Having not trained much in January after a very busy December
I really needed to get myself in gear and push a little harder than I had been
doing. I thought that signing up for a challenge in January would help motivate
this but time as always has slipped through my hands and the last few grains of
sands remained for me to complete this task. I only had 6 days left to complete
my first cycle challenge for the year and today, of all days, had to be the day
that I tried. The challenge is called Gran Fondo 1 and consists of exactly this
- In the first Challenge of the Gran Fondo series, Strava is challenging you to
ride 130 kilometers in one ride between January 1st and January 31st.
The weather forecast made for very bad reading last night and
today lived up to all expectations and predictions. Wind, rain, hail, storms,
floods were not my friend on todays mission. Today was the last opportunity of the month for much
needed training and my desire to complete this challenge set by Strava meant I
had to get out in it whatever happened. It was always going to be this way. Life
is never easy and in all honesty I would rather have it this way. No PAIN no
GAIN blah blah blah…
Needing to clock up 130kms I needed to choose a route and
town far away from my start point as I cannot stand going around the same loop 2
or 3 times. Destination Oxford. From all calculations and route planners it
seemed to be about 70kms to reach so this would be ideal and the route seemed
pretty straight forward as well.
After the lengthy process of getting ready I opened the
front door and almost got blown right back in. It looked very grim indeed.
Within 2 minutes of leaving the house I was saturated.
This was going to be a very long and testing day. It got a lot worse. 45
minutes on the clock and it was my first power shower of the day heading
towards Aylesbury. A medium sized white van took great pleasure hitting a
puddle or what looked like a small reservoir at the tasty speed of 50mph. I
think all you can do is laugh in these situations so I took it like a man and let
the driver of the van enjoy their “points” for covering a cyclist.
A41 safely navigated it was on towards the A418 for a long
stint and then eventually the scary, busy and fast A40. Lots of water from the
Camelbak, energy drink and pouches of energy gels got me over 2 hours and the road signs for Oxford had single figures on them when related to how far I needed to go
to the reach the City. The A40 is a road I will not be taking again and on
reflection should never have taken it in the first place. Lots of big coaches delivering
hoards of people from the big smoke at very regular intervals led for a somewhat
nervous arrival into Oxford.
On arrival to Oxford I wanted to head directly in to the city
centre and have a nosey about having not visited before. I immediately seized
my opportunity to explore by latching on to the back of a “Big Bus Tour” opened
topped bus that wasn’t exactly doing a roaring trade today but it would help me scan the
area for the key sights. I liked the look of Oxford and I don’t know why but I was
completely surprised by how many academic buildings there are for so many
different facets to become a brain box. It seems a good looking city overall
and I liked the look of a lot of restaurants, delis, public houses, cafes and
so on. It was also at this point I was starting to get a few hunger pangs.
Another pouch of an energy gel was a quick fix and after
freewheeling around the city centre I had clocked my 70kms so I spun the pedals
around a few more times and looked for the exit. The exit came through the
Oxford ring road and out of pure luck than anything else whilst heading to the famous
town of Woodstock I found signs that would eventually lead me back to the A418
and towards Thame.
The weather was still relentless on the way back. After
battling through to 100Kms in 4 hours my body was telling me a number of
things. A quick 90 second pit stop at a bus shelter in the middle of the
countryside helped boost my energy by noshing a gel pouch, nourishing myself with a small
banana, sheltering from the rain for a short period and lastly a nip around the back
for a comfort break.
Re-energised and nothing blocking my mind I blasted back to Aylesbury with the positive feeling of knowing I was only 20kms from home….and then for
the biggest scare of the day. Having stopped at a busy roundabout for a while
to allow traffic to pass I saw my opportunity to circumnavigate to the
direction that I needed. However, I did not plan for an approaching motorist to jump the roundabout at 50pmh and almost take my life. Surely 10mph on a
roundabout is fast!!!!????!!!! Time stood still for a moment and the worst
thing was being locked in to cleat pedals. Your brain needs to react to too
many situations in a ridiculously short time frame of milliseconds. A scramble to
the side of the road whilst clicking out of cleats was achieved and the continuous
apology from boy racer by holding his hands up in the air to me repeatedly didn’t
really cut it. It is at times like that (once you know you have survived) you
really want more than a bell on your bike. A ting ting of a cycle bell doesn’t really
help you vent.
The last stretch and I was really starting to feel hungry.
Having only had two Weetabix for breakfast and a small banana on this gigantic
5 ½ hour cycle I was starting to get apparitions of huge food shaped objects on
the side of the road as I cycled past. I was also seriously fantasising about what I would stuff my face with as soon as I got in…….
A dog of a hill was the final obstacle in Berkhamsted and then
I rolled back to lock Rex away in the garage for another day. He didn’t let me
down again and with each ride my fondness grows and after a hazy, gloomy and unpleasant
cycle I had hit 135kms. I had achieved my target and beaten the challenge set
by my dictator. Strava who is now becoming very much like my scout leader commended
me with this badge of honour for completing the challenge.
As my cycle journey goes on my experience and fitness grows with increased sustainability in endurance, distance and time in the saddle. This has been my longest ride to date and there will only be one day of my ride to Paris that will be longer than this. Slowly slowly catchy monkey as they say….
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