Martin Thomas's blog

Bejaysus but I nearly fell at the first hurdle in this year's Metric Century Challenge. Today was the last day I could realistically expect to finish a 100k ride in November but when I woke at 7am it was dark, windy and raining. I was feeling slightly hungover, still full of last night's curry, and not quite sure if I was quite over my recent illness (sore throat, no energy, bit shivery).

I’ve been feeling guilty about something for over a year now and I figured it was high time I did something about it.

When I was writing news stories for road.cc I spoke to Doctor Ian Roberts, professor of public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine about an article on the subject of road safety – this one in fact. 

I have important news directly from the cutting edge of cycle training. Based on extensive first-hand research I can reveal that sitting next to a swimming pool in southern Spain for ten days doing very little apart from swigging tequila and eating tapas makes it quite hard to cycle anywhere when you get back home. This is particularly true if you try to cycle any faster than a gentle jogging pace, or up any sort of hill.

That's all for now - more developments as they come in.

There’s something about long climbs that goes to the very heart of cycling. Forcing those cranks round as the lungs scream for mercy and the legs turn to that curious mixture of concrete and jelly, the mind wants only one thing more than for the pain to stop: to conquer this bloody hill.

Cyclists often speak of the reflective state of mind they get into on their bikes. Certainly for me there’s something about the combination of repetitive exercise and constantly changing scenery that calms me down and puts my mind into a semi-detached state – mildly engaged with the process of cycling, avoiding peril and taking in scenery but otherwise free to roam.

I never seriously considered falling at the final hurdle of the 30 days of biking challenge, which simply requires that you ride a bike every day in April. No biggy for someone who rides pretty much every day anyway – particularly given the glorious weather we've had.

Confession time: during the 90s I spent rather more hours than was probably strictly good for me on nightclub dancefloors, not so much enjoying the music as worshipping it.  From that life-changing moment when some reprobate slipped me an ecstasy pill at an Orbital gig in Brighton in the autumn of 1994 until just after the turn of the new millennium, I was absolutely obsessed with the music, the drugs and the culture of raving. 

I’m beginning to wonder if I made a rather expensive mistake last year.

In September I realised that my Campag Centaur chain, cassette and rings were wearing out so I treated myself to two TA Nerius 110 PCD chainrings (50 & 34) and a KMC 10-speed SL chain, together with a new Centaur cassette. 

I managed to squeeze in a 100km ride with just two days to go this month, keeping me in the running to complete this year’s metric century challenge by the wispiest of whiskers.

Yesterday’s ride was one of the toughest since I was bitten by the MCC bug thanks to the combination of the weather (cold and wet) and my level of fitness (low, compounded by some kind of seasonal malaise plus an ongoing hangover I’ve been living with for at least a week now).

I have been mildly obsessed with road.cc’s Metric Century Challenge since I spotted it in March.

It came along just when I was struggling to keep on top of my training commitments as I tried to build fitness for this summer’s Race Against Time LEJOG. I just couldn’t see how I was going to be able to stay on the bike for upwards of 15 hours a week without going mad. But somehow the idea of doing it in 100k chunks – and notching up points in the process – appealed a whole lot more, so I thought I’d give it a go.