My first long ride!

santacrews

Oh Mate i hope that tasted better than it looks !

Just read thro the whole thread, All credit to getting out there in the saddle and cracking of that distance ! and getting out there and doing it all again !

Looking forward to hearing the results and judging by the sound advice and tips that have been forthcomming you should be soon doing that in 3 hours,

My guess is that you are far better prepared this week than you were last and i,m looking forward to youre next post !

Hopefully this will generate others to up the anti and increase the mileage so that more folks can get out and enjoy what has got to be one of the best forms of physical activity out there !

Good on yer !
I,m out this afternoon............ Swift 18 miler before my ride Next wknd !

As teh WC is on i,m after visiting some where like Glentress or might partake in either Gisburn OR Stainburn !

MarkDon

Dude, it tasted awsome, just had it again for post ride lunch!

Got up, had a big bowl of Alpen, a pint of SIS GO Electrolyte Lemon & Lime and got kitted up.

Went out at 6am, got to Kielder around 7.15, set off at 7.30.

Scored as the ticket machines were out of order, so stuck a bit of paper on the dash saying so, saved 3quid

Had 2 litres of the sis stuff with me, 4 bananas & 5 cereal bars.

Cracked on all the way around, still had to get off twice as i was buggered, but no cramps! awsome!

And. did it in 3.5hrs, so saved 30mins from last time, happy about that, perhaps next time i'll be a bit quicker.

The main thing for me is the fact that i didnt cramp up and i felt like i could have done another 10-15miles before getting tired.

Oh yeh, also, the padded shorts helped loads, my ass is fine now

Thanks very much for all the advice everyone has given me, hope it helps other people too.

santacrews

Nice 1

Only advice i,d give you "and i,m not a dietician" or food expert !

Go easy on the SiS Stuff, its full of sugar, In one of the previous posts there was ref to a home made brew ! Tapolena, Squeeze of Lemon / Lime, Dash of salt.

Of all the products SiS is GOOD !
I like their cereal GOl bars, they are packed full of good stuff, and they care what goes in them, as oposed to normal Ceraeal bars that are again high in Sugar, where as the SiS stuff has Fruit sugars in it Fructose.

I,m gonna stop now before i open a can of worms...............................

Try a few rides in the week, Tues & Thurs if you have the time,
It should make the weekend bash a bit easier to digest, you are definately going about it the right way, there is no substitute for getting out there and riding.

ENJOY !

spongtastic

If you can't bulk buy the energy drinks then just the standard Tesco sports drinks are only 35p each or there abouts. For some reason they seem to be cheaper per bottle rather than buying a pack of four.

Bananas and Brazil nuts will do wonders if you suffer from bad leg cramps, plus the brazils are large enough to hold if you've got the old hand shakes going, bags with sunflower and pumkin seeds etc just fall all over the floor.

MarkDon

Going to go for a blast up/down the coast one night as i live right on the Tyne.

Not a big fan of roads, prefer to keep it off road, but theres not much available within riding distance, though the coast to coast runs pretty much infront of my door, so i'll have a dodge along that.

So the tesco own brand energy juice is just as good as the SIS stuff?

Nuts, i knew i forgot something, nuts! I had the bananas, which i forgot are rather tasty, and have bought a big bunch for snacks at work. Will grab some nuts, does it have to be brazils, just i prefer the taste of pecans, but if the brazils will give me an edge over the pecans, i'll put up with them.

Cheers for the advice guys.

Going to try and get out and do it again next weekend, as i'm determinded to break the 3hr mark, i just need to increase my average speed by 1mph to get to my goal, i can do this!

I also think i need to mtfu and go a bit harder on the decents, i get nervy when the bike gets skittish on the gravel, childhood memories of having gravel removed from my shins when i went flying on the old bike :oops:

spongtastic

I don't know if the tesco is as good as SIS, two of the people I work with recommended them as they are pretty much the same as lucozade sport. One runs probably 50+ miles a week and the other competes at national level in triathlons.

Brazils are high in trace elements such as zinc and magnessium, but don't eat bags and bags of them as they are high in selenium which can have the opposite effect in high quantities.

Pecans are probably pretty high in most, IIRC most nuts apart from ground nuts are but make sure they're not salted.

Don't MTFU on decents too much there might be a reason why your bike is skittish. I fitted my race kings on Sunday, unbeatable on the flats and going up, but by jingo they were scary coming down a track that had a mix of large gravel and sand.

MarkDon

Will do everything the same as last time, but replace sis with the tesco own brand stuff, see what happens, and add some pecans into the equation (but not into thde drink)

I was getting close to 25mph in some places on the mud, and 15ish on the rough stuff and know i could go faster, but with the big lumps of gravel, it was pushing the bike around, rather than the bike going over the top of them. I have some Panaracers to go on, but i was going to wait till the Maxxis had ran out of life.

Might have a play with fork settings & tyre pressures for next time too.

Just need to keep tweeking till i get the right setup, or hit a tree, whichever comes first.