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.

Wednesday: Hills / Fast

Wednesday saw us do a combined hill training and speed session on Wimbledon Hill and around Richmond Park, which went reasonably well – 19 miles for Audrey and 21 miles for Mark.

Friday: 55 pacey miles

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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…

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.

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.

The overall moving pace was a strong 12.9mph (click for full Ride with GPS stats) – which considering the amount of junctions and traffic lights we had to slow down for, we were really happy with. It’s the second fastest of our 50+ mile rides – and our fastest, at 13.1mph, was the 50 miler almost entirely in Richmond Park before flying to the US – with hardly any junctions to stop for on that one, it’s not really a fair comparison!

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!!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.