from balance bikes to racing bikes; on-road and off-road
The first batch of our new Kinesis RANGE e-bikes had been delivered just after Christmas, while Jen and I were still layed-up with COVID. We had an agonising wait while they sat in boxes until we were recovered enough to have a go. Luckily we were back on our feet again before the next snow […]
Here you’ll find my latest ill-advised and non-rehearsed cyclocross video diary type thing. It’s mainly the videos but I’ll add a few explanatory notes where necessary. Episode 3 Episode 3 Teaser Episode 2 Books The strength and conditioning books mentioned in video can be found here*: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/howtorideabike *Disclosure: If you buy books via the above […]
This question on an online cycling forum sparked many reassuring responses; if you ride a bike then of course you are “a cyclist”. The person asking quoted the length of her rides, how long she had been riding, and how often. Initially, I jumped to chip in with the same response as everyone else, but […]
My quest to be better at 40 continues… (part I here and part II here) Fitness at 40! I promised to complete my trilogy with a post on getting fitter at 40. This is not trivial, and definitely still a work in progress. But here goes… Six things: Maximise training benefit = minimise ‘junk miles’. Training […]
The proposal After 17 years of marriage, we’d bought houses and had kids together but still hadn’t really committed. When discussing the race with Jen, there was some confusion and emotion over the difference between couldn’t and shouldn’t do the Three Peaks. We decided to spend a few days in Giggleswick at Easter so she […]
🚲 70.0 miles, 3661m climbing, Cols: 🏔 Col d’Agnes 1570m, 🏔 Port de Lers 1517m, 🏔 Col de Pailhères 2001m, 🏔 Col de Marty 1469m, 🏔 Puyvalador 1760m The shared room (see day 5) was fine – we slept well anyway – like most of this trip! The only problem, if you can call it that, was that our kit didn’t dry overnight, but […]
🚲 101.3 miles, 2085m climbing, Cols: 🏔 Coll de la Quillane 1713m, 🏔 Coll de la Llosa 1863m, 🏔 Col de Fontcouverte 605m (3D route video) Being so high up, we thought a check of the weather forecast would be wise before setting our alarms for the morning. It looked like an extra hour’s sleep would mean the ‘feels like’ temperature […]
🚲 72.8 miles, 3324m climbing, Cols: 🏔 Col du Portillon 1293m, 🏔 Plan de Beret 1893m, 🏔 Port de Salau 2088m, 🏔 Col de Latrappe 1110m Following two ‘easy’ days (day 3 & day 4), we were now going for a full-on day: crossing into Spain for a long and high gravel path we’d spotted on Google Earth, before crossing back into France over […]
🚲 60.9miles, 3122m climbing, Cols: 🏔 Col du Tourmalet 2115m, 🏔 Col d’Aspin 1490m, 🏔 Col de Peyresourde 1563m With re-renewed vigour and lowered expectations, we set off up the Tourmalet after a couple of pastries, planning to stop partway for our morning coffee. We’d ridden this climb non-stop 12 years ago when I was 10 weeks pregnant, and long before Strava, […]
🚲 35.5miles, 1323m climbing, Cols: 🏔 Col d’Aubisque 1709m, 🏔 Col de Soulor 1474m The Aubisque We set off at 9am, after a good breakfast, not in high spirits, but determined. After yesterday’s issues we decided to cut the high altitude offroad sector from today. It still constituted the “big” day, however: 4 major road cols in around 90 miles. […]
How to Ride a Bike 