The last fortnight has seen mixed fortunes in my training for August’s Coast to Coast challenge ride. I managed my longest week’s distance so far in the first half, including some good hill climbing practice, I more or lesss solved my saddle problems, and I finally got some more concrete details about the route we’ll be riding in August. However, I hardly rode at all in the last week, since injuring myself on Monday. Next week starts off with an interview on Radio Bristol, so hopefully I’ll be back on the wheel then.
Week 10
If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll know that I’ve been having issues with the comfort of my ride, which seemed to have been far from solved with the supposed ultimate luxury of my new Fusion Freeride saddle. So, before setting out on Monday’s bank holiday ride, I fitted the saddle from my hockey unicycle to my road machine, as it’s the newest saddle I have barring the torturous Freeride, so should in theory be the least worn and most comfortable. It turned out to be OK, but I still needed to stop every hour or so to relieve the pressure. The route was quite pleasant: up my favourite Old Gloucester Road to Tytherington and Grovesend, then back down Gloucester Road, for a total of almost 23 miles.
Tuesday to Thursday were pretty uneventful, averaging about 6 or 7 miles to/from work each day. For once, I didn’t skimp so much on the ride home on Wednesday, and I still had plenty of energy for hockey in the evening, which was heartening. My stamina is obviously improving.I also finally got round to ringing unicycle.com, to see whether they could help sort out my saddle problem. Roger agreed that the relative softness of the right-hand side of my Freeride wasn’t right, and put a replacement in the post.
I didn’t have any commuting to do on Friday, as I was working at home. This was so I could get my retinas screened for diabetic complications at lunchtime, and I’m happy to say that there don’t appear to be any, which is quite rare 15 years after diagnosis. However, I had to have stinging drops put in my eyes to widen my pupils, so I was highly light sensitive in the early afternoon (see right for proof, tough it’s clearer if you click on it for the large version), and had to massively increase the font size on my computer to be able to get it into focus. Also, the replacement saddle had arrived during the morning, which made it even trickier keeping my mind on my work, knowing that the answer to my problems was sitting on the mat, waiting to be unwrapped.
Eventually, the day’s work was done, and I could finally fit the replacement saddle. It didn’t feel noticeably different to my fingers than the original, but then it hadn’t been easy to tell the difference between the two sides of that either until I started riding on it. I spent a long time trying to convince myself that this was going to solve my problems, nostly without success, but I removed the definitely-uncomfortable Nimbus Gel to fit the new Freeride, ready for tomorrow, as the only way to really prove it was by going for a long ride.
As I hadn’t ridden on Friday, my legs were fully rested, so I thought I’d have another stab at riding the Bastard Hills of North Bristol route in one go, to see if I could make it round without any dismounts. As with last week, I was foiled half way up Brook Hill again, right at the start of the ride, but as with last week, this was at least partly down to the saddle, which I’d set about half an inch too high. After adjusting it, and walking back down the hill, I had another go, and this time made it almost all the way to the top – certainly further than I’d got on the official ride – before once again landing on my feet. Since I was so close to the top, I just walked up the remaining couple of feet, and resolved to try harder next time. No further incidents until the bottom of St Michael’s Hill, where once again I found it impossible to idle for a full cycle of the traffic lights on a steep incline. There were no further upsets on the hills for the rest of the Bastard Hills route, but I did have one further UPD on the final flat straight along Ladies Mile, just a hundred metres away from the end of the route. I think it must have been the proximity of cake which distracted me. Never mind, I improved my time for the route, this time finishing it in 95 minutes. Afer the cake stop, I headed out to Westbury, turning at Catbrain through all of the confusing roundabouts of the Mall at Cribbs Causeway, and back down Gloucester Road, for a total of 22 miles. The new saddle wasn’t the revolution I’d been hoping for – I was starting to feel the pressure towards the end of the ride, but it was a lot better than the first Freeride saddle.
I set out relatively early on Sunday morning, starting along the long version of my extended commute route, up Romney Road, via UWE, Blackberry Hill and the Bristol-Bath cycle path into Barton Hill. After yesterday’s hill climbing success, I thought it was about time to try some of Totterdown’s hills again. I didn’t think trying Vale Street would go well after I’d already been riding for an hour, but I did go past the bottom end of it while managing to get all the way up Park Street without falling off. From there I explored new (to me) routes through Victoria Park and Southville, where I realised that if I could figure out how to get there, I could add a trip across the suspension bridge to my ride. I’m not at all familiar with the road around there, and after a long time climbing up leafy winding roads, I thought I must have gone past it and back without seeing it. Luckily, all I’d done was take the very long way around Ashton Court, and soon enough I realised I was heading towards the bridge after all, which was a great relief. Not only could I ride across it, but I knew I could get home from here in plenty of time for lunch. As yesterday, the new saddle was an improvement overall, with the pressure down the centre line almost completely aleviated, but after two and a half hours I think any saddle is going to start feeling a bit dodgy. I still had another hour to go from there though, with the whole ride clocking in at about 26 miles.
Training this week: 117 miles, my longest distance so far in a single week. That’s four fifths of the short route of the full ride or three quarters of the long route, which sounds good, but the aim is to do that in 4 or 5 contiguous days, not 6 with a day off.
Week 11
After such a successful week, I was slightly disappointed to find that my knee was twingeing a bit on Monday morning. It didn’t get any worse though, and I managed my extended route to work without any problems. It was still twingy as I set out for home in the evening, and I left pretty late, so I only rode my pre-training route home, including the climb up Brook Hill. On the plus side, I finally made it up Brook Hill without falling off, but on the minus side, this effort only exacerbated my knee, and by the time I was nearing my house, it was getting quite painful. In fact, I had to get off and walk the last couple of hundred metres, and even that was no picnic. That put at end to training for the week, and though it’s stopped hurting now, it still feels like it might flare up again if I try climbing up anything more challenging than a slight incline. I think this shows that I need to have at least one day off every week, especially after excessive hill climbing.
However, the week wasn’t a total bust, as I finally got the information pack for the ride. The plan is to ride from Whitehaven, either to Roker Pier in 4 days (135 miles) or Robin Hoods Bay in 5 days (160 miles). The route we take will depend on how we feel after the first couple of days’ riding, which are going to be mostly uphill, while the remainder of the ride will be mostly downhill. That’s slightly more than the 30 miles per day I was expecting, but it should be alright. I only wish that we lived in a concave country, so we could have the potentially ride-ending hill climbing sections at the end of the ride. I gues I’ll just have to pay attention to my knees, and stop riding as soon as they start complaining.
On the way to work on Friday, I had my annual checkup. During my blood pressure test, I noticed that my heart rate was showing as 44bpm, which is quite a bit lower than my normal 60-odd. I remarked on this, and another reading with an alternative machine measured it at 40bpm. So I was sent off to get an ECG reading. This measured my pulse at an even lower 38bpm, but showed that everything else was normal. Apparently, I’m just getting really fit, presumably because of all this training.
Also on Friday, I got a phone call from Radio Bristol, saying that they wanted to interview me about the Coast to Coast ride. Actually, they first wanted to confirm that it was true that I was attempting this mad feat, but once I’d assured them that it was so, they pumped me for information about the ride and my unicycling background. The interview proper is set for Monday morning before I get to work, so I hope my knee is up to riding up to the Downs by then.
Training this week: a pitiful 10.5 miles Total training so far: 739 miles.
One Wheel, No Brain 