My London to Brighton experience

[Vorpal]

I'm glad to hear that you are feeling better about it. Keep up the good work, and I'm sure you'll get there.

[foxyrider]

Salads really are terrible for feeding your muscles unless you've got other stuff in there. Some chicken is good and eggs are excellent for muscle repair. Pasta is easy to digest but go easy on the dressings on the pasta and the salad. Chuck in some nuts/dried fruit for a change and keep hydrated.

Stuff made with oats is good for slow release energy, porridge with some fruit for breakfast, flapjack (avoid the sickly coated stuff, plain old fruit fj is best) as a snack before/during your ride.

Good luck and don't stress about the weight loss!

[Cunobelin]

Don't think about it as the London - Brighton

A long ride such as this can be quite daunting.

However it is really like nipping out to the pub in the next village... several times

Take it in manageable stages with a small break or treat as a reward and it becomes much more manageable than looking at it as one long ride

[TheNissanMan]

I think I may be looking at training the wrong way, I am trying to get my single distances up as far as I can manage, I’m guessing it would be easier to do more steady distances with breaks to simulate the ride on the day?

[mercalia]

I think I may be looking at training the wrong way, I am trying to get my single distances up as far as I can manage, I’m guessing it would be easier to do more steady distances with breaks to simulate the ride on the day?

probably reaslistic and also have an idea how long it will take worst case and DONT RACE. jUST BUMBLE ALONG AT VERY MODEST SPEED

[ianrobo]

My thought for you ...

Do core work and start now, get your core strengthened up if only doing crunches ...

[mjr]

Sorry for not responding earlier and thank you for taking the time to respond. With a manic work schedule out on the bike the internet has taken a back seat so will try to respond to all comments in one hit.

No worries. Thanks for updating us. Glad it's going OK and that the nutrition idea was helpful. More great advice from others above.

my back side feeling (or completely lack of feeling) extremely numb I thought I would see how I feel tomorrow and try improve the mileage on the evenings after work. Speaking with numerous people I have also ordered some bib shorts and cream to see if that helps!

More important IMO is to measure your bum. Try to figure out how far apart your so-called sit bones are while sat on the bike. Here's one method:
[youtube]E7j9LUVJrjA[/youtube]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7j9LUVJrjA

Then measure the distance between the firmer or slightly raised bumps on your saddle. As you're having trouble, you'll probably find they don't match up. With modern flatter-top saddle designs, it's important that they do line up if you want a painless ride - but I favour 1980s-ish ergonomic designs like the Selle Royale Contour or San Marco Concor which are curved saddle shapes so as long as the width is in the right ball park (usually sit bone width plus I think 25mm but I've not looked that figure up and it varies by manufacturer anyway - and for Brooks-type hammock saddles, it's more like 50mm), I think it's acceptable.

If you add more padding to a badly-fitting saddle, you may be spreading the pressure over even more soft bits and causing more pain. This is why people often recommend hard saddles and padded shorts, but I never found ones that didn't have seams that chew me up and then basically hold sweat against the damage leading to infection... every bum's different, though!

(Edited to add missing added width)

[TheNissanMan]

Thanks again for taking the time to respond, will get the tape measure out this evening...

[slowster]

Of the three main components that I think of as defining fitness - stamina, speed and power - stamina is the one that improves most quickly to begin with when new or returning to cycling, which is something in your favour.

Stamina means being able to sit on that saddle with your hands on the bars and being able to turn the pedals round. I appreciate that that is patently obvious, but it determines how you should be training/preparing for the ride:

1. You need to build up the time you spend on your rides, to acclimatise your backside to the saddle and to the pressure of supporting your bodyweight, and your body and muscles to the position on your bike. It won't matter how fast you can ride, if after several hours you have back ache or neck ache that forces you to stop.

2. Concentrate on keeping in a gear that feels like it's no real effort, so that your legs are spinning round without even trying. Higher gears may feel good at the start, but are likely to tire you more quickly.

3. Make sure your bike has low gears. When you come to a hill, no matter how short or slight the gradient, don't be afraid to drop straight into a very low gear and make slow progress just spinning the pedals.

In other words, it's better to go out for a 4 hour preparation ride and pootle along at an average of, say, 9 mph, than to go out for a couple of hours and maintain a 12 mph average. Think hare vs. tortoise.

[TheNissanMan]

Thanks for further advise, on my rides have been using gears that aren’t hard work as in pushing me to pedal but not spinning like crazy to try and go further on each ride. For hills I have been using lower gears as don’t have the stamina to keep going if I don’t , especially towards the end of my rides as have a pretty hefty hill just before I get back home which is a PITA but useful to finish off a session. When I first started on the bike I was walking the last part of it as legs were dead, now cycling up and over so showing some obvious improvement.

Will measure the seat/backside this evening as think yesterday was cut short mainly due to discomfort which has carried over in certain areas to today although not sure how much further I could have gone. Will have a night off tonight and some decent food and back at it tomorrow. As I’m cycling more am finding longer routes around my home which is great as started off doing loops around a local estate which although was seat time got a bit repetitive.

Once I’ve measured myself am sure I’ll have some more daft questions, may have to start a sweepstakes with what daft question will get asked next!

[Vorpal]

for saddle discomfort, there are 3 main components...

1) breaking in - both your backside, and the saddle, though saddles form synthetic materials don't require much
2) saddle shape - it has to suit you; many saddles supplied on bikes are quite narrow, but they're more likely to fit men than women
3) saddle position - if it's not in the right place, it won't ever be comfortable

Breaking in just requires miles. Tiredness also plays a factor, as if you sit in the saddle like a sack of potatoes, it will become uncomfortable sooner.

If you aren't sure it's in the right position, or you aren't sitting on your sit bones, see 531Colin's bike fitting guide http://wheel-easy.org.uk/uploads/docume ... 02017a.pdf

[TheNissanMan]

Another quick question, I didn’t get around to measuring my sit bones last night as stuck in the office until late but just worked out it is only 38 days until the London to Brighton!!!!

If I were to measure my sit bones and buy a new saddle I would guess it would need bedding in or at least me bedding in to it, would 38 days be enough time to get this done properly or am I better off trying to get used to the saddle I have already put 70-80 miles on?

[mjr]

If I were to measure my sit bones and buy a new saddle I would guess it would need bedding in or at least me bedding in to it, would 38 days be enough time to get this done properly or am I better off trying to get used to the saddle I have already put 70-80 miles on?

I've switched saddles and felt the improvement almost immediately so I think 38 days would be oceans. You're hopefully going to put many more miles than that on in the 38 days and you don't want them all to be irritating else it'll limit your mileage and could possibly stop you riding if you don't find any way to ease it.

[Cyril Haearn]

That is plenty of time, might be worth trying different saddles, take a spare one with you maybe
The height and angle of a saddle can be adjusted, there is plenty about doing so on these fora

[TheNissanMan]

Sneaking a couple of calls while in the office I’m biting the bullet on Sunday morning (next day off) and heading out to a local bike shops to have a chat ref saddles as they do measuring etc and although you’ve been kind enough to put videos of how twos and a great read I’m still conscious (and knowing me more than likely) to buy the wrong saddle.

Looking at prices they aren’t cheap but am guessing its the same as not wanting to put ditch finders on a car in terms of main point of comfort if putting the miles in and would rather buy right first time rather than spending a decent sum of money to find I’ve bought the wrong saddle, will then give me an opportunity to play. My lieu Bank Holiday is Sunday-Tuesday off and back into work on Wednesday so a great opportunity to clock some miles up and see how much of a difference the saddle, better food makes.

As suggested earlier in this post am not pigging out but changing diet to more carb/protein based rather than salads and see what difference that makes.