Planning for the weekend

This Sunday, Warren, Dan and i are heading down to RichmondPark at the crack of dawn to do a few laps. This will be a nice practice for our Dun Run in a couple of months as Warren has a baby on the way and Dan has twins already , we don’t get out much together on the bikes.

There has and always will be a wildly differing nutritional strategy for the three of us. Dan and Warren both eat meat and I do not. They are also both lean athletic looking  types whereas I am not.

The ride down from my house to Richmond Park and back is 31km. This is about as far as my daily commute (or 3km short for pedants). Richmond park is roughly 10Km round the outside road, So I could easily do >60Km.

To get to the park for 08:30 I will need to leave at around 07:30 which makes it too early for a large breakfast. So my plan is:

·         07:00am Cereal and Banana

·         08:30 arrive at park and eat flapjack

·         Laps

·         Flapjack

·         Laps

·         Recovery drink

·         Cycle home at even pace

4 hours cycling @ average 500 Kcals and hour = 2000Kcals

Breakfast, 2 flapjacks and recovery drink = 1100 Kcals so I’ll probably be ready for lunch

Warren’s plan was to have a bit of breakfast and pootle over to the park. Laps then a Bacon Sarny being home in time for Sunday Lunch.

 This is why Warren is slim and I am not. Anyway I’ll write it up afterwards.

Berlin

I've just got back from a weekend away to Berlin with Miss S. One of the things I had desperately wanted to do was the "Fat Tire" bike tour (No link. You can google them). In Barcelona I had seen the tour go by after doing the bus tour, and it seemed a little more exciting. The main difference, and one that i hadn't considered earlier, was that the river in berlin was still frozen... whereas I was in Barca in August.

It was absolutely bloody freezing, but fun and informative. I can't reccomend it enough, and our guide (Tam) was possibly the most over-informed tour guide I have ever met.

After finishing I was able to warm up nicely at the slightly strange Badesschiff (Bath-Ship) with a silent bunch of mostly Germans.
There is still a section of the wall which is earie in the extreme.

There are loads of cyclists and nearly all of them ride very practical bikes. Very practical. Heavy steel frame, front dynamo, Brooks saddle (or similar). Some ride traditional road bikes but the vast majority ride utility bikes.

Personally I think this is great.




Weird Cats

Writing to your MEP

I wrote this letter to my MEPs yesterday. To my suprise they have all answered within 24 hours. Some in great detail about specific proposals and research into safety currently in progress. A littlr sad then to compare that UK MPs are having to fight to save essential services form the Con-Dem Government rather than better the lives of residents...

Monday 7 February 2011

Dear Jean Lambert, Sarah Ludford, Charles Tannock, MarinaYannakoudakis, Gerard Batten, Claude Moraes, Mary Honeyball and SyedKamall,

It's nearly two years since Eilidh was run over by a truck that failedto see her. Her mum Heather has been working with their local Member ofEuropean Parliament to try and get an EU declaration signed to get HGVsfitted with sensors and cameras to remove their blind spot. 4000 people, mostly unprotected road users such as cyclists,motorcyclists and pedestrians, are killed each year in Europe becauseof HGV blind spots. As a keen cyclist (I commute by bike and cycle for pleasure)I see thedangers of this blindspot daily. If HGVs are the way in which we chooseto deliver goods in the centre of our busy towns, then they mustn't make them any more dangerous than neccessary.

I am 38 years old I havelost 2 friends to illness, but 2 others have been crushed by HGV's whodidn't see them (one died in a car). This declaration needs to be signed to be signed by half of the 736MEPs before it lapses on Wed 16th Feb

Yours sincerely,

XXX

I saw this and I thought of you

http://rideafuckingbike.com/

Subtle... I think not

Pedals not Petrol : The World Naked Bike Ride

This last weekend just gone I attended the World Naked Bike Ride in both London and Brighton. I don't think I've ever spent that much time naked outdoors in my life before. (Photo below was of some people I met in the bodypainting area)



The London ride started with a call from Will Golden about the location of the secret body painting area over the opposite side of Hyde Park to where the ride would be starting. En-route I was stopped by the archetypal (and those of you have been will know what I mean) middle-aged-non-participant-photography-enthusiast asking me where the start was. I was a little rude and later apologised. The London ride really went off without a hitch and I met some lovely people. We ended bizarrely in a side street by Tower Bridge with much dancing and cheering.



This is the first time the roads weren't blocked off for us by the police so there were a lot of very suprised bus passengers that day.



Brighton was a worry for me. I'd not tried to get a bike down there on the train before, but in the end all was well. Everyone was lovely. Brighton people a little less suprised by this sort of thing than Londoners.



On an odd note there were three breaks built in to the route. One by the beach on some grass (makes sense), another on a roundabout in the town centre (not so normal... if you've never seen a queue of naked painted girls waiting patiently for ice-cream then you haven't lived) and finally a party on the beach.



The bands were all from the Pleasant Revolution on a pedal powered sound system. Lots of dancing, lots of sun, and a lot of wobbly bits. Anyway the rest of my photos are here (some are a little NSFW)

All told a great time... but not the training weekend I had in mind for the London to Brighton ride next weekend...