sunday ride

Today Paul came for a ride on his new bike.

Today was to be 'un paseo muy fácil y tranquilo' after yesterdays tough ride and to save our legs for the Vuelta a Ibiza next weekend. The bad weather that had been forecast for today had moved on to tomorrow.....hurrah! And the trails were dry in the most part. My legs felt surprisingly good but we kept it steady.

This time next week I'll be wearing one of the above snazzy Vuelta a Ibiza maillots. I've seen Bartolo wearing one and they are fabulous!

40km in 2h.30m

Saturday - uppers and downers

After reading about hgh recently I decided that we should try to maximise our production for recovery :)

So instead of our proposed long steady ride to Cripplegate Lake we decided to join Roger on his first of the year Uppers and Downers road ride - But we'd do it on the mtb's :)

The uppers and downers is Roger's idea of a 3 hour non stop ride on the local hills. To keep it moving, - whenever a person reaches the top of a hill if there's anyone behind them still climbing, they have to go back down the hill to where the last person is and climb again. this means no waiting at the top.

Normally, Roger gets only a small number of riders, but this week the main groups were riding to Eastbourne for the annual swrc seaside trek.

It was a tough ride and gradually it whittled down to 11 riders, the others, who'd just tagged on because their normal group wasn't around, peeled off for a flatter ride.

I think what made it tough was no one wanted to be beaten up a hill by someone on a mountain bike and me Jane didn't want to be last :)

Jane cramped on the last but one hill and eased back a bit. (she had done a gym leg routine the day before consisting of dead lifts and lunges...doh!) I weighed her bike when we got home, it was 29lbs !!

tuesday ride - othg

Today's ride was to Sumner's Pond in Barnes Green, my least favourite tea stop of all. It has the smallest, most expensive tea cakes, but it's a good hilly route back so I put up with it :)

The forecast sunshine didn't appear and in fact we had some proper rain on the way back. Andy duly kicked off on the first of the climbs on the way home, and I duly followed :) I don't think Andy was as strong as usual, because I stayed with him everytime he attacked. Steve managed to close the gap each time we eased a bit, but couldn't hold us on the steeper stuff. We regrouped at the top and pushed on to Rusper.

There's always a burn up into Newdigate from Rusper. As I don't have much of a sprint and we're not far from home, I like to use the opportunity to get on the front and bury myself on this section. Everyone else is quite happy to sit in and contest the sprint :)

sunday ride - coombe botty

No ride yesterday because we went in to see Greg at the shop, for a social visit and to buy some bits for Ibiza. Also we needed a rest day. Jane was tempted by a Giant Anthem, but kept her money in her pocket :)

It threw it down all night and when we woke, neither of us felt like a ride. So I texted Greg, Jane texted Paul and we cried off from a comfortable bed :)

By 11 o'clock the sun was shining brightly and we couldn't resist a short road ride on the mountain bikes. We have a shortish hilly route just for such situations as this - Coombe Botty is about thirty km and a straight out and back ride.

The route across Ranmore to the A25 is very popular with roadies, it's part of the Tour of the Hills sportif organised by the CTC. So on Saturdays and Sundays there are scores of riders training on these hills. The traditional gnarly old road riders we see all year being swelled in numbers by the Triathletes and the newer specific Sportif riders at this time of year.

The tri guys grind towards us on huge gears and tri bars, usually wearing shorts or a skin suit if it isn't frosty ;-) (I imagine that they must wear thongs in summer)

The sportif guys are almost the opposite, sitting bolt upright with a huge stack of spacers under a very short stem spinning furiously on tiny gears. To a man they wear thick bright fluorescent gore-tex and a buff under the helmet.

It's great to see so many people on bikes.

tuesday ride - othg

A no gloves and no overshoes day .......hurrah!!

Today's destination was Balcombe tea rooms, so it was going to be lumpy. It was bright and warming up considerably when we left the carpark at just after ten. The pace was brisk from the off today, as Sabin got on the front. From then on each hill we met was a sprint from bottom to top. This gradually whittled the group down until only five of us were left and we chose the longer hillier option to Balcome via Staplefield. I was glad to be with the group, but I knew that I was the weakest :) Me and Andy Ellis worked hard on the front up the long climbs to Balcombe, knowing that Cliff and Andy F were gearing up for the sprint. I buried myself to get third in the sprint, only to find the tea shop closed........ This meant another long climb to High Beeches tea rooms. My legs deserted me :(

After tea and toast on the patio in the sunshine, my legs had recovered a little and we had a good hard ride back where I did a spell on the front across Rusper.

A good hard three hours on the bike - Fingers crossed, I think my fitness is on the way back.....maybe :)

sunday ride - cripplegate lake

With the Vuelta a Ibiza only three weeks away, we needed to put in a long steady mtb ride to match the length of the second stage. It hasn't rained much for the past two weeks, so we headed of to Cripplegate Lake at Southwater. There was very little mud and the trails were in pretty good condition, even Rad lane was almost rideable.

A good four and a half hours and 85km on the mtb.

And the temperature peaked at 16' C ......hurrah!

tuesday ride - othg

Today was my third Tuesday in a row with the over the hill gang and it was hard, very hard. It doesn't feel as though I'm getting fit at all this year. My legs were sore from the start today and it was a struggle to stay near the front of the group. Andy is going so well that I can't get near him at the moment.

In fact Andy said to me ' You've got to keep taking that bad medicine'

Sunday ride

Another bright clear day - blues skies abound and the mighty Dinsdale is coming for a ride...hurrah. The thermometer was hovering around 7 degrees with a fierce easterly wind exfoliating any exposed skin as we set off. The thermometer didn't really change much for the whole ride, but there was a huge difference between being in the sun and being in the shade. In shaded areas there was still thick ice at the edges of the side roads. So the ride alternated between riding on beautiful sunbathed vernal sections and deep mid winter sections when out of the sun. Though the overall feeling was optimistic, that spring was winning the fight and we'd soon be having salad for every meal :)


We put in steady three hours, attacking all of the hills. Jane cleared the steep climb of Gatton Bottom with ease, after complaining for the past month that the reason she fluffed it the last time was because Paul 'just got off'!! in front of her :) This time she made sure she was first into the climb :)

On the last climb Julie sneakily attacked and took the last climb!!!

Saturday ride

Today we rode to Southwater on the road. Greg gave us a Cannondale cross bike a couple of years ago and Jane has ridden it sporadically. Although we have ridden thousands of kilometres on road bike in the past. Jane has never really got on with dropped bars, choosing to ride the mtb as much as possible :) So recently, I put some wide mtb bars and thumb shifters on it. Result! She went out with Paul yesterday and she loves it. :)

We've been having some lovely clear days recently and spring is definitely in the air..hurrah!

I put a few digs in to test my legs a bit today and Jane was right on my wheel. Though later sore legs from the day before and the heavy 35mm tyres on her bike conspired to hold her back a bit. My instructions are now to replace them with some 23mm light rubber I have been saving. :)

kelly kettle

My sister Kate works with the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme and so does a lot of outdoorsy stuff. So for my birthday she bought me a kelly kettle as they use them succesfully on the scheme.

I've been itching to try it for a while now, but finding dry wood in Surrey has been difficult recently :) Today when I was putting out some cardboard for the resyk, I wondered if it work with cardboard as a fuel.



Well it does and it boiled a pint of water in a less than five minutes. Excellent!

The downside is that it's a bit smokey and I now smell of burnt cardboard :)



A great bit of kit which I can't wait to take camping for my morning coffee.