St Valentine's Day Social Club Ride

Buster led 15 Axe Valley Pedallers out to Broadwindsor this St Valentine's morning on our February 2016 All Pedallers' Sunday Ride. We were blessed with a cool but dry and later sunny morning. Our only casualty was a frozen fingered Kelly who was rescued by Steve with a loan of a set of winter gloves .. it may be mild for February, but it's still cold enough to turn digits blue!

On reaching our destination, we unfurled the giant bank cheque in favour of our supported charity, the Devon Air Ambulance, for a team picture.

It was one of those perfect social rides which so epitomises the AVP. We had Wednesday Wibblers, Friday Fliers and the Thursday Road Riders; a tandem, hybrid, steel, aluminium and full carbon fibre machines all riding together through beautiful the Devon and Dorset countryside. It was very reminiscent of that 1950's film I was watching Saturday .. On Yer Bike!

Thanks, to Buster for another great ride and for organising a perfect break in the weather.

On Yer Bike

This Saturday afternoon, I took time out to complete viewing one of my Christmas gifts, the BFI film, "On Yer Bike". A two-disc collection which provides a fascinating insight into the British cycling experience on film featuring an arrangement of short dramas, animations, advertisements, newsreel items, and public information films, spanning the period 1899-1983.

The film opens with nineteenth-century women elegantly displaying their proficiency, moving on to the cut-throat 1928 Olympic Trials at the Herne Hill Velodrome and careless 1980s BMX kids meeting untimely ends. Thinking back to that day in 2013, when I went in search of my new bike, this film includes as least those classic British brands I originally had in mind, such as Raleigh, Hercules, Moulton, Humber, Rudge and Whitcomb!

The line up of films across the two-disc collection:

Disc One
Lady Cyclists (1899) | Race for the Muratti Cup at Manchester Wheelers' Annual Meet [Extract] (1901) | Rudge Whitworth Britain's Best Bicycle (1902) | Manchester and Salford Harriers [Extract] (1901) | Flying the Foam and Some Fancy Diving (1906) | Fat Man on a Bicycle (1914) | National Bicycle Week Begins (1923) | Olympic Trials (1928) | Cycling the Channel (1929) | Woman Wheelers (1929) | From Acorn to Oak (1938) | Cinema Adverts Humber, Raleigh, Rudge (1938) | Tom's Ride (1944) | How a Bicycle is Made (1945) | Stringing Along (1947) | The Ballad of the Battered Bicycle (1947) | Pedal Cyclists (1947) | Good Cycles Deserve Good Riders (1950) | Skid Kids (1953)

Disc Two
Cyclists Special (1955) | Hercules: Lion Cubs (1956) | Cyclists Abroad (1957) | Cycling Proficiency Scheme Father and Son (1959) | Riding on Air (1959) | The Racing Cyclist (1966) | The Moulton Bicycle (1972) | Free Wheeling (1979) | It's a Bike (1983) | Cyclist Turning Right (1983)

This Saturday's viewing closed with Disc 2 and I was immediately enthralled with the opening film, the Cyclists Special from 1955.

This shows my idealistic cycling fantasy which was a reality back in the 1950s. The ability to cycle up to the railway station, check you bike onboard a specialist cycling carriage and disembark a couple of hundred miles later to cycle traffic free roads in a different part of the country.

What also captivated me about this film was the destination of their cycling adventure, as this is an area I know well. It is clear to see in this film how the growth of car ownership over the last 50 years has done much to ruin our towns and villages. While we can not turn back the hands of time, I do hope that the recent growth in bicycle ownership continues at a similar pace and has an equally but more positive impact on our surroundings and quality of life.

New Year's Resolution #3 - 30 Minutes A Day

Every month I get a summary of my cycling stats in an email from Endomondo. It was only at the end of last year that I noticed that their tag line in this email was "... 30 min a day will help keep you fit". Looking back, I noticed that in some weeks, I was only getting in one ride a week and although this could last a couple of hours, it was not getting close to the 30 min a day, according to Endomondo I should be achieving.

As my Tour de Fitness is all about keeping fit, my New Year's Resolution #3, where possible, is to complete at least a 30 minute ride a day, with the option to make up any lost time one or two days later, but no more. That sounds a bit formal doesn't it!

There are only a few reasons for me not wanting to ride, these being:  

• extreem weather conditions
• work and family commitments 
• getting kitted up for less than an hour's ride!

So my new year's resolution had to be able to overcome these challenges. My solution was to revisit a purchase I made back in February last year and one I referred to in my ".. gone in a flash" blog and which surprisingly never got mentioned again! This was a turbo trainer to which any of my bikes could be attached. I never really got on with it last year, finding it a very dull experience but having a new goal for 2016, I felt it was worth giving it another go.

Since the start of the year, I have already complete over 5 turbo hours of pedalling, compared to just over an hour during the whole of 2015! My main way of keeping focussed has been to work though the albums on my iPod looking for the best spinning tracks .. this is work in progress, so I'll try to remember to bring you my recommendations later in the year. Time will tell if Endomondo's 30 min a day recommendation pays off, but I'm feeling better for it already, even if just psychologically or  just in getting to rediscover some the music I'd long since forgotten I had!

New Year's Resolution #2 - Build A Venge Project

My three bikes from 3 years of cycling are all of the Specialized brand. Specialized Bicycle Components, Inc., more commonly known simply as Specialized, was founded in 1974 and is based in Morgan Hill, California. When I started on my Tour de Fitness, I went looking for the last brand of bike I had, I'm very brand loyal. This was, however, before the return of Raleigh to the mainstream market and racing circuit. In the absence of anything I remembered from the 1970s, I scanned the local shop's brochure and was attracted by the specification, look and price of the Specialized Crosstrail. A new allegiance was struck.

When I was looking to complete my first 100 mile ride, I revisited my bike shop to acquire a road bike and came away with the Specialized Roubaix. The bike that Specialized created for the one day classic, the Paris Roubaix. Built to cope with the Belgium cobbles and climbing, perfect for our Devon roads!  A year later and with another winter on the horizon, I decided that I needed a quality summer bike and returning to my bike shop found the ideal candidate, the Specialized Tarmac. An all out racer ridden by a number of the pro teams: Astana, Tinkoff-Saxo and Omega Pharma - Quickstep. My trusty Roubaix, with it's cushioned ride became my winter bike, well suited to handing the hidden potholes beneath puddles and obscured by darkness.

During 2015, the Tarmac acquitted itself well over a number of 100 mile rides and the epic Etape Loch Ness. I also became more hands on working as a mechanic on my bikes and I got to thinking it would be great to build a bike from the frame up. Before Christmas, a good cycling friend showed me a beautiful carbon Cervelo frame that he was preparing to do likewise, build the perfect bike. I started looking for a frame which would compliment my Specialized collection. A model I did not have and one which would be a very different animal was the Venge. A thoroughbred aero road racing machine and a model favoured by my sprint cycling hero, Mark Cavendish! The die was cast, my new years resolution #2 - build a Venge project - was put in motion.

Through the three months to February, all the frame sales I scanned through had asking prices of more than I'd even want to pay for a complete bike. I was starting to think that I was in for a long search until early in February, I was emailed details of a bright orange Venge .. a whole one .. for sale in Cornwall. The colour did not at first grab me, the price however did. It was never my plan to buy a complete unit, but seeing an immaculate Venge, so well looked after and at a price I was prepared to pay for my project materials and parts, how could I refuse; I guess I could always take it apart and put it back together if I wanted to build it myself!

So, perhaps the quickest new year's resolution to come to fruition with the least amount of effort! I'm feeling a bit of a fraud really, although over the moon with the new addition to my Specialized collection. I'm going to have to find a race to give it a proper run out now .. if I do, it will be my first. Is it Ok to add a late addition to my list of new year's resolutions?

New Year's Resolution #1 - Take Time Off Work To Cycle

Like many at this time of year, I have settled on a number of New Year's [Cycling] Resolutions for 2016 and I'll reveal them over the next few weeks as each one makes an appearance.

The first resolution was actually decided on last year, when I had another 5 days added to my holiday entitlement for long service and good behaviour. My resolution #1 is to start taking the odd day or half day off work just to cycle. The trigger for these events is to be a forecasted big sun!

So far, I've managed 3 such half day rides. The first occurred in the week leading up to Christmas, the second in the last week of January and the third was this Thursday afternoon. Coincidentally, all of these rides have been with my old friend the Near Naked Man, who since giving up the Broom Wagon has a little more time on his hand. Who I will find to ride with once his liberty is finally traded for another honest job is yet to be determined, but if this is the only challenge I can think of for making this new resolution happen, I can surely cope with that!

I'm really looking forward to keeping this monthly extravagance going for the remainder of the year and unlike many new year's resolutions, this seems to be one I have most chance of keeping! Although I say extravagance, I'm starting to think that the elation and stress busting endorphins these rides provide me, could actually be that which keeps me sane, that is until I can either apply for another sabbatical or stop buying new bikes long enough for me to be able to afford retirement!

I can see a possible flaw in this cycling passion: I need to work to keep cycling, I need to take time off work to cycle and I need to cycle to keep working. My head hurts, time to hit the turbo, it's too wet and windy to cycle today!

New Year's Resolution #1 - Take Time Off Work To Cycle