And the training begins....

We've started to record our training miles - and last week's yellow jersey goes to Richard (on the left of the photo) who clocked up 55 miles. 

Richard's a keen club cyclist who also goes to spinning classes - but he isn't able to cycle to work as he is field based and lives in Suffolk.  Richard was part of the team who cycled from Glasgow to Edinburgh in 2010 as part of the Start Royal Train challenge - and is expected to be leading the way with Nick on the big pedal.  Availability of porridge will be a key factor for Richard as it's his preferred cycling fuel - at Glasgow station, very kind station staff supplied hot water to add to our pots of instant stuff.  We need to tap into Richard's experience of road club cycling to improve technique and the way we ride.

King of the Mountains is being awarded weekly to the most impressive performance in training by a no-so-regular cyclist.  Julia's this week's winner - she's quite new to cycling and managed to get the bike out twice, building up 23.5 miles - a great start!  Julia's more used to bikes with engines and has done some epic road trips with her husband David.  Julia and David use more methods than most to get to work, sometimes walking, sometimes sharing a car or one of their motorbikes - and I believe that cycling will soon be added to this mix.

Here's hoping for some good weather this week so that we can cycle in the sunshine as we train....

Gin

Bike Week at B&Q House

The bike sheds filled up this week as our colleagues joined in with Bike Week.
A free bike service offer on Wednesday was so oversubscribed that a second date is looking likely! And we also had the chance try out Giant's electric bikes - from a commuting perspective, as well as making the pedal to work easier, these could help to remove the need to shower & change once at work.
However, we are extremely lucky to have excellent showering/changing/drying/storage facilities at B&Q House.  And there are solar PV panels on the roof helping a little to charge bikes plugged into the electric recharging points.

Many Thanks to Start

Start have very kindly talked about the Ultimate Commute on their website - and it's in good company with some great articles on Biking for Beginners, fabulous cycling holidays, loads of inspiring ideas - and you can sign up for regular positive sustainability updates.

I've found an older Start article from 2010 about a challenge that Nick, Richard, Phil and I undertook from Glasgow to Edinburgh.  We left Glasgow on bikes at the same time as Prince Charles did on the royal train and the idea was to get to Edinburgh in about 3 hours - in time to see the Prince before he headed out of Edinburgh.  I was way too slow & I remember having a break in a tea shop with fabulous scones when we got the call from the guys to tell us that they'd made it!

Gin

BioRegional Join Our Pedal

Hayley Baines-Buffery and Phil Shemmings from the charity BioRegional are keen to join our Ultimate Commute - and as it is BioRegional who assess our efforts in promoting sustainable business travel at B&Q, it seems very appropriate to welcome them on board.  They work with the full Kingfisher group - so travelling to Lille represents a normal business trip for them - albeit normally completed by train.
There's more about BioRegional here: http://www.bioregional.com/
Phil teaches young people to cycle safely in his spare time so I'm hoping for some great training tips from him to help us along.  Hayley's a very keen cyclist and has taken some impressively green cycling based holidays in the past - so lots of experience to share.
The only thing they need to decide is where to join us.  As both are London based, they may opt to join from Paddington to Lille as a more realistic commute.
Gin

First Training Ride

Only 2 cyclists for our first training session and as Ben & I both commute on our bikes, we simply extended our pedal home up to 12 miles. 

I've discovered that I'm as slow cycling up hills as I am running up them (my hill speeds are legendary at running club!) - although I didn't appreciate a bloke leaning out of his car to yell at me to get a move on (paraphrased).  So hill training is very much required for me.

It was a surprisingly pleasant evening and we stopped on all River Itchen bridges to admire the view.  There is a photo of Ben to add - just having some format issues....

The turn round point was determined by Ben's bike picking up a puncture and I got to appraise his puncture repair skills - really good, especially as he's a road cyclist (mountain bikers tend to get more practise).

So a good start - just need to get more of the team with us next time.

Gin

Bicycles made for 2

I was hoping that David and Julia might go for a tandem for the bike ride - but instead they've gone for the more adaptable option of 2 new individual bikes instead. 
It's great news that Julia's husband David has joined the team as it means that Julia has a regular training partner.  They already have mountain bikes - but "proper" road bikes will make the 234 miles whiz by much quicker! 
Mountain bikes have wide, knobbly tyres - great for gripping on mud or scree, but also great at slowing up pedalling on nice smooth tarmac.  Gearing for mountain bikes is designed to get up steep slopes off road - not for speedy road ascents.  Positioning is also different.

In other news, Victoria is contemplating joining the cycling team - a brave move for someone who's not been on a bike for a couple of years!

Linking with Start

Our Ultimate Commute project will be linking up with Start - and I had a great chat with Lauren from Start about it yesterday whilst we were working on the B&Q & Start stand at the Royal Bath & West.  She was particularly impressed that Richard & I still have our jerseys from a Start cycling event we took part in 2 years ago (Glasgow to Edinburgh)!
We're going to look into getting the Start team actively involved - perhaps even getting one of the team to join us.  We also talked about Start & social media support - did we have a blog, were we going to blog... job done!