its been a while so I thought a little update was due.
Training - Picked up the pace a little (well, for me anyway!!) riding in to work most days now (20 mile round trip), and getting some decent runs in at the weekends. We did a superb round trip in derbyshire last weekend , chapel en le frith, over to and down 'winnets Pass', then a circular route round derbyshire and then (after a wonderfull chunk of apple pie
) back up winnets...... good god thats a tough climb... not ashamed to say I had to stop half way up!
also, trying to fit in my other (and number one passion) more often.. kitesurfing, I love cycling but, if the wind is blowing then it comes second best to kitesurfing!!
bike - Decided to give a larger cassette a go, stuck on a Sram 11-32 cassette , needed to change rear derailleur to a long cage one but so far so good. Still not 100% happy when changing gear, it sometimes skips up/down two rather than one, but, I will tweak it a bit and get it right, all in all, its a good upgrade (for me anyway, slightly unfit and feeling my age/ years of a desk job!). Tis lovely to have the 'get out jail free 32 ring on the back!
Annoyingly the Front derailler is playing up a little, changing up from small to big I sometimes get chain off. I adjust the limit screw, it works for a while, then doesnt want to change up at all. I use the barrell adjuster to increase tension on the wire a little, still no joy, wont change up. I tweak the limit screw ever so slightly and hey presto, everything working, can change from small to big. this works for a random amount of time and bang... chain off again, back to square one with tweaking/mucking about.
Have changed the cable to see if its cable stretch causing it.... same problem.
Have loosened everything off and reset front derailleur... same problem.
going to stick a new front derailleur and big chainring on just in case I have knocked it at any point and its a bit bent out of shape.
Route - sorted the route out....
http://ridewithgps.com/routes/920952our daily average will have to be 50miles a day ......... do-able we think, but tough once we hit the pyrenees!
Accomodation - Booked something in bordeaux, something in the middle around Luchon and something at the end in barcelona. The rest.. we will just play it by ear.
flights - all booked. Sorted out a bike box to get the bike there, not sure at the momoent how we will get them back !!! thinking to take just a huge plastic bag and a roll of packing tape to wrape the bike in for the return. (dont really want to trust my pride and joy to a plastic bag but... hats all I can think of doing for the return flight).
Garmin 800 - Kind of a love / hate relationship with it. It always 'kinda' works. to say Garmin do such intuitive car navigation systems you would have thought they could hit the mark with a cycling gps.
Faults - You load up your route, hit 'go' and then follow the purple line on the map, trouble is , purple isnt a great contrast against the background map!! so you do loose your way a little sometimes.
- also... route re-calculation... it doesnt work!! if you go off route, you would think it would re-route to get you back to your planned route as best possible... what it actually does, god only knows!! I cant even explain it... so, I just turn off the 'auto re-route ' feature.
other than that, its fairly intuitive, the battery life is reasonable and I am warming to it the more i use it.
KIt - Not even started looking at what to take! . currently debating a full on waterproof or.. will I get away with a lightweight waterproof and a microfleece, something like the pacajac
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Mode ... elID=61519Other kit - Phone . T-Mobile are doing a pay as you go with a nice bolt on £30 gets you a sim that has a ton of international minutes and data on it. It only lasts a month but that will be great and means we wont get hit for massive data charges.
thats about it for now... more when it happens.
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