Cycling to Wales

Last weekend we cycled to the Brecon Beacons and back. "We", is Mark Halliday, Ian Vanstone, Rich Harran and I. Over 3 days we cycled over 300 miles and climbed over 3250 metres.


Day One

(route) We set off from work at 12:20 on Friday, the early light rain having thankfully cleared away. Mile one was downhill and flat but then we had our first mini-climb of 80 metres up to Farley Mount. This is one of the hardest hills near work but it would pale in to insignificance by the end of Saturday.

We followed the Garmin Edge 705 Sat Navs directions to Stockbridge, taking a route I hadn't done before. We set our top speed of the day of 39mph down the B3049 in to town.

Between us we had 3 Garmin Edge's. I think this is because they're so hard to follow that you need significant redundancy. And like the Space Shuttle's control system, when one system disagrees with the other two, you can follow the directions of the two that agree.

By 1:40 we were skirting Andover heading generally north. This began the longest, ever-steepening climb of the day, from 119m to 277m in 5.1 miles. Not very tough but 25 minutes of uphill. Followed by a lovely 102m descent in just 1.1 miles. And straight in to another 76m climb. And a 95m descent. Quite good fun really.

Then we zig-zagged around loosely following a river west for about 21 miles. Rich picked up a puncture which took about 20 minutes to repair - our only mechanical issue for the day. Between Alton Barnes and Stanton St Bernard we saw a chalk horse on a hill. The landscape around this area is striking. Rich commented that it was lunar: wide plains and distant bumpy hills. Really pretty.

At Bishops Cannings we turned north and climbed a short(ish) steep(ish) hill (58m in 1.3 miles) and gently swung west to cross the M4 north of Chippenham.

We cycled through a beautiful village made of stone called Grittleton. Check it out on StreetView, although I remember the place being far prettier than the linked imagery suggests.

We reached Luckington, our destination, at 6:30. We were very generously being put up for the night by Kirsty, a friend of Mark and Ian.  After a quick shower we went to the local pub, the Old Royal Ship.  The World Cup started today and France were playing Uruguay.  There was a big screen in the pub but we sat outside in the evening sunshine. Turns out we missed a poor 0-0 draw anyway.  After a lovely meal and a few beers with Kirsty and John (her man) we headed back for a relatively early night.

Day Two

(route) This is the one I'd been fearing. But it started well with a top quality cooked breakfast (thanks Kirsty).  We were rolling before 8:30.

The first task was to get to the M48 bridge to Wales (the M4 bridge doesn't cater for bicycles). The first hour of the day was mostly flat and we averaged 16.5mph. For one 2 mile section we averaged 22mph (although we did drop 53 metres).

Ian had been looking forward to crossing the bridge and I can see why. You're quite high up and the views are fantastic. Looking down in to the water you can see swirling currents moving in all directions.

Once in Wales the sun came out and we headed north past Chepstow and turned west and up a hill on the main road. First gear was employed but it was fine. My bike has a "double" not a "compact" crankset. This means that my easiest gear is significantly harder to turn than a compact - which the other 3 cyclists had. My easiest gear is 39x27.

At the top of the hill we came off the main road and descended a tiny single track road. Then we were introduced to our first real hill. For the next 0.65 miles, the road *averaged* 11%. Blissford Hill in the New Forest is 25% but that was nothing to this. We ascended 112 metres in 1040 metres. Sitting down for this climb was not an option. It felt like I had to stamp on one pedal while lifting up on the other just to turn the wheels. Our speed dropped to about 3mph. There was a lot of heavy breathing. At one point everyone but Rich dismounted because it was crazy steep (28% according to GPS) and the road was covered in small pine cones that made it slippery. At the top we caught our breath, admired the view back down over the estuary and scoffed chocolate. This was the first time I've had to dismount due to gradient. But it wouldn't be the last...

Coming down the hill on the other side was quite hard work as the road was small and twisty so we had to use the brakes all the way down. 234m elevation down to 46m and apart from lovely views, no benefit. Grr.

Ian started to make noises about his gears not feeling right but we headed down in to Usk for a bite to eat before he took a proper look. I emerged from the One Stop with a tonne of sarnies and wraps to hear Ian say that his chain was bust. It hadn't snapped (wait for tomorrow) but one of the links had split and looked very weak. Mark had brought spare chain pins so Ian took out a couple of links from his chain and got it all fixed. A quick lunch ended up taking 50 minutes but at least it was sunny and the rest of us enjoyed a leisurely lunch.

Shortly after 12:00 (38 miles) we saddled up again and followed the river to Abergavenny. En route Rich picked up another puncture which was fixed without any drama. We went through the middle of the town. It looks like a nice place, nestling among some big hills. Worth visiting some time.

We took the flat Brecon Road out of town for 7 miles, which concluded an easy 20 mile flat section. We turned right on the A479 which had recently been resurfaced and was lovely and smooth. With the strong sun and recent tarmac I feared it might be soft and sticky but it was perfect. We climbed up the A479 for the next 7.4 miles, gaining 240 metres. Long, but not too bad.

From the top we loved the descent to Talgarth on the new road surface. 189 vertical metres dropped over 3.2 miles in 8 minutes at an average of 24mph. Sweet!

Along a country lane Rich and I saw a large predatory bird take off and fly just over our heads with a decent sized black bird gripped in its claws. Nature in action!

The big climb of the day was just around the corner. We approached it by coming up a steep hill, then the road kinked steeply upwards, looking quite a lot like a vertical wall of concrete. You can't see the gradient very well on StreetView, but if you look at the fence posts on this image you can kind of see it. The GPS trace suggests the peak gradient was around 35%. I had to dismount, again. For the first uber-steep hill of the day I had walked up it in my cleated cycling shoes which isn't very easy because the cleats exacerbate the angle at your ankle, but this one was so long I took off my shoes and walked sock-footed until the gradient eased off to something more sensible like 15%.

For 5.6 miles we rode up a narrow road taking in some amazing scenery.  We climbed from 385 metres up to a peak of 530 metres.  Whilst tough, this part of the ride was what we came for and it didn't disappoint.

For the next 12 miles and 40 minutes (!) we dropped down the valley from 530m to 113m. And then ground up another 110 metre climb, what looked, from the graph, like the last real ascent of the day...

But wasn't. Just after we crossed the A40 the road went straight up a ridge, gaining 80 metres and peaking at  21% gradient. This one was tough but was conquered.

All we had left was the road to our destination which the others had done before and said it was a bit steep. We'd had a nice 106 mile warm up and only faced another 75 metre, 0.5 mile climb. With a gradient tightening to 20% for the last 200 metres. I gave it a big push, resolved to make it, but had to dismount just 40 yards from the end as I wasn't getting enough oxygen and my lungs were about to fall out.

We finally reached Ian's Aunt and Uncle's place at about 6 o'clock, having cycled 107 miles in 9:33 and climbed 1475 metres.

After a quick bath we sat outside on a picnic table for tea (thanks Joy) with awesome views over the valley. What an amazing place to live. We heard lots of interesting stories about the trouble the heavy snow caused earlier in the year. Pudding was excellent too - home grown rhubarb made in to a delicious fool. Truly scrumptious.

Then we watched the England game with a couple of beers and some smoky bacon crisps (of which they had a surfeit) before giving up and (again) having a relatively early night.

Day Three

(route) Everyone slept like kings although I did head to the loo in the middle of the night and forgot that there was a couple of steps out of the bedroom to the landing and took a tumble. I received a whack on the knee which could have been disastrous but wasn't. It felt a little bruised and tender the next morning but it didn't affect my cycling.

We were up for breakfast for about 8 o'clock. After lots of cereal and toast we were ready and set off at 8:50. It was a bit awkward getting started as our route continued up the steep hill we finished on last night but we managed it without incident.

We took a fairly main route back to the M48 bridge. The best bit was heading out of Devauden down a billiard table smooth road averaging 28mph on a 3 mile section that dropped 160 metres. Top speed was a touch over 40mph.

Over the bridge, over the M4, heading for Bath. I was hoping to avoid the worst of the hills:- I recently went to Bath and parked in the Park 'n' Ride at Lansdown near the race course and the hills round there were big! It turns out Mark had routed us that way as there isn't much choice if you're avoiding main roads. We climbed from 103m to 285m on a hot day having cycled nearly 200 miles over the previous 2 days. It was quite tough but we just took it slowly and ground it out. Some nice views though.

We turned left off the main road before the PnR and took some narrow lanes to the east edge of Bath, heading through Bathford and near Bathampton (imaginative names they have in these parts).

Mark had been warning us about a steep climb for a while and it arrived on Warleigh Lane outside Claverton.  It's about a 75 metre ascent over 1/3 of a mile. Mark walked part of it because he still has achilles and knee issues from his London-Edinburgh-London ride last year, and Ian walked part of it as he dare not stand on the pedals given the state of his chain. Rich and I both made it to the top without stopping which was satisfying given the 3 hills I'd walked yesterday.

Then we rolled down the hill in to Bradford-on-Avon. I hadn't heard of the place but it looks really cute. We were looking for lunch and we got directions to the local Sainsburys. We passed a bicycle shop and then literally 50 metres later Rich's chain appeared to explode. We later found out that the front dérailleur had slipped down the seat post and got caught in the chain, ripping it off. Rich found one half his chain but not the other half which had disappeared. I'm amazed at the luck of having a bike shop 50 metres away and that we wanted to stop for lunch anyway. Rich bought a new chain whilst the rest of us went to get food from Sainsburys.

We had lunch by the canal as Rich fixed his bike. Mark and Ian managed to mistake 2-litre bottles of water for 1-litre bottles so we had twice as much as we needed. A couple of bottles were gifted to a random passer-by.

We still weren't half way home so we got going once Rich had fixed his bike and had some food. We'd conquered all the nasty hills but we still had 60 miles to go. We went through Warminster and then followed the river for 22 miles to Salisbury. Somewhere in this segment we spotted another white horse. I haven't managed to find it on StreetView yet though.

As we got in to Salisbury there was a point where the road narrowed to a single lane. A BMW driver (what else?) saw 4 cyclists about to enter the single lane section and gunned it. We had to stop in a hurry and he flew past. He either didn't see or didn't care about the stop sign after the narrow bit as it emerged on to the main road, but on another day this could have ended in a nasty car crash. Idiot.

It's odd to think of Salisbury as "nearly home" but it felt like it. Less than 25 miles and I'd be home (although Ian and Rich had slightly further, and Mark 5 miles less than me). There's a bit of a hill out of Salisbury in to Aldebury, parallel to the A36, but tiddlers like this no longer bothered me.

Then it was over the A36 to the lovely flat terrain of the Deans, Lockerly, Kimbridge and home.

112 miles for the final day, 9:38 hours, 1050 metres of climbing.  (The elevation graph above is from Mark's GPS and doesn't show the full distance).


Summary Statistics

81.6 miles, 107.3 miles, 111.7 miles = 300.6 miles (plus a 5 mile commute to work for me).
750m, 1475m, 1050m = 3250 metres of climbing.  Highest point at 530m in the Brecon Beacons.
6:10, 9:34, 9:38 = 25:22 (including stops)
2 punctures, 1 new chain, 1 chain repaired.

Everyone was pretty tired by the end. I was developing saddle sores on the third day but otherwise was in remarkably good shape. I chose not to cycle to work on Monday and on Tuesday I do the school run. I cycled Wed, Thurs and Friday though. Rich cycled every day the following week.

Over the 3 days, as well as big meals, I had:

• 5 KitKat Chunky
• 4 Snickers
• 2 bags of Haribo Super Mix
• 2 bottle of Lucozade
• 2 Alpen-like bars

Mark had planned the route using BikeRouteToaster.com which is a great tool. It can reroute by dragging like google maps does, it shows elevation, it has lots of import/export options, and it can show maps from and route over OpenStreetMap. Superb.

Rich and I took rucksacks but Mark and Ian packed everything in to their jersey pockets and various saddle bags. I used sun cream but still ended up with sharply defined lines on my upper arms between pinky-brown and white.

Rich's pattern of one mechanical failure per day also continued on into Monday when his gear cable snapped on the way in to work.

Overall: a lot of fun, met some people, ate tonnes, saw many pretty views and villages, was defeated by and conquered some big hills, did back-to-back long days. Thoroughly enjoyed.

Cycling weekend, before we go

Heading off tomorrow, Mark Halliday, Rich Harran, Ian Vanstone and I are cycling to Wales to tackle some hills, returning on Sunday.  The elevation profile above is for the second day.

This will be my first set of back-to-back long rides whereas the others have done Lands End to John O'Groats before.

Day 1 leaves work at midday and heads off to somewhere north of Bath.  It has the most short sharp ups and downs and covers 82 miles.  Forecast seems to be rain in morning and clearing later.  We should arrive at 7:00 where we can clean up and have a pub lunch.

Day 2 is hilliest and 105 miles long. Basically getting to the bottom of the valleys in 35 miles, then heading gradually up them, climbing up and out of the end, along, then back up into the top of the next one (miles 72 to 77 climb 400m)  before heading south and down it (miles 78 to 90 look sweet!).   Heading off at 8ish, or earlier if possible, we should  arrive at Ian's aunts by 5 to socialise before watching England v USA at 19:30.

Day 3 is longest and goes near Bath, which is pretty hilly.  It has a great run back along the river valley, the last 40 miles being on the whole downhill.  We plan to leave at 9:00, getting back for 6:30 or so.

I'm a bit nervous but massively looking forward to it.

iPhone usage analysis

I'm going to be replacing my iPhone 3G with an iPhone 4 shortly.  I got my current phone on an 18 month £30 contract - the cheapest available at launch.  I calculated that a PAYG option would have been cheaper for me but O2 didn't launch it until a few months had elapsed.

Given my usage pattern over the last 2 years, would I still better off with PAYG?

If O2 make it easy to see historic usage graphs then I couldn't find it.  After some laborious copying in to a spreadsheet I ended up with:

Talk minutes: average 23, min 9, max 51
Texts: average 40, min 22, max 78
Data in MB: average 165, min 107, max 292

This usage pattern was achieved whilst on a contract: for the first 18 months it included 75 minutes and 125 texts, and currently includes 600 minutes and 1200 texts (£20/month).  I used the phone fairly frivolously because I was always well within my allowance.

What about data?  O2 used to be "unlimited" but now has a 500MB limit, after which they reduce the speed.  This is according to the O2 rep responding to comments in the O2 blog where they announced the 500MB cap.

"If you go over your data limit and don't buy a Bolt On then your data speed will gradually slow down. You won't be charged further.

Posted by: O2 | 10 June 2010 at 05:52 PM"

So it looks like a 500MB "limit" is fine for me.  I've only exceeded 200MB twice in two years.

iPhone revisions seem to be an annual occurrence so an 18 month contract seems odd.  Choosing 12 or 24 months is probably wiser, depending on whether you really need to have the latest handset or if you can survive the second year with a superceded model.

I currently get my broadband with O2 and I get a £5/month discount for also having a mobile with them.  The rest of the family are on Vodafone so if I switched mobile providers I'd lose the discount.  I've been content with O2's coverage although I think Vodafone would be better.  So unless Vodafone have a significantly cheaper option for the iPhone I'll be sticking with O2.

I've used over 90% of the storage on my 16GB 3G.  The current selling prices for the 16GB and 32GB 3GS are £237 and £282 respectively.  So whilst there is a £100 premium for the bigger version you should recover about £45 of that if you sell it after 2 years.  Given photos at 2.5 times the resolution of my 3G, and HD video recording, it seems prudent to make sure I've got sufficient storage so I'm only looking at the 32GB version. 

The low use and cost options that look like candidates are:

1) £30/month for 18 months.  £323 for 16GB version.   100 mins, unlimited texts

Over 2 years: £323 + £30*18 + £10*6 = £923

2) £25/month for 24 months. £249 for 16GB  version. 100 mins, unlimited texts

Over 2 years: £323 + £25*24  = £923

3) PAYG.  £599 from Apple (O2 aren't doing PAYG until they stop being able to fill their orders with contract customers).


O2 PAYG: When you top up with £10, you get 500MB and 300 texts to use within the next month.  So if you spend less than £10 on calls each month they you will be carrying over some credit each month.  Calls cost 25p a min for the first 3 minutes a day then 5p a minute for the rest of the day.

I used an average of 23 minutes when I was on contract - I'll use a bit less than that on PAYG, say 20 minutes.

20 mins * 25p/min = £5.00 on calling costs.

So each month I top up I'll end up with an extra £5 of credit.  At some point I will stop topping up and will instead spend PAYG credit on the Web Bolt On which costs £7.50 for a month of data plus texts at 10p and minutes at 25p/min.  Once my balance drops too close to zero I'll revert to £10 top ups again.

So the pattern may look something like this:


Month 1: £10 topup, data and 300 texts included, £5 spent on calls, balance £5
Month 2: £10 topup, data and 300 texts included, £5 spent on calls, balance £10
Month 3: £10 topup, data and 300 texts included, £5 spent on calls, balance £15
Month 4: £10 topup, data and 300 texts included, £5 spent on calls, balance £20
Month 5: no topup, spend £7.50 on Web Bolt On, £3 on 30 texts, £5 on calls, balance £2.



So 5 months costs £38.  24 months is about £190.

Total cost for 2 years of iPhone 4 32GB = £599 + £190 = £789.  Or £1.08 per day.

And if you can sell your iPhone after 2 years for £200, it's only £589 for 2 years = 80p per day.  Which is cheaper than a small coffee or bottle of coke.

Just for interest, if you used your iPhone like an iPad and could live with no phone calls nor texts (you will actually have 300 texts/month for 3 in 7 months):


Month 1: fund £10, balance £10
Month 2: buy Web Bolt On for £7.50, balance £2.50

you end up spending about £110 for 24 months (ending up with some credit).

My iPhone 4 is now ordered.  O2 have sent me a micro SIM and scheduled a switch over date to PAYG.  Can't wait.

Tour de New Forest, #1

To mark the end of my Easter holidays I did a nice long bike ride in the sunshine around the New Forest.  I planned the route (GPX link) so that I took in a mixture of roads I'd never done before and some that I know are classics.



Went to: Hamptworth, Lover, Godshill, Frogham, Ringwood, Burley, Brockenhurst, Minstead, Calmore
Distance: 77.26 miles
Time on bike: 4:45
Average speed: 16.2mph (including stops = 13.9mph)



I set off at 9:44 and whilst there was a small nip in the air it was definitely shorts and T-shirt weather.  The first 8 miles were the most direct route going north of Romsey to get to the good stuff.   There's a really lovely lane named Coombe Lane leading west from Awbridge.  It's narrow, has a fairly good road surface and has some beautiful houses and estates and a pretty pond.  Definitely worth doing again.



Most of the roads on the route I took from Awbridge to Plaitford were really pretty - highly recommended, although it does seem that whichever way you go you'll have to ford a stream (or take the footpath bridge over it).

The route then followed the A36 for 0.8m but the white lines that define the sides of the road effectively provide a cycle lane and it's gently downhill all the way so it's actually quite nice.





Then I went along roads that are just outside the boundary of the New Forest but they are still picturesque.  The village of Lover came next, which always makes me smile.  The uphill route out of Lover finally got me up to 110m elevation which is not far off the highest in the New Forest.



Then it was through Hale and Hale Purlieu to Woodgreen where there were lots of roaming ponies and a horse drawn carriage.  Then up and down some hills in to Godshill and down the main road, turning off for Blissford.



By this point I was kind of nervous as I was about to tackle a hill with a 25% warning sign.  I stopped before the bottom and thoroughly enjoyed a gooey Caramel egg (many thanks to my in-laws for that; it really hit the spot).

In the end it was a bit of an anti-climax.  It was definitely very steep but my bike didn't creak worryingly as Mark Halliday had warned me and it was all over very quickly.  Compact cranks?  Pah.  But I did notice that I was panting quite hard for the next minute or so.

Then it was down through Frogham and along the flat roads through North and South Gorley. I caught up with a car that was patiently following a tractor.  I drafted the car for a few seconds but then stood on the pedals and accelerated past the pair of them - whoooosh!  Fun.



At the ford south of the Gorleys I saw a procession of old cars go by, then I saw them parked up for a meet 1/2 a mile further on.  I also noticed a sign that you don't see very often:



Then it was south and over a bridge over the A31 and through Crow back in to the New Forest proper.  The section between Crow and Burley is really pretty and has a nicely named parking spot: Smugglers Road (no apostrophe).

It was about this point that my suspicions that I'd been having a following wind were confirmed.  For the next few miles as I went mostly east I had some quite strong headwinds.




I'd been through Burley once before, but this time I approached and left by different roads.  The road east-south-east out of Burley goes up a short hill where there is plenty of car parking at the top.  I'll be going back there sometime soon with the family to walk and explore Burley properly.

Then it was across the moors in to the outskirts of Brockenhurst before starting the beautiful wooded section of Rhinefield Ornamental Drive and Bolderwood Drive.  At the top of Bolderwood Drive, rather than contuining under the A31 and crossing Ocknell plain (which is also lovely), I turned sharp right and went back towards Lyndhurst.  At Emery Down I turned left and went along towards Minstead.  As I stopped to check the map, I overheard a family of 6 on bikes who were "discussing" whether they were going the right way.  I volunteered the services of my iPhone to familiarise themselves with the route and off they went.  I hope they made it.  Then  I took a new, quieter, shorter route through Minstead to the A337.

I crossed over the A337 and enjoyed a flat section before leaving the New Forest at Bartley.  Then rather than turning north and re-entering the New Forest to Copythorne and Newbridge (which is nice but I've done it recently), I carried on east along the road to Calmore and crossed the A36 to Hill Street which is a pleasant if somewhat under-maintained road towards Romsey.  This finally pops out at the top flat section of the A3090.  This route cuts out the longish and steep hill on Ryedown Lane which is on the way back from Blackhill and Wellow.

Then it was down the hill on the A3090 (40.4 mph) and back through North Baddesley to be welcomed home with some tasty sandwiches made by Emma.  And some Galaxy Easter Egg chocolate.  And a full-fat Pepsi.  Nice.



This route would be about 60 miles if it started and ended in Romsey in stead of Eastleigh so would make a good training route for someone getting in to sportives.

So now I'm feeling totally ready for the Isle of Wight Randonnee in 3 weeks time.  That'll be 8+66+8 miles which is more than today's ride but there's an hour-long ferry journey between each leg and we'll be stopping to get our cards stamped every 10-15 miles so it'll be nice and gentle.

Blissford Hill is 25%

I've done several hills with signposts showing 14% and I've found that the perceived gradient varies greatly...

For example, a 14% hill near Owslebury is fine:



But the 14% White Hill out of Pitton feels much steeper:



But the hill between West Dean and Whiteparish is signed as "only" 12% but it's much longer and is probably the hardest climb I've done in Hampshire.  (Do you know of anything harder?)



25% should be in another league entirely.  Blissford Hill, just north of Frogham in the New Forest, is 1-in-4 although apparently it is quite short.  It will shortly be on the agenda for a cycling trip.

First group ride of 2010: New Forest

Went to: Michelmersh, Sherfield English, Nomansland, Lyndhurst, Minstead, Windsor, Wellow
Distance: 58.5 miles
Time on bike: 3:47
Average speed: 15.5 mph

Rich Harran, Andy Perry and I met at Hursley at 10:00 this morning with Mark Halliday and Ian Vanstone turning up 10 minutes late as Ian had picked up a p*ncture (don't say the word). We had plotted a route and transferred it to Ian's Garmin Edge 705 but it seemed to want to route us straight to the final destination rather than follow the route so we were making up the Sherfield English part of our route as we went along.  It turned out fine, although we did have to walk through the mud to avoid a 4 foot deep ford at one point.

Spring is definitely here. It's still cold enough to warrant long sleeves and overshoes but at times there was actual warmth in the air today.

The New Forest was as lovely as always though it's too early to see any newborn foals. The hill out of Nomansland was as challenging as ever with the front wheel feeling like it wanted to come off the ground.




I hit 42 mph on the hill that goes under the A31 (and later 43.2 mph on the A3090 descent in to Romsey).

We stopped at Lyndhurst for some "lunch". I had 3 full-fat cans of Coke and 2 granola bars. Not awfully healthy but I'm sure the ride burned those calories and more.

Andy's posterior aspect was giving him trouble for the last few miles - this was his first ride over 25 miles this year and it takes a couple of decent length rides to toughen up. Ian recommended trying different saddle shapes to find one that fits properly.

I got home at 2:45 to find that Emma had made her speciality Cup Cakes - very tasty.

First decent length ride of 2010

Today felt like the first day of spring; 12C and sunny intervals.  A good day for a bike ride.  I've already done a couple of rides of 22 miles but that's definitely a "short ride".  Today was a day for a medium length ride.  My ride classification system goes like this:

Short: 2 hours or less
Medium: about half a day
Long: most of the day

Anyway, today's ride:



Went to: Botley, Fort Nelson, Swanmore, Upham
Distance: 42 miles
Time on bike: 2:46
Average speed: 15.1mph

The route was pretty flat for the first 16 miles followed by the easiest route to climb up to Fort Nelson.  On the way back there are hills at Bishops Waltham, Upham and Owslebury.  Lots of countryside and hardly any traffic.

What are you looking forward to this year?

Have you ever played the game of "If I won the lottery, what would I do?"  Even though I've never bought a lottery ticket I still find that this is an uplifting experience.  Sadly it's only a pipe dream for almost all of us.

But I've realised that there's another game that has, for me at least, a similarly uplifting effect.  It's called "What are you looking forward to this year?"

As you play you try and quite fully visualise and experience the event.  For example, if you're looking forward to the Goodwood Festival of Speed then imagine the noise of the F1 engines, the feeling you get from seeing motorbikes pulling wheelies for a hundred yards, or an F1 car burning out on the hill, and the sense of shared experience with your mates.

I always feel much more positive after playing this game.  And the particularly nice thing is that these events are actually going to happen.

My list for this year includes:

• Cycling round the Isle of Wight on May 2nd
• Easter vacation with my folks
• Goodwood Festival of Speed
• Tennis at Wimbledon
• Farnborough Airshow
• The next iPhone
• Bournemouth Air Festival
• A hot summer holiday somewhere in Europe
• The Tour de France
• The next version of Ubuntu Linux

Making mp3 versions of C64 tunes

The music from old Commodore 64 games is available to download in "sid" format from http://hvsc.c64.org/.

I had previously downloaded the collection and found some of my old favourites. I had been playing them every few months using the Windows version of sidplay.

But since I've moved to using ubuntu as my main operating system I was missing them as now I only boot Windows to do iTunes stuff. Installing a player was as simple as typing
sudo apt-get install sidplay.

To create a .wav version of a .sid tune you use:
sidplay2 -os -o1 -w -t5:14 sanxion.sid.
The flags are all documented in the man page.

You could use lame to convert the .wav to .mp3 but I used the Sound Converter application.

Then I added the folder containing the mp3s to iTunes, edited the ID3 tags, added them to my iPhone playlist, synced, and now I can listen to C64 music wherever I am.

The games I did this for include:

• The Ocean Loader: #1 and #4
• Sanxion
• Last Ninja 2
• Monty On The Run
• Crazy Comets
• Cybernoid 1 and 2
• Myth
• Flash Gordon
• Parallax
• Thrust
• Wizball

3000 miles

Today's commute has brought up 3000 tracked miles on my Orca. A quick look at SportTracks shows:

First ridden: 21st April 2008
750 miles have been commuting
The longest ride is 124 miles (followed by 121, 106, 91, 84, 82)
Top speed: 44.9 mph
Averages:

Average(mph)	Distance (miles)
21.3	3.63 miles with 1 turnaround
21.2	5.15 (commute home)
20.8	10.15 with 5 turnarounds (and one bee sting)
20.0	15.6
18.2	26
17.9	58
16.1	121

and:

Gear cables snapped: 2
Punctures: 0
Falling off after forgetting to unclip: 3
Got soaked through: 3

Ride to Swanage

Went to: Romsey, Fordingbridge, Wimborne Minster, Wareham, Swanage, Sandbanks, Bournemouth, Christchurch
Distance: 124 miles
Total time on bike: 8:15
Average speed: 14.9 mph
Total climb height: 700m (take the absolute value with a pinch of salt but about 30% less than the 65 mile Isle of Wight ride)
Link to route on Bike Route Toaster

Over coffee the guys at work and I have been devising various bike routes, some quite unlikely (10 days to Budapest is the least realistic so far) and some definitely do-able. One of the rides that we were hoping to squeeze in this year is to Swanage and back. This is over a 100 miles, known as a Century ride.

But with everyone having busy weekends for the next few weeks and the decline of summer time it looked like it wasn't going to happen :-(

But then work decided to give us 2 days vacation to celebrate the release of our product. The forecast for Thursday (27th August) was good and I'd already planned an approximate route so we decided to "man up" and give it a go, despite a distinct lack of training for some peleton members.

Four of us would be riding:
* Alan Chatt, previous longest ride 65 miles round the IOW, next to no recent practice
* Ed Altenburger, previous longest ride 91 miles on the New Forest sportive, some recent practice but had to bale out with exhaustion on the most recent long ride after 45 miles
* Andy Perry, previous longest ride 40 miles (and just 18 miles before that), but good CV fitness from regular 10k runs
* me, previous longest ride 121 miles, not expecting trouble

Before the ride we figured it would be unlikely that we would all complete the distance but we weren't sure who it would be that'd struggle. But we were sure we'd get to Swanage and there are plenty of railway stations to rescue those in trouble.

We met near Romsey at 08:00. A very nice chap at work (Pete S.) let us use his driveway for cars - Andy drove down from Fleet so he had a particularly early start. I commuted 8 miles to get there. In this post I'll be using elapsed distances from Pete's house. We were on our bikes and rolling at 08:15.



After just 5.5 miles and 22 minutes Andy picked up a puncture in his front wheel. We managed to pinch the replacement tube whilst fitting it so we used the now-patched original tube and were a lot more careful the second time when squeezing the tyre on to the wheel. We were stopped for a total of about 20 minutes.

Setting off again and we were straight in to the New Forest. I was a little surprised to see some fat pigs wallowing at the side of the road. We took the relatively gentle climb through Bramshaw to the ride's quite tame peak elevation of 140 metres.

Then we had 5.5 miles of beautiful open moorsland scenery as we streamed to Fordingbridge in a tight line of wheel to wheel cycling.



At Fordingbridge we stopped to snack and check our route. We noticed that we were virtually outside Perkins bike shop so Andy bought another spare tube - the first spare was pinched right next to the valve so a patch wouldn't be likely to stay on for long.

After 10 minutes or so we were off, enjoying quiet lanes down to Wimborne Minster where we stopped and got food from a bakers - a steak pastie for Ed, Andy and I and Alan had a sandwich. Alan also got some ibuprofen as his knee was getting sore.

On the way to Wimborne Minster we crossed paths with a group of 15 or so cycling pensioners - I'm looking forward to some of that when I retire.

Back on the bikes and we followed some urban roads to Lytchett Minster. Then we crossed the A35 and promptly encountered a massive queue of stop-start traffic on the A351. For about 3 miles we weaved past stationary and creeping traffic. This was enough to put us off our original route which would have taken us further along the A351 to Corfe Castle.

We went through the middle of Wareham which looked quite nice but we didn't stop. To avoid the busy A351 we crossed it and headed into unplanned territory.



Which of course turned out to be hilly. What looked on the map a bit like a hairpin bend near Cocknowle indeed turned out to be a hairpin bend. The road climbed to a local high point (129m elevation according to GPS) and we stopped at the top to admire the view.



From there it was downhill to Corfe Castle. We were treated to a less often seen view of the castle ruins as we descended north-east in to Corfe. We joined the traffic going through/to Corfe and managed to miss our turning that would have let us avoid the rest of the A351. By the time we were sure we'd overshot we were far enough out of town that it seemed more sensible to continue than go back. The traffic was also light past Corfe so it was still a nice road to cycle on.



After another 4 miles or so we started our final descent in to Swanage. It felt great to see the sign welcoming us to Swanage as we were zooming downhill at 30mph. We followed signs for the town centre and eventually stopped when we saw the sea was only 10 metres away. There was a chippie there so we all got chips + buttie or pie. Distance so far: 57.5 miles.

We refilled our water bottles with water and added some electrolyte powder that we'd all got from ZipVit in a great value promotion. Then we headed off towards Studland which involved climbing steadily from sea level to 97m elevation which didn't please Alan.



But then it was downhill and perfectly flat for a couple of miles before we reached the ferry. There was quite a long queue of traffic waiting to board but cyclists had a separate lane. We reached the ferry just as the doors were being closed but the nice man let us on. It cost 80p to travel the few hundred metres to Sandbanks. As we left the island and entered the linkway we passed a gorgeous Ferrari Enzo.

Alan had decided that his knee trouble and the lactic acid burn in his legs were sufficient for him to retire. We checked the iPhone to find railway stations. Bournemouth looked to be about the same distance as Poole so Alan was with us for a bit longer.

We went to the sea front to cycle along the promenade but they ban cycling in the months of July and August. A friendly lifeguard told us that we'd be stopped by people like him all the way along and advised us on an alternate route. Unless you're on the promenade then cycling in the Bournemouth area isn't particularly pleasant (unless anyone knows some good quiet routes?).



We eventually found the station and said goodbye to Alan. He'd done 72 miles which isn't half bad. Andy, Ed and I rode in rush hour traffic through Boscombe and Christchurch before branching off towards Bransgore on lovely quiet roads. I realised that I had turned off the GPS watch on the ferry so I'd missed out 11 miles of our trip, grrr.

By this point the mileage was making itself felt in our bums, especially Andy who hadn't done this distance before and hasn't ever really gotten used to his saddle.

At Thorney Hill we crossed a cattle grid which signaled our re-entry in to the New Forest. The road from Thorney Hill to Burley is perfectly smooth, flat and really open moorland and is a delight to cycle on - definitely one to revisit.




We followed the road out of Burley back to the A35 and then began the climb up the lovely Ornamental Drive, ducking under the A31 before reaching the 130m elevation of Ocknell plain. We must have had a 15mph following wind heading back over the plains as the air felt perfectly still whilst we were doing 20mph.

Then it was nearly all flat/downhill back to Romsey to complete a 110 mile round trip. I then had another 7 miles to get home, arriving home at about 19:20.

All in all a great day. Where next I wonder?

Solo ride over local hills

Nice hilly 58 mile bike ride this morning, although my rear gear cable snapped 17 miles from home at Nomansland. This left me with the use of only the small 12-tooth cog on the rear cassette. I didn't have a screwdriver to adjust the hi-low screws :-( I only had to dismount and walk at one point - the steep hill at the top of Ryedown lane as it meets Gardeners lane (at 76.3km)

Losing the gears didn't affect my average speed - 17.9mph. If anything it increased because I lost the option to go slowly up the hills as I had to stand on the pedals to keep them turning. Good training for hill climbing :-)

I've traced the route on Bike Route Toaster so click to see where I went. This is the best site I've found for creating routes and viewing their elevation profile. Please let me know if you know of anything better.

Ride to Newbury

Went to: Winchester, Newbury, Andover
Distance: 91 miles
Total time on bike: 6:17
Average speed: 14.6 mph
Total climb height: 1320m (take the absolute value with a pinch of salt but about 37% more than the 65 mile Isle of Wight ride)

Today I had a great day on the bike with Ed Altenburger. We've both got Orbea Orcas but his is the 2009 model which has a slightly lighter frame and he's got wheels one level above mine. It's a very pretty bike. I'm not jealous. Ahem.

It had been raining just before I woke up at 7:00 and the roads were still wet when I set of to Ed's house at 8:00. There weren't any puddles and the slick tyres didn't really cause any spray so I stayed dry. Following last Saturday's bag incident I was bagless which is the best way to cycle. I'd managed to squeeze two Mars bars in to my saddle bag which was how many I'd eaten last weekend.

The way up to Newbury had some climbs but nothing too steep so we took it easy and we arrived in Newbury 2.5 hours after leaving Winchester. We both had bowls of non-skinny latte and we shared some Rocky Road/Tiffin (thanks Ed!).



We'd planned two routes to our next stop at Andover: one which looked great on the map and one which avoided the worst of the hills but still hit 240m elevation. We'd had such a comfortable ride out to Newbury that we decided to tackle the hillier route. Ed would regret this choice an hour later but given that he made it home in one piece it was great training for him (and me).

We were using the iPhone to find our way. The Maps application served us well. We had network data reception every time we stopped and the GPS showed where we were on the map making it easy to decide which road to take when we weren't sure where we were.

We could see a big ridge in the distance and we knew there was no way around it. But it was still a bit of a shock to turn a corner and find that the road suddenly took off vertically. Well, maybe a 16% gradient any way. Ed tackled the first half and took a breather whilst tying to pick his lungs up from the floor. It was good to hear the cars labouring to get up the hill in 2nd gear.



I scouted on ahead and found that it levelled off after another 200 metres so went back to encourage Ed but he'd already set of so had nearly caught me up anyway.

The views were magnificent from the top; this photo is about half way up the final steep bit.



Once over the hill we had a mixture of pleasant gentle decents and more climbing to do. The hill had really taken it out of Ed and he was in a bad way on the ascents for the next few miles before they finally petered out 6 miles north of Andover.



We stopped at Sainsburys in Andover and had a sugary drink and some food and saw 3 old planes doing fly-bys accompanied by 2 helicopters - was there an air show on?

Thankfully the last leg home wasn't too hilly although we don't live in Holland so there was still some climbing to be done. I got home at about 4:30 and devoured what was left of Emma's lovely Victoria sponge cake.

All in all, another lovely day-long bike ride. My total tracked road bike mileage is now up to 1729 miles. Roll on 2000 miles.

Running versus cycling fun race

On Thursday we had a "fun race". Fun, that is, if you relish the idea of 25 minutes of hard cardio-vascular effort.

The idea for the event came from a race that Ed Altenburger and Alan Chatt had last year. The challenge back then was "Can Alan cycle to along Port Lane to the sign and back on his knobbly-tyred mountain bike TWICE before Ed can run to the sign and back once?" One round trip distance is 3.65 miles and it's flattish, being 30 metres higher at the far end.

Things have changed since last year and now the runners are Andy Perry, Alex Mitchell, Jon Tilt, John Cooper and me, and the cyclists mostly have road bikes, so the nature of the race has changed a little.

For me, the main challenge was to be faster than half Alan's speed - he has a shiny new full carbon monocoque Orbea Onix. I've been doing lots of running over the last few months although the focus has been on distance not speed. We genuinely didn't know how it would turn out.

Pete Siddall also joined us - he commutes literally every day on a knobbly-tyred mountain bike so another sub-competition would be to see if he can beat the fastest road bike.

Each competitor submitted a target speed which represented an aggressive effort - something you would be pleased to achieve. I picked 7:00 min/mile pace given that I've not run much below 7:25 pace before so this is uncharted territory. Alan picked 18mph but thought he might not quite be able to maintain that speed. If that was the case, and I could hit my target pace then we'd be virtually "the same" (technically he'd be twice as fast as me).

I created a spreadsheet that calculated each of our target times and a handicapped start time such that we should all finish at the same time.

I think we were all pretty nervous on the day - it's not often you get to aim for an all-out effort alongside other "athletes".

Dave Lenehan (training for the New Forest Ironman but resting a knee on the day) was officiating and counted us all down to our start times and recorded finishing times.

Earlier in the week I'd revised my target pace down from 7:10 to 7:00 to match John Cooper so we both started at the same time. John's out of training at the moment but in the past has been much quicker than I am.

I started breathing heavily straight away - up the only significant hill of the course. For all I could tell John was holding his breath. He looked very relaxed. After 1/3 of a mile I told him not to wait for me and eased back ever so slightly and he pulled ahead.

He got about a 20 metre lead on me but it didn't continue to grow. My heart rate was at about 175 and breathing was hard work.

After a mile or so I crossed paths with each of the 3 cyclists. They looked to be putting in a decent amount of effort. Pete had already overtaken Phil Willoughby on his new road bike. The handicap system meant that Pete shouldn't catch Phil until the finishing line so he must have been seriously overachieving his estimate.

When I reached the halfway mark John was still 15 metres or so ahead. On the way back I felt like I was maintaining maximal effort - heart rate was up to 183 +/- 2. But I started to catch John, and gradually caught and overtook him at about 2.75 miles. As he'd said at the start, his approach would be to go out hard and try and hang on. Apart from a red face he still looked and sounded like he was comfortable though.

Shortly after Pete came by - he was first to finish by a significant margin (he won't get that much head start next time!) The finishing order shows by how much people exceeded their target speed.

My next goal was to catch Andy Perry. He has what must be an efficient gait since he never seems to be running fast. He didn't look to be that far ahead so I was confident I'd catch him sooner or later - especially since every time I looked at my pace on my watch it was sub-7:00 pace and Andy was aiming for 7:40 pace. But seeing him ahead and actually catching him were two different things. I inched closer over the next mile and finally caught him at about the 3.3 mile mark. He finished 11 seconds after me in the end.

The last couple of hundred metres are downhill. I was checking over my shoulder for the faster runners behind to catch me but I couldn't see them so apart from feeling knackered I was pleased to be finishing ahead of the pack. But then I heard a whooshing sound and Phil came steaming down the hill at 32mph and pipped me to the post by a few seconds.

I managed a final extra sprint for the last few yards and finished, gasping for breath. I looked at my watch to see that my average pace was 6:28 ! Way faster than I'd have dreamed of getting.



Andy Perry finished just after and lay down on the grass verge while fending off a heart attack. His actual pace was 7:10 which was also much faster than he'd been hoping for.

Then came John Cooper, averaging 6:38 pace, another significant over-achievement.

Jon Tilt was next - he'd caught and passed Alex. Jon had averaged 6:12!

Then came Alan - averaging 18.2mph - almost bang on his target pace and "last" was Alex, averaging 6:45. Alex was the only person to not exceed his target pace which perhaps shows that he was better able to estimate than most of us, but also that he's out of running practice at the moment. Averaging 6:45 when out of practice is no mean feat!

Results

Alan was not twice as quick as me - 18.2 versus 9.3mph. Result!

The fastest cyclist (Pete) was just over twice as quick as the fastest runner (Jon) at 19.47mph versus 9.23 - 10 seconds difference over 22:30 minutes

On the day, the mountain bike was faster than the carbon fibre road bike. Doing 19.5mph on a mountain bike is seriously impressive.

Alan and Alex had the best guess of their speed, Pete had the worst.

For someone who's only had his road bike for a fortnight or so, Phil was impressive at 16.2mph.

John Cooper appeared to be running *very* comfortably but actually went off slightly too fast and paid for it on the way back, although he still overachieved his target by a substantial amount.

Andy Perry can maintain his easy shuffling gait and still run fast at 7:10 pace

5 athletes finished within 1:05 of each other. Excluding Pete the spread of finishing times was only 2:29



I'm going to schedule a repeat of the event just before the summer holiday season starts. Whilst it was rewarding to do the "fun race" it was a big effort and not something I'd want to do every week. If you want to join in then let me know.

My first century ride

Went to: New Forest, Wimborne Minster, Bournemouth, Christchurch, Lymington, Beaulieu
Distance: 121 miles
Total time on bike: 7:33
Average speed: 16.1 mph
Total climb height: 670m (take this with a pinch of salt but much less than the 65 mile Isle of Wight ride)

On Saturday I did my first "century" ride with Mark Halliday and Rich Harran. They were doing a 100+ mile as some last minute training for their "Longest Day" ride where they head north from Winchester at 4am and cycle all day until dark, which should be about York where Rich's family lives.



We met at North Baddesley at 08:00 and headed to the New Forest. There are loads of foals and calves in the Forest; it's really nice to see animals in the wild like that.

Before long we'd reached Ringwood, then Wimborne Minster where they were having a folk festival. There was much dancing and people with bells tied to their feet. It seemed like the whole town were involved. If they do it annually then it's worth a visit next year.

We passed Kingston Lacy (a National Trust place that is a good 45 minutes drive on fast roads from my house) and started south, aiming for Corfe Castle. We went a little off our ideal route and stopped at a shop for sweeties and a drink.

At which point I realised that the drawstring bag that I'd been carrying was no longer on my back. *%&*#! The only place it could have been was the last time we'd stopped which was about 6 miles back. Grr. My iPhone was in my saddle pack but the bag contained my normal spectacles, £10 cash, a credit card, my bank card and 4 Mars bars.

So we raced back with me leading the way as punishment (it's much harder work leading than following, by about 18% at 20mph according to The Complete Book of Long-Distance Cycling).

When we got back the bag was not there. Double *%&*#. 100 yards away was a National Trust property (White Mill) so we cycled over and asked the assembled gentry if anyone had handed in a bag. A very nice "old boy" in a suit had it:- a local lad on a bike had found it and left it in his safe keeping. Phew!

The detour had somewhat ruined our plan to get the ferry from Sandbanks to Poole so we replotted a route to Bournemouth beach. We'll leave Corfe Castle and Swanage for another century ride.

The weather at Bournemouth/Boscombe beach was weird. It was warm and sunny one minute, then further along the coast it was like being in a cloud. The visibility was down to 1/2 a mile or so and it looked like it might be raining back towards Bournemouth.

We had some well-earned (77 miles) chips on Boscombe beach and soaked up the sunshine. Speaking of which, I'd put suncream on my face, neck and legs. Which meant that only my exposed arms were sunburned when I got home. I've got a very fetching tan line half way up my biceps.



Going through Christchurch made me realise that when Emma and I had visited several years ago we hadn't found half of it so we went again today (no, I didn't cycle there) and had a lovely couple of hours exploring the town, abbey, ruins and marina.

We stopped in Lymington for a "full fat coke" and for Mark to get some Ibuprofen - his achilles is giving him some trouble if he pushes hard up the hills.

Then it was "only" 29 miles home via Beaulieu and Marchwood and I was home in time for tea.

My previous longest ride was 76 miles (or 81 miles in 3 stints for the Isle of Wight ride). The step up to 121 miles was surprisingly comfortable. It definitely helps to be riding in a group. You get to rest while drafting the others, you can resist the temptation to go too fast and you've got company to keep your mind occupied.

I'm looking forward to my next day-long ride. Maybe Brighton and back? You coming?