Just a very quick update now as we’re running round like mad things getting ready for the morning.
To keep up with our progress tomorrow, come rain or shine, the newly-upgraded laser-powered SheepTracker is now online – go to http://markandaudrey.co.uk/sheeptracker/ and see us pootle along in real time, with fancy stats and what have you. Audrey’s phone is a little less reliable than mine at sending its position, so if she disappears for a while, don’t worry too much!
We’ve got our Team Sheep capes at the ready, and jelly babies coming out of our ears. Let’s do this thing!
If you’re planning on coming to see us at any point, the route is below (click for a full interactive map). If you want to wish us well, or you’re coming along to see us during the ride, you can drop us a message (to Mark on Whatsapp / Hangouts / Facebook Messenger, or @sheeponbikes on Twitter) – let us know where you’ll be and we’ll keep an eye out for you!
In which Mark gets sentimental about cycling in London…
This weekend, after many months of training, we will cycle 100 miles through London and Surrey in less than eight hours. But the process didn’t start with the training. In 2007, I was the most unfit, most out-of-shape I’ve ever been, when a wondrous thing came to London one Sunday: the Hovis Freewheel.
Before: At the Hovis Freewheel, September 2007
Closed central London roads with led rides in from various outer London points, it was the spiritual predecessor to the Ride London weekend. Audrey suggested we go along (she is wonderful for making sure we do these things) and although I’d not turned a pedal in well over a decade I jumped at the chance. Registering for the event, we got our shiny red tabards, hired bikes, and cycled in from the hub on Clapham Common.
We had a wonderful time, getting carried away with the pure joy of zooming along iconic central London roads without any traffic to worry about, completing lap after lap of the 8.5 mile route. We pushed it rather too far and caused ourselves some knee troubles in the process, but it was an eye-opening experience.
A few years passed; we flirted with the gym for a while, I made some small fitness gains, nothing major or consistent. Then, in the summer of 2010, a strip of cycle lane appeared outside the station where we embark on our daily tube commute. Cycle Superhighway 7 had arrived, stretching from Colliers Wood to the City of London – my commute represented in sky blue paint on the road. Even my inexperienced non-cyclist eyes could see the paint provided no useful cycling space (particularly through Tooting where it’s mostly under parked cars), but it highlighted that it was conceivable for me to cycle to work, which I hadn’t considered before. Looking into the practicalities of it, I found multiple routes I could take (thanks Cyclestreets!), each around ten miles. That sounded like A Very Long Way – but achievable, at least occasionally.
Around this time, the cycle hire scheme (aka ‘Boris Bikes’) also launched in central London, giving me a first taste of cycling on the open roads of our city. Frankly terrifying the first few times, for some reason I stuck with it… the freedom, the joy of the activity, the joining up of the places previously only connected by a coloured line on the tube map. The city started to open up, the sights along the way so much better than tunnels covered in inches of brake dust.
I finally got myself a bike in the summer of 2011 (a Specialized Sirrus hybrid), taking Merton’s rather good free adult cycle training before venturing the whole way in to work. By the autumn I was cycling to work occasionally, working my way up to 3-4 times per week. And to this day, cycling across Clapham Common in the morning mist or seeing the vista of London open up wide across the horizon in front of me when crossing Southwark Bridge is a buzz every single time.
Several thousand miles of commuting and cycling around London later, the foundations for the fitness required for this coming weekend were well laid. But more importantly, the foundations for a healthier life – for the first time as an adult I’m getting enough regular exercise, maintaining a healthy weight. And unlike trudging away at the gym, it’s mostly a joy to do.
After: at the London Nocturne Barclay’s Cycle Hire race – photo courtesy of Kevin Oakhill
So, thank you London – you wonderful, flawed metropolis. There’s so much to be negative about when it comes to cycling in this city, but for me, for my health, through flawed interventions like Cycle Superhighway 7, through great interventions like the Cycle Hire scheme, and through well-intentioned mass events like the Freewheel and its successors, London has worked wonders. Small enablers that prompt and allow a healthier lifestyle.
The city can, and should, be so much better for cycling, and there are encouraging signs that improvements are on their way. Hopefully we will see cycling becoming a more inclusive activity, more open to all, as these plans come to fruition. There are enormous health benefits of building activity into our lives in this way; benefits that are clear and well known and that spread out beyond the individual to society at large (the cost of treating obesity and its related illnesses in the UK is over £4bn a year).
But you don’t need to wait for things to be built – there are some great cycling routes to be had in this city already (ask me and I’ll help you find them) – and if I can go from a sedentary zero and borderline-obese to cycling 100 miles in a go (or, more to the point, thousands of miles per year) and a healthy weight in a pretty short time, then so can just about anyone.
And so to this weekend. 100 miles of beautiful closed roads as we Ride London. Tens of thousands of participants. Thousands more watching on the streets. Get on your bikes and join the party! Enjoy Saturday’s Freecycle on closed roads in central London, or work out how to start building a bit of cycling in to your lives. Once you start…
As our training has been tapering down, we’ve been finalising our food plans for during the ride – I’m writing this down here to clarify our thoughts about it and summarise all we’ve read before it pours out of my brain; feel free to skip this post if it’s a bit dull. But not before you admire another of my patented cartographic gems:
Our map, so we know what fuel we can get where!
During our training we’ve tried all the different things we’re likely to eat, what we need to calculate is exactly how much and how often. This is one of the more difficult things to get right about cycling so far in a limited time, hence our careful planning. We’ve tried a few different patterns of eating, with varied success, and done a lot of reading on the best practises to follow. There are links to a few of these articles at the end of this post.
How much?
The general consensus for a 4+ hour ride is to target 1g carb per kilo body weight per hour riding (so 60-80g, 240-300 calories), without too much fat and protein. That’s the limit of what you can process usefully – more than that can make you feel highly uncomfortable without any additional benefit. With that said, we’ve tended towards not eating enough during training so overdosing is unlikely to be a problem.
We’ll be burning 450-600 calories an hour, with the amount above what we can eat coming from the reserves we start with and, if those run out (technically if we “reach full carbohydrate depletion”), burning fat. Burning fat may sound good but it’s a slow process which can’t supply energy quickly, seriously affecting performance. At this point, the lack of available glucose muddles your brain and just turning the pedals becomes very hard work hence the name for reaching this stage in common cycling parlance: “bonking” or “the bonk”. Once you get to that point, it is incredibly difficult to recover while continuing, so avoiding it is key.
So, while we don’t need extra energy in the first hour or so (our hearty breakfast will fuel that) it’s very important that we eat right from the start to preserve our stored energy for later in the ride. Our breakfast will be around two hours before the start, largely slow-burning porridge, then a banana about half an hour before the start which seems very widely recommended.
What?
A small selection of the smorgasbord we’re intending to take along…
We’re not big on the technical sports energy products (gels and what have you), preferring real food where possible and saving gels for near the end. So our mainstays once we’re on the road will be:
Frusli cereal bars (21g carbs each)
Malt loaf (19g carbs for a mini loaf)
Fig rolls (a.k.a. fig newtons in the US, 12g carbs each)
Maybe the odd banana if we can work out how to carry (27g carbs in a medium one)
Jelly Babies (5g carbs each)
Haribo (all different sizes so harder to quantify, very approx 2g each)
Combining these up gives various options to reach the 60-80g/hr target, and we’re going to try and eat a little something every 15-20 minutes, with one bigger thing per hour (for example, 3×3 jelly babies then a frusli bar would be 66g carbs).
It’s likely to take us around 7-7.5 hours to do the distance, and for a ride that long many recommend having a stop (of no more than ten minutes) to eat something more substantial around 3.5 hours in – if nothing else, the physical hunger of going 7.5 hours with only snacks can be quite significant, and the energy and psychological boost of having a few minutes off the bike is also useful – though not too long or your muscles cool off.
We’ll look to do that around Newlands Corner (the first major climb of the route, around 45 miles in) – probably having some jam sandwiches with a nice bit of Battenberg cake (any excuse for cake…). About 15 miles after this point, we’ll hit Leith Hill, so that should give the extra food time to get into our systems and help power us up there!
After that, we’ll continue with the 2-3 little-somethings plus one bigger thing per hour plan through to the end, though increasingly switching in the technical sports foods – gels, energy drinks, etc – as they’re the easiest to digest and provide more of an instant boost. They’re also what’s available at the drink stations along the route and carrying all of this lot may prove impossible.
Foods we’ll have available for later in the ride will include:
Science in Sport isotonic gels (22g carbs each, a few carried)
High 5 Energy Gels (23g carbs each, at later drink stations)
High 5 Energy Source (44g carbs per sachet / per 500ml mixed, at most drink stations plus one or two carried)
… plus whatever we have left of the above from earlier.
As we near the end (maybe in the run up to Wimbledon Hill), we’ll have a gel with caffeine to give us an extra boost for those final few miles.
Something to drink with that?
The other major factor we need to consider is hydration. Throughout our training we’ve been using Nuun and High 5 Zero, both of which supplement water with the electrolytes vital to replace lost salts when sweating lots, but adding no energy. We’ll continue with this as it has worked well, carrying a few high 5 zero tablets so we can quickly mix our own if only water is available when we need to refill. In the later stages, we will likely switch to one High 5 Energy Source bottle and one Zero bottle to cover hydration and energy at the same time.
It’s hard to plan in advance how much to drink as the need varies significantly with the ambient temperature, but most recent research seems to suggest that drinking to thirst (or just ahead of it) is the best strategy. It’s surprisingly easy to over-hydrate and that can have serious consequences, although if it’s hot that’s less likely to be an issue. You do need a decent amount of hydration to ensure you can process the carbs, though… A hard one, but we feel that on most of our long training rides we’ve done OK with this, so we’re not too worried.
If you’ve any thoughts or tips or questions, do leave a comment!
Here’s a few of the useful articles we’ve read while looking in to all this:
On Sunday we did our final long ride – a gentle 41 mile ride out through central London, enjoying the quiet roads of a Sunday morning. Our planned route was rather broken by the Embankment being closed for the British Triathlon, but no matter – it’s our turn for the closed roads next weekend!
Fundraising Update
It’s been an amazing week for our fundraising total, now standing at £1200 raised, which, after my employer matches it, will mean Friendship Works receiving £2400 in total. We’re really touched by all of your generosity over the last few months, and thank you all for putting up with our constant nagging to donate! Any final stragglers, you can still sponsor us here.
Looking ahead
Next week, the last week before the big day, we’ll be doing lots of sleeping and a couple of very short hard rides to keep our muscles ready without using too much energy. We’ll also be finalising our food plans for the day (another post coming up about that soon, it takes a surprising amount of planning!) and generally fussing about being worried that we’ve forgotten things.
Almost there…
The boring stats:
Weekly distance: 80 miles (Mark), 66 miles (Audrey).
Average moving speed (long ride): 12.8mph
Moving time (long ride): 3h11m
Total punctures to date – Mark: 0, Audrey: 2
Total zero-speed falling-over-due-to-cleat-issues – Mark: 9, Audrey: n/a.
Total training miles to date (including cycling to work) – Mark: 1580 miles, Audrey: 1329 miles + 6 hours spinning.
It’s been a wonderful week for our Friendship Works fundraising total – we’re now just shy of £1000 (if anyone feels like adding £17.12…), with £350 donated in the last seven days alone by you fabulous people!
As promised, we’ll be matching £200 of that, and after my employer matches it all that will mean an extra £1100 for Friendship Works compared to where we were last Thursday, and over £2350 overall – which we think is absolutely cracking!
It means a huge amount to us that you’ve all been so generous in your support – we’re genuinely humbled and a huge thank you to every single one of you. Now all that remains is that pesky 100 miles to cycle…
Monday 21 July – Sunday 27 July. T-minus 2 weeks to Ride London. Total Team Sheep Miles: 2764; Total raised for Friendship Works: £693
Just a quick update this week. After the peak of our training last week banished some fears of the broom wagon, we’re now starting to taper down and, as we were away for the weekend, we only got two rides in.
Our first few days of matching your donations for Friendship Works have gone really well with £60 for us to match thanks to our new supporters! Still £140 in our matching budget, though – if we can get that in the next few days it will mean an extra £800 going to Friendship Works compared to a week ago! If you’ve been meaning to donate but haven’t had the chance yet (you’ve got the tab open, you’ve been meaning to get round to it, must do that soon), get that credit card out and do it now – remember every £1 donated will mean £4 for Friendship Works for the next couple of days, and you can donate directly in dollars or pounds so no nasty card fees to pay.
Friday morning was our last really long training ride – 55 miles. As we had a train to catch in the afternoon, we went to Richmond Park and lapped around in various directions until we had the distance we needed.
The most appropriate registration plate, spotted in Richmond Park
This gave us our fastest long ride by far – a moving average of 14.1mph! It felt really good to be able to maintain a decent pace over this distance of uninterrupted riding – and bodes very well for the day. It was the longest ride we’d want to do without stopping for a short lunch break, and Audrey faded some in the last 10 miles likely because she hadn’t eaten enough while we pedalled.
Keeping well fuelled is one of the hardest bits of this to get right, so it was good for us to be reminded of the importance of paying close attention to it.
Click for full Ride with GPS stats
Next week
As we near the end of our training, shorter rides that maintain the intensity are the order of the day. So we’ll be doing two or three quick blasts next week including some hills and some fast riding, then a 35 mile easy long ride next Sunday to keep us in the game.
The boring stats:
Weekly distance: 76 miles (Mark), 74 miles (Audrey).
Average moving speed (long ride): 14.1mph
Moving time (long ride): 3h52m
Total punctures to date – Mark: 0, Audrey: 2
Total zero-speed falling-over-due-to-cleat-issues – Mark: 9, Audrey: n/a.
Total training miles to date (including cycling to work) – Mark: 1500 miles, Audrey: 1263 miles + 6 hours spinning.
Monday 14 July – Sunday 20 July. T-minus 3 weeks to Ride London.
Total Team Sheep Miles: 2613; Total raised for Friendship Works: £633
This was it. The peak of our training, the longest ride before the day, the highest weekly mileage at over 140 miles each. After last week’s dreadful 69 miler we needed some good rides to give us the confidence that we can do this without being swept up by the broom wagon – the course-closing vehicle that chases us slower cyclists around the route, eating people who drop behind 8h30m pace like some 1980s video game baddie.
The broom wagon is something like this, we assume… Pac-Man turned to the dark side
With Audrey still needing some time to get used to her new bike, we were unsure how this week’s rides would go, but conscious that this was the last week for gaining fitness before our taper period we threw ourselves in with gusto: fast riding, hill repeats, race pace, then the longest long ride until the day: Eighty Miles, with full race-day preparation to test everything out.
Read on to find out how the week went, and whether we got further away from Mr Evil Pac-Man Broom Wagon (there’s more drawings throughout as a reward for wading through my wordy-prose)!
Give £1, Friendship Works get £4
But first, a quick fund-raising update. We’ve sailed past our minimum target – thank you all who’ve donated – however as we really believe in what the fantastic Friendship Works do, we’re going to keep bugging you. They’re a small charity without the fund-raising clout of the big boys, providing vital long-term support and mentoring for disadvantaged children in London on a very limited budget. Putting our money where our mouths are, we will personally match any sponsorship received for the next seven days (or £200, whichever comes first)!
So for every £1 you donate, we’ll chuck in another £1, and my employer will match both, meaning £4 for Friendship Works!
We’re trying to reach £2,000, enough to train five new mentors, so give a few pounds or dollars here at Just Giving – for our American readers, you can donate directly in US dollars so there are no additional fees to pay for US credit/debit cards.
They’ve ridden how far?
A few fun facts: In training for Ride London, between us we’ve now cycled the distance from London to Newfoundland in Canada (~2475mi) or Baghdad (~2550mi). Individually, Audrey has just sailed past Reykjavik, Iceland or Tirana in Albania (~1175mi) and I’m nearing Greenland (Ittoqqortoormiit – try spelling that after a pint) or Athens (~1490mi)!
Right enough messing about, on with this week’s rides.
Tuesday: Fast around Richmond Park
We went out on Tuesday for a fast full lap of Richmond Park and set a new record for us lapping together – 27m11s at 15.1mph average! Audrey was starting to get the hang of her new bike and was able to maintain a much better pace up the hills, so it was a really encouraging ride.
Wednesday: Hill Repeats
After meeting the hills a couple of weeks back and our dreadful long ride last week (also fairly hilly), we can certainly benefit from more hill training – if nothing else, pain now should give a nicer race day! Our hill repeats involved us repeatedly cycling up and down Ridgeway Place in Wimbledon, which goes up the same slope as Wimbledon Hill, the last climb of the route.
I did ten ascents for a total of ~1000ft gain over 6 miles, Audrey nine slightly shorter climbs for a total of ~750ft over 3.3 miles, in both cases taking around 30 minutes. For context, Leith Hill is ~500ft over 1.5mi and Box Hill ~600ft over 2.7mi.
Audrey’s hill repeatsMark’s hill repeats
We maintained a decent pace but were wiped out by the end, a very hard session.
Friday: Mid-length race pace
It was always going to be difficult to fit a 40 mile race-pace practice in after work. We didn’t leave the house until 20:00 making completing it inside Richmond Park without getting locked in a serious challenge.
Using the 5.7mi shorter lap (which has approximately the right elevation gain to be a microcosm of Ride London), we needed to get round 5 times. We started well, but as jet black clouds rolled in it got dark much faster than anticipated. A fantastical storm was throwing enormous lightning bolts down on the far side of London, amazing to watch but thankfully well away from us!
Doom-laden sky over Richmond Park
It stayed mostly dry but, as we neared the end of our third lap, we could barely see the road – 14.3mph average so far though! We left the park to complete our ride on street, where at least there were lights to help. Our bike lights are definitely more for being seen than for seeing with!
A couple of laps around Wimbledon Village and alongside the Common, maintaining a decent pace, then the batteries in my light finally gave up and we headed home for a total distance of 35 miles. We’d managed an average moving pace of 13.9mph over the 30 miles from entering the park, giving us badly-needed confidence that we may yet escape the evil Pac-Man broom wagon.
Hmm, we might just get away from him!
A well-earned rest day on Saturday, then all that remained was the big one!
Sunday: 80 miles of London
Our plan for this longest of long training rides was to make it as much like Ride London day as possible – getting up at the same time, eating the breakfast we intend to eat, and setting out at our official start time of 08:12. Our breakfast-of-champions will be McDonald’s pancakes with syrup (pretty much 100% carbohydrates) and a portion of porridge (mostly slower-burning carbohydrates). So at 05:35 this Sunday, we hauled ourselves out of bed, drove to the nearest McDonald’s and loaded up, sitting in the car to eat it as we will on the morning (though someone else will be driving!).
Back home to finish our prep and get on our bikes – carefully noting down each thing that our tired brains forgot so on the morning we can be zombies and still get to the start with the right underpants on. The newly-upgraded SheepTracker was activated, now including the total distance each of us has travelled, to give our dear viewers a better idea how we’re doing! Average speed and total time coming soon…
The upgraded SheepTracker – go to http://markandaudrey.co.uk/sheeptracker/ to see us live!
At 08:12 we rolled out of our gate to start. Two turns of the pedals and I realised I had the wrong shoes on! Another one for the list… quick dash inside to rectify and we were on our way.
The route used some of the best bits from our much earlier pan-London epics, adjusted to avoid fiddly or busy bits, keeping sections that give us the best opportunity to go at a reasonable pace.
Route Details
Wandle Trail to Battersea Park, 2.5 laps there, through a gloriously quiet central London to CS3, all the way out to its easternmost extent (the last mile of which was completely covered in broken glass) then west along The Greenway. We then reversed that whole section, back east along The Greenway then west along CS3, through central London again (now busier unfortunately), another 1.5 laps of Battersea Park (increased by a lap as we didn’t repeat the broken-glass-strewn top of CS3), then over to Richmond Park for two short laps and one final full lap – including the steeper climbs up Sawyer’s and Dark Hill to simulate the late climb of Wimbledon Hill at mile 91 of the Ride London route, before heading back home to finish.
We started strongly – a touch stodgy feeling from the large breakfast, but that soon passed leaving us glad of the energy it gave. Remembering to eat every 30-45 minutes (mostly Haribo with the occasional Frusli granola bar) and drink plenty, we ticked off 25 miles in good time – 13.3mph moving average, 1h52m moving time. A quick comfort break at a convenient Sainsbury’s (who couldn’t actually sell us anything thanks to Sunday trading laws – like a mirage, you can look at the water but you can’t buy the water) then on our way. We continued out along the Greenway and back, stopping again at the same Sainsbury’s around mile 34 to finally procure the water.
Just shy of 40 miles in, we stopped for lunch – I’d squeezed jam sandwiches into my saddle and top tube bags which surprisingly hadn’t got too smushed. Audrey had a fluffernutter (marshmallow fluff and peanut butter sandwich: definitely an American thing) and a jam sandwich strapped to her pannier rack.
Across London again, we continued to make good progress, though I was tiring slightly by the time we reached Battersea Park for the second time so had my first energy gel of the day (a Science-in-Sport lemon-and-lime, if you were wondering). This helped a little, but with hindsight I don’t think I’d drank enough: about 900ml in nearly five hours of riding. Audrey had been more sensible, and as I went on I upped my drinking. This should be less of a problem on the day as we’ll have far more opportunities to get water.
Reaching Richmond Park, I found a a second wind after another energy gel and drinking a lot more, although as the heat rose we both ran out of water, necessitating a quick stop to buy more. Our final full lap of Richmond Park, climbing Sawyer’s Hill the steep way then Dark Hill, provided a good late challenge and finally kicked the last of the energy out of us. The few miles back home were fairly miserable, and I had the energy gel with caffeine I’d saved for near the end. This helped clear my head and we finished up feeling very tired but very accomplished – the overall pace was really strong, even near the end we were able to average 14mph over the 18 miles in the park.
We did it! 81.4 miles (or 80.8 miles according to Audrey’s computer) in 6h18m moving time, 7h50m total time.
Audrey’s new bike worked very well; we were able to share the work at the front and maintain a much better pace along the open stretches than in our previous rides. Begone, evil broom wagon Pac-Man!!
We’re away! BAAAAAA!!!!
Looking Forward
Next week we’ll start to gently taper, with a long ride of 55 miles on Friday morning. After that, we’ll be cutting back more sharply to get ourselves ready for the day. At this point, we feel ready from a fitness point of view, so it’s all down to careful preparation and maintenance now.
Three weeks until we Ride London and we can’t wait!
The boring stats:
Weekly distance: 146 miles (Mark), 144 miles (Audrey).
Average moving speed (long ride): 12.9mph
Moving time (long ride): 6h18m
Total punctures to date – Mark: 0, Audrey: 2
Total zero-speed falling-over-due-to-cleat-issues – Mark: 9, Audrey: n/a.
Total training miles to date (including cycling to work) – Mark: 1424 miles, Audrey: 1189 miles + 6 hours spinning.
Monday 7 July – Sunday 13 July. T-minus 4 weeks to Ride London.
Total Team Sheep Miles: 2323; Total raised for Friendship Works: £523
Big news this week: Audrey took delivery of her new bike on Friday – a Revolution Country Traveller touring bike from the Edinburgh Bicycle Cooperative. A little lighter than her previous sit-up-and-beg city bike, it also has dropped handle bars which will help with maintaining higher speeds, be better for drafting, and hopefully give a much better position for climbing those hills.
The other big news is that we’ve now both completed over 1000 miles of training! Zoom zoom zoom…
Tuesday: Fast
We followed our usual Tuesday procedure: spinning for Audrey and Richmond Park lapping for Mark (2 laps, first one a new PB of 21m31s, 19.0mph).
Friday: New bike familiarisation & attempted mid-length race pace
The new bike was delivered to Audrey at work; a little light assembly and adjustment and we were on the road shortly after 8pm. Heading to Richmond Park for our race-pace practice, we found both the road and pedestrian gates locked at Roehampton Gate and a number of bewildered-looking people with bikes trapped inside. The pedestrian gate normally stays open late, so we’re not sure why this was, in any case it meant no park riding for us – and an awkward climb out for those stuck inside. We did a loop around Wimbledon Village to get a few more miles in, then headed home – just 17 miles under our belt.
Saturday: 69 miles of hills and lanes
We had another long one pencilled in for this weekend, and Audrey needed a good long ride to get accustomed to the new steed. So we planned a 65-mile route around Surrey taking in some of the area we’d covered last week, some of an excellent Lost Lanes route we’d done last year, and a selection of other bits to join it all up.
Audrey tackling Box Hill on her new bike “Emmy”, an emerald green touring bike from the Edinburgh Bicycle Coop
For some reason, we really messed up our leaving procedure and headed out at about 13:30 having had only two pieces of toast to eat each. This turned out to be a terrible move – the first 20 miles of the route felt very sluggish, the next 30 just about passable, a climb up Box Hill went quite well but the last 20 miles back from there were awful, and I was particularly struggling.
It had clearly been raining in London while we’d been out, and to finish the ride off perfectly, we decided that following the muddy Wandle Trail rather than the road from Morden back to home was a great idea – thus adding both stinging nettle stings and very muddy bikes to the long list of things to feel miserable about.
The only saving grace, despite lots of stopping and feeling generally awful, the overall pace wasn’t terrible at 11.6mph and we completed 69 miles. We did learn a lot about how important it is to eat properly before heading out on a long ride, though – and it is better to have learnt this now than on race day.
Our miserable route – click for full Ride with GPS statsThe elevation profile – 10 points if you can spot Box Hill
Next Week
After this week’s disruptions, we’ll need to do some extra next week. It’s the peak of our training plan before we start to taper down, and our last chance to really push out the distance.
To that end, Tuesday we’ll both be going to Richmond Park for a fast sprint lap, Wednesday will be hill repeats up & down Wimbledon Hill, Friday will be a 35-40 mile race pace practice, and Sunday will see us doing the longest ride before the day: 80 miles!
The boring stats:
Weekly distance: 124 miles (Mark), 86 miles + 1hr spinning (Audrey).
Average moving speed (long ride): 11.7mph
Moving time (long ride): 5h54m
Total punctures to date – Mark: 0, Audrey: 2
Total zero-speed falling-over-due-to-cleat-issues – Mark: 9, Audrey: n/a.
Total training miles to date (including cycling to work) – Mark: 1278 miles, Audrey: 1045 miles + 6 hours spinning.
Monday 30 June – Sunday 6 July. T-minus 5 weeks to Ride London.
Total Team Sheep Miles: 2112; Total raised for Friendship Works: £523
We’ve been extending the distances over the weeks, but looming on the horizon are the two major climbs of the route. Leith Hill, from the southern approach taken on the day, is a 500ft climb over 1.5 miles with an average gradient of 6.9%, max 12.9%. Box Hill, made famous by the Olympic road races back in 2012, gains just under 600ft over 2.7 miles with an average gradient of 4.1% up its Zig-Zag Road. Last week’s long ride had a lot of elevation gain, but the majority of it was very gradual, so for this week’s major ride, we decided it was time to slay the demons and finally meet the hills.
With the Tour de France winding its way through the Yorkshire hills, it was our very own Team Sheep mountain stage.
Tuesday: Fast
We started the week with our usual combination of spinning (Audrey) and fast Richmond Park lap (Mark; new PB of 22m30s, average speed of 18.2mph).
Thursday: Mid-length race pace
Continuing our mid-length race pace practices, we did another session at Richmond Park – the park section totalling 17.8 miles in 1h17m – 13.9mph average, a new best for us riding together, out of a total ride of 30 miles.
Saturday: Meet the Hills attempt 1
They say there’s no such thing as the wrong weather for cycling, just the wrong clothes. Two miles into our first attempt at cycling out to the Surrey hills and we definitely had the wrong clothes (and arguably in my case the wrong bike). A massive downpour started, with black thunderous clouds stretching out to the horizon. Our planned route followed the Wandle Trail / Avenue Verté south for the first 12 miles – tracks which are muddy even in the dry; in the wet the right clothes would be diving suits! Our brakes immediately filled with mud and the idea of descending massive hills for the first time with ineffective brakes didn’t appeal, so we cut our losses and headed back home.
We re-planned the route to avoid that section, following roads and paved tracks instead, so if the weather on Sunday was equally bad at least we wouldn’t be as muddy. While it might rain on the day, it won’t be on muddy tracks for tens of miles. l do need to work out how to carry a light-weight waterproof though, as it was chilly in the wet.
Sunday: Meet the Hills attempt 2
A hearty breakfast at Mel’s of Earlsfield set us up well for our re-planned ride, and we took the the train out to Effingham Junction to start. Our revised plan would have us going over five major climbs finishing with Box Hill, then cycling back home via Epsom and Sutton.
The five hills of our route
Away from the station and out into the Surrey lanes, the weather was delightful and the scenery lovely. Our first climb (1 in the above diagram: White Hill / White Downs, 665ft over 4 miles, 29 minutes) started soon after leaving the station and was followed by a ridiculous 18% descent which we would have to come back up later.
Leith Hill
We started our first ascent of Leith Hill (2) approaching from the north and heading south. This will be the descent on Ride London day, a more gradual affair than the southern face. It rises 539ft over 3.2 miles and took us 22 minutes.
Descending the western side, we found that the Ockley Road is closed and impassable until early August (hope the work finishes on time; 26,000 people on bikes will be along here on 10th August). This means a five-mile road detour (or a mile of rocky footpath) to reach the start of the climb. The detour was pleasant and what passes for flat in this area, so gave us time to recover before hoofing it up the hill again.
The ascent of Leith Hill from the south (3) rises 500ft in 1.5 miles – an average of 6.9% with a maximum ramp of 12.9% coming near the top. It’s the steepest part of the Ride London route, and on this first attempt it took us 17 minutes including a bit of a pause three-quarters of the way up. Audrey suffered some knee pain as we neared the top, a worrying flashback to problems from months back, but luckily these cleared up as we continued.
Over to Box Hill
Heading back north, following the Ride London route down from the top of Leith Hill, we were faced with a choice – to get to Box Hill we either had to ascend the 18% slope of White Downs that we’d flown down earlier, or cycle along the fast-moving A25. The Ride London will follow the A25, but it will be closed to traffic. So, up the hill we went (4). We walked up the steepest part on a “footpath” – though it was more like rock climbing than walking. We didn’t feel bad about walking this – it was our first major day of hills, we still had Box Hill to go, and most importantly we didn’t want to aggravate Audrey’s knees further this close to the event with a slope that is beyond anything we’ll meet on the day.
The roads between the top of White Downs and the bottom of Box Hill, following the Surrey Cycleway route, are delightful – great scenery, gently rolling hills, and not much traffic – we made good time. Reaching Box Hill we made our way up without any major problems – while it is a long ascent, the gradient is very even, so you can just keep grinding away. Remembering not to be distracted by the National Trust café – which is at a false summit a mile short of the top – we finished the 2.7mi, 600ft climb in 23 minutes, with no stopping. It felt surprisingly manageable – a much easier climb than Leith Hill. We rolled back to the café for a celebratory slice of Victoria Sponge (and one of the worst coffees I’ve had in years), pausing to admire this wonderful view.
View from the top of Box Hill
We stopped for too long and ate too much cake (the slices were enormous and we had one each; the National Trust clearly know their market here), so we were both pretty sluggish when it came to starting the ride home, but after a while we picked up the pace again and enjoyed the long, mostly down hill, 20 miles back home.
Humongous wedge of Victoria Sponge!
We’re happy with our first day in the hills, completing nearly the full amount of climbing that we’ll meet on the day. After 52 miles, we still felt broadly fine. An encouraging ride!
Our route – click for full Ride With GPS statsThe all-important elevation profile – we have certainly now met the hills!
The boring stats:
Weekly distance: 112 miles (Mark), 87 miles + 1hr spinning (Audrey).
Average moving speed (long hilly ride): 11.3mph
Moving time (long ride): 4h35m
Total punctures to date – Mark: 0, Audrey: 2
Total zero-speed falling-over-due-to-cleat-issues – Mark: 9 – think I’m finally on top of this! Audrey: n/a.
Total training miles to date (including cycling to work) – Mark:1153 miles, Audrey: 959 miles + 5 hours spinning.
Monday 23 June – Sunday 29 June. T-minus 6 weeks to Ride London.
Total Team Sheep Miles: 1913; Total raised for Friendship Works: £523
After our adventures in the US last week (part 1, part 2), the first half of this week was lost to travelling and jet lag. Somehow Audrey managed an early morning fast spin class on Thursday while I was barely conscious after only 2 hours sleep, we then did a fast Richmond Park ride on Friday and Sunday saw our first attempt at a 70 mile ride through the beautiful Peak District.
Friday: Richmond Park race pace practice
Our medium length mid-week rides are now practicing riding at our intended race pace (~13-14mph). With the difficulty of finding places to cycle without lots of stopping, these will be at Richmond Park more often than not. This time, we did two full-length laps, averaging 13.0mph. The full lap of the park includes a third more climbing per mile than the Ride London route (average 58ft/mile vs 43.5ft/mile), so for the same effort we would expect to go slightly faster than this on the day. Pretty happy with this pace, given how tired we were.
Sunday: 70 miles in the Peak District
We’re trying to get more hills into our rides, and as we were in Sheffield for the weekend the Peak District seemed an obvious supplier of such. Audrey identified a series of trails on former rail lines which looked like they fit the bill perfectly. Our intention was to ride the trails and, along the way, form a plan to combine sections to reach 70 miles once we knew what they were like in terms of elevation and surfacing.
The High Peak Trail and Tissington Trail together form a large wishbone shape, and have over 30 miles of wide, mostly decently surfaced cycleable paths.
High Peak & Tissington Trails
The High Peak Trail begins (from the eastern end) with an almost comical 1:8 gradient; a steepness that no train could ascend under its own power, and at the top are the remnants of the winch system which hauled trains up this ludicrous slope. We we skipped half of this climb by starting from the Black Rocks car park instead of the start of the trail – hills we may need but two miles of 1:8 at the start of a 70 mile ride didn’t seem like a great idea!
From the top of this climb west, the trail has a gentle up-hill gradient throughout most of its length. It’s wide and, in the most part, reasonably well surfaced for cycling with a selection of different gravel-like surfaces. It has an annoying number of gates in its lower half, which break up the flow, and it crosses a couple of minor roads; the upper half has fewer interruptions. There are cafés and toilets located at Middleton Top and Parsley Hay along this trail.
The Tissington Trail, heading south from the intersection with the High Peak Trail, is gently downhill for over 12 miles, entirely uninterrupted – no gates, no roads to cross, just endless cycling heaven. The surfacing is better than the High Peak – still mostly variations on gravel path but more consistent and wider too. Our joy at finding such a long stretch of uninterrupted cycle route in this country was enough to overcome the slight apprehension of having to cycle up hill the whole way back after we’d gone down!
Once we’d ridden the length of the High Peak and all the way down Tissington (around 33 miles), we had all the lengths we needed to do the maths: to get to 70 we’d need to go from the bottom of Tissington right back to the top of High Peak (in effect an uninterrupted 16 mile climb), back down to the branch with Tissington and down ~2.5 miles of that again, before finally going back up to the High Peak and following it back south to the car. As I’m sure you’re all confused, here’s a fantastic diagram:
Our ad-hoc plan to reach 70 miles
I’m sure that’s much clearer now.
Audrey had enterprisingly prepared us some jam sandwiches from the hotel buffet breakfast, and as we started the climb back up the Tissington Trail these provided a great boost. We’d also kept ourselves topped up throughout the day with jelly babies, Haribo, Frusli bars and a cake break at the café at Parsley Hay. No running out of fuel for us this time!
It all went reasonably well, although by the final few miles back to the car we were, as you’d expect, tiring fairly badly. Our first 70 mile ride in the bag, all that remained was strapping the bikes to the back of the car and a three hour drive back to London, via a massive pile of food from McDonald’s!
Our final route – click for full Ride with GPS statsCheck out the massively long descent/ascent in the middle there!
The boring stats:
Weekly distance: 99 miles (Mark), 99 miles (Audrey).
Average moving speed (long ride): 12.0mph
Moving time (long ride): 5h50m
Total punctures to date – Mark: 0, Audrey: 2
Total zero-speed falling-over-due-to-cleat-issues – Mark: 9, Audrey: n/a (still clever enough not to get involved in such stupid devices).
Total training miles to date (including cycling to work) – Mark: 1041 miles, Audrey: 872 miles + 4 hours spinning.
Two sheep on two bikes, thousands of miles training, then the 100 mile RideLondon this August in aid of Friendship Works
