Hi folks,
We're on holiday next week and the week after and have pencilled in riding from Aberystwyth to Aberdeen (800km) and back to visit the father-in-law. Being a pair of shameless audax points chasers, we need to do this in blocks of at least 200km.
Our tandem is a racing beast with minimal brazings and rather than mess around with P-clips, we recently did a weekend away with a mini rack mounted to the stoker seat post. This did horrible things to the handling and also didn't allow very much capacity for carrying gear.
We've recently taken delivery of a 1 wheeled trailer from the nice folks at Edinburgh bicycle, but due to delivery problems haven't had the opportunity to test it prior to the main event. We won't be carrying masses of weight, just clothes, shoes & essentials and will be staying indoors rather than camping. So the question is, how much is this likely to slow us down? Is 200km day-on-day realistic with one of these (unlaiden we tend to cover 200 in around 10 hours)? Also to complicate matters further our time window has been reduced by a couple of days from each side, so the original plan of ride 2 days, rest, ride 2 days then get to Aberdeen rest for 2-3 days and reverse is looking less viable. So the options are 300-200-rest-300 or 4x200 with no rest day.
I've rambled a bit, but this is worrying me slightly as I don't fancy our chances of bailing out via train with the trailer.
Over to the panel.
Thanks,
AC