Weekend Cycling Fun

Today Karen was off work so she, Ben & I decided to go for a cycle in Swinley Forest again, although this was the first real time Karen's been on a bike since...dunno! Anyway as Ben has the new "pocket rocket" that frees up his old adult size bike for her to ride. Despite my protestations, she insisted that the saddle was going to be okay as it was - it was set for Ben's height and was a kids size one. This later turned out to be an error on her part.

So we loaded Ben's bike into the boot and put the others on the bike rack and set off.

We decided that this time we wouldn't bother taking the map as there were barely any signposts at the forest. Karen was soon moaning about the unforgiving saddle and I gave her my gel cover to use which seemed to ease the pressure a bit, but I think the fact that the saddle was too low for her meant that more weight was on her butt than being taken by her legs, however she said she wasn't sure enough cycling yet to have it higher. I do need to change it over for a bigger one sometime though.

Over the weekend we've had a lot of rain and there were a substantial amount of puddles. Ben decided that he was going to go through every single one of them, and for the first hundred or so he did just that - at full speed, however as he approached a particularly large one I said to Karen that it looked quite deep, and sure enough it was what I would call a "Vicar of Dibley" sized one! The water in the middle must have been nearly to the bottom of his seat post. His front and rear mudguards couldn't handle the volume of water coursing up the wheels and about a gallon of water ended up all over his back and legs...classic!

After that he was a little more careful in choosing which ones to go through. We tried the side tracks but Karen wasn't so sure of herself on them so we stayed mostly to the wider man-made paths, but this didn't stop them being quite muddy in places. I tried to pick the best routes but sometimes they wouldn't follow me, and on one occasion Karen got stuck in a deep quagmire and Ben had to go back and help her pull the bike out.

It rained off and on during the morning, but nothing too hard & we stopped for lunch around 12.30 when we saw some nice sized logs begging for tired asses to sit on them.

Having a rest wasn't part of Ben's plans for the day and after eating his lunch decided to race up and down the path to get his miles up higher than mine.

Shortly after we reached an old hill fort called Caesar's Camp and realised we'd made a slight error in our route, however I found a dirt track we managed to negotiate which was quite fun & heading in roughly the right direction; lots of humps and twists and even Karen was managing to cope until we got to a long downhill bit with a path-spanning puddle at the bottom.

I tried to ride through but the wood buggered me up and by pure fluke I managed to put my foot down on a bit saving me from getting wet feet. A little way further on we hit a long steep uphill bit that none of us could cycle up and remain sane. Heck it was knackering just walking up and I stupidly offered to push Karen's bike up as well as mine! When we got to the top and turned around we saw this sign.

I wouldn't go so far as to say it was unsuitable for cycles, though riding down the hill would have been preferable to going up the ba***rd. I also have to apologise for the photo Ben took of me at the top. I hadn't realised how ugly I really am!

After another mile and a half of uneventful cycling we reached the start again. Oh I suppose I ought to mention Ben getting chased by a big dog as he was riding and he didn't even know about it. The thing was a baby werewolf or something and was right up to his rear wheel, but Ben hadn't a clue it was there before the owner called it back.

We stopped off at the cafe for tea, Lucozade and a rest as well as photos and funny faces.

(I'm sure I must look better than this - must be a dodgy camera).

Total miles cycled = 6.66 miles.

So we got home and I really didn't feel like I'd been out cycling at all. There was no tension or tiredness in my legs so I decided to do 5 miles on the exercise bike. What can I say but holy crap that did me in! I did 5.5 miles at a constant 20.5 mph. The bikes in the sun lounge and it gets really hot in there too and I was sweating buckets at the end.

Sadly, my weight has increased by 0.59lb this week to 220.2lbs (15.73st). I can't understand how, and it's disappointing as I've not eaten anything over and above normal. Still its giving me determination to get it down for next weekend.

At least I managed to scratch off a couple of my goals this week. Shame about the weight though...damn!

Swinley Forest Ride Part 1

On Sunday Ben & I went for a ride in Swinley Forest in Bracknell. The weather, although not as hot as Saturday, was great. As we needed to drive to get to the forest it also gave me a chance to try my car bike rack for the first time since getting it for Christmas and I was quite nervous about its stability. No matter how tight I pulled the straps holding it onto the boot of the car, I still had one eye on the bikes and one eye on the road ahead as I drove, especially on roundabouts which gave me visions of it all twisting and throwing off to the side.

Nevertheless we made it all the way there without any issues, arriving just 15 minutes after the area opened to find the car park full to bursting and only one space left in the overflow car park! I was amazed at how busy it was.

We quickly unhitched the bikes, deciding that there were so many people around that it would be okay to leave the rack on the car, paid the pittance of £2.00 for a days cycle pass and hit the trails at 10.30am.

Swinley Forest is a huge area owned by The Crown Estates (hence the reason for the fee to ride there) and one corner is dedicated to mountain bikes with lots of narrow technical tracks winding through the trees, linked to moderately easy trails, and then the rest of the forest is covered by narrow cleared paths which are again linked with wide paths that are probably a car and a half wide.

The majority of it is reasonably flat with long gradual hills, except when you get to the "offroad" mountain bike trails which are very uppy-downy.

Ben managed most of the trails with ease once he had come to grips with the perils of tree roots causing the wheels to slip sideways and spongy and muddy ground which grips the tyres unless you have the power to get through. The randomness of the ground was a challenge and he initially found that he wasn't putting in enough power to get the bike up the hills.

We did attempt the more technical area but it was just too tough for Ben to manage all the very tight turns and we gave up when on a bend he lost it and fell. His forehead hit a 1 inch diameter branch laying on the ground and snapped it in two! Talk about thick skulled - it didn't even leave a mark! What upset him was another large branch that managed to get wedged in his shoe and grazed his ankle, so we Indiana Jonesed our way on foot out of the area by carrying the bikes through the woods. Not an easy thing.

Ben following the "I destroy trees with my forehead" incident

The scene of the crime - Exhibit A; broken branch

Looking back at the technical route

After that we stuck to mainly narrow paths which were a lot easier and we covered a lot of ground. Around midday we found a nice spot to sit and eat our lunch - and boy were we ready for it. I'd bought some mini baguette's the previous day and we had half each, which I'd stuffed with chicken, cucumber & lettuce, then a pinch of crushed pepper and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar, followed up with a packet of crisps and a chocolate biscuit.

One of the more open "easy" paths as we head towards lunchtime

Ben just as we stop for lunch - looks a bit knackered eh?

Im..nom..nom..nom..starving!

Swinley Forest Ride Part 2

The reason for splitting this post into two parts was because for some reason Blogger doesn't seem to like me adding extra photo's. As soon as I tried to add another one, it not only removed it, but it also removed the previous one! After several attempts I gave up and decided to split the post. The Blogger software has other kinks in it too which can make it really annoying, such as mis-formatting fonts and sizes, removing all paragraphs. It's maddening! However, onward with the "finale"....

Our bikes taking a breather while we have lunch

Suitably rested and refreshed we continued on our ride and it was only at this time that we found a marker which we could relate to a point on our map - oh and if you ever go there, print off the map from their website rather than pay money for exactly the same one in their shop. Whichever you decide its not very practical anyway as there are so few markers to know where you are at any particular time. However now knowing where we were we headed back to the main entrance where ice lollies awaited these two brave adventurers.

Ben enjoying a 'Twister' despite my insistance that it looked like bogeys and cream

Me eating a much more 'manly' chocolate ice lolly as I consider downing it in one go.
Badly need a haircut too!

Following a bit of R&R we hitched the bikes back onto the car (phew! the rack was untouched) and headed home for around mid afternoon. To say that our asses felt like they'd been whipped by an ugly pagan war god, and that our legs felt like strawberry jelly would be putting it mildly. We had only cycled about 5 miles but it was a very hard 5 miles on heavy bikes - at least for us anyway.

Would we do it again? Too freaking right we would. The entrance fee is so cheap to not even be a consideration, and we both really enjoyed ourselves. We are talking about doing it again next weekend if the weathers nice.