An English summer’s day at its best: sunshine, a bike ride with my Dad, and a ham and cheese sarnie and 2 glasses of Sauvignon at a riverside pub in the country!

OK, so the eye watering arse burn that I suffered for the first half hour following yesterday’s 66 miles took the shine off the start, but otherwise all felt good.  The lower back and shoulder ache I was worried about wasn’t too bad.  I now know I can get on the bike two days in a row without too much pain.  Not sure how five days is going to feel.

A cup of tea and two rock buns to refuel the tanks at Dad’s an hour and a half in was very civilised, before pushing on from Ebley to Ashleworth for lunch.  We got lost, of course, and took a bit of a detour via Frampton on Severn, then went back and forth on the A417 a few times for good measure.

The A roads and dual carriageways around Gloucester were a bit intimidating for us country bumpkins, but good training for the streets of London and Paris.  (That’s going to be scary!)  I need to replace my spare tube.  Not us this time, but a fellow cyclist we passed pushing his bike with 19 miles still to go.

My two glasses of wine theory stands firm!  The ride back home after lunch was fab, and not just because it was mostly downhill.  I may be forming a rebel faction on the big ride to ensure a least one watering hole is sampled each day.  Either that or I really will have to decant a bottle of Sauvignon into my camelback.

We covered 58 miles today, so that’s 124 in the last two days.  The first two days of the ride to Paris will see us cycling 169 miles.  That’s a sobering thought.

Ha haaaaaa! 3 Marlborough hills conquered … each in one go! There was drizzle (nice and refreshing), there was blustery wind (not so nice), there was a quick pit stop 37 miles in for a sarnie, and there were a beautiful couple of glasses of Sauvignon when I got home.

Tomorrow is the real test. Not sure how I will feel about getting on Rusty Bob again tomorrow but it must be done, the Stroud Valleys await. In 2 weeks and 6 days I have to get up and get back on Rusty Bob for 5 consecutive days.

Sung to the tune of Twelve Days of Christmas (obviously):

Twelve miles an hour average
Eleven miles an hour winds
Ten squashed roadkill
Nine mental wobbles
Eight … hundred and 77 feet high
Seven little towns
Six … ty six miles cycled
Five faaaaaaat flies
(A)Four 29 quite scary
Three big climbs
Two white horses
And a pint of wine when I got home!

I’ve been pouring over the route maps, in particular the gradient, of our jaunt to Paris, alternating between deranged excitement and palpable fear. There will be hills. Steep ones. And long ones. So, having aborted our ride over the Marlborough Downs last weekend, I squeezed in a short ride yesterday, this time fully prepared with spare inner tube, appropriate tools and a pump!

I chose the Stroud Valleys as my nemesis. The 32 mile ride was out and back mostly the same way, so every wonderful whizzy downhill had, in turn, to be climbed, including the lung abusing Bear Hill. Bear Hill is a climb of about 500 feet in one mile, to the top of Rodborough Common. I made it without getting off, passing out, or crying, but not in one go. Several stops were required.

By comparison, we have a similar climb of about 500 feet on day one, but over several miles. Is that better or worse? It may not be as steep, but it goes on and on and on! And it’s one of many hills. I think the point is, there will be many hills, some of them quite unpleasant, so hills ought to be a key feature of what few training rides I have left.

Hill burn aside, I really enjoyed the ride. The scenery, especially over Minchinhampton and Rodborough, was stunning and the cows, horses, and donkey on Minch Common were a lovely distraction.

I was even tempted, if only for a nanosecond, to throw in Gumstool Hill on my way back through Tetbury. Only for a nanosecond mind!

“How about the Marlborough Downs” suggested Dad.  “Oooh, that’ll be pretty” thought I.  Pretty bloody steep!

5 things I learned during yesterday’s shambolic ride:

• Always carry a spare inner tube and appropriate tools!
• A loose fitting cotton t-shirt will not keep you warm on a cold, windy day
• A waterproof layer would be useful
• The hills still have the better of me
• My wine theory needs fine tuning

When I said I wanted some hill training, I hadn’t properly thought it through.  Good job then that our 70 mile ride was cut short at 15 miles by a puncture in the middle of nowhere on the first hill.  What lay ahead was a hill of vomit inducing proportions, somewhere around a white horse which, had we attempted it, might have caused a variety of symptoms of ill health.

It had been slow going to that point, a combination of several stops to identify and fix the source of rattling coming from Rusty Bob (my faithful steed); the bracing wind; and a hangover.

Fifteen miles in we tackled the first big hill.  After about a week, or so it felt, I rounded a corner and through the sweat dripping into my eyes saw Dad beside his bike looking a bit wobbly.  “Shit he’s having a coronary”, I thought, but no.  He had stopped to wait for me and seen a speed bollard to lean on; only they’re not solid like they used to be so he, bike and bollard fell unceremoniously into a thistle.  Whether it was thistle or bramble that caused the puncture we don’t know, but as he set off again that front tyre was flat as a pancake.

It took us a good ten minutes to figure out what to do, what with dithering being a family trait.  Being technically unsophisticated in the gear department has its benefits and I could have walked, but Dad with his cleats on could not.  Not that there was anywhere nearby to walk to.  We called in the cavalry, and in the 50 minutes it took Andy to find someone to sit with the kids, remove the back row of seats from the Pointy Love Bus to accommodate 2 bikes and get to us, we amused ourselves with silliness, admired the view, decided we would have a pint with lunch and watched as our extremities turned blue.

It was cold.  It was windy.  Hypothermia was setting in and the rain was on its way.  Upon our request Andy drove us to Marlborough with the intention of getting Dad’s puncture fixed in the bike shop there and continuing on our way (cleverly missing out aforementioned white horse hill), after a warm and a feed in a local hostelry.

By the time the bikes were fully functioning again, and spare tubes had been purchased, it was 2pm, we still had at least 50 miles to go, the rain had set in and the blue tingling extremities were no less blue.  So as any sane person would, we bailed out and went home to warm baths and cups of tea.

A tad disappointing, as despite the very late night (1am), the 2 bottles of red wine, the wind and the cold, I was in the zone and I am running short of training opportunities.  We’ll chalk that one up to experience.  I’ll get Rusty Bob serviced (the gears are very temperamental) and get the computer fixed (the source of the rattling) as I’m sure I wasn’t doing 20 miles per hour up that hill!  And, in future, I’ll be properly prepared before I go out and might also stick to 2 glasses, rather than 2 bottles of wine.

One month from today, on 14th September, I will be setting off from the Market Place in Cirencester on my Dad’s 25 year old, slightly rusty racing bike, with broken toe clip and temperamental gears to cycle the 450 miles to Paris in 5 days, with 34 other game souls!

A mildly alarming thought as so far my training has comprised two 30 mile rides around the fairly flat local countryside, a few RPM sessions which leave me a violent shade of purple and my heart desperately trying to exit my body via my ears, and most recently a 68 mile ride with my Dad, who at 71 is far fitter than I am.

Still, at least I now have a proper pair of padded shorts (borrowed from afore mentioned father) and a pair of cycling mitts with appropriate padding.  These landed on the door mat this morning, just in time for a 30 mile training ride this evening.  Feel free to laugh at my expense, for I do look a proper egger in my cycling outfit.

That said, the acquisition of padded shorts and gloves has made me very happy for on the 68 mile ride with Dad, I had neither.  By the end of the ride my arse was screaming in pain the way I imagine a banshee would scream were she being attacked by a hundred enraged souls with forks.  The soreness in the palms of my hands, made worse by the handlebar tape peeling off, was marginally eclipsed by the persistent stinging of my skinless knee.

Dad and I are going out again at the weekend.  This time we’re planning a slightly hillier 70 miles around the Marlborough Downs.  I have promised not to crash into the back of him this time.  If he were entertaining any thoughts of lending me his uber flash road bike for our jaunt to Paris, he isn’t anymore.  It wasn’t pretty, but I am grateful that the car behind had the good grace to stop and wait patiently whilst I hauled my carcass out from under the bike and shuffled back to the curb.

Bruises, grazes, sore bits and the last 15 slow, painful miles aside it was a very enjoyable day.  The sun shone, the Cotswold countryside (except maybe the short stretch of A419) was beautiful and the 2 hour pub lunch complete with a couple of glasses of wine, by the river at the Trout in Lechlade was lush.

I am steadfast in my belief that the anaesthetic properties of a few glasses of wine here and there will be pivotal to the success of this ride!

I’ll let you know how the training goes over the next few weeks.  Any encouragement you care to give, either by leaving a comment or sponsoring me will be very much appreciated!  You can sponsor me at http://www.justgiving.com/Rebecca-Pointer

And you can find out more about the ride at www.blissbabybikers.com