The sportives are coming thick and fast at the moment and that’s another big one been ticked off.

Less than ideal preparation after a night of almost zero sleep in a poky little tent and damp, cold and windy when we had to get up at 6am. Ugh. Definitely need to get a nice B&B booked well in advance for next year!

The ride itself went well enough. Impressive organisation saw groups of 100 riders setting off every two minutes without any obvious hitches and we eventually got underway only slightly after our allocated start time. It felt odd riding with so many other bikes on closed roads and it took a bit of time to feel comfortable charging into blind corners downhill on the wrong side of the road. Great fun!

Lots of good riders meant lots of good fast groups to try and latch onto. Some attempts were more successful than others, but I did get into a great little group of three in the last twenty miles, which really helped keep up a good pace when the legs were tiring in the closing stages.

I was very happy with my time of 4h 21m, but thought I might place better than 550th overall. I suppose with over 4,000 riders – lots of them pretty serious – that’s not too bad, but I’ll definitely be aiming for better next year!

All the results are here if you’re interested in the really fast times.

Full activity details at Garmin Connect…

Often the commute home from work is a bit of a slog and definitely not blog worthy. Last night was a bit of an exception though. A very favourable tail wind and good luck with the traffic lights resulted in me beating my all time personal best, posting a time of 53 mins for the 18 miles home.

Very pleased with that and just wondering how I can get to be that quick without the tailwind!

Full activity details at Garmin Connect…

A short Saturday morning ride to the coast. Unusal North Easterly wind meant that I averaged 21mph on the way down, but had to  struggle against a headwind all the way back. Good training though

Full activity details at Garmin Connect…

Weekend training ride over a pretty hilly Trossachs route. Weather was good, legs felt fine and I managed to log the quickest segment time up Crow Road which was nice. First time I’ve been over that hill in many years. Brought back some good memories and the fact that I felt faster over there than I did twenty years ago has to be a good thing

Full activity details at Garmin Connect…

So, we came down here for a nice relaxing ride in the sun, but it turned into an 85 mile sprint in freezing rain!

There was a special Gold Medal on offer for anyone finishing in less than 5 hours and we thought that was a reasonable target, but we started quickly and managed to keep it going for the whole ride, eventually finishing in 4.31 with an average moving speed of 18.8 mph.

It was a tough ride in the cold and pushing hard the whole way, but I’m very happy with the time and had a great massage at the end which was much needed for my aching legs.

Great day. Well organised, good freebies and lots of riders. We’ll be back!!

Full activity details at Garmin Connect…

Just one of the regular Southside training loops today, but definitely starting to see an improvement in the average speeds, even if I feel that I’m going backwards half the time.

As usual, cold, wet and windy up on the Eaglesham moor.

Full activity details at Garmin Connect…

A custom build consisting of:

• Van Nicholas Chinook Frame 54cm
• Easton EC90 SLX Carbon Fork
• Mavic Ksyrium Elite wheels
• SRAM Force groupset (50/34, 11/28)
• Prologo Scratch Pro saddle
• Chris King Headset
• Van Nicholas Titanium Stem (110mm) and spacers (25mm)
• Deda Zero bars (42cm)
• Lifeline Titanium bottle cages
• Speedplay Zero pedals

Currently sporting a temporary Planet X seatpost while I wait for delivery of a shiny new VN Titanium one (they sent the wrong size apparently).  Weighing in at a not too shabby 7.7kg, I do have to say she is a thing of beauty

My stats from the Dunfermline Sportive…. 95 miles, over 6000ft of climbing, 6hrs 7mins. Not bad for a season opener. Allegedly one of the toughest sportives in Scotland, which I can well believe.

Looking forward to the New Forest sportive which looks flat in comparison

Full activity details at Garmin Connect…

Well, that’s the first (of many) sportives in the bag. The Dunfermline Sportive was always going to be a tough way to start the season. 95 miles and some pretty serious climbs in the second half of the ride. With my lack of training recently and the fact that I’m still trying to find a saddle that’s comfortable on my new bike, I thought I might struggle a bit.

Luckily, it turned out to be a good day. The weather was fantastic and the route was great apart from some pretty lumpy roads near the end. I rode with Ade all day and he did well considering it was the first outing on his new shiny titanium bike. I was happy with my performance, which was better than expected. Felt strong on the climbs all day and still had something (not much!) left in the tank at the end.

Next big ride is the sellout New Forest Spring Sportive on April 14th. Shorter and flatter than Dunfermline and, with 800 riders, should be a great event

Please don’t forget to sponsor us at some point this year. we don’t want all this hard work to be for nothing!!

Full activity details at Garmin Connect…

Got some commuting in this week, so thought I’d earned a slightly shorter Saturday ride.Beautiful day and the ride felt pretty good. Still too tired at the end though. Hmmm.

Full activity details at Garmin Connect…