This time I must admit the tandem has been slightly neglected...I got my own solo bike so have been developing my skills being in control of the bike over the summer, which I must say is quite a different experience from being on the back of the tandem and I certainly don't go so fast when I'm in charge!!
But some good news is that the tandem has some more upgrades (following the slightly disastrous trip to Aviemore where we bent the front wheel in two) and we've been back out enjoying the Scottish temperament!!
Yesterday we had a fun trip with Tom, Graeme and Richard up near Callendar, where our short ride turned into a bit of an epic taking over 3 hours and there was quite a bit of moaning regarding the weather and the route choice, which seemed to just get steeper and steeper and longer!! The poor tandem's granny ring gave up as well, which didn't make things much better, I have to say I do hate taking the bike for a walk!!! The one saving grace was that the route wasn't too technical (scary) and the rain only started when we got to the top of the hill!!
I was absolutely drenched, but it was a fun day out and hopefully there will be some more tandem adventures to report soon.
Monday, 7 December 2009
Thursday, 14 May 2009
Adventurous Spirit
Sorry it's been quiet on the tandem blogging front......It's purely because of my laziness rather than the tandem being sitting neglected in the corner of the bedroom. On the contrary the tandem has been quite busy on it's travels!!
So what can I report??? Our mountain biking adventures have continued with some lovely rides out in the Pentlands, a trip up to Laggan wolftrax and a great race at Lenachan!!! The poor bicycle has also been dragged around the Hebrides in the wind and rain and made to carry more than the wheels thought were ever possible!!
Since the weather has been getting a little friendlier up here, I have to admit the pleasure of going out in the hills with the bicycle has become a little more obvious. I think that dare I say it, we may also be developing some skills as I do seem to be falling off a lot less! That is excluding the Pentlands ride with Richard on the front where I did fall off an awful lot, but had good fun doing it! We did also almost manage to burn off Gavin Shirley, which I say must be pretty good!!
The scariest thing we have done most definitely is the red at Wolftrax, as we started off on the downhill section I was pretty confident I was going to die, and and then when we got to the boardwalk section I knew I was going to die!! Luckily, I think Geoff had the same thoughts at that stage, as you could just imagine the back wheel and me dropping off the edge- so I did get to walk!!!
The race at Lenachan was pretty hard work, but I must admit I loved it!! We decided to set the challenge of beating all the women in the race so we had something to aim for, although my secret competitive nature meant I was quite keen to beat some of the guys too!!! Going up the first hill was a proper slog but getting to the top, we must have been top 5 maybe, which made it feel worth it! The downhills seemed pretty tricky and we had a bit of a technical problem as we bent one of the chain rings, which set us back, but all in all we came 10th overall and managed to beat all the girls (just!!).
Following the race, the knobbly tyres were replaced by skinny sleek ones, to tackle the mountains of Scotland on the road, but I'll write about that another day!!
So what can I report??? Our mountain biking adventures have continued with some lovely rides out in the Pentlands, a trip up to Laggan wolftrax and a great race at Lenachan!!! The poor bicycle has also been dragged around the Hebrides in the wind and rain and made to carry more than the wheels thought were ever possible!!
Since the weather has been getting a little friendlier up here, I have to admit the pleasure of going out in the hills with the bicycle has become a little more obvious. I think that dare I say it, we may also be developing some skills as I do seem to be falling off a lot less! That is excluding the Pentlands ride with Richard on the front where I did fall off an awful lot, but had good fun doing it! We did also almost manage to burn off Gavin Shirley, which I say must be pretty good!!
The scariest thing we have done most definitely is the red at Wolftrax, as we started off on the downhill section I was pretty confident I was going to die, and and then when we got to the boardwalk section I knew I was going to die!! Luckily, I think Geoff had the same thoughts at that stage, as you could just imagine the back wheel and me dropping off the edge- so I did get to walk!!!
The race at Lenachan was pretty hard work, but I must admit I loved it!! We decided to set the challenge of beating all the women in the race so we had something to aim for, although my secret competitive nature meant I was quite keen to beat some of the guys too!!! Going up the first hill was a proper slog but getting to the top, we must have been top 5 maybe, which made it feel worth it! The downhills seemed pretty tricky and we had a bit of a technical problem as we bent one of the chain rings, which set us back, but all in all we came 10th overall and managed to beat all the girls (just!!).
Following the race, the knobbly tyres were replaced by skinny sleek ones, to tackle the mountains of Scotland on the road, but I'll write about that another day!!
Tuesday, 3 March 2009
snow go
Valentines morning, with everything ready to go up to the highlands including our 'shining' style hotel booked, we received a text message from Gavin to let us know the race was cancelled due to snow! A little disappointed, but not disheartened we did some slight rejigging, to get out of staying in hell and we headed up the road, tandem secured to the roof aiming for Laggan Wolftrax. I have to admit the foot of snow was a little putting me off, but Geoff was keen and I didn't want to disappoint him, so I got ready to head out and do my best to show some enthusiasm! Quite quickly we discovered though that tandeming is definitely not a snow sport. The snow was a little wet and even the hint of a hill meant we lost traction and were off the bike, so we retreated to the hotel and after a valentines sit in fish and chips in Kingussie we were quite ready for bed!
The next day we headed up to Fort William to the croft to see the Shirley's and Geoff's new road bike which Gavin had picked up. It was decided a road ride might be on the safer side, so we took the tandem out with John and Olga on their tandem and Gavin and James on their mountain bikes. It was a fantastic ride, winding up and down through the glens on a tiny quiet road. There were some pretty scary winding descents but all and all much more civilised than the mountain biking and it has definitely sold me on a little bit of touring in the summer!
The next day we headed up to Fort William to the croft to see the Shirley's and Geoff's new road bike which Gavin had picked up. It was decided a road ride might be on the safer side, so we took the tandem out with John and Olga on their tandem and Gavin and James on their mountain bikes. It was a fantastic ride, winding up and down through the glens on a tiny quiet road. There were some pretty scary winding descents but all and all much more civilised than the mountain biking and it has definitely sold me on a little bit of touring in the summer!
Thursday, 22 January 2009
Angry Face
I have to admit that my good intentions to get some training in last week and try and get a bit fitter before the race didn't really materialise. We did manage to have a turbo-training party at Lettie's and Richards which I think became quickly rebranded as a sweating competition (Geoff won hands down! ) I largely managed to avoid my time on the turbo-trainer by leading a small pilates session in the kitchen and by the time the neighbour came up to complain there was about 5 minutes left for me to have a shot, which suited me quite nicely!
We made it up the road to Gav's house on Friday night, tandem strapped securely to the roof and bedded down for the night. With some road tyres installed we set off on the Jason McIntryre memorial ride, and after a pretty grizzly start care of the Scottish weather it turned out to be a lovely ride through the highland countryside and a really good warm-up for our race ahead. (also my first experience of wearing the padded cycling shorts,which although I still think look pretty grim, weren't too uncomfortable at all!!)
Lettie and Richard arrived at the croft that afternoon and after a good feed and quite a lot of time spent shooting at aliens on the PlayStation we all bedded down in Gavin's room. Waking up on Sunday morning and looking out the window, the first thing to notice was the snow!!
That wasn't to deter us though, the padded shorts went back on and we set off to Inverroy and although I strongly doubted anyone would actually turn up, I was wrong, the hardened mountain bikers were out in force!!
The race started and after first coordinating getting on the bike, we were off, and away. On the first hill we overtook about half the field and I was feeling pretty strong, our first downhill section and all good so far, then came the tricky part - a gate!! Thinking we could get through it still on the bike, Geoff went ahead, but no such luck, a bit of uncoordinated dismounting and I was off and rolling down the hill in the snow, at least it was a soft landing!!
On again and we were doing well, I was pretty much dead going up what seemed like a never ending hill, but we got there! But then the mud began and it just kept going, mud, mud, mud and a small paddle through a river! My calves muscles were so tight I could hardly walk, and all I wanted was to get back on the bike!!
After the muddy section, the rest of the race went well, the gears weren't working too well with all the mud, so the hills were a bit tricky but we got round to the end and finished a respectable 14th out of 24 cyclists!! I was pretty cold, but I felt elated to have completed my first ever mountain bike race and the cake when we finished has to be some of the best I've ever had, so there are definitely some perks to this mountain bike malarky! Bring on valentines day, our next race is on the 15th of February!
C x
Pictures to follow
We made it up the road to Gav's house on Friday night, tandem strapped securely to the roof and bedded down for the night. With some road tyres installed we set off on the Jason McIntryre memorial ride, and after a pretty grizzly start care of the Scottish weather it turned out to be a lovely ride through the highland countryside and a really good warm-up for our race ahead. (also my first experience of wearing the padded cycling shorts,which although I still think look pretty grim, weren't too uncomfortable at all!!)
Lettie and Richard arrived at the croft that afternoon and after a good feed and quite a lot of time spent shooting at aliens on the PlayStation we all bedded down in Gavin's room. Waking up on Sunday morning and looking out the window, the first thing to notice was the snow!!
That wasn't to deter us though, the padded shorts went back on and we set off to Inverroy and although I strongly doubted anyone would actually turn up, I was wrong, the hardened mountain bikers were out in force!!
The race started and after first coordinating getting on the bike, we were off, and away. On the first hill we overtook about half the field and I was feeling pretty strong, our first downhill section and all good so far, then came the tricky part - a gate!! Thinking we could get through it still on the bike, Geoff went ahead, but no such luck, a bit of uncoordinated dismounting and I was off and rolling down the hill in the snow, at least it was a soft landing!!
On again and we were doing well, I was pretty much dead going up what seemed like a never ending hill, but we got there! But then the mud began and it just kept going, mud, mud, mud and a small paddle through a river! My calves muscles were so tight I could hardly walk, and all I wanted was to get back on the bike!!
After the muddy section, the rest of the race went well, the gears weren't working too well with all the mud, so the hills were a bit tricky but we got round to the end and finished a respectable 14th out of 24 cyclists!! I was pretty cold, but I felt elated to have completed my first ever mountain bike race and the cake when we finished has to be some of the best I've ever had, so there are definitely some perks to this mountain bike malarky! Bring on valentines day, our next race is on the 15th of February!
C x
Pictures to follow
Monday, 12 January 2009
A tumultuous beginning
Our first race on the tandem is looming and having managed a total of 3 rides previously (that is if you include cycling down to Richard and Lettie's house, which is a sum total of 700 metres) I'm getting slightly worried!
Geoff and I got the tandem last month as a joint Christmas present to each other and after a lot of "pimping" from Geoff we took it out in the dark, wind and rain on the 13th December for our first adventure! Being almost a complete novice to mountain biking myself even the ride out to the Pentlands was somewhat challenging but the thrill of managing to keep up with the cars on our way out there was exhilarating. By the time we reached the Pentlands I was a little on the soggy side and that was only to get worse. We rode the bike up harbour hill avoiding the giant puddles as we went. On reaching the top of the hill I felt a huge sense of relief as the burning in the thighs was giving way to a deep heavy feeling as the fatigue set in. But this was quickly replaced by a combination of fear and excitement as we rampaged back down the other side of the hill through the heather like a train out of control. If you know heather you'll know that it gathers water like a sponge and by the bottom of the hill the heather had made for what could only be described as some very soggy pants! Having survived the heather and managing to convince Geoff not to take on some single track in the dark, I thought it would be a gentle run home, but the rain got the better of us and on a grassy corner the bike slid out from under us and we both landed in a large heap on the ground, me with a very sore bruised knee. Having upgraded our tyres (to some big knobbly ones), we took the bike back out, this time with Gavin, Lettie and Ben . Again, another absolutely miserable night we took to the Pentlands. The bike hadn't been changing gears very well and Geoff had done a fair bit of tinkering (I think he called it "sorting the limits"???) but we went on, having almost reached the top of the hill, I could almost feel the end of the slog in sight but one muddy patch too many and it was all over, the bike was broken. The rear mech had got properly mangled up in the back wheel and the only option was to take it off. Geoff shortened the chain and put it back on hoping that we could get back down the hill with a single gear! No such luck, the back wheel almost entirely locked up, so we had to free wheel most of the way back down and get a push along from Gavin and Ben (For their benefit of course!!!) on the flat bits. We made it back almost to civilisation and ditched the bike, having stopped to ask for a taxi number the trouble didn't end, Gavin got threatened by a very angry farmer for shining his bike lights in his eyes, the farmer got out of his car with some real malice and chased him down the road. In the meantime, Lettie and Ben had already legged it on their bikes and Geoff and I were stood wondering what the hell was going on! A jog down the road and a taxi ride back home and we were back in the house, a little bit cold and down-hearted but all in one piece (apart from the bike).
New rear mech, new seat-post, new mudguards, new saddle and some new pressure with our first race coming up, we took the tandem back out this weekend, this time to try and develop some skills and take on some single-track! And take on some single track we did!! Another trip up the pentlands and apart from the wind, ( and ice!!) we had a great ride. We discovered the trench digging skills of the bike trying to cycle uphill in the mud, but amazingly also the joy of winding through the woods downhill. I can't say that the cycling isn't a challenge, I need to get a fair bit fitter and a big bit braver, but getting out on the bike together is great, and so far I might be mad but I think it's great!
Cx
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