Hello… its been a while. All the usual suspects,
Halloween, Christmas and New Year, have been and gone in the blink
of an eye and we find ourselves in January with lighter wallets and
heavier bellies. Are we all up to date now? Good. That was
easy.

You might have caught a glimpse of the logo above adorned on a green can sat on the red Ferrari of Felipe Massa as he sits on the grid. The drink is Guaraná Antarctica and if you haven’t had the opportunity to try it your should track it down. Its massively popular in Brazil and its also available across the world in places such as Portugal and Japan but its now starting to pop up in the UK. You can find it in Harvey Nichols food court (where I bought it) and I think that its available in Waitrose.

Its made from Guaraná from Brazil and it has a slightly fruity, lychee type taste but its really refreshing. Guaraná is also a stimulant like caffeine so think Red Bull but without the awful chemical taste. I’ve not tried it with alcohol but I bet it would be great with a splash of Rum.

It helps that I’m a sucker for most things Brazilian so I can’t think of anything better than a bit of Bebel Gilberto on the stereo and a cool Guaraná Antarctica… and did I mention Rum?

They have a Twitter and Facebook account so if you can’t find it that would be a good place to start.

Guaraná Antarctica on Twitter
Guaraná Antarctica on Facebook

Of course you should know that tomorrow (September 19th) is International Talk Like a Pirate Day and I’m setting about my preparations for a Pirate Party tonight on old Reds galleon.

Ok, so I know that tonight isn’t strictly TLAPD but this old sea dog ain’t what he used to be and has a full day of plundering to do on Monday morn.

This has caused me much confusion and a small amount of grief so I thought I’d share what I know for reference.

My B-Twin Sport 3 bike from Decathlon came with Wellgo road pedals and if you have followed my journey on The Great Tour you’d know I needed new cleats. I naturally started looking in the Internet for Wellgo cleats and the only hits I got were of the Taiwanese manufacturer with little information. There was a suggestion that the Look Delta cleats were compatible but no more than a suggestion. I could have gone to Decathlon but I had perviously looked in store where they have their cleats and saw nothing similar and since I was passing Evans Cycles I felt they would surely be able to answer my queries and sell me some cleats.

I asked the assistant at Evans if he had the appropriate cleats and handed him the Wellgo pedal that I had taken with me. He went away and into the back room before returning and saying that he didn’t have anything and that I should try Halfords (which I thought was a bit of a random suggestion). Since I was getting a bit fed up with what had been a week long search I asked about other options and ended walking out of the shop with a pair of Shimano SPD SL pedals.

I still had a nagging doubt and did some further digging. I finally found the pedal on the Decathlon site (through a Google search not the on site search) which stated Compatible with “Delta” type cleats. If I had seen this before I would have been much more confident to correct the sales assistant in Evans. However if you search for Delta Cleats on the Decathlon site you only get the result of the Wellgo pedal and Look Delta Cleats in red (9º angular float) or black (fixed). The page then states “Compatible with Look Delta pedals”. No mention of any other pedal of some kind of standard compatibility. So if you looked at that cleat, much as I have done on other sites, you wouldn’t have the confidence to buy them even though they do look similar. However I can say that they are the ones to buy.

Its all academic for me as I now have Shimano SPD SL cleats on my shoes but if I can help others.

Its been a week now. I’ve been resting my legs.

I’m sure that this is the feeling when you’ve run a marathon in a Pink Panther costume but its one of the most rewarding feelings. Its good that it should feel that way because it bloody hurts while you are doing it!

On the 49th day of the tour I woke to torrential rain and thunder. Perfect conditions for a bike ride. We met at the start in Porthmadog and after registration we set of on a gentle warm up pace for around 20 minutes. It was quite enjoyable and much of my initial nerves were dispelled. That was until we stopped on a small bridge to allow the group to catch up. We set off round a bend and the road set off skyward! Looking back at the stats I can see that we climbed an ascent that took us up a 33% gradient from 100ft to 1041ft. There was no way that anyone but hardcore riders were tackling that and pretty much all of us got off and pushed. That is not before I got my feet stuck in the cleats and took my first tumble leaving my knee on the road. I also had the further complication of wearing racing cleats. For every few steps I slid back as if I was walking on ice! But, after a Herculean struggle, I made it to the top only to find that I’d worn out my cleats and couldn’t get my feet in the pedals. Luckily the support car was behind us so the bike went on the rack and I hopped in to be taken for repairs. At the lunch stop my pedals were swapped replacing the clippy ones with the pedals from my old Diamondback.

The second half of day 49 was one of the more rewarding. They were supposed to be taking up up another ridiculous track so I revolted and said I’d go solo around the coast A road. A number of people liked the sound of that so with a number of supporters we officially split into two groups. The ride still had a number of long runs up hill but it was what I had trained for and what my bike was made for. We finally arrived in Machynlleth to a fantastic reception.

On day 50 we set off from Machynlleth and I was joined by John Talbot. A number of our riders had gone home after day 499 and John had boosted our ranks keeping the Collier’s team to a respectable level of four riders. The morning run was nice in the sunshine and we reached Borth for morning break. After the break things started to get ugly. Not only did the rain return but there were a few climbs that while I attempted them were beyond my ability and I had to have four wheeled assistance to the top. We made Aberystwyth for lunch and then the afternoon continued much the same. I tried my best but in the end after dropping way back I opted for a bit of assistance to catch up with the group and then cycled the final section into New Quay. I was happy that over the two days I had put in a shift. Not bad for a guy my size after only three weeks training.

Thanks to everyone who supported me. I will leave you with The Great Tour videos and my stats.