Back in May 2015 I embarked on my biggest ever challenge… London to Paris cycle challenge. In 24 hours!
So here’s the deal – Cycling for 24 hours covering 190 miles was epic and recounting it all in this blog will take some time. So not to overwhelm you, I’ve decided to give you bite sized instalments just like my chocolate advent calendar! I’ll try not to keep you more than 5 minutes a day… can’t promise though!
Lets see how we get on… 
Firstly an apology… I went out a cycle on Saturday and because I was so focused on getting home (because I was not enjoying it) I didn’t take any photos! I shall try and improvise and use my linguistic skills to describe what I saw so you feel part of the picture!
After bravely asking “Anyone free for a 60 mile George Michael tomorrow?” on Facebook and no takers, I thought I’d get up early on Saturday, take the dogs out and head out for a my biggest cycle yet… ALONE!
However, given all my efforts and my late night chatting with Irene I didn’t get out my bed til 11am so those best laid plans went to waste! Nonetheless, I was delighted to find out that a long lie had meant that the postman had delivered my new saddle and therefore the pre-existing pain in the anatomy, that came with my cycle with my brother on Tuesday, would hopefully get some relief!
The arrival of the new saddle meant I had to go looking for my Allen keys which were notably missing from my tool kit. (Any excuse for me to get my dad to visit and borrow his vast toolkit, have a natter, a cake and a cuppa!)
Its white with a hole – I’ve christened it the polo mint saddle:
Its actually a pretty good saddle for the money – check out the spec:
Since I’d left it so late and was putting off going out, I decided 60 miles was too much and changed it to a 36 mile loop which I mapped on walkjogrun.net first.
Then came the fantastic news from my brother that he’d just purchased a road bike and therefore might be doing the Pedal for Scotland Sportive with me in September… his bike is even smaller than mine though – 49cm (mine is 51cm)! We’re a petite family! I was hoping that meant he would come on a test run with me but sadly he was shopping in Glasgow.
Here’s his new Specialized Allez:
I was really struggling to motivate myself to get ready for the ride ahead partly because I was feeling tired and partly because there were passing rain showers. In the end I decided to break rule 32 and took a hydration back pack (without the hydration as I put that into a SIS sport bottle along with a sachet of Go Energy Orange drink to practice drinking from a bottle) and packed a cycling rain jacket (aka ‘the steamer’ as it makes you super sweaty!) and thought ‘Lets hope it doesn’t rain!’
Right get on with it! I hear you shout at me and I was the same I had to shout at myself to get out on my bike!
Ok so here’s the route I took – out of Neilston up over the roller coaster hills on the Stewarton Road [I was feeling seriously tired!]… turned right and went through Dunlop [grateful for some relief from the big hills] then out over the Lochlibo Road and headed through Barrmill. From there I skirted round Beith and headed down to Glengarnock where I left the roads and joined the cycle path. I pedalled towards Lochwinnoch passing the Kilbirnie turn off I’d taken with my brother on Tuesday (but in the other direction). I raced past some leisure cyclists (no lycra in sight!) and got to Lochwinnoch in good time as I was pushing myself to cycle as fast as possible to keep up my average speed to compensate for the slow hills at the start and for the ones coming towards the end!
I popped in to the Lochwinnoch visitor centre and bought some additional juice (Lucozade sport) and some jelly sweets as I was really feeling exhausted and also consumed a gel then slowly swung my leg back over and clipped in again to resume my fast pace on the cycle track. I took a detour in Kilbarchan to see my brother and his wife but alas they were still shopping so I focused on getting this painful cycle done and took the path to Paisley, turned off at the RAH and headed up the Braes and on to Sergentlaw Road which was very steep and almost backwards I was going that slow… I really felt I was hitting a wall!
Thankfully it was pretty much down hill for a bit then one last painful hill at Neilston’s Mill Brae before home.
What a relief! What an idiot…! I realised at dinner with my folks later that night that I’d had 4 chocolates and two of my mum’s cakes in the morning and hadn’t had any breakfast or lunch! So I ordered lasagne, garlic bread and chips for dinner at the Canny Man and was feeling much better.
And now for an admission… I’ve been buying a lot of cycling gear lately! This week I bought 2 tops with rear pockets to let me avoid wearing a back pack in future… I bought a new pump with a presta valve attachment and gauge as my hand pump doesn’t have a gauge… and… I bought a cycling tool kit (looks a bit like a swiss army knife) with allen keys, a screw driver, various attachments and wheel levers all in a nifty pouch!
Secondly, I’m finding myself trying to work towards adhering to the aforementioned rules!
Overnoot for this week, God bless, love Lorna x
What a day… woke up to beautiful sunshine and knew that if I’m to cycle 110 miles in 9 weeks time I’d better get on my bike!
Here she is a 51 cm little cracker… (with wheels so small I had to return the turbo trainer! Well I’m only 5’2″ so thats to be expected I guess?)
As it was the first time in the saddle in a few weeks I took it easy (although living on top of a hill means that there will always be some Queen of the Mountain opportunities!). I filled up my hydration back pack with 2 litres of blackcurrant juice, filled another litre bottle with peach juice as variety is the spice fruit of life and donned the gel padded cycling shorts (believe me on this razor of a saddle they are a welcome necessity but when I’m out the saddle I feel like I’m walking with a loaf of bread between my legs!).
I clipped in and began cycling out of the village and into the countryside along the back roads in a headwind and thought to myself ‘just take it easy, I’m in this for the long haul 30 – 40 miles today’. The countryside is beautiful round here so a welcome distraction was noticing the wild flowers and wild life. Going down the hill out of the next village I built up speed (~30 mph) and enjoyed a bit of a breeze from the sunshine – I could already feel my pale freckle covered skin reminding me that I hadn’t put on any suncream!
Cycling up the steep hill past Caldwell tower (as featured on Gorgeous George’s TV programme ‘Restoration Man’) was a bit tough and the granny wheel was in full effect but the gears went “clunk” after every revolution and jumped round loosing power! I felt a bit stupid not knowing how to improve it but carried on over the cross roads and up to the top of the hill climb (not easy when its jumping out of gear all the time). Realising that my plan to do significant milage today and only 5 miles in, I decided to unclip the pedals and jump off to have a better look and see what the options were… to my amazement I managed to work out how to tweak the gear settings and when I was clipped in and challenged to another small hill I was delighted to cycle in a smooth movement with continuous power! YAAAAS ya wee dancer!
I was gaining confidence,, enjoying the ride more and gaining speed but stopped to capture a couple of snaps of one of my favourite views from an aeroplane when you are taking off from Glasgow Airport – Barcraigs Reservoir which has amazing Douglas fir trees on islands:
Having done the hard climb it was now time to decend towards Lochwinnoch and I chanced my arm and popped in to visit friends who have a beautiful house with a view and stopped for 20 minutes to catch up on their news before I clipped back in and cycled along and across a very busy road and on down past the loch to the cycle track.
I passed another tower in the middle of nowhere and stopped to capture it on film before pushing on to Kilbarchan.
After a short stop visiting my brother in Kilbarchan I rejoined the cycle path and bell ringing to full effect made my way past many dog walkers to Paisley and onwards to Glasgow on National Route 7 Forth and Clyde.
At Pollock Country Park I left the safety of the cycle path and went via the main road to Darnley and up to the Barrhead Dams before looping back round to complete the 37 miles.
My reward.. in honour of Wimbledon!
2 Dogs Jog and I blog 