Hitting the road.

Sep 24, 2012 | Personal | 1 comment

Emma and I have been making a real effort to get more fit lately. To be honest, it’s partially for the wedding but it’s more because we enjoy being out and about. I started back at Judo in May and for the most part I’ve been doing that twice a week with the Wild geese club in Dublin. Emma is also back at dancing and in October, she will be taking part in a simply come dancing imitation show in Drogheda to raise needed funds for the White cross primary school. So, we’re exercising separately quite a bit. It’s nicer to do things together though so whenever the time allows we can be spotted speeding around Drogheda on the tandem. Most routes we take are around 20K which isn’t all that much when taken out of context however Drogheda is built on a valley. That means no matter where you go, the hills loom on every direction. However, when you get over the constant climing Drogheda has some lovely areas to cycle around. Certain roads such as either side of the Boyne toward Termon Feckin and Bettys town are actually quite flat as well so there’s a nice combination of speed and endurance in most of our cycle routes.

I’ve been putting off writing about cycling on the tandem for quite a while because I’m quite aware that the blog can become quite boring when it’s full of text. A lot of my visitors really prefer images along with posts.

This weekend we took the opportunity to have a few pictures taken. They’re not what we want yet but in fairness to the photographer, he complained that we were moving too quickly for him to properly focus on us. On the flats we can get up to 37KPH. Down hill we get closer to 50KPH. Although our tandem is old, it has been taken care of very well. The wheels are decent and we’ve extensively upgraded and modified the breaks and gears.

One modification I particularly like is I have control of the gears and the drag break. The drag break is a disk break on the back wheel. When going too quickly on a descent the drag break slows the speed of the bike without heating up the rim of the wheel. I love having control of the gears though. I’m sure Emma will add her voice to the comments about why she hates me having control over the gears but, for me, I like being able to control our speed to a large extent. Especially when flying down hills or racing around flat roads. I just love the rush of speed.

I would love to aim for a distance of 100KPH in a day. Unfortunately we’re both quite busy so getting the time for this is a challenge. I’m sure we’ll do it at some stage though.

In my opinion cycling is one of the nicest past times ever. There’s really nothing like cycling alongside a river or on a quiet country road. Focused on the rhythm and motion of the peddles as you propel yourself forward is just so relaxing!

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1 Comment

  1. Jenny

    I’d love to get back into cycling again, but its hard finding someone to cycle with, and most of our roads are terrible!

    Reply

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