Building back up again, again!

It seemed such an innocuous slip, I didn't even feel any ill effects for bashing my knee when I walked back into the house after it noting that the decking is slippy when wet. 

Four days later I was barely walking and had my knee on ice. Having already taken a couple of weeks off the Turbo having felt a strain in my right calf after an over ambitious 10km walk and being ever so slightly paranoid after 2020s injuries I realized I was going to be hurtling back to untrained after a load of effort on the turbo through a pretty minging winter. It was the end of march, a year and a month since my left leg had gone, and now my right leg was keeping me out of action just as the good weather and audax was kicking off again. 

My target was the Snow Hare on the 22nd of May, I returned to the turbo trainer for light spinning mid-April, trying to take a similar approach to 2020 but on a better turbo, with a power meter and more data to fret over, it was disappointing seeing such poor figures.
I've moved house, now at the bottom end of North Fife in the edge of the Howe, I needed to find new routes, the flats of the Howe and the climbs of the braes mostly gentler than around Wormit but there's also decent climbs to do such as the Cadgers and Falkland Hill.
I rode to Leven and suffered a tyre blowout, I rode to the bike shop in Methil after faffing for an hour only to discover they'd shut 30 mins previously. The tyre boot got me home.
I rode to Elie and didn't suffer such calamity, but I forgot my mask and money, so having misjudged how lumpy a route it can be made I was glad to find the reserves to get home on the flatter return route.

I wasn't sure I was ready but I loaded up the car and discovered I now live just over an hour on a Saturday morning from Galashiels, the Dalkeith Premier Inn for 35 quid didn't seem a worthwhile bargain for an extra 45 mins in bed. I had felt strong on the turbo, but you don't feel your weight on them.
I think every time I get injured I put on 5 kilos, I've had a few 5 Kilos since my peak, and why can I never lose them by riding?
I remember Jan Ulrich used to be "fat shamed" for being one of the few riders able to maintain weight during the cycling season rather than finishing it skeletal, why is it that what's seen as normal both in cycling and real life isn't healthy? 

Anyway, I set off out of Galashiels on the Clovenfords road and soon remembered it was uphill and discovered I'm now properly slow uphill. I was going to spend the day at the back and alone. It was also only 1 week post 1st jag of the BioNTech vaccine, apparently that messes with your performance, so maybe it wasn't just my worse than wanted lead in.
This was a new route from Lucy, going cross country via Peebles and Biggar to Sanquhar, At Peebles I discovered I could no longer get a balance receipt for my credit card, so had to ride back to the petrol station, forgetting there's a shop on the road out. Then I discovered that Sainsburys in Biggar has closed after riding down past all the other shops, I rode back up the hill forgetting about the petrol station. I've ridden around here enough that I should know these things. I didn't go round by Abington Services but took a quiet road that cuts directly across to the Spango road, even though I was slow I didn't think I was going to struggle too much for time. It might have been lumpy but it saved me a juddering climb on the old A74, the Spango was a nice descent, but by the time I got to Sanquhar the café had shut. I had been considering returning by climbing the Menock pass but realized that would need to wait for another day.

I meant to take the other road at Crawfordjohn that would land me near to Abington services, minimizing the judder fest as I'd decided to favour the flatter return route from Abington to Symington, but from there it was just a reversal of the route out.
I ended up walking one of the hills after Broughton as I ran out of energy and had a nice seat on a viewpoint bench.
My time for the 204km was a respectable 11:30 but it's a relatively gentle route, I had more to do.

I threw in a gentle recovery on the turbo and an intervals session in the week between Snow Hare and Moscow Express, this time however I was going to have a 2nd engine.
Robbie had convinced me that going halfers on a tandem would be a good idea, I couldn't disagree on that and the only disappointment is that it only has two wheels. What has Audaxing done to me?
What I also couldn't disagree with was me being Captain, pretty much decided based on the front portion being closest to my frame size and a me being a bad passenger.

We did a set up ride on the Friday, a flat loop followed by a route with a long climb and a rapid descent with sharp left hander at the bottom, other than setting off at junctions it seemed to be going well, so we bit the bullet and took it down to Currie.

With 2 engines you don't get 2x the power because you're also 2x the weight and the bike itself weighs another double again, so while a heavy rider like myself may be somewhere around 110kg when set up for a 200, the combination of me, Robbie, tandem, bag and contents was more like 210kg, and with my FTP at the time being 1.6x body weight, basically I was relying on Robbie to shove us round and for me to pick up what I could.

We set off with the faster riders, because Tandems are fast on the flat, except this route wasn't flat. Early on while talking to Craig and Duncan I missed that I'd just put the fat (35mm) tyres of the tandem though a hole with sharp bits, Duncan followed us into it, Craig buggered off up the hill and with our fat tubes being no help to Duncan, we also buggered off and left him trailing apologies. After a nadgery lumpy bit we got onto the section that had given us a false sense of tandem suitability, which had been revealed to us by Bob and Tracy at the start who had made a decision not to Tandem it because it was bloody hilly around Lanark. We battered down the A71 at a fantastic pace, we were easily reaching 40kmh in the Big Ring on the flat and this road has rollers which were 60kmh easy.

Then we found Lanark and I missed a junction, it's a bit harder to turn a tandem on a moderately busy road than a bike. But maybe I should have researched better as with only an extra 5km of riding we'd have been on a gentle route round the big lump that Ross was sending us over. 

The climb out of Lanark was a slog up to the Viewpoint on Blackhill with a few respites in between, peaking at 22% on the first pitch we discovered we couldn't drop into the little ring, but we got up. For the 2nd pitch we stopped and adjusted the gears to give us the small and middle rings, it was less work for Robbie as I didn't peak out early on with easier gearing. 

The reward for the climb was the descent towards Kirkmuirhill, before climbing back up to a similar height at Strathaven (2 weeks in a row where Gaelic derived Scots pronunciations remain while the name gets written in Standard English), we controlled at Sainsburys where I took considerably longer than we'd have liked due to using the facilities. 

The A71 took us along to Galston and then we were back to climbing, on a long rising corner as the gradient touched 30%, I lost control at low speed and dropped the front wheel into the gutter, Robbie tried to catch it from the back as I rapidly unclipped knocking my cleat out of position; we somehow got going again and stopped at a layby 50m up the road so I could see why my foot was wonky. Thankfully it was only because my cleat bolts had come loose and was able to resolve with the multi tool and we were on our way again towards Moscow.  The village was originally called Moss Ha but was deliberately corrupted following Napoleons defeat at the hands of the Russians, the area was then used to house Russian prisoners of war during the Crimean war and other Russian influences can be found in the area.

Tyres are evidently better than Horseshoes

I'd been worried that I'd ended Duncan's ride early as he hadn't caught us as soon as I thought he would, but as we were resting at Moscow and taking note of the info control he arrived. Relieved I hadn't ended his ride we carried on up the gentle climb towards and over Whitelees, it's a much photographed road by Weegie riders as the near deserted road is basically a two way cycle track with half a carriageway for the odd car plonked in the middle.
The rising and falling road from Eaglesham back to Strathaven had me seeing odd movements in the bar bag holding my food, toolkit and spare tubes, this eventually revealed itself as a failed decaleur, we hadn't packed zip ties (school boy error!) and we were lucky to find a couple of straps that had been left in the bag, although I suppose we were stopped next to a farm so the next option would have been to cadge some Juibilee clips or some other agricultural fastener.

Soft focus on the Windfarm road

Thankfully we got to back to Strahaven and then on to Kirkmuir uneventfully, the climb back over Black Hill was also good, still feeling quite strong, or at least I was well assisted. And then we got to that steep hill, this time descending into Lanark, we were picking up speed fast, almost as fast as I could dispose of it with the brakes, not having a coaster brake and not being fully used to the feel of Koolstop brakes I thought I had overheated the front, so used the back to knock as much speed as I could off before thinking they were fading too. Robbie got worried about popping the tube with the heat, I was worried about the fact that despite braking we were now gaining speed even with the brakes on, and the road was narrow...
We'd nearly made it to the bottom when the dreaded sound of spinning air emanated from the back wheel. Baws. The fairy she doth visit. Robbie set about changing the tube, just as soon as he could touch the rims, they were pure bilin. 

15 minutes spent and we were on our way, now slogging up the main road into and through Lanark, we took a break at the petrol station to give everything a further check over, it was a long slog on to the Control at Carnwath and then on again up to the road summit above Tarbax, but then... maybe we should have stopped and readjusted the gears, but we mashed it as best we could coming to an agreement that we were spinning out about 40kmh in the middle ring on the 12T cog. What we couldn't get right was telling each other that were were going to stop pedalling, thankfully I don't just lock my knees when I stop but let them spin slightly but it was unnerving for Robbie when I did it too abruptly as he had visions of my knees exploding as he kept putting the power down as I locked them. 11 hours 45mins for a lumpy 200 is decent enough, the 9hrs 20mins of it we were actually riding, pretty happy for only our 2nd day of riding and learning about the Tandem. 

Tree and hedge lined roads of the Eastern Borders

Another week gap where I did gentle riding before the most challenging 200 of the 3 week block, I was worried it was going to be hilly, I expected I'd be the titular Lantern Rougé if I finished in time.
Leaving the school in Selkirk I made the most I could of the hill to get a good speed on the A7, the tailwind also helped as I shot along towards Gala and the climb to Lauder. I knew I wasn't going to be fast up any hill but I managed not to be Lantern Rouge by Lauder and had a decent average on the clock too.
Other than just before a sharp dig just out of Lauder where I slowed on the descent into it, so that Davey wouldn't have to come back round me as it ramped up abruptly just ahead of us.
The road by Howletts Ha to Chirnside was much faster than I was expecting it to be though Russell and Neil confused me at Duns by stopping at a shop, but it turned out they were waiting for another rider who they were meant to be riding with.
The wind and relatively gentle going along with my speed concerns had given me a good push and now I was going to be using that up, the route started to climb gently at first and then getting tougher as the climb to Whiteadder Reservoir dragged on, and it beat me at Hungry Snout a 30% ramp where the road goes from the natural level of the river to the raised level of the dam top in a short distance.

Looking back at Whiteadder Water

Thankfully after that it barely touched double figures as I slogged on under the sun to the road summit on Redstane rig, with lunch at the Lantern Rouge café in Gifford below. A half hour stop in the café queue and then sitting on the green eating my takeaway saw other riders come and go, maybe I should have eaten faster, but did it matter?
A 6 hour metric is still comfortably in time and the worst climb was done, wasn't it? The strength of the Westerly presented itself almost immediately on leaving Gifford, and it was a slog along the gentle rising and falling at the foot of the Lammermuirs and Moorfoots towards the Granites descent into Innerleithen. 

Getting ready to climb down the Granites when the descent comes

 Regular readers of this blog will remember that I have before Climbed Down the Granites and abandoned that ride at silly AM in the disabled toilet. These dark memories came to mind and I once again climbed down the Granites. 

But now I have the stats of that climb 

Distance: 12km 

Average Speed: 25.9kmh 

Elevation lost: 250m 

Average Gradient: 1.5% 

Average Power: 165w 

I averaged just 10w short of my then FTP on the descent, and managed a fairly average flat land speed. With the sun beating down, and the wind beating me up I'd used more of my liquid and reserves than I'd expected so resorted to Lucozade sport at the Co-Op where I had 2nd lunch, Davey and Jayne set off before me, so I was fairly sure I was Lantern Rouge now. 

2nd Last climb of the day was Paddy Slacks, 10km at 3%, 

I was running near empty, I put out less power on this climb than it took me to descend the Granites. I thought my memory might be playing tricks on me, but I was sure that where the woods called Paddock Slack on the East was joined by the woods to the west that was the road summit, I felt decent on the climb, but it was a slow 10kmh climb. 

The road curves round Mountbenger law as it dives down to the Gordon Arms, I saw Daveys bike propped up against the wall, he can have the light. Next was the Berrybush for a final slog, Davey soon caught me after some Isotonic refreshment in the form of a swift half, I was slowly running out of that Lucozade. It's only 6.6Km at 2.3% through the woods at Berrybush where McNasty had heard the birds ring out like a telephone on the Valkyries and neither Dick McT nor myself would let on in the Jammy Coo that we'd heard the same. 

It feels almost all downhill from here until the final insult in Selkirk, but the average grade is only -0.5% with the best of the descent ending at Tushielaw, the long shallow descent by the Ettrick punctuated by the odd little dig, a song would do to get me through. 

Fallah-tallah rhu-dhumma, rhu-dhum, rhu-u-dhum; 

Fallah-tallah rhu-dhumma, rhu-dhum-day! 

The final insult arrived, the dig up into Selkirk, at least I didn't have to go up to the petrol station on the clock. After controlling at the Co-Op I hauled myself up to the car where Davey was just contemplating the journey home. 

There was another car still in the car park, he had seen the owner stopped at the side of the road resting, I had not. Was I Lantern Rouge? 

This is Audax, I should never know. 

11hrs 53m elapsed is still decent, particularly given the 2600m of climbing involved so I went into a relatively restful period happy.