The Big THREE-OH..OH-OH

Its been ages since my last post, to be honest that's down to a combination of work constraints as well as a distinct lack of anything particularly remarkable to report. Now that I do have something to report, however, I feel almost duty bound to make this a ridiculously long post so that I can bring everyone up to speed.

The reason for the post? Well, I've just gone through the 3000 mile barrier today. That means I have actually achieved the target I originally set myself but haven't quite reached the increased target that I ended up setting myself. I guess I have a few more days in the saddle ahead then.

What else?

Well, I guess if I pick up the story from my last post then Team Gear and Loathing did the business at the 10 Under The Ben
event earning 9th place and handing Team Four Crank Redemption a royal spanking in the process (they claim that mechanical failures were the cause of their demise but isn't this part and parcel of an endurance event?). Full results can be viewed from here but Cris put together an excellent montage of the event on his photo blog site (look for the gallery titled Ten Under The Ben - Ben Nevis, Fort William).

Since then, the only other cycling event I have been involved in was Pedal For Scotland 2006 which took place on 27 August and was from Glasgow to Edinburgh this year. Initially I had assumed that I would be cycling the event on my own and was focussed on trying to beat my solo time from last year which was 3hrs 40 mins. Three days before the event was due to start I was given the happy news that my Team Gear and Loathing team mate, Cris, would be joining me for the event and we spent an excited couple of nights planning how we would break the 3hr 40min time barrier and discussing whether it was feasible for us to record a time around the 3hrs mark (remember that we ride heavy, steel framed, commuter, mtb hybrid bikes, not carbon fibre racing machines). Anyway, Cris had been on a strict diet of circuit training and 1/2 marathons for a good few months by then so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when he darted off at the start of the race and basically pedalled at top speed for the duration of the whole event. It was everything I could do to keep on his back wheel (I couldn't have suffered the humiliation of being left behind by the Walsh!) and thanks to his manic pace setting we managed to finish in the top 30 riders (we were the only ones on mountain bikes) with an incredible time of 2hrs 31mins!!! Victory pints were this time courtesy of Mike and Annie Walsh who met us at the finish line.... eventually (we had obviously arrived a hell of a lot sooner than we had expected to).

The rest of the time has pretty much been normal cycling days, nothing too extreme to report apart from hitting the back of a bus one morning (they are made of plastic panels now BTW, very bouncy and not too painful) and snapping my rear hanger another morning and having to convert my bike into a single speed machine in a day (thanks to the guys on the Cycling Plus forums for their info and encouragement. Single speed riding is pretty strange at first but then becomes rather addictive and fun - I didn't fix the bike for a week after that because I was enjoy it so much.

So, 3000 miles done with 2 months left in the year which means i need to cycle 500 miles a month if i am going to reach my actual target of 4000 miles... might be a bit tight, but lets see how close I get.

:o)

Overall Total: 3005 miles