It goes without saying (so I am going to say it) that Sid and Doris have done Epic Journeys before. But maybe a few years of sitting with our office-dwelling colleagues could possibly have just nibbled away at a bit of our supreme cycle fitness. Or maybe we never were cycling superheros anyway…
For day cycling we used to think that 60 miles a day was easy, 80 miles was hard, 40 miles was a before-lunch trip.
When we were planning the route we were assuming that 60 miles with all the luggage would be routinely possible… At least! And surely we will be able to do longer days as we get stronger!!
So it’s time to haul our bloated bodies off the sofa, get our weedy little office-workers’ legs out and do some practice:
Here is a map of the 8 preparation rides we did. Total is 682km, with 6,648m of ascent, at an average speed of 18.9kph. We did two overnight trips to practice with the luggage, so surely we must now be ready.
[Sorry, the map seems to have disappeared, anyway imagine 8 loops of various sizes all starting in Bishops Stortford – D, Mar 2021.]
| Epic Europe Journey – Preparation Rides | |||||
| Date | Place | Along | Up | Slope | Speed |
| Sun 31 Mar | Saffron Walden | 76 | 756 | 2.0% | 17.9 |
| Tue 02 Apr | Hill Route | 35 | 390 | 2.2% | 19.3 |
| Thu 04 Apr | Ware | 44 | 448 | 2.0% | 19.7 |
| Thu 11 Apr | Short Ride | 21 | 192 | 1.8% | 20.2 |
| Fri 12 Apr | Silver Ball | 76 | 752 | 2.0% | 19.2 |
| Thu 18 Apr | Henton, and… | 105 | 1123 | 2.1% | 18.7 |
| Fri 19 Apr | Home from Henton | 104 | 987 | 1.9% | 18.4 |
| Wed 24 Apr | Chelmsford | 50 | 331 | 1.3% | 20.1 |
| Mon 06 May | Bury St Edmunds, and… | 100 | 820 | 1.6% | 19.8 |
| Tue 07 May | Home from Bury | 71 | 849 | 2.4% | 17.9 |
| 682 | 6648 | 1.9% | 18.9 | ||