Just Keep Pedalling

It’s now a month since LEL ended, and at last I’m starting to feel like my body is beginning to recover from the battering it received. Two weeks after the ride I jumped back on the bike and went for a DC team training ride. At first, everything felt good – the bike now nice and light with bags and audax paraphernalia removed. It was a grey, cold and wet day with some rain as we rolled into Paarl. Despite the weather, I wasn’t feeling too bad as we slogged up the 18km long climb of Du Toits kloof pass – a higher climb than anything LEL had thrown at me. I could definitely feel the strength in my legs from all that long distance training, and I’m pretty sure if I compared my time to the top it would be significantly quicker than on last year’s DC training.

All was not 100% though, which I began to realise back down in Paarl as we rolled out from a water and snack stop at the Spa. I wasn’t at all comfortable on the bike. My neck and shoulders were beginning to get sore again, my knees were burning, and I was struggling to even keep up our moderate 23 to 25km/h pace. By this stage we had the sweep vehicle all to ourselves, and every now and then I caught a glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye. It took a mountain of willpower over the last 40km or so not to just dismount and get in. I was hurting, I was cold, and I simply wasn’t enjoying the ride even with good company of my team-mates.

The week after I gave in, and finally went to see the physio as Yoli had been pleading with me to do for several days. I’m extremely stubborn when it comes to pain and doctors, but with the joy of riding stripped from my week something had to be done. It took the physio no time at all to sign me off from any further riding or training involving back and shoulder muscles, and that done she proceeded to prod, poke, pull, and push every conceivable point of pain in my neck that could be found. It was agony, but with every stab something also seemed to release. After some time lying with acupuncture needles stuck in me and a hot pack on my neck, I was sent on my way with a batch of stretching exercises and an appointment for the following week.

With great relief, after diligently working on the stretching, at the next session I was cleared to try two sessions on the bike. The first was a short 45 minute session on the indoor trainer. As well as getting me pedaling again, such a short session had the added benefit of forcing me to pick one of the videos I don’t often train with: Fight Club – a hectic blur or 16 consecutive maximum intensity intervals, 1 minute each with a minute rest in between. By the end my legs were jelly, my heart rate was up around 180, and I was light headed. But the neck was only marginally sore. The second was a 1 hour road ride, and the weather was truly foul – a proper cold and wet Cape Sunday morning. The few of us who turned up gathered around all hoping the others would give up and either get back in their cars or go immediately for coffee. None of us did though, and so our small band of DC team riders headed out., wheels splashing through puddles and spraying up road grit all over our feet, drive chains, and each other.

Despite the miserable weather, I was sad to turn for home early at Stellenbosch. It was fun to be riding again, even more so because Darren who I hadn’t ridden with sicne last year’s DC had made the trip out from Cape Town to join us, and Penny’s husband Jean had also come along, who I’d never ridden with. I’d preferred to have carried on with them against the physio’s instructions, but knew it didn’t make sense to pay for advice and then ignore it. I cheered myself up by ripping the road up all the way home. I might have been limited to just an hour’s riding, but nothing had been said about how much effort I was allowed to put in. I put maximum effort into every hill, and didn’t hold back on the descents. As a result I got back to the car out of breath and sweating, but more importantly I was smiling – there was very little discomfort in my neck. My hands and feet though were still suffering a bit from numbness at the tips, and the cold was not helping with this one bit. I had to remind myself that as this was Spring Day, the weather must surely warm up soon.

It did, on Wednesday for the normal weekday club ride. And after the excellent progress on my two test rides I was given a clean bill of health and cleared to build up to normal training again. Even with that, leaping immediately into a full 100km ride seemed foolish so I limited myself to 50km, and John and Theunis turned back with me. The three of us pushed a decent pace though, keeping the Garmin in the 28 to 30km/h region for long stretches on the way back, alternating turns pulling at the front along the long slog from Gordon’s Bay. John led us to an excellent coffee venue too, Snobs Roastery near the Somerset West Mall – perfect spot to end a good mornings ride.

There was one other thing gone from the DC training a few weeks earlier too – no sore knees. I’d had a hunch my saddle wasn’t right, even though I’d put it back on at the same height as the tape marking it. A couple of things had made me wonder if it was fractionally off straight, even though it looked right – it didn’t “feel” quite right, and I was struggling to balance with no hands on the bars. When Darren also threw this out as a possible cause on the Sunday ride I did a thorough check. It was so close, it was really hard to see, but it did look a millimeter or two out after checking from several angles. Sure enough, on the Wednesday ride, I was sitting balanced and comfortable again, and sitting up with hands off the bars was no issue at all. It’s amazing such a small misalignment could have such a significant effect.

A couple of days on, and perhaps helped by the slow warming of the weather, the fingers and toes are also beginning to feel more normal too. Most importantly though, I’m getting that itching sensation when I spend too long off the bike – the road is out there waiting.

I’m hoping that in just under two weeks time I won’t be writing another entry with the same title, but used in a cycling sense – “to pack”, meaning to quit, to bail, DNF (did not finish). Banishing such thoughts from mind, I’ll quickly sum up my last weekend of preparation, which largely consisted of piling tons of stuff onto our dining room table, dismantling my bike into it’s box, and then shovelling said piles into the spaces around the frame.

In fact, the whole process took far less time and was much easier than I’d expected – much to Yoli’s amusement, as she’d predicted I was being my usual overly pessimistic self about the scale of the task. Ben was also quite pleased that his pleas of “come play Daddy” got a result in a couple of short hours rather than taking the whole weekend.

First task on the agenda was the all important process of shirt selection, pictured above. The shirt for each day being carefully chosen to represent a key aspect of my preparation:

• South Africa – goes without saying really, my adopted home and the place all this madness started.
• Hildebrand Pebbles – one of the two charities I have been riding for, and the shirt which has been on my back for all of the longer training rides.
• William’s Bike Shop – built, advised on, and serviced Jolly and the wheels, and generally kept me on the road
• Wannabees – my awesome club mates who’ve supported, and sometimes quite literally pushed me through all the training rides
• SufferFest – need I say more. I’m sure by the time this shirt goes on, I will reached the required level of self inflicted pain to be called a true Sufferlandrian.

 That job done, photographed, and posted to Facebook, next up was getting all the kit out and double checking it against my list. It seems bizarre that despite covering the whole of our dining room table, by conventional Audax standards I am actually travelling pretty light. For all those who have seen me riding these last months and asked (or joked) about whether I had beers, coffees, or bricks in my saddle and bar bags, at the foot of this article is the complete kit list which can be seen laid in the photo.

The final task was the one most concerning me – disassembling Jolly and packing her into the box. My fears were unfounded though, the step-by-step video offered by BikeBox Alan really was just that. Aside from one small panic where the handlebars seemed like they wouldn’t come off, it all came apart and packed in a dream. Predictably the mudguards wouldn’t really go in the box safely, so those went in my suitcase. But even with my odd arrangements of bag mounts and bar extenders, the handlebars didn’t seem to foul anything as the case closed up. Of course the proof of my packing will be in a few hours time when this flight to London lands and I see whether anything shook loose or broke in transit.

And all of a sudden, I find I have little more to say. The preparation is done, and the ride is less than a week away. After a tearful farewell to Yoli and Ben at the airport, I’m sitting here with complimentary drink and snack in hand. I’m nervous and excited all at the same time, and I’m missing them both like crazy. I realise I’ve already forgotten to take the first of the “en route” photos for this blog, which was meant to be me at the airport checking in my lurid greeen bike box – the colour specifically chosen so that I wouldn’t miss it, and no one could sneak off with it (I did mention I’m a pessimist). Hopefully it’s a few feet below me somewhere and I can at least snap a picture arriving at the other end. Jolly has picked up something like 10,000km in her inaugural year and a bit. Despite being probably five times what Merry did in each of the preceding five years, it now doesn’t feel like nearly enough. In truth though, it’s only short by 1,418 kilometres. And for those final few, it will up to my legs to do the talking now.

Click here to move on to the pre-prologue – the day before the big day!

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It was a remarkably fitting end to the weeks and months of training. The last of the rollers lay behind me, and ahead was one long straight run down to the end of the road where the R315 meets the sea in the small coastal town of Yzerfontein. For the first time in the last fifty or so kilometers since parting company with Emmerentia and Henri on the outskirts of Malmesbury I could sit up and enjoy the stunning west coast scenery, bathed orange in the rays of the late afternoon sun dipping towards the watery horizon ahead.

We had made a much faster time to Malmesbury, our 11:30am arrival was two hours sooner than I had predicted to Yoli. The strong northwester that was forecast had only materialized after our coffee stop in Hermon as we crested Bothmaskloof – perhaps we’d been sheltered by the low line of hills, or maybe it had just been slow to blow up. Either way, as a group of riders we’d been largely untroubled by the headwind we were expecting. But, as if to throw me down one last test before LEL, by the time we said our goodbyes and Henri and Emmerentia turned back towards Somerset West, the wind was now in full force.

It was hard to enjoy the glorious rolling landscape when every rise of the road combined with the headwind to drag my pace back to a crawl, at times barely making 10 Km/h. Not knowing the road, and with nowhere to hide from the wind it would have been all to easy to become dispirited and simply stop – especially with the temptation of Yoli somewhere behind me in the car. Fortunately, the overriding lesson learned from the past long rides was how to keep going, one crank turn after the next. And sure enough, despite the slow pace, eventually the town of Darling came into view.

Tired and sore from hunching over the handlebars, I slumped down and drained two quick coffees in succession – even adding sugar for extra energy, even though I don’t normally take it in coffee. It was a great relief to see Yoli’s smiling face as the last of the second cup went down. With just 25km or so to go, there was no way I was going to accept the offer of a lift – although I did welcome the offer of some supplies grabbed from the nearby Spa.

Initially, the road after Darling was much like the stretch before, except even more undulating and potholed without the wide and smooth new tarmac surface. But after a couple of big rollers, there it was, the sea, the setting sun, and the end of my training for LEL. In Yzerfontein I swung left towards Pearl Bay and the beach house we were staying in. For one all too short kilometer I enjoyed the tailwind that Henri and Emmerentia would have enjoyed surfing all the way back to Somerset West.

The final distance for the ride was around 180km, although it had felt much further. With the Sunday and Wednesday rides, the total for my last week of training was a rewarding 420km. It felt good to be able to relax as I sat soaking in the bath, beer in hand, and reflect on the great rides we had done, and the truly amazing winter weather and scenery we had been blessed with.

All photos by author.