Training

A favourite saying of mine, when involved in corporate operational life is: "what gets measured gets done". This is a maxim I have applied to my cycling. I have kept records of pretty much all of my cycling since 1994 (1400Km) to 2008. Including two years; 2000 and 2001 when I failed to cycle at all (Knee problems and laziness). I know this makes me a bit of a geek but I do find this gives me the impetus to cycle regularly. If I stop cycling for more than a week I get out of the habit. Because of vacation and work commitments August was a bad month for me - I managed around 150Km for the whole month.

In order to build up some stamina for the ride - to be honest so that I enjoy it rather than find it a chore - I have been out on my bike for all but three days during September (total 1583Km). I tend to take a similar route most of the time, one that takes me over "off-road" cycle routes through the Fens rather than along smooth tarmac. This is to help me acclimatise to the sorts of tracks I will be cycling on for the "B to S" ride. The main downside has been higher than average the number of punctures - 9 in a month compared with an usual total for the year of 4.

I have become pretty good at patching inner tubes without removing wheels. I have since replaced the tyres I usually use (Michelin Krylion Carbon with Schwalbe Marathon Plus) and the punctures are back down to normal levels, although the grip from the tyres is not as good and they are much heavier! It beats fixing a puncture in the rain though

On the whole the weather has been pretty reasonable, although there have been some downpours along with the sunny spells on occasion resulting in some spectacular double and triple rainbows. This picture shows one such rainbow over some newly ploughed fields. If you look closely you can see the join in the middle as it was formed from two pictures using Photoshop Elements.