In all past years of my life, and I've had a number, I've known a freeze is coming because I hear the crunch of salt under my feet and the darkness is illuminated by the orange oscillating lights of the gritters.
One knows when austerity has started to bite, when the first time you learn a freeze is coming is finding a damp patch of main road is not wet but ice and rubber which has gripped throughout a year of damp roads throws in the towel!
Thursday night's innocuous billed club ride was the first in which I've unknowingly hit black ice cycling a main road, no salt, no warning, no gritters! Gutted my upcoming weekend cycling plans are now in ruin, my treasured bike is scared and my ageing body damaged. Austerity hurts!
This year's November monthly club ride was, as in previous years, a ride up to attend the Rousdon Remembrance Sunday service. One slight difference this year, was that we laid our own wreath in memory of those service men and women who through the years of conflict have taken to the two wheels we all love to travel on.
There are many references written of the 7th (Cyclist) Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment formed in 1908, which, on outbreak of the First World War, became part of the Southern Command. Based at Totnes, they patrolled along the coast from Lyme Regis to the River Yealm, east of Plymouth. Just think, they would have cycled the coast roads we are so used to ourselves!
We turned out in force with the largest ever gathering of Pedallers at the Rousdon memorial, on this 100th anniversary year of some of the worst fighting these pedallers would have experienced. While the cyclist battalion remained in England throughout the war, many were sent over seas, for example, in 1916 a number joined A Company of the 2nd Devons to fight in the Cuinchy sector on the Somme. A sobering thought.
The Victorians had great vision and ingenuity. Methods of transportation were expanded exponentially and many of the most ambitious engineering projects were instigated by the Victorians, but what would they make of their legacy? Dis-integrated railway network, gridlocked roads & pointless cycle paths ..
Yes, OK, a tenuous link to the state of my local, so called, cycle paths but I do wonder what the Victorians would have done differently. Compulsory land purchases akin to that which enabled railways to crisscross the country, lavish bridges and tunnels to keep motor and pedal power apart and draconian penalties for crimes against the cycle. Well, come the revolution, may be!
Why the angst? Well these 2 videos show what Devon CC have provided cyclists to keeps them off the roads. I appreciate how difficult it is to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear but has this really been money well spent?
The Axminster Kilmington Cycle Path
'
On this path cost hundreds of thousands of pounds to put in, but it is neither regularly maintained by the council nor rideable for much of the year, for either being flooded or covered with farm waste. Cyclists are thus forced to take to the busy A35 or ride the equally unfriendly shared pedestrian path, scarily just feet from speeding oncoming traffic!
Seaton Cycle Path
Seaton Cycle Path is more a case of being given permission to use the path than a purpose built and fit for purpose cycle path.
Sticking to my mission for 2017 to ditch the sportives and just cycle with mates, 7 of us coffee clubbers headed out on another epic ride. We met at Kilver Court, Shepton Mallet .. the home of the Rapha Archive store, what a co-incidence! Another co-incidence is that a few months back we did a 100mi ride from home to Kilver which the Rapha CC copied a few weeks later and most of this Saturday's 100km route followed one the Rapha CC did themselves earlier in the year. I do love a theme.
Once the essential shopping was done, coffee knocked back and bikes unloaded, we headed off to Wookey Hole and our first climb. Surprisingly this was far worse than the feared Cheddar Gorge, reportedly 1/100 of the best UK climbs, which we were to tackle som 85km into the ride!
Anyway .. apart from me having the our only 2 punctures of the ride and emptying my bank account in the Rapha store, it was a great ride with super company. I’m loving these mates rides.
Living and cycling in the UK means that we can’t always guarantee warm and dry weather what ever the month, and this is why most agree, “there’s no such thing as bad weather just the wrong clothes”.
It’s most frustrating, therefore, when we follow the Met office forecast, and head out in shorts and dry weather gear only for the heavens to unexpectedly open at the furthest point from home! This was what we experienced tonight, in the dark and amidst 2 forced stops to repair punctures!
I’ll say no more other than to share this video which shows it all. Our wettest ride of the year in the wrong clothing!
Dartmoor can be one of those places where the weather can be predictably very wet, windy and during the winter months, rather cool with sub zero temperatures the norm. This August bank holiday weekend we were treated to the exact opposite; it was a day to be spent by the beach rather than astride a bicycle!
The ride had been planned for some months as our annual 100mi/100km club ride, with the intent to follow the route of Mid Devon CC's Dartmoor Classic, so not one for the novice rider. Indeed, I for one would not have used it for my first 100, some 4 years ago!
Andy and I drove over in the Yeti and met up with a crowd of Pedallers at 8:00 am in Chudleigh. At the depart we had a great cross-section of pedallers, old and new, boys and girls and even a couple of Sid Valley cycle club guests. Despite the gruelling climbs ahead, it had that feeling of going to be a real social affair; quite different from the Classic Sportives I've ridden in the past.
Signing in
At the outset, Clive, the professional ride leader he is, got us to sign in with emergency contact details, little knowing then that sadly he'd not be seeing the ride out himself! More on that later.
The plan was going well'ish as we rode to Princetown to refuel at a popular cycling favourite, the Fox tor cafe http://www.foxtorcafe.com/cafe/. Here, we arrived in waves and sought shelter from the mid day sun, mingling with other lycra clad riders from Mid Devon and Plymouth cycle clubs. Mark also got us chatting to the director(s) of Primal, the Devon cycling apparel company, who adorned in smart looking kit jumped into a polished sales patter .. who'd be a kit master (all applications c/o TdF)! I mention the ride having gone well'ish as there had been two close shaves: a sudden stop to avoid cattle may have given my a rear tyre a flat spot (check out the video at 9:40 am) and a little later my chain bounced off the big ring and wrapped itself around every sprocket it could find! Luckily, I could continue but I've not yet done a full damage check nor ascertained what could have actually caused it.
The AVP Peloton passes near Haytor
It was at Princetown that Clive, who'd been poorly the previous day, had to call an end to his ride and get a cab back to Chudleigh. I had thought of posting an APB on our club's FB page but being at the furthest point from base camp, close to a 90 minute drive, it would have been a miracle to have found a Pedaller out and about near by. So, in the absence of a support car, and still another 2 hours cycling to be done, a local taxi was the only option. Clive later reported that it was the best value £50 taxi ride he'd had!
From Princetown, a handful of Pedallers continued on their extended 100 mile route while the larger peloton, myself included, chilled a little more in the cafe before taking the return loop back to Chudleigh, with the obligatory stop for ice cream refreshments at one of the many tempting vans strategically positioned along the route!
Ice cream stop on the return to Chudleigh
In addition to a number of stills, I pulled together a short video of the day's ride. This one has a Krafwerk'esk backing track which I recently commissioned from my musically talented brother-in-law, aka SunDog, which includes sampling from my Tarmac's SRAM eTap chainset and FFWD free hub .. I hope you like it.
100km (60 miles) over 1800m (6000ft) of climb, in temps exceeding 25 degrees, made for quite an epic ride and one which was definitely a great social ride, as billed. My new year's resolution is holding firm.
At the turn of the year I made the resolution that I'd forgo all sportives this year in favour of doing a few epic club and social rides.
It took a bit of time to get going as it was May before my first epic ride, the Rapha 100 Ride which satisfied both of my passions, the title saying it all! July's investment in wireless gear change triggered the second, a ride on Dartmoor with club mates.
Seaton on the South Coast
This weekend, I joined one of my best buddies, a bit of a last minute thing, on a Coast to Coast 100 mile Ride. We did something similar with the club 3 years ago when we were still doing the all comers' 100 milers, bit this was a much quicker and less formal affair. It was perhaps a little bad form to skip my usual Coffee Club Ride, which as default ride leader (for reasons that are still a mystery to me) caused a bit of a stir, but sometimes one just has to do these things! It was a top ride, we had 2 coffee stops in Taunton at the 25 and 75 mile points and a tasty lunch overlooking Blue Ancor Bay on the north coast and on the return to took time out to watch a local steam train. It was a real boys' own adventure!
Watchet on the North Coast
Our next epic club ride will be a return to Dartmoor on 27th August to do the Classic's 100 km route.
July 1st this year marked the start of 2 key cycling events, the Seaton Cycle Fest and the Tour de France and how better to celebrate such an occasion than with a run. Yes, OK, not the first thing that would come to mind for a cyclist but was perhaps a precedent set for this on last year's TdF.
The idea for a run to mark the start of the CycleFest was one hatched by fellow club cyclist, press officer for British Athletics and Event Director for our 5km Seaton Park Run, who thought it would be good for existing runners who were also cycle club members, to wear their cycling jerseys for that Saturday's Park Run. Then a few weeks prior to the day, I happened to be unwrapping my TdF programme and the page fell open to a picture of Chris Froome running up Mont Ventoux, having just had his bike written off by a camera motor cycle during last year's race. Three words came to my mind 'Moves Like Jagger"? .. no but close, it was "Run Like Froome" .. and from this tag line I started a social media frenzy which galvanised my Cycling Club to do something that most would never normally do, and this was to enter a running event!
I mention Social Media, as I got two very impressive mentions .. Artist and author Mark Fairhurst tweeted me a picture of Roadrunner in lycra with the words Va Va Froome ...
And Froome himself 'Liked' a picture I then posted of our 'Friday Flyers' group out on a training run!
On the day itself we had an amazing turnout .. here are some snaps and yes, I'll probably be back to do it again sometime, but new shoes will be required as the soles on my 10 year old trainers self destructed after the first few metres running on cobbles!
Getting dangerously close to doing a product review, I thought having been asked by fellow blogger The Book Munchin, that I would do an update on my dramatic move to going wireless!
It's been 3 weeks now since I set to work, in the back of my local cycle shop, stripping out all the Shimano cables, wires etc to replace them with, well, air! Yes, I took the brave leap into the world of SRAM's wireless gear change.
Before I go on to share my experience of this leap into the brave new world of wireless cycling, it won't surprise you to learn, that my evenings are currently devoted to catching up on the goings on of that little cycle race taking place over there in France. Interspaced between the racing and ads, one of the presenters, cycling star Chris Boardman, will take to his bike to share a mountain climb, descent or sprint section and to cover a magazine slot looking at a piece of cycling technology. It was during one of his spins along a sprint finish that I spotted the tell tale battery blister packs on his derailures that could mean only one thing, he was running the same SRAM eTAP as I now have. It surprised me then to hear him say, in his later magazine pitch about the evolution gears, that he did not see the point of electronic gear change .. until, that is, I let him finish his sentence when he added ".. until SRAM released their eTAP"! Like me, he agreed that getting rid of wires and cumbersome batteries in down tubes was revolutionary. I felt vindicated in making my leap. Since then, I've seen that in addition to Boardman Bikes, many frame manufacturers have quickly taken to adopting eTAP.
The Tarmac eTAP en route to Dartmoor
Anyway, back to my experiences on the Specialized Tarmac, has eTAP lived up to expectation. Well yes and no. Firstly, the not so much: I've had a couple of times when the chain has dropped off the outside of the chainset. To be honest, I think this is just the way things are and it's probably both user error and a some slight adjustment that's still required. My Roubaix does this quite a bit too, but with a bit of quick thinking it's easy enough to get it back on the small ring while keeping the pedals going.
The other disappointment is that it is not 100% silent in all gears, there is still a little chatter in the mid range, particularly on the big ring.
But, on the plus side, there is no chatter either side of this, and in the small ring which I can stay in for much of the time, it's smooth and quiet. Also the move between gears with the flick of a finger is awesome, as too are the glowing gear numbers on my Garmin, letting me know just how many teeth I have left on my gears during a climb, avoiding that embarrassing moment of going for the next gear only to find I'm already there! Yes, I love my SRAM eTAP.
The Venge .. must remember it's not eTAP
There is one other challenge I've come across. When out on the Venge the other day, it was a blue sky day, so definitely a day for the orange Venge, and it was a Team Time Trial ride, so definitely a day for the aero speed machine. I got on the wheel of my mate in front and then proceeded to forget how to change gear! I got dropped in my failed attempts to shift to the big ring and had to put in a mammoth effort to catch them back up. There's only one answer, I'm going to have to fit eTAB to the rest of my fleet! "Dear Bank Manger ... "
I didn't write about this last year, but I've had an absolute mare of a time with my 2013 Tarmac gears, pretty much since I got the bike. Although running one of Shimano's top of the range sets, they have always been difficult to tune, suffer from frequent chatter, stiff gear change and chain drop. Last year I tried replacing all the cables; no small deal as they are integral and my local bike shop were less than pleased with how long this took. I even had to return it to them to do it all again! Still the problems persisted.
One option considered was to scrap the whole thing and get a new bike. A bit rash may be? Well, I thought so too, so I've taken the plunge and invested in a wireless electronic groupset running SRAM eTap. Although still pretty revolutionary, I preferred this over Shimano's Di2, as the latter would have had bulky cables and battery packs to thread through those dreaded down and cross tubes, and wireless seemed so much more forward thinking.
I went for the SRAM Red eTAP with the WiFli rear mech to handle cassettes up to 32 teeth. This enabled me to reinstall the Tarmac's original semi-compact chainset (52x36) which I replaced with a compact back in 2015 to handle the Devon hills; the reason being that I would be able to have more teeth on the rear due to both moving from 11-28 to 11-32 and from 10 to 11 speed. Trust me, this is the perfect setup for this area. This will allow me to spin on a climb and still pedal on even the steepest descents.
I set up in the corner of my friendly bike shop; more for moral support and having access to all the right tools. I felt the real bike mechanic! I had booked 2 days off work to complete the installation; I'm a project manager by profession, so knowing my mechanical capabilities, having plenty of contingency was key! As it was, the removal of old and the fitting of new bar tape, leavers, cassette, chainring and derailures, including tuning, took around 5 hours, so I was done and dusted before closing time.
I still have a little bit of fine tuning to do, but the change is dramatic. No more sore wrists pushing on cables and no clunking, rattling, missed gears to contend with. Yes, I'm going to have to keep an eye on battery levels so as to avoid returning from rides on a fixie and walking up hills, and I'm a little lighter in the pocket; but I now have the equivalent of a £6k bike for a fraction of the cost and one that works, looks great and should at least last me another year!
'Twas an epic Coffee Club Ride today in so many ways .. definitely the hottest ride to date, with Andy's Garmin recording 28 degrees in the shade! It was also the longest, as we broke with Coffee Club tradition and headed out to Honiton via Sidmouth on a 50+ mile pedal. We also added in 2 additional feed stops .. ice creams in Sidmouth and coffee in Honiton.
The plan had been to stop at Escott (a superb Country House coffee shop) as it was rumoured Dawn's ladies may have been calling in on their ride; as it was, we arrived just as they were leaving and so agreed to delay our next stop 'till Honiton. It was amazing to see so many ladies out today, the peloton seemed to stretch on for miles!
After Honiton we climbed up to the Stockland 7 mile straight via the Tue TT (Time Trial Club) route and an added narrow hill climb; which it's unlikely I'll ever find again. It was then a dash to the A35 and the most direct routes home for all.
A top ride, incredible weather and proud to see so many Pedallers crisscrossing the Devon lanes today
Last week I held my 3rd Treasure Hunt for the AVP, you know the crowd, the Axe Valley Pedallers, my cycling club. Before writing up this report, I checked back to last year's event and saw that we had 22 participants forming themselves into 9 teams. For this year's event, we had 20, making 5 full teams of 4; it couldn't have been planned better.
This year, we also had a change to the format, with a minimum £5 donation per team going to my club's charity, DAAT - Devon Air Ambulance Trust. Before continuing with the ride report, let me digress onto a related topic of charity donations. The AVP has always been a supporter of DAAT, indeed, I understand this dated back to the formation of the club in 2005. In recent years, however, the DAAT logo on all our jerseys has not necessarily reflected the level of financial support we've given to this great organisation. Last year, we agreed to increase our subs by £1 so that we could guarantee a flow of at least £100 of donations to them. This was certainly a step in the right direction, but it had the effect of removing any further incentive to raise more. So, in this year's AGM I fought to remove the sub levy while still committing to guarantee we'd donate at least £1 per member by the year end. So, what difference has this made? From all the events we've so fare run this year, we've already raised 2x our 2016 achievement, with £45 coming from the Treasure Hunt!
Back to hunt .. the route was mostly a well pedalled one for us pedallers; from Seaton, via Seaton Hole, to Beer, up past the caves and down to Branscombe beach. From here we climbed collecting treasure all the way to the observatory returning to the famous Donkey Sanctuary in Branscombe for refreshments and the debrief!
Our treasure hunters went on safari through the seasons in search of sculptures, counted petrified fungi, made calls from green telephone boxes, stared at skulls and journeyed back in time to when St Winifreds School Choir sung Grandma! Yes, it was a surreal adventure for our brave Pedallers! And if you're interested to know if our champions, Roger & Becca, walked away with the yellow jersey again, the answer is, no, we have new victors for 2017. I think teaming up with a fellow pedaller to devise the fiendishly challenging clues, threw all, just, I guess happens when the Times crossword changes its question setter!
I guess with the continuing success for this event, I'll be back again next year to do it all again.
Cycling and coffee are synonymous, so the creation of the virtual Cafe Network is truly inspired. Accessible and updated via a Facebook community, this network runs on Google maps and even has its own app!
I used it for the first time in planning where to stop on last weekend's Rapha 100 and would recommend it to any cyclist looking for a cycling friendly cafe. Just make sure you feedback you appreciation to both the cafe and the Cafe Network, and if you come across a cafe not yet published, make sure you recommend it via the Facebook page .. it's a revelation!
On the 23rd July there is, so I have learned this week, the Rapha Women's 100. This event has been run since 2013, coincidentally when I returned to cycling, to inspire women around the world to come together to ride 100 km all on the same day. Why mention this? Well, this weekend, I with 3 cycle club friends, rode the 50 miles out to the Rapha Archive store in Shepton Mallet and back; a ride I had planned earlier this year to coincide with my wife's 'girls weekend' away. Such rides have become something of a tradition, but it has been 2 years since one of these reached the100 mile mark, the last one being my Portland 100, which I rode with another 3 club mates, through Biblical weather to the Portland Bill lighthouse and back.
There was, however, no altruism in my Rapha 100, indeed when I came up with the idea, I had honestly not even realised that it was 100 miles. It was an idea hatched after visiting my favourite cycling apparel supplier and overhearing that cyclists arriving on 2 wheels may be given a cherished musette bag to carry home any purchases. Yes, we could have parked down the road and rolled in, but that just would not have been cricket!
Rapha 100 at Glastonbury
So, it was with 3 fellow Pedallers, Nick, Mark and Glenn, our Near Naked Man (a male charity thing), that we formed up on Saturday morning to pedal east into Somerset. Our route out took us through the market town of Crewkerne with a very welcomed tailwind. It was here that we made our first coffee stop at the cycling friendly Number 7 the Cafe we'd selected from the very useful Cycling Cafe Network, something which I'll share more on in the future.
Once on Somerset Levels, a very different landscape from our usual undulating Devon lanes, we enjoyed the rarity of being able to chaingang along pleasant straight and level roads. One challenging aspect of this type of cycling, however, is that one has to maintain a steady cadence over quite some distance without the respite of a down hill section; this places quite a different stress on your legs!
Pedalling Through the Rapha Store
We arrived in Shepton Mallet in time for lunch, but not before Nick and I had opportunity to fill musette bags with Rapha goodies! Rapha had its usual array of bubbly assistants keen to talk cycling who welcomed us to stow our bikes securely at the back of the store; what a welcome! After a lengthy shop and lunch, we set out on the return leg. The benefit of a tail wind on the way out was to be our nemesis on the way back, as our tanks were emptied pedalling into a strong headwind for most of the miles back to Axminster. At 75 miles, we had one more welcomed coffee & cake stop, at the Art Tea Zen in Langport, a much welcomed oasis as with the hours moving on, other establishments had long since closed for the weekend.
The final 25 miles were quiet ones, we'd shut down all non-essential communication services to redirect vital energy to our legs! It was a fantastic day spent pedalling across some lovely countryside. The weather was perfect throughout and although 5 miles from home, rain started to fall, even this was greeted with joy, as I was able to pull from my musette bag the newly acquired Rapha rain jacket. As I rolled into to Seaton my Garmin's digital display flickered back 109 miles, my Rapha 100 completed!
When I last wrote, I had just returned from watching 2 fellow pedallers do battle on a local cycling circuit. This weekend I had opportunity to attend a purpose built race circuit in Paignton, the Torbay Velopark. The purpose of the visit was not to race, no I would never put myself through that indignity, but for a cycle coaching session. This was with Martin Burrows of KoM coaching who put us through various drills on a 500m loop of the 1.5km Velopark circuit.
We learned the art of cornering without grounding the pedal, built confidence in close group riding leaning on and placing a hand on your partner's shoulder while pedalling and a range of manoeuvres while cycling in the peloton.
I had my rear view camera running through some of the session and this one here just shouted for a Salsa dance track to be added!
The day was amazing. We did have opportunity to do a little racing amongst ourselves too and this just confirmed my opening statement; I shall not be repeating this anytime soon.
After my worst start to the year since I started back cycling and indeed my most idle period of blogging since I started around the same time, I am hopeful that the arrival of spring will bring new shoots of life back into both.
Today, I cycled a 40 mile circuit with another Pedaller to see two of our club members compete in a Cat4 Cycle Race. The weather was mixed, we were soaked, frozen, boiled and fried, but there's nothing like the camaraderie you get with fellow cyclists.
I'm one of that new generation of working from home IT professionals which means that for at least the past 5 years my interaction with other germ carrying humans has been pretty much no existent. As germs do not travel over the internet I have therefore been free of any serious colds and flu bugs for most of this time. I remind myself of the Norther Exposure Bubble Man, do you remember him?
I haven't told you this before, because I'm not one to brag, but last year I was appointed Club Chairman for my Cycle Club. As with all 'great leaders' one has to have a first 100 days of planning and assessing where to take the organisation. This culminated in me pulling together the largest January AGM gathering in the club's history. The bad news was that 50 people crammed into an average sized restaurant dinning room is not going to be without it's fare share of bugs just on the look out for a susceptible host, preferably with an untested immune system. Yes, in leaving my bubble and mingling with society, I left myself open for a bug onslaught and a dose of the latest strain of man flu.
The following weekend, I managed a 40 mile Coffee Club ride but for the next two weeks, I was confined to my bubble. This morning was the first time since that I've had energy to clip in for a quick spin. All I could manage however, was just 10 miles, but it was great to be pedalling again and to feel the rush of air on my face for the first time in 2 weeks. My morning objective was to make it to Rousdon Bakery to meet up with Nick and Richard for some quality Coffee Club chat, I hope to be joining the full ride again next week.
There was no wearing of club yellow today as, coincidentally, both Nick and I had made the conscious decision to await the upcoming addition of the Coffee Club ride to the AVP calendar before sporting the club colours. One of our AGM decisions was that we would, with committee approval, add a new set of official rides to fill a gap we have in weekend riding and I have a committee meeting on Monday to formally agree the new 2017 schedule.
My roll back to Seaton was considerably quicker and had the added bonus of drafting Dawn's new ladies peloton making its way from Axminster to the Tram Station, the second pickup point. The creation of a ladies group was another output of my first 100 days, as with around 75% of members being male, this was something I felt needed addressing. Great to see so many out again today, I hope we do equally well with the Coffee Club ride once we go public.
It's hard to believe that I've now been pedalling on my Tour for almost 4 years, considerably longer that I could have imagined at the start. This past year has had a number of amazing highlights and this is my annual report.
January
Although I had a slow start, my GoPro was brought back into action to launch my new year in recording an epic 80 mile morning cycle up Halton Hill.
As is also the tradition, I set myself 3 cycling New Year Resolutions:
With the weather bringing that traditionally wintery wet stuff to our shores , I dusted off my turbo trainer for a bit of an in door garage workout; I needed to do something drastic if I was to achieve anywhere near my 30 minutes cycling a day set in my 3rd New Year's Resolution. For the first time since its purchase some 2 years ago, I stuck at this 'indoor' training right through to April. Setting myself not only the challenge of improving my spinning stamina but also coming up with inspiring training soundtracks, I span away the damp, dark, cool mornings with just a little too much enjoyment than was normal. I haven't quite reached that level of post Christmas feasting guilt, still high on cake and chocolate, but it will come. So I'll probably be at it again some time soon, and when I do I'll try to remember to share some of my favourite spinning mixes.
February also saw me achieve my 2nd New Year's Resolution, to build a Venge .. however, once I'd researched the cost of even the frame alone, I was beginning to think this would never be realised. Then, a note from a friend that a Venge was going for sale down in Cornwall caught my eye. Within days, for the price of a frame I ventured across the boarder to add a bright orange Venge to my Specialized stable!
March
I joined my local cycling club way back in May 2013 after a reading an article in the local paper of them having just returned from a French trip to Brittany. I had thought at the time that I'd like to do something like that someday and in March last year, to mark my 3rd anniversary of cycling, I finally took the plunge and joined the Pedallers on the French Foray.
April
With the evenings getting lighter and the days getting warmer, I started to think of leaving the garage for more of that outdoor kind of cycling. Lining up for the Hammer, my first sportive of the year, I would have been justified in thinking I'd ventured out just a little too early, as half the field took a look at the weather and failed to even turn up!
Back indoors, Ned Boulting arrived in Lyme Regis to test out his new 'Bikeology' stage show. I would not have believed then, as I tweeted after the show how the first haft was crap but the second was an improvement, that Ned would use this tweet in the final cut later in the year. My very good friend, Steve, went to see the November showing in Leamington Spa and as good as fell off his chair when he saw my Tour de Fitness tweet on the screen!
May
Come May, I was firmly back in the saddle, pedalling an impressive 485 miles by the month end. Just to put this in perspective, my next best performing month was February when I hit the turbo and boosted my road miles to 371. May was such a 'full-on' month, because I was late in getting in some serious training for the 22nd May Welsh Velothon.
The Velothon Finishers
Part of this training included the epic AVP Exmoor Classic in which my 3rd movie of the year will give you a feel for what went on.
June
On my annual summer vacation to France, I was again accompanied by one of my bikes. This year, with no Mont Ventoux climb in plan, it was the turn of my newest edition, the Venge.
The Venge in France
July
Back from France, I was thrown straight into helping to marshal Seaton's first Cyclefest Criterium organised by our neighbouring race club, the Chard Wheelers. This was followed shortly after by my return to the Dartmoor Classic, the first proper sportive I completed back in 2014. My goal this year was to win a silver medal, having missed this by no more than 3 minutes last time.
This year I was just 5 minutes off the gold, so roll on 2018! Other rides of note this month included the Blagdon Hill Descent for which I produced my last video of 2016 and the Red Arrows ride.
August
August was a bit of a non-event ..
September
The Tour of Britain returned to Devon in 2016 and our club used the Sidmouth to Haytor stage as the route for our annual 100 miler. I led the 'medio' 75 miler and loved it! This is the first year since 2013 that I've not done a 100 mile ride and I'm OK with this as a) I've nothing more to prove in that area and b) I've found that 100 km is my favoured distance, finding the last 40 or so miles a bit of a bore!
JRB leads out the Peloton
My final big ride of September was the Ax-pedition .. yes the local sportive I said I'd never do again! As it was, I had a great ride with new pedalling buddie, Nick .. although we agreed that we might as well have just been out for a Sunday ride (yes, I've waxed lyrically on this subject many times before) .
October
Another non-event month, although I did read a very good book .. Ned Boulting's 'On the Road Bike' which totally explained where he was coming from back in April in his Bikeology show!
November
November totally passed me by. Yes I did the usual rides, but nothing spectacular or of note happened. What this lack of activity encouraged me to do, however, was to assess that every November since the start of time (2013) has been the same!
December
As I drew the shutters across on 2016, I was pleased to see that a new Saturday ride Glenn and I had started a few months back was still running and seemed to be gaining a permanent place in our cycling calendar; the Coffee Club Ride.
My 2016 mileage was so close to that of 2015 but if you see that light yellow section in this year's bar, that was my early turbo work, I'm so glad I achieved this new year's resolution!
My year on year mileage
I'm still working on my 2017 New Year's resolutions, but as I have now completed my Tour of Britain closed sportives (England, Scotland & Wales) and with my love hate relationship of them, my current thought is to have a sportive free year!
In place of these expensive marshalled rides or the cheap and pointless Audax rides, having so enjoyed the Sidmouth to Haytor stage ride, I'd like to organise a series of similarly epic club rides in different areas of the SW. This needs more thought, so watch this space .. Indeed, after me saying this I would not be surprised if you were to see me enter my most despised February Audax, the Primrose Path! Either way, I'm looking forward to another year of cycling.
Back in October my passion for Rapha took an educational turn when they launched a jersey to commemorate the Peace Race. I had never heard of this but after a bit of background reading I learned that this was basically the cold war Tour de France for the Eastern European countries. The next event will be of no surprise to those who know me, I splashed out on not just the jersey, but also the limited edition game of the race which could only be purchased with a jersey! Oh yes, the book of the race too!
I kept it secure in its box for Christmas, having to then close my eyes to the 30% discount Rapha frustratingly applied to its ticket price in the Boxing day sales!
Anyway, I was thrilled to take the board game out on its first outing on New Years Day. No need for screens, VR or paddles here .. ace! ✌️
