50 miles in a week isn’t much of a cycling achievement.

Most cyclists are training for 100 miles in one go.

Challenge

I was playing a game with my roadie friend when I mentioned we hadn’t gone on our bikepacking trip yet, and he mentioned I hadn’t done any training for it.

The route we’ve got planned is 50 miles there, camp, and then 50 miles back. Neither of us know if I can even do that, hence the training.

He recommended splitting it up over several days so I could ease myself into it. He was more interested in me getting time on the bike and knowing I would get back in the saddle day after day, even if I was feeling sore.

Result

I was very sore. I had to iron out the wrinkles in my cycling muscles and that took a few days to happen. I even built up the confidence to swap my flat pedals for the clipless ones I’d bought and was a bit intimidated by.

The only downside to my week had been my eyes. It was sunny so I went out each day in my cycling sunglasses, instead of my prescription spectacles. I thought an hour at a time would be ok for me but by the fourth day I was getting splitting headaches from the strain I was putting myself under.

Next

The solution is either prescription sunglasses, but they don’t sell them in the full face covering style I want, or that I need to get contact lenses sorted out to continue using my current sunglasses.

Then I need to get back on the bike.

50 in a day is the next target, although I’m switching from imperial to metric, so it’ll have to be in kilometers.

Then can we book that bikepacking trip?