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| Sometimes life is a fold up bike, awkward, cumbersome and bloody hard work! |
April - Bella Velo Cycle Club
My local cycling buddy Eva had been joining a womens only cycling group Bella Velo on thursdays for laps around Richmond Park, a simple 50km door to door route. She persuaded me to come with her. Thank you Eva for getting me off my sorry arse and back into lycra. We joined a group of ladies of varying ages for laps and we got chatting to each other along the way. As I cycled next to a petite blonde I bemoaned the fact that I had lost my mojo and had no energy. "Yeah" she said "me too - I'm just out of hospital recovering from pneumonia" and her mother was ill in hospital. Holy shit she was whooping my arse. Blimey stop moaning Catherine and get pedalling. Sometimes other peoples stories put life into perspective and you realise life ain't so bad. My next adventure was to be in Wales.
Hobbits journey to Caerphilly Mountain
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| Let them eat cake! |
So like a hobbit I gathered together some faithful friends, in this case Gareth and Amanda to help me on my epic quest. So for this hobbit Caerphilly Mountain was my Lonely Mountain and let's be honest it certainly felt at times like we were in Middle Earth (no offence to any welsh friends). I bravely volunteered to navigate to reach Lonely Mountain and save the ring. No wait a minute.......to navigate the route to Caerphilly Mountain and be ride leader. That's it, my precious.
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| MerryMand, Gared and Bilbo - smiling now !! |
No it's not it - there are two issues with this previous statement. Anyone that has cycled with me knows that I never really remember a route and usually rely on the navigation of others, even Chris Scott and his 20 sheets of A4 paper. So this was to be my big moment. The other thing people that cycle with me know is that I always have issues with my Garmin Edge. So this was to be a real test - ride leading using a route loaded from Strava onto my Garmin Edge. What could possibly go wrong?
Day 1 Middle Earth a tale of dual carriageways and roundabouts
Off the merry trio set Bilbo, Gared and MerryMand through the country lanes, beautiful scenery and epic hills. Actually it all went horribly wrong just three yards up the drive of the B&B. Me to Gared and MerryManda..... sorry I mean Amanda and Gareth ....
Me: "OK let me just load the preloaded route onto my Garmin" tap tap tap
Garmin: "Fuck off Catherine"
Me:"OK just searching for the start of the route now"
Garmin: "Fuck Off Catherine".......Bloody bastard heap of shit.
Me: "OK it doesn't look as if it can find the start of the route - lets just see if it picks it up".
It started well - country lanes, green fields, hillside views, sheep but quite quickly we ended up on a tour of housing estates and the many dual carriageways of South Wales. If this is your thing by all means you can download my route from Strava, but I wouldn't recommend it. Dual carriageways are no fun, meandering through broken wing mirrors and hub caps on the hard shoulder and we covered quite a few of them. Actually housing estates aren't to be recommended either. But do you know what really isn't any fun? Big bastard roundabouts with five exits of busy rush hour traffic, 2 of them leading off to the M5...
The roundabout of doom
So three cyclists with cleated shoes (not easy to walk in let alone run in) in the middle of one of the busiest concrete roundabouts in South Wales. Where do we need to be ? - Gareth "Over there!" points across two lanes of fast oncoming traffic. Amanda and I "oh shit!" We couldn't cycle across the lanes we had to act as pedestrians because somehow we knew that as pedestrians crossing rather than cyclists the traffic were going to be more sympathetic to our plight.
Gareth: "After 3 make a run for it..1,2,3" We all clip clopped in our cleated shoes forward. Five cars came racing towards us.
Gareth "BACK! BACK! BACK!". The 3 of us scuttled backwards with our bikes......
Gareth "GO!" we skittered again across to the other side. Bloody hell that was scary, this must be how hedgehogs feel everyday. Where now? I was now deferring to Gareth on the basis he is a) Welsh and b) a boy, so he'd know.
"Up there". Well that was a brilliant idea, "up there" was Barrack Hill, that bizarrely enough had a barracks at the top and was actually pretty bloody hilly. Made even better by a bus load of lairey army boys jeering us on. We didn't care we were just glad to be alive!
Next stop Caerphilly Mountain
Once we got to Caerphilly Mountain it was great. It was a bloody relief to be honest. I had realised my ride leading days were over before they'd even begun. I also came to realise that actually Amanda's Sat Nav on her phone was just as effective as my Garmin Edge 810 (too clever for it's own good). And that yes having not previously cycled 120km before we got to Caerphilly Mountain, as I have done at Velothon Wales, I can in fact get up it without getting off ......my precious. Yippee. Nemesis conquered.
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| Caerphilly we smashed it - well we cycled up it anyway. |
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| Caerphilly Castle in Welsh Wales just off the B4263 |
Proper Welsh cycling
We saw my friend Faye in the pub that night. We saw your route on Strava, what the hell was that all about? where the hell did you go? It looks like you were on the dual carriageway?" Me: "Yeah yeah I know". I wouldn't be taking journalists from Cycling Weekly on that route would I?
To be fair though I think Gared, MerryMand and I have discovered some new Strava segments. And we'll probably hold those KOM and QOM trophies for quite some time as no other bugger is going to be cycling THAT route again unlesss they're doing a paper round up there.
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| Steph, Amanda, Faye and I - proper welsh cycling |
The next day Faye and Steph took us on a proper welsh riding experience with countryside, lanes, green fields, sheep and most importantly a big slab of cake. Thank you Faye for some proper ride leading. If you want proper cycle routes in Wales look to Faye - don't choose the hobbit - look to Faye.
The quest was over .....but no this was mere training for the Mallorca 312. Sunnier warmer cycling without housing estates and dual carriageways.
Mallorca 312
Yes 312km cycling around Mallorca on closed roads. The roads are gorgeous in Mallorca anyway but for them to be closed to traffic as well, sheer bliss. So the 312 bit - yeah well I wasn't actually doing the 312 bit, I was doing the 167km bit - I'm not that sadistic. There was a big group of us out with Sunvelo who we'd booked it through. It felt like one big happy reunion, it was good to see everyone again, some of my dearest cycling friends and some new cycling friends too.
We all arrived at differing stages of the week, some did epic training rides, other's went on cake bimbles to the beach taking selfies all the way - yes you Lisa! (Although before she has a go at me she had arrived earlier in the week and had already put a lot of kms in.)
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| Me, Sandy and Lisa do the beach beach bimble |
And it's fair to say we were all of differing abilities and fitness levels but with one thing in common a love of cycling. There were thousands of cyclists that had descended on Mallorca for the 312 so there was a really great atmosphere, quite a fire hazard though with all that lycra! We were all excited for the big day - sleepless nights all round.
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| Training ride upto the lighthouse - Me, Sandy, Clare Lisa and Nathan scorchio |
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| Formentour Beach where the ferry runs from with obligatory cake. |
The big day
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| Senor Sunvelo and Sandy chilled actually just chilly! |
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| Huddling for warmth at the start! |
We were lucky when the big day arrived it wasn't raining. Previous years have been torrential by all accounts. So much for viva los sunny Espania. And the start time was a very reasonable 9am - unless you were in Lisa's advance party at 7am!! The later start was good, I hate having to force feed porridge and breakfast down me at some ungodly hour. It was a chilly start but not wet. We set off in a nervous group of five Gareth, Kelvin, Clare, Nathan and I up the first climb to the infamous garage. Obviously, because all Mallorcan rides lead to the garage. All of us had our different concerns about the day, some the descents, some the ascents so we were all finding our zone.
Nathan whipped us into a chain gang and the first stretch went smoothly. Then before the first ascent we all needed a pee in the bushes - it was all that excitement. As I readjusted my bib shorts having successfully managed to not pee on my feet. Heh! I'm a girl it's tricky for us girls. I heard my name being shouted "Catherine!" - it was my good friends Steve and JT. Of all the thousands of cyclists we had managed to bump into each other.
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| Tres Amigos - Me, JT and Steve and lots of MAMILs |
They kindly agreed to cycle with me. Which was nice, well apart from the fact they are much faster than me. Steve said it was so we could gossip. Gossip? I wasn't planning on being able to speak let alone gossip. But yep we did gossip and we did a rapid cycle upto the garage. Actually my fastest time upto the garage ever. The gossip must have been good. Thanks Steve for pushing me on and making it seem like a social ride all the way around. And JT for patiently waiting for me to catch up.
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| Mecca the feed station |
People get very bent out of shape before these sportives. They get nervous. They over worry stuff. Someone very wise once told me it's just a bike ride. You know that's a good piece of advice, it gets it into perspective. We're not part of the Tour de France - it's just a bike ride. Go and enjoy it.
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| Still smiling but ever so slightly hungry! |
Well I was enjoying it with Steve and JT we were actually having lots of fun. Mainly laughing at some of the lycra views in front of us. Seriously some people really should see what others are seeing. If my hopes were that the view would be athletic and toned lycra before me, I was sadly mistaken. For most of the ride we were preceded by the oldest most faded pair of bib shorts on the island. Really? I can see everything and not in a good way. Like a faded blue vision in front of my eyes he kept drifting into view. And yet again I would strongly advise - white lycra - never! - not ever! - on no-one does this ever look good.
The route
It was good. Apart from the bit where the first feed station was at 96km after one of the bigger climbs on the route. At this point we were getting cranky and very very hungry, there's only so many jelly babies you can eat. Steve was our domestique, he duly went and hunted and gathered JT and I some sandwiches of dubious pink plastic meat (tried not to look too closely) and a very dodgy looking cake in a bag. We didn't bother to analyse the nutritional value too much - I've never seen sandwiches disappear into peoples mouths so quickly. We nearly ate our hands off! |
| Thank God for that after 92km |
Well we did it - some of us together, some of us on our own in places, some had to hitch a ride home - eh Kelvin? But we all made it to the end in one piece. What an absolutely brilliant day. Simply stunning scenery I'd forgotten how gorgeous Valledemossa is, some of the views over the sea were absolutely breathtaking. Great mountain climbs, smooth tarmac and such a great atmosphere. I certainly earned my bedtime milk that day! If you haven't signed up for it yet - do it - you won't regret it, it's a stunning ride. Thanks to Sunvelo for the great organisation.
As ever I met some really great people cycling and I hope our paths will cross again to share some more laughter, some kms, some cake and inevitably some red wine too!
And then I came home to the next chapter of my life........
Velothon Berlin
My friends Sandy, Lisa and I were due to do this, but things were not to be for me, life sometimes gets in the way of an adventure. Which I'm rather glad about after I received a rather panicked Whatsup from them on the day before the ride. We'd signed up for 180km. Which I remember thinking at the time was a tad ambitious. And then I got this message from Lisa...
Oh good luck with that girls. Well of course they did it - because they always do. Well done girls and hopefully when things settle down I will be able to join you again on another cycling adventure.
The next chapter....
And so as I say sometimes life gets in the way and you lose your mojo a bit. So for now my sporting endeavours are on hold, in the interests of self preservation. But life is a marathon not a sprint, I'll be back! For now I'm more likely to be found in B&Q than Sigma Sport. |
| Life before - racy! |
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| Life now - a bit more commuter for a while! |
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