The ride came about when last Christmas he mentioned that it’s always something he really wanted to do. Never one to turn down a cycling opportunity I agreed to do the trip straight away. So, a little later in the year than we’d thought (due to me being in Mongolia for 3 months) we set off on the 3 day, 100+ miles, hill climbing marathon from Winchester to Eastbourne.

And… it went almost entirely without any problems. No fallings off, some light rain on the 3rd day but nothing to slow us down, no mechanical breakdowns, relatively few aches and pains and most of all: NO PUNCTURES! After my previous experiences (with between 4 and 8 riders) having just 2 people (and 2 bikes – both in good working order) made things a lot more straightforward.

Thanks again to Liz for luggage support on the first day (after that we carried it).

We also discovered some amazing vegetable curry pasties in the general store in a little village called Jevington – last stop (and 2 hills) from Eastbourne. So good we went back for a second one (though they got my second one wrong and it turned out to be cheese and onion – still bitter about this!).

Here’s a video I put together of the trip – some gimmicky stuff in this one:

A great way to round off the summer of cycling. Now I’m not commuting I’m looking for some more cycling challenges to motivate me to keep the fitness up through the winter. Anyone???

I also spent much of the first evening in the pub being ridiculed for apparently ordering a Pina Colada last year. However, now I check back to last year’s writeup I realise it was actually a Mojito which is so much more manly and underserving of criticism. We also realised that – since he has been on EVERY SINGLE group bike trip I’ve ever organised, Andy is probably a completely imaginary friend of mine because that’s totally implausible. Chris and Mark may well be imaginary as well (there are people other than me in the video right?!).

So anyway onto the incidents:

• Chris broke his chain. (Just like last time!)
• Mark also broke his chain several times and had to take a link out each time. With his chain getting shorter by the minute, after the first morning Mark took his bike for it’s annual service at the shop at Glyncorrwg. (just like last time!)
• I got bitten by mosquitos (just like last time – though I was wearing repellent so I managed to keep it to around 30 bites this year)
• Andy fell off (who can believe it – just like last time!) At least this year it wasn’t on the very first section.
• With a grazed body and swollen knee from falling on rock, Andy managed to soldier on and ride the rest of the first day but ducked out of the second day (yep – just like last time). Next year body armour for Andy!

Anyway this year, instead of photos – we have video! This should hopefully give people an idea of what it’s like mountain biking at a custom built trail center. Think: endless, glorious single track, challenging technical stuff and awesome downhill but of course – you have to get up the hill first…

This will suit if:

• you missed out on the black run and want to see what its like
• you would enjoy seeing me fail hopelessly to keep up with Mark – still king of downhill! Given that I was hardly braking he obviously wasn’t at all…

This ride brought some sights I’d not yet seen in Mongolia including:

• A large white date marked on a hillside built out of either chalk or light stone. Thing was it was the correct date – presumably updated daily by the inmates of the prison in the valley below.
• Stunning panoramic views of Ulaanbaatar (see photos)
• Rubbish! Tons of it – on the hills just outside the Ger districts – sometimes we were riding over whole hillsides of broken glass and other rubbish. The hills just beyond that though – beautiful.

At one point we attracted the attention of a group of young boys who decided to ‘help’ me up a hill by holding onto my seat post and running alongside. Eventually I had to give up as I could barely manage the hill even without the unpredictable tugging on the bike in all directions. After exchanging lots of grins and waves I managed to break clear of them when the gradient eased. We ended the ride with a fast descent back through the Ger districts – great fun.

Our ride took us up a valley, past lots of Gers (traditional and still much used Mongolian homes) and along some snow lined ridges and single track. I was struggling somewhat with a cold and with the altitude (Ulaanbaatar is at 1,350m and we rode up from there) but it was great to get out of the city – hoping to get more riding in soon.

Lets start with the trip video:

Here’s the full 120 mile route we did:

View larger version with stats on the EveryTrail site

Day 1 Twickenham to Guildford – 25 miles

Setting off from Twickenham at lunch time we rode the Thames and river Wey towpaths to Guildford. Though these can be slow at times (sometimes narrow and quite a few pedestrians) they are flat and there are lots of options for pub and ice cream stops. The ride was pleasant and we even found time for a leisurely early beer stop about an hour from Guildford.

Day 2 Guildford to Brighton – 45 miles

The main day involved following the Wey towpath a bit further south for a few miles and then picking up the Downs Link which goes all the way to Shoreham on the coast. Being a disused railway route this is mostly flat and traffic free with just some small diversions into woods or onto roads (this trip actually turned out to be the flattest I’ve organised).

Incidents of the day included:

• Rob coming up behind a small child and surprising him into falling off his bike. (bell next time Robert!)
• Chris having a timely puncture as we pulled into the pub but then causing a loud inner tube blowout in the middle of an otherwise tranquil pub garden.
• Rob (again!) stopping suddenly noticing a rope swing, causing carnage behind him and Michelle ending up on the ground.

And for those those that didn’t stay the night in Hove, yes the B&B really did have free wine, chocolates and biscuits in the rooms!

Day 3 Brighton to Hayling Island – 50 miles

An optional day where 4 riders continued along the south coast (National Cycle route 2) back to Hayling Island. This was all road or cycle path and we made quick progress, eventually completing around 50 miles.

Incidentally, the Sustrans site indicates that much of this part of route 2 is still under development. We didn’t manage to follow it all the way (there are some quite big detours to avoid major roads) but there was enough useful signposting to be of help.

Finally, convenient as trains are it’s always nice to start or finish a bike trip actually at your bike shed after a 50 mile ride!

So, here are the obligatory nick names for people on the trip:

• Tim: Gentle Undulations (my description of hills)
• Liz: Speed Spurt (40 miles into the last day)
• Andy: In Training (for Wales this summer)
• Michelle: Emergency Stop (maybe her brakes are a little too good?)
• Tom: Nurse (performed the role admirably when Michelle came off)
• Jonno: The Crack (we saw too much of it!)
• Rob: Take Down (caused at least one small child to fall off their bike and Michelle to end up in the dirt)
• Chris: Part timer (showed up for just the Downs Link day)

Pictures from the trip

More Information

Further information (including maps) about cycling this route from:
West Sussex County Council
Guildford Borough Council
Sustrans National Cycle Route 2
Also read my Guide to Planning a weekend bike trip

Picking a route

First of all – pick your route carefully. Far enough to be rewarding – more than you’d take on in a single day – but not so far that you risk people turning up after the pubs close – as you want it to be fun too! For casual cyclists used to only a couple of hours riding – I’d suggest around 30-35 miles per day for your first trip. That’s very doable for people with some basic fitness and far enough that you feel you’ve actually got somewhere.

I’d also suggest you start with something fairly flat – though I love hills, there’s nothing like hills to put people off early in their cycling career! An excellent solution to the hills problem is to look at doing canal or river towpath routes – as these are generally flat. Better still you avoid traffic as well! You will move a fair bit slower on towpaths because of obstacles like pedestrians (which you should give way to), fishermen, oh and pub stops…

Invites

Once you’ve picked your route and decided on the number of days you want to take – you’ll have an approximate daily mileage to give to people you are inviting. Pick the dates that suit you and send out some invites. You’ll need definite answers before you can book up the accommodation so it helps to have planned the above outline first so people know what they are letting themselves in for.

6-10 people make a nice size group for a weekend trip. Enough people to help each other out – but not so many it’s too hard to get accommodation together or that you present too much of an influx when visiting pubs/restaurants.

Accommodation

B&Bs are the mainstay here. Camping is an option for the hardcore but for the first time weekend bike trip you’ll be wanting to take as little gear as possible and will be glad of a decent bed and guaranteed warm/dry night. B&B’s are also usually good at finding somewhere to store your bikes (though you should ask if there is secure bike storage before booking). Sometimes it’s difficult to get everyone in the same place so you might have to split between 2 places. Don’t forget to make sure you are in walking distance of somewhere to eat (that stays open fairly late) – I’ve been caught out by this before. You probably aren’t going to want to get on your bikes again and ride another 5 miles to get dinner!

Other options are:

• Pubs with rooms. This is a winner – accommodation, food and drink in one place so once you’re there you can relax.
• Youth Hostels. Can be a lot of fun and a good place to meet other interesting people. On longer trips using a Youth Hostel is great to make use of facilities such as washing/drying/internet.
• Hotels. Generally more pricey and you definitely want to check the bike storage situation. Can help with fitting everyone in the same place though.

Training

You don’t necessarily need to have completed the daily distance you’ll be doing before hand – but it would help if you have done 3/4 of it. That way you’ll have good confidence that you can actually complete any given day – it’s just a case of stringing a few of them together (and putting up with the inevitable saddle sore if you’re new to cycling).

What to take

As little as possible! (since you’ll be lugging it all along with you) Though of course there are some essentials… here’s an example kit list to get you started…

• Puncture Repair Kit
• Pump (that works with both Presta and Schrader valves)
• Several spare inner tubes (save time and in some cases tears!)
• Allen Keys (possibly a multitool with spanners especially if some people are riding older bikes)
• Lock (important as even if you have secure storage at night you will likely want to lock up at pubs/shops in the day)
• water bottle/hydration pack
• Lightweight, waterproof jacket
• Cycling shorts
• Padded gloves
• Shoes suitable for both cycling and evening. (MTB cycling shoes or just a pair of trainers)
• 1 set of evening clothes – the lightest you can manage – nothing that you don’t absolutely need.
• Toiletries – use film canisters/takeaway sushi soy sauce containers/miniature versions to take only what you need for the duration of the trip
• Travel towel (only if using Youth Hostels)
• Map(s) of your route – handle bar map pockets are good.
• Mobile Phone

Off you go!

Make sure you’ve done your homework on the route. Consider how busy the roads are (small A roads are the worst – busy with little room to overtake). Also make sure you have notes of emergency numbers, numbers for the places you are staying and everyone who’s coming and that everyone has your number in case they are running late. Finally – enjoy your first feeling of satisfaction as you reach destinations you’d normally think would be quite an undertaking even in a car!

So – though I’ve not used any other helmet camera to compare it with here are my initial thoughts about the Tachyon:

• I like the overall form factor – it’s a fairly compact unit and is well built.
• The micro comes with only one mount – designed to allow it to sit on curved surfaces – you then fix the mount to your helmet with 3M Dual Lock (it comes with a strip). This is essentially like Velcro but  much stronger – it works surprisingly well and I can imagine fixing it in all kinds of places without worrying about it.
• I was warned by the that the sound quality wouldn’t be great – a necessity with the camera being waterproof. I was initially very worried about this as I made some test recordings in my office and there was a lot of unpleasant electronic background noise. However I was relieved when I first filmed outdoors that this wasn’t present – so must have been interference from other electrical equipment in there. So no – the audio quality isn’t amazing – but it’s good enough for a voice over etc.
• I’ve mounted it on the top of my helmet using the universal mount. I did experiment with mounting it on the side but my helmet visor comes into the edge of the shot.
• I did have one problem when it sits in the universal mount – though it is secure, there is room for a small amount of movement causing a loud rattling to be captured by the camera. I’ve solved  this easily, if inelegantly by adding some Blu Tack to stop the vibration.  To be honest, I don’t really bother with sound now anyway choosing to put most videos to a soundtrack.
• Video quality is fine – no complaints about it. It’s not HD – but then that costs more money.
• Use the batteries and brand of micro SD card recommended by Tachyon – I have tried one other brand of card which was rated just as fast and I noticed the camera was slower to begin and finish recording. It’s just not worth having to worry about whether it has really started or not when you are out riding.
• The still photo’s aren’t great (they are only VGA) so I certainly won’t be able to leave my still camera behind.
• The camera is waterproof down to 30 meters so can be used for diving!
• It’s designed to be a very tight fit for batteries and this does mean Tachyon recommend you don’t use rechargeables so it’s not very green.

In summary, I’d highly recommend this camera if you need something that will stand up to vibrations and the general rigour of action sports. I’ve just noticed on their site they’ve brought out an HD version of the full size camera so maybe an HD version of the micro will be next…

For more info check out the Tachyon site and the following videos I’ve made with it:

Atlas Descent

Winter Commute

Queen Elizabeth Country Park

The commute is 10 miles each way, which I reckon is the perfect distance – long enough to provide some proper training/enjoyment/satisfaction but short enough that it doesn’t take much longer than driving. (and when there is traffic – it can be quicker!)

I’ve found my regular gear is very comfortable – I’m warm within a few minutes of riding. The only issue I have is that (despite wearing ski gloves) the tips of my fingers get painfully cold for about a third of the ride – usually from about 10 minutes in and then they warm up towards the end.

Here’s a short video of me riding in a variety of wintry conditions throughout the last week – just to prove I’m hardcore:

And here’s the route on EveryTrail – showing a very useful little cycle lane round the top of an industrial estate that allows you to cut out all of busy Havant and it’s roundabouts and lights!


See larger version at EveryTrail