Pannier People

London to Oxford

It's not often we enthusiastically get up at 6 am on a Bank Holiday Monday, but we decided it was going to be the only way to approach cycling 60 miles to Oxford.  It took 6 hours and was such a good ride.  So good in fact I regret not discovering the route earlier.  Kilburn - Ealing - Uxbridge - Iver - Fulmer - Farnham Common - Burnham - Cookham - Marlow - Frieth - Turville - Watlington - Oxford.  The London bit was quiet due to the hour, and by the time we got out to the sticks it was quiet country lanes pretty much all the way until we hit the outskirts of the city.  The sun was shining and there were only gentle undulating hills.  Perfect.  We stopped in Marlow to scoff a donut each (so good and only 17p each from Sainsbury's, possibly the cheapest snack ever, I hope there are donut shops all along the way in the US!).  Once we got to  Oxford we sat outside a pub to have a drink, then got on the train and slept all the way back.  Only 3 weeks to go now before we leave.  I think it's safe to say WE CAN'T WAIT!  Thank you to everyone who has sponsored us so far, we really appreciate your generosity.  And comments, we love comments too.  Keep 'em coming!

Ps - the middle photo is our spare room (aka the shed with a bed) at the moment.  We have 5 bikes in there, and it's so busy with cycle stuff, that even they have started to climb the walls.

Chez law: warehouse bedroom

Chez Law: spare room, five weeks to go from Pannier People on Vimeo.

With all the assorted bicycling equipment, five bikes and spares etc, we have given over the spare room to all things velocipedal. All that and I still have to do the ironing in there too. It used to bother me, now I am fully loving it. Going to need to get used to living in small spaces anyway...

Oh saddle...

Why have you started to squeak?  I didn’t even touch you in bike maintenance 101.  I thought we were getting on so well and now you are confusing me with your squeaky shenanigans.

At least a nice big parcel containing new sleeping bags arrived today.  I swear we have enough camping equipment in our household to start a scout jamboree.  Not wanting to show off or anything (because seriously, this is not the sort of thing I show off about) but there is literally a sleeping bag for each season in our cupboard, and more cooking related stuff than in our actual kitchen.

Matt has been in charge of tent and sleeping bag sourcing and I have to say he’s taken it very seriously.  If it was up to him, we probably would actually live in a tent.  I hear the emphasis in his selection is on super lightweight, which is good, because it means there is more room for all the camera stuff I plan on taking.  I predict that this could become a contentious issue when we actually pack everything up - the fact that I am taking only 2 pairs of shorts, but 3 lenses with us. Packing is going to be great fun.

Bike maintenance 101

I now have no excuse for not fixing my own punctures.  This is obviously Sarah speaking here, as Matt probably came straight out of the womb knowing how to fix stuff.

Today we did a bike maintenance course with www.cycletraining.co.uk.  It was a whole day and I have to admit that I was worried that by hour 2 I was going to be bored, but actually it was great.  I certainly never knew that you should never put more grease over a bike chain unless you've already cleaned said chain first.

Fascinating.

I now know my sprockets from my kranks, my noodle from my derailleur, and how to adjust my barrels.  If my work wants to make more redundancies come my return, I feel confident that Evans might almost consider taking me on.  Not that I want to get too cocky.  I haven't actually put any of this into practice on the side of a US highway, in the middle of the Rockys, in bad weather, and with extreme fatigue making me grumpy.

I'm sure I'll get the chance though.

Dawes Galaxy Plus

 

These are our new bikes!  They are lovely.  I know that is a really female word to describe a bike, but they really are.  Very different to the Poppins, as in I feel like my bum is in the air and my forehead is closer to the pavement but I am getting used to that.  It’s also my first go with using clip in shoes and whilst I was a bit wary at first and had visions of stopping at traffic lights and just falling over sideways on top of someone’s bonnet, actually they are very easy and I’m quite enjoying clipping in, twisting out, and now even clipping in without looking (little things and all that).  The Plus is new to the Galaxy range this year, apparently to do with the gears and brakes being as one, rather than being bar end shifters. But whatevs, I’m not into the technicalities, all I know is that we got ourselves a couple of good workhorses here.

 

Thank you to Malcolm at Woolsey’s in Acton who put the bikes together!

Our new bikes arrive today

Yeah yeah yeah!  Can't wait. Watch this space :)

This is our route

Bring. It. On.

From - http://www.adventurecycling.org/routes/transamerica.cfm

Nice day out in the Chilterns

Thank you Oxford Cycle blogger, great ride!  Bit rainy but hey it’s a British bank holiday, what could we expect? Plenty of rolling Chiltern hills and hardly any traffic. Sweet.  We saw plenty of beautiful bluebell dells and even some highland cattle. 

Training ride ideas and rhubarb day

One of my favourite things at the moment is to plan training rides.  I like variety so don’t want to be doing the same route each weekend.  As we live in London I like to get out of the big smoke from time to time and wind my wheels along some country lanes free from traffic, people and pollution but I don’t want to spend too long getting there to start with.  I’ve just visited this very nice blog with lots of routes around Oxford.  This route is tempting me…  

http://cyclingroutesoxford.blogspot.com/2008/05/chilterns-from-watlington.html

Exciting news is that we will get our bikes next week.  Hurrah!  We’re now getting the Dawes Galaxy Plus which is a new addition to the Galaxy range this year.  Woo woo!

Also did we mention that we raising money for charity as we cycle across America?  We’re chosen the Parkinson’s Disease Society as our charity – we know very well the effect that this cruel disease has on sufferers and the charity funds research into what causes it and how it can be treated better.  Hopefully there will be a cure at some point in the future. If you’d like to sponsor us (we’re doing over 4200 miles remember!) please click on the link to our Just Giving page which is somewhere around here.  Thank you.

Now I’m off to the lido to swim.  For some reason Mr L signed us up to a 3.8k river swim the weekend before we go away.  I told myself it would be good cross training but right now, well, I’m just overwhelmed.

Have a fun Sunday x

Ps – Even more rhubarb arrived yesterday from M+D.  Their garden is surely the rhubarb growing capital of Europe! Crumble anyone?