18th April - South Bucks 10 Bridges Audax (80 miles)
Joined some friends on an Audax called the Ten Bridges expecting a flat river ride.
Started at Jenners, crossed over the Thames to climb past Cliveden, then drop down to Cookham and go over Winter Hill to Marlow, Henley Ditton Pastures, and eventually come through Windsor Great Park.
Nice ride, but not the flat run I had been expecting!

5th May - Reading Loop (100 miles)
As B2B (Brest to Brest) is hopefully flat, I decided to sort out a 100 mile flat ‘training loop’ which I tested out.
Was a nice ride, I mentioned it to various Loiterers and it is now going to be a led 100 mile loop on 2^nd June.
Being about as flat as I could find, I hope everyone who joins will complete the distance and has a nice day out, and discover that long distances don’t have to be a major physical challenge.

17th & 18th May - Stoke Poges to Brecon and back (315 miles)
The running club had a mountain biking weekend away, which was great fun, lots of off road, and plenty of LOW gear hill work.
Due to a misunderstanding with my car share partner, my bag was left in the bunkhouse, so a cycle out to retrieve it was the obvious thing to do.
160 miles each way would be a good test of my plan, and also test my proposed logging of trip method:- an hourly photo of my watch and cycle computer, and one of the area I am in.

This worked well, allowing me to create a spreadsheet to calculate hourly average speed, and have a geographical set of pictures.
I am hoping to have a terrain/ general feel photo guide across Europe, as I am pretty sure after a few days, the order I passed through where will quickly become jumbled.
A bonus I hadn’t foreseen was it gave me something to do other than just ride my bike, so even on boring sections I could ‘distance and clock watch’, and try and calculate what distance I would have at the hour mark.
I also discovered that my USB phone lead is for data transfer not charging, the new one I ordered was for the wrong model phone (hopefully replacement will arrive shortly).

Unfortunately, my bag was not available at Brecon, so I stayed at TalyBont Youth Hostel (very nice) as my planned acquisition of sleeping bag, change of clothes hadn’t worked, and a night ride back ill equipped would not have been sensible.


Speed analysis:-
First 100 miles, with tail wind, 11.85 mph. Middle 100 miles, in Wales including towpath and hills so not comparable. Last 100 miles, with head wind, 11.62 mph.
Overall average for the 315 miles of 11.32 mph, duration of 28 hours. So I conclude no real drop in performance for second day.
Had aches in upper abdomen from riding on drops for so long, and achy left arm (believe this was due to damaged headset bearings which I have now sorted).
My knees where stiff over night, didn’t ride Saturday, but felt really good on Sunday club run and hills all seemed flat after Wales.

1st June - Stoke Poges to Emsworth and back (120 miles)
Day trip to visit my sister and family. I left at 5.45am on a warm morning heading south to Emsworth. The roads were very quiet through Windsor with the world not really waking up till I was well south of Ascot.
I tried a few cycle paths, but most dumped me in a dangerous position trying to regain my place in the traffic flow.
One rather annoyingly diverted me completely off the A31 and dumped me in a village with the only sign being for the ‘Christmas Pie Cycle Route’? Luckily I had a small scale map, and found my own way back on track.
I used the A3 to get over the South Downs, which conveniently has a big cutting, and arrived at my sisters at 10.15 (4.5 hours 60 miles).
A biggish meal and 3.5 hour stop made the start of my return trip feel a bit sluggish, and following the back roads it felt hillier.

2nd June - Loiterers Century Ride (100 miles)
Four friends joined me for the days ride. As a first century ride for some of them we kept the pace low, 12 hours for the 100.
They all liked the route, but requested I find a 100 mile loop that is about 20 miles shorter!
For the full ride story click this link.

18th & 19th June - Stoke Poges to Norwich and back (263 miles)
Rode out to meet up with the Loiterers on their summer holiday.

The journey out was good with a strong tailwind and not much traffic, I averaged 15mph.
I passed the Verlum Cycle Club in St Albans and felt a little rude shooting past, but the pannier weight just pushed me down the hill!
Near Newmarket I found a piece of wire and tied my broken mudguard stay back together.
I arrived at my in-laws holiday cottage as they were just mentioning to the landlord I may drop in, he being a touring cyclist made me very welcome.
After tea and cake I continued to the Loiterers hotel where after a couple of beers and a 3 course meal was ready to return to test my borrowed tent.
This allowed the toe of my sleeping bag to get damp, but was very successful considering I had 5 hours steady rain and the water was pooling on the tent at that end.
141 miles 11.5 hours.

The return trip started at 9.30 as I waited for rain to ease up. The headwind was less but present, the traffic was horrendous.
The A11 toward Mildenhall was very bad with lots of trucks. I was stopping every mile to let the traffic clear and headed cross country soon after.
I had a rattle and removed the broken stay and blamed any other noises on the mudguard.
At home when removing the double panniers I discovered one missing rack bolt top and broken rack bolt bottom. I was both lucky and impressed the remaining two fixings had held.
The headset was badly pitted so I have replaced it with a sealed unit and have repaired the rack and mud guard.
All in all a very good test of the bike and equipment.
122 miles 12 hours