Tag: cycling

First 100 miler

Failed to reach the target destination but still completed my first imperial century yesterday.

Had planned to ride to King’s Lynn on the North Sea coast in Norfolk. Unfortunately, a late departure meant I wasn’t sure I’d make it in time for the last train to London. So, stopped at a small town (or large village?) about 10 miles earlier. The distance already read 156km so rode around the town to take it over 161km mark :)

SJW To Downham

I’ve got a problem though. Every time I come back from one of these longish rides, the body just refuses to cool down. Like yesterday, though I took a long shower right after getting back, the body stayed burning hot till late into the night. It almost felt like somewhere inside the body was still burning calories at the same rate as while riding at the peak. 2nd consecutive ride this happened and I have no idea how to stop that. Any help is really, really, REALLY appreciated!

P.S.: The sun killed me! The temperature was only 25-27 C but was downing humongous amounts of water and still feeling dehydrated-ish all the time.

P.P.S: Haven’t test ridden the Synapse yet. If I can stay awake, then might test ride it today.

2nd metric century within a week Rode to…

2nd metric century within a week. Rode to Cambridge today, about 102.5 kms, and took the train back. Wonderful ride. No hills (unlike the Chilterns enroute to Oxford) and luckily, didn’t get any rain on me, though the roads were pretty wet in places.

SJW To Cambridge - 2nd metric century

Also, trying the Cannondale Synapse tomorrow. If I like how it rides, might buy it as soon as we’ve moved to the new place.

A century… finally!

1st Metric Century

Completed my 1st metric century today. Am damn happy to have finally gotten this behind me and amused by the manner in which it finally got done :)

Thing is I’d attempted this multiple times last October & November. Unfortunately, the October attempts were marred by the rotten, bent rear wheel and the November ones by sudden rains and (once) snowfall. The result is that I have a dozen rides between 80 & 95kms in those two months.

Well today’s ride was planned to be a 75km straight return to / from Windsor. Despite the strong head/cross wind on the way back, decided to take a detour towards Wandsworth to check out the bikes at the (bigger) Evans Cycles outlet there. As a result of that diversion it was already 83kms by the time I made it to Hyde Park and I wasn’t really feeling too tired. So, decided to take another small detour and do a lap of Regent’s Park and return via Camden Town. Just about made it across the century mark before making it home.

The best thing about the ride – the legs were feeling good even after I’d gotten home so with another small break added, I think I can make it past an imperial century as well. Of course, only if I can find a long enough route without too many hills and am lucky with the rain and wheel!

Shall feel good with this for now :)

Just realised that even the marked ‘Live’ news…

Just realised that even the marked ‘Live’ news on BBC is sometimes delayed by at least 15 minutes.

Barack Obama’s convoy passed in front of me as I was cycling back from Marylebone some time back and BBC News is showing it on TV right now as Live news.

In other news, cycled to High Wycombe today – only 60kms but about 500m climbing over 2-3 spots. Didn’t have the time or energy to cycle back. Really need to work on my climbing muscles :|

Proud of my girlfriend…

… on her first proper ride of the year, she bravely rode up the climb from Battersea into Clapham, amongst other smaller climbs. (It’s another matter that she stopped for 10 minutes after the climb to catch her breath and drink about a gallon of water.)

On another note, badly missing my NexusOne. Got the replacement SIM and popped it into the old E71. It’s nowhere close … :'(

A mature cycling culture

Been thinking of some ideas/features on cycling forums / websites that I think are lacking. At some time the thought turned to Cyclists.in and from there to how the cycling culture in India still isn’t mature.

See, in my book, for a place to have a thriving cycling culture it should have had vicious debates on forums and in comments on these topics:

1. Are helmets good or bad for cycling / cyclists?
2. Shimano vs Campagnolo vs SRAM components.
3. Lycra clad speedsters vs. Fixie sporting hipsters vs. Regular pannier & mudguard sporting urban cyclists.
4. Aluminium vs Steel vs Carbon vs Titanium frames.

Since I don’t see any of these debates in place on cyclists.in, I doubt that the cycling culture has matured yet. Wonder how long will the culture take to develop to that level, if ever.