Did it rain on St Swithun's day? Well it seem that July is getting it's fair share of rain, like something out of a cartoon, as soon as i got on the bike with morning is rained, and it got heavier and heavier as we ploughed on up to Oxenwood. The roads where awash with rain water as the drains weren't coping with the deluge. The sky was wall to wall grey, and up on the Chutes Causeway we where in the low hanging clouds. Needless to say every got soaked, apart from my phone again the Topeak handlebar pouch held up to the incessant rain and the phone was found to be bone dry on our return home. I carry everything in a dry bag which lurks in my rucksack, so even though the rucksack was sodden, everything was dry. Saw only one equally wet cyclist out this morning, passed on the road at Upton.
St Swithun's day if thou dost rain For forty days it will remain St Swithun's day if thou be fair For forty days 'twill rain nae mare So we covered 68.2 kilometres in just under four hours, with 433 metres climbed. According to Strava my maximum speed was 50km/h. So out of Andover on the N246 through the Clatfords and then Fullerton, through Chilbolton Common, the Hurstbournes, Upton, Vernham Dean and the far point was Oxenwood, then up onto the Chute Causeway, and back to Andover via Clanville, Weyhill, and the rather muddy Monxton Lane and Anna Valley. The clipless pedals where brilliant, made the whole experience much more efficient, and was able to keep in the biggest chain ring all the way around again, even on the long slog up to the top of the Chute Causeway from Oxenwood. (though according to may websites and you tube videos, i should be running at a higher cadence, i always feel like a hamster in it's wheel, when i do that especially on the long climbs, prefer this way even if it is going against the collective wisdom of the cycling world.)
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So onto clipless pedals, or should that be 'clip in'. I had bought the Axosport NC-1 downhill shoes as they could be converted to clipless by removing a section of the rubber sole. I'd used them in conjuration with my Shimano Saint's Pedals with no issue, being clipless ready the shoes are a nice stiff platform with which you can pedal against , rather then the usual hiking/stake shoes which are the general option when running flat pedals and have alot more flex in the sole. So my choice of clipless pedal is the Crankbrothers Candy 1, having researched the available options, it appears to be the best option to protect your knees, as the pedals allow for six degress of 'float' which allows you to move you feet around. The angle of disengagement is either 15 degrees or 20 degrees. They also come in a nice red finish which marries up with the overall colour scheme of the Cube Sting 29er.Another advantage of the Candy's is that they come with a outer pedal body which allows you to still ride along without having to clip in. It being made of a composite material we'll have to see how well that fares.
Fitting the new pedals was a straight forward job, prepping the shoes was another matter the rubber soul is per-scored over the cleat area, so it was a matter of cutting it all the way through before and then pulling the section away, the first shoe proved particularly hard work, but once we'd finally managed to pull the rubber off, the cleat bolt holes where revealed. The second shoe was much easily. The Crankbrother's cleats are brass so they wear faster than the pedals, which is a neat idea. The cleats where fixed and it was the moment of truth. The recommendation is to find somewhere you can lean against and practice clipping in and out, so we spent an hour figuring it out lent against a wall. One adjustment I made was moving the cleats on the shoes to a position further back from the toe'. The next step will be a gentle cycle around the neighbourhood....... A rather late start to the day, so there were a lot more cyclists on the road than I normally see which is great to see. Out of Andover on the Weyhill Road, unsurprisingly to Weyhill, then through Clanville and up the long climb to Hampshire Gate, then turned south east down the old Roman Road through Hatherden, and then on to the Pentons and under the A303 at Weyhill and then to Monxton via the bridleway known as 'Monxton lane' and back home via Anna Valley and the N246 cycle route. It was a good effort, having kept in the biggest gear I could manage all the way round, so lower cadence bigger torque. The most interesting thing of the day was that I had added Strava Live to my smart phone; so I had miCoach and Strava running at the same time, combining the two we where out for 1 hour 58 minutes, with a moving time of 1 hour and 52 minutes, covered 33.93 kilometres with a maximum speed of 41.4 kilometres. There was a big difference in elevation recorded, a difference of 85 metres over the whole route, which is interesting as they would be using the same GPS application on the phone? At the highest point where was a difference of 5 metres, will be interesting to compare that with the OS Map recorded elevations. Hampshire Gate is according to the OS map at a n elevation of 221metres, miCoach recorded the height as 223metres and Strava 220 metres. The explanation is to be found on the Strava Website FAQ's Always nice to get a ride in when not expected, took the day of for family reasons, and managed to fit in a quick blast this morning. 26.5 kilometres through some rather over grown bridleways between Kentboro and Fullerton via Clatford Oakcuts. Due to the bridleways being particularly overgrown in one section, I did not see the oncoming deep rut until too late, and thus the following pedal strike, foot off pedal, calve skinned by flat pedal's pins = ouch!!! Not too much blood, one gouge was particularly deep with a nice piece of skin hanging off.... Home and the wounds where cleaned, sterilized and dressing applied... Hampshire Rights of Way website is particularly informative in regards rights of way in Hampshire. 50 kilometres in 3 hours, took in Ann Valley, Abbots Ann, Monxton and Amport then through the Wallops to Broughton which was the furthest point from home. The to Horsebridge and onto the Test Way north until it crossed the Lane know as 'The Bunny' just below Atners Hill. The on to the steep climb that is Church Lane and out of the Test Valley. At the other end of Church Lane there where a couple of marshals for the local Andover Triathlon event, we then met a very strung out phalanx of riders coming from Red Rice which was the transition point from running to the cycling phase of the event. To avoid the event we cut onto the bridal path at Clatford Cutoaks and then went home through the Clatfords. The Weather was not the best a brisk headwind for the first leg of the ride, with became a handy tailwind for the return leg, and for the last 30 minutes of the ride, steady drizzle, but at least it was warm.... A new addition to the bicycle was a Topeak handlebar pouch, just big enough for a smart phone. It proved to be very robust and water proof, well as far as 30 minutes of drizzle could test it.
So an interesting project to liven up the garage/man cave was to get some stickers to brighten the place up. It has been rather interesting the response from various brands we got. Some Brands are very help and how to get free stickers is in their Website's FAQ's, others a quick email via their contact page got a response. We ended up sending a lot of self addressed envelopes out to various companies and got a free stickers on return. The funniest comment i saw was on the Castelli Website: 'We do not send out stickers, posters or other promotional merchandise by mail. We concentrate on designing the best-performing cycling clothing possible and have not dedicated the resources to sending out promotional materials. ' Also Redbull seem to be very protective of their brand and responded to my request with a response explaining their only allow their logo to be used by top athletes, which will be a disappointment to all the mamils who buy their product: 'However I'm really sorry but I am not able to help you on this occasion as we do not have Red Bull logo stickers that can be supplied to the general public. The only people we supply with stickers are the extreme sports athletes who are sponsored by Red Bull. These Red Bull stickers are made on a case-by-case basis particularly for each athlete depending on their sport. ' The best response was from distributors in the UK as they support more than one brand, so you get stickers from more than one brand in one hit. |
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