Steady's Cycling Stuff: Darlington to Vienna

Thursday

Darlington to Vienna - The Route and Blog:

Here is the approximate route I took. The map is interactive so give it a moment to load.

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I've archived the rest of the blog in order to speed up loading. You'll find it all under 'blog archive' on the right hand side.

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David would like to thank:

The people below have made this trip possible and I am enormously grateful for their help, expertise and advice.

Most of all I want to thank my wife Becky, who is unfailling in her love and support even when I'm at my most cantankerous.

Martin at Kudu Bikes in Hawes
http://www.kudubikes.co.uk/

Everyone at Moonglu cycles in Ripon
http://www.moonglu.com/

Gary at Bike Radar in California (Lucky......)
http://www.bikeradar.com/

Dave at DMB Live Music Promotions
http://www.dmblivemusic.co.uk/

WO2 Graeme (Geordie) Taylor.
"Lance Armstrong? He's nowt man!"

Trudy and all the staff at The Royal Oak in Kirkgate Ripon

Andy Kirkpatrick
http://www.psychovertical.com/

Mr Michael Coghlan
For a substantial donation from the estate of Marie Coghlan

Garry at Bondgate IT for leading me through the computer quagmire!
http://www.bondgate.co.uk

Nutrition & Hydration

Because of the type of sustained excercise we are taking it is important that our diet delivers sugars to the bloodstream in a gradual and sustained way. In order to achieve this we need to eat foods with a low glycaemic index (GI)

Many everyday carbohydrate - based foods have been scientifically tested and given a ranking between 1 and 100 depending on the speed at which they release their sugars. The sugars in foods with high glycaemic indices (70 or above) are broken down quickly and do not supply a sustained scource of energy.

However, Where shorter distances are covered at a higher intensity the low GI diet will have to be topped up from time to time by foods with a high GI in order to maintain adequate glycogen levels in the muscles.

During training, and the ride itself we will be taking on 'fuel' in the form of high Carbohydrate sports drink e.g Science in Sport's PSP and solid foods in the form of easily digestable sandwiches (white bread rather than brown or wholemeal), dried fruit, cereal bars and of course Mars Bars.

26 Jan 2008
The first few weeks of exercise were a bit dissapointing in that they had no noticeable effect on my body at all. I suppose I was expecting to turn into one of the nonchalantly muscled speedsters in the cycling magazines when what I saw in the mirror was the same podgy belly Santa had brought me for Christmas - Christmas 2005 that is - and the equally unchanged and clearly inadaquate thighs that I'd un-developed since my rowing career ran aground five years ago.

Now, however, the weight has started to drop away and I begin to feel a great deal fitter. I guess for the first few weeks I was burning fat from around organs and muscles and now I'm not only reducing my waist but also my wallet size since most of my clothes no longer fit which for someone on the autistic spectrum is even more distressing: attachment to certain items of favourite clothing being particularly strong.

I notice too that (sorry about this but it has to be documented) I've begun to sweat a great deal more freely than I did when I first started exercising again, at the end of a session on the turbo I'm sopping; now I don't know what this indicates, either I'm getting fitter or Becky will have to decide between brass or silver handles.

Alchohol

One of the side effects of all this chasing around on a bike is the disturbing infrequency of my visits to the pub. Firstly I haven't the time and secondly, because of all the exercise, after a couple of drinks I'm staggering around like a newborn calf. As Geordie pointed out recently on a ride, this makes me a cheap date which is all well and good but no-one's offered to pay for me, cheap or not. Now, I can't sit in a pub sipping a half pint every hour I'm just not used to it; so what do you do? I know what you don't do is what I did in the Rugby Club last Sunday and ask for a pint of shandy. The bar went deathly quiet and Tony the barman looked as if I'd dug up his old granny and brought her in for a Cherry Brandy.
"Pint of shandy was it Dave". He shouted to the whole bar. Then he took off the sparkler in exaggerated fashion whilst staring at everyone in turn and grimacing like a gargoyl.
"Anyone else for a shandy before I put the sparkler back on?" He bellowed, just in case anyone had missed the point. There were, of course, no takers. I slunk away to a quiet corner and sucked at the offending beverage whilst the customers tried to resume normal conversation.

Muesli

I don’t know that I’m going to be able to get on with this stuff. Summer is not the right time for porridge so I need a replacement breakfast, and yes, I know it’s good for me but my god, how long does it take to eat the damn stuff? I was hungry yesterday morning so I half filled a bowl, added the milk and started the first mouthful. I chewed and chewed and after a while my jaw began to ache but the food in my mouth remained obstinately the same, so I chewed some more. After half an hour or so I made it onto the second spoonful and began the interminable process all over again, this time developing a headache to go along with the jaw ache.
After four mouthfuls I realised that there is no point going out cycling since I’m getting more exercise masticating my breakfast than I would on a medium to long ride. But the energy expended eating it is greater than that gained from its consumption so I find myself in a dilemma: Do I a) continue eating Muesli until I slowly masticate myself to death. b) Plan to be the only person in southern Germany eating porridge in June or c) Abandon the exercise thing all together and have a massive fry up?
The argument is purely an academic one since I have now worn my teeth down to the gums so whatever I decide on will have to be puréed until it will pass through a straw!

29/12/2007

On the 29th DMB Live Promotions brought Josefina Sanner all the way from Sweden to do a gig in the gallery. Many of us had heard Josefina before so we new we were in for a great night and we certainly weren't disappointed.
The gallery was packed with almost 100 people and thanks to Mark Ryan of Great Northern Wine the proceeds from the bar were donated to our appeal and we raised £541.85p. Now if that's not a good reason for drinking I don't know what is! Oh! and here's a link to Josefina's site so you can have a listen http://www.myspace.com/josefinasanner - There's loads on You Tube too

Although they both take a good deal of getting used to the addition of the nonsensically named 'clipless' pedals (given that they are clearly just as much a clip as they are a pedal) and Tri bars (there are only two of them) has made a world of difference particularly to riding in difficult conditions. Clipless pedals mean that on steep inclines you can pull up on the pedals as well as pushing, making power transfer much more efficient; Whereas the tri bars - though possibly more difficult to get used to - are superb when pushing into a head wind, adding maybe as much as 2 - 2.5 mph to progress. They also give a new, and totaly different riding position, which may well be crucial to success over an extended period of time in the saddle.

The Art of Bike Maintenance

It was one of those mornings that could make you kind to a ginger haired step-child. The sky was huge and unsullied blue and below it a soft mist draped languidly over the lower slopes of Penhill lit by early spring sunshine. I was driving up through glorious Wensleydale to Hawes to get some basic instruction in bike maintenance from Martin at Kudu Bikes
Martin swiftly assessed my technical capabilities (it didn’t take long) and we set too looking at the sort of problems I might be able to botch.
“What happens if I get problems with the bottom bracket?” I said.
“Best to go to a bike shop with that”. Said Martin.
“How about the bearings?”
“Well – yes, once again probably wise to let a bike shop have a look”.
“What about something simple like a broken spoke?”
“Bit more complex than it sounds – I’d take it to…….
“Yeah I know….The bike shop”
I was pleased to see that Martin hadn’t fallen into the trap of overestimating my aptitude for the job but on the other hand I was beginning to feel as effectual as a toddler with a wiring diagram for the Eurofighter……Life was so much simpler in those far off days of the three speed Sturmey Archer.
In an effort to massage my bruised ego Martin gave me a shiny little tool kit about the size of a matchbox and, in the unlikely event I ever manage to wrestle it out of the bubble pack it came in, I feel confident I will be able to take out and loose the little rivets on the spare piece of chain he gave me to practise on, overtighten any Allen nuts that attempt to wriggle free of their housings, and scrape away any unsightly bits of England that have come to rest under my fingernails.
I’d found Martin’s advice straightforward and useful and was secretly pleased that no-one expected me to strip my bike down to its smalls in the autobahn’s central reservation in full view of every passing Thom, Dieter und Hartwig.

Later in the afternoon, having taken a wrong turn just outside my house, I find myself in the pub – well these things happen sometimes don’t they? Pubs are great places for picking up un-asked for advice and today surpasses all expectations: Whilst waiting for my pint of Guinness to settle the guy at the bar next to me informs me that the best way of avoiding saddle soreness is to put a ripe banana down the back of your cycling shorts. The man is serious! What is THAT going to look like? I take that back. Try and expunge any mental pictures you have formed from your mind – I’ve been lying in a darkened room listening to audio tapes of whale song ever since and I still have periods of uncontrolled weeping.

Whirlybird

In much the same way that Aspergic obsession drives one to cycle to say, Vienna. As a child it tended to focus my attention on the adventures of others: television characters often being the targets – I was completely obsessed with a programme called the whirlybirds which featured two characters with what I considered at the time to be the glamorous names of Pete and Chuck. This despite the fact that I had a friend called Pete who was as spectacularly scab kneed, muck encrusted and unglamorous as myself.
The dizzily nomenclatured duo whirled around in helicopters catching criminals or saving poor witless saps who found themselves lost in the desert with only a film crew, half a dozen make up artists and a mobile canteen for company (sounds like Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman) and I would fly with them. The fireguard my helicopter and various pieces of kitchen equipment the chopper’s pedals and instruments. For weeks on end my long suffering parents would have to put up with Chuck and Pete for breakfast, lunch and tea. An extra place would have to be laid at each mealtime despite the fact that Pete never once showed up and my Mother (I don’t know how my Father felt about this) would have to kiss Chuck goodnight and tuck him into bed. I suppose the up side of this for my parents was that I spent weeks in self imposed incarceration:
“where’s David?”
“Behind the fireguard”.

Deafened by Librarians

I thought it would be a good idea to gather some more information for the trip so I fought my way through a gale to my local library. It is housed, as I suppose many are these days, in a modern red brick building charmingly conjoined to a cost cutter store, a bus station and the ‘attended public toilets’.
I say ‘modern’ building – modern meaning utterly devoid of any architectural merit. There are no design features to add interest to its bleak and utilitarian façade unless you count the blue and white plastic municipal sign stuck to the wall above the automatic doors. The now inevitable ring of hardened smokers fill the benches outside in a Bronchitic break from studying the writings of Heinz Wolff or the price of Heinz Beanz. I climb the stairs and enter through the security device which ‘tut tuts’ reminding me of the librarians of my grubby and dishevelled childhood.
I find myself in a rainbow world of primary colours reminiscent of a ‘pre-school’ classroom or a fast food outlet; the lurid visual noise matched by the audial. No whispering here – it’s been banned. The librarians declaim like opera singers attempting to extinguish a candle from the other side of the Albert Hall. No wonder then that two thirds of the people in here are wearing hearing aids – they’ve been deafened by librarians; which come to think of it isn’t a bad title for a book.
One of the staff who according to his name badge (and I’ve no reason to disbelieve it) is called Mervyn, has a cold and sniffs loudly at 25 second intervals. It’s one of those reverberating sniffs – more of a snort really –that resonates throughout the room so that it’s impossible to be certain whether it’s the gale outside causing the windows to rattle or Mervyn. By way of an occasional counterpoint he will drag a yard or so of damp, grey cloth from his pocket and trumpet into it like a Moose calling to her young across the barren wastes of Alaska.
I spend some time perusing the cellophane covered books before realising that I am alone in this: everyone else in the room is either tapping away at computer keyboards like demented woodpeckers or joining in the North Eastern and Adjacent Areas Town Crier competition which is taking place behind the desk. The books, I realise, have been shunned in their former stronghold in much the same way as the smokers, only without the added indignity of being relegated to the bench. In the end I can take no more of the opera singing, librarian snorting, computer beeping cacophony and head back out into the street.
An hour later at lunch with Mike Coghlan; my ears still ringing with the scholastic equivalent of post gig tinnitus, he suggests that perhaps there should be a ‘quiet area’ within the library just as there are now on trains……
I thought libraries were quiet areas.

The Blackbird

I’m now the proud owner of a shiny new Polar heart rate monitor and cycle computer. Another generous donation by Martin at Kudu Bikes.
Now you wouldn’t think it would make such an enormous difference to a ride would you?
Well you’d be wrong.
Geordie rings and has clearly had a blow to the head: he suggests we get together for a ride at 06.45 the next morning. We meet for the nocturnal ride as arranged, decide on our route and that’s the last I see of him; not because he’s so far ahead or because it’s still the middle of the night, but because I’m so busy fiddling with my new toy. I’m oblivious to the world around me. The only fly in the ointment is that I’ve no Idea how to work it. It is telling me the time but as I’m already painfully aware that everyone else in my immediate time zone is still dribbling on their pillows, chronometry is not my first concern. I jab away at the buttons and it beeps and whistles back at me like a contented blackbird; and then the screen goes blank. Another ten minutes of trying to stroke, tap, tickle and massage the thing into life and we’re in Kikby Malzeard but I don’t notice - I’m in a techno trance.
I flag down the Mercedes Sprinter I’ve hired to carry the 900 page instruction booklet, balance it precariously on the handlebars and set off again, flicking through the pages in search of the English version. It’s in French, Italian, German, Chinese, Hindustani, several dialects of Inuit and a Caribbean Creole unheard since the conquistadors. The landscape slips past, Geordie chatters away unheeded and the blackbird has gone ominously silent.
Where the hell are the English instructions?
Eventually I discover them tucked secretively away between Polynesian and Uzbekistani and immerse myself in their oblique prose.
I prod away at the same buttons I’ve been pressing for the past three quarters of an hour and then the miracle happens: My blackbird rises from the dead like Jesus on the third day, only marginally quicker, it chirrups once and its little heart begins to beat at me – 158 times a minute.
Now there are flashing numbers everywhere:
Speed
Average
Lap time
Distance
Calorie consumption
Heart rate
Bowel movements (this one's called the function function)

OK so I lied about the last one!

But it's all to no avail as I've just reached home.

Myfanwy. by the late Sir John Betjeman.

Kind o’er the kinderbank leans my Myfanwy,
White o’er the play-pen the sheen of her dress,
Fresh from the bathroom and soft in the nursery
Soap-scented fingers I long to caress.

Were you the prefect and head of your dormit’ry?
Were you a hockey girl, tennis or gym?
Who was your favourite? Who had a crush on you?
Which were the baths where they taught you to swim?

Smooth down the Avenue glitters the bicycle,
Black-stockinged legs under navy-blue serge,
Home and Colonial, Star, International,
Balancing bicycle leant on the verge.

Trace me your wheel-tracks you fortunate bicycle,
Out of the shopping and into the dark,
Back down the Avenue, back to the potting-shed,
Back to the house on the fringe of the park.

Golden the light on the locks of Myfanwy,
Golden the light on the book on her knee,
Finger-marked pages of Rackham’s Hans Anderson,
Time for the children to come down to tea.

Oh! Fuller’s Angel-cake, Robertson’s Marmalade,
Liberty lampshade, come, shine on us all,
My! What a spread for the friends of Myfanwy,
Some in the alcove and some in the hall.

Then what sardines in the half-lighted passages,
Locking of fingers in long hide-and-seek,
You will protect me, my silken Myfanwy,
Ringleader, tom-boy, and chum to the weak.

11/04/08. London

I’m having a couple of days off so Becky and I are on our way to London to stay with Rose (Hello Shrinking Violet) and Roger for the weekend. We arrive late due to the usual problems with road works on the approaches to London and so we all meet at a pub in Rotherhithe. The pub we meet in is great for me because it is relatively quiet and we sit in a sort of booth, with high backed wooden settles so there are fewer auditory distractions.
One of the problems facing people with Asperger’s is that in noisy environments it can be difficult to concentrate; we tend to shut down and withdraw because of sensory overload. Noise comes in as a sort of barrage – everything heard at the same level: tills beep, doors squeak and bang, glasses and cutlery scrape and a conversation at the other side of the bar can be just as loud as the one at your own table so this, along with being placed in a new situation and the requirement to meet new people can lead to high levels of anxiety.
We order two enormous portions of Paella, which is more than enough to feed the four of us and enough beer and wine to raise the level of the Thames by a good foot or so and I’m comfortable and at ease.
The following morning we wake up in Rose and Roger’s flat and it’s a belter! Right on the side of the Thames looking up-river to Tower Bridge and the gherkin. The view is such that you can spend hours just watching. Pleasure boats chug up and down, police launches zip about, shiny red buses cross Tower and London bridges, there are helicopters, planes, and endless other pleasing diversions.
After a late breakfast we’re dragged away from the view with the promise of more booze, so after a walk we repair to a riverside bar where the young Australian barman proves himself dizzily inept at making Bloody Mary’s, so we switch to white wine and our ire, such as it is, is assuaged. Rose’s ‘children’, who I haven’t seen for years turn up, we chat, laugh and become happily re-acquainted, and all the while, London rumbles around us.
There are many exciting cities in the world but for me, this place wins hands-down. The power is palpable; you can almost taste it and its sexy modernity lives along side the worlds of Hawkesmoore, Wren, Turner and Shakespeare, Kings, Queens, and those who never even made it to the doorstep of history, but whose lives are inextricably linked to this endlessly astonishing metropolis.
When the time comes I am, as always, sad to leave. The city reminds you to hurry up, to keep trying, to keep tasting.

Waving

I’ve been thinking about this business of waving; yes, that’s right, waving. Living by the river in Devon it was striking how, if you put one of those brightly coloured harbingers of spring, the tourist on a boat, he or she will immediately start waving at the people on the shore; and since I’ve been travelling in Myfanwy, it’s become apparent that mobile home drivers wave at each other too, as do motorcyclists and indeed cyclists, but why? I remember some years ago when I was riding a 750cc Suzuki it was considered the done thing to wave at fellow motorcyclists but you didn’t really wave at an Fs1e rider or a moped rider, it was considered beneath you. And now I find that riders of all out racing cycles are a little sniffy about acknowledging my presence on my lowly Marin hybrid. So, I got to wondering about the hierarchical nature of waving: is the same thing true of motor-home drivers? It’s sort of like that sketch with John Cleese and the Ronnies Corbett and Barker where they do a pun on height and class: “He looks down on me because I’m middle class – but I look down on him because he’s working class.” So, where are the delineations, the boundaries with the mobile home and where does Myfanwy fit into the grand scheme of things? Despite her name, Myfanwy is actually of German/Italian extraction, giving her a blend of reliable exoticism that might be considered hard to beat in a world of Ford Transit’s and Hymer’s, but then there are those huge American codpieces with multiple, Sky-enabled televisions, en-suite pony livery, and roll-out gravel drives with inflatable, eagle capped gateposts, that rumble through the countryside towing small cars behind them. We stare at them in awe; we can’t help it. I once saw a tv programme about one of New York’s brown brick buildings being jacked up, loaded onto the back of a huge low-loader and driven through the city’s streets to a new location in order to preserve it from demolition and, albeit on a smaller scale, these leviathans have the same impact. There comes a point where the phrase, ‘moving house’ takes on a whole new meaning; so does style come into it or is this where size really matters? And when you do climb aboard your mobile Blenheim Palace are you elevated to a kind of automotive aristocracy, armoured in tweed and smelling of damp spaniel, or are you the campsite Posh and Becks: all bling and bollie? Do we greet each other in the button back luxury of our private wayfaring club, or are our out-of-joint noses pressed to the acrylic, u.v. protective windows? As a non-joiner of clubs, I find it mildly disturbing that I’m now a member of two of them - Cyclists and motor-homers, so I may have to affix a permanently waving hand to my bike – become a permanent waver!

Smarties

Becky’s just come home from school grinning like a Cheshire cat and brandishing a well used Morrisons shopping bag. It lands with a thud on the table in front of me and inside are about two dozen Smarties packets and an envelope. The Smarty boxes are full of coins, the envelope, full of cash and they all come from one of the mums at school who has collected it in a huge effort from countless caring individuals.
It would be unfair of me to single out any one effort and indeed I’ve no wish to do so; so let this be a heartfelt thank you to all, because I’m touched by every penny raised and by every person involved (and the smarty boxes made me laugh).
Oh! And I hope you’ll come and see me off on the 23rd - 10 ‘o’clock. Don’t forget ‘cause I’ll look damned silly standing outside the school on my own!

David

For James Thompson

On 5th November 2005 a young friend was killed in a motor accident on the A61 near Ripon; he was 25. James was one of those rare people who brought light and joy to all who knew him and though he is deeply missed by family and friends his character was such that he remains with us all. I am very proud to have been asked by his parents, Nick & Jen, to wear a sunflower in memory of James, on my trip to Vienna, and I will carry it with pleasure and fond memories of the too short a time I spent with him.

Aaaaah!

The check out girl's legs were a touch on the stout side for my taste, and could have benefited from a bit of a tan, but they were the first thing I saw when I came round on the floor of Boots the chemist. Becky and I had gone in for a couple of things for the trip - insect repellent, antiseptic, that sort of thing. We quarter filled our basket with various pharmaceuticals and hove too at the till. Laura kindly (though as it turns out: prematurely) enquires after our health today, and beeps her way through our shopping. And then it came, like a blow from Maxwell's silver hammer: the bill..........£70. SEVENTY POUNDS. The till read-out was the last thing I saw until the pale, lower limbs came shimmering in to view. We managed, through telephone banking, to re-mortgage and called Securicor to carry our precious cargo home.