Dad's One Tonner

It's so glaringly obvious that it's surprising how often we overlook the fact that we literally owe our lives to our parents, whether those lives are good or bad. Quite apart from the genetic material that became fused and handed down to us in a miraculous instant of biology, are the formative years from birth to early adulthood: where we lived; who we had around us; how our parents treated us; what education and healthcare we received; and whatever preparation and contacts they helped us form as we made our first tentative steps towards independence. As I said, this stuff is so obvious we forget it pretty much every day after we fly the nest, assuming of course we hadn't already lost sight of it. A couple of things have helped change that forgetfulness for me in recent years, the first of those was becoming a parent myself. Through the amazing highs and lows of the sometimes terrifying parental roller-coaster you realise exactly how much hard work and sacrifice your parents had to go through to bring you up. Suddenly all of your flaws and mistakes, however well intentioned, affect another life that for the next few years is utterly dependant on you. It's humbling, and if it doesn't extinguish the last embers of the ungrateful child in you then you're missing something.

The second big change was when my dad died a couple of years back. I've heard it said that losing your parents is one of life's rights of passage, and I can say for me that was all too painfully true. In amongst the grief, something so odd happened to me at the funeral that it's a struggle for me to put it down in words. During the moving eulogy it was mentioned how much Dad loved to go to the beach with my sister and I - another thing which I had forgotten down the years. A little later as we went to drink a toast at Dad's wake the bizarre event  occurred. I pulled out my phone and the background wallpaper had changed to a photo taken of our son Ben a couple of weeks before - at the beach. There he was sitting in the sand beside his ball, looking back at me. I'm sure I had been fiddling with the phone in my pocket during the service, because I am an obsessive fiddler. But to get all the way through the menus, select that one picture and then set it as the wallpaper took so many clicks on my old phone I could barely manage it even when I was holding it in front of me. To have it happen blind in my pocket based on random fiddling seems incredible. Despite being a normally rational person, it feels like some remaining spirit of Dad guided those fingers with a purpose - to send me a message that he had shown me everything I needed to be a good dad myself, and all I needed was to follow his examples. Get out there, play, go to the beach.

I'm willing to bet that as Bradley Wiggins crossed the line in the yellow jersey this year, he thanked his dad, probably both his parents, for helping him to become the first ever Brit to win the Tour de France. I can't pretend Dad had anything like that influence on my late developing interest in cycling, but there are some cycling related things I remember clearly from my childhood. One of these was that both my parents believed bikes were not gifts for birthdays or Christmas - but represented transport and independence for us as growing kids. As a result, we always had a bike that fitted and worked, and it got replaced when it became too small or worn out. The first bike I recall properly was my first "big bike" - it was a bright gold and red, and I think it was a Raleigh. I forget if it had gears, I have a vague memory of a three speed Sturmey Archer with a twist grip change, but maybe that was one of my friends' bikes. I fell off it the first day I rode it, but after that shaky start it became much loved and abused. Funnily enough, in later life I fell off each of my motorcycles exactly once too - and they also became much loved. The last bike they bought for me was a blue and red Dawes, with front and rear dérailleurs with old school, non indexed shifters either side of the down tube. I think it was a 10 speed, even though that seems ridiculously few compared to modern machines. That bike lived up to my folk's belief in bikes as transport, and got ridden to and from my secondary school many times in good and bad weather.

Another cycling influence which came from Dad is stories he told to me of his own adventures as he was growing up. These have taken on a greater significance to me in the last couple of years since his passing, and as the time I have spent cycling has increased. I wish I'd listened more carefully to him telling them to me as a child, although I guess what I really wish for is that he were still here to re-tell it to me. I'm fortunate though, Mick Milward was one of Dad's gang of friends, and he has kindly shared with me his recollections of one their greatest cycling adventure to add some meat to the bones of my own sketchy memories of Dad's tales.

At this point I'll let Mick's words take up the story ....

That Cycle Trip in 1948

I have written out the cycle trip for my own 'history' which I keep saying I will write. So it is a bit longer than I thought it might be.  I have added a map, which is a modern one with motorways - they didn't exist then in 1948.  In the description in my diary there was a name against each day - maybe we took in turns to be the leader, but I don't really know.

Wednesday August 18

            From West Bridgford to Holmfirth YHA                                 Derek         67 miles

            The route would have been through the Peak District.

I remember that when we arrived at Holmfirth town we then had to ride (or push) 2½ miles up a steep hill to the hostel.

I described the hostel as ‘indifferent’.

Thursday August 19

            From Holmfirth YHA to Barley YHA                                      Mic              45 miles

This must have been through places like Hebden Bridge, Todmorden, and Burnley to reach this small village in the shadow of Pendle Hill.

‘Very good hostel’.

Friday August 20

            From Barley YHA to Arnside YHA                                         Geff            53 miles

The obvious route would have taken us over the Trough of Bowland and then up the coast into Cumbria (Cumberland).

‘Good hostel’

Saturday August 21

            Day of rest, looking at the sea, maybe a bit of train spotting.

Sunday August 22

            From Arnside YHA to Askrigg YHA                                       Derek         45 miles

Route via Kendal, Sedburgh and Hawes with quite a few hills through the Yorkshire Dales.

‘Hostel poor!’

I seem to remember going to a film show in the village hall in the evening.

Monday August 23

            From Askrigg YHA to Malton YHA                                         Mic             63 miles

A fairly level ride through Wensleydale, then via Masham, Thirsk, pushing bikes up Sutton Bank and on to Malton.

‘Indifferent hostel’ – but I made a note in the diary – ‘Beware Warden’s wife’ – these were the days of doing jobs at hostels – she was probably a dragon in her kitchen!

Tuesday August 24

            From Malton YHA to Bridlington YHA                                    Geff            30 miles

            A short journey across the Wolds.

At this point Derek went to stay with his Aunt.

‘Indifferent hostel’

Wednesday August 25

            From Bridlington YHA to Tickhill YHA                                    Mic             73 miles

Geoff and I continued our trip down main roads via Goole (no Humber Bridge then), and Thorne to the village of Tickhill, near Bawtry.

This journey was memorable only for a strong head wind which absolutely exhausted us.

‘Bad hostel.

Thursday August 26

            From Tickhill YHA to West Bridgford                                                       40 miles

Presumably the wind had eased off a bit as we travelled down the A60 through Nottingham and back over Trent Bridge to West Bridgford and home.

Derek must also have returned by the same route as Geoff and I a day or so later (unless he returned in luxury by train!)

                                                                                                Total    416 miles

You have to remember the date when Dad and his gang undertook their ride. Forget busy roads filled with too many noisy cars and smelly trucks, and imagine a quieter more rural age, with quiet empty lanes, and with cars being outnumbered by trains, horses and agricultural vehicles. As Mick points out, the M1, the world's first motorway,  hadn't even been built yet. Even on today's busy and sometimes smelly roads, my heart soars when flying along on a beautiful day in, and I have some sense of how much freedom they felt from riding on emptier and quieter roads in my own childhood.

The part that remains vague, despite Mick's detailed account is exactly where and when Dad did his 100 mile ride - his One Tonner. This was the part of his story which which had me most in awe as a child, wondering how anyone could possibly ride that far. It was pretty close to exactly 100 miles from Dad's parent's house in West Bridgford, a suburb of Nottingham, to his Aunt in Bridlington and I am quite sure this was where he rode. But I'm also sure the ride can't have been on the way back from the 1948 youth hostelling trip after they parted ways in Bridlington. The reason being that I do remember him telling me he tried to ride back to Nottingham from his Aunt's once but it was so windy around the Humber, he turned back and got the train home. So I think it most likely that his One Tonner was a ride to Bridlington, and therefore took place on a different occasion. 

Many thoughts pass through my mind during the moments of peaceful contemplation when out cycling, and Dad and his cycling stories are often among them. They've just announced that the date of the PPA One Tonner for this year will be 14th October. It's a ride I have wanted to do for a number of years, and if fitness prevails, I'll be joining my DC Team on it as part of our training. Even though we'll be working as a group, probably at a pace above which I'm completely comfortable I'm sure thoughts of Dad's One Tonner will be with me along the way. I also hope that one day, something of what I do or a story I tell serves as such a fond and enduring memory to our own son.

OCD

If you asked Yoli about me I'm pretty certain that, in amongst some good qualities which she would hopefully mention, would be the fact that I am an obsessive worrier. I prefer to think of it as just being careful about planning, but Yoli's assessment is I suspect closer to the truth. In all the years I have been travelling on business, I can't remember ever missing a flight. I can, however, recall many times arriving at an empty checkin desk hours before departure to the amused look of the attendant who is more used to seeing doddery pensioners allowing hours more time than they need than smartly dressed business men. The only time I came close to missing my plane was because I arrived so early that everything was closed and I fell asleep waiting for the desks to open. Even then, my internal worry clock woke me just in time to make the flight.

My ability to obsess over things doesn't just extend to travel. Any significant purchase ends up being endlessly researched, sometimes re-reading the same reviews and opinions multiple times to see if I missed some subtle point that might mean the item in question looked a a better or worse fit than an initial cursory read had suggested. Yoli had been winning the battle to get me to just buy stuff we needed and not worry so much until a spate of recent impulse purchases went bad, all of them needing to be returned, arguments with shop owners, refunds, credits and shopping for replacement items. To be fair though, the refund arguments were very few, in this day of internet shopping it's good to see that a number of our local shops realise their edge is now service and there's no quibbling over faulty or inadequate items. None of that helps Yoli though, I'm now worse than ever on wanting to research every tiny facet before the plastic comes out.

What has all this got to do with cycling you may be wondering? Well, if you hadn't already gleaned it from the preceding entries, planning and acquiring the components for Jolly has been a perfect case in point. The one significant impulse buy I made during this last year's heightened interest in cycling was the Easton wheels, and that went south in a bad way.

The ramifications of my Easton issues are still rumbling on too. Helderberg Cycle World and Omnico have been excellent and replaced the wheels, but my lack of confidence in the wheels means they are sitting in the garage unused, still wrapped and boxed. That has left me riding the old Shimano wheels from Merry, and scrambling around trying to get both my audax wheelset and my new general training and racing wheelsets sorted. And by "scrambling around" I of course mean obssessive worrying and large dollops of internet reading. Luckily many of our favourite TV series have recently ended, so the latter has mostly been done on the couch with with some trashy show on as background noise.

I have at last, I think, come to some decisions though - which will no doubt be a big relief to Yoli who is sick to her teeth of hearing about this rim, and that hub, or these spokes. Of course the names of these have about as much meaning to her as any brand of fashion would have to me, but despite that she mostly manages a smile and an encouraging nod rather than a "what the hell are you asking/telling me this for?", which frankly would be more than justified.

And the winners are ...


Choosing components for the audax wheels wasn't difficult. There are a few tried and tested formulas, and it's way simpler to follow one of these rather than, well, reinvent the wheel. I've opted for Mavic Open Pro rims, 32H front and 36H rear, laced with double butted spokes to Hope Pro3 hubs. For audax use strength outweighs lightness, hence the high spoke count, although the Mavic rims themselves aren't particularly heavy. Hope hubs have a reputation for durability under harsh conditions, thanks in part to their sealed bearings. In fact, I will have an extra 32H front rim laced to a SON Dynamo hub, also a standard component on many audax machines. This wheel will get used for rides likely to have long night-time sections, which will include PBP since it starts at night. It'll also quite probably get used on LEL too, given it is intended as a dress rehearsal for all of the equipment I plan to use on PBP.



It's proved much harder to decide on a replacement for my Eastons since I want something that is both strong enough for everyday training and light enough for "racing" - by which I mean PPA rides where I care about my time, since I'm nowhere near fast enough to be actually racing anyone apart from my own shadow. The problem though, is not that there are few wheels which fit this bill, but there are way way too many. If you believe the marketing blurb, practical every wheel you can buy is "tough enough for training, yet fast enough for racing". Frankly, most aren't - my Eastons being a classic case in point. They were wonderfully fast on timed rides, but just didn't seem to be able to soak up the day to day punishment. Maybe I'm just rough on my wheels, but whatever the cause it's made me cautious of lightly spoked, race oriented wheels. In the end, despite the horrendous shipping costs from the UK, I decided to go with Velocity A23 rims, 24H front and 28H rear laced to Dura Ace 7900 hubs with Sapim CX-Ray bladed spokes. I had the hubs already, which helps offset some of the cost, as does the ability to sell my replacement Eastons at an "as new" price, since they are actually still new and unused. The bladed spokes are a bit of an extravagance, but their reduced weight and reputation for toughness were hard to resist. Plus of the many reviews I read on the A23 rims, most were laced with bladed spokes. This included some guys who had pounded them on dirt roads and muddy tracks without issues or breakages. It seems not everyone believes they need a a mountain bike to go offroad.

So there you have it - hours of research and dithering, boiled down to two short paragraphs. Yoli can heave a sigh of relief that the ear bending is over and the topic is done, and I can look forward to getting the new wheels built and tried out. Hopefully this won't take long as being reduced to one set of wheels has held me back from setting Merry up as a permanent fixture on my newly acquired indoor trainer - a Tacx Bushido. And no, you don't want to know how much prevarication that decision took, although I will write up some notes once I've had a chance to try it out.

On the positive side for Yoli, with this behind me I can start to work on that weatherproof bits and bobs cupboard for her vegetable garden, which has been overdue now since April. And, as it inevitable willl, when that process becomes a maze of interlinking options and decisions needing to be contemplated, at least it'll be on a topic vaguely of interest to her.

Solo

Sometimes you just need to get out and ride. Not because you're trying to get away from anything. Quite the reverse, because you're trying to get towards something. Yourself.

Don't get me wrong, the last few Wannabees club rides have been great, even the ones in the rain. But this weekend I needed to ride, and with a proper grown up evening planned in Cape Town Saturday evening followed by  a night in the Grand Daddy Hotel, Saturday morning was always going to be my best opportunity for riding.

The weekend club rides can be a bit too frantic for my tastes, too much pent up energy from the working week blasting off at a heated pace. With a cold start to the day forecast, but fabulous sunny weather later I decided to fall back to a solo ride starting at a more relaxed 8am. In the end, it was a shade after nine as my wheels rolled out of the gate, accompanied by a "ride safe" from Yoli and a "are you going to go large fast daddy?" from Ben.

One thing I did keep consistent with a club ride was starting out down the hill. This was going to be a relaxing solo ride on a gorgeous sunny winter's day, so a quad crunching climb up the hill did not fit the bill nearly so well as a whiz down followed by an easy loosening spin up Old Stellenbosch Road. A cheesy grin was already stuck on my face even before I reached cruising pace out along the R44. Today's ride would be  a gentle 70km odd out to Klapmuts and back - an old favourite route from Argus training rides earlier this year, and one I hadn't ridden since.

Coasting into Stellenbosch, my first reaction to the parked cars scattered both sides of the road was that there must be a school rugby game on. Then I noticed the bike racks hung off the back of pretty much every car and remembered it was the Die Burger mountain bike race today.. What amazing weather I thought for the riders, given the rain and storms of the past few weekends.  Our paths crossed a number of times on the road out of Stellenbosch, as the MTB trail zigzagged between farm trails on either side of the R44.

The riding was surprisingly easy despite keeping up a reasonable pace, no doubt helped by my training these last few weeks. And somewhere just between Krom Rhee road and Kanonkop it happened. The peace and quiet of riding with only my own inner voice for company caught up with me on the road right there, and suddenly I realised how much I'd missed riding solo: time to sit up and enjoy the view, with no distractions apart from the rhythmic whir of pedals and humming wheel hubs; time to think, and be alone with those thoughts.

Something wonderful happened over the remaining forty kilometres or so of riding - a whole host of murky and tangled issues that had been troubling me over the past few weeks unravelled themselves and everything became simple and clear again. It's something of a cliché to say it was a life changing ride, but in this case it would be absolutely true - quite literally, although exactly why will have to be the subject of a future entry. For now all I can really say is that something else I learned today is that through all the club rides and training, I won't be losing sight again of the pleasure and enjoyment of the occasional ride alone, for no other reason than the pure pleasure of cycling.

What the LEL?

"You're seriously going to enter that?"

Hent's view on my audaxing interests had mellowed a shade from his comment about me being mad at the beginning of this blog. He and Lanie were over for dinner last Saturday evening and our conversation had moved from cycling in general, to some stunning Joberg2c footage which had been used on a recent Avis TV ad. Hent raised an eyebrow at the 900km in 9 days schedule which prompted me to mention my intention to enter LEL (London-Edinburgh-London) next year. As we talked more, it dawned on me that I haven't really mentioned LEL here on the blog.

Two or three months back Yoli and I were having dinner at one of our favourite restaurants, Taste just outside Somerset West on the R44. For a day or so I'd been wondering about whether LEL would be a good idea, but I knew there was no point considering it unless Yoli was comfortable with the idea. Given that we have work, family and friends in the UK, it's not a difficult trip to combine with other things and no shortage of things to do whilst there.

A few things had sparked my interest in LEL. First of those was the distance - at 1,400km it's actually longer than PBP albeit with an extra day allowed to compensate for that. The next attraction is that it is two years before the next PBP event in 2015. Whilst that may make it a tad ambitious in terms of my training, it will give me valuable practical experience of what a long audax event entails, allowing time to improve and refine my ideas on equipment and preparations before PBP. And finally, there is the question of whether I am made of the right stuff to complete these long audax rides. Hopefully LEL will help me answer that question before committing myself to the qualifying brevets and the final stages along the road to PBP.

Luckily, Yoli is extremely understanding and tolerant of my cycling addiction and immediately grasped the logic of adding LEL to the DC as training stages towards PBP. Although maybe the candlelit ambience, Anton's excellent food and Ed's superb wine helped get the idea across too.

So that's how LEL came into the planning of my journey to Paris, and hardly a day goes by without some aspect of the going through my mind. The most often areas I find myself contemplating aren't actually the cycling at all - I can train for that. The trickier parts to gauge are what a workable sleeping and eating pattern will be. I know from reading many accounts of PBP experiences that, aside from injury, over tiredness and lack of nutrition are big dangers as the hours and days wear on. An average speed of 20 KM/h sounds easy until you think about doing it five days in a row. Actually for LEL the real average is closer to 14 KM/h but you need to get out ahead of that speed to eke out time to eat and sleep, not to mention contingency for mechanicals.

For now though, it's all about building the kilometres towards the DC. It's been hard at times to get out training lately, especially with some very wet riding. But the looming prospect of a tough team 200km ride in November and needing to make a final decision on LEL by Jan 5th 2013 have served as more than enough motivation to keep cycling.

Bad wheels, or bad luck?

Under any other circumstances, sitting outside on a sunny winters day at Rooi Els with a cup of cappuccino to complement the stunning views would more than enough to put a smile on my face. But when it is winter, and sunny days are rare, sitting looking at views is not something I'd trade for enjoying them from the saddle of my bike. And enjoying my midweek ride is just what I had been doing until my Easton EA 90 SLX wheels let me down again.

I'd made a concious decision to lead the group up the climb back from Betty's Bay. It's fairly long but not steep, making it perfect for settling into a nice brisk pace to spin up to the top. Being just four riders we ended up riding in twos: Penny alongside me at the head; and John and Tom tucked on our wheels behind. Energy wise, I'd judged the haul up well - as we crested the top I was starting to feel the effort in my lungs, although my legs still felt strong and energetic.

Starting the free-wheel down I was looking forward to seeing how well I would last the remaining few hills, given my recent lack of training and the decent pace we had kept up. But around halfway down I heard an ominous crack, followed immediately by a wobbling front wheel. I instantly knew it was another broken spoke, having had exactly the same experience at the end of the Wellington Lions ride back in February. I'm a fairly cautious (in other words slow!) descender, and Penny and John were already too far ahead to hear me cry out "mechanical". Tom pulled alongside as my bike rapidly slowed under the involuntary braking of the no longer round front wheel. He graciously offered to wait with me, but there was really no point him also spoiling his ride so I bid him farewell and asked him to let the others know what had happened when he caught up with them.

Luckily Yolandi was at home, and the hour it took her to reach me passed quite quickly with the views, my coffee, and my inbox to work through. I wasn't happy though: two spoke breakages in 8 months and less than 2,000km of usage is just not what I'd expected from high end wheels. Especially since everything else about them I like - they're very light and spin very fast. But durable they are not, at least not the set I have.

Having done some internet research - it seems that there are many happy customers, with lots of distance on these wheels and no problems. There is no shortage of other unhappy riders though whose experiences pretty much exactly mirror mine - multiple and repeated spoke breakages with relatively low usage, and also loosening hubs which is something I had to get fixed just last week. So I've lobbied Helderberg Cycle World to try and get me either a replacement set or a refund from Omnico, the SA distributors. Hopefully I'll get a rock solid set in replacement, and will be able to report back that I was unlucky with a defective set.

26 Jul 12 - Postcript to original entry:

Yet another case of superb service from Helderberg Cycles and Omnico, they replaced the wheels with a brand new boxed set. I can't really say whether my set were just defective, or there is something inherent in the Easton's that doesn't suit my riding, but it's great to have the support of my LBS and the importer in getting me a replacement set.

Photos from Easton website