The road to Ventoux - Part 4

Hmw on bike pic

It’s finally here!!! After a long wait and much anticipation, I have finally got myself a road bike on which to train to become a “madman of Mont Ventoux”.

Brought it home yesterday in the back of my wife’s car (I think I need to get a roof rack for my car!!) and spent the evening looking at it lovingly and working out how to fix it to a Wahoo Kickr smart turbo trainer that I acquired last weekend.

This morning spend hours down loading software and apps for Strava (so I can post my training efforts), the turbo trainer, Zwift (a virtual reality training environment) and for a clever gadget that fits on the back of my helmet that sends a message to my wife and daughter if I fall off.

Finally managed to fit the bike to the Kickr and link to Zwift. Cycled about 10K exploring a virtual world. Very cool! Amazing how the Zwift software on my laptop “tells” the turbo trainer when I was going up or down hill so that it feels harder or easier to peddle. Think this will be great fun through the dark winter nights.

The weather then picked up outside and I decided that a bit of fresh air was in order. It was back on with the rear wheel, and on with the clever helmet and my first actual road ride on the bike. 10 miles in just over 40 mins, so not very fast, but great fun! Most importantly of all, given it was the first time I have used “clipless” peddles (where your shoe is clipped to the peddle – I know the name “clipless” sounds strange!), I managed to avoid falling over when I stopped – so quite an achievement.

Then it was onto the PC to find some goals to aim for as steppingstones towards my Ventoux challenge (aiming for May 2021).

First up is the King Edward 100 on 5th April in Nottinghamshire. The aim is for the 100km route that has a “tiny” 1,135 foot (345m) of climb (less than a tenth of what I will need to do on Ventoux), but hopefully something to get me started.

Then, on 15th June I have entered “The Haydon Hundred”, starting and finishing in Haydon Bridge in Northumberland. I have plumped for the middle route – again around 100k but with a bit more climbing involved (5,918 foot or 1,804m – think I better use the metric measure since it doesn’t sound quite so awful!!).

Better get training!!

If you want to sponsor me to become a “madman of Mont Ventoux”, then drop me an email at r.h.mcallister-williams@ncl.ac.uk

Hamish McAllister-Williams