This time next week four of us, the three riders and Sandra, Mark's wife who will be supporting us for the trip, should be heading up the M6. It will be a long day, eight hours by car to John O'Groats (JOG) and we need to get there by late afternoon as we plan on starting early on Tuesday morning for our ride. It's an odd feeling - part curiosity (what's going to happen?) and part amusement (how did I get myself into this?).
I have not been a cyclist previously, aside from the usual kid's experience on a 3 gear bike that got ridden around the neighbourhood when there was nothing else to do on a Sunday. I had to buy a bike and all the accessories for this ride and I've had a number of embarrassing moments familiarising myself with it. Lessons learned so far:
1. Gear selection, especially going up hills, is very important. Get it wrong and you stop, either because you run out of energy or the wheels don't go around fast enough to stay on. The bike may have 27 gears but this not a car and they don't run from gear 1 through gear 27. There are 3 overlapping sets of gears and only about 14 different ratios. I do not spend any time thinking about gears in my automatic car but spend a significant proportion of time thinking about gears when I'm cycling.
2. Cleated shoes need to be uncleated on the side you intend to step off the bike. If you uncleat your left shoe do not attempt to step off on the right side unless you want to make people laugh.
3. After putting your wheel back on, remember to reattach the brake cables or your brakes will not work. Especially important if your first ride after reattaching the wheel is down Pinner Hill.
4. If your wheel is firmly trapped between brake pads, before changing all the brake adjustment screws, check that the wheel itself hasn't come off the forks. Especially if this happens immediately after a fall while learning lessons 1 and 2.
Many other lessons learned will be documented as the trip progresses. Mark has also started a blog at mark-alan-stevesbiking.blogspot.com and this covers some of our training so far including an interesting weekend in the Cotswolds.
Thanks to everyone who has sponsored me so far - I am very grateful. As a reminder my sponsorship page is at: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/StephenPJones
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