Girona Camp and Roadman Challenge
Rowman, today I want to talk to you about my next gravel adventure. Let's cure that intro! The big question is this. How do we use cycling as a tool to improve our health, our happiness, and our longevity? That is the question on this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Anthony Welch, and welcome to the Rowman Podcast. Rowman, welcome back! It's a beautiful Thursday here in Dublin. The song is just coming up as I'm recording this podcast and yeah, I'm gonna go bike riding and also today what I want to do is make a couple of announcements. Today I want to tell you about my next gravel adventure which I'm planning I'm super excited about but also it's the public release of the Chirona training camp, the early access dudes over on Patreon and they've bought me a five-room month and Guys anything that comes out it's always going to be limited release from us whether it's kid whether it's training camp It's going to be limited release and the patreon guys. They're supporting the podcast and they're making this possible They're getting early access to stuff So if you want to get that early access head on over to patreon.com forward slash Anthony Underscore watch and you're going to get that early access to it So, some of the Patreon guys have already signed up and there's a few places left on the training camp, but do hurry, the link is in the bio, it's a small limited training camp, we're going to knock some serious crack out of Xerona in October. We're going from the 17th to the 22nd, it's going to be absolutely epic. As part of it, we're doing this roadman rocker call by challenge, where you have to try and get up rocker call by in your age plus 10 minutes. I'm gonna struggle, I really am gonna struggle. But look, we'll see, I'm gonna do a bit of training between here and then, I'm gonna go full gas at it, and we're gonna see what's gonna happen. I'm gonna have to ride it off the parameter, and I'm gonna have to pull some tricks out of the bag, but really looking forward to it. Your own is just such a romantic, epic place to ride a bike, the best place in the world you can ride a bike. And you can take that from someone who's ridden their bike all over the world, from North America to Europe, to even China, to boy, Qatar, at least everywhere. your own is hands down the best place you can ride a bike. Today what I want to talk to you about is my next gravel adventure and anyone who's a listener to the podcast and this predates the podcast going out on video platforms so you'd have to be tuning into the actual audio version. I rode the Whickler way and I split it up, rode up one of my training partners, masked and the two of us we split it up over two days and it was two epically hard days. I think we rode for nine-ish hours on the first day and there's a lot of hike a bike when you have the bike on your back. Now don't forget the bike is strapped with luggage like a handlebar bag on, have a big saddle bag on and a top tube bag on and your pockets are stuffed full of food and shit as well in jackets. So you're trying to carry these up steps over rocks down the ravines. It's a proper, proper hard time. The vlog for it is coming out next week. I've been slowing off editing that I was sick last week as anyone listed the podcast knows I was down under the weather for a week so that vlog is on the back burner but I'm happy to announce my next adventure and it's going to be epic it's going to be equally as epic and where the week away ends there's another route starts it's called the Silt Lensterway and it goes up over Mount Lenster which I wrote that in the Ross in 2017.
Planning the South Leinster Way
It's a hard climb. But sort of south-lensterway, it's 104km long. Now don't let that fool you when it's 104km, you have a temptation to think, oh that's a day. The guy at hike in time on this is 5 days. So I'm thinking we can get through this, I'm hoping comfortably in 2 days when the last one was a 130k, that was a stretch over 2 days. Especially getting camps together, breaking the mob, all that type of stuff. So The Guy Times Five Day hike, Guy Time on Wicklow Aves is Seven Day hike. I think we can get this done comfortably in the two days with no setbacks. Wicklow we are blessed with the weather. So look, let's see what sort of weather we get for this one. There's 1500 meters of climbing in it. It starts and kills Davin, which is where the Wicklow Aves ends. And it ends down in the famous Karakan Shore for Sean Kelly fame and Sam Bennett fame. So look, the lessons from the last one. I think I got my case pretty spot on last time, but I got lucky with the weather. So at this time of year I'm going to have to be a lot more cautious to bring rain kit, to bring air warmers, leg warmers. It was more of a sun cream problem last time. Last time as well if you listen to my feedback on it and you'll see it in the vlog which will just drop them next week. I got this, only could be described as puke flavored curry. It was like someone puked in a bag after a night out on the beer, sailed it up and sold it to me. That's how bad it was. It was rank. It was a chicken curry, brutal folks. I can't food is not fit for human consumption. It should be like a toxic warning on it. I don't know if I do that again. Food is heavy as shit and it tastes so bad. The food you can carry. So what I would do is I would see where it breaks or where we're playing on camping and try and pick a restaurant and just go in there like bombs and eat out. I think that will be much more enjoyable and fuel much better. Also last time we were drinking out of streams Mac got real sick. He was puking like all noise when we camped over. And it actually didn't look like he was gonna be able to start the second day because he puked all noise. We were drinking out of streams and we were basically foraging for water. And it's not a good place to be because when you need to drink water, you need to drink and you often can't wait two, three hours to get water into you. And this is even carrying a lot of water. So maybe this time I'm gonna be a little bit more organized and I'm gonna see where the trail breaks and intersects with a little bit of road re-entering trail, I'm going to arrange to have somebody there to get a little bit of a static feed Where we can get fresh balls and then just move on without much of a break And if anyone if you see the vlog next week, it's tragic and it's pure amateur error from me I brought tubes on the trip and Got them at the very last minute Then I realized after my force puncture the valves weren't logging off the culture of rhems school by error stuff Ridiculous shit, so I've moved over to tubeless I will bring in these wee little plugs. I've never used them on tubeless, so I'll be bringing them. Also, I'll be bringing some long valve tubes.
Robert's Ireland Ride and Sign-ups
That was a ridiculous meal for me. That video's out next week and it's a good bit of crack. But yeah, I'm pretty excited to see how it lends their way. Let me know if there's other ones around Ireland. Also, a big shout out to one of our clients at the moment, Robert McWhorter. He's a long-term client of ours. I think he's been a coaching client for about five years. Sean McKenna coaches him. And he is, could you call it, circumnavigating Ireland? He's on the world to the world of Ireland. Anyway, he's riding around the whole coast of the 22 counties. He's over from Texas and Austin, Texas. And he's over here and he's riding around the 22 counties. It's an epic trip and he's bike packing, bringing all the stuff with him on a bike he fabricated himself, the man's a legend. So if you hear of Maria Schout, see him on the roads, definitely give him a bit of a shout, just see him wearing some roadman kit along the roads. that video's out next week, Roman. The link for the Jorona training camp is in the description down below. So it will sell out fast. So as you're hearing this podcast, jump on that link and get it booked. It will sell out fast. It's gonna be great crack. We've two groups gone. So no matter what your ability, we're gonna have a fast group and a slow group each day. You can dip in and out with a fast group or a slow group. Recovery day is mixed in. Support car on the Jorona day with refreshments and mechanical assistance, all that. It's gonna be class. I'm gonna wait. Roadman, I'm gonna chat to you tomorrow. Okay, stop what you're doing. It's Anthony again. I wanna talk to you for one second about the next step in the roadman journey. I'm laying down a challenge for you. It's called the eight week challenge. So for eight weeks, I'm challenging you to be the very best version of yourself, whatever that is. For eight weeks, I wanna take you under my wing and I wanna personally build for you the customized training plan on our analytics platform. this plan, it's going to be laser focused on your goal and I'm going to navigate around your life, your work, your social commitments so don't worry about what your circumstances are right now. I remember after I took some time out of cycling, I went off and taught a really big business man. I came back and I realised I wanted to get into cycling but I knew after a bit, the training alone, it actually wasn't making me any fitter. I needed an entire system, it needed a 360 overhaul. So for the first time ever, I want to share with you this exact system I use to get back in shape. I'm talking stuff like I'm going to give you my morning routines, the cold therapy I use, the cookbooks and recipes I use and even the motivational audio's by listening to get back on track. So right now what I want you to do is pause this audio, go to www.roadmancycling.com forward slash eight week or check out the link in the bio, click that. So one more time it's roadmancycling.com forward slash eight week. Shot you all soon.