Volando vamos

Well, it's 3am and we've just finished up all the final preparations for the trip. We leave the house tomorrow at 9am.

Our packing process started like this...

But it came out like this! (Not including the bike boxes)

All that was left to do was get my hair to a more suitable length for the trip (with the help of Alberto's mom!) ...

I think that turned out okay too!

Next update will be from Ecuador! 

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South America 2014: Final preparations underway!

After a relaxing couple of weeks spending the holiday with our families, the final preparations for our tour are underway.

We have a packing list with over 200 individual items on it in an excel spreadsheet! The number of items highlighted in red, signifying that we still need to obtain them, is dwindling every day. Both Santa Claus (in the US) and the three kings (in Spain) were kind enough to help us with some of the last minute items, thankfully. We're hoping to take care of the rest of the small items later today.

Packed up and  ready to go… testing out a new hi-viz at the same time.

We had a go at packing everything on the list, albeit not 100% as carefully as when we do it for the final time, and took our bikes out for a test spin. Even with the added weight of a few days of food from Alberto's parents' pantry, I still did not feel the bike was much heavier than it has been on previous, much shorter, tours. I haven't used front panniers before, though, so I imagine getting used to having weight at the front of the bike will take some time.

Alberto was carrying most of the extra stuff like the additional electronics and toiletries, but even so the bikes were pretty manageable - though it will probably take a bit of time to figure out a packing configuration that both gets the weight distribution right and is logical enough that we'll be able to find what we need quickly.

Making some on-the-road adjustments

With basically everything packed, we still had tons of empty space, which is probably not helpful to our packing process as it means we are finding it harder to be ruthless with what we take, even though we know the lighter our load the better off we'll be.

Although we had previously researched insurance options, we have started again in earnest to make sure we are finding the best possible deals. In this respect, it is a lot easier for me; as the US is my country of permanent residence now, there are actually very few companies that will ensure me for an yearlong cycle tour where I am not departing from the US. Alberto has more choice, but with it, more homework to do before he decides!

The insurance complications of long-term cycle tourists are so intricate that they merit their own dedicated post, and indeed a number of bloggers have given extremely helpful deails of their own experiences, including Travelling Two, tour.tk, and Shane Cycles.

Trying out the rig on some off-road sections

There are a couple other last minute things to sort, like making sure our banks know we'll be using our cards abroad, gathering together and photocopying our important documents, and cutting my hair short (!). But all in all, it's getting very very real!

Final Camino Preparations

It's hard to believe the moment is here -- we leave for the Camino de Santiago tonight!

With the help of a pretty exciting spreadsheet we have finalised our packing list and gotten everything into its respective bag or box!

Midway through the packing process.

All ready to go!

We probably won't be posting too much while on the Camino (trying to simplify our lives and all that), but we will be keeping a journal which we'll post after we're back.

You can view our packing list below.

All ready for our Audax 200

Not long ago Lucy and I were completely unaware of the term Audax/Brevet/Randonnée. But recently, and especially after all our long (well, should I say "short" for Audax standards?!) rides we came across Audax UK. As they say on their website: 'Audax United Kingdom is the internationally recognised long distance cycling association in the UK'. That sounded pretty cool, and soon afterwards we were doing some research into it.

A couple of weeks ago we entered our very first Audax, and last week we got our entry package. A lot of information came with it, all in different fancy coloured A4 sheets. We even got a personalized letter from Dave regarding our insurances (a post on this will follow soon). I thought that doing a PhD, in a foreign language, was complicated enough. But understanding the Audax terminology (again, in English!) proved a bit tricky for us newbies! The route is not shown on a map, but on Audax language:

So, here we are Lucy and I trying to make sense of 4 pages full of this. It became very obvious that if we had to follow this sheet(s) as they are on the day, we may end up in Birmingham. We don't even have a map carrier and we both know how crappy we are with directions - we always, always get lost, be it in London or wherever we happened to be. We were not granted with a very bright sense of orientation, unfortunately. But some bright minds (I think americans? Lucy's dad can surely confirm!) invented the GPS a while ago. And now the devices are small enough to be carried on bikes. And because we love technology, we have got two of them! So, let's get started with the mapping. Looking at google maps and street views (it is truly amazing how you can see every single road in the UK as if you were on it!) we followed the instructions and plotted a line that would then be transferred on to our GPS devices:

SO @ X (Busy A31)
$ Village Centre (Berry Hill)

Ok, so stratight on (SO) at crossing (X) which apparently will be the busy A31 (A roads are usually dodgy for cycling in England, the less numbers the worse!). Then signposted for Village Centre (Berry Hill, I guess there must be a hill). Easy. The places in bold are to be cycled through, possibly because there are hidden controls or something. The rest, you can either follow or make up your own route. We're sticking to Dave's for now.

After 4 sheets of this, we've come up with the four different stages of this 213 km audax. And we've created 4 separate .gpx (the GPS's language!) files. We will be given a 'brevet' card, which we need to have stamped in all the controls, manned or unmanned. In the latter case, we need to obtain proofs, such as ATM statements or receipts. Looking interesting. And then we have the time limits! They get relaxed as the km pass. The clossing time for the last control is at about 22:00, which should give us 14 hours to complete. That should be pleeeenty of time...right?

This is stage 3 of the audax

Ok, so if we rode at an average of 22 km/h, which is quite doable, we would invest nearly 10 h of riding time. That is non-stop. So, we have about 4 h stopping time, which includes food/water feeds, pees, mechanicals, and lots of resting atop the Surrey hills. It seems achievable, but we should keep an eye on the timings!

Riding for 10 h in October means that you're very likely to have to ride into the dark. It's good that we have been doing loads of night rides this year, otherwise I would be frightened! Some good lights, bright rears, and high-vis vest are in order. And backlit GPS!

The rest of the preparations include:

• Some pre-training in Richmond Park (that's for the hills!)
• Servicing the bikes. I will be changing my summer brake pads for the wet ones, in preparation for my Wales ride
• Food, food, food. Audaxers say that as long as you're well fed and hydrated, your legs will keep going
• Get tools ready, inner tubes, arm/knee warmers, batteries full of juice, GPS loaded
• Let your beard grow (mine's already 10 days) so that you can fit in

Despite all this, I personally feel a bit nervous, kind of similar to when I did my first night ride. Something new, certainily challenging, awaits for us this Saturday!

So we are looking forward to getting up at 5:30 am, cycle to Waterloo, training it to Guildford for 7:30 am, ride 8 km to the start, ride 213 km, 12 h later be back for the train into London (after another 8 km), ride back home from Waterloo ( at about 22:00)...and all this with a good chance of getting soaked! Yep, we do this for fun, but hey, we all sit in the office (or write thesis) for the same amount of time (and 5 days a week!), which is much much more boring! The good thing is, after we hand in our brevet cards and assuming we dont mess up any stamps/times etc, we will officially become randonneurs! That is exciting!

Suffolk and Norfolk Coast Mini-Tour: Part 1 - The Prep

This past weekend Alberto and I took a mini-tour of the Suffolk and Norfolk coasts. Alberto had organised the trip as a birthday present for me and had invited our good friends Erin and Ricardo along as well.

We've already covered the route planning aspect of the prepwork. On Friday evening as we both got home from work, all that was left was figuring out what to pack and how to fit it in our limited-capacity bags.

Since it was such a short trip it wasn't too hard to pack effectively. We decided that Alberto would take his Carradice and we'd fit my bike with the Ortlieb Saddlebag that Alberto normally takes on day rides. In addition to the cycling clothes we would wear on Saturday morning, each of us brought a change of clothes to wear in the evening, plus an extra pair of socks and underwear, and packable rain jackets just in case. We also had to bring shoes (the lightest we own!) since it's not comfortable to walk in our cycling shoes. Apart from that, we had to make space for the bike tools and spare inner tubes, and a small bag of toiletries. I wanted to bring my chamois cream, but the container was too bulky and heavy, so I had the pleasure of scooping it in to a ziploc bag to bring along!

Good view of the Carradice bag

Oh, and Alberto packed his swim trunks because he was being very optimistic about the weather and about having enough time to go for a swim!

The other main element of our prep work was to make the wraps. We stuck with our traditional breakdown of peanut butter, banana, and raisins for me, and yummy veggies for alberto (sweet potato dip, red pepper, and rocket). We tried to pack as many cereal bars and bananas as we could as we knew it would be a long two days in the saddle.

The final bit of prep work was a bit of a fail. I set the alarm for the wrong time! We were supposed to wake up at 5:50 in order to get to our 7:30am train, but I think my brain would not compute that time so I accidentally set it for 6:50. Luckily, Alberto had set his alarm for 6-something so we were able to get out of the door with relatively good time.

We had to get to Liverpool Street Station which is about 5 miles from our house. But shortly after we left home, Alberto realised he had forgotten to bring our pump. He decided to turn back while I kept going, figuring he would catch back up with me as I tend to ride more slowly. I kept riding towards the station but he never caught up with me. I was a little worried that he might not make it in time, as I got to the station with only 10 minutes to spare. But when I walked towards the platform, there he was with our friends Erin and Ricardo! He had somehow beaten me to the station despite me having a head start, and he also somehow managed to put on a cloak of invisibility as he passed me, since he claims he took the same route as I did! One of life's mysteries.

Anyway, we made it just in time to catch the 7:30am train to Ipswich where we would begin our journey....

The train we were on was a little outdated... to open the door to get off the train you had to open the window and use the outside handle!

Stay tuned for Part 2 of the Suffolk and Norfolk Coast Mini-Tour, which describes Day 1 of our ride!

essentials on the night before a ride

We have learned the hard way that if we don't get everything ready on the night before a long ride, we will be seriously delayed in the morning and possibly have to cut our ride short as a result. In fact, the reason we're not on a ride right now is that we didn't feel like prepping last night! So here is a list of our essential prep on the night before a day out on the cycle!

• Route: We usually have casual conversations about where we'd like to go on a long ride throughout the week, but when it comes to the night before the ride, we need to find an actual route we like. Luckily, Alberto has a Garmin GPS so this is mainly a case of finding the right route and downloading it to his device. We start by looking up routes in the area on Bikely, GPSies, or the Garmin website, and sometimes Alberto modifies them himself as well (I'm sure a post will follow on this topic!). Then it's normally a case of fighting with the computer, as downloading the route is never as seamless as we would like!
• Food: We like to bring a variety of small snacks that we can eat throughout the day. In addition to bananas and cereal bars (which don't require much prep work!), we like to make sandwiches or wraps to take with us. Alberto's often include canned tuna fish, which I can't stand! He likes healthy options like beans, hummous, rocket, or rice. I tend to prefer the slightly less healthy combination of peanut butter, bananas, and raisins! For me, it really works to keep my energy up on the ride. Although the truth is, when you are working that hard, everything begins to taste amazing!

• Water bottles: It really does not take that long to fill up four water bottles, so we used to leave it til the morning. But whenever we did that, we'd forget about the water bottles until the last minute, and then risk missing our train because of it! So it is best to do it the night before.
• Bikes: Alberto is the mechanical expert so he usually checks over the bikes and makes sure that they are roadworthy. This normally just involves making sure the tyres are inflated to the right pressure, but it's important to check that the wheels, brakes, gears, chain, handlebar, seatpost, etc are all as they should be!
• Clothes: I like to lay out my clothes the night before so that I know where it all is and can easily get dressed in the morning. I don't have a very large lycra wardrobe so for me it is usually just a question of what the temperature will be. There are usually last-minute revisions in the morning based upon the ever-changing British weather forecast!
• Bike tools, etc: We usually keep all of the important bike tools, like spare inner tubes, multi-tool, tyre levers, patch kit, chain link, and pump in our saddle bags, along with a first aid kit just in case! As we only use the saddle bags on long rides we always have them ready with the essentials. This is a great timesaver as it would be a real pain to search around for all these bits when you're trying to go to bed!
• Batteries: We have rechargeable AA batteries which we charge overnight for the Garmin. Before a night ride, we charge extra to use in our lights as well.

And last but not least....sleep! This is the one we usually fail at. We don't start prepping early enough in the evening and as a result we usually end up going to bed a bit later than we would have liked. But of all the things on the list, sleep really is the only one you can skimp on--the others are too important to a successful day's ride!