Tuesday was a gorgeous day in Ilkley, blue sky and a risk of sunburn for my neighbours who were preening on their balconies sipping G&T. After 10am of course - not with their eggs benedict.
I could have gone for a ride but the thought of all the electric bike riders jamming the roads made me defer until today when I could rely on drizzle and gloom and feel 'ard. So 30 miles (1300 feet) along back roads I had not ridden for a while providing the opportunity to catch up on road signs destroyed by vehicles that had diverted from the carriage way and the general metal detritus left behind after collisions that breakdown recovery vehicles hadn't bothered to pick up.
The 30 miles took me over 400 miles so far this year in 2 months + 2 days and on checking on my return this wasn't far short of the 530 miles I ran in total in the 4 years 2018 - 21. The four years included 102 races and I won my category in 30% so I wasn't just walking round with the sweepers. However in those 4 years I cycled 9700 miles which presumably helped me keep reasonably fit with little damage to my knees.
So my general suggestion is that if you aspire to do Wasdale at 90 years cut out fellrunning and all that knee damage, apart from actual races, and do more bike riding.
"...as dry as the Atacama desert".
So basically you advise back loading your fell career by cycling a lot? This is a dangerous game given the state of some peoples road manners towards cyclists, you might not make it.
Luke Appleyard (Wharfedale)- quick on the dissent
Well that's far more impressive than my 2022 mileage, which is probably around the 180 miles mark (I don't always remember to wear my watch). Although all bar 7 miles of that has been on fixed wheel; only yesterday I was accosted by someone in Aldi who had spotted me riding a 'vintage track bike'. (It's not vintage, and it's not strictly speaking a track bike either, but I wasn't going to argue about the finer points). Second person of the year to tell me they'd seen me on it too.
My somewhat low mileage hasn't been helped by the murder of a pensioner last Thursday, who lived on the main road into Whittington just over a mile from my house. For 8 days the road has been completely closed, for a 400m stretch, with an occupied police car at each end 24/7. Terrible though the situation is, I'm not too dispondent as I'm not in training for the M90 category at Wasdale
Last edited by Marco; 03-03-2022 at 07:18 PM.
Ha! I was going up a steepish country road climb yesterday using 34/34 and I thought to myself "I don't suppose I could even think of getting up this hill on a fixie"!
I can see well over a hundred riders when I'm out on a decent day but not one in a thousand is on a fixed wheel.
"...as dry as the Atacama desert".
Although not common here, you do see the odd rider around here on fixed wheel. I know, and meet on the roads, two riders locally who always ride fixed wheel. It does help, greatly, that the Trent, Tame and Mease rivers have carved a largely flat terrain, although that's a bit of a double-edged sword when the wind gets up across the largely tree-less plain.
It's a different technique riding without a freewheel. The flywheel effect really helps at low cadence, so it's really surprising what you can climb, but you do have to ride it differently. Mechanically it's bullet proof too, so all you have to do is pedal. All the time.