Difficult dimensions and MP’s in lycra

Posted on 24th July 2010 in Epic Rides, I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike, LLC ride Aug 2010

Yes, you did read that right.

This morning I entered into one of those conversations which by turns seems the most natural in the world but also quite the oddest. I ended up advising an MP on how to ride a bike through London safely and without chafing and how to not have his steed nicked at the other end. The MP in question isn’t quite the normal MP aside from this, which is why I am following him on Twitter, because despite not being a massive fan of the party he is a member of, he asks the right questions and listens to good sensible answers when it comes to matters IT which is something for the other blog I write but which basically encompasses the ludicrous Digital Economy Act and the fact that the man disobeyed whip instructions for the first time in his career because he believed something was so wrong and stood up and clearly stated so. I respect the man immensely for that, not all of us would be so brave in that position, thought it may be easy to catcall and deride from the comfort of our sofas.

Anyway, jokes about hiding lycra aside the bloke asked, to his credit, so I answered as best I could with helmet and glove recommendations and pointed him at either M & S cycling shorts or other makes should he get bitten more seriously by the bug. Which of course he will, because everyone does once they’ve tasted the joy of just getting on and going. Or at least I hope so because we could be less blessed with a vocal promoter of our favoured mode of transport, believe me.

Leaving politics well and truly behind because that’s a story for another day and usually relates to public access in terms of this blog, I am having dimension issues.

You’d never believe the agonising the size of my hydration pack rucksack could cause. Actually, possibly men wouldn’t believe it – I suspect those among you of the fairer persuasion may understand where this is going immediately. I am, in 1 week, embarking into hitherto unchartered territory and I haven’t got a damn clue what I want to pack into where. So, because the inevitable will happen and this blog will become slightly Leeds Liverpool focused for a bit, my packing list stands at:
1 litre bottle on bottle holder on bike
2 litres water in hydration thingy
Rucksack to hold this and to also hold:
pump, basic toolkit, inner tube, waterproof gloves, spare socks, camera (?), iphone, earphones, buff, jelly babies, cash, lock(?), flapjacks, waterproof poncho thingy (?), mile matrix for the canal from town to town.

I’m going to be coming home each evening. I live 2 miles from the halfway point of the canal, my other half was supposed to be coming with me and sodding off for 4 days entirely without him seems callous, and frankly cheap is good and I want my own bed. I’m also not quite brave enough to do something entirely by myself. There, I said it :O) I’m also planning on getting in a bath full of painfully hot water & not coming out again until my muscles are convinced they’ll never be cold again. I am however, utterly overwhelmed and grateful for the offers of crash space. The people responsible have been filed under ‘epic’ and plans are afoot for cake swapping to not be entirely 1 way (I’ve got to learn to bake a cake first!)

I am so excited. Honestly. There’s bits of trepidation in there and I know from experience of things long ago that I shall be a pile of nausea & dizziness at Liverpool come the start, but I don’t know anything quite as blissful as discovering the unknown on the back of a bike. And as someone pointed out earlier, if riding my bike normally destresses me and allows me to think and come up with bonkers ideas heaven only knows what’s going to have occured by the time I get to Leeds. Probably the next idiot idea.

Still haven’t decided on nail varnish colour. But it’s going to have to go with pink and grey with lilac highlighted gloves.

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Ask and ye shall receive

Posted on 24th July 2010 in Beating the monster, Epic Rides, Feel the fear, do it anyway, LLC ride Aug 2010

Except I didn’t ask.

Nevertheless, I have received – offers of beds for the night from people I’ve never met (some of whom are about the most quietly inspiring people I’ve ever come across), cake, tea, send off parties, greeting at the other end bods, endlessly epically useful advice which I am already acting on – there’s an order for another pair of fingerless riding gloves out there – and I’m slightly overwhelmed by the encouragement and shine coming from people I’ve never met.

It’s a wonderful thing. I think it might be a thing. I noticed it among climbers before I stopped going thanks to the inability to stand on tip toe suddenly for more than 10 seconds (it’s kind of crucial, you know?). The camraderie, support, encouragement and twinkle which comes from a community who perhaps know that from the outside looking in their sport looks a bit bonkers but love it so much and with such dedication that sharing it and passing it on is as natural as breathing.

I’m planning more for this little trip than I’ve ever really needed to plan for anything before. It feels like a mini adventure, something entirely for me – and I don’t ever do anything entirely for me. I am not the sort of person to choose to be alone for long hours at a time. But I’m also not the person I was 12 months ago either, and the joy of pedalling and exploring unknown territory will keep me going.

I’m not going to do a recce of anything but the pass over the top of Foulridge tunnel – because there isn’t time, and because of the lure of the unknown. I’ve always been the kind of person who, as a passenger, would buy a Michelin map and proceed to direct my lovely other half down ‘interesting’ roads – one memorable occasion resulted in arm cramp from the number of successive hairpins in the Pyrenees. But you can’t view life from behind a car window – the spirit is obviously there – I read of others noticing tracks disappearing off the side of the road and thinking ‘that looks interesting’ and I do too. The only difference is fitness and a skill level which could deal with anything the trail could throw at me.

So perhaps, ultimately, riding for the longest I’ve ever ridden (I’m not convinced I’m going to stop at 30 miles a day which is why people asking me where I’ll be on certain days is proving tricky because I would like the option to keep going if there’s anything in my legs to do so) on my own is not the challenge it appears to be. I know have the determination and focus and bull headed obstinancy, though I don’t know where it came from, but here it is. It’s fitness and stamina I don’t have, but all I need to do is track the miles, pace myself, track my breathing and not let it get out of control and look ahead and that’s it. That’s all. The rest will come from the joy of freedom, I suspect, which I know sounds cheesy, but for someone who was once very timid, shy and nervous of the world, I think the victory will be mine 5 miles from Liverpool. Getting to Leeds will be the icing on the cake, but I’ll get there.

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Je ne regrette rien

Posted on 22nd July 2010 in Beating the monster, Epic Rides, LLC ride Aug 2010

It’s all Minxs fault.

Well actually it is, and it isn’t. Fault is also the wrong attribute, really, it was more a collision of circumstances. Firstly, I was directed at the Minx Compendium, which is a blog of girly mountain biker inspiration.  It contains tales of amazing things, amongst tales of simply pedalling. The combination lead me to muse much last night and I went to bed with ideas and aspirations whizzing around in my head. There were other things, of course, which contributed, which involved enthusing and much use of the words ‘well why can’t we?’ or rather much of the sentiment embodied in those words, at least.

Fast forward to this morning and I saw a word I didn’t want to see on my notes. I cried.

5 hours later, I discovered that the week I’ve booked off between old and new jobs because the next two weeks promise to be incredibly stressful as I try and squeeze 6 weeks work into 2, will be spent alone as he can’t get leave to come and camp with me in fields of green near towns full of books.

So while I was packing my office up (long story, new roof on our portacabin, I currently work in a refuse depot, yes super glam I know), I started thinking. Better half and I had been talking about riding the Leeds Liverpool from end to end. It’s 127 miles and we’re pretty much exactly half way from either end. It’s a known quantity, I love the view of life you get from the canal, I love the narrowboats, am fascinated by the engineering of the locks and the urban sprawl looks very different from it. My legs also don’t hurt when I’m riding my bike, something which I must confess is quite attractive at the moment.

So I decided.

Thing is, once I’ve decided, well that’s kind of it, really. So a vague plan is forming, lovely ladies are offering cake, and more importantly, many people are understanding why I want to do this without needing to know any of the background. And somehow, just knowing that there are people who think this is a perfectly normal sane thing to do means I am now viewing it as something perfectly sane and normal to do. Telling our admin girls what I planned to do was a bit of a bump back to earth but I think they too know why I want to and that even if you’re not the sort of person who needs to ride/climb/hike/camp on something because it’s there, perhaps there’s an element of ‘well I can see why you might want to but that’s really not my idea of fun’.


I’ll admit right now, it’s point proving. It’s utterly selfish. It is because it’s there, but it’s also because it’s the first. I want it to be the first of many adventures, because I want to go on adventures. Recently, there has been a slowly growing realisation that there is a thin girl inside me trying to get out. I have a friend called Clare who does amazing things, who has run the Bob Graham Round in under 24 hours, who’s run across mountains in the middle of the night and I know her and I know she is not super human, only super determined.  For years and years I’ve watched this intelligent smart woman bound up and down mountains, run the OMM and nearly dissolve and push herself the absolute limits of her capabilities. Slowly but surely a curiosity has been building in me too, wondering if I could do that but on a bike. So this is where I start to find out, I guess, whether I can ride 30 miles something a day, every day for 4 days and just keep going, through the inevitable rain. Maybe this is where I start to prove that fat girls can ride hard and fast too and that in the process of proving that, the fat girl will actually become thin.

All I need to do now is decide what to wear and what colour nail varnish I’m wearing :O)

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