This Sunday we are doing a full dress rehearsal. In other words we will try and simulate conditions as closely as possible. In other, other words, this means we will be nackered come Sunday evening.
The plan is to load our panniers with all the stuff we'll be taking and ride around 70 miles, which will be our LEJoG average. The intention is to ride at a steady pace and to ride in approx 2 hour intervals with rest gaps. That is the plan, but we tend to ignore that kind of sense once we get going, so who knows what will happen.
The plan is to load our panniers with all the stuff we'll be taking and ride around 70 miles, which will be our LEJoG average. The intention is to ride at a steady pace and to ride in approx 2 hour intervals with rest gaps. That is the plan, but we tend to ignore that kind of sense once we get going, so who knows what will happen.
I've now ridden a few times with the panniers loaded. Currently the contents would be really useful on tour - they consist of 3 large bottles of coke, one large bottle of lemonade, a housebrick in a carrier bag and various other heavy things. Overall I'm carrying about 12kg which is probably more than I'll have on the real ride.
My longest "loaded" ride so far was on Sunday when I did 37 miles and surprisingly, my average speed seemed to have returned to around my normal - it had dropped a mph or two when I first put the panniers on.
The picture above is the bike loaded up on my new "egg run". We've found a place that does lovely free range eggs. They also have an honesty box so it is great cycling to it (a nice 7 mile ride) picking the eggs from the wooden egg house and ridng back home again. The eggs go in the top box you can see on the bike, which won't be going on tour with us - but are great egg carriers :)
My longest "loaded" ride so far was on Sunday when I did 37 miles and surprisingly, my average speed seemed to have returned to around my normal - it had dropped a mph or two when I first put the panniers on.
The picture above is the bike loaded up on my new "egg run". We've found a place that does lovely free range eggs. They also have an honesty box so it is great cycling to it (a nice 7 mile ride) picking the eggs from the wooden egg house and ridng back home again. The eggs go in the top box you can see on the bike, which won't be going on tour with us - but are great egg carriers :)