Testing, testing……

My mission this week was to cycle a total elevation of 3,700km from the vast range of Cotswold hills that surround us. On the 28th June for The Raid Local, I shall have to do this in one day.

I cycled six days out of seven. My training was to test a few things that will influence how successful I am on the day. Like all good test runs, there was some learning from this one….

Learning

• We have hundreds of hills in the Cotswolds
• Hills are hard
• The more hills I climb, the harder they get
• The harder they get, the slower I am
• The slower I am, the longer it takes
• The longer it takes, the more tired I get
• The more tired I get, the more breaks I need

And herein lies the problem!

This week, I climbed 3,758km of elevation and it took me 16 hours (moving time). There is no allowance for stops at junctions, traffic lights, stops at the top of the hill, water stops, food stops, loo stops, rest stops or photo stops. Granted, I cycled 291km and we need ‘only’ do 137km for The Raid Local. So, if I remove 154km @ 25km/hr, that’s approximately 6 hours. If I add in 35% stop time to cover all of the above, that’s approximately 6 hours. Without allowing any time for the fact that as the day goes on, I’m likely to get slower, then I need approximately 16 hours to do the challenge.

Thankfully, a week after the longest day, the sunrises at 4.46am on 28th June and sets at 9.11pm. That gives me 16 hours and 25 minutes of daylight hours. Just enough…..if it all goes to plan!

An early start for me then……..