Thursday 1 July 2010

The July 150

In a fit of madness, I signed up for Phills July 150 LINK this afternoon. Why is it dumb for me to do this?
  1. I have a bad back or more likely a trapped nerve making it painful to sit, walk, lay down, etc. Ive had it a week now and its not going anywhere.
  2. I have never cycled anywhere close to 150 miles in a month.
  3. I'm on holiday in Cornwall the last week of this month meaning I have a week less than every other entrant.
However I just got the "new" bike back from the shop today after having a shed load of expensive work done to it and I wanted to give it a shakedown tonight, so I fitted the new bike computer & off I went. I followed the national cycle route along the Kennet & Avon canal up to Burghfield and then the back roads to the rear of Green Park. I had to double back a few times when I got lost - or more correctly when the freaking sign saying there was a cycle path to Reading town centre turned out to be a dead end! Feeling sure Id missed the turning I went up and down the road 5 or 6 times before giving up. Its no clearer having looked at it on Google Maps as they are old and development has occurred since they were taken.

Here's the route July 01 2010 ride

Next time I must remember to take a Hannibal Lecter mask to stop the freaking bugs going in my eyes and mouth along the canal. I also need to get some lights fitted as it was a bit beyond daylight on the last leg.

Oh and for some reason RWGPS only shows the route as 8.6 miles, whereas my computer, which I know is set up right states its 9.16 miles.

Stats:
Distance: 9.16 miles
Time: 52 minutes 24 seconds
Average Speed: 10.4 mph
Maximum Speed: 24.2 mph

4 comments:

  1. Good goal, I will be cheering you on across the big pond.

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  2. I've signed up too, I can only do leisure miles at the weekend due to family stuff. I've got scheduled rest this week a coasching conference next weekend, which leaves effectively 2 days to do 150 miles. That's not great.

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  3. I'm chuffed that you lot have signed up. Maybe the mileage difference is because your gps doesn't track very often, so the corners get cut off. I know my lad's i-GotU thingy can track as little as every 20 seconds, which is a big chunk off a decent corner!

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  4. Nice man, I just signed up as well, though this 101 degree weather over here is going to be a bitch to get through.

    As for your mileage variance, rolling hills and what not might not show up on RWGPS, think about Mount Everest... on a flat map it may be 1 mile wide, but to walk across it you gotta go 5 miles up and 5 miles down. Just make sure your computer is set to the correct wheel circumference, cuz all its doing is counting the number of times your wheel rotates and multiplying by the circumference.

    That looks like an awesome route through some nice ponds!

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