Geoff Jones

Inveterate dabbler in business, travel, gadgets & life

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Transfer to Voronino

i awoke to the sound of heavy rain, fortunately today was spent in a minibus with trailer driving the 140 miles to the Voronino country estate.

A leisurely start at 12.17 due to Finnair deciding the Norwegian guys luggage was needed in Helsinki rather than Moscow! But gave me time to part assemble the bike so I could leave the box in Moscow.

The ride was mostly on motorways, very smooth, apart from the torrential downpours. Interesting to see they use the hard shoulder for undertaking (pun intended). Halfway we had a cafe stop where I was introduced to the delights of sweet pancakes filled with quark and a thick yogurt topping with a black tea, very yummy.

The others seem a very interesting bunch of people so perhaps the tour won’t be as bad as I anticipated.

Tonight we are staying on an old nobles country estate which was recently re-purchased by an ancestor of the pre-revolution owners as we learnt from a tour of the place. Also discovering the huge significance of the St Gotthard pass in Switzerland for the Russians. The estate Is now called Hôtel Usad’ ba

Tonight’s meal was excellent apart from the small portion size.Tomorrow is the first riding day :-)Some pictures of the day are here

Another adventure starts

Well the adventure had a poor start as whilst waiting for the airport taxi at 7am I discovered my flight was at 8.35 not the midday I thought 🙁 with many expletives muttered I finally got through to BA to change my flight for Sunday at huge expense.

I decided to go to the airport anyway & arrived in T5 at 8.30 and went straight to the ticketing desk where the helpful guy said I could get on the next flight at 10.55 and since their system hadn’t fully registered my earlier change he would just make one charge 🙂 one slight gain from this mistake is he checked my bike in thus avoiding the huge queue at the regular check in desks and also gave me a seat on the emergency exit row.

The flight was uneventful apart from the meal being just an eggy bun! Immigration in Moscow was very efficient and speedy with the bike soon appearing,. Boris the driver from RCTC who are organising my first week on their Golden Ring tour, was waiting for me and after a brief stop at Megaton to get a data SIM (1300 RUB for 30GB) and to hit the cash machine Max 5000RUB a time of we went.

The ride was one hour on beautiful smooth roads, in fact the Moscow circular seems to have 5 lanes, we arrived at the Maxima Irbis hotel.

The hotel is good and I enjoyed dinner sitting with Ian & Catherine from Skeggy who are also doing the ride Next Week.

Hopefully some pictures will appear here…

A Testing Day

Geoff Jones Biking Fitness Test
Biking Fitness Test

During Cambridge Science  Week Sally and I visited the stand of Anglia Ruskin University where they were promoting their Physiological testing, we had a quick go on their stationary bikes. Being the sort of guy I am I immediately booked in for a real physiological assessment.

So today I found myself in the Compass building on East Road undergoing a 45min bike fitness test!

My height has now dropped a couple of inches down to 1.75 metres and they couldn’t quite pinch an inch only 21mm around my midriff although my weight is now a shocking 84.05kg (13stones 3 lbs) definitely on my upper limit with body fat at just under 26%. My heart rate in the morning was 51bpm and pressure 150/80

Then it was onto the very posh bike complete with gas mask, strap heart rate sensor & someone to prick my finger every 3mins to do a lactate test. I set off at a cadence that I had to keep constant during the test I chose 75rpm and 100watts. Every 3 minutes the wattage is increased by 25watts whilst I tried to keep the 75rpm with the guy taking a blood sample at each setting.

Really weird not to experience any air movement when working out plus my mouth rapidly dried up inside the face mask making it uncomfortable I eventually reached 250 watts at which point I was feeling knackered.  The results showing my heart rate was now up to 157 bpm and the blood Lactate at 4.5 mmol Litre,

Geoff Jones Physiological Assessment Report
Physiological Assessment Report

After a shower, they went through the results with me saying I was deemed fit for an old man 🙂 but showing I really need a power meter to do workouts in the 200-watt range with a heart rate of 105 to 116 bpm.

An interesting and worthwhile experience with lots of pretty graphs below:

 

Addendum:
Sally reminded me that we first met the ARU guys at the Cambridge Half Marathon check-in on the 3rd March at ARU.

Richard reminded me the actual date of the test was on Monday 9th April

 

The Diners,

The dining scene is an upmarket first-floor restaurant in downtown Lisbon with tablecloths linen napkins unpretentious and really pleasant. My first visit was 2 nights ago when it was totally packed and they squeezed me in on a bar stool.

Tonight it was just a few of us I sat down in a central location facing the bar but quickly rotated around to view the other diners.
On my left, in the window bay, where a couple, clearly both English he an educated ageing hippie with long hair which must be a nightmare to look after she a young attractive lady. He clearly was wanting to show his catch as whenever their hands met he turned around. Initially, I thought he was an academic but later I thought perhaps an author with her as his publicist or maybe researcher, she was clearly in awe of him and went beetroot red when he mentioned the word bed to the waitress who are all really pleasant .

Just in front to my left where two youngish women from their demeanour I would say Portuguese very quiet and rather sad. A lovers tiff maybe?

The second bay window was occupied by two young guys who I also thought were in a relationship maybe this is a bit of a gay restaurant? Also very quiet and reserved.

To my right a middle aged German couple. on arrival with him on his handy chatting away obviously regarding someone coming to join them. As they sat down the waitress cleared away the fourth place setting. Eventually another German guy joined them clearly long lost friends with lots of the irritating German laughter the poor lady was left in silence.

The final couple arrived later quite young and sat alongside each other! How strange, maybe a first date? He awkwardly tried talking to her but after a while realised it’s much easier if you sit opposite each other!!

A fascinating evening with excellent food including my first port in Portugal. Many thanks to the fine staff, Ana, Morilia, Ricardo, Miguel, Mohammed, J. Niguez and Maziak for the excellent food & service that kept me coming back night after night and also thanks  for my little present