Sun, hail, rain, cold and A Hill

Sunday's ride was very mixed indeed.  I started off late as I needed to swing past Evans for a new pair of overshoes.  A tiny bit chilly, but not cold as such and really quite sunny, I put on my compression tights, bib-shorts, a cycling top (stuffed full of gels and bars in one pocket, phone, spare cash, Oyster and a long-sleeved top in the second pocket, leaving the third pocket free for empty gel wrappers), and a pair of skiing socks, I thought I might even be a tiny bit warm with overshoes on top as well.

A new route uploaded into my new Garmin I headed off for a totally different route than the ones I've been doing recently.  Out through Carshalton, Wallington, Coulsdon, Whyteleafe, Warlingham and Westerham and on to Sevenoaks in the end.  Somewhere around Whyteleafe, I got a nasty shock of a climb in my face... Succomb's Hill.  Seriously, what the hell?  Out of nowhere, there's a 25% climb which is narrow, twisty and really busy with cars who don't take kindly to there being a bike on the road, travelling at around walking pace.  I stopped in a private road, (Southview Road, according to Garmin) thinking I was pretty much at the top, to let some cars past and have a drink before carrying on, but I was wrong and there was more hill to go.  I was actually worried I wouldn't be able to clip back in properly when starting at such an incline so instead of pratting about any more, I walked up the rest of the way and even that was tricky.

See the width restriction and gradient signs on the left?

The route was supposed to take me out to Sevenoaksish, round and back again, but... somewhere around Warlingham, the sunny intervals (which were more sunny than interval) suddenly stopped, the skies darkened, the wind picked up and hail came lashing down from the sky as I was on a long fast descent.  With short-sleeves on, the hail really hurt my arms as well as bounced off my helmet.  I got colder and colder and decided to try to make it to Sevenoaks and stop at the pub I'd seen on the route map earlier.

Route I was supposed to take

In Brasted (note, pronounced "bray-stead", not "brass-stead", as I was corrected by a local), I passed the ninety-six degrees cafe (which seems to be rather well known in the cycling fraternity) and for some reason (probably the thought of there seemingly being nowhere safe to leave my bike) decided not to stop there and carried on down the road to The White Horse.  Wheeling my bike into the entrance porch, I saw some other cyclists inside - who, in turn, spotted me and waved me 'round the back to put my bike under the umbrellas in the secluded beer garden in the back with theirs.

Route I ended up with (minus the bit from the pub to the station)

Heaven!  A warm pub, somewhere safe for my bike, a hot chocolate on the way and Phil from the group of cyclists chatting away about triathlon, Ironman and cycling in general.  I don't know how long I spent in the pub with the 4 guys, trying to warm up properly, eating burger and chips and having a great natter, but it didn't matter.  I was freezing cold and soaked through, even with my mostly dry long-sleeved top on as well, and really needed to get out of the wind and rain.  The nice company was a real bonus.  And as I pushed my plate away at the end of eating, with a bit of burger and more than half the chips left (and really there weren't that many of them to start with, though they were really good triple-fried ones), the eyes were all fixed on the remaining chips until one of the guys pointed it out and I told them to tuck in.

When they headed off, I did too, not sure whether I'd cycle on home again or have to find the station and get a train.  As soon as I got outside, the answer was clear - it was still very cold and windy, though the rain had stopped.  I carried on in to Sevenoaks and found the station by chance very quickly.  Home again home again jiggety-jig on the train, to a warm Mr TOTKat, tea and cake.

See the silly bit about 22km in?

London to Brighton

I've wanted to do this for a while; ride London to Brighton on the event day itself, on the official route, with 27,000 other cyclists.  Much as I've feared cycling in large groups and hills and stuff, overall it was a resounding success for me.

The start was 06:30 and we only just got there in time, after a mahousive bowl of porridge (50g organic jumbo oats, 20g organic raisins, 1/2 banana, 10g coconut oil, splash of cream, squirt of agave nectar and water - nuked for 3 minutes in the microwave) to kick-start the fuelling.  With me, I had a large bap filled with ham, chorizo, houmous and lettuce, two 500ml bottles of Powerade and a bag of Ride Shots.  This was also going to be a test of fuelling for a long distance (long time period) event; the estimated ride time from me being 4.5 hours or so.   Calculations would say that I'd need at least 60g x 4 for 4.5 hours of carbohydrate available to fuel through and with what I'd packed, I was quite under, but it wasn't going to be a all-out ride due to the sheer numbers of people and I'm not practised in using bottle cages, drinking or eating on the move.

One thing I think I got quite wrong was the hydration.  I was well, well hydrated which meant that we had to stop for me to wee 5 times!  A total of an hour stopped time for all of that, allowing for wrestling in and out of cycling gear to wee and back into it all again each time and take a good slug of drink.

The first slight hill was a bit of a shock.  For me, it was a little undulation and I was pretty unimpressed by the fact that there were so many people for whom it was quite a challenge that everything ground to a halt and I almost had to get off and walk because things were moving so slowly I could barely pedal slowly enough and stay upright, clinging to the edge of the road in the horrifically potholed bit of tarmac.  Still.  I learned a lot from that first hill and things thinned out quite a bit on hills after that one and none were ever quite so horrid again.

Up and down the rolling undulations mostly overtaking most people up the hills in between wee stops.  No stopping for food at any of the refreshment stations.  We kept on trucking all the way through.  Turners Hill came and went and then the lower slope upwards towards The Hill.  The chattiness died down quite a bit amongst the riders and then there was The Hill.  I wasn't feeling sparkling, a bit tired and probably under-fuelled at the time so I thought I was going to have to cut my losses, get off and walk.

But.  I decided to just give it a go.

People were really good.  Those who chose right from the start kept to the left, did so really nicely.  Those who had to get off part way up were really good at getting clear to allow for those cycling up to continue.  It was all quiet.  So very very quiet.  All I could hear was my own heavy breathing.  At one point, about 1/4 way up I loudly complained "the road surface REALLY isn't helping here" and got a grunt of agreement from my left.  Every time I rounded a corner after the first three of them I thought it was the last one.  No.  Not for very many more.  Each time, thankfully, the slope levelled off a bit so I could let my thighs off a little bit and nearing the top, someone walking shouted "well done, you're almost there!" at me which was absolutely great at the time and I responded with "thanks, could do with more cowbell!" and I reached the top with burning thighs - looking back at my heart rate profile, it was an under-fuelling thing for sure, my heart rate would have gone higher 'cause I would have been able to put more into the muscles, drawing on my cardio capacity more - wondered where Mr TOTKat might have pulled over to wait for me and saw him really quite quickly.  I was about 90s behind him up a hill that'd taken about 10 minutes to climb.  Not too shabby at all!

More undulations and rolling into Brighton itself, with one particularly brown-trousers descent given how tired I was (mentally as well as physically), I hung onto the brakes all the way down and cursed people flying past me at over 45mph.  We rounded the final corner and down the chute into the finish line.  The chute was great; lined with a huge crowd of people cheering and clapping and even a hand bell; a fantastic finish to it all.
 
Finding a place to lean our bikes, find a seat, beer and burgers/hotdogs we had a good old sit down for an hour or so, bike spotting and counting the Specialized (by far the most common bike make on the day) before walking back down the sea front to the organised transport home (and yet another wee!).

Wins of the day:- my lovely bike (Fuji Team Pro Special Edition with Mavic Ksyrium Elite wheels), Powerade, rest stop toilets, Mr TOTKat for deciding to stay with me through the ride, and meeee for getting up Ditchling Beacon without walking!

Really loving my new bike

Had a fabulous ride this morning; 21km with a few stops for going the wrong way and needing to re-set to the right route.  I totally made mincemeat of the South-bound approach to Wimbledon Hill, the one I used to run up when I was learning to run.  Steeper than coming at it from Wimbledon Broadway on the other side and with speed bumps for added fun.  I needed to turn right at the roundabout at the top so the last 100m I was slap bang in the middle of the road to be in the right position to turn right and to get in between the speed bumps. Obviously, as I was going up a hill, I wasn't all that quick.  And clearly, as the white van made pointed out by yelling at me, I should have "pull(ed) over! *incoherent unintelligible words*".  Er right then.  Bikes aren't road users and shouldn't position themselves correctly for the action they are about to take.  How about; fuck off, you twat, and go read the highway code, eh?  Anyhoo, I was utterly unfazed at the time 'cause I'd just thrashed the hill and felt great :o)

676kcals of lovely cycling and I actually wanted to go lots further, but had reached home and time for a re-fuel/re-hydrate.

Boerewors and mashed butternut squash for dinner:-

B - toasted Food Doctor wholemeal seeded bagel with butter, Marmite and a poached egg
S - apple with cashew butter
*cycle*
S - 1 scoop MP Max in semi-skimmed milk
L - sandwich; toasted Hovis wholemeal granary bread with ham, Monterey Jack, lettuce and mustard
S - White Magnum(!)
D - boerewors with butternut squash mash

Exercise - 70 minutes cycling

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	2290 2382]
Protein (g)	116.0 (20.6%)
Carbohydrate (g)	173.2 (28.9%)
Fat (g)	126.3 (50.5%!!)
Fruit & Veg	7.7