from balance bikes to racing bikes; on-road and off-road
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 (3D route video) 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 […]
🚲 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 (3D route video) 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 […]
🚲 60.9miles, 3122m climbing, Cols: 🏔 Col du Tourmalet 2115m, 🏔 Col d’Aspin 1490m, 🏔 Col de Peyresourde 1563m (3D video of route) 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, […]
🚲 35.5miles, 1323m climbing, Cols: 🏔 Col d’Aubisque 1709m, 🏔 Col de Soulor 1474m (3D video of route) 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 […]
🚲 94.5miles, 5279m climbing, Cols: 🏔 Pic Arthaburu 1156m, 🏔 Col de Bagargi 1327m, 🏔 Col de Soudet 1520m, 🏔 Col de la Taillandère 1836m (3D video of route) After a good meal and a sound night’s sleep we set off early in only slightly damp kit, well aware that the day ahead was likely to be tough, but full of optimism. On […]
🚲 59.5miles, 2261m climbing, Cols: 🏔 Col d’Ibardin 317m, 🏔 Urtsualdea 550m, 🏔 Collado Anzola 585m, 🏔 Col d’Ispéguy 690m (3D video of route) A la gare After being dropped off by Dad at Poitiers, we found that the TGV, legendary for its speed and punctuality, was running an hour and 20 minutes late. We managed to book new tickets for a later connection […]
My quest to be better at 40 continues… (part I here) More skill at 40! At work I find my that, through teaching, my depth of understanding and therefore my ability improves. This seems to translate to cycling. Writing The Cyclocross Bible helped me think carefully about technique and this year I put that into […]
