Sorry where is the Airport?

A morning a week or so ago on the my way to work I passed a touring cyclist asking for directions to Dublin Airport from a teenager going to school. I stopped and asked if I could help. In the end I showed him to the right road that would bring him down to the airport in Dublin. 

The cyclist turnout to be from Holland and had been touring from his home through England, Wales, and Scotland, over to Northern Ireland and down to Dublin.  His bike was fully loaded and he had completed 138+ km the day before as he put it a long day.  He mentioned that the roads in Ireland where very busy and that the cycling conditions with traffic make the cycling very hard. I had to agree with him.

I through for a moment, why do we not use secondary roads in Ireland that are cycling priority. By create cycling corridors that are signed and where large tucks and vans are not permitted, or are permitted at a reduced speed. I think something like this would make Ireland a more interesting place to cycle and promote cycle tourism in a bigger way.




We have the scenery if not the weather and when we do have the weather there is no better place to be in Ireland.

Sweets, Fat, and Tried.

I'm tired of been the fat man in photos. This is not self-pity but the realisation that weight is a one way ticket to a short life. Weight is only good on a bike for one thing, going down hills, put the belly on the handle bars and watch the speed increase.

At 42 my father had his first heart-attack by 52 he was gone when he had his second one. I still remember doing CPR on the floor on my parent's bed door to give him a fighting chance. We lost him on the way to the hospital.

Project D opened my eyes to the impact my weight was having on my wife and sons. I felt a little ashamed that my youngest son was more worried about my weight than I was. So Team D was started which came out of a chat between my wife and son that I overheard. It still did not stop me heading out to the shop and eating four bars of chocolate a few days later. Only afterword sitting in the car on the way back and later hiding in the loo to eat a bar of chocolate, did the second shoe drop; this is really no way to live. I needed to change for good and not go back ever again. My goal was simple live longer than my father and uncles that done. Have a normal life span hopefully into my 80s, or 90s, and longer if possible. Cutting out sugar is really hard, watching your diet is easier but nothing that is good ever comes easy.

Shops are set-up to have all the sweets at the checkout or counter. As you and your kids line up they are there, calling to you, the want grows or the kids ask for something. Shops are designed for you to want to buy sugar. What would happen if the fruits and healthier stuff to eat where at the checkout, would this change how we buy, and eat our treats?








I heard on the radio that Tesco a supermarket chain in Europe will be removing all sweets from the checkout in their shops, this is a positive step. I would like to see them replacing it would something else that would help people make a better healthier choice. It would be fun to have only healthy items at checkout when you are paying for your groceries. Imagine that you could only put items of one colour, so you would have the orange checkout, and the green checkout, or a yellow check. The yellow checkout could have pineapple and other yellow fruits and yellow coloured products. I expect everyone would want to work at that checkout or register as it would have a Caribbean feel to it. Now would people queue at certain counters based on colour preference.  Interesting thought.

Training for 2014 and removing Sugar from my food intake

Last year was a good year both for cycling, and in general. I completed the London - Edinburgh - London was really happy we how the event went for me and cannot wait for London Edinburgh London 2017

When your tired you will happily sleep anywhere. 

Pictured with Stuart McLean at the end of the LEL cycle in London after completing 1,400KM. Great memories and would recommend anyone doing the event like this. The volunteers where amazing.

  
"If you still laughing or at least smiling at the end of a 1,000+ do another one. If not, do shorter cycles you will enjoy them more."







In November my beloved machine that I use for all cycling the frame broke. Luckily the frame was five days within warranty. Chain Reaction Cycles and Beone bikes were amazing and replaced the frame with a new one. I could not have been happier about the customer service and response. especially from CRC.

 

While I was waiting for the warranty to be reviewed. I went with an Tifosi CK7 Audax frame to keep me going. It is a good frame but I do fine it is harder to push, but this maybe just me. So I have gone from one bike, to bike parts, to finishing with two bikes. I am now worried for the N+1 bikes is going to kick in, as I am already looking at a fixed speed bike for winter training. 

Training this year has not been going as planned. I've completed a few 200, 300KM events and mileage wise I've only done 300km less this year compared to last year. What I notice is that my fitness is not improving, and I am always tired. So resulting in not been to eager to get on the bike and really push the training. With 7 weeks to go to cycling the MILE FAILTE 1,200. Which I am also helping to organize and will be volunteering at the week later I'm not that confident about the starting or finishing the event. I went to the doctor to get a general checkup and blood taken everything came back fine there is nothing wrong, and your blood sugar is normal, the doctor suggested "maybe your over training" my response not a chance, not cycling enough for that.

So what I've done I decided after Easter to remove sugar from my diet, not sure this is the problem causing the tiredness but it is causing the weight and I do have a very sweet tooth.  I expect that the fist week or two is going to be hard going, and I have already got a tastes of this already. What I find is that when I look at the food I eat, there is sugar in most things like wraps, sauces, and cereals. I am so surprised how much sugar here is in our food.

Day 1: This was not too bad at all.I did not have headaches, I think this was to do with the Easter egg overload from the weekend. Main problem was checking all the food I was about to eat, and been surprised - no I can not have this there sugar in it and it is in the first four ingredients so there is a lot of sugar.  Woke up a bit tired and had a good breakfast of porridge, nuts, and banana. I was surprised this was really good with no sugar and the only sweetness coming from the banana. On the way into work in the car, I needed some protein so I eat some of my lunch this really filled be up and give me a great start to the day.

Day 2: The crash; I got very little sleep the night before only an hour or so. It was really unsafe to commute to work in this state so I worked from home and sleep until 8:30am after getting back into bed at 6am, started working at 9am. I was suprised I was not craving sugar like I nornally do when I do not get a lot of sleep but this time I didn't and got a lot of work done. Until, around 5pm I crashed totally falling asleep. An hour later I was up again and off to do some shopping for the house. Back home shopping was but away and more sleep. 

Day 3: Tried getting up and out to work. I had ready-brek with a little honey this was most likely cheating a little, but I needed it. Just had my lunch, it will be interesting to see what happens at 3pm to see if I have the normal afternoon dip and hear the whispering of sugar, sugar, sweet sugar. What I do notice today is the sugar fog and

I expect the first two weeks to be hard going from what I read on the web from other people's experiences of doing the same and going cold turkey off sugar. Rick Foster article My Year off Sugar gives some good information of his experiences.It will be interesting to see how I handle long distance cycling without sugar. Older riders talk about the body burning fat, when sugar is removed or not been taken in. You have a lot of fat in your body, endless amounts of fuel, so it will be interesting to see how this goes and how long it take to kick in. 

I will need to see what options I will have at shops that do not have sugar included. I live on Müller® Rice  and other sugar stuff when on 200+ rides these are easy to eat, readily available, and are easy on the body to digest.

I just found this site over lunch as I was thinking; Rice as I was typing this. Sugar free rice . need to give this a try thanks Sugar free Mom. 

keep going...

So what have I learned:

      Setting goals is very important, but more important is planning what you will do after you reach the goal. Splitting the goals into achievable smaller goals is also very important especially when starting off. If your goal is to cycle 100KM for charity, be ready to have your next target, otherwise you will leave the bike in the shed, saying “now that done, or I am never doing that again”. Result you put back on the weight, or lose the fitness you work so hard to get.  It only takes a week or two. If you are use to going out on a Saturday for a 50 KM club cycle and keeping up with everyone, try it after a two week break or holiday. It is a lot harder and you’ll be probably get drop out the back  unless you are very fit.

The Road to cycling 1400 kilometres from London to Edinburgh and back again in under five days has started.

The Road to cycling 1400 kilometres from London to Edinburgh and back again in under five days, I remember saying when I first heard about the LEL and PBP this where epic rides, full of memory build experiences. Why no give it a go.

I got a place, I sign up for the LEL 2013, one of the luck ones that got one of the 1,000 places, the places that sold out in 11 hours. All the mad people up late or early clicking that little ENTER button on the web page. The training is stop starting because of the weather and some bike problems.  I now have set a target of 9,000 KM before the start date in July, no going back. I will blog about the gear soon.


London- Edinburgh-London the route

What I learned in 2 days in Scotland on the Mille Alba

During the summer I took part in my first multi-day event, in Scotland, called the Mille Alba 1000KM. I know going into the event it would be hard, 12,000 meters in 100 KM on the first day gives you an idea. The weather was the worst, raining for most of the  first day. Did I finish, no, but is the best experience I've had on a bike ever. The experience of the event has only fueled the cycling sickness further. Would I do it again, in a heartbeat, even in the same weather.

I was disappointed I only got to 700 KM, but looking back now, this was some achievement, and a number of firsts; first night cycle, first multiple day event, and I learned loads that will help in the future.

What I learned:

• Recovery - Eat correctly when you get back, this is more important than sleep. I did not to this right on Friday night and paid for it on Saturday. Did not feel right all morning and it took me 8 hours to get to the first control. This set me up for a long day, and most of the day out on my own at the back. When I got some good food into me, I was flying and made up a lot of time on the people in front of me.
• Cycle with people, 6 hours of a head wind is hard going on your own. I would add cycle with people at or around your one speed and ability.

• Bring your phone cable, this is needed. IPhone with an external battery will not change on it's own :-) Your wife will appreciate it.

• You can keep going on very little sleep. I had only 2-3:30 hours sleep over 48 hours, after 700KM was still going and eating well. Don't over do it, short sleeps, are better that falling a sleep on the bike.

• Have a plan for each day, not just the first one, when you are going to finish, where the main stops will be, and what average speed you will keep. Have backup plans in case you hit problems; mechanical, etc.
• Pack you gear and food for each day, on this event we started and finished at the same place each day. So we did not have to carry everything. I had a drop bag for each day, with food and cycling gear needed. No thinking or wasted time, get up, dressed, breakfast, and out on the bike.

• Just because the guy has a GPS, do not rely on that he knows where he is going, navigate for yourself, even when your in a group.

• One tip I am going to take on for the future. Train with your own DIY route sheets, I found it very hard to calculate distances between points on the route sheets, kept stopping to check that I was still on the route, because I was underestimated the distance I had travel. 24km take a lot longer on a bike. This was harder on the second day as the computer reset overnight. This will become easier I expect the more events I do.
• Redo the route sheet before the event. My cycle computer reset after the first night automatically (News to me). Making the distances on the second day meaningless. The recalculation was hard when I got tired. In future I will be adding a new column on the route sheet for multiple day events resetting the distance each day.  This caused me to go off  route a few times the second day which all cost time. 
• Keep the time at controls short, this is something I did well and keep up with a number of faster riders during the first day and started off with them on the second morning.
• Cycle faster at a steady pace. Did not happen at all on the second day, back to not refueling correctly.
• Compact Double (50-34) and 12-28 may not be the best choice for 1,000 KM events, on the hills it was great, but the flats I was slower than most. Thinking of go back to a triple (50-39-30 or 52-42-30).
• Doing a 600KM before the event would have been useful. I had done long distances on my own over multiple days, but was not replicating event conditions; navigating, etc. which all makes a difference.  
• Just because you go through a closed control, does not mean you can not continue if you can make up the time. (Big mistake and something I will not do again, speed up, not down)
• Experience, and building up to a 1,000KM is the right way to go, riding smaller multi-day events would have helped greatly. Adding more experience and building up your conference to keep going when things get hard. This is something you can bring into other parts of your life too.

Looking forward to the LEL next year :-)

200 KM Audax

It is been a while.

So that have I been up to. I completed a few 200KM cycles this year, did not get to cycle to Galway as planned this will be in March. At the weekend I completed by third 200KM cycle and second Audax (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audax_%28cycling%29).  
 
Audax is a cycling sport in which participants attempt to cycle long distances within a pre-defined time limit and following a cue card/route card. It pushes you to be self-relent on the cycle and get home if you breakdown or have problems as there is normally no cars following the route to pick up people. Great fun and you meet a lot of interesting people along the way.

What did I lean at the weekend? To follow good advice, don't, don't change anything on the bike the week of the cycle if you don't need too and use food (bars, Gels, etc) you have used before.

I broke both by changing out the Chainset for a Compact double the day before the cycle and just picking up food I had not used before in the shop. Result was hitting the wall at 170 KM.

New rule:  Preparation, Preparation, Training Plan, and use known food that bring results. :-)

So that is next goal for next year is a 1,000 KM Audax in Scotland in June. Come on the winter training. :-)

Good book recommendation is Distance Cycling By John Hughes, Dan Kehlenbach, Dan Kehlenbach full of great information and insights on every page.