I met with Graham Theobald from The Body Rehab clinic recently to try to and gain a bit of knowledge when it comes to cycling injuries and prevention. He’s currently doing a PhD in cycling-related knee pain, and is a die-hard cyclist, so it was really useful and eye opening to talk to him about what a long-distance cyclist may come up against.
In this short video, we discuss the injuries that a touring cyclist is likely to encounter.
Had to put the commencement date back by three weeks, so now it all kicks off on the 7th November.
Getting itchy feet now, but the delay does bring positives in terms of preparedness for sure.
I suppose it makes sense to at least get a couple of big days in now too, test the system and all that!
I haven’t been doing any training for the past few weeks. What with finishing work, and organising logistics, there’s little time to make room for anything else. Before that I did the odd 50Km on a training bike, but it’s safe to say that any gains made by that are long gone.
But to be honest I’m not that worried about lack of conditioning.
There are three reasons for this lack of training:
1) Of course doing a few weeks of cycle training will put me in a better shape than no weeks of training, but, as the trip is going to take several months (potentially up to 12 months), there’s plenty of time to get into condition along the way.
2) I think training may make me think – “Oh God what am I getting in to?”. The realisation that it’s not going to be easy is one that I’m quite happy to keep at bay until I’m in the US, standing under that seemingly never-ending hill climb.
3) The training bike is way too small.
The best form of training for a trip like this, I hope, is just to crack on and get on with it.
About 5 or 6 years ago, I was fully into trials riding. With riding everyday, and the strain that the trials bike came under, came a required knowledge of bike maintenance.
There was a time when bleeding brakes, building wheels, replacing brake pads was part of the daily post-ride routine.
But that’s long gone.
Now, I’m building up the touring bike, in preparation for the Vague Direction Project. Whilst there’s still a reasonable base level of basic maintenance skills, the vast majority have vanished and need to be re-learnt.
I’m hoping I can learn these skills now, before having to do them in a severe downpour by the side of a road.
EDIT: Since this blog post was written, and the photo taken, the bike has changed a lot. Take a look at the bike spec page to see the update.
When I finished work two weeks ago to focus full-time on getting everything in place for Vague Direction to commence, I made some presumptions:
It’ll be nice and relaxing, no pressure from outside sources, I’ll get to take my time and organise everything with plenty of time to spare. Maybe even throw in a couple of paddleboard sessions.
So you might be surprised to find out that I’m writing this blog post at 02.28am, after having spent the last 18 hours glued to a screen, sending emails, and making Skype calls.
It dawned on me, after talking to a couple of people, that there’s now less than two weeks before everything (or atleast the first month or so of logistics) needs to be in place.
It also dawned on me, how much is left to do before being even a tiny bit organised!
So the long days and late nights continue.
EDIT: I ended up pushing the flight back by 3 weeks to get more prepared. It was without a doubt the best decision.