The Loooong Commute

A pretty standard 7 days of cycling last week ended with taking a spin to work but not to do any work!

I wanted to see what commuting to work would be like on bicycle for me personally. It is a pretty straight forward route using the A41 from Hemel to central London. Conditions were perfect and I was quite excited by the interesting challenge of pedalling to the place I spend most of my waking life. I had in mind it would take about 2 hours and be close to 30 miles.

Not many eventful things on route to point out. A few golf courses, reservoirs, shopping centres, farms but then I hit (not literally) the National Grid Elstree and the London school of flying at Elstree Aerodrome located right next to each other. Probably not the best thought process to have these two so close together. Further spinning got me to the ULO (University of London Observatory) and the outskirts of London town.

Having had a great average speed and good continuous movement up to this point I knew that would all be halted by the number of impending traffic lights, roundabouts and crossroads ahead. I wasn’t wrong…stop, start and chudder chudder through Brent Cross, Swiss Cottage and St Johns Wood and I was on the edge of regents park. With Maple House and the amazing BT Tower now in eye line I wondered why I had actually taken this journey as I should be switching off from work at the weekends.

With plans to go out that evening I decided not to cycle back in order to get home quickly and I jumped on the train home as I usually do on a week day but this time having to lug the bike on board.

Here were the stats:-

Distance: 26.67 mi

Time: 1:39:39

Moving Time: 1:34:05, Elapsed Time: 1:39:39

Avg Speed: 16.1 mph, Avg Moving Speed: 17.0 mph

Max Speed: 34.0 mph
Elevation Gain: 817 ft

The final training plan is still hills hills hills from here on in......

Good Hill Hunting

Having completed most of my training now with the Christmas challenge of endurance with 500kms over 7 days and the 3 recent rides all over 80 miles I am close to finishing my gruelling training for the L2P in 6 weeks’ time. The last element I need to improve and want to take on is hill training so the weekend was all about hunting out the most daunting hills I could find in 15 mile radius.

The weather was amazing this weekend and impeccable conditions for saddling up. Strangely the weather was almost too good and stretched your thinking towards embracing a beach, sunbed or bbq-ing in the back garden. This is a silly thing to say after battling the elements over those grim winter months but those dark days have definitely made me a stronger cyclist which I am now seeing the fruits of in my training.

I didn’t have any set route for my ride, which was oddly nice, as I am usually military about a cycle plan to achieve a certain distance. With the shackles off I headed towards previously unchartered land and south west towards Felden, Bovingdon and Chesham. Over 10 strong hills completed I realised that this is exactly the training I need to be doing now in order to keep up my cycle education and development.

A couple of hours in and nearly 30 miles clocked I still felt fresh and with a certain Strava segment approaching close to home I fancied at crack at becoming King of the Mountain (KOM) or at least entering the top 10. Head down, driving and peddling my nuts off I had my best crack at it. I wouldn’t find out the results though until uploading the data back at home. On upload I was absolutely chuffed to see that I had achieved first place and was the new KOM on a certain segment in the universe of Strava. I was very very happy with this as this is not the KOM segment I have been chasing for long time (early blog entry, which I am second on) but a recent one I discovered where there have been 1589 Attempts by 417 People. The icing on the cake was that I beat the top man by 5 clear seconds.....impressive, if I do say so myself.

A lovely end to the cycling week was capped by my first genuine KOM along with great hill work. I think I may have one last big hill ride over a long distance to complete for my training before the L2P and Wales looks like nice place to endure this from recent research.

100 up!

On Wednesday I booked a day’s annual leave from work to complete a milestone which had been on my mind for some time……could I cycle over 100 miles in one single ride?!

Coincidently Strava challenged all of its members in the month of March to cycle 100 miles in a single ride. So, weather impeccably monitored on Tuesday night I had seen the forecast for glorious conditions, for a challenge like this, which left me in no doubt that I would not be sitting at my desk the next day.

Waking early on Wednesday morning to clear Blue skies, no wind and a decent outside temperature justified booking a day off. I was pleased with this but now slightly fearful of the huge test I had set myself up for. All preparation done with packing lots of food, water, energy gear and so on I was ready to click the cleats in and start the first of many thousands of revolutions.

I had chosen to head towards Northampton which is about 55 miles from home so a round-trip should have seen me past the 100 mile target. I had also estimated that the trip would take 8-10 hours so setting off at 8.30am should see me back home by about 5pm and I thought I booked a day off. This seemed a full days work ahead……

The first 45 miles was really head-down and I took the same route to Bedford that I had previously completed (see another blog entry for that lowdown). The impressive thing with the first 45 miles was that my pace was far higher than I had expected and I was managing 17 mph. Once through Bedford it was on to Northampton. Now this segment was not quite as fast as 17 mph and I was starting to feel like Northampton was a mirage that kept moving further away from me even though I was trying my hardest to get to it, almost boarding on a dreamlike state. Lots of hard work on the pedals took my to 55 miles and a sign that looked like an oasis in a desert. 

At the point of seeing this sign a wave of relief swept over me as I knew I was at least half way now and I could do a 180 and head for home. However, a thought, after going through many towns, cities and villages I have regularly seen on all the "welcome" signs the words "Twinned with" and I am curious to understand this fully so I will be looking in to that #google

At 65 miles and over 4 hours in the saddle my body was crying out for fuel so I had to stop soon. Now whenever I go on a long ride I have this vision in my head that I will stop about half way in to the cycle at this quaint little coffee shop and have a nice hot drink, pastry or another freshly baked consumable. Now the reality is I always keep cycling trying to find this magical place and mile after mile I keep searching but end up getting more and more hungry and desperate to refuel as there is never this "perfect place"…….so this scenario was happening again to me and I gave it from 65 miles to 75 miles to actually find this ideal pit stop but alas nothing......so I had to settle for the slightly less glamorous layby on the A5 near Milton Keynes. A far cry from a croissant!!! So a quick 10 minutes break, sitting on a kerb in a lay by with the sun on my face and traffic whizzing past me,  I scoffed down half a jam sandwich, banana and a finger of timeout and I was back on the saddle heading for home squirting the last of my water and energy drinks in my mouth.

At just over 90 miles in I wanted to stop again in a small village with a nice park bench under the “welcome to” sign to enjoy the sunshine in a slightly more serene surrounding than my previous stop. I enjoyed the sun beaming down, gobbled a flapjack and spent enough time off the saddle to recovery energy levels for the last blast to Hemel. This was the time though that I ran out of all liquid. Not good considering there was still an hour to go…..

Once my computer flashed up 100 miles completed the sigh of relief that came over me was enormous. I had got this far importantly without Rex getting injured which was a constant worry for the whole journey in terms of being so far from home but also wasting a day off work if I wasn't unable to complete the 100 mile task due to bike failure!

So 107 miles and so close to home it was again down to the choice of which hill punishment to select, not exactly want you need after so many hours on a saddle but shakily I took on Nettleden Lane and on arrival at the top I knew I was on the last flat to take me in to home. After arriving home I felt a little emotional to complete another huge milestone in this cycle obsession that has taken me over since I started it 6 months ago.

After uploading my data to Strava, moments after getting home, I was very proud to see a number of achievements. I had just completed my longest ride ever at 108 miles, recorded my fastest 40k and highest elevation on a single trip. One of the things that made me extremely happy was the duration that this epic ride took. My journey took 7 hours and 12 minutes but my actual moving time was 6 hours and 48 minutes giving me and average speed for the entire cycle of 15.9 mph!

In addition to this I have now ridden over 2,000 km on Strava since I joined last September and earned the latest Strava digital badge. 

To put things in perspective of how far I rode on Wednesday it is actually 107 miles from my front door to the middle of Birmingham city centre. On this day I completed 108 miles!

The days of having a “barse like peach” seems to have gone as well and all in all there was some slight wear and tear from the trip but on Thursday but I still felt relatively good for the amount of exercise completed.

My training is now almost completed for the L2P however, I do need to step up my hill training which is next up for me this weekend.

PROUD

I am delighted, proud and slightly overwhelmed to say I have reached my revised charity target of £2,000. http://www.doitforcharity.com/christopherlee

In September 2013 when I hit submit on my mouse for my entry to the London to Paris challenge I started out with a target of £1450, which was set as a minimum amount to achieve by the charity. I was very scared of not achieving this target and was full prepared to fund any short fall myself. At the turn of the year I was so well supported that I achieved that original target and then focussed on a new milestone of attempting to reach £2,000 for the charity Mind, the mental health charity http://www.mind.org.uk

The support, generosity and passion from the people that have sponsored me have really driven a form of desire inside of me that I have never felt before. It is amazing for me to know that it is not the end of someone’s interest in the journey after they have committed to sponsoring by submitting the donation as so many of you have continuously shown interest, in my new found passion for cycling, by eagerly waiting for blog entries, sincerely asking about weekend rides and more importantly waiting to see if I make good on their investment with enough training to complete the imminent daunting test ahead of spinning the cogs all the way to Paris. All of this really keeps me going and whether it is 5am starts, cycling in the dark or riding for an exceptional duration of hours the truth is I am so committed to this task and delivering ultimately enough money, to a charity very close to my heart, that makes a difference to so many lives.

I cannot thank all of you enough for helping me achieve my target for Mind. The current total stands at just over £2,200 and everyone that donated to this cause is part of this journey with me and my sincerest gratitude goes out to all of you.

I cannot wait to tell you at the end of the challenge how I completed it with many more blog entries and importantly how the money that you supported with was used to make an serious impact.