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.
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.
With just four shopping days until christmas (a very scary thought indeed) I thought I would put together a little list of suggestions for the cyclist in your life (or maybe just treat yourself). All these items are on my list to the jolly red man, so feel free to send one or two of these my way, family and friends you can’t say I didn’t give you any ideas :-).
It finally happened. After a long few years and a final 6 month slog my amazing wife (Mrs Rouleur to you lovely people) has handed in her PhD thesis. No longer will I be the smartest in the house (not that my MSc ever meant I really held that title), but I don’t mind for what it also means is that I RIDE AGAIN!!
The Good – Choice, Price, Quality, Something for everyone
The Bad – Not much really, being very (very) picky perhaps a slightly thinner chain?
The Ugly – Nada
Despite the arrival of winter this last week, this is not a post about the cold, or snow or even ice (though given the title you could be forgiven for thinking that). No this is an altogether different kind of ICE……….In Case of Emergency.
A couple of weeks ago whilst attending physio for Tennis Elbow (no I am not secretly about to join the ATP) I was told that to have any hope of getting rid of this persistent but very painful ailment I needed to rest it. “How so”? I asked “Well,” she said kindly, “No computer work, and no cycling for at least 4-6 weeks!!”
I spluttered and complained, argued and moaned, but the very nice lady just raised an eyebrow and reiterated her recommendations. Now given that my Nan had a lot of physio throughout her life but always ignored the advice of the trained professionals and suffered for it I was keen to do the opposite, however I have two pretty major problems;
A note before reading – This ended up being a longer piece than I had anticipated and though I hope you find it interesting I certainly don’t want you to feel I am being preachy so apologies if this is what happens. Please enjoy.
As a self-proclaimed ‘dreamer’ who really did believe all you needed was hard work, the fallout from Lance Armstrongs final capitulation to the USADA left me red-faced and angry.
Red faced because I had to admit that Mrs Rouleur had been right all along (we had argued about this often over the years when watching cycling). Actually in hindsight I am almost always exclusively wrong (apparently) so I am not sure why the red face but still….
Anger though, well isn’t that a bit much? He wasn’t a friend, and he didn’t beat anyone I knew personally so why the extreme emotion? Well as Mrs Rouleur likes to point out I am first and foremost a drama queen so there is that, but more importantly it’s the mockery of a dreamer.
The Roly Rouleur 