Things are Certainly Moving!

Well, things are getting very exciting! I am now ‘officially’ part of the cycle challenge for July ’09 – my application has been, as far as possible, accepted, I have filled in all the relevant forms to tell people who my next of kin is and how old I will be when I do the challenge and that if I die in during the event I won’t press any charges against the organiser! I have my travel insurance, I have my cycle helmet and I have a funny feeling this is going to be amazing!

Yesterday (Wednesday 15/10/08) was my first proper experience of cycling on the road for about 10 years! All the training we have done so far has been on closed roads through parks and gardens and very quite streets and for the first time I had to deal with 2 roundabouts, several right hand turns and the Barry Island causeway! Now, this may sound reasonably OK, you may be thinking ‘what’s the big deal here?’ but even when I am in remission (as I have been for the past 11 months) balance is one of my biggest problems; when we are riding up the quite side streets near the house, it doesn’t matter so much if I am all over the road but along the causeway – a route that is favoured with both learner drivers and boy racers, it is a little more problematic! I have been quite worried about riding on the roads, a fear that I knew I should face sooner rather later, especially as on day one of the challenge we have to ride out of London and on day five into the centre of Paris to have a photo taken under the Eifel Tower and I don’t think there will be many quite side streets involved! Anyway, now that I have done it once – I feel more comfortable about doing it again.

The plan was to cycle this weekend to Cosmeston Lakes and back as the first proper challenge of our training, however, this is a deadline we aren’t going to make. I think that we could physically do it and it would be good to see how we manage, but I am going away for the weekend. There are so many things going on at the moment, Penni was away last weekend, I am away this, work often means that I am so tired when I get home that the last thing I can do when I get home is cycle however many miles and as the evenings are drawing in, the need for lights and high visibility attire is ever increasing, but time to go and buy the blinking stuff keeps running away from us. Anyway, the plan is that we will do this landmark trip the weekend after (25/10/08). That is the half term week and we are planning to get a fair amount of training in then to really kick start our programme!

As I mentioned in the last instalment, I bought to help us in our training, a 6 function wireless cycle computer – but another bonus for not going to Cosmeston this weekend is that I still haven’t been able to get the blinkin’ thing working properly! Pesky! After the ride we did yesterday it would be nice to know exactly how far we did but we haven’t a clue. We can’t even drive the route and measure the distance with the car’s trip because cars are not allowed along the prom or in the old harbour! It should be brillo! It should tell me how far I have done since I ‘installed’ the computer, how far I have done in a day and how long that has taken me, what my average speed it and all sorts – but I am still in the dark! Never mind! By the next time I write I will have it working! (Or I will have bought another one!)

Until then, take great care all,
Loadsa love, Jx