunday, but we’d hatched a plan for a picnic on Holy Island - the family would drive, and I’d cycle there before hitching a lift home. I plotted my route . . . ....
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Beautiful day . . . but that wind from the North East, over the sea was just freezing. The ride in was pretty tough as a result, and the ride home an absolute blast. Like so much to do with riding a bike, there are Yehuda Moon strips to supply the visuals (click to...
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What with the change in the clocks and generally being pretty tired, I didn’t set off at the crack of dawn for this one. If I had, I might have had some of the day left by the time I got home. The route was through Newcastle, and then off into the hills around Consett...
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That green area behind the car is the cyclists’ waiting area, reserved for bikes, in front of the advanced stop line, where the car should have stopped? The car has stopped, blocking the pedestrian crossing? The driver made a valiant effort to beat the lights (racing past me in the filter lane), but...
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Does riding a traditional British roadster count as Ironman training? When you’re riding to the train station & back? Depends on your thinking really. I had just run 14 miles, this is a heavy bike, and the headwind on the way in was totally relentless. So I’m logging it! Workout: Type: Cycle Date: 03/19/2010 Total Time: 2:00:00.00 Calories: 1168 Distance: 24...
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You remember the unwritten rule of cycling when it’s windy? The one that says the wind will miraculously change direction and be right in your face for the ride home as well as the ride out? Well it DIDN’T happen last Friday! Ride to work was head-to-head with a 20mph wind from the North, interspersed with...
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The last workout of my rest / recovery week that marks the end of Base 2 training period was immediately after my ride home, to make it a mini-brick. Sensibly, I ran out into the wind, and again got a flying second half, averaging somewhere just above 6:30 per mile. Now. If only I can...
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Bikeportland.org yesterday featured a map showing their local accident blackspots for cyclists: What you’ll notice from this is that accidents seem to happen more on busier streets, and most frequently at junctions. (In other news, the sky is apparently blue, grass green, and dogs found to bark). You can see this even more clearly on...
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