The 100 and wonderful Copenhagen.

Wonderful wonderful Copenhagen

When I started this there were a few things I didn't think I would ever do.

One of them was to utter the words "a quick forty mile ride", another was to have my legs waxed (which we are doing next week hopefully in a busy shopping center to raise awareness) and a third was to hire a bike from a hotel and head off around the capital city of a foreign country.

Having finished in the office at around seven in Copenhagen I returned to the hotel where I had remembered seeing a sign saying "See the city on two wheels".

As a cycling enthusiast this sounded like a good idea and better than the spin class I had planned on the gym bike. So I changed and went to reception to ask how it worked. 100dkk later (about £10) I was in possession of a city bike with motor and a truly fetching new helmet of the type usually seen on hells angels in American road trip movies.

The first thing I noted is that I will never complain about my bike. Ever. This bike was heavy especially carrying the motor and the tires were not greatly pressurised so getting started was not easy. It has to be said through that once running it was quite pleasant to be outside exercising.

Not sure light weight was a consideration

The second thing of note is that a cycle lane in Denmark is quite different to the UK. It really is a lane and you have your own traffic lights. As such there are a broad range of users from mums and dads with children in various baskets/seats to serious bike clubs who found my outfit entertaining to say the least.

As readers of this blog will know, we occasionally poke fun at people for their sense of direction. This is something I have always priced myself on and was quite happily riding around Copenhagen safe in the knowledge that the dock was just a road or two to my left.

Truth be told I was looking for the mermaid statue that sits in the dock. More truth be told, I probably should have looked at a map in the first place. Any way, how lost can you be when you pass a McDonalds?

Eventually I realised I should probably look at google maps to see where I was and plot a route home.

I can see the hotel from here!

Having realised just how far out of the way I was this then prompted an interesting question as to whether I would get back before dark but it was worth a try. Any way, how lost can you be when you pass the same McDonalds?

All in all my quick spin ended up at around twenty miles and as you can see from beneath there was some stunning views of the water once I had crossed enough roads on my left turned around and gone right a bit.

THE 100

Saturday 2nd July we headed off on a mission. There was no real route planned. We just had to break 100 miles.

There were a number of ways we considered doing this. Down the north Wales coastal path and back or thru lough the countryside and then back for the final fifty miles to be on the smooth flat coastal path. In the end we decided to head off in the direction of Bala as Richard was going to Barmouth and see what happened from there.

The fog as we headed off was immense and we did the climb up to bwlchgwyn on the sharp climb out of Wrexham. We reached the top in around fifty minutes which knocked around ten minutes of Richard's previous best. That's a massive twenty percent improvement.

I know the feeling

When we then turned towards Corwen and Bala, Richard had an idea. "why don't you go over the horseshoe pass and then meet me in Bala? You wi probably catch me up.". This set in place a chain reaction...Jamie's eyes lit up, Richard started smirking and my heart sank.

So off we set over the pass where the fog became even worse as the summit approached surprisingly quickly.

Mike then told Jamie and I to go off ahead as he was only doing half of the ride and not going to Corwen. It then dawned on me that Mike didn't have a rear light so as we descended the pass I stayed close behind him in case there were any adventurous cars that approached.

It came out of the fog...

When we caught up with Jamie at the bottom he told us how he had realised halfway down he didn't have a front light so we made quite a group.

We ran down the A5 quickly and along the more scenic rural route from Corwen to Bala which added some climb but was much quieter than the main road.

Jamie had shown his superior skills and gone ahead in the final climb to the main road. As he waited at the junction I rode past shouting " see you slow coach" over my shoulder. About a minute later as the Bala sign approached Jamie flew past as expected. Some people are so competitive.

Following a nice breakfast in a small cafe, Jamie and I (having taken 43 miles to do the 28 mile route thanks to Williams tours) thought a lap of the Lake and back would be enough to clear 100 miles for the day.

There are two routes alongside each shore of the lake and we went down each shore with the more windy country road particularly nice to ride along. Another Richard diversion saw us climb away from Bala rather than back into it on the way to Corwen which was a nice diversion but starting to tell in my legs.

Also telling was that forgot to restart the bike computer so we lost the recording of a few miles...stupid of me but not the last time I would do it today.

By the time we returned to Corwen inward starting to lag badly and needed to stop for water as my drinks bottle had run out a while before. And my big learning point from this ride Is the need to keep fluid and food intake going.

The next leg saw us head to Llangollen through the back road on the other side of the river from the busier A5. On this lane, bike gremlins attacked and my chain broke ( self inflicted according to Jamie) and then I had a puncture as my tube has burst near the valve ( self inflicted from memory!!). Jamie proved to be a godsend in both occasions and simply flipped my bike over and repaired them I seconds whereas I was still looking confused and wondering why the rubber cement had burst in my bike pocket and did that mean I shouldn't eat the fruit bars I had stored in there?

It has been great to get to know Jamie better in these rides and it is a shame that he can't make it with us as I am sure he would love it and his knowledge of bikes would help the team greatly. Next time.

We approached the edge of wrexham with the bike computer showing around 85 miles ( one or two more failures to reset excluded). We really wanted to do the 100 so headed off into the industrial estate.

Having stopped at cross lanes for more stick refuelling the final leg was not easy and we headed back with the computer showing 93 miles but confident we had done the 100 we set off for.

The rest of the day was tough. 4,000 calories takes a lot of replacing but he feeling that we had done it whilst also climbing around the 4-5000 feet was great.

When I thought of the coastal path it was to do the 100 miles but with no hills. Then it dawned on me. It was about three weeks at that point until day one which is 100miles and 5000 feet of climb so had to just go and do it.

I can now approach day one in the knowledge that I have done it that length of ride. Once at least :-)