Counting down to the holiday

I am taking my body to work each day this week, but unfortunately my mind is already half way through Germany and getting ready to hit the mountains. Yesterday I received yet another shipment of goodies from Chain Reaction Cycles to help me up and over the mountains starting on Sunday. The box contained some light weight inner tubes (50g each) to reduce my rotational mass, some patch kits for those special tubes and a pair of Skins travel and recovery tights.



I haven't fitted the tubes yet so I don't know how they will fare; I will certainly give them a test ride before heading off into the mountains for a 175km jaunt on Sunday just to check that they are safe and reliable.


The tights are for a couple of things. They provide graduated compression rather like flight socks and are supposed to help with recovery from exercise and also to reduce the effects of long journeys. They are tighter around the ankle and gradually less tight moving up the leg, this should improve circulation and hence reduce swelling and fatigue and improve recovery. This should help on the 18 hour drive and also to get over these races and be ready for the next one. Unlike the magnetic bracelets, this is in fact backed up by some proper scientific research so I will be interested to see how well they work...