# Team Novo Nordisk - Cycle for Cities (Pott Shrigley to The Wirral)



## Matt Cycle (Jun 18, 2019)

Yesterday I joined day 2 the Team Novo Nordisk Cycle for Cities ride from Pott Shrigley (near Macclesfield) to The Wirral.  It's a 7 day cycle ride raising awareness of diabetes.  There are 10 ten core riders who are employees of Novo Nordisk doing the whole 7 days, the TNN pro riders - Justin Morris, Sam Brand or Quentin Valognes - Quentin Valognes was on today's ride and then the day riders like myself.  I'd guess there were around 12 day riders.  The similar ride last year was called Pedal for 7 when we were blessed with glorious weather, not quite the same this year .

We had 2 official photo stops on this ride in Manchester and Liverpool so we had the earliest start of all the 7 rides.  This meant leaving the house at 6am to get to the start at Pott Shrigley.  I was driving to the hotel but had arranged to meet a fellow rider on the way to give him a lift as he would then give me a lift back to the hotel from his house near Crewe as his wife uses the car during the day.  It was drizzly weather but with the forecast showing it to brighten up in the afternoon towards Liverpool. 

We arrived at the hotel starting point and had a coffee as riders started to arrive and those who'd stopped there appeared.  As last year we were split into 3 groups based on speed and each group had a ride leader from the events company running the ride.  I was in the middle group last year but was placed in the fast group this time.  Not sure why.  We also got a TNN jersey (yay I've wanted one of the new ones but they're 60 odd quid a pop) and various goodies - water bottles, keyrings etc.  There were a mixture of people as day riders including a couple of parents of children with diabetes, one Novo Nordisk employee just riding today and the rest I think were T1.

From the hotel the slowest group set off first, then the middle one, then us.  We set off with rain jackets on in the steady drizzle heading towards Manchester.  It was busy with morning traffic and wet but not heavy rain and freezing though like earlier in the week. City centres with wet tram tracks, badly driven cars and vans and people made it slow progress.  We'd passed the other 2 groups and we eventually got to the art gallery where the photos were going to be taken.  The drizzle had eased by then.  Once that was done we set off through Manchester to Salford Quays to a cafe for the first break.  I was wearing a Libre and my bg had skyrocketed before setting off at the start due to stress.  Same thing happened last year.  It was showing 19 but a finger prick showed 16.3 mmol/l.  Still not very good.  I was on an 80% TBR so cancelled that and gave myself a small correction.  Didn't feeling like eating anything with bg at that level so just had a coffee.  We set off again out of Manchester towards Liverpool.  The weather started to brighten up - well the roads were dry and it felt a bit warmer and we were making good progress.   We reached a place called Winwick near Newton-Le-Willows for the lunch stop at a Premier Inn.  Bg was now showing 11 with a down arrow.  We all had jacket potatoes for lunch (not sure what you do if you don't like them, but then again who doesn't like them)  and I put the TBR back on 80% expecting it to drop as we made our way to Liverpool.  We passed St Helens and Liverpool airport before heading alongside the Mersey into the centre.  Disaster struck at this point as one of our riders wheels got stuck in the paving and he went down banging his head on the ground.  His helmet saved him but he was quite dazed.  Our team leader called the events medic (part of the back up team) who arrived after about 15 minutes and checked him over.  Thankfully he was okay and fine to carry on.  We arrived in Liverpool and had afternoon snacks and drinks at the very impressive town hall and a speech from the Lord Mayor.

We then rode back down to the river as it was ferry 'cross the Mersey as we had a ferry to catch to take us to Birkenhead.  Bg's were still stubbornly high so I gave a small correction dose and had a cereal bar.  Once off the ferry we had around 15 miles to get to the hotel at the finish at a place near Capenhurst on The Wirral.  We got there around 5.30pm.  Drinks, cakes and snacks were laid on and we spent our time chatting to each other with photos taken etc.  Four of us were getting the train from Capenhurst (2.5 miles away) one person was heading to Liverpool, myself and the person I met in the morning to Crewe and another who was going back to London.  So we said our goodbyes at the hotel and set off.  We then got the train from Capenhurst to Chester and then onto Crewe (checked bg at the train station and corrected what the bolus wizard told me too this time) before riding to his house to pick the car up to take me back to Pott Shrigley for my car.  (Hope you're following all this - it was a long day  ).  Got to my car and bg's were 4.9  after a poor day with figures being in the teens for most of it I've decided if I do it next year I'm not using a reduced TBR and am going to correct more aggressively to deal with these andrenaline spikes.

Strava stats for the ride are 80.3 miles completed at an average speed of 13.7mph and elevation gain of 1540 feet.  (I also had 2.6 miles to Capenhurst station and 5.7 miles from Crewe).

Overall then a fantastic days ride with some great, great people.

The murky Mersey.  This is where we were waiting after the rider fell off as we headed into Liverpool.


Me in the same place.


Me with French rider Quentin Valognes at the finish.  Very nice person and great to share the ride with him.  He kindly gave me a signed copy of his book.  Diagnosed with T1 at age 6.  Powerhouse of a rider.


----------



## Northerner (Jun 18, 2019)

Great account Matt  Sounds like me when I run a half marathon though - numbers completely at odds with how they would be on a normal training run!  How did the others cope, especially Quentin who is used to this sort of thing?


----------



## Matt Cycle (Jun 18, 2019)

Northerner said:


> Great account Matt  Sounds like me when I run a half marathon though - numbers completely at odds with how they would be on a normal training run!  How did the others cope, especially Quentin who is used to this sort of thing?



Quentin didn't mention his numbers but of the others I spoke to most were running high.  One of the NN employee core riders (also a T1 - ideal job!) had got his spot on but was obviously used to that sort of riding.  I can do the same distance on my own with a 60% TBR and have to eat snacks and not go above 10.  The stress and andrenaline were the cause.  I should have corrected properly and then dealt with things from there but you always have the issue of hypos at the back of your mind.  Stress highs are a bit strange in that I felt okay in terms of the riding as normally at those levels legs are heavy and you just feel sluggish.  The TNN riders often publish their CGM data from races and they're usually high.  I think it was Charles Planet who was running at 24 mmol/l in one race before it started to drop back down.


----------

