On training

Over the weekend, I realised that I hadn't yet made any mention of the training I've been doing for my ride to Paris. When I started writing here, it was with the express intention of it not becoming a training diary - to my mind, there's little duller than blow-by-blow accounts of the daily activities of someone else's life. Nonetheless, there are some things regarding my training which it would be remiss not to mention. Maybe some of you have even been wondering about it! (Unlikely, I know.)

First, the goals of my training: to get myself in condition to complete the ride from London to Paris, and beyond that, enjoy it. The ride is over four days, with the mileage covered per day being 95, 75, 70 and 60 respectively.

Second, my training so far: I did a 60-miler along with Nick at the beginning of May, which went reasonably well. Before and after that, I've been packing my training mainly into the weekends, on rides varying in length from 20 to 40 miles. The abundance of bank holidays in April and May has been immensely helpful in this respect.

Third, my target: I'm aiming for an average speed of 15 mph across the four days of the ride. This would work out at about six hours riding on the first day, and four on the last day. I managed to maintain 15 mph reasonably comfortably on the 60-miler, and I've been able to hit that consistently on my other training rides too.

Fourth, other training: I haven't exactly been going out of my way to get punctures, but I've been trying to view them as good practice for doing quick changes on the ride itself. The best I've done so far is 10 minutes to change the inner tube on the back wheel and get it back on, but I'm sure I can do it more quickly than that.

Lastly, where I've been training: I'm lucky enough to live close to Richmond Park. London's biggest park, it's a haven for cyclists at the weekend, for obvious reasons - little traffic, good roads, lovely scenery, and a few little uphills and downhills too. I can't say enough good things about the setting. Sometimes the only colour you can see is green, and you forget you're on the edge of one of the world's largest cities, then you turn a corner, the trees part, and you see the towers and wheels of London's famous skyline.


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Roads run  around the perimiter of the park, in a more-or-less square shape, forming a route which is roughly six miles long. I live just under three miles from Richmond Gate, so once around the park and getting to and from it is 12 miles. I've tended to think about my rides as much in terms of number of times round the park as in absolute distances - twice round is 18 miles, five times round is 36 miles, and so on.

The park is at its busiest with cyclists early in the morning, but I actually prefer late afternoon and early evening rides. Part of that's no doubt because I'm not much of a morning person, but later in the day you also tend to get far fewer wankers riding three-abreast, pretending they're in the Tour de France peloton and unnecessarily holding up cars.

Here ends everything you'll ever hear from me about training. The rest of it's just about keeping the pedals turning ...