Compare and contrast - the real Tour of Britain

Mrs Noel went out to watch the real Tour of Britain today. This is stage 5 of the tour and it follows the same course as my charity tour ride of two weekends ago.

Sadly I wasn't there to experience it for myself but Mrs Noel was good enough to show me a few pictures. It made me think 'how different is the proper tour from what we did?' After giving it some consideration, I think the two events are pretty similar.

If you take away the support cars and all the state-of-the-art bikes, take away a few of our food, drink and toilet stops (well, all of them in fact), and take away the tour riders' ability, including the years of training and dedication to reach that level, then I think what we did was pretty similar.

Obviously, you'd also have to factor in that these guys have been doing this every day for the previous 5 days, and you'd need to account for my usual level of tactical naivety. But when you've taken all this into account, and the degree of mental pressure that the tour riders are under, I think the two events are largely similar.

Perhaps when making such a comparison you might also need to consider the average speed that the tour guys are going - approximately twice what we were. But, to get back to my original point, apart from the support, the bikes, the ability, the dedication, the lack of rests, the day-on-day fatigue, the tactical acumen, the mental pressure, and the overall speed, what we did a few weekends ago was pretty similar to what Mrs Noel witnessed today.

Charity 'pro' tour ride

Here I am the day after - still alive and with only slightly sore thighs. The event was a great introduction to organised road cycling. There were drinks stations, food stations with loads of free stuff, mechanics and support vehicles. There was even a free pasta meal at the finish. I'm not sure I'd do it again, but I'm proud I was able to.

We set off from the Britannia Stadium (home of the now-mighty Stoke City), at about 8:30 in the morning. Here's a pici of us getting ready to set off.

We'd never cycled together as a team before, so decided the best approach was to set a pace of about 22mph for the first hour. While most of us agreed that this was stupid, it was also quite fun and we were swept along with the early ride fervour. I was jokingly adamant that the ride should involve some sort of ordeal with one rider ending up being broken.

After about 2 hours, when we reached the first big steady hill, it became apparent that the early pace might not have been such a good idea. James was starting to flag and at one point was struggling to such an extent that I was worried he might retire. This hadn't been helped by the fact that one of his brakes had been rubbing for about the first 30 miles. He had been wondering why it was feeling so hard. Luckily, he made it to Tittesworth Reservoir where there was a food station. I'm not sure what he ate there, but from then on, he was a man transformed. No longer showing any signs of fatigue, he seemed to get stronger as the ride went on.

Apparently there were three category climbs on the ride, but they weren't really marked, so the only one we could race up was Gun Hill. This is one of my local hills, so I was keen to get to the top first of our team. We had been very grown up when discussing our strategy of trying to beat each other up this hill. "We shouldn't really race, as there are 35 miles to go after it", and "it would be silly to race each other". Having said all that, Dave and I were very slowly edging faster and faster until we were pretty much flat out (which isn't very fast up Gun Hill, but it still felt hard).

For most of the rest of the ride, which included another pretty steep hill, I was feeling pretty confident. Although I was ruing putting so much into being 'king' of my local 'mountain', when the rest of the team went for a sprint finish, and I had nothing left. I pretended I was being mature of course, but that's not really in my nature. It seems my earlier assertion that the day should end up with someone being broken, had been proven correct - and it had been me. I was later told Richard had won a fiercely contested affair from Rob. Here's a photo of us after the ride - tired but very pleased with ourselves.

I'd like to thank Mrs Richard for on-ride support, all the organisers, and the many people who sponsored us. Between the team, we raised about £1,000 for the Prostate Cancer Charity.

Mrs Noel in Longshaw success

Today was Mrs Noel's race day - Longshaw sheepdog trials. She continued her recent run of winning something at every race she does by being first LV40, and 4th lady overall. She was actually 2nd LV40, but got a prize because first LV40 got a prize for being second lady (are you following this?). Mrs Noel's prize was a nice jar of greengage jam. As you can imagine, we were both very impressed and tried it once we got home. I've not tried this variety before - it's somewhere between plum and gooseberry.

Tapering? Surely running doesn't count. I got a bit bored of this whole tapering thing, so went for a run on Friday night. 5 miles, 1000 feet. I was quite good though. At no point did I do any quick bits, and I deliberately avoided my normal detour which takes in a good hill.

I'm eating pasta for England tonight ('and pear and chocolate pudding', says Mrs Noel, proudly). Did I mention I'm doing a long bike ride tomorrow?

Tapering

Tapering - "in the context of sports, refers to the practice of reducing, or tapering off, exercise in the days just before an important competition" (source: Wikipedia)

Tapering should be a time for kicking back and feeling secure in the knowledge that all the hard training is behind you. A time to focus on the event and make sure all the mental and practical preparations are in place.

I'm not normally in this boat. Normally, like most people I guess, I haven't done enough training so am worried during the period when I should be tapering. This worry can lead to one of two outcomes: I either continue to train through the tapering period, in a desperate and counter-productive attempt to reach the overall mileage required; or I taper anyway when it's not really needed.

This time, I'm relatively confident that I'm not too far short of the amount of training required to keep up with my team-mates on a 90-mile (sorry erm... I mean 145km) bike ride. So last night I went out for a very gentle 1 hr ride before it got dark. This will be my final ride before Sunday's event. I just need to remember to eat a lot the night before and I should be fine. Is this a case of famous last words? Pride before a fall? Only time will tell.

Cycling - longest training ride

My training guide said I should be doing a 70-mile ride this weekend. So I decided to cycle back from my parents' house - Bingley (near Bradford, West Yorkshire) to Wincle (near Macclesfield, Cheshire). When I plotted this roughly, it looked like about 55 miles, but I thought the extra hills, relative to a "standard" ride would compensate for any lack of distance.

As you can see from the trace, it was pretty hilly (total ascent 6800 feet). It was also slightly longer than I had thought, at 61 miles. It was also quite windy, and unlike circular bike rides, it was in my face the whole way. I'm still finding my feet in cycling, but I suspect 5 and a quarter hours is not a good time for such a ride. My charity ride is in two weeks and it's 90 miles with 6500 feet of ascent, so I'm confident I've done the right training and any lack of achievement on my part will be due to my team-mates being better than me.

Today's ride was punctuated by Mrs Noel and the kids very kindly meeting me as they were travelling home. This involved much-needed moral support and smarties just when I could see the Holme Moss summit looming. I also had to stop in Buxton to buy some Lucozade as I didn't think I was going to get over Axe Edge without some extra energy.

Cycled to work

It's certainly easier than cycling home, due to the height drop. I did it in 1 hour 25 minutes today. This is faster than cycling home last night despite not trying very hard today. It was also nice and sunny, so I could go more quickly down the hills. Last time I cycled in, it was very wet, so I had to be a bit careful on the hill corners. I've a busy day today at work, so that's all for now.

Cycling home - hillier than cycling in

I cycled in last Wednesday and left my bike there. Today I cycled home which means I'm forced to cycle in tomorrow as my car is still at work. It's 20 miles each way, so it's like doing 40 miles in a day (only I have a big sleep between legs).

Cycling back from work is harder than cycling in as I work in Knutsford, which is on the Cheshire plain, but live at about 1000 feet in the Peak District. I was thinking the big hill up the A54 was much harder than I expected, but then realised I was still on the big front cog. I suspect Lance Armstrong makes similar mistakes all the time.

I was trying to 'give it some pasty' on the way home and was pleased to do it in about an hour and a half. Tomorrow I'll have to go a bit more slowly as I don't want to be too sweaty for my colleagues. I have a change of clothes at work but no showering facilities. If anyone has any tips on all-over washing using those tiny sinks you get in the toilets, I'd be keen to learn them.

Cycled to work

20 miles, largely downhill and flat. I'm more confident about being able to do 90 miles now - cycling on the flat is easy. It was so wet, even my clothes in my bag got wet (much to the amusement of my colleagues).