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After yesterday’s battle, ‘Don’t stop believing’ rang out this morning!  The day dawned a little damp but it soon dried up.  The roads were flat and wide and today we made good time throughout, which was lucky as today was the day my mother was waiting at the other end to see and hear what on earth I had been up to.  I grew up in Scotland and have only been South for 10 or so years but I had forgotten the lay of the dramatic landscape and there is no better way to view it than on a bicycle.  Having passed Carlisle we were soon in Gretna Green and

Hill climbing, I'm getting used to this...

No I'm not, that's a lie.  Putting myself in a place where my arms lose all feeling and my vision reduces to a single spot 2 metres in front of my front wheel is going to take a bit more getting used to than a couple of hill climbs.

Day 5 Haydock to Penrith

Last night I watched a documentary that had been in my TV planner for a few weeks, I'd recorded it a while ago but struggled to find the time to watch, it was about Herne Hill velodrome.

I didn't really have much of a knowledge of Herne Hill, I was aware that it was an outdoor velodrome and that there was an ongoing campaign to save it but I didn't know what it needed saving from, nor did I care that much, so what if an old velodrome in London is going down the pan? They've got tons of great facilities, haven't they?

The Kinesis Hell of the West - 80(+) kms of the finest riding Dartmoor has to offer. Initially billed as a cyclocross sportive, the varied nature of the course meant that it was a toss up as to what would be faster: cross or mountain bike? The start line featured a massive array of bike types, from race ready cross bikes, to full-suspension mtbs and I even spotted a handful of fixie riders (absolute nutters). As I’d brought my Kinesis KM810 along, I was hoping for plenty of rough stuff to make my big tyres count. Turns out, I wouldn’t be disappointed.

Richard Mitchelson is a keen cyclo-cross racer and will be charting the ups and downs of the season in his new diary. You can read about his first race at Hog Hill here, and here's his report from his second race in Brighton last weekend.

I was looking forward to this, my first cross race of the season, a local one, just 10 miles up the road, so an enjoyable mix of friends and fun and pain, the potential re-shuffling of the mostly amicable pecking order, and stopping off on the way home for something fatty and tasty and frequently justified as ‘well-earned’. It’s mostly a tradition now.

Day 4 is uneventful.  Along the 106 miles from Ludlow to Haydock race courses, the terrain is the flattest of the trip, the weather is reasonable but I still manage to have a bad day.  I’m just exhausted having ridden over 400 miles and beginning to wonder whether I can physically complete another 400 and more.  I obviously haven’t reached that stage where you begin to get fitter and stronger yet, so the day drags for me.

I was looking for a bike to ride the Three Peaks Cyclocross even on, something a bit different. Using ideas from the Fairwheel bikes forum on hacking Dura Ace Di2 gears I saw the possibility to bypass the stock Dura Ace shift/brake lever. The advantages of that are:

The atmosphere at breakfast this morning was more upbeat, an easier day was expected and needed by all.  At the start our groups had gained a few members and lost a couple – the riders are still finding their feet and their pace and the groups are still changing from day to day while people find their personal preferable mix of chaperone, speed and mix of riders, some move for a change of scene and some just miss the group because they slept in – we’re so keen we leave at 715am prompt (um actually otherwise we wouldn’t be back before dark...)