Red's Ramblings v.2

I’ve been relatively quiet lately. Not only on this blog but quiet on Twitter too. Having taken a couple of weeks out recently to visit sunnier places of the world I opted to avoid roaming data and just use the occasional wifi. The result was a reduced level of communication that hasn’t seem to have recovered to previous level. I’m enjoying the break.

Returning from my hols I was in fine spirits and with a tan, and what I’m sure is a six pack behind my belly from all the holiday exercise, I accidentally volunteered to participate in “The Great Tour”. More specifically I am doing stage 49 – Porthmadog to Machynlleth, an outing of 92km with an ascent of 2061m (I thought Wales was flat).

Preparations have begun with digging the bike out of the garage. Its an old Diamond Back Topanga that has seen the best part of 20 years but it was well spec’d in its day and is still better than a load of the cheap bikes sold in Halfords so I trust it will carry me home.

I’ve just done a couple of rides to get into the swing of things. A quick trip via the stables takes me on a 5.5m ride which seems a nice distance to keep replication until I step things up (not that I have much time). I have been trying out some iPhone apps to update Twitter on my progress. I tried iMapMyRide but every time I got a push message the App dropped to the background and on starting it again there was no resume despite what their webpage said. I lost two rides. Very frustrating. I’m about to try http://www.abvio.com/cyclemeter/ which has no supporting website but can Tweet routes on Google maps. I’m interested to see if the auto update function works well as that would be good on the day of the ride.

I’ll update you on my progress (or lack of).