Dawes Karakum on Holy Island

This week has been busy but I've still managed to get out a bit. Ricky is away next week too, so we had a ride out to Denby Dale yesterday which was good. Not an area where I have ever thought of cycling but although it was all on busy A roads, there was some good long draggy climbs. All good practice! I took the touring bike on this, fully loaded and just back from having s service so it did give me some aches. In fact, my cramp levels when I went to bed were pretty bad! How we suffer.....

I also managed an evening ride over to York the day before too, so that gave me 90 miles in 24 hours which I was quite chuffed with. The trip to York was on the best road bike and after riding a mountain bike on holiday this was great fun. It was still a good work out as we were crusing along for parts of the ride at 20 mph+.

Anyway, the Dawes Karakum is now selected as the bike for the Camino. It's been to Edinburgh Cycles for a service and this included changing the inner chain ring from 26 teeth to 22 teeth. My bottom gear is now very low and that's given me some comfort about climbing some of the hills. We didn't have any really steep hills on the Denby Dale run but a couple got steep enough to drop down onto the inner ring (now known as tractor gear!). It worked perfectly. I never got anywhere near bottom gear as it pulled up very comfortably is the middle of the cassette.

I've also started to push the publicity a bit more. I wonder how soon before I start to lose friends!