Winter Endurance Training Ride To Stone Henge. Plus My Ultra Cycling Goals For Races In 2024.

Hello and welcome back! In this video I am out for a Sunday winter training ride around the south coast once again. This time to Stone Henge, if you haven’t been before, make it a destination for a ride, it is beautiful. It was more of an adventure than I planned for. Missed the train, absolutely frozen… If you want to see the ride itself, here is the link – https://www.strava.com/activities/10514307361

0:00 Intro
5:06 Waterworld
5:42 Test Valley
8:42 Future Andy
11:56 Stone Henge
14:50 2024 Structure
19:19 No Train For Andy

That 4,000k race that would be the longest I’ve I’ve ever done sometimes you got to admit the Feat good morning welcome to another Ultra cycling related video if you watched any previous ones thanks for coming back if this is your first visit I’m Andy I’m an ultra cyclist on the south coast of the UK the videos I make are about Ultra training and Adventures I upload roughly once a week

So if you have endurance goals of your own heading into 2024 subscribe follow along I’m sure you get something out of it if not maybe you teach me something as you can see it’s beautiful morning on the south of England if not pretty brisk left the house and it was around

1° C so freezing basically it’s now about 3° so can’t complain on the cards for today pretty standard winter endurance ride training ride about 100 miles roughly might do a bit more see how I feel later on my feet are already numb so and see how I get on heading out from my

Home in Portsmouth in Hampshire on the south of the UK across to the neighboring County of Wilshire to a place called Stonehenge I’ll also give a little update on uh how 2024 is shaping up I’ve heard back from some of the races I’ve

Applied to and I got a bit of an idea of what I’ll be doing now once I hear back from all of them so stick around actually created this route years ago and I probably ride it at least a couple times a year really nice flowy rural once you get past

Southampton is pretty grippy once you get into wi here past Solsbury quite hilly but it’s beautiful also found quite a long time ago there’s a sneaky little back entrance to Stonehenge which I’ll show you you can pay a fair bit a few quid to go and walk

Around the stones but if it’s part of your endurance ride you just want to have a quick look then there is a way to view the stones almost as close for free a public right away it’s been pretty wet here recently very heavy rain the heaviest I’ve seen for a very long time

So it looks like should have brought a wet Suit Yeah What he hey Heyyy he oh hey Hey oh I’m riding at the moment through an area called the test valley which has the river test running through it so far looks like the river’s burst his bank it’s looking more like a lake we’ve had some of the heaviest downpours ever seen in the UK over Christmas as you probably noticed I

Didn’t upload anything last week riding through that isn’t the slightest bit festive if you ask me so no festive 500 for me this year did you ride it interested if you’re in the UK managed to get that in outdoors and Coos to you had enough rain for one Year got pretty close actually I planted 200 m one day and 100 the next day and then literally the night before got a message from my mate don’t want to go for a spin in the morning get some breakfast it’s much better offer to be honest let me know in the comments if

Any of you managed to get out and finish it how you went about it indoors Outdoors does indoors count I deny myself I was tempted indoors but it feels like you do 20% more 10 20 more the same effort indoors anyway it’s sunny Now yeah it’s sunny now but it’s bloody Wet I’ve got a bit of a rough headwind all the way out which I’m sure you can hear and it’s taking that 3° 3° down to well below freezing but I think I’m not far from Solsbury so I’m too far from Stonehenge let’s get cracking get Stonehenge find some

Coffee and get on with that Tailwind bring on the Tailwind that’s typical the one day they not on strike hello Andy from The Future here quick message if you’re out for a long ride and relying on the train to get home at the end maybe no badmouth train drivers

Halfway through or Karm might bite you when you get get to the station Frozen there are no trains they’re all cancelled or delayed your 100 mile ride becomes 130 Mi oh well anyway back to the Video A Sometimes you got to admit the feat there’s got to be a way around there yeah I don’t think So I’m back on my route now quite a diversion but it’s completely flooded down there the windshield up here is pretty brutal almost that Stonehenge so we turn around hopefully this Tailwind will warm me up a little bit starting to feel like uh a Kevin Coster

Movie uh I said in the video once before I grew up in gosport but contrary to popular belief we don’t have gills and web toes so fingers crossed that’s the last of the rivers Not a bad view definitely worth the trip and this path Public Access other side of the fence paid probably worth going in if you can but if you’re passing through that ain’t a bad View Yeah good get It’s quite grally through there but it’s not too bad I’m on a road bike definitely doable I’ve done it in the summer on my fast bike smaller tires definitely worth a Detour this ride turned out to be much more challenging than I planned for I feel like I’ve pushing against an icy headwind the whole way around Tailwind I was hoping for has materialized see what happens but pushing through on days like today help me in the summer speak of

Which I’m getting to the point now where I got a pretty good idea what 20124 looks like I got into the mindset years ago of setting goal that really helps me try to stay focused through the year that’s how I operate and I’ve been waiting for confirmation of races for

2024 so far I’ve had couple of responses and a couple of offers which is really good two races approximately 4,000 km long just waiting for one more another one I really want to do which is 4,000 km long and I should hit back on that in

The next week or two so this year for me I’ve got an a race and a b race usually have an a event B event this year both races the a event middle of the summer 4,000 km the B race in May time much shorter about 1500

Is kilm I’m waiting to he back on that one as well but got a couple of really good options I’m going to do some time trailing this year too there’s uh award locally for the best allrounder and to win it you need to do the fastest 50 Mi 100 Mil and 12

Hours that’s going to be really good training going into my races so why the hell not I’ve just got to find some for those and plan them in in the lead up to my races on top of that going to get some bike packing trips in a few trips across England some longer

Rides long weekends probably in the UK see what I can fit in elsewhere it’s looking like it’ll be a pretty good looking like it’ll be a pretty good year to be honest that 4,000k race that would be the longest I’ve ever done so that’s my my goal for

2024 that’s pretty much how i’ structure a year about as much as I could fit in to be honest with a full-time job so yeah pretty bloody excited I’ll let you know once I get confirmation for the events and exactly what I’m doing there’s no point naming the events just

Yet jinxing myself I’ve got some pretty high hopes so cross your fingers for me let me know what you got planned quite a few people there’s quite a few people that comment on these videos now with similar goals so yeah I’ll be quite Keen to see what you got

Planned back to the heing now I’ve had enough to be honest not that far away from Winchester so that was the original plan 100 miles finish at Winchester and get the train whe I make it in time for the train let’s see I might just get that home but the

Train is looking pretty tempting right now hope I make It well I’ll call it here almost back to Winchester and about to run out of daylight so job done it’s a good training ride could have been a bit warmer from my liking bit less windy but got be done have a good week I’ll see you here

Next week if you get this far I doubt that many do comment and say hello and to the ones that already comment on every video hi thanks a lot it really means a lot to get the feedback from you guys anyway hopefully I’m almost at the train station have a good

Week see you on the next ride hello again well this is the real ending I’m almost home now so 100 miles became 130 really didn’t need need that absolutely Frozen by the time I got to Winchester but what can you do un C up and a ball life gives you

Lemons go make genat tonics that’s what I’m going to do anyway have a good week I’ll see you on the next one