C2C

Recently did the C2C (or Coast to Coast) for a bit of fun and training.

Took the route from Whitehaven to Tyneside, 140-odd miles, over 3 days.

View as we pass the North Lake District

Carried full camping gear but never actually camped.

Some serious hills, beautiful scenery, almost deserted roads.  Variable weather.

Coming out of the clouds from the 'big climb'

Fantastic experience.

Little writeup and some more pics to follow soon.

Dynamo Hub, Training, Groupset

Managed to get a few decent training rides in since the last post, including nice runs to Oxford and Brighton (both around 60 miles).

New Dynamo hub (finally) works perfectly, and silently. Don't even notice when it's working away, and definitely don't notice any drag - in fact the first ride I did I got my fastest time of recent months. So that was an unfortunate incident with the previous faulty one.  All worked out OK in the end apart from the time, and a load of extra postage charges and a rebuild charge.  Just got round to siliconing the cables on so don't need to have so many cable ties or tape.  It disappears quite nicely with the gear cables under the tube.

The lights work well too, and have done a few tests of charging the battery with the e-werk, which all seems OK as well.  Need to do some more scientific tests to see how long it will take to charge the battery with/without the lights running, but at the end of the day even if it cant be kept fully charged, it will still mean less reliance on mains power.  Fingers crossed, riding six or more hours a day should easily keep it topped up.

While I was there and on a bike maintenance bender, I also ended up swapping out all the low-end components on the bike too, as I was never that happy with them.  eBay to the rescue, and after a lot of bidding, waiting for parcels, and a couple of re-sells due to doubling up on a couple of bits, I ended up with:

XT HTII crankset,
XTR rear mech,
XTR front mech,
XTR shifters,
Deore cassette and
Deore chain.

Since I'm not too worried about the weight, and wanted the performance mostly in shifting, I think it's a nice mix of components.  All 9 speed, which I'm fine with and should last slightly longer than the 10 speed (maybe).  That was also the reason for the non XTR/XT cassette and chain.  And the cost too.

Not that the old one was worn out (and most likely would have lasted longer than some of the new stuff), but it's all a lot better for fixing in the field, as the external cup BB's need less tools for example.  Actually, the BB is one part I'm not too happy with, and might upgrade that with some new bearings.

So almost a completely new drive chain.  'New' meaning new to me, but second-hand eBay.  There was quite a bit of cleaning of the components involved, but degreaser and grease are cheap!

The final thing to sort out before the long ride, is the iPhone software.  Still not fully happy with the combo I'm using now, versus the simplicity of what the Edge did.  But there's still a bit of time to play, and it will definitely do the job.  Being able to have the screen on all day at full brightness (if desired) makes a big difference, and the resolution makes reading the maps really easy.

Will add a few photos of the whole setup when the rain stops.

Box Hill

Thought would get in a bit of hill practice and tryout a ride to Box Hill earlier in the week, as had heard some road-bikers talking about training there.

Fourty five mile round trip from Richmond Park, mainly on roads with a few tracks/towpaths thrown in, and a couple of little hills - nice warmup.  And the sun came out so got a nice shot from the top of Box Hill.  There was a nice view looking East on the way up, but didn't stop to take photo.

Box Hill, looking South

(shame about iPhone camera)

Bit more traffic than I was hoping for, with a few busy A roads around Esher, Leatherhead.  Will see if can find a bit more of a backcountry route next time.

Just bar bag, and one pannier carrying random clothes/stuff to add a bit of weight (the usual training setup), and iPhone powered from battery as still not got new Dynamo hub wheel back yet.  Seemed a shame seeing all the dynamo wiring and lights sitting redundant... Motion X worked pretty well again.

Box Hill itself was fine - reasonably gentle climb with max gradient of around 8% and an average of only 5% from the post-ride data.  Was expecting a 'mini Ditchling Beacon' (on the South Downs, which if you've done the London to Brighton you'll know all about - a max gradient of about 16%, and an average of about 9%).  It wasn't, which left me half pleased and half disappointed.

2012.

After a bit of a break, I'm gearing up for new cycling adventures in 2012, so thought I'd better get back in the habit of writing about it - ready to document the next big trip.

Am getting quite excited about the possibility of another long ride (or two) - maybe through France again - and this time hopefully making it over the Alps.

Fitness is coming along nicely, but still a way to go. I'm getting back to where I was at the end of the Cannes trip, but I'd prefer to be a lot fitter at the start of my next trip.  Got a nice 55 miler in a week or two ago, and have done quite a lot of 20 mile runs/day.

A few fun technical bike projects coming together too.

Currently writing an article about my new dynamo hub, e-werk power, dynamo lighting, and iPhone setup.  Still a bit of work to do and add some photos.

The projects not quite complete as the first wheel I had built was sadly on a faulty dynamo hub, so my beautiful new first ever hand-built wheel had to be taken apart after just one day, and the whole thing's going to have to be rebuilt into my second hand-built wheel!  That's just unlucky - not much you can do about that.

But I did get to test it all out and see the dynamo lights work (in a fashion), and even charge the battery - even if it did come with a horrible vibrating of the wheel and bike, accompanied by a nasty vibrating noise.  Urgh.

I've decided to switch from the 3N80 to the T780.  They look almost the same technically, although the T780's newer, and it's black (which I like better).

London to Cannes Blog

The London to Cannes trip in 2010 was where this blogging lark all started - Mine and my friend John's first overseas cycle camping tour with a bit of money raised for Cancer Research along the way.

As time goes on, I plan to move a lot of the stuff written for that trip into more generic info here.  Who knows how far I'll get.  In the meantime, it's still there in it's original form if you want to look.