Last weekend saw a group of riders including one of my UKCycleChat colleagues take on wlondoncycling’s ‘The One’, and in honour of them completing this awesome challenge, I thought I would write a quick ride story from my attempt to conquer this beast of a route from a couple of months back.
First things first, what is ‘The One’? Well put simply it’s a near sixty mile ride through the surrey hills aiming to hit all of the noteworthy climbs in the area and tops out at nearly 7000ft of climbing.
A few weeks ago saw myself and a fellow Roly head to the south coast at silly o clock on a Sunday morning to catch a ferry to the Isle of Wight for the annual Isle of Wight Randonnee.
And boy we weren’t alone!!
On arriving at the ferry terminal to purchase our tickets we were greeted with a sea of lycra clad men and women in various shades of garish outfits also waiting to board and undertake this challenge. Once on the ferry you couldn’t move for cyclists and as for trying to get a much needed coffee, well you were waiting longer than Team Sky have been waiting for a monument win (though as with Team Sky we did get one eventually)!!
A couple of weeks ago you may remember that I published a post looking at a few cycling related Kickstarter projects (if you missed it you can find it here). Well after this went out I was delighted to hear from a couple of other companies who wanted to see if I would be interested in taking a look at their soon to be available offerings too.
One of these people was Dr Caroline Keddie the creator of the new and innovative WellbriX. Caroline herself has a 1st class honours degree (Psychology), a PhD (Mathematics and cognitive learning styles), she’s a therapist in Sports and clinical remedial injury and a has a strong love of many sports so its safe to say she is not only very smart, but also well positioned to understand the needs of athletes and wannabe athletes the world over.
She has taken the concept of the ever popular foam roller as a starting point, and gone at least three steps further, designing a set of modular bricks with various sized nodules that can be used for a much more targeted approach to work those sore and tight muscles and knots that are formed after exercise.
Please note – This review was done as part of my role with UK Cycle Chat and the original version can be found here
With the cold weather approaching and a distinct lack of winter kit in my cycling wardrobe it was with great anticipation that I awaited the arrival of Rivelo’s Winnats bib tights, and I can safely say that from the moment they arrived I wasn’t disappointed.
With a few rides and reviews coming up I thought I best start knuckling down and getting myself back to being more productive on the blog front; and so, for your second dose of Roly Rouleur in a week (you lucky things) here are my first musings on the awesome TrueStart coffee.
Only first?
Yep, just so we are clear from the off, I will be revisiting this review in the coming months once I have had more of a chance to use this product before big training blocks and events but as this weekend saw my first use, I thought why not share my initial thoughts and introduce the brand.
It was the best of times (out riding my bike), it was the worst of times (hills), it was the age of wisdom (taking it nice and steady), it was the age of foolishness (pushing too hard), it was the epoch of belief (not just riding my bike, but in the sunshine too!), it was the epoch of incredulity (how is it possible we are still going up?), it was the season of Light (I can do this), it was the season of Darkness (no I can’t), it was the spring of hope (Ahh Almond Croissant), it was the winter of despair (The dreaded ‘Bonk’).
The opening paragraph of Charles Dickens classic ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ seems to sum up this weekends rides pretty well for me.
So lets start at the beginning.
By now I am sure you will have all heard of the wonder that is Kickstarter. A crowdfunding website that allows everyday people to fund other everyday people’s dreams. Or at least that’s how I see it.
Kickstarter describe themselves as ‘helping artists, musicians, filmmakers, designers, and other creators find the resources and support they need to make their ideas a reality’, and you know what, who can argue with that!
It is therefore with great interest and much enthusiasm that I have been looking out for projects that I can help fund which would be of interest to me, whilst also trying to remember those other cool projects where perhaps I couldn’t support at the time but want to revisit in the future once they achieve their targets and come to market.
I am writing this as I sit looking back on a week without exercise, whilst also realising it’s yet again been a good couple of weeks since my last post! Man does life pass by quickly this year. Though illness and injury has kept me away from exercising for a full week (meaning I feel rather disgusting at the moment), I reckon two turbo sessions this weekend should have me feeling alert again in no time, but that’s getting ahead of myself…..So let’s begin.
I’m not going to focus on the negatives (a usual favorite past time of mine) or look back (that’s been done here), instead it’s time to go forward in time and though I don’t have a DeLorean with inbuilt Flux capacitor I do have a bike so that should be enough.
As promised, as my way of making up for neglecting you for so long, here is my second post of the week.
This originally started life as a product review but I quickly realised that actually I was not really focusing on the product, but the brand and its owner (that’s not to say a certain product won’t get a mention because it will be but this is definitely about more than just that!)
First I’ll start with a ridiculously late Happy New Year to you all. I hope you all had a fantastic holiday period with lots of fun and laughter (and a bit of training too).
The last six weeks have been rather manic and have disappeared quicker than Quintana up Alpe D’Huez at last years tour, which has all added up to me neglecting you, my loyal readers.
So as an apology in the next week or so I will bring you a few reviews (BandofClimers it’s coming I promise), a ride report (or two) and a look forward to 2016.
Let’s begin then by setting the keyboard to 88mph and like Doc and Marty head back in time!
The Roly Rouleur 