A case of bad planning

I have a 112 mile ride on the White Rose Classic sportive tomorrow

and a stag do in Leeds now.

Clumsy.

Thank you to all my sponsors

My Just Giving page is showing 31% of the target reached. Now considering the target is a massive £3000, 31% is a lot of cash, £955 to be exact and more than double what I raised for the RSPCA back in 2006 when I did a mountain bike marathon.... and there's still two months to go until the event!

£955 gets 4x4 transport to testing clinics from remote areas of Lesotho for children, 41,000 of whom are known to be living with HIV. 

It gets them the tests they need and enables the results of those tests to be sent back to the clinics via mobile (this is a Vodafone charity) enabling quicker treatment for those diagnosed positively.

For communities who are too far from fixed clinics, it provides mobile clinics and connects them via mobile.

These treatments and reduced response times save the lives of Lesotho children.

So far the team of us doing this have raised £21k and you've got me placed 8 out of 50 in terms of amount raised so far!

Thankyou.

https://www.justgiving.com/Jason-Phillips-LEJOG/

Finally did the Tour de France Stage 2 route

Had a great day out with Al from Ilkley to Sheffield on the TDF stage 2 route. It's a bit hilly, I hadn't really realised how much. We got a scorching day



Nice little cobbled climb through Howarth. Short but sweet with some heckling builders at the top!

Best nod to the upcoming TDF were these "blue balls" in Silsden that had been painted yellow, green and polka dot.

Then there was Cragg Vale, the longest continuous uphill in the UK. It's fairly gradual but goes up for about 6 miles.

And then Holme Moss which is a beast of a climb, steep, windy, sustained and HOT!

There was then a long climb on a busy, narrow A road linking Manchester and Sheffield. Not very pleasant and it was just get to the top as quickly as possible to get off it.

We then went through Penistone where there were plenty of hills and this stone.

As we finally dropped in to Sheffield there were the 2 final climbs, Jawbone and Jenkin Road. Someone shouted ooh you'll love Jawbone as we hit it and it was really steep and fairly sustained. A challenge with 85 miles in the legs. Last but not least was Jenkin Road in the inner city suburbs, steep, medium length with a kick up at the end. We powered up it as best we could sice it was the last effort of the day then cruised to the station for a well earned beer and the train home. A good day out.

Gears

Just had my 2nd mechanical issue since starting this blog (1st was the tyre).

Rear gears went out of alignment last week. I readjusted them but still had issues so I replaced the cable. It turned out that the old cable had frayed out of sight inside the shifter.

Annoyingly though both barrel adjusters on the bike (one on the rear mech and another on the down tube) have corroded and are unusable so I got a cool little inline adjuster that goes between 2 parts of the outer cable although when I've tuned the gears the vibration from the road gradually unwinds this inline adjuster and they detune themselves again. Need to find a solution.

Week ending 15th June - Training: Actual vs Plan

I rode the following between 9th and 15th June:

Tuesday: Commute to and from work. 36 miles, 2 hours
Thursday: Commute to and from work. 36 miles, 2 hours
Friday: Hilly Ilkley to Lofthouse. 26 miles, 1.5hrs
Sunday: Hilly Lofthouse to Ilkley. 26 miles, 1.5hrs

Total: 124 miles, 7 hours.

(TDF fever is growing and this campsite owner/farmer was getting in the spirit at Lofthouse in Nidderdale!)

The June intermediate training plan says 8.5 hours required so I'm just behind with the 7 hours done but not by much. I actually thought I'd be a long way off the plan (having not looked at the plan for a couple of months) so I'm pleasantly surprised to see the plan isn't asking for 32 hours this week.

I plan to ride to work three days this week and the TDF Stage 2 on Sunday with Al. That should be about 14 hours in the saddle hopefully which will be well over the 10 in the plan. Might try and do a Saturday ride too to ensure I get the all important back to back mileage in.

Training plan link
June Intermediate Plan Link

Family ride

I've done a hell of a lot of cycling recently and it's meant a fair bit of time away from my family, so this weekend was a family treasure hunt ride along the canal and quiet back lanes of Gargrave with the Armstrongs - Tour De Gargrave.

We had a fantastic day with very warm weather and I'm so proud of Amy doing 6 miles on her new Islabike. She and her friends really enjoyed it and so did I - proof that there is life away from 100 mile road rides!

A New Personal Best - most miles in a week

This week I've cycled 321.3 miles, beating my last record of 270.8 set 5-11 May 2014, thanks to a long bank holiday Monday ride, two commutes and a weekend ride to Broughton and back staying in the lovely Forest Pines Hotel and Golf Resort. Very pleased with that record.

For my records, the last PB I achieved was 12-18 May and that was the longest ride, 143.6 miles for the Etape du Dales.

This was the view from the hotel's golf bar terrace yesterday evening. Now I'm no golfing expert but it looked like a very well groomed course, the picture doesn't really do it justice.

Had a leg massage at the hotel spa but bizarrely she only massaged my calves. Could really have done with the quads and hamstrings getting a seeing to, much more than the calves. Calves did feel fresh afterwards though.

One thing they do in Lincolnshire is very straight, long, flat roads - like this one which was like that for 4 miles and ran alongside fields on the right and some kind of man made drainage channel on the left which ultimately flowed into the River Trent.

Well I was at a Golf Resort so I needed a caddy...

Crossing the Stainforth and Keadby Canal.

Strava route links Ilkley to Broughton near Scunthorpe:
Outward bound
Homeward bound