madness!

One of the horrible hills on the Force ride.

well, we've really done it now! In order to prepare for the Women v Cancer Kenya cycle, I need 'saddle time'. And training. The training weekend we did in the Cotswolds was great, so some of us from the first cycle have decided to get together again in August for the Great Shakespeare Ride. There is a £20 registration fee for the 100km ride, and any other time I'd have asked for sponsorship for the hospice, but not this year. People have been more than generous already and I really want to keep my friends :)

So – back to the latest insanity. The elevations look horrendous! In particular, Lark Stoke Hill, which is apparently a single track with a poor surface, a 1 in 7 (15%) average for around 1 and a half miles. SHRIEK!! The hardest hill we did in the Cotswolds was a 12% gradient and it nearly killed me.

BUT the entire ride is only 1 km more than the longest cycle we do from Nyeri to Nyahururu [approx.99km cycling] on the 3rd day in Kenya, so it'll be fantastic to succeed at this. A lot of this cycling lark seems to be to do with your mental attitude? If we think we can do it, we will do it? That's my theory and I'm sticking to it. The longest I've ever cycled has been the Force 50 mile, and on mountain bikes it was a struggle. But we did it [yes, I am quite proud of myself actually!]

So we're all booked up to go. We have accommodation at one of the Women v Cancer cyclists homes, which will be entertaining, as quite a few peeps are camping in her garden. Personally I detest camping, so I have booked a nice, comfy bed for us a very reasonable price. The FH took a bit of persuading, but as some of the other women's other halves are also coming, he's IN! yay! My ever reliable back up. And Vicky – who, being a youngster, is camping?!

The next post will show the route – it's impossible to embed it in WLW, so unfortunately I am going to have to post it using Blogger's posting thing – which crashes every 3 minutes and is quite irritating! Check it out [if I succeed!]