Wednesday 9th Jan 2013, first ride of the year.

I'd made all the preparations for a typically rainy day the night before. Hunted around the house for kit that had not been worn in 3 months. Where are my overshoes; where's my helmet cover? We turned the house upside down and inside out looking for the latter; if I hadn't found it, I'd have called it off and taken the bus. (it was in the net bag on the front of my pannier the whole time - I didn't see it because it was inside out - it was white, but I was looking for something black with reflective patches.)

Here's the full list of my requirements before I would be happy to ride:

• SPD shoes
• "Sealskinz" waterproof socks
• Leggings
• Waterproof overtrousers
• Merino jersey
• Long sleeved base layer
• Waterproof Jacket
• Winter gloves
• Wrist support
• Padded mitts
• Neck buff
• Prescription sports goggles
• Peaked cap
• Helmet
• Waterproof helmet cover
• Rack bag
• Pump
• CO2 pump and cartridges
• Spare Tube
• Puncture kit
• Multitool
• Adjustable spanner
• Water bottles

I was to ride to my "hand class", a weekly physiotherapy group, at Withybush hospital, Haverfordwest, a very easy ride of about 12 miles, almost all of it completely traffic free. On an ordinary day, it would take me an hour. I allowed double that, preferring to arrive early rather than late. As it turned out, I only had 10 minutes to spare.

It was a glorious morning, hardly a cloud in the sky. No need for the waterproof layers then. It had been raining overnight, then there had been a hard frost. The road was fine to ride on, but down on the Brunel Trail, things were a little different. I was more aware than ever that the bloom of algae which lines the edges of the tarmac along the wooded sections was now spreading over the entire path, and it was attention to this which slowed me down considerably. I'd thought to take my camera along for something to do if my mind needed a distraction, but I ended up using far too much concentration on actually riding, and looking down at the floor, so I didn't really see much worth stopping for. 

Hand class was good, I was pleased I'd made the effort, and hearing the reactions of the "injured wrist brigade" was encouragement enough. I rewarded myself with a good old "full english" at a cafe in town before heading back.

I almost came of on my way home. Going through a tricky gate amid a very wooded section, I clipped the gatepost with my bars and felt the back wheel slide away, but managed to get both feet down so only the bike went down. I bruised my shoulder and abdomen, but managed to stay upright. I was a little rattled by it, and walked for a bit before remounting.

My wrist functioned OK. I can steer and brake. It does hurt though, and it feels like my wrist, which struggles to bend backwards, was turning inwards to compensate for the lack of movement, which causes pain. I was very aware of how much I actually lean on my hands, though how easy this will be to correct, time will tell.

My arse got proper sore. I hadn't expected that, wearing padded leggings! I'll wear double thickness next time. 25 miles in nice bright sunlight, but it was a painfully slow time. I was very hesitant on corners and descents. Getting on and off was OK, but starting was a bit dodgy. You don't realise how much you pull on the bars at times, until you physically can't do it.

I'm pleased the weather was so good, as it's been lousy ever since. Looking forward to repeating the ride next week, though I may take the back road rather than the trail.

See the full gallery on Posterous

 

Monday 7th Jan

No change.

2nd Jan 2013

No miles yet in my Mileater Diary. I had hoped, weather permitting, that I might be able to cycle to my Hand Class and physiotherapy session, but nothing was quite ready, neither me nor the bike, and the weather was most definitely not permitting. The bus journeys couldn't have contrasted more sharply. I'd got up late and had to scurry to the bus stop, unable to find my ipod. The bus was early, not many people on it, and everyone quiet as mice. Three people from my church said hello. Coming back, there was a large and noisy contingent of very drunk people, one with a dog who slept very soundly the whole journey while his dog wandered loose, one on crutches who kept dropping them and hassling people to pick them up for him, and a woman with a child who sat with her back to him the whole time. In the end I got off about three miles from home and walked in the drizzle for the peace, the fresh air and the exercise. I phoned ahead and my daughter walked up and met me on the bridge.

The physio and hand class were good. I can feel things starting to improve. I hurt somewhat now, but not as much as when I started 4 weeks ago. My therapist is confident that if I take the right measures, cycling should be fine. Lower pressure in the tyres to soak up vibration, take it easy up the hills, go easy round corners.

I confess, I'm trying not to be, but I'm nervous about getting out there. I suspect my bike is too.

1st January 2013

Peace be with you in this New Year.

A day of mixed emotions, bikewise.

My broken left wrist cannot find a comfortable rest on my lovely, unusual, leather clad Randonneur bars (On-One Midge), so they have to come off, to be replaced with boring, predictable flat bars taken from my wife's Specialized Vita, which now has butterfly bars (which may be the way to go for me, we're still experimenting.)

I have also added my Airstryke Aero bars, so I can support my elbows and take the weight off my wrists whenever possible.

I'm disappointed. I fitted Brooks bartape, which is not cheap. It was weathering nicely. I also bought Cane Creek V brake levers for drop handlebars, again, not cheap, and also unusual. My cockpit setup always drew interest and favourable comments.

However, what's the use of a great-looking bike if you can't ride it? About as much use as a chocolate teapot.

I'm prepared to make whatever sacrifices and changes are necessary to get cycling again.

Start From Where You Are

"Start from where you are, not where you want to be." is the first bit of advice any personal trainer or physiotherapist worth their salt will give you, and as advice goes, it's about as sound as it gets. It applies both physically and mentally, but of course, it involves a degree of acceptance on your part.

I'm not where I want to be at the moment.

On 10th October 2012, around 9am, I was cycling 16 or so miles to work at a school in Narberth. It was a wet morning, much like most of 2012, and my route took me through Canaston Woods, a large, densely wooded hilly area. Coming down a slight incline, I crossed a small bridge at the bottom, touched my back brake and BAM! I was on the deck, so fast I'd no idea what had happened. There had been a very loud crack, which I assumed was my helmet hitting something. Slowly, I gathered myself together and tried to stand up. I couldn't. Something was seriously wrong. I heard a girl's voice asking if I was OK, and without thinking or even looking round I replied "No, I'm not OK. I think my arm is broken." She came over to me and helped me up, and I recognised her as a runner I had passed a mile or so back, and had wished her a good morning. She helped me gather my bike, bottles, and panniers together and very kindly walked with me into Narberth, about 2 miles along a footpath, pushing my bike the whole way, and talking to me the whole time. I didn't have the school's number in my phone, so I phoned my boss and told her what had happened. As luck would have it she was nearby and was able to drop what she was doing and come to pick up both me and my bike, dropping me at A&E some 10 miles away, and taking my bike home for me. (The bike, by the way, was fine.)

I didn't need x-rays to tell me I'd broken my left wrist, I'd broken the same wrist in the same place when I was around 17 years old, some 36 years previous. It felt just the same. After a day of having the bones manipulated back into place and set in a cast, I was allowed home. There would, I was relieved to hear, be no need for surgery, for pins, screws, bolts or plates. Phew.

Now, over 3 months later, it's not so phew. The wrist has knitted together "as well as we could expect", but is visibly crooked. It won't bend backwards at all. There is constant tingling in my fingers. Painkillers make no odds. I take Tramadol at night to help with sleep, and Amitriptyline to try and dull the nerve pain in my hand. I have physiotherapy sessions once a week, only this week's was cancelled due to it falling on Boxing Day. I'm waiting for tests on my median nerve. I'm told the tests are "basic". They won't happen in a hurry. By the time I've had them done, I'll know if the nerve is getting better on its own.

Over on the other side of my body, I have pain in my upper arm in which no-one is interested. It impairs movement quite a lot, as does the ongoing pain in my wrist. Getting out of the bath is a real test, and I'm amazed I haven't slipped and done myself further mischief.

I've been off my bike for over 3 months, one of the longest times ever.

A friend loaned me a turbo trainer, which I set up in the living room. I've used it once in 6 weeks. There was nowhere I could put my left hand on the bars which was comfortable. I fitted aero bars. I can ride like that, but I still need to use my brakes occasionally. I've just fitted flat bars.

2013 was to be the year that I did some truly mammoth rides. Audax UK runs the London-Edinburgh-London ride every 4 years, and this is the year. A friend in Holland has invited me over at Easter to ride a 400km cycle route with him. I'd planned on riding from Pembrokeshire to Harwich en route. I've just received my "Mileater Diary", as my total mileage for next year was destined to be pretty awesome, yet now it looks like I won't be on my bike for some months yet.

I'm not where I want to be.

Avalon Sunrise - the statistics

Start:10.30pm Friday 22nd June 2012

Travelled: 350km

Average speed: 14kmh

Ascent: 4415m

Descent: 4498m

What Am I Doing?

Tiverton, a Devon Market Town. 11.30pm, Saturday night. The Police are busy with the tipout of the local pubs and bars, when through town comes a spread-out line of cyclists. They all have good lights, maps, routesheets and head torches on their helmets.

As I come through, at the rear of the line, curiosity has got the better of one of them.

"What are you lot doing?" he asks me, with a touch of incedulity in his voice.

"A bike ride." I say.

"Where to?"

"Just around"

"How far?"

"400 kilometers"

"What for?"

Silence.

"Is it for charity?" he prompts.

"No."

He gives up, and goes back to his drunks. They make more sense.

The exact same exchange is repeated further on up the road.

The Good Stuff

While I was being checked over in hospital, a young student doctor was asking me routine questions, but kind of veered off into "extreme sport" territory and started asking about long carb diets and so on. I stopped him.

"This isn't extreme sport," I explained, "It's just a bike ride."

And let's get it in perspective, that's all it was. It was 400 kilometres of cycling, some of it uphill, some of it downhill, some of it on the level, some of it dry, some of it wet. The sort of thing I do just about every day of my life, only I was doing a great deal of it all at once.

True, it was twice as far as the longest I'd ridden in one go before. I thought of how I felt when I arrived at my inlaws' house at Barmouth, just before Easter, and asked myself "Could I have just had a quick snack and come all the way home again?". The answer was probably not, but then, I hadn't started the ride with that in mind. I had felt good at the end of it, and did cycle most of the way back a couple of days later, as well as having a reasonable intermediate ride while I was there.

On the Avalon Sunrise, if I hadn't endured 5 hours of torrential rain coupled with freezing winds, I'd have completed in time. I'm happy with what I did, and no, the experience certainly hasn't diminished my enthusiasm for audax in the slightest. If anything, the opposite.

A few excellent lessons have been learned.

Next time, I shall arrive early enough to be rested upbefore the ride starts. The ride started at 10.30pm, and I'd had no sleep since 7am. I'd done a morning's work and made a long train journey with 2 changes in the afternoon. I was already quite tired.

Next time, I'll take a survival blanket or two with me. It had crossed my mind, but I didn't do anything about it. If I'd had one, I could have found a sheltered corner, and got myself warmer than I was, and could have probably carried on after a couple of hours sleep.

Next time, I'll be carrying less luggage, but what to leave out?

Next time, I WILL have lost some weight. 

Next time, I won't be dependent on the kindness of strangers.

So, why do it at all, let alone again?

There were a few things which attracted me to the Avalon Sunrise:

• starting a ride at sunset
• riding through Glastonbury at dawn
• riding for around 24 hours
• getting back to a lovely pub for food and drink at the end
• a quiet night of camping before coming home 

I was a bit gobsmacked by the start - I hadn't expected the pace to be quite so, well, brisk.

I was very soon left holding the Lanterne Rouge, a position I am familiar with, but I kept their red lights in my sight as far as the first control (25km).

After that, I knew if I tried to hold onto them, my pace would be unsustainable, so I settled into my own groove. Riding the A395 from Tiverton to Minehead was lovely - gradients are easier, simply because you can't see them at night. The noises of the forest spur you on to faster and faster descents! A very welcome cup of tea in the company of two elderly ladies in Minehead was quite surreal at the second control, when I discovered I was not the back marker after all - someone had started late!

Along the A39 to Bridgwater, the wind was (mostly) at my back and made the going easy, though a couple of hours of light rain just before dawn soon countered that. Daylight as I neared Street and Glastonbury was very welcome, and the views were a delight. The day became a test of stamina and concentration which I seemed to be winning. I was arriving at controls in time, I was riding comfortably, my bike was singing. My only "mechanical" problem had been my maptrap vibrating loose on my new aero bars. The late starter, a chap who'd punctured twice and the tandem riders (who'd also punctured) soon overtook me. I didn't care.

I was enjoying a much anticipated bacon sandwich on the Bath-Bristol cycle path when I realised I hadn't left myself much time to make the control at Chepstow, and I was further hampered with the complicated web of roundabouts crossed by cycle paths I had to negotiate to skirt around Bristol, but I just made it. That was the halfway point.

Coming back, that's where the pear began to take shape. The rain started somewhere around 4pm and didn't let up. I arrived at a control a little late, and couldn't find the shop, so decided to forget any more controls and just make it back. A random stranger came up and said "get a receipt from the Co-Op" and disappeared into the rain!

I did, and kicked on. The rain was evil. Roads were flooded up to a foot deep in places. I was sick of hills. As night fell I found the last control; a petrol station I'd called into before on the way out. They had a coffee machine! It was Out Of Order! One of the girls behind the counter made me a cup of tea! She offered me a lift back to my tent! I wish now I'd accepted! An hour later, I was out of the game.

Next year will be different!

 

A Comfortable Place

I took this photo minutes after leaving Bath hospital at 7am on Sunday 24th June. I was cold, hungry, thirsty, damp and tired. I was carrying a hefty pannier which very soon started to hurt my fingers. Someone pulled alongside in a car and demanded to know where the local Travelodge was. It was a local taxi driver. I passed the police station. An old man with a splendid beard was just leaving, with his tesco trolley and a couple of carrier bags, escorted out by a young constable. I came upon a lovely cafe full of warmth and pleasant smells with menus in the window and the door open. I walked in, only to be told that they didn't open till 9am. It was 07:45. I found the train station. I could get a train at 09:39. I resumed me search for food. Only McDonald's was open.

 

Strangers to kindness.

I have a faintly ridiculous acquaintance who becomes theatrically aghast whenever I mention my cycling mileage. If it was ever amusing, that wore off a long time ago. He will ask "but what would you do if..." questions ad nauseam, and whenever I bother to dignify his puerile questionings with a reply, it's usually "I don't know until it happens".

Occasionally, on a long ride, such questions will echo round my head, at which point I usually go "la la la la la la la la LA LA LA!" until it goes away. Most shit doesn't actually happen, so it's a waste of energy thinking about it.

This weekend, while riding a 400k audax, I got so wet and cold I had to stop, for the first time, ever. I could not physically continue. It was awful.

It happened around 10pm Saturday evening. I'd been cycling constantly (apart from food stops) since 10.30pm the previous evening. I'd also been awake the whole of Friday; at work in the morning, travelling by train in the afternoon, with 2 changes, so no chance of a kip on the train without running the risk of waking up somewhere totally inappropriate.

At around 5pm on the Saturday, it started to rain (it might have been earlier). When I say "rain", I mean rain of biblical proportions. At one point, I rode through a flooded stretch of country lane which completely covered my chainset, so well over a foot deep. However, once you're wet, you're wet, and that's usually as bad as it gets, so you carry on. I remember musing about why people moan about rain, why it has the capacity to make them thoroughly miserable. As poet Mark Gwynne-Jones says "It's Only Water".

However, at around 9:30pm, the wind, which had been around the whole time in varying strengths, picked up. The chill factor, and the fact that the sun had just set somewhere beyond those impenetrable clouds, meant the temperature dropped faster than a lemming.

I had about 50k left of my ride to complete. I decided it would be best to stick to the main road. I quickly got slower and slower as my legs started to seize. Mentally, I thought I felt fine. Suddenly, I stopped. No reason. One minute fine, one minute not.

(I'm finding this hard to write about now, maybe because the danger of my situation has finally dawned on me.)

The roundabouts on the A361 at Frome have names. From somewhere the idea came to stand at a roundabout so I could tell the emergency services my location. I became lucid again once I had someone on the phone to talk to. There was a petrol station, but it took me some time to decide to go and stand under the canopy, out of the rain. The man behind the glass ignored me completely.

A paramedic first response car turned up and he eventually got the miserable bastard in the shop to open the door and let us stand inside, but only after he'd said "This guy is hypothermic, I have to get him out of the cold or he may die." Even then, the guy begrudged us every inch of floor space.

The paramedic suggested all sorts of ways I might get out of this mess, but none of them amounted to anything:

• Local B&B - how do we find them? Tried a few from the 118 numbet, no vacancies.
• Taxi from Frome to Taunton - quote £150!
• No-one available to pick me up - told the audax organiser I wouldn't be home by midnight, but he didn't have any way of helping.
• He couldn't leave me in his control room or he'd be hanged, drawn and quartered the next day. 
• Local Police - were willing to help, but they couldn't leave me in the station alone, and it was midnight on Saturday night. They did however very kindly pick my bike up from the back of the petrol station, and keep in in the police station for me to collect the next day.

The only option we had was for him to drive me 30 miles to Bath Hospital, take me to A&E, and hope they would give me shelter. What they did give me was a Hard Time.

He pickied up 3 blankets from his office for me - the nurses took these away from me, apart from the one I refused to let go of.
They told me I wasn't ill, and that I shouldn't be there.
I asked where I should go and volunteered to go there. No suggestions.
I desperately needed hot fluids, they gave me a cup of lukewarm tea.
A student doctor examined me and said I needed food and warmth. They refused, maintaining that I was not a medical emergency.
They maintained, from 1am onwards, that they would get busy any minute (they never did) and that I would be "in the way".
They told me that my predicament was "completely self-inflicted"
They made me sleep in a chair, despite having six empty beds.
I was told to leave at 7am, whether ready or not. Trust me, I was ready.

The paramedic would have probably taken me to his house if that was the only option.

The police did what they could.

The petrol station guy would have let me die on his doorstep.

The nurses would have done the same, only it would have looked bad on them, so they tried to make me more miserable than I already was.

What has happened to human compassion? 

When I was turfed out of the hospital I phoned my friend Steve who lives quite a way away, but nearer than anyone else. He simply asked where I needed picking up from. Nothing else. Thanks, Steve.

God bless everyone I met that night, particularly the girls I met in the previous petrol station, one of whom made me a free cup of tea because the coffee machine wasn't working, and actually offered me a lift to my tent!