Well, Georgie and I had good 3 days of cycling back to back in a mixture of gorgeous weather through to wind and rain.

Saturday we clocked up 152km (95miles) in the glorious sun cycling on some new roads we had never been on. Certainly a lot more hilly and interesting than normal. It was a HOT day with temps reaching 32 degrees. We managed to average 28kph (18mph) and have a maximum speed of 59kph

Sunday, the weather turned so we did a morning and late afternoon ride. We were chased home by thunder, lightening and rain! By the time we reached our garage door the heavens opened and all hell broke loose as the storms carried on late into the night. We managed a combined 65km (35miles)

Monday, the weather was cold, wet and windy… so naturally we got on the bikes to do a short run only to realise it turned into a longer run by my poor map reading (sorry Georgie). Also made a big mistake heading outwards with the wind behind us as we had the wind + rain in our faces for the return part of our journey. To add insult to injury the storms revisited us all over again as they chased us home. Really hope we don’t have bad weather on our journey! Anyhow we covered 88km (55miles), which was superb given the conditions.

- Bottles of water consumed = 12
- Bananas consumed = 6
- Soft squishy melted Mars Bars eaten = 2
- Flies eaten = lost count!
- Sore butt rating out of 10 = 8
- Punctures = 0

All in all a good weekends cycling…

Might as well read Target: missed, to be honest. Poor weather meant I had to abort my quest to ride up Snowdon, but instead I got turfed out of the car at Wrexham as we drove up to North Wales on Saturday morning, and cycled across to Snowdonia.

First challenge the Clwydian mountain range - not too bad on the way up (10-13% gradient), hit 44mph on the way down. On the bit of road you can just see on the left in fact - steeper downhill than it looks. Then on across country via Ruthin and Denbigh.

Snowdonia finally hove into view (see above), but I completely underestimated the final challenge. Pen’s Mum lives up a singletrack lane that brings new meaning to the word steep. It makes Streatley Hill seem like a walk in the park. A 200 metre (600 foot) vertical climb in about a mile. Here’s the signpost…

I’ve previously failed to cycle up there on my mountain bike because the front wheel wouldn’t stay on the ground because it’s so steep. This time I made it, but it nearly broke me. Even in bottom gear it was all I could do to simply stand up and crank each pedal. Pen said I was grey when I got to the house…

End result was 1,372 metres of vertical in just 43 miles at an average of 15.9mph

I was faced with a bit of a dilemma last Thursday. Go out on the bike - it was after all a rather lovely evening - or sample the delights of the Porsche 911 GT3 RS. Proving that it’s definitely petrol that runs in my veins, the latter won - initially.

All was going swimmingly (had son Luke in the passenger seat for a late night treat) when all of a sudden it blew a coolant hose…

Had to limp it home, call Porsche Assistance who told me they couldn’t come and fetch it until 11pm. Since my car was at Porsche HQ in Reading, I then hopped on my bike and pedalled the 14 miles to Reading along the A4, at an average speed of 21.8mph. Quite happy with that…

Many thanks to Hugh who has organised the signs for the car - we now look a truely professional outfit with our team physio driving our Cycle4Charity team bus.

Don’t worry we have not traded the camper van for a mini - the signs are magnetic….

Training continues with a ride to Holland - see below:

Only joking - headed out on a ride yesterday and passed Wilton Windmill, new cycling shoes made a difference in the comfort stakes and enjoyed the solo ride covering 62 miles under cloudy (but dry) skies. Unlike today that is grey and wet, may put training on hold as have covered 233 miles in the last 7 days.

Well last night Georgie and I heard the news we had been waiting for during the last 2 weeks. Julia (my sister) gave birth to a lovely boy called Dillon weighing in at 6.5lbs at roughly 11.45pm. Chris kindly buzzed through, all excited, soon after the event to spread their news.

…and the news is they are all healthy, well and resting up!

Chris for all those who may not realise has been helping us a lot with this website. Naturally I think he will be distracted now for the coming weeks - chuckle!

Anyway, I’m sure you will all join me in congratulating them on their new arrival and here’s the 1st picture I’ve got from Chris… Hopefully Chris will be along to post some more pics when he gets time and tell us a little bit more details.

May is the month of new bikes for Georgie & I having been doing the majority of our training on our 7yr old machines to date we are enjoying the new treats. Tonight we took our new German custom mountain bikes out for a spin in the glorious evening weather. Nice easy 1hr ride through the local woodlands.

Early reports confirm they are a huge improvement over our last machines. Kitted out with full XT, Mavic CrossTrail wheels, Magura Julie disc brakes and Rockshox. Bikes weigh in at around 25.6lbs so reasonably light for full suspension. They are more geared for XC / Endurance than full on downhill. Both bikes are exactly the same except as you can see for the metallic colours. My burnt orange is lovely but I’m beginning to prefer Georgies Night Fall Blue.

With the weekend ahead of me I wanted to get a few miles done and test myself so on Saturday I headed for the infamous Streetly Hill.

Getting there was a joy as I rolled solo through the english countryside with the wind on my back.

I arrived at the top of Streetly Hill with a sinking feeling as I knew that I ultimately had to cycle back up, but I may as well enjoy the trip down - It was a BUZZ - as the bike picked up speed everythig started to go blurry as I left the car that was behind me at the top dissappearing backwards - I glanced down to see the speedo flash 47mph then 49mph…. corner approaching fast - one more second then hit the brakes….Just made the corner using all available road space and keep on braking before the traffic lights at the bottom - Check max speed…..

Then had to climb the Streetly lung & leg buster - gritted teeth and determination saw me to the top, back home in a head wind after that was tough but 50mph was in the bag.

On Sunday I rode with the Newbury Road cycle club (21 of us in total) and joined by a few of the Army cycle team who are doing the route of the Tour De France 5 days ahead of the race, hard core stuff. Learnt lots and a great morning cycling, Thanks to Nigel from the Newbury Road club, may well become a member soon…

Tom

Saturday - 48 miles
Sunday - 59 miles
Top Speed - 50.2mph

It’s amazing how much fitness you loose having not cycled for over a week when flawed by a nasty cold. We’ve been out of action completely for 8 days and naturally I believe I really had man flu!

Aside from being frustratingly ill we had a lot to be excited due to the arrival of our new bikes supplied by Mark from BANJO Bikes. They safely made the trip from the UK to Munich last Sunday and arrived undamaged. I spent most of Tuesday & Wednesday evening putting them together ready for there maiden journey this weekend.

Georgie and I finally took to the roads on Saturday morning and clocked up an easy 40miles, but the lungs were certainly suffering and legs a tad stiff. Thankfully the new bikes whisked us smoothly down the roads as we averaged at least 4-5mph more than what we normally do compared to the mountain bikes. All in all the 1^st impressions of our new bikes were great! Just need to bed the saddles in…

Sunday, we took to the roads again, on a glorious day! and clocked up another 70miles, but we really suffered. Even though our new bikes made light work of everything, we just felt ****! Coupled with Georgie not enjoying a new women’s specific saddle she had bought, we ended up swapping saddles just to get home. I have to say the women’s saddle didn’t do it for me either!

All in all we are loving having the bikes (thanks Mark), but we have definitely lost some fitness which is frustrating… oh hum…

After a day sat in the office what better to do than get out on the bikes and clear away a few cobwebs?

The sun was out and with the fresh smell of spring all around us Ollie and I headed south from Newbury through Faccombe (great name) and on. Saw a few birds of prey circling overhead and tackled some decent climbs, coupled with the downhill fun stuff the other side. Two hours went very quickly, if only all days could be like this….

Miles = 37.5
Average Speed = 17.2mph (Max 42.6mph)
Metres climbed = 720 metres
Flies Swallowed = Tom 2, Ollie 1
Rabbits run over = 1 (Not my fault)

Tom and James picked the perfect weekend to have a break from training. They were on Al Keiron’s stag do in Bristol on what must have been one of the wettest weekends of the year.

I really wanted to try to clock up 100 miles on the bike this weekend, but being a lily-livered so-and-so couldn’t persuade myself to get up at 6am on a Sunday morning when the raindrops were dancing a fandango on the roof. However, the clouds broke up briefly on Sunday evening so I got out for a 45-miler over around Pangbourne and Goring - including the infamous Streatley Hill.

More importantly James swung by on his dash back to Heathrow to pick up his and Georgie’s new bikes - fresh in their boxes from Banjo Cycles.

Ollie