With 2018 drawing to a close.....

I managed to ride just over 7,500 KM during the course of the year, though my goal at the beginning of the year had been 10,000 KM. 

Unfortunately time, opportunity and motivation went missing for a number of reasons at various points during 2018. 

I am pleased however that this still equates to an average of 150 KM per week. Even when I set my goal I assumed two weeks off the bike, simply to ensure round numbers, so discovering that quite by coincide that there were only two weeks where I didn't ride, pleases me. The fact that there were only 22 weeks I reached or exceeded my goal doesn't.

In a sign of just how much I shifted my cycling emphasis from being a road racer to an  adventure tourer. I discovered that I rode my:

Felt F5 Road Bike - 1,420 KM
The shortest distance this bike has done in any one year since I bought it in 2010.

Surly Troll 26" Mountain Bike - 6,090 KM
Not bad for someone who'd been hooked / raised on road bikes.

The important thing that I have learnt in looking at the numbers though is that:

• Riding regularly beats doing big rides one week and bonking the next.
• Riding in the heat or cold & wet, won't kill you so long as you ride to the conditions

All of which goes to prove that my initial 10,000 KM goal is realistic and that in 2019 I will have to get serious about achieving it.

2018 - A new year! A new beginning!

Whilst my "tour" goals for 2018 are still to be finalized, with March / April potentially entailing a trip from Adelaide through to Brisbane, I'm not entirely sure where I wish to visit during the Southern Hemisphere winter.

At the moment I'm tossing up between doing:

• The Tour de Afrique Silk Road Tour
• A self-supported trip through France
• A self-supported trip from Amsterdam to Warsaw
• A self-supported Lands End to John O'Groats trip

My sneaking suspicion is that I'll ride through mainland Europe, possibly concentrating on France as a legacy to my father.... He rode with a mate through France, as a young lad, back in the late 50's, early 60's, before "touring" had reached the heights it's got to now. I loved to hear about some of his exploits and just wish he'd taken a few photos.

I think it would be a fitting tribute, given that it was him after all that got me into cycling! 

A few upgrades

With my destiny seeming to suggest that I need to spend a LOT more time on the bike, I've purchased in the last month or so:

A Garmin 1030

It apparently has far better navigational & mapping features than any bike computer I've used previously, though I am also willing to admit that I may not have set my Garmin 1000 so as to take advantage of ALL the options it offered. Something that I only discovered during my Tour of Spain.

As a consequence guess who is going to read the instruction manual this time, as I look at setting it all up?

Before I head out the door for any longer multi-day trips (particularly overseas), I want to ensure that I've got it set up so I am taking advantage of all it's functionality.

A Canon M3 Camera with 18-200mm lens

Whilst I will buy a new DSLR Camera in due course, I decided that a Canon M3 was a good medium ground between the lightweight Powershot & DSLR cameras that I had stolen in Switzerland. One camera / dual purpose.

In this way I sort of figure I should be able to take decent photos, maybe not competition quality but more than sufficient whilst out on the open road on my bike and whilst also doing the touristic sightseeing bit when in towns, etc.

It will substantially lighten the weight and the value of my gear. I'll write a post about aerodynamics / weight in due course....

A Canon Connect Station CS100

This device, being an external hard drive, theoretically enables me to transfer my photos to it, by Wi-Fi from my camera(s) or via a camera card reader. This gives me the ability to back up EVERYTHING nightly without the need of a laptop computer and means that I can have two copies of a photo and that's before I have got the computer out from time to time to make a third copy, whilst updating this blog, etc. Having lost some photos (albeit only a couple of days worth), but thinking for awhile that it was my entire trip's worth, the pain & anguish one goes through believing everything is gone is immeasurable. 

Hopefully this device will banish that angst forever more!

Hydration

I recently bought a 1L Klean Kanteen Insulated Water Bottle, along with an additional and oversize bidon cage to carry it, on the Troll and did so primarily because I want to do a fair bit of riding during Summer (a minimum of 200KM per week). Having learnt, from my trip through Spain, the effects of riding in the heat, I wanted to minimise the chances of doing that again....

I mean sure I'd watched enough professional cycling races to know that maintaining one's fluid intake was important, what I didn't realise however is that, seemingly if one loses anything more than approximately two per cent of one's body weight, as a result of sweating or what have you, then this can result in a number of negative side effects, namely being:

• An increase in core temperature
• Reduced carbohydrate absorption
• Reduced muscle contraction
• Mental fatigue

Dehydration also results in one's blood becoming more viscous and therefore harder to pump around the body, something that I am particularly keen to avoid. One heart attack and four cardiac stents are enough Thank You very much. 😊 😊

The other aspect to all of this is that the most vital electrolyte for sweating riders is sodium. 

Now of course the media is constantly telling us that there is too much salt in our diets, particularly when one eats processed or fast food, and I am not advocating that one starts going mad with the salt shaker whenever we sit down to dinner BUT sodium does play a vital role in terms of maintaining our blood plasma volume and transporting water from the blood stream to working muscles.

Sodium however isn't the only electrolyte that is lost when one sweats. One also excretes:

• Calcium - It is involved in muscle contraction & relaxation and blood clotting.
• Magnesium - Depleted levels of this electrolyte can lead to fatigue & depression.
• Potassium - It helps transport glucose around the body and hence is vital for energy generation

As a result of gleaning all of this information from a book titled "The Science of the Tour De France" by James Witt, I've come to appreciate that I will have to start paying more attention to the frequency with which I sip on a bidon, but also look at using electrolytic drinks and tablets particularly on longer rides, etc.

Nutrition

As a result of my adventures on the bike, I've become very aware of the importance of not only getting out in the fresh air but also the importance of fueling one's body sensibly, in terms of the food eaten before, after & during a ride....

Wanting to go about it sensibly, I'm looking to see what sport dietitians recommend, how the professional cyclists tackle the issue and so forth though I suspect that I'm about to get caught up in a whole lot of controversy as to what is or isn't the best approach/ diet, etc...

With my reading so far being limited to skimming a couple of cycling mags I have however come across an article which suggests (and it makes sense to me) that what we eat has an impact on our mental health as much as it does our physical one with their suggestion being that in order to alleviate / control depression, one should eat:

Daily

• 1 Serve of nuts a day
• 2 - 3 Serves of dairy a day
• 3 Serves of fruit a day
• 5 Serves of vegetables a day
• 5 - 8 Serves of whole grains a day

Weekly

• 2 Serves of fish a week
• 2 - 3 Serves of poultry a week
• 3 - 4 Serves of lean red meat a week
• 6 or more eggs a week

Whilst it's going to be hard, adapting to that sort of diet / eating regime, when in the comfort of my own home, how I'll be able to do it on the open road, well I suspect that's a whole other issue! Any thoughts or suggestions on that aspect would be most appreciated......