One Bike, One Gear, No Brain – what is it?

Originally this site was set up to promote my solo bicycle ride from John O’Groats to Lands’End  in June 2011.  My One Bike, One Gear, No Brain ride – riding North to South on a bike with ONE GEAR.

I was riding to raise money for Clic Sargent. (for more about my prep/training and day by day blogs from the ride – go to “Archives” on the right handside of the screen -Select Feb 11 and read from there)

Now this site (like my life) is about disconnecting the logical part of your brain – throw yourself off  a cliff on a snowboard, paddle out in big surf, ride a singlespeed on and off road – scare yourself!

*WARNING* Listen to your logical brain and only have half the fun!

Why “Surf”??

I have to share this

This is why ….

Mother nature in such fury, so incredibly beautiful and surfers just being in there with no hope of escape

The FOD#2 – The Chaos Effect

Fuel: Breakfast Energy Drink from Outandin.net – 10/10 as a fuel for the day

Riders from Chaos Cycles, OTP, BC & Timsbury Crew:

Anders (Chaos Cycles), Larry (Chaos Cycles), Simon (OTP /Chaos), Jim (TC), Paul D (BC) , James (OTP), Big T (OTP founding Father), Buff (OTP), Bidup TV (OTP)

The sun was out again for another incredible morning at the FOD…(In shorts)

(to get the full Chaos Effect – click the bottom video first and when its playing fire up the top one – to hear it as Anders intended)

Bacon butties and Latte’s to finish the morning off ….IT JUST DOESNT GET BETTER THAN THAT!

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 4,900 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

DRUID’S VOICE

The email of the year and every year by head Druid, founding father of OTP …Mr M Tiiterton:

“Brothers from other Mothers

It is that time of the year again….that’s right it’s today and not yesterday as some ‘gatecrashers’ thought! (Simon, please inform Sarah this is a ‘boyz’ thing and chicks aren’t allowed!)

Sun Rise – 8.13am
Sun Set – 4.03pm
Total day light hours of only 7hrs 50minutes……

My brothers……this means, from today we gain 5 – 10 minutes of light each week, my shorts will be back on in less than 6 weeks time….and summer is round the corner…and we all know summer = warm water!

Surfing in 2011 has been poor for some, average for some and amazing for others! I hereby name 2012, the year of the beach. Dust off your tents, wax up your boards, tell your family to have a good time…we are off…Cornwall baby it rocks………..

Brothers….enjoy Christmas, get drunk at New Year…..surf training starts on the 2nd January…..

Peace Out…….

Buff – Be a lover of this email….not a hater!”

The FOD

Sunday December 18th 2011, 6am and my wake up alarm crys out.

Its been a hard week of commuting with heavy rain /hail / winds / freezing conditions.

Why oh Why am I getting up when every fiber of my being is saying stay in bed?

Why?…It because of reports back from the OTP boys that the Forest Of Dean has stepped up its trail centre.

T, Buff and the boys were there last month and reported back that….boy oh boy!…its tre good!

AND THE WEATHER WAS TREATING US VERY WELL

We watched the sun come up into a blue sky and freezing conditions as we sped out of EG

Got colder as we got to the Forest where snow had fallen, lakes were frozen and wild boar were spotted (nice!)

Perfect conditions, this is why I dragged myself out of bed.

FOD DOES NOT DISAPPOINT!!

Great Trails and real fun

No lung busting climbs (but there are climbs)

Great berm sections

whoops to get you airborne

and the track is all-weather

If you fancy an easier (but no less fun) ride than Afan or Cwncarn

FOD is a good choice

Still getting exposure.

Great that my ride is still getting exposure . This week the people at “This Week in” paper ran an article about “what I dun” which I hope will produce more money for CLIC.
They also ran a photo of me wearing my Chaos Cycles kit. That great bike shop in St Nick’s Market, Bristol.
Also, those guys I met in Kendal have been good enough to link their blog to my one.
Nice guys, who I often thought about on my ride. Would I catch them? are they round the next corner? Click on the link above to find out about their adventure.

The Big Ride is over but Training continues

Sunday 6am up and on my bike.
Why?
After all the prep and then the Big Event I want to maintain this fitness. I have plans for more bike riding challenges in the future.
What a morning! Heavy mist soaking me and keeping me cool. Warm at 6am.
Hit the road and headed out on the Stroud Road (A46)
Nice to be out
No cars at that time in the morning.
The light and mist was amazing. Fields of yellow (corn), Red (poppies), dark green with the mist bringing the horizon to halfway across the field. The sun was trying to burn through so the light was odd, really making the colours of the crops vivid against the murk of the mist.
If I can’t go surfin I will be on my bike.
Tried to capture the light and colour but a phone camera just doesn’t quite do it .

30 miles in 2hrs on my 3216

No Matter How Far I Cycle – I will Always come Back to Bristol

Another reason why BRistol is one of the best cities in the Country

Cycle city, Bristol Sound and Bristol Art – just a few reasons to set up home here

Thank you to Art-el Gallery for sharing this one

 

 

Epok & Bonzai from Raspberry & Jam on Vimeo.

Fit As A Butchers Dog – How Come?

The comment I have had most since I completed my end to end ride (apart from “congratulations, you made it)” was “I just can’t believe that you had so much energy when we met you in Bristol”

To be honest with you, neither could I.

I half expected to feel completely drained by Bristol.

I have always pushed myself in sport, back to back basketball games in tournaments lasting a weekend, 24 hour mountain bike races, week long surf trips etc.

The main theme running through these activities was that as the time went on I would get more tired, feel depleted and my body would ache more and more…

Not on this bike adventure ….and it’s not that I wasn’t pushing myself…80 to 100 miles each day, 6 to 7 hours in the saddle each day, on a bike with one gear, over mountains, are you kidding me? I was pushing myself!

But I was able to get up each day and do it again and again and again, and I was feeling fresh every morning and ready to go

So what changed?

Why was I recovering so quickly?

How was I able to keep my energy levels up to attack each day?

OutandIn Nutritional Therapy happened.

Claire from OutandIn was onboard early in my preparation,

Claire looked at my diet,

put me on a detox,

got me to evaluate the effect of different foods on my performance,

helped me get my body to it optimum power to weight ratio

created a guide to “high net gain” foods,

looked at dietary stresses, life stress and the effect on my sleep patterns.

As you can see we got serious about the fuel I put into my body – and we got serious results.

And the fuel was based on good old whole food, basic fruit, veg and fish – your basic 5 a day but with a bit more science.

We wanted to demonstrate that you can not just take part but you can perform at a high level without high sugar energy bars, drinks, gels, supplements, without carb’ loading, without sports /performance products typically associated with sports or endurance events.

We did it and I felt super human on most days.

When I started this ride my weight was 14 stone and when I finished this ride I was 14 stone.

I felt like I could carry on but I ran out of land.

If you are serious about performing at your best and you want to remain healthy? – contact Claire at OutandIn.net

Read Claire’s newsletter about what we done – click here

How Much Did We Raise?…. and other stuff

Sponsorship :

So how much  did we raise together for CLIC Sargent?

Well I have a paper sponsorship form at work, email pledges and money collected on the way which totals about £200 to £300.

As I write this tonight my Virgin Money Giving sponsorship page has £1459.37 with sponsorship still coming in.

Thank you everyone, we have raised well over £1500 for CLIC Sargent – I feel good, so should you.

How far did I cycle?

I totalled 923 miles

or

1485.42 kms

or

4,873,440 ft

or (approximately)

282,000 complete peddle rotations

Intake and outflow?

approximately 79 Litres of water (intake)

as you can imagine that caused a ridiculous number of pee breaks (outflow)

Countless bananas, apples, almonds, nuts, seeds, “Naked” fruit & nut bars, “Ellas Kitchen” baby food pouches etc (intake)

I will stop there (outflow)