For our second training session we were to cycle a grand loop of West London around the lovely towns of Staines, Kingston, Slough and Southall and the not so lovely of Richmond, Runnymede and Windsor. The trip was very well organised by 'Steve from Bolton' and we made good pace (an average of 17mph for 60 miles according to Rob's speedometer).
From the journey we found out three things:
1 - the approach that works best for us is work hard play hard, so every half an hour we stopped for delights such as McDonalds Drive Through, Candy Cup Cakes Store in Windsor and Lucozade Pitstops
2 - if you sit on an uncomfortable seat or forget to wear padded shorts (which feel like you are wearing a nappy) then you are very sore in the gluteus maximus region.
3 - cycling in rundown areas is not a good idea. Chavs swear at you, pull out in front of you and if you are really lucky you get a frozen lasagna thrown at your head (Joe was the blessed recipient - lucky he bought a helmet with him this week...)
But all in all we had a killer whale of a time cycling on the open roads and are looking forward to getting back on those bikes again very soon.
