Birmingham to Bristol - Training for fun

Ok it's been a fair few months since I have done a + 50 mile ride and I wanted to see how it would feel.  I am a fair bit heavier again (don't ask) I have a lot of weight to remove but I still wanted to see how my legs would hold up, more importantly my knee and my achiles.

So friday night I knew I didn't have a lot planned for Saturday so I did a quick scan on the map and selected Bristol as my destination, a quick scan showed me that it was roughly 100 miles away which would be a good days trip and a nice test of my legs etc..

I booked a ticket from Bristol back to Birmingham for 6:00 pm, i figured this would give me plenty of time to arrive

I set out at around 7:30 and deliberately kept at a comfortable pace, it was going to be a long day. I have put some pics below.  I felt good, no knee pain or achilees pain although no major hills, just a few hills as normal and some long gentle climbs as well as some nice downhills, the main route was along the a417 and a38 straight into Bristol.

The only difficulty I had was the final run into Bristol which became a little convuluted but I did pick up on something called the Bristol Railway/Cycle route something I will look into later, theres a link here at some point I will meander along that one :-)

http://www.bristolbathrailwaypath.org.uk/home.shtml

Heres some pictures of my trip:

Selly Oak Birmingha Along the Canal to Fazely and Tamworth Castle

I had a nice trip on Sunday,  met Marc at 8:30 in the Selly Oak Train Station car park the weather was so nice I thought it would be a good idea to turn round head to the coast and cycle there but after discussion we decided to stick to our original plan.  We headed off to explore the Birmingham to Fazely canal section. 


Canal Map on Google

This is a great ride and a fun day! There are some very smooth sections and some bumpy ones, so no road bikes however my boardman managed it 700 x 28c tires!  It is fairly well maintained and I found a  much more pleasant ride than the Birmingham to Stratford canal, which I found badly maintained in sections to the point it was easier to get off and push my bike (mountain bikes would have been fine) hybrids etc.. suffer.

Theres lot's of interesting things to look at and if your up for it theres only a little extra cycling required to get to Tamworth Castle.  

A special note on the "Tolsons Mill Wool Shop" we stumbled in on the promise of a coffee and food and what we at first thought was a museum much to the owners amusement! backing right onto the Canal at the end in a lovely old mill building it provides coffee and other cafe related delights!  The owners were lovely people and more than happy to accomodate our bikes!

Tolsons Mill Facebook Page

The Entrance to Tolsons Mill
(from their facebook page)

  42 miles covered Pics below:

Training Bike & Meeting a Gentleman

I have been looking for a secondhand bike to train on rather than my touring bike, I liked the look of the Chris Boardman Hybrid models so I have been scanning ebay etc..

I recently changed jobs and my plan is to travel so far by train to work get off and do about a 10 mile ride in and then home initially to build up again.  The full ride to work is about 26 miles so the plan is to get up to speed and gradually build in a few full ones then there and back till im doing that daily.  However as I mentioned I didn't want to do that on my touring bike.

Well yesterday I had some success and I won a used Boardman Comp for the sum of £226.00  after a brief conversation via email I travelled over to pick it up.  We all know the horror stories you get about ebay purchases (stolen bikes etc..), I have turned up previously to find a rusting pile of scrap...

Well on this occasion I was met by a real gent, and a keen cyclist called Peter, he had been getting over an injury and just bought himself a new bike with electronic shifters; my first look at them close up.  I have to say the geek inside me liked the idea but the cyclist in me felt that it kind of takes away some of the skill/pride, so for me the jury is still out.  I am going to ask Peter if he will do an entry about his experiences with the new shifters.

Anyhow I digress, Peter was a pure gent, the bike was exactly as described and in great condition; he had fitted a new rear tyre (shwalbe marathon plus) and handed me another one brand new.  He essentially saved me a hell of a lot of cash on new tyres, it was a generous gesture.

Despite the late hour, Peter made me feel really welcome and suffered my curiosity about his new bike, we have mentioned it and hopefully we are going to get a road ride in together!

I will be posting some pics of the bike later this week suffice to say I just needed to add a rear light and I put some new pedals on (shimano spd sl) and it was pretty good to go.

I took it out this afternoon and did abot 8 - 10 miles it worked perfectly and I really enjoyed it, I need to do a little more tweaking on the setup, the seat needs raising and the handlebar angle needs adjusting.  I am going to give it a proper service in the week clean and lubricate the chain and other parts etc..

Anyhow, here is a picture of Peter on one of his rides in spain 400 miles!

 Sometime this week I will post some pics of the bike.  I am also going to put up a page for my training diary, I have put on loads of weight after my last trip and enforced rest so I have a lot of work to do if I am going to be in shape for my next trip, to give you an idea I am probably equal to the two guys above :-) 

Also a quick thought, I would like to do my next trip for charity so if anyone is involved in a charity and they are prepared to help organise the charity side, send me a message:  darknewt@systems-engineer.info.

Training Ride & Repair to My Handlebar Bag:

I put in a 36 mile ride in just over 3hrs from Birmingham to Worcester this morning to get me to work (fully laden).  Good fun and made me feel way more confident as I felt i could have flown on for more.

Sat Nav test worked well however i am going to have to find some way of bracing the bag a little more as the brackets are slipping down and causing the viewing angle to be awkward.  Also cycling with my LED Lenser head torch is great and works really well.

The Avenir bag let me down a little :-(  started to slip the bracket doesn't grip very well (yes avenir i did fix it right and yes i used the right fixings but it has an 8 litre capacity and even half full the weight overcomes your brackets).

Well the fantastic team in the engineering department soon made up an attachment for my stem that securely fixes the brackets and takes all the loadbearing for them :-)  problem solved and a smile on my face to boot.

Dave and Bob

Supporting Bracket fitted to my stem

Dodgy bracket fitting from Avenir

Don't get me wrong the bag is great and the actual bracket is good, just doesn't really live up to the loads.  Still the boys in the engineering department lived up to it, I am sure if i had given them enough time the would have fitted one of those petrol engines from ebay.... maybe there's still time???

Testing out my bike

My planning is well under way today i strapped on the tent and all the kit met up with Marc and took it out for a spin.  The bike is heavy with the kit, we did some respectable hills and i found my gear for the hills (2 on the front 3 on the back).

Marc took pity on me today and was very patient with my slow progress up the hills, he repeated several times i need to put more mileage in.  We have both done the solo trip under harsh conditions before and he gave me the friendly reminder about lonely and miserable if the weathers bad (cheers marc).

I had a brainwave earlier, I am going to buy one of those waterproof backpack covers for over the top of the tent etc.. while it's on the bike.  A layer of defence and being reflective a little bit of safety.

Some people may be thinking "TENT, SLEEPING BAG" crazy!!  well my plan is to wildcamp as often as possible, and avoid hotels/B&B so it's all going to be hauled by me.

I will be using this blog to chart my progress and keep family/friends informed.