Show us your.......newbie progress! [4 Sep 2012 - 4 Oct 2014]

[Typhon]

Well I decided that today would be the day I tackled Saintbury hill, as for once the winds weren't blowing from the south which would meant it wouldn't be quite so hard. As soon as I set off I knew it was a bad idea though, my legs were aching straight away. It could be the wine I had last night, the lack of sleep or the freezing cold but I think it was mostly because I am just not used to cycling every other day anymore. So far this year I have done 4 rides in 9 days whereas in December I only did 4 rides in the entire month, spaced out at once per week. When I've had 4+ days off the bike my legs never hurt and I am only limited by my heart rate.

Anyway I decided to persevere and boy did I regret it! I remember Brian saying that he had got half way up and given up and now I know why. Half way up it becomes like a brick wall! To my eternal shame I had to get off and push as I just didn't think I would be able to get back on and start off at that gradient. I pushed it for about 100 yards then got back on and pedalled to the top. My time is truly appalling though, I am 241st out of 249 on Strava.

That wasn't even the worst part. I had planned to cycle a bit on the Cotswold Ridge and come down the other side on a gentler hill, so the descent wouldn't be too bad. But when I got to the top it was foggy so I had to just take the next road down which turned out to be the Willesey turning. Talk about a white knuckle ride!! I was squeezing the brakes as hard as possible and still going down at a fair old rate. A couple of times I thought I was going to come off because of the debris on the corners but somehow I managed to stay on.

As my ride had been cut short by the fog I decided to take the long way home to extend the ride to 32 miles. Which isn't that far but it's further than I've been for a while I suppose. I just hope that cycling more regularly like this will pay dividends in the coming weeks and months because I don't want to fail like that again. Here's the ride anyway:

http://app.strava.com/activities/36928695

 

[Kins]

As the day was absolutely gorgeous I binned my plans and I decided to get my step brother out of the house and on his bike. Took his dog with us as well and managed a very sedate 8 miles along a lovely tarmac cycle route. We stopped and chatted to walkers and cyclists along the way, looked over the beautiful valley we live in and all together had a very pleasant afternoon. Not a breath of wind or a cloud in the sky, Wales at its best. Wish it was like this every day but heavy rain forecast on and off till Monday. Might go out for a more taxing ride later if I manage to swap my pedals over.

As my ride had been cut short by the fog I decided to take the long way home to extend the ride to 32 miles. Which isn't that far but it's further than I've been for a while I suppose. I just hope that cycling more regularly like this will pay dividends in the coming weeks and months because I don't want to fail like that again. Here's the ride anyway:

Seems like a decent ride to me! Don't be so hard on yourself.

 

[Typhon]

As the day was absolutely gorgeous I binned my plans and I decided to get my step brother out of the house and on his bike. Took his dog with us as well and managed a very sedate 8 miles along a lovely tarmac cycle route. We stopped and chatted to walkers and cyclists along the way, looked over the beautiful valley we live in and all together had a very pleasant afternoon. Not a breath of wind or a cloud in the sky, Wales at its best. Wish it was like this every day but heavy rain forecast on and off till Monday. Might go out for a more taxing ride later if I manage to swap my pedals over.



Seems like a decent ride to me! Don't be so hard on yourself.

Thanks, glad you had a nice ride.

 

[Mo1959]

As my ride had been cut short by the fog I decided to take the long way home to extend the ride to 32 miles. Which isn't that far but it's further than I've been for a while I suppose. I just hope that cycling more regularly like this will pay dividends in the coming weeks and months because I don't want to fail like that again. Here's the ride anyway:

http://app.strava.com/activities/36928695

Looks good to me, and a good average too. Great going for this time of year.

 

[Typhon]

Looks good to me, and a good average too. Great going for this time of year.

Thanks Mo. I saw your ride on strava earlier, well done. I hope it felt better than the last one!

 

[Mo1959]

Thanks Mo. I saw your ride on strava earlier, well done. I hope it felt better than the last one!

Yes thanks. Deliberately took it very gently and felt much better. Plenty time to work on speeding up later once I am getting out more regularly. More important to continue enjoying it.

 

[Billy Adam]

Finished work a little later than I would've liked but managed to do a bit around local loop. All fine until 5mins from home, car overtakes me and decides not only to turn left, but also slam their brakes for good measure. Luckily, managed to stop in time and carry on on my merry way of course sharing my thanks with said driver. https://www.strava.com/rides/36941433

 

[Typhon]

Yes thanks. Deliberately took it very gently and felt much better. Plenty time to work on speeding up later once I am getting out more regularly. More important to continue enjoying it.

I'm glad. Yes it's important to make sure you enjoy it, if you enjoy it you'll cycle regularly and the speed will come eventually.

 

[Typhon]

I've signed up to MyCyclingLog so I can track my rides. It seems a bit of a pain to have to manually update it each time but I really wanted one of the tracker bars in my signature. When it updates it should work. I have gone for a goal of 5000 miles.

 

[Paddygt]

OK, here is a chuckle for you fit guys and gals. Famously (?) I have a massive 1.4 mile each way commute 5 days a week. Having taken the first step of switching my MTB tyres to City Jets, I have sorted out an extended ride home of just over 4 miles. Sadly, I cannot do this as often as I like as I have to be home for when our disabled daughter gets home from the day centre. Anyway, today was the first time I managed to fit the ride in for the home journey.

The route is about 30% cycle pathes but with loads of junctions so no place to get much speed up but that is not my target anyway. The ride is fairly flat so pedalling all the way, the worst bit being at around thee miles where there is a long gentle uphill incline, and I mean gentle, but it always has a headwind so for me, it is a slog.

Anyway, I had downloaded my map onto my new Garmin 200 to try out the breadcrumb trail system which I was a bit sceptical about. Very happy to say that although I need reading glasses to read the Garmin's screen, I found the route very easy to follow. OK, I did know the route but I am confident now that I could follow a plan on the Garmin, something I was a bit worried about so really happy with that. Only change is that I will be mounting it further forward as I have to look too far down with it mounted on the stem.

As far as the massive (joking) distance I covered, well, my legs are aching even though I only managed just under 10 mph average. But stats asside, it was a lovely cool sunny afternoon and I arrived home feeling quite full of life haveing enjoyed the longest single bike ride in nearly three years. Very slowly, bit at a time, it is all coming together.

I know it is no achievement as such but if there is anyone reading this who is a bit reticent about joining this forum because they can only do a bit, please join and enjoy the benefits of the great support you can get on here and build yourself up at your own pace. Every journey starts with a single press of the pedal.

 

[RWright]

Everyone doing all these hills is nice work. It was warm enough here today that I was able to ride with summer kit, except for my toe covers. I was just too lazy to take them off my shoes.

I decided I would go one of my routes with the hill I always complain about, except this time I was going in reverse and go down the hill rather than up. I know, that's weak but I had never done it this way and if one of the big plants in that area were to be changing shifts it would be much safer on the narrow 2 lane road from this direction.

I hit close to 36 mph on the hill going down and that wasn't pedaling hard or even getting in the drops.
I will be ready next time and make a Strava segment for that .39 of a mile downhill with a hard approach and in the drops and let some of the little skinny whipper snapper climbers try and get some of that KOM action.

I took it easy today (too easy maybe, only averaged 69 cadence ) and just enjoyed the ride, saddle time is what is best for me at the moment I think. I will soon start doing more work on the hills, going up rather than down !

 

[RWright]

Nice work Paddy, it will keep getting better too. I also have some difficulty seeing the Garmin screen sometimes.

 

[Paddygt]

Great thing about the 200 though is its simplicity in use so even though I cannot read it without my glasses, I can still see the trail without them. The viewing of the screen was not something I had considered before I bought it. I nearly went way over budget and got the 800 but I am glad I didn't now as I may have struggled to view the map screen. OK, I know it is bigger than the 200 but sometimes the simple solution works well.

If needed, I have a mountable case for my Samsung Galaxy Note should I need to do mapping which works well but looks like a dashboard on the bike lol

 

[RWright]

Phone GPS works great and has a nice screen size. For touring I think a phone would be great, probably going to be carrying it anyway.

 

[Paddygt]

Trouble is that using GPS and mapping tends to run the battery down very quickly. I would tend to use the phone only in short bursts rather than full time. Having said that, a friend of mine uses an iPhone connected to a solar charger on the back of his backpack. Not the greatest idea in the slightly not sunny UK lol.