One Fine Day

OK, I'll cut straight to the chase: I DID IT! I cycled all the way to Brighton.  Well, apart from the couple of nasty hills I walked up, but then so did loads of other people, so I'm not bothered about it.

We got up in the middle of the night (I mean it this time, 4.45 am), did a few final checks on bikes and kit and wotnot and then spent 10 minutes fighting to get both bikes into the back of a people-mover taxi.  The sun was shining, I was still asleep and James had realised he'd left his cycling waterproof at work.  Awesome.

The taxi driver couldn't quite believe that we were intending to cycle all the way to Brighton (the implication being that if we wanted to go there, he would take us, for a price), and nor could he believe that 27,000 other folk would eschew his services in favour of pedal power.

We arrived at Clapham Common in plenty of time for my 6.30 am start and, after bumping into one of my workmates, James and I went our separate ways to find our respective teams, the intention being that James would meet me after the start so that we could travel together.  While we were waiting in our starting paddock, there was a PA announcement that there had been an accident, presumably among the 6 am starters, and we would be delayed as a result - just what everyone wanted to hear...

We finally got under way and I dutifully checked for James at the first set of traffic lights after the start.  Unless he and his workmates were hiding in the bushes, they were not there (and they should have been by then) so I carried on to the next lights, and then the next, and I still hadn't found them.  I stopped at Marshall Point 7, about 2.5 miles in, to answer my phone - James was at the first set of lights, waiting for me.  They had lost a team member, so had to wait for him and then came to meet me. Twenty minutes later, we actually got on our way properly.  I discovered that there is something quite liberating about following a load of other people blindly without knowing where you are and only having a notion of where you are going.  The first part of the course was typical London suburbia, through Croydon and Mitcham, under the M25 and out into Not London.

Just before the 10-mile refreshment stop, my gears started playing up again, so we had to stop to check them.  They still weren't great, but they held out until the first stop, where we had a chance to give them a proper look.  We had a quick snack of jelly babies and water and then went on our merry way again.  Not long after that stop, there was a very long slow hill that a lot of people had difficulty with, and I came across one of my hapless team mates whose chain kept coming off in spite of having been looked at by the mechanics at the rest stop.  I tried to help her fix it, but in the end she had to call for assistance, and she told me to continue while she waited.

At some place around this point in the journey (I can't remember exactly where) we went past a building with a first floor balcony, on which were stood the Queen and Prince Philip (or at least a man and a woman with the requisite masks on).  I shouted "Good morning Ma'am" up to the Queen and got a royal wave in return.  Indeed, it was incredibly obvious throughout the day that we'd just had a Jubilee celebration and we're about to have some Olympics and Paralympics - everyone was waving Union Flags wherever we went!

The potato and the teaspoon.  Sounds like a fairytale or a
bad New Romantics band.

By the time we reached the next main stop, I was ravenously hungry.  We bumped into some more of my team mates there, one of whom had already been knocked off her bike and had the plasters to prove it (no serious harm done).  James went off to get us some food and came back with a pork sandwich for him and a jacket potato with cheese for me.  The organisers hadn't quite thought the jacket potato through - here is a picture of me eating it with the only available cutlery - a plastic teaspoon.

At this stop, I learnt one of the ways in which long-distance cycling is very different from marathon running (apart from the obvious) - it seems it is perfectly acceptable on a long-distance cycle ride to stop for a fag.  Weird.

We stopped at the Hedgehog Inn at halfway for a quick drink and stretch and James was able to help out one of his team mates with an anti-histamine to combat his hay-fever.  At this stage, my shoulders were really starting to get sore, so the stretch I'd been shown just a few days previously was proving its worth.

We carried on through the rolling countryside, along tree-lined lanes and alongside fields with cows and sheep and horses in them.  Then I saw a rather ominous-looking signpost - Turner's Hill, 2 miles.  Now, I'm just about canny enough to realise that if (a) a place is called Turner's Hill and (b) one reaches the signpost to Turner's Hill after a fairly steep descent, it is likely that in order to get to Turner's Hill one is going to have to go up a mahoosive hill.  I was right.  It was long, tedious and actually quite steep for a large part of the way, and I had to get off and push (like about 70% of the participants).  When I finally got to the top of the hill, there was quite some reward - the local church had set up shop in its car park, giving away free tea, coffee and custard creams to all comers, with a donations box there for an orphanage somewhere distant sounding.  By this point, I needed tea.

It took us quite a while to get out of Turner's Hill.  It seems that all 27,000 participants had stopped there at the same time, and so were all trying to leave at the same time.  The organisers had no choice but to let some motorised traffic through (trying to cross over the route at a crossroads), and we ended up with an almighty bottle neck.  By this point, thirty or so miles into the ride, some tempers were getting a little frayed and I bore the brunt of one particularly objectionable lady's frustrations when she tried to overtake me on the inside while I was trying to get out of the way of the speedy people legitimately overtaking me on the outside.  She'd already had a go at some people behind us, so I mentioned something about how this event wasn't the place for that kind of attitude, she stuck a small number of digits up at me over her shoulder and we went off at our separate speeds.

The best thing about Turner's Hill is that what goes up must come down.  The worst thing about the descent is that it is very steep and all of those participants who consider themselves to be speedy cyclists seem to think it is sensible and safe to go down the hill as fast as possible when most of the road is taken up by cyclists who are much less experienced and much less speedy.  We saw one nasty looking crash on this part of the course and were overtaken by an ambulance with blue lights flashing on the way to another, and the attitude of the speed junkies led us to believe that there should be a separate, early start for those who want to treat the event as a race rather than the fun, fundraising day out it is intended to be.

After Turner's Hill and the following descent, a sense of anticipation set in.  Everyone knew that there was something looming in the distance, something so terrible it didn't bear talking about, but everyone could sense its presence.  The hill that shall not be named.  You know what.  Ditchling Beacon.  There, I said it.  After all, what comes down must go up, right?  We stopped in Wivelsfield at a rest stop run by the Scouts and stocked up on flapjack to see us through the ordeal, then had one last stop immediately before the Beacon itself, where we bumped into the same group of my team mates that we'd been playing tag with for most of the journey.

Me and my Calippo

James and I had swapped bikes for the ascent up Ditchling Beacon.  I had always planned to walk and James' bike only has seven gears, compared with the 21 on mine (which is also fairly lowly geared), so my sturdy steed would give him a better chance of riding the whole way up.  Walking up the Beacon is tough.  I had thought that James would say cycling up was tougher, but he said that although it was painful, it was over more quickly, so was preferable over all.  When I finally made it to the top and finally found James ("I'm by the red ice cream van." "Which one?" "The red one." "Yes, which red one? I can see three.") I had a well deserved Calippo while enjoying the magnificent view over the Downs.

At the top of Ditchling Beacon, we were faithfully promised by an announcer that it was downhill all the way to Brighton.  This was lies.  Codswallop.  Nonsense.  There were several more not very steep hills which felt like mountains after fifty miles of cycling, the worst of which was a slip road onto a dual carriageway.  After that one, though, the going was pretty smooth along straightish flat road into Brighton.  The last obstacle I had to overcome was my old favourite nemesis - a badly behaved bus.  It was trying to get to a bus stop from the inside lane, across a lane full of cyclists.  We won.  Hurrah!

As we went down Madeira Drive, along Brighton seafront, I felt myself welling up.  The people lining the finishing straight, cheering us on, must have thought I was a nutter, bawling my eyes out as I went over the line.  I can't wait for the official photos of me finishing - what a sight!  I couldn't quite believe (and still can't) that I'd actually done it - I'd cycled more than 50 miles, over two marathons, in one day from one city to a whole different other city.

Me and my pint!

After finishing, I had a well deserved pint and then I think I went to sleep.  As we picked up our bikes from the concierge at our hotel yesterday, he told us that he'd had a heart attack a few years ago and when he was in the hospital, a large proportion of the equipment had been provided by British Heart Foundation.  He had previously assumed that the equipment in hospitals was provided by the taxpayer via the NHS, but that turned out not to be the case on the cardiology ward.  He said he was extremely grateful to us (and the rest of the participants) for supporting British Heart Foundation, because it had made a huge difference to his life.  Cue welling up and mild bawling again.  It is fantastic to know that what we did on Sunday really helps real people.

Comedy tan lines

So far, I've raised £721 in total (online and offline, but not including gift aid).  My fundraising page will be open for another three months, so it's certainly not too late to make a donation in the name of my completing the London to Brighton Bike Ride - follow the link to Justgiving in the top right hand corner of this page.  I also have some comedy tan lines from Sunday - guess which wrist my sports watch was on - but they're not as comedy as those on my dear husband's head (sun + cycle helmet air vents = stripy James!)


It's probably about time for some thank yous.  Thanks to BHF for great on the day organisation.  Thanks to Sandee Smith and the rest of the Sidley Flying Hearts for organisation of our work team and support along the way.  Thanks to all the people who have sponsored me, sent messages of support or just asked me how the cycling's going - it's made a real difference to know that people are thinking of me.  And finally, many, many thanks to my husband, James, who has put up with a lot of nerves, tears, tantrums, abuse and non-stop cycle chat for the last couple of months (oh, and he taught me how to ride a bike!) - I really couldn't have done it without him!

The First Aid Unit is not of any particular significance!

The Night Before the Morning After

This time tomorrow, I'll have done it.  I'll have cycled to Brighton.  Or at least I hope I will have, and if I haven't by this time, then I'll probably be lost or injured (more likely lost, because they have systems to deal with injured people).

In order to even start this majestic feat, I'll have to be in a taxi at 5.15 am tomorrow.  I can hear some of you pondering why I'm not cycling to the start - Clapham Common, where the start line is, is just about diametrically opposite my house if you draw a line through the centre of London on a map and about a 10 mile journey, so I would have cycled almost a fifth of the distance from London to Brighton before I'd even started.  I'll be meeting up with the rest of my work team for a picture at 6.15, before we set off on our merry way at 6.30.

Needless to say, I'll be getting an early night tonight.  I'll need to make sure my tires are pumped up, pack my pyjamas, teddy bear and associated accoutrements (we're staying overnight in Brighton) and lay out my kit for the morning.  I'm stocked up on jelly babies, so I must be ready!

I have absolutely no idea how long it's going to take me to get to Brighton, but I don't really care as long as I get there.  Just arriving in Brighton will represent a huge life-changing journey for me; I can't quite believe that I couldn't ride a bike two months ago and now I'm about to cycle 56 miles in one day.  I also know that this change is for life - I can now cycle to and from work whenever I want to (which is probably going to prove invaluable during the Olympics) and James has grand plans for cycling holidays around most of Europe - he was even trying to persuade me last night that doing a 190km race in a few weeks would be a great idea (I'm thinking perhaps not).

I also hope that my journey can help change some other people's lives too.  So far I've raised £543 online and another £80 or so on my traditional paper sponsor form for British Heart Foundation.  There's still plenty of time to sponsor me using the link on the right hand side of the page, and don't worry if you want to wait to see if I do it first - the page will be open for three months after the event.

Thank you all for your support, good wishes and for reading this blog throughout my training.  I'll write a full account of the day early next week, but for now, wish me luck!

The Final Countdown

Altogether now: "Na na naaa naaaa, na na naa naa naaaaa....." Mad-haired Swedish rockers (who incidentally don't have such mad hair any more) aside, this enormously long bike ride thing is getting rather close now, isn't it?  There are just three sleeps to go until kick off.  Or, should I say, two and a half sleeps, given that my 6.30 am start time necessitates me getting up in the middle of the night - I knew all my early starts in the early days of my training would ultimately stand me in good stead!

I got on my bike today for the first time in a week.  A spate of bad weather, plus the desire to start the bike ride on Sunday with fairly fresh legs, have meant that my Oyster card has had a bit of a bashing and I've left my wheels at home.  My ride into work was quite pleasant (apart from the van driver who decided (a) that it was my fault that he was driving in the cycle lane and (b) to shout at me about it), and after James and I had gone our separate ways towards our respective offices, I gave a lift to a honeybee which landed on my handlebars and didn't get off until I reached my destination.  I hope he didn't end up too far away from his hive or get lost, but I was pleased to save him some wing power.  When I got to work I realised I'd left a particularly important item of clothing at home, so I had to rush to the shops to remedy this issue.  I'll be riding home again this evening after the most inconveniently timed conference call ever (OK, so that's probably not true, but it is pretty inconvenient).

I tested out my "race shirt" today.  It fits well, but the zip has sharp corners on it which dig into my neck, so that will need some adjustment.  I also tested out my new panniers, which arrived on Tuesday.  They are enormous.  I could probably go on a three week holiday and just carry my things in them.  Initially I had a few problems with them, because the front edge of the bags was fouling the pedals on one side, so I had to stop to adjust it.  It was better afterwards, but not quite right, so I'll need to fiddle about with it a bit.  I'm also at another breakthrough point: I need to raise my saddle another half inch or so, and I'll need to do that this evening so that it isn't a brand new development on Sunday - after the ride home tonight, I won't be getting on my bike again until the big day!

I mentioned in my previous post that this blog was very close to its thousandth page view, but that I was still a little way off my fundraising target.  Well, since then, the blog has smashed through the 1,000 views barrier (1,014 and counting) and, thanks to a few very generous donors, I am now just £2 short of my fundraising target of £500.  Could you be the person who takes me over the fundraising threshold?  If so, click the link on the top right hand side of the page and follow the instructions.

Right Royal Inspiration

The big news today is that I'm not cycling to work after all.  Don't worry, I'm in fine fettle for Sunday, but the weather is so atrocious that it isn't worth risking having some kind of accident, catching a cold or otherwise doing myself a nasty so close to the event.  As I type this, it is veritably tipping it down.  The weather forecast for the weekend is slightly better than the present misery, but not much.  I've been debating which I would prefer of the two most recent types of weather we've had: torrential and blistering.  I think I come down marginally in favour of the torrential as I don't do well in the sun or heat or both (I have very fair skin, so I have three stages of sun exposure: translucent, lobster and peeling).  The plan now is to ride into work, gently, on Thursday (assuming we're not all making a dash for Noah's Ark), as by then I'll also hopefully have my panniers to try out (more on them another time).

When I started this challenge, I didn't think I'd be writing in one of my last posts before the event that I had found some royal inspiration.  It was reported in the news over the weekend that Princess Eugenie (for those of you who are slightly less Anglophile, she is the Queen's granddaughter, the second daughter of the Queen's second son, making her, I think, sixth in line to the throne) completed the 100km (60 miles) Nightride in London.  She may only be 22, so has a considerable age advantage over me, but she suffers from scoliosis and her spine is held together by metal rods after having had an operation ten years ago to correct its curvature .  Sitting on a bike for that long cannot have been comfortable for her and she went four miles more than I'll be travelling next weekend, and all at night. She also raised more than £9,000 for her chosen charities, the orthopaedic hospital where she had the operation and an organisation building schools in Rwanda.  Frankly, if she can do it, I've got no excuse - congratulations and thanks, Princess Eugenie, for giving me that final spur on!

Given that we're so close now to the event, I thought I'd share with you a bit about who has been reading this blog - this isn't a showboating exercise, I just think it's interesting because the statistics I get shown behind the scenes on this website have a few surprises in them.  So far (and not counting your current perusal, dear reader), the blog has had 977 page views - come on folks, send it to your friends and let's get over the 1,000 mark by Sunday.  Unsurprisingly, given the geographic spread of my friends and family, the largest number of visitors are from the UK, followed by the USA, but there seems to be a significant minority following my exploits in Russia, a few people on the other side of the world in New Zealand and Australia and even someone in South Korea.  Because of the way I've been sharing my posts on facebook and twitter, it is not surprising that the majority of site traffic is routed from those two sites (and, indeed, there was a significant peak in page views when Brian Blessed retweeted a link!)  However, there has been a fair amount of traffic in the last week coming from a Belgian sports news site called Sporza and, try as I may, I can't find any reference to this blog on it, so if you know anything about that, please let me know!  Finally, more readers are using Firefox than any other browser, more are using Windows than Mac, and more are using Android than iPhone.  I can't say that any of this is particularly scientific, the site just counts stuff!

I'd like to thank all the people who've sponsored me for the Bike Ride so far, especially those who've done so in the last week or two.  I've made it up to £368 now, creeping ever closer to my £500 target.  There's still plenty of time to sponsor me - you can do so by clicking on the link to my Justgiving page on the right hand side of the page and following the instructions there.

A week from now...

...I'll be 3 hours into the London to Brighton Bike Ride.  I can't believe it's so close and I can't believe how far I've travelled, both literally and figuratively, in the last two months.  It's been quite a journey, physically and mentally.  I now have travel independence, which I have never had before. I can get to places that are really quite a long way away, but without having to rely on anyone else.  I'm fitter, a bit lighter, and (and this one's surprised me) a bit braver and more assertive.

Since my last post, I cycled to work and back on Thursday, on my own, without any significant occurrences (unless you count the bus which pulled out in front of me without warning, but she missed me and I felt better after shouting at her, after which I got praise from the cycle courier I'd just overtaken, which I'm not sure is a good thing).  I also had a long chat with a different cycle courier about my (full-size folding) bike when I was putting it away for the office.  He was asking me all about it because he thought it might be a good idea to get one for himself - I asked him if it had a few too many gears for him, as a (normally fixie-riding) cycle courier, but he said five years ago it might have been, but he's 42 now, so the idea of a bit of help uphill was very appealing!

Three very exciting things have happened in the last few days.  The first is that my race number and information pack has arrived - my number is 6269, so if you happen to see someone riding around with that number affixed to them, it's probably me (and if it's not me, you should probably ask them why they have my number!); the second is that my London to Brighton hoodie has arrived - I'm not going to wear it until the day, so here's a picture of it not on me; and finally, my race shirt has arrived - it's white with royal blue sides and my firm's logo on the front and back.  Classy.

With just one week to go, the focus fades away from training - I don't want to start with tired legs - and sets firmly on the fundraising.  With the help of some very generous donors in the last couple of weeks, my total has reached £313 for British Heart Foundation.  I'd still really like to get over my £500 target before the day, so if you haven't had the chance to sponsor me yet, then please click on the Justgiving link on the right hand side of the page and give whatever amount you can, no matter how small (or how large :) ).

The Emerald City of Hertfordshire

Today we had grand plans.  We were going to set out at 9 a.m. and cycle up the Lea Valley and across to Welwyn Garden City, and then get the train back to Harringay.  This would be by far my longest ride to date, and would be even more of a challenge because I still had Saturday's miles in my legs.

I woke up at 8.57 a.m., a whole three minutes before we had intended to set off.  At 9.06 a.m. I got out of bed and James wasn't too far behind me.  By the time we'd eaten another healthy breakfast (a sandwich made with oatcakes and caramel dessert sauce), sorted the bikes and ourselves out and fed the cat, it was gone 10 a.m.

I had a revolutionary (pardon the pun) breakthrough today - I'd done some research on the internet to try to find a quick fix to stop my hands from hurting so much; it turned out that tilting my seat backwards a notch or two might do it, so before we left, James altered the saddle and it immediately made an absolutely enormous difference.  My hands still hurt, but because they were already hurting, not because of today's efforts.  I also tried riding with my Garmin GPS watch for the first time today, so I actually have some pretty accurate data about our journey.

We set out along the now familiar route to the Lea Valley - it being a bank holiday, the roads were pretty clear and the only issues I had (but James managed to avoid) were a car doing a very bad three point turn and a car reverse parking without indicating, both on Spring Hill.  I did some choice swearing and we carried on.

For the first few miles, I found it pretty hard going, just because I hadn't recovered from the Waltham Abbey outing, but as we went along I recovered somewhat and we were at Waltham Abbey again in less than an hour and a half.  Then we went into uncharted territory (still didn't see any dragons, though).  We carried along up the river bank, passing cows and sheep and horses in the fields, until we eventually got to the town of Broxbourne and it was lunchtime.  We stopped at a cafe just off the main towpath before the Crown Bridge.  James had a fantastic looking breakfast baguette (it even had a fried egg on top) and I had a ham and cheese panini.  I amused myself over lunch by answering all the crossword clues for the neighbouring table's communal crossword and marvelling at how inept they were at crosswords - it was hardly the Times.

After our lunch stop, the towpath got significantly worse under wheel and there were frequent tree roots making me wish I had suspension.  There was also a tangible increase in the number of idiots on the towpath, on wheels and on foot.  We had one incident where the number of dogs involved seemed to increase threefold the closer we got to the people supposedly controlling them - there were a few people dawdling along the path towards us, dogless, and another group immediately behind (probably hoping to overtake); we rang our bells as we approached, as the dawdlers were engrossed in conversation and may not have seen us, even though they were facing us.  They moved to one side and as we drew alongside, I noticed one dog behind them, off the lead, which then miraculously became two and then three dogs, all going different directions and none of them being called aside by anyone.  It was difficult to say thank you to the dawdlers without the dog walkers thinking they were included, and I think I ended up more or less hissing my gratitude into the ear of one of the dawdlers!

The river led us on through Ware, and then the path took a bend to the west, towards Hertford.  We knew that at Hertford we'd have to go onto another traffic-free path, but that we should be able to get onto it by continuing to follow the river.  As we neared central Hertford, there were a couple of sections of path marked "no cycling", and then the path was blocked off altogether.  We spotted a blue signpost for National Cycle Route 61 (now known as the Yellow Brick Road) to Welwyn Garden City and decided to follow it.  We hadn't gone very far when we lost the trail, the signposts dried up and we were faced with an enormous roundabout with dual carriageways going off in all directions.  At about this point we decided that enough was enough - Hertford also has a train station with trains direct to Harringay, and if we could find that, we could cut our trip a little short and be back in time for afternoon tea.  Next issue - how to find (and get to) Hertford North station.

We worked out that the A119 towards Stevenage went to the station, so we went through a subway to get to the other side of the enormous roundabout, planning to join the hideously busy road on the other side.  However, Hertford has clearly been hating cyclists since well before the safety bicycle was invented, and there was no access point onto the road from the other side of the subway - only lots of residential streets, (well-signposted) public footpaths and a rather large fence.  In the end, we had to go through another subway back to the other side of the road and work out a route to the station via the centre of town.  Eventually we got there, only to discover that the lifts aren't big enough for bikes, so we had to hoik them up the stairs.  Just as we were getting onto the train, it started to rain - justification for the shortened journey, surely.

Despite the non-existence of Welwyn Garden City (it was noticeable that there weren't any signposts for it at all, not just cycling ones), this was still my longest cycle ever at 26.1 miles, just about a marathon's worth.  When I think back now to the time (just seven weeks ago) when I struggled to do a whole lap of Finsbury Park without stopping, it suddenly seems incredible how far (literally) I've come!

One day I will find that mythical place, Welwyn Garden City, the Emerald City of Hertfordshire, and if you'd like to sponsor me to do so, please click on the Justgiving link on the right hand side - I'm up to £313 now, but I'd still like to get to £500 before I set off for Brighton in 12 sleeps' time.

Journey to the Ends of the Earth

Oh, OK, it wasn't the ends of the Earth.  It wasn't even one end of the Earth, it was just outside the M25; but that is a place called Not London, which may as well be an end of the Earth when one lives in Harringay.  And, there be dragons (fair enough, no dragons - but there could have been!)

More on that later - first, the big news from Thursday.  After our slightly more eventful than usual journey into work, involving stupid other cyclists, arguments and a nearly terminally lost bolt, I had the dilemma of knowing that I had to get my bike home and knowing that James wouldn't be there to escort me.  It was very tempting to wimp out, leave it folded and get on the train, but no!  I did not!  I came to the conclusion that carrying my bike on the train was actually going to be more hassle than riding it, so I donned my ridiculous Lycra (I'm actually getting used to it now), unfolded the beast, dropped the same bolt again and spent 10 minutes finding it, and was on my way.  I had the most uneventful journey home that you could possibly imagine until I got to the end of my road and I did finally wimp out.  To be fair, turning into the road is quite hard, even for the seasoned cyclist - it's a right turn, just over the brow of a hill, the hill is relatively steep and as you turn the corner, you're coming off a vicious speed bump.  There was loads of traffic, I was stuck on the inside, and frankly I couldn't be bothered, so I pulled up on the left, crossed over on foot and then cycled down my road to the front door.  But still, I cycled home on my own!

Yesterday, I had a well deserved rest day.  This morning, I woke up very grumpy.  I still don't know why, but everything was far too much effort and James more or less had to put me into my Lycra and frog march me out of the door (after an exceedingly healthy breakfast of cherry and fruits of the forest yoghurt and Battenburg cake).  We set off along the same route we took last weekend, towards the Lea Valley Park, with one little twist - instead of walking to the end of the road and heading for Finsbury Park, we cycled down the road and turned right onto Green Lanes.  For the uninitiated, Green Lanes is a busy trunk road and shopping street that heads from central London out towards the North Circular and beyond.  The bit where we live is extremely busy on the weekend with people driving there (why would you do that?), walking there or taking the bus there to do their grocery shopping - there are pedestrians everywhere, loads of buses and plenty of car doors unexpectedly opening.  So far, it's been an absolute no-no for me.  Today I attempted it, and survived.

We went through Stamford Hill again, and although we were slightly later in the day than on our previous visit, there were still plenty of folks walking down the middle of the road (I may have to bill the Synagogue for a new bell).  Once we got to the river, it was apparent that it was much less busy than last weekend, probably because of the 15 degree drop in temperature and the presence of some rather miserable looking clouds.

We cycled out to the point where we had turned around last time, and decided to continue forward, to the promised land beyond the bus garage.  It was clearly a condition of the planning permission for the bus garage that the bus company must renovate the towpath along the length of the site. Unfortunately, although it is a very nice bit of path that they've put in, it isn't very wide and it is completely open to the water on one side, with no grass verge and no railings.  We decided to use the adjacent road on the way back!

Me at the Sun Inn.  The pint belongs to James.
Sorry about resolution - taken on mobile!

At this point I should probably mention that we weren't entirely sure where we were going.  We knew where we were, but we hadn't settled on a destination. We carried on for a while longer, passing under the North Circular, and then James saw a signpost for Waltham Abbey.  This rang a bell with me, as I knew that Waltham Abbey was just outside the M25.  Outside London.  In Essex.  In Not London.  So, that's where we went.  We got off the river at Waltham Abbey, and went into the town.  We got some useful maps and info at the Tourist Information Centre, had a quick look at the outside of the abbey church (there was a wedding on, so we couldn't go in) and then stopped for lunch at a pub called the Sun Inn (recommended as cycle friendly as long as you don't mind sitting outside - they've got a nice courtyard and don't mind the bikes or the fluorescent Lycra).  We had a decent burger and a nice sit down, and then set off on our journey out of Not London back to London.

On the return journey I nearly killed a dog.  I didn't though.  I have good brakes.  It was a tiny little thing, the sort of dog I usually refer to as a "rat on a string", except this one had the string missing.  It ran straight in front of my bike at the last second.  Someone was watching over me and the little chap.  A bit further along, we saw another dog, this one enormous, quite happily yomping down the towpath unaccompanied.  Once it realised we were alongside him, he thought we were the best thing ever and ran with us for a mile or so.  Eventually, we came across his master, also a cyclist, who had stopped to wait for the dog.  We also stopped for a drink at this point and the dog and I became properly acquainted - he was an Alaskan Malamute, very hairy, a bit wet (I think he'd been swimming or paddling) and very, very soppy.

We stopped for an icecream just before turning off the river and attempting to go up Spring Hill (the one where we had the incident with the driving school car before) - I made it up in one go this time.  Now I'm sitting back at home, watching the football and my day seems a bit surreal - we went to a whole different place and back, under our own steam.  Total distance: 22.64 miles.  Nearly 37 kilometres.  A Long Way.

Mending Broken Hearts

First things first: BRIAN BLESSED RETWEETED A LINK TO MY BLOG!!!!  Unsurprisingly, this made my day and also sent the page view numbers sky-rocketing, given that he has more than 32,000 followers on Twitter.  So, er, hello to all you blessed Blessed fans who have just joined me on my journey! Oh, and THANKS BRIAN!

My third effort at cycling to work was not incident free - James got into an argument with another cyclist (who had just ridden across a junction on a red light and nearly got himself flattened by a car), I nearly went over my handlebars when another stupid cyclist didn't pull away from another set of lights in an appropriate fashion, I had a bit more gear trouble and then when I was folding my bike for the office, I dropped one of the bolts that hold the handlebars on (which, thankfully, I found fairly swiftly).  On the plus side, I cycled with a rucksack for the first time, I dealt with several buses in a pretty adequate way and I cycled the bit from James' office to mine for the first time.

Tonight will see a very big test for me - I will have to cycle all the way home on my own, as James has something on tonight that I'm not going to.  I think it will be fine. Maybe.

It has struck me that I've spent quite a lot of time, energy and internet space telling you all about me and my cycling experiences, but very little time telling you about the bigger picture of why I'm doing this. Of course, part of it is the personal challenge of learning to ride a bike, getting some transport independence and having a nice weekend in Brighton (once I've got there!), but I'm hoping that far more people will benefit from my efforts than just me.

The London to Brighton Bike Ride is organised as a fundraising event for British Heart Foundation, and it is no coincidence that it is their event that I have chosen to be part of.  Heart disease, heart attacks and related medical, social and psychological issues are likely to touch us all at some point.  I've lost several relatives and friends to heart-related illnesses and heart attacks and I know plenty of folk who are living with some kind of heart problem, from the vicar to my parents' dog (here's a gratuitous picture of Emma the greyhound for a bit of cute factor!)  We all know in our hearts (groan!) that there are things we can do to prevent heart disease - eating healthily, exercising, not smoking, not drinking too much (all that boring stuff) - and I think it is down to the individual to do their best on that front.  However, there is something that really appeals to me about the work that BHF is doing in their "Mending Broken Hearts" research campaign.

You see, when someone has a heart attack, their heart (which is a muscle, as we all know from our first biology class) is damaged.  Once it is damaged, it is (at present) not possible to "fix" it.  It is broken.  I guess living with a post-attack heart is a bit like trying to cycle with a slow puncture that can't be repaired - you can go along reasonably well for quite a long time, but it doesn't take much to tip it over the edge and make it completely useless.  The research that BHF are funding from their "Mending Broken Hearts" campaign is aiming to find a way to fix hearts that have already had a heart attack - invent a puncture repair kit, if you like.  There are many people I know whose quality of life and general well-being would be considerably improved by such a repair (and you or I could benefit in the future), and it is for that reason that I want to raise as much money as I can for BHF while doing my training and the London to Brighton Bike Ride itself.  So far, I'm up to £223, and my total has stayed there for about 2 weeks.  I'd really like to raise at least £500.

I know that these are hard times, but I would really appreciate it if you would consider sponsoring me - think of what you might have spent on a book or a newspaper if you hadn't had the opportunity to read this blog instead, for example - and remember that every penny counts.  If you'd like to help me to help BHF mend some broken hearts, then please click on the link to my Justgiving page on the right hand side and follow the instructions on how to donate.  Thanks!

The Queen of Speed

Today was my second day as a cycle commuter.  It was also the first day I had "mechanical issues" with my bike.  Plus I did more physical exercise today than I have done on any other day since I ran the London Marathon two years ago.

Before we set off, I donned my brand new cycle jersey (pics to follow), a present from my husband, partly (I'm sure) because I'm lovely, and partly to stop me from having a gap between my top and my bottoms when I'm cycling.  It has the advantage of being comfortable, light, well-fitting and red.  It has the disadvantage of making me look, to the unsuspecting observer (read: driver), like some kind of professional cyclist, which I am clearly not, so there is a danger that they might expect me to behave in a certain way on the road and I might leave them sorely disappointed.

We managed to shave 10 whole minutes off Thursday's time on the way to James' office.  This was largely due to cycling across junctions that we had walked over on the previous journey.  That included cycling around Newington Green which is, in effect, a large roundabout.  Having had the opportunity to look at it on Thursday, I managed it fairly well.  However, all the way from home to Newington Green I'd been having the feeling that I was falling forwards off the saddle.  James had borrowed my saddle on Sunday (to see what it was like as he was thinking of getting a new one) and had changed the tilt on it to, ahem, accommodate his different physique. He had told me he was going to change it back when he switched the saddles over again, but he hadn't, and we had to stop on the side of the road to change it before I ended up sliding onto the crossbar.  While that was being rectified, James said I needed to think about going a bit faster, perhaps by trying third gear on the front sprocket.  The very thought of this sent me into a quivering madness but, nothing ventured, nothing gained and I was soon whizzing over the canal toward the City (now, thankfully, with my saddle at the right angle).  I even got to the point where I might overtake another cyclist, but it became apparent that she'd actually slowed down to turn left before I could do it.

After dropping James off at his office, I did a recce on foot for a cyclable route from his work to mine that wasn't (a) one way the wrong way, (b) closed for roadworks, (c) closed because of construction work, (d) closed because of the Crossrail development or (e) all, or a combination of some, of the above.  I think I've been successful, but I'll let you know when I try to cycle it next time.

This time, it only took me about 5 minutes to fold my bike and get it into the bag, so I ended up being ridiculously early for work!

The route on the way home from my office is much simpler than the route to work - the one-way system caused by Crossrail is in our favour, and we've sussed out the few other issues now.  We set off and had gone about 20 yards when I shouted to James that I had to stop because there was a strange clicking sound coming from my bike.  Initially, we thought it was my mudguard coming loose, so we carried on, but we hadn't got much further before my gears started changing without me touching the shift and I began to wonder if I really was too old for a poltergeist after all.  Another quick stop ensued and James retensioned my gear cables, which seemed to do the trick, as not long after we got going again, I took my first scalp.  Yes, I overtook another cyclist!  I shouted "Woohoo" as loud as I dared, as I didn't want to make the poor guy feel bad, but I was feeling rather triumphant (even though he was on a Boris).

My gears held up all the way to Finsbury Park, when they decided to give up again, just on the Manor House junction.  I managed a quick exit onto the pavement (and onto my feet at the same time), and once we crossed into the park, James had another go at retensioning and I tested all the gears as we went through the park.  The gears felt fine and my sudden development of speed meant that we were over half an hour early for our British Military Fitness session.  Oh yes, I cycled to work and back and then went to BMF.  A whole hour of running around the park after fit blokes in army gear followed (shame) and then we cycled home again.  I will most definitely sleep well tonight.  I will also most definitely ache in the morning.

We'll have to have a proper look at my gear/chain situation - it could be because of a dirty chain from riding on the river path at the weekend - but it should be relatively simple to fix and I'll be back on the road in no time.

Down by the Riverside

First of all, just a quick update on Thursday's shenanigans - after my epic journey into work, I did ride home again after all, even though it was uphill.  To be fair, I did have a small disagreement with some street furniture (it's debatable who won - I'm still alive, on the one hand; I have a big green bruise, quite literally on the other hand) and we had to stop for a sit down in Newington Green because I was so tired, but we did make it all the way back.  I slept well that night.

Yesterday we went on an adventure.  It was decided that we needed to go on a longish ride, but although I'm now reasonably confident (and competent) on the roads, just riding round the 'hood for hours on end is really quite dull, as is cycling endless laps of the park.  As previously mentioned, we've been on a couple of forays up and down Parkland Walk, and although we love it, it simply isn't long enough any more. The solution: a trip to Lea Valley Park.

I had a bit of a dig about online and found that the lovely people at Sustrans have mapped a route from Finsbury Park to Lea Valley Park avoiding main roads.  We set out along their route in the hot midday sun (I don't think I'm a mad dog, but James is an Englishman).  It takes a pretty direct line through the district of Stamford Hill, which some people may recognise as the home of one of the most observant communities of Orthodox Jewish people in the country - believe it or not, this is extremely relevant.

It being a Saturday, the time when we were cycling through Stamford Hill was the same time that most of the synagogues in the area had finished their morning services.  This, coupled with the fact that it was the Jewish sabbath, meant two things.  The first was that there were barely any cars on the road, as these particular Jews take the "no work on the sabbath" thing very seriously and won't drive on a Saturday (or, presumably, a Friday night).  This was a good thing.  The second was that because no-one drives on the sabbath and everyone walks home from synagogue (using the opportunity to catch up with friends on the way), no-one expects there to be any traffic on the road, so they all walk down the middle of it.  This was a bad thing.  However, it did provide me with an excellent opportunity to practise using my bell (and when people didn't get out of the way, to practise shouting very loudly), and to practise going extremely slowly without stopping.

Just before we got to Lea Valley Park, we had to go down an extremely steep road, which isn't very wide.  Just over halfway down, there's a road that goes off to the left, and as we approached it, a driving school car pulled out of the side road and stopped in the middle of the road we were on, dithered a bit and then decided to turn up the hill.  This meant James had to stop suddenly right in front of me and I had to stop suddenly just behind him.  We were very surprised to see that there was only one person in the car, meaning, presumably, that this wonderful example of driving skill was perpetrated by a driving instructor.

When we reached our destination, I suddenly realised that I hadn't really thought through our quest.  You may recall from a previous post that I wasn't planning to ride along the canal any time soon because of my experience of being quite incompetent just at running along it (I nearly fell in while marathon training).  Lea Valley Park, rather unsurprisingly, is set along the valley through which the River Lea runs.  The river has been engineered quite a lot and now closely resembles a canal.  It has a tow path and everything.  I spent most of the time we were riding along the river absolutely petrified of falling in.  I'm not too worried about myself - I'm a strong swimmer and the river isn't exactly a torrent - I'm more worried about my poor little bike and, of course, about looking a right idiot in front of an entire rowing club and several particularly evil looking geese.

Once we got going, I calmed down a little and we started to pass through meadows and marshes that were positively bucolic for Zone 3.  We passed the Tottenham Hale retail park (thankfully without having to see it), and drew alongside Ikea Edmonton (which we could see, but only at a distance), where a family were having what looked like a lovely picnic party on the banks of the river - the children were paddling, the adults were swimming and the dogs had found a fantastic stick to play with.  At this point, called Chalk Bridge, it's necessary to cross to the other side of the river over a hump-backed bridge.  I set off up the bridge approach, anticipating further idyllic pastoral scenes on the other side.  I looked over to my left and saw row upon row of, well, buses.  There was a bus depot squeezed in between the river and a reservoir on the other side of it.  Now, I'm sure from my research on the internet that Lea Valley Park has far more to offer if one keeps the faith past this little blot on the landscape, but in the extreme heat and without having eaten lunch, we decided it was time to head back.

On the return journey we stopped at Pistachios in the Park, a lovely cafe nestled in Markfield Park, to get some lunch.  It wasn't until I was mapping our journey when we got home that I discovered that we had eaten just feet away from a beam engine, which has a museum - if we'd known, we would have had a look, so there's something on our list for next time we go that way.  The rest of the journey home was largely uneventful, but we were both feeling a bit out of it by the time we got back to Finsbury Park, so we stopped for another drink before finding our way home.

It turns out our trip was 11.27 miles, which is just over one fifth of the distance from London to Brighton.  I finally feel like I have a fighting chance of getting there!

If you'd like to sponsor me for the rest of the way, please click on the donations link on the right hand side of the page.

To infinity (or at least work) and beyond!

It turned out that Tuesday was not the day for cycling into work for the first time (too much other stuff going on), but today was. TODAY I CYCLED TO WORK FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER! Apologies for shouting, but I'm really rather excited about it and I don't care if it hurts your ears.  Eyes.  Whatever.

Actually, let's not get too excited - it wasn't all plain sailing.  There were a couple of big junctions I wimped out on (Alroy Road/Endymion Road, Manor House tube, Newington Green), and I did have one "incident" - I was slowing down for traffic lights which I thought were about to change, but they didn't change before I reached that point when you're cycling too slowly to stay upright, so I had to take evasive action into a parking space.  No harm done.

The initial plan had been to follow Transport for London's "easy" route, but as mentioned in a previous post, it hadn't exactly filled us with confidence when the first instruction was to cycle the wrong way up a one-way street.  So, James had the bright idea of cycling along the main roads until we got to Shoreditch Park.  It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be and the worst bit was actually between Shoreditch Park and where James works, on Scrutton Street, because I was in front and I didn't know where I was going or how the road layout and cycle lanes worked in the area.  Apparently, if one doesn't know where one is going, one should "just follow the cyclists".

The major revelation for me today was traffic lights.  Yes, the good old traffic light is a wonderful thing as long as you treat it with respect.  I have discovered that if a signal telling me when to go and when to stop is placed in front of me, I have to use my brain less, which means there is far less scope for me to dither and worry about whether I should be pulling out/away or not.  The amber light comes on, you start pushing down on the pedal, so by the time it's green you're ready to be on your way.  Simples.

My biggest issue of the day (by far) was when I arrived at my office building.  I had to fold my bike.  James and I both have full-size folding bicycles by Dahon - his is the "Jack" and mine is the "Espresso".  The design is ingenious - so much so, in fact, that after the excitement of cycling to work, the mechanism completely flummoxed me and it took me nearly half an hour to figure out how to get the handlebars off (James had shown me before I left his office block) and to get the bike into its bag so I could carry it up to my office.  The bag is largely cuboid.  The bike is, when folded, well, half-bike-shaped.

The next question is whether I will be cycling home this evening.  It's uphill on the way back.

If you would like to sponsor my journey into work, please click the donations link on the right hand side of the page.  Also, don't forget to help in my extremely unscientific research on why people don't ride bikes by taking part in the poll at the bottom of the page.  So far, derriere discomfort seems to be one of the principal reasons for not riding!

W is not just for Banker

Having conquered Wightman Road on Friday, I was ready for anything on Saturday morning - or so I thought. I was all ready for a repeat performance of my conquest, a short ride down Wightman Road to the station and then to the park via the route on the other side of the railway.  We set off down Wightman Road.  The road was clear for several hundred yards behind us and I felt reasonably safe starting out.  Then, all of a sudden, an enormous 10-tonne tanker carrying something toxic suddenly appeared about 3 feet behind me.

Bear in mind here that Wightman Road has a 7-tonne limit other than for access (otherwise we'd have no rubbish collections and the local Jewson's builders merchants would go out of business).  Because of my unwelcome company on the road, it was more or less impossible to stop, and because of the pedestrian crossing points (which have central reservations), it was more or less impossible for the tanker (which began with w, quite clearly) to get past.  So, on we carried towards the bridge with the blind brow and the busier section of the road.  The bridge has an absolute 7-tonne limit, no access, no nothing.  This did not deter the w tanker, which had already got past me, from overtaking James on the blind brow of the bridge that it shouldn't have been on.

When we got to the park, we came to the conclusions that (a) we would report the tanker and (b) I am now a cyclist, on the grounds that I held my own in a most indignant fashion and didn't let myself get fazed by the tanker (well, not much, anyway).

The purpose of going to the park was not specifically to cycle, it was rather to go to our usually Saturday morning British Military Fitness session.  BMF is awesome - it gives you a really varied (and tough) workout that requires minimal motivation once you're there and happens outdoors in the (relatively) fresh air.  Unfortunately, BMF also tires you out, and we planned to do some cycling afterwards.  It turned out that it was a bit like reverse "brick" training (right way round brick training is when you go on a really long bike ride and try to do some running afterwards - it's mental).  We went for a ride up Parkland Walk.  This time was much more successful than last and we got to the other end without stopping - the furthest I'd cycled in one go.  Coming back was easier because it's slightly downhill, but by the end my legs were like jelly.

We cycled back the way we had intended to come, via the station.  I cycled all the way from our starting point, across the road from the park, to the station without stopping, including two right hand turns, one of which is that mini roundabout that you might remember from before.  I think that, in some ways, my (un)friend the w tanker did me a favour because I'm a lot more confident on the road now than I was previously.  This week's challenge (possibly tomorrow) is to cycle to work.  We'll see about cycling back...

BB the Conqueror!

That is, BB the Conqueror of Wightman Road.  Can I be a conqueror?  Is there a feminine form?  Conqueress?  Conqueratrix?  Answers on a postcard...

In any case, this morning I went and did the thing I've been putting off for a couple of weeks (and which I've been regretting putting off each time I have done so) - I walked the bike to the top of the road, got on it and cycled along Wightman Road, which is a fairly busy road that takes a lot of rat-run traffic avoiding Green Lanes (which is the main trunk road in our little piece of England).  It is not only busy, it is also hilly.  Well, I say hilly, but most people would probably call it gently undulating - my legs thought it was mountainous this morning!  I think I had managed to build up my fear of Wightman Road to the extent that it had formed its own ogre in my head, so I was pleased to give that beastie a good bashing with my internal baseball bat today.  Now, note that I only cycled a short way up the road - not because I got scared, fell off or was otherwise incapacitated, but rather because we only needed to go a short distance.

After my victory over the Wightman Road Ogre (or maybe the "Ogre of Wightman Road", sounds a bit more fairytale-like), we walked through the station and then cycled down the hill to the park - or we would have got to the park, had James not had to stop to fix his chain, which had come off, but we were nearly there by then.  As James had to do a bit of bike mechanics, I set off on my own for a lap of the park, and this was when I had my second major conquest of the day: I cycled all the way down The Long Hill (see previous posts) without using the brakes.  I only braked as I came up to the bend at the bottom, and I was about halfway round the lap before James caught me up.  This is particularly noteworthy because I have hitherto had a habit of relying very heavily on the brakes (particularly the back ones) when going downhill - it's a wonder I haven't set them on fire, to be honest.

The rest of our first lap passed without incident (other than James cursing about a badly-behaved dog owner on his way to catch me up), and we proceeded to a second.  Once again, I managed The Long Hill without the brakes.  However, James got so far ahead of me that he thought I must have "gone splat" as he put it, so he took a left turn along a pathway to go back to look for me.  I was actually not all that far behind so, not knowing what he was trying to do, I followed him and it was a little while before he realised that the reason he couldn't see me was that I was right behind him!

There is another, shorter but steeper hill on our route.  I haven't yet managed that without the brakes, but this is mainly because the surface of the road is very uneven in that part of the park, so as soon as you pick up any speed, you start to feel out of control.  That might be one of my next challenges.  Another challenge for me, which is coming in the next few days, hopefully, is a ride into work.  I think I'm ready to give it a shot now - it may be that I have to go across a few junctions on foot, and we'll definitely have to find a relatively quiet route (preferably one which avoids the canal as well - I nearly managed to fall into it when running a couple of years ago, so I don't think cycling along the tow path is coming soon).  I had a look on the good old Transport for London website the other day to see what "easy" cycling route they would come up with from our house to my office.  They failed at step one - the first instruction was "cycle along Pemberton Road to Wightman Road".  Pemberton Road is a one-way street that you can only enter from the Wightman Road end. D'oh.

A lot of people have, at various points in my life, laughed at me, been condescending towards me or sometimes been plain insulting when I've told them that I can't ride a bike.  However, now that I'm starting to ride on the roads, a lot of people are saying "rather you than me" or "I'd never ride in traffic".  So, I'm wondering why it is that people who don't cycle, don't cycle.  Are they scared?  Do they have better ways of travelling?  Are they lazy?  To try to find out, I've started a new poll on the bottom of this page - please let us all know why it is that you don't cycle.

Finally, as always, if you'd like to sponsor my latest conquest (that sounds soooo wrong), then please click the Justgiving donation link on the right-hand side of the page!

The Dark Art of the Right Hand Turn

There are a few things in life that I consider to be Dark Arts.  Crochet is one of them (it is, effectively, knitting with one stick, which is very odd); another is cooking anything which involves both sweet fruits and meat (duck à l'orange - why would you do that?).  I now have another such item to add to my list - the Dark Art of the Right Hand Turn.

Yesterday, we went out in the afternoon for a cycling session.  The plan had been that we would forego our usual bike-wheeling stroll to the park in favour of starting to cycle on Wightman Road, which is the fairly busy road that crosses the end of our street.  Being Sunday afternoon, it wasn't that busy, but it was sufficiently busier than it had been in the morning that thought of beginning our session by cycling on it (with cars and everything) made me feel rather ill.  So, we wheeled our velocipedes to Harringay Station, walked across to the other side of the railway and got into the saddle.  It was at this point that I discovered that at the end of our previous session I had stopped in a ridiculously high gear and it was going to be impossible for me to get going on the slight incline out of the station entrance.  That meant that I had to ride my bike like one of those "hobby horse" contraptions you used to see in history text books until I got to the end of the road.

After the left turn out of the station, there's a sweeping downhill run.  I managed this without too much of a problem and dealt with being overtaken by a car for the first time on a proper road.  I knew that we were headed to the park, so I was all ready to take the left hand turn at the upcoming mini-roundabout.  "Remember to signal.  Remember to signal.  Oh, hang on, James has gone straight over the roundabout and is shouting at me to do the same."  The real words that I uttered at this point were somewhat different from those cited here.  I made it over the roundabout, wondered what James was up to, springing all these new things on me like that, and then realised he was signalling to turn right.  Yes, right.  Well, I didn't really have a choice, did I?  I checked there wasn't anything coming, said a prayer, and launched myself across the road and into the side road.  I did wobble quite a lot.  And swore.  A lot.  And nearly cried (but didn't - progress indeed).  Then James pulled in half way up the hill and stopped - I followed suit and then shouted at him viciously (of which I am incredibly ashamed, and for which I am eternally sorry).  The problem was that I was mentally prepared for the route to the park, not some random other route - lesson learnt, expect the unexpected.  No-one expects the Spanish Inquisition.

We retraced our steps back to the mini-roundabout.  It didn't take me much brainpower to work out that to get to the park I was now going to have to repeat my right hand turn at the mini-roundabout.  I just about made it.  Once we got to the park, we decided to do a lap and then see what else we wanted to do.  It was very, very busy.  If you drive to the park, you have to park along the road in the area that cars are allowed in.  Everyone wants to park in the section between the entrance and the cafe.  No-one wants to park in the section on the other side of the park entrance.  The result is that twice as many cars as will fit between the entrance and the cafe are trying to park in that section, and this leads their drivers to do some frankly bizarre things, most of which they probably wouldn't dream of doing on a "real" road.  As a novice cyclist, this is hell.  Doors opening without warning. Cars pulling out without indicating.  Pedestrians walking out from between cars without looking.  Reversing, everyone reversing.  A dude in a Homburg doing a 97-point turn in an enormous car that was as long as the road is wide (though at least he let me through!).  All this in a 150m-200m stretch of road.

After fighting my way through that carnage and seeing James speeding off into the distance (he'd got luckier than me with the traffic), I got caught up at the zebra crossing.  About halfway round, we came across a football tournament that seemed like a fun family day out.  The problem was that everyone was watching the football and not their children.  There were three unsupervised two-year-olds having some kind of rudimentary relay race from one side of the road to the other, and nothing was going to stop them - not the oodles of cyclists belting up and down, nor the masses of marathoners oblivious to the world outside their earphones.  We had no choice but to stop and wait for the children to complete their competition.  I think I may have made a loud statement about how good it would be if parents kept an eye on their children.  They were sitting with their parents on our second lap.

At the end of our first lap, we considered going along Parkland Walk, but the unusual appearance of Mr Sunshine and the Sunday afternoon vibe (that well known jazz duo) would have made it unbearably busy, so we decided on another lap of the park.  That lap was largely uneventful.  My main achievement is actually being able to hold a conversation with James while riding two abreast, the bulk of which is not made up of hissed expletives.  I can now look over my shoulder without really thinking about it too much (and, perhaps more importantly, without swerving or falling off!) - this is quite a major achievement, as it means I know what's behind me.  I may not expect the Spanish Inquisition, but I could see them coming.

After a quick burst of speed work around the flat area I first rode on (I had to try my higher gears, apparently), James decided he needed some emergency chips, so we went to the cafe to get some.  We also had more of the yummy almond and cherry flapjack that we'd had on the previous visit - the cafe's now down to one piece left!

I had mentioned to James the previous day that I thought I was ready for my saddle to be raised a bit.  He had said I would know when it was the right time, and I was really beginning to feel that I needed it to go up, so up it went by about half an inch - what a difference!  Much smoother riding, and I am no longer a baby cyclist!

When we left the park, we cycled back the way we came (or, rather, by the direct route that I had thought we were going to take!), so I had to deal with the right hand turn at the mini-roundabout again.  One of the couple of cyclists in front of us had already got off to walk, citing the "bigness" of the hill as his excuse.  I took three attempts to get going at the mini-roundabout, but when I did, I got round, with difficulty.  At about that point, I started to rue my decision not to give Wightman Road a go at the beginning of our outing. However, my right hand turns still need a lot of practice, and I'll need one of those to get off Wightman Road...

If you would like to sponsor one of my right hand turns, please click the donations button on the right hand side of the page!

Cabbies, roads and a knicker (just the one)

Since my last post (my last blog post, not "The Last Post", that is), I've had two cycling sessions, both in Finsbury Park.  The first, on Tuesday morning (still feels like the middle of the night) was a struggle.  After the triumphs of Monday, my legs felt heavy, and that was just on the walk to the park.  James tried to persuade me that it would optimal for me to try to stick to the left hand side of the road in the park so that (a) I would get practice for the real roads and (b) I wouldn't get flattened by a speedy cyclist.  I told him in no uncertain terms where to go, as I was having enough difficulty staying upright without having to think about linear direction as well.  That said, I did make some effort to stay on the correct side of the road, which led me straight through some enormous puddles and almost upended me when I hit a couple of potholes one after the other.  I had "the terror" going down the really steep hill toward the end of the lap, but somehow recovered myself enough to complete:

The first circumnavigation of Finsbury Park without stopping, by me, on a bicycle.

Needless to say, after all that excitement I was far too tired to do any more cycling, so I did a quick cool down on the flat tarmac bit of the park and then we walked home.  Or rather, nearly home.  We got to the end of our road and James decided that now would be the perfect time for me to ride on a proper road for the first time.  On the public highway.  I need to explain something here - our road is a quiet, one-way, residential street which goes fairly steeply downhill.  It also has speedbumps.  And parked cars on both sides.  There are far worse roads to ride on for the first time, but in my mind, ours is not ideal.  In any event, I wasn't going to get away without doing it, so I hopped on the bike (OK, I'm lying, there was no hopping involved at all) and set off at a snail's pace.  I soon discovered that going over speedbumps is fun, but you also tend to pick up rather a lot of speed when you come off the top of them.  I overshot the house by about three car lengths and found myself in the unfortunate position of having stopped in the middle of the road.  It's a good job no cars were coming.

On Wednesday, I bought myself some more Lycra - as previously mentioned, I had looked around for some padded bottom-half clothing in order to protect from saddle soreness on the longer rides we're working up to (and on the static bike, which has the least comfortable saddle in the world) - and I found some great capri length cycling trousers from the nice people in Cycle Surgery.  Technically speaking, I believe they are a "knicker" (just the one...) and if you look inside they have a bright green bike saddle shaped pad.  It is, I am sure, nothing like wearing a nappy.  The fantastic thing about this "knicker" is that the legs are loose-ish around the ends so that, unlike other capri length sports trousers I've had, they don't ride up and cut off the circulation to the back of your knees.

Yesterday morning I was keen to try out my new garment (we'll call it that, shall we?  Much simpler), so we set off to the park in the middle of the night again.  However, this time we decided to walk a slightly longer route so that we could scope it out to see if I might be able to cycle there next time.  On the plus side, we saw only one car on the new route.  On the minus side, we saw three buses.  James thinks I'll be able to manage it, so next outing I'll be cycling most of the way to the park.

When we got to the park, I decided to do everything as though I were on the real roads.  I duly signalled to the right to show that I was about to pull off.  James burst into fits of giggles.  On the way home, he told me that it was great that I had signalled, but that my efforts looked a bit less like I was signalling to the right and a bit more like I was greeting an early- to mid-twentieth century German leader.  I'm convinced my exuberant signalling is the dancer in me.  Exteeeend, dahling!

My lap around the park was largely uneventful.  In fact, it was so uneventful that it was actually quite good fun.  I think I can do the park now.  Bring on the next challenge!

Yesterday evening I went for some work drinks and got a cab home.  The cabbie was chatty and we got on to talking about my cycling.  He thought it was hilarious that I couldn't ride a bike until a month ago and promised to cheer me on if he saw me out and about in my orange hi-viz, but then he said that I'd probably have the same reaction upon hearing he couldn't swim.  I didn't laugh at him, but it does amount to pretty much the same kind of thing - it's just something everyone expects you can do, but because you don't need to do it regularly, you never get round to learning.  However, we then got talking about what I do and what James does.  When I said that James is a software developer, the cabbie said he didn't know anything about that technology rubbish - he had never used a computer.

If you're enjoying hearing about my cycling adventures, please show your support by sponsoring me for the London to Brighton Bike Ride, which you can do by clicking on the Justgiving donation button on the right and following the instructions.

And...I'm back in the saddle!

Have you missed me? I managed more than two weeks without my derriere touching a bike saddle which, given the time scale we're working to here, was less than optimal. Let's get the excuses out of the way first - I managed to get a stomach bug two weeks ago, which knocked me out for most of that week, and I got better just in time for the deal I've been working on for the last six months to finally decide it was going to sign; cue numerous late nights, preventing any early morning cycling sessions. So, I've plenty of lost time to make up for and I've been doing my best to use the long weekend to do just that.

Yesterday, we took the bikes down to Finsbury Park so that I could have a go at circumnavigating the other way round (if you remember, James wouldn't let me go the other way round because of having to go down a very steep hill). It turned out that starting by going down the very steep hill was not the best idea. I confess I cried. And swore. A lot. It was terrifying, I nearly hit the pesky bollards, and I got sent entirely the wrong way by a land rover that was on the wrong side of the bollards (i.e. the traffic free side). I had only just got going again when I felt an ominous clunk and realised my saddle had developed an unnerving wobble. Another stop ensued for James to tighten it up (yeah, I know, I've got to learn to do it myself, but I was already in a foul, delicate mood after the land rover incident). The rest of the lap passed without incident, until I discovered the real reason why we normally go round the other way - The Long Hill. Going down The Long Hill is a breeze; it's not too steep, so it's not terrifying and it's not too shallow, so you can free wheel down it. Going up it is a different story. It's probably about a third of a mile long. I started in too high a gear and couldn't do much about it once I was halfway up. Needless to say, by the time I got to the top, I was getting a bit wobble-weavey, I couldn't talk and my legs no longer felt like they were attached to my body. A few laps of the basketball court later, I was ready for home.

Today was a different story. Today, I nailed it. I can cycle. I can. See, I told you it would be OK. The plan today was to leave the safe, comfortable confines of Finsbury Park and go somewhere else. However, before setting off, we had a little errand to run - I needed a hi-viz waterproof, so that the ducks could see me coming in the glorious weather we're having at the moment. So, I am now the proud owner of a very orange waterproof. It is not a good look. We trekked to the park as usual, but rather than continuing on round a lap, we turned right to go onto the bridge over the railway. I hit the bridge. I'm glad that (a) I didn't go through the bridge onto the railway below (not very likely) and (b) I didn't fall off the bike (very likely). The man who was walking past in the other direction, more or less causing this incident by his very presence, smirked smugly at me. I wheeled the bike over the bridge and started riding again. Then we began the main event - Parkland Walk.

Parkland Walk is a nature trail along a disused railway. This means it is relatively straight and relatively flat, both significant plus-points for the novice cyclist. However, as its name suggests, the route is primarily for walking on, which means there are a lot of two- and four-legged pedestrians who are, quite frankly, in my way. To be fair, most of them are courteous, get out of the way and appear to have no desire to be run over by a fluorescent orange cyclist. Some of them, on the other hand, take their "pedestrian priority" far too seriously, and there is a third category - the terminally oblivious (more on them later). The other complication with Parkland Walk is that it is "off-road", so the surface is bone-jarringly rough - it isn't off-road in the sense of having to avoid tree-roots and worry about sinking in puddles, but it is a whole different ball-game for someone who is used to the comparatively silky-smooth riding in the park. On the outward journey, I had a few wobbles, and a few weaves, but nothing too serious happened until we got close to one of the old stations along the route. Four sets of people were trying to get through the same narrow opening at once - a couple of people were standing in the way (they looked like they'd bumped into each other while going in opposite directions), a lady walking her dog was coming past them towards us, two joggers were catching the lady with the dog fast, and then there were the two of us trying to cycle through. I managed to navigate past all but the stationary folk, but this forced me to the very edge of the path, where there was a mud slick - my back wheel slid out and I landed on my feet. The people standing talking were very concerned about me, but I was absolutely fine. I still hadn't, technically, fallen off.

The next part of the route, through the old station, was awesome. The old station platforms are still in place, so what could I do other than tear down the middle of them screaming "choo-choo" at the top of my lungs? It wasn't all that long before we got to the end of the route, in Highgate. Highgate - that's a whole different district, a whole different postcode, from where we started out. After a quick stop for a photo by the board showing how far we'd come, we turned round and went back the other way. That was when the problems started. I was coming up behind a woman walking a dog. I pinged my bell at her three times (my new skill of the day) and slowed down to the lowest speed I can maintain without keeling over sideways. She initially did nothing, continued down the middle of the path. Then she stopped and put her hands out to the sides as if she were expecting to be mown down. That's right, she stopped in the middle of the path. I had no choice but to stop and she turned around and said "oh my God, you frightened the life out of me". Now, I know the orange hi-viz is a bit alarming, but I would have thought that most people would have the sense, if pinged at three times by a cyclist, to move to one side. It doesn't matter which side, but just move! In any case, no-one died, she apologised and I went along my merry way.

 A few human chicanes later, we were back in the park. We were nearly at the park gate (toward home) when James decided he wanted to do another lap of the park - I was knackered by this point, so I said I'd go to the cafe and wait for him. It took me a couple of seconds before it dawned on me, but then I had a fantastic idea - I could cycle to the cafe, which was about 150m away along the only bit of the park that has cars on it. On my own. There were moving cars going in both directions, another first for me. And so it was that I cycled on my own on the road for the first time. I think I deserved my cup of tea.

So Near! And Yet So Far

We got up in the middle of the night again yesterday (6.45 am - is that a real time, or was I dreaming?) for my third training session in a week. As usual, it was raining.

Yesterday, I managed to sort out my wobble-weave. That's not to say there was no wobbling and no weaving (more on that later), but I had figured out from a few cycling forums that my wobble-weave was almost certainly down to the fact that I was looking down at the pedals when pushing off. I made a point of not looking down and I didn't wobble or weave, but I then couldn't find the second pedal with my foot. Hmmm. This needs some work. Eventually, I got started and set off on my first lap.

Now, you will probably recall that I have some difficulties in turning right, so you will be interested to hear that at present I am only circumnavigating the park in an anti-clockwise direction, meaning I only have to turn left. However, that's not the reason I'm going anti-clockwise; I'm going anti-clockwise because there is a massive hill in the park that my husband deems far too steep and scary for me to go down at present, so I have to go up it instead (hurrah!). Going down it might be tomorrow's challenge.

Yesterday, I managed to conquer the bollards, too. Oh, I've just realised that I have forgotten to mention the most important thing from yesterday's session - I completed two whole laps of the park!! This meant I had to deal with bollards four times, and I went through them all without incident. About a third of the way round the park there is what looks like to a novice cyclist a hairpin bend at the bottom of a hill (it probably looks like a gentle curve to someone more expert than I, or perhaps even like "fun"). This means that when you get to the bottom of the hill at speed (having forgotten you've got brakes and not being sure how much you need to slow down for the bend in any case), you have to turn sharp left and then start pedalling like mad to get up the hill when you come off the bend. This is hard. Very hard. I managed it both times round, but James said he thought I was going to hit the kerb the first time.

I also had a near miss (in terms of falling off) when going down hill. I was having huge problems with my feet slipping off the pedals because of the wet weather, and I went over an enormous (2 inch) hump in the road that caused my foot to slip - again, James thought I was headed for disaster - oh he of little faith! I stayed on and came to a quite civilised standstill.

The second time around was much less eventful, apart from one thing. I was determined to go round a whole lap without stopping. I made it through both sets of bollards without incident, and went past the enormous hump in the road without having to avoid falling off (though I have to say my heart was in my mouth on that part). I motored up the final, steep hill - and then disaster struck! My foot came off the pedal again, for no apparent reason other than the wet weather, and I was headed for a parked car. There wasn't time to do anything other than stop. I was about 50 metres from the end of the lap. So near! And yet so far.

Never mind, at least I have a goal for tomorrow!

Most excitingly, I can reveal the results of last week's poll on Lycra! I was slightly disturbed that the total of the answers on the poll added up to 125%, but then I realised that I'd allowed people to vote more than once - it counts each person once, so if there are 5 votes from 4 people, you end up with more than 100% votes. Anyway, there were joint winners: "You're going out dressed like that? In public?" and "There's no such thing as too much Lycra". I think this means that people are happy to wear Lycra in the privacy of their own homes...

Finally, don't forget you can sponsor my efforts by clicking the link on the right hand side of the page!

The first ever complete circumnavigation...

...of Finsbury Park, on a bicycle, by me. Quick, contact the Guinness Book of Records!

Today, I am broken. Everything hurts, but especially my thighs. Here is why.

Yesterday, we got up at 6.45 am (or "the middle of the night", as it's also known) in order to get in some early morning training. I dressed in my usual exercise gear of a short sleeved technical t-shirt and capri length running tights, got my bike, helmet and gloves together and went outside. It was cold. Very cold. I figured I'd get warm once we got to the park and got going, but when we were about halfway there, it started raining. My husband went back home to get raincoats, while I carried on wheeling my bike to the park in the rain (he has the advantage of actually being able to cycle, on roads and everything, so could easily catch me up again). I had initially tried to tough it out, saying I didn't need no poncey raincoat, but in the end I was getting so cold and wet that I swallowed my pride and put it on. At least mine's the plain black one. His is bright green.

Finally, after all that exciting drama, we got to the park. Yesterday's goal was to do one whole lap of Finsbury Park. I was blithely optimistic about my challenge. James was openly dubious. (James obviously has an action plan for my cycling development, but is only sharing snippets of it with me - it's a bit like playing a computer game, where you give it your all to get to the next level without knowing what awaits you there.) Things did not start well - I had developed a wobble-weave. I had a few false starts, but once I managed to pick up a bit of speed, things were going swimmingly well (literally, since it had started tipping it down by this point). That is, until the bollards. Oh, yes, the bollards.

For those of you who don't know Finsbury Park, it is approximately kite-shaped with a road that loops around the perimeter (well, a little way in from the edge, allowing for the tennis courts and the like). The road is, I am reliably informed, 2.2km long. For Luddites and Americans, that's about a mile and a half. Apart from one small section, the road is motor vehicle-free, so there weren't going to be too many hazards for me. However, that small section is separated from the rest of the road at each end by a row of bollards. Now, if you remember from my exploits on Saturday, I had some significant issues with weaving around traffic cones. Bollards are a bit like traffic cones, only taller, closer together and (perhaps most importantly) harder. I tried desperately hard to keep going through the tiny gap between the bollards, but it wasn't to be and I had to stop and shuffle between them.

Once I got going again (bearing in mind we were only about 200 metres into our 2.2km loop at this point), I had a wonderful, uninterrupted run around the rest of the loop until I reached the next set of bollards. That run included going uphill (hard work) and downhill (frankly terrifying), using the brakes and changing gears, and it was over a mile long. Hurrah! My first cycled mile!

When we got to the second set of bollards, I had a very close shave - I nearly fell off. The soles of my shoes were wet from the rain and my feet slipped on the pedals. I put my foot down, but I did not fall off, and although I did some interesting wobble-weaving to get going again, the rest of my loop passed without significant incident (unless you count the fact that I couldn't feel the fronts of my thighs once I'd ridden up the last hill - this was not helped by then going to British Military Fitness last night, the cumulative impact being that I can't walk properly).

So, I did it! I completed a loop of Finsbury Park. Apparently, my next challenge is to do two laps in one session, and that is for tomorrow morning/middle of the night. My personal goal (i.e. not a husband-set one) is to complete at least one of those laps without stopping.

Finally, don't forget you can sponsor my efforts by clicking on the link to my Justgiving page on the right hand side. Also, there is only one day left to vote with your views on Lycra!