'Send-off' party gets bigger

Had a text a couple of days ago from Granville, our pre-ride mechanic, announcing that he'd booked a hotel in Glencoe to coincide with our start date on the 23rd July. Granville will be bringing along his wife, Marie, and their pug, Nero, for a little holiday and they'll be there to wave us off at the start of our ordeal - not to mention for dinner and a couple of beers the evening before we hope (only a couple mind).

Thanks for going to such lengths to give us some extra support Mr & Mrs Smith (and Nero).

Moral support

As the newest Mrs Smith in the family, I've decided I ought to lend some moral support to my husband and brother-in-law and will be cycling with them for the last three days of the bike ride. It hardly matches up to the amount of effort the boys will be putting in, but hopefully it will help motivate them to push for the finish (rather than them hating me for being full of energy when they are running on empty!).

I would have liked to have done more of the route with them, but with already having taken three weeks out of work for a wedding and a honeymoon, time off is in short supply (it's a good excuse to miss out on some of those tough Scottish/Yorkshire hills anyway...) :-)

The routes!!

Well, here they are in all of their glory, the ride broken down into 12 days, complete with hotels we're staying at and bike shops en route, just in case we get into real trouble.


Day 1 (23rd July) - Glencoe to Balloch
Day 2 (24th July) - Balloch to Ayr (part 1) (part 2)
Day 3 (25th July) - Ayr to Annan
Day 4 (26th July) - Annan to Middleton-in-Teesdale
Day 5 (27th July) - Middleton-in-Teesdale to Threshfield
Day 6 (28th July) - Threshfield to Holmfirth
Day 7 (29th July) - Holmfirth to Tutbury near Burton
Day 8 (30th July) - Tutbury to Shrawley near Droitwich
Day 9 (31st July) - Shrawley to Stow-on-the-wold
Day 10 (1st Aug) - Stow to Ogborne St George near Marlborough
Day 11 (2nd Aug) - Ogborne St George to Hindon near Shaftesbury
Day 12 (3rd Aug) - Hindon to Boscombe (FINISH)


So that's it...a SINCH! 

4 weeks today!!

Well, 4 weeks today at around this time we should have just finished off a substantial breakfast at the Clachaig Inn and be getting ready to head up to Glencoe to the official start. We'll meet Mom who, along with Jean & Dave Boucher, will make up our small but welcome send-off party.

The first job will be to find somewhere suitable for the first of dad's 'sprinklings' and then we'll head off south into the hills - staring the full 750 miles and 12 days in the face.

Now, at this point, I expect not to be daunted by the task ahead - it will, I'm sure, dawn on us at some point early on, but I can't decide if it will be that morning or a couple of days in (by which time I'm sure the aches getting out of bed will kill any enthusiasm we may have had for the day's ride ahead!).

In preparation for the Scottish summer weather I had something of an impromptu training ride this weekend. Although it was only a couple of miles long in the rain, it gave me an idea of how miserable this could become if for some reason the weather is anything but glorious, wind-free sunshine. Encouragingly, I wasn't beaten by this downpour, although a whole day's worth of it (or more!) may be a different prospect.

'Moggy' maintenance

At a car show with his pride and joy!

Dad's beloved 1956 split screen Morris Minor 1000, a.k.a. 'moggy', is going for an MOT this Saturday, courtesy of Phil, an old friend of Dad's and a good friend of the family.

He's got to replace a wiper blade and fit a bolt that is missing from somewhere (Dad left a note on the windscreen to remind him to do it this spring before he started using it again - it doesn't see daylight during the winter months) before dropping it off its jacks and getting it started. Having tried it last week without too much difficulty (after many months) it shouldn't be a problem, so we're hoping there is nothing much wrong with it - nothing that can't be easily fixed anyway.

We have made arrangements to meet with Granville (our self-appointed mechanic and Mini enthusiast) at Mom's on the 6th & 7th of July to make any repairs needed and service it ready for its 1500+ mile journey...GULP!

tights with science!

While doing a bit of shopping for some cycle gear recently i had a browse on the 'skins' website as my wife had bought some skins leggings for running in and thinks they're brilliant, so in the hunt for a pair of leggings myself for the colder days i'd take a look and see if skins did a cycle range of clothing, they did!

For those not familiar with skins or compression tights (I wasn't either until very recently) they are supposedly stitched in a way that increases blood flow, getting more oxygen to the muscles which helps performance and improves recovery.

Now i'm a little bit of a sceptic but love science so after diving into the many reviews across the net and seeing people like tri-athletes, runners and cyclists swear by them I couldn't help but try some (fortunately it was my birthday very soon after this discovery and my wife duly obliged), so i'm now the proud owner of both a pair of compression leggings for wearing during cycling and also some dedicated recovery tights for wearing during sleeping after exercise.

While i haven't yet tried the cycling tights i have on numerous occasions used the recovery versions and they DO WORK! The morning after a spinning class i'd normally be aching considerably but after wearing the tights, the aching is reduced to almost nothing, no idea how these work despite the science bit on the website but I'm glad I have them and they'll be the first thing to go into my bag in a few weeks.

A200 compression tights

RY 400 recovery tights

Official start of the start tomorrow

Got back from Italy yesterday after nearly 3 weeks off! Next thing in my sights is the bike ride, just over a month now until set off from Scotland on the 23rd July so plenty of training to try and cram in now, no idea how much pre-holiday/wedding fitness i've lost over the last 3 weeks but i'm sure i'll find out at 6:45 in the morning at spinning.

Lee has developed a small hernia recently so high hopes that it's not going to cause us any issues but think he's off to see the doctor very soon.

Phil (Friend of my Dad's) has been to inspect the Morris Minor today, gave the battery a bit of charge as it hasn't been turned over for many months now and would you believe it started straight away!! Very encouraging indeed, was starting to get an ominous feeling about the car but that news from Mom has helped give me confidence, Phil's taking it for an MOT this week as per Granville's (our official team mechanic) instructions, just to make sure nothing serious is going on under the paintwork, so next is to get a date to meet him in Birmingham with his tools so he can fix any problems highlighted on the MOT and give it a good service.

Lee and I also need a photo in our CMA T-shirts for publicity so that needs doing ASAP so the CMA can start whipping up a media frenzy!