Badger Blogz

A lot has happened since I last updated my previous blog. Here is a graph...

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h3...Picture4-1.png

This graph is of my database from January to early July. Clearly my results in this period are not something I'm proud of at all. I have spent a lot of time analysing what went wrong and I will share a few observations.

- Playing too many tables is obviously a leak, even when it maximises your $/hr.
- Focusing too much on learning through putting hands in
- Feeling sorry for myself
- Table selection is crucial
- Honest and thorough self-analysis is very important
- I am tilty

I could go on for ages talking about the mistakes I made in moving up to midstakes, and the way in which I reacted to failing by frankly playing on tilt for months in order to try and get back to the peak of my graph. What is important is that I learn from my mistakes...

After my latest 30 buy-in downer at the end of the graph, I decided that I needed to start afresh. I honestly felt that I had the ability to beat 200nl for a decent rate if I re-applied myself to learning the game and playing without the pressure of feeling desperate for a big win every session.

At the beginning of this summer I got the trial of Poker Copilot, which is a comparatively basic tracker with HUD but it runs on a mac which is nice. I also got a subscription to Cardrunners and renewed my Deuces Cracked subscription, as part of my plan to relearn the game. Since I was at home for the summer, I only had space to set up one monitor and I decided that going back to tiled tables was the way forward. 9-tabling full ring allows for so much more time to think about why I making certain decisions. For anyone going through problems in their game I highly recommend just dropping tables instead of dropping limits if your bankroll can take it.

Anyway, all this ranting has been leading up to the graph from my new database.....

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h3...z/Picture2.png

This is since mid-July, almost exclusively at 200nl (I think there's one 100nl session in there). The sample size is small, and I think I am running hot to some extent (copilot has no EV calculator not that that is a fair reflection on how you're running anyway....) I am still far from playing my A-game every session; I have not played for a couple of days since I am so annoyed with how I ended my last session. But the early signs are promising that I have really improved my game. All this is 9-12 tabling, I'm currently playing 10 tables and I think I will continue to 10 table for a while since I have worked out a nice setup with 10 tiled default size tables that means I can lean back in my chair and play as stress-free as possible!

In other news...

I am still in college, despite being more and more disillusioned with the course and my future career in music, I managed to pass last year on retakes.... I need to make college a priority, I would love to actually get this degree and it would make my parents proud as well as opening more doors in the future. I may look into some DogIsHead-style free coaching for people who post in this thread when I miss a lecture, watch this space :)

The college has started a football team (I live in the UK, football = soccer) and I am in the first choice 11! Having never played 11-a-side football in my life I'm really pleased that I've made it into the team, and a lot of that has come down to my fitness. I am running 6miles twice a week and trying to eat as healthily as possible, although beer does damage this goal somewhat :S

TL;DR

Poker is hard - "dedicate yourself to a continuous cycle of analysis and improvement" is a great quote from "The Poker Mindset"

I failed at this during the first 6 months of the year. I wish I had read that book 1 year ago, I would be a lot richer!

Goals

Play well
Watch videos, learn, make notes
Maybe get into coaching/ video making at some point (if you can stand my English accent :P )
Reach 400k VPPs for $4k milestone by the end of the year
Do well at college: attend lectures and prepare for lessons
Run a half-marathon in under 1hr40 in March
Do everything I can to stay in the first 11 of the college football(soccer..) team

I'm gonna be updating this blog fairly frequently with interesting hands, strategy thoughts, life thoughts, book reviews, videos thoughts etc.etc. I know this entry has been far too long but I haven't written for ages and I couldn't stop typing. Hopefully I'll be able to keep it more interesting in the future!

1st and skip lectures lol and a pretty impressive turnaround over the summer.
As for the graph ....there was about a 25000 hand stretch near the start where you were pretty much break even . Was that just variance , or did you think your changes werent working , or was it just working out/trying new things to find how to beat the game.

GL sir, looks like you're on to something there lol. I think macs just automatically turn on the rungood though imo.

nice work on the fitness
race to mid-stakes and beyond?!

This looks exciting, good luck with your endeavours!

Badgers is the damn man, even if his facebook pics are hysterical

you're doing a degree in music? What kind of program?

gogo badgersssss <3

Thanks for all the support!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Keith_MM

As for the graph ....there was about a 25000 hand stretch near the start where you were pretty much break even . Was that just variance , or did you think your changes werent working , or was it just working out/trying new things to find how to beat the game.

---

I think this is mostly variance, however there were a couple of things that I was working on at that time which hopefully helped.

For one thing, I stopped looking at the cashier! I've always watched the cashier too much, wanting to know exactly how much I'm up or down, but it really is pointless and counterproductive. I wish I could also turn off the part of me that mentally adds up roughly how much I am up or down in a given session, but sadly that has proved impossible so far!

Another thing I did was turned my music off. I have since switched my music back on when I play to avoid boredom so I wouldn't read too much into that as a factor (although I often pause the music for 5 minutes after losing a big pot if I feel I need to refocus to avoid tilt.)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by daven

race to mid-stakes and beyond?!

---

I'm not looking to get to mid-stakes in a particular hurry after what happened last time :roll: GL getting there though, maybe I'll see you there someday!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by courtiebee

you're doing a degree in music? What kind of program?

---

Yeah, it's quite a performance based course although there are still lectures to attend and essays to write (only about 4 per year though so nothing too stressful!). My main problem is that I can't see what I'll be doing in regards to music other than teaching in 5-10 years time. I'm a percussionist, and while that means that there's an awful lot I can do (classical orchestras, jazz, world music, pop/rock etc.) I haven't really specialised in any area and I am competent at a lot but great at not much. Maybe that will make me a good teacher, who knows...

Anyway, back to the poker. This blog is officially cursed, first days play and I drop $1k :( Didn't play very well, I had to get up pretty early this morning but I guess that is no excuse for dodgy/tilty plays...

Villain is the one and only OMGxBentley, who is pretty aggro and runs at 16/14. I've taken a few pots off him so far in the session and I thought he could be getting frustrated/ thinking I was trying to win every pot. This hand is really similar to one I posted in IRC and got berated by kfuse and stax, so it may be bad again, but given how the session is going I thought he was likely to 3bet/call his draws and possibly even weaker Ts although that's a little optimistic I guess, and JJ+ is obv in his range so this is quite possibly terrible. I also thought there was a slight possibility of him 3bet/folding on occasion.

$1/$2 No Limit Holdem
3 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
BTN ($103)
SB ($200)
Hero ($250.30)

Pre-Flop: ($3, 3 players) Hero is BB :ah: :td:
BTN folds, SB raises to $6, Hero calls $4

Flop: :th: :5s: :3h: ($12, 2 players)
SB bets $8, Hero raises to $22, SB raises to $60, Hero goes all-in $244.30

And a lame hand. Villain's first hand at table. Sometime during this hand, I think on the flop, 86s became 76s in my mind. I did a massive double take when the pot was shipped to villain and had to look up the instant history to reveal where it all went wrong.

$200 misread....... :(

$1/$2 No Limit Holdem
2 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
BTN ($200)
Hero ($200)

Pre-Flop: ($3, 2 players) Hero is BB :8h: :6h:
BTN calls $1, Hero raises to $8, BTN calls $6

Flop: :qs: :6d: :kc: ($16, 2 players)
Hero bets $10, BTN calls $10

Turn: :7d: ($36, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $8, Hero raises to $56, BTN calls $48

River: :3c: ($148, 2 players)
Hero goes all-in $126, BTN goes all-in $126

Final Pot: $400
BTN shows a pair of Kings
:ts: :kd:
Hero shows a pair of Sixes
:8h: :6h:

BTN wins $399 ( won +$199 )

Hero lost -$200

Oh well, bad day at the office... I'm gonna make a nice meal and watch some football to relax! :)

How's that Copilot program workin out for ya, & how much did it run you (not asking for myself b/c I have HEM ldo)?

As always, best of luck badgers.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JinxT4

How's that Copilot program workin out for ya, & how much did it run you (not asking for myself b/c I have HEM ldo)?

As always, best of luck badgers.

---

I really like the software, although it is definitely a work in progress and there are some issues. It lacks a lot of the features that you take for granted in HEM, all the fancy filters etc. but it runs well and does everything it advertises without any problems. I haven't run it over more than 12 tables but I would not expect there to be any issues if you want to 24 table, speed doesn't seem to be a problem.

At $60 it's dangerously close to HEMs pricing, but if you have a mac don't want to use bootcamp it's considerably cheaper than buying parallels + HEM. I have that option and choose to use copilot - that should be all the recommendation I need to give! If they want to DL the trial, I would recommend using version 2.12 available here, since it brings a lot more custom filters and gives all round better performance from my experience.

Not a lot of poker going on atm. I'm +$600 for the month in the little that I've played, including a brief venture into the world of PKR $0.02/$0.04 which ended with a whopping $1 profit. I don't think I've ever seen softer games though!

College is really starting to take up more of my time which is a shame because I had really started to get into a routine of pokering, exercising and chilling which I was feeling really good about. Meh, I guess I should just knuckle down and work harder, but when I come back from a hard day at college like today there is no way I want to play poker... Maybe I should look into waking up earlier in the moring and doing morning sessions, but this has long been an ambition of mine and I fail time and time again.

I've downloaded some video-making software and I think I'm gonna make a vid sometime soon. I probably wont put it up on any filesharing websites since I always get frustrated when I use them. Once I've made it if you want to watch I think it's easiest to add me on msn and I'll just send the file like that. I have to make the vid before I can do that though, and that takes time! I should be free on Friday so hopefully I'll get it done then.

Time to go and relax some more. With any luck the next time I sit down for a session I will resemble my new avatar!

new avatar imo
http://photos-g.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-...85758_3465.jpg

Quick update...

I am doing ok at poker but I think I'm just running well. Up $1400ish for the month but I don't think I'm playing particularly well and I'm catching myself tilting far more than last month which is really disappointing... I also need to be playing far more hands, only 16k so far which is pitiful after 18 days! I tried to make a video but was interrupted after about 15 minutes. It mainly consisted of me running ridiculously well then playing badly and spewing some back, complete with retarded commentary. Not worth sharing but I will try again!

Most major and exciting news is that our football team recorded our first win today! 3-0 down after 30 minutes, our goalkeeper was injured and I volunteered to go in goal. I managed to keep a clean sheet for the 60 remaining minutes and some heroics up front meant that we ended up winning 4-3! Playing against top of the league next week though :S Hopefully we can keep playing well!

Back to more celebratory drinking! Drink has been a major factor to my failings this month... I am unsure how I feel about this!

HOOORAYYYY!!!

I doubt I'm gonna play for the rest of the month, so here is my garf

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h3...Picture7-1.png

2 things should be immediately apparent

- I am lazy
- I am a luckbox

A decent portion of this profit has actually come from heads up play while starting tables. I'm not sure how much of an edge I have against the regs I'm playing, but I think it's great for my overall game to be practicing some heads up play. I think I'm making some good adjustments vs. the players and I'm really thinking spots through, probably to the detriment of my other tables at times.... However seeing as I'm still only 10 tabling it's not too huge an issue.

A recent interesting spot...

Villain is renn..wurm. One of the best regs imo, but he can do some weird things heads up... He doesn't like to fold to 3bets, which has got him into trouble a couple of times vs. me recently because I'm a lucksack and have AA a lot.

I really struggled to put him on a range here. At first glance I thought this was a fold, but then the possibility of him shoving a worse hand made me want to call.....?

$1/$2 No Limit Holdem
2 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
Hero ($497)
BB ($200)

Pre-Flop: ($3, 2 players) Hero is SB :ac: :kc:
Hero raises to $6, BB raises to $22, Hero raises to $50, BB calls $28

Flop: :8c: :7s: :ts: ($100, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

Turn: :5c: ($100, 2 players)
BB goes all-in $150

And a hand I think I botched massively but luckboxed (there is a theme in this post)

Villain is slapnuts. I always thought he was a bumhunter but recent he's been giving me action on as many as 4 tables heads up... I don't really want to post reads in case he finds this and I'm very likely to play him again (I think there's a fair chance he'll google me given how much I am up on him recently!)

I didn't really want to fold preflop because I thought there was some air/unpaired hands in his range and I have position... This is probably the first mistake. On the turn I thought I could rep some Qs, 2 pairs and even stronger hands, since I may check them back on the flop to induce a turn bet from air. I think this bet is slightly bad, but not horrible since I expect him to fold AK and air. He only needs to fold 1/4 of the time for this bet to be profitable...

The river is a magnificent card :)



$1/$2 No Limit Holdem
2 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
Hero ($201)
BB ($230)

Pre-Flop: ($3, 2 players) Hero is SB :7c: :9s:
Hero raises to $6, BB raises to $21, Hero raises to $42, BB raises to $66, Hero calls $24

Flop: :8d: :qd: :jh: ($132, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

Turn: :4h: ($132, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $38, BB says "qq he?", BB calls $38

River: :ts: ($208, 2 players)
BB goes all-in $126, Hero goes all-in $97

Final Pot: $431
BB shows a pair of Jacks
:js: :ad:
Hero shows a straight, Eight to Queen
:7c: :9s:

Hero wins $401 (net +$200)

BB collects $29 (net -$201)

Yeah I suck... :( I can't really believe he thought I had QQ on the turn though.... I'm snap-shoving QQ so fast preflop it's not even close to being in my range.

Chill time, beer is calling... 23k hands in a month is hard work!

The second hand is awesome/made me lol.

Hows things?

Everything is great atm, apart from the fact college are starting to get pissed by my attendance.. I don't even have poker for an excuse this month. I guess I'm just lazy.

I've been occasionally checking your PTR and it's great to see you crushing recently! I look forward to seeing your month graph. I'll get my arse on msn soon and we can sort out getting a pint sometime so you can divulge the secrets of your success!

Nearly a month since my last update! What a failure of a blog-keeper I am.

To make things worse, I am providing no garf with this update, since I am on my laptop on a train (with wifi omg wow) to the airport to get to Barcelona for a long weekend of doing not very much! :)

I have been massively lazy at poker this month, I think I've played 16k hands for $1.5k profit or so. I don't know how much I'm going to play in December either, since the 1/2FR tables are likely to be filled with nits chasing SNE or whatever milestone (I have given up on 400k veeps having failed so spectaluarly a putting in any sort of volume...) I may resort to making a Full Tilt account or something, which I was planning on doing when moving up to 2/4 anyway.

I have some fun hands to post when I get back and I'll put up my garf as well in all it's glory.

next blog entry will be better I promise

bump?

huge fail at keeping blogs.

Year garf so far

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h3.../Picture26.png

I'm not playing particularly great and I think I've got a lot of luck to thank for this graph, but I'm pretty happy with the results and hope to continue. I now feel truly settled for the first time at 400nl, luck has helped with that (running hot for the first few thousand hands when moving up a level makes a huge difference psychologically), but I've had a couple of rough patches and played through without spewing too much. Definitely a ton of room for improvement though...

Thought today would be a good day for an update because I played 400nl deep tables on PS for the first time today with hilarious consequences.

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h3.../Picture25.png

SHIP!

The absolute highlight, in twoplustwo styleeee

$2/$4 Ante $0.80 No Limit Holdem
5 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($1,285.75)
CO ($1,009.20)
Hero ($1,832.30)
SB ($772.20)
BB ($1,026.40)

Pre-Flop: ($10.00, 5 players) Hero is BTN :tc: :8s:
2 folds, Hero raises to $12

http://blogs.netapp.com/exposed/Wind...%20Devious.jpg

, SB calls $10, 1 fold

Flop: :7d: :6c: :9h: ($32, 2 players)
http://www.southdacola.com/blog/wp-c...G-A-Branch.jpg

SB bets $8,

http://api.ning.com/files/ou2dKjFnSw...sExcellent.jpg

Hero raises to $48, SB raises to $108,

http://www.ianfernando.com/wp-conten...racoon-yes.jpg

Hero raises to $248, SB calls $140

Turn: :8c: ($528, 2 players)

http://shilohwalker.files.wordpress....9/08/hmmmm.jpg
SB checks, Hero goes all-in $1,571.50, SB goes all-in $511.40
http://images.pictureshunt.com/pics/...igh_five-2497.
River: :ah: ($2,610.90, 2 players, 2 all-in)

Final Pot: $2,610.90
Hero shows a straight, Six to Ten
:tc: :8s:
SB shows a pair of Jacks
:jc: :js:

http://www.blakeneymanor.com/images/carryon/shock.jpg

Hero wins $2,608.90 (net +$776.60)

http://www.alexskarsgard.net/wordpre..._zoolander.gif

SB lost $772.20

rofl

congrats on improving ur table selection :D

gl @400NL

inspiring stuff. keep it up mang!

also dig that you grind on a mac as well.

Sick-o garfs badgers. That hand with emotive pics probably just made my year.

epic 2p2 style HH sir. yes yes athousand times yes is always a fucking epic pic

Best day evahhh!

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h3.../Picture31.png

Not many interesting hands really. Just a lot of coolering and sucking out. I think I played well overall though, with a couple of bad plays early in the day.

This is about as close as I can come to finding a cool hand. I just like it for the turn vbet. Obv it ends with me coolering him, but nevermind that :P


$2/$4 No Limit Holdem
PokerStars
2 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
Hero ($402)
BB ($400)

Pre-Flop: ($6, 2 players) Hero is SB :4c: :2c:
Hero raises to $12, BB calls $8

Flop: :3s: :2d: :3c: ($24, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $16, BB calls $16

Turn: :9c: ($56, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $40, BB calls $40

River: :5c: ($136, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $124, BB calls $124

Final Pot: $384
BB shows
:as: :4h:
Hero shows a flush, Nine high
:4c: :2c:

Hero wins $383 (net +$191)

BB lost $192

So things are going pretty well overall. I'm up more than $7k this month in around 5k hands (don't know exactly because some is on the unsupported sky poker network), at stakes no higher than 2/4. I need to get back into the grind though (barely played for a month due to end of year exams/ drinking afterwards), but I'm gonna be busy with a big project soon which I will spam this blog with in due course :P

HEAATTTTTERRRRR!

you and dozer got something in common!
nh sir

:O

badger badger badger, badger badger badger, badger badger badger - MUSHROOM MUSHROOM

2p2 style HH is massively epic. wp sir. wp.

Lost a couple of K in the last couple of sessions. Not gonna play any more in May because I'm going on a 900 mile bikeride from John o'Groats (very top of Scotland) to Lands End (bottom of England), the 2 furthest apart points in Great Britain.

Leaving in 7 hours, and I need sleep so I'm gonna keep this brief.

Be back in 10 days with a trip report and hopefully some pics to follow. :)

that is going to be an amazing experience. give us an update in between if you get a chance!

Let me know how the bike ride goes, me and my friend are half-way through planning the same trip!

I'm back!! :) Please excuse the self-indulgent trip report and skip straight to the cliffs if you wish!

Let me preface this trip report by saying that the planning that went into this trip was minimal. It was all planned at the last minute, I was literally printing out maps the night before we left, and we (me and my housemate) changed our plans multiple times during the trip. The only training either of us had done was a 3 mile cycle into college and neither of us had ever cycled more than 20 miles in a day. The plan was to cycle 100 miles every day for 9 days, so needless to say not many people believed that we would complete this on time!

We awoke at 5am on the day that we were to travel to Scotland. It was meant to be a 12 hour train journey, since the highlands of Scotland are really remote and the last 100 miles were meant to take 4 hours. There was also a 20 mile cycle to reach John o'Groats from the nearest train station. Unfortunately, a mix up with bike reservations meant that we were (almost literally) thrown off the train due to arrive at 6, and had to wait 4 hours for the next train. That left us with a 2 hour cycle in the dark, before setting up our tent for the first time at midnight at the top of Scotland in the pouring rain. Needless to say, we were miserable...

It was meant to be another 5am start on Saturday, but we gave ourselves another hour after the previous day's problems... We were behind schedule already with 100 miles to go. Before we got up, we heard a large group of cyclists who seemed to be heading to Land's End too. Without realising it, we had literally set up the tent within pissing distance of the famous signpost (there are signposts at either end of the country which mark the start/finishing points for anyone going from end to end.) Unfortunately for us, pictures by the sign are only allowed by a professional photographer, so the picture we have is by a stick with the signs removed, since they obviously weren't operating at 6.30am. The picture was taken by a random cyclist who said he was scouting the area for a cycle ride he was going to do in a few weeks. At 6.30am??? WTF?

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h3...202010/003.jpg

Anyway, once we got going it wasn't too bad. However, after a few hills and around 70 miles we were both feeling miserable and sore. This feeling intensified when the rain returned with a vengeance, totally crippling our enthusiasm, breaking our phones (albeit temporarily) and music players and soaking our tent. I insisted that we pushed on to reach our target through the rain, so we got to Invergordon and made the decision to get a hotel for the night so that we could let the tent, the sleeping bags and also our clothes dry out.

On the next day our fortunes changed massively. Lee Jones was smiling on us as the skies brightened, the hills flattened and the incredible scenery spurred us on. It was a comparitively easy day of cycling so I'll just let the pictures do the talking...

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h3...202010/015.jpg

Invergordon is the location of a dock to repair oil rigs, which is a pretty surreal sight.

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h3...202010/026.jpg

Me on the Loch Ness Monster :D Loch Ness pictured below

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h3...202010/033.jpg

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h3...202010/036.jpg

The old chinese lady who took this pic for us was really lovely, but afterwards she told us to enjoy our holiday... We couldn't help but laugh, this didn't fell much like a holiday :o




We reached Fort William (our scheduled stop) at around 7.30, but we decided to push on to Glencoe, a village at the foot of the highlands where we set up camp for the night.

Glencoe in the morning (camera ran out of battery so phone pics..)

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-...7_371104_n.jpg

The lack of planning came back to haunt us as we left Glencoe on Monday morning intending to get breakfast in the next village. Unfortunately, 20 miles, 3 hours later after constant climbing, we had exhausted our food supplies and were still miles from the next village... But it was another spectacular day and we powered through.

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._2576385_n.jpg

I also saw a hitch-hiker getting picked up in a hummer by a dodgy looking man which was an entertaining experience :D

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h3.../edited082.png

We reached Glasgow and pushed on about 10 miles south-east into Hamilton, where the local dickheads tried to play hoopla with cyclists (and almost succeeded...) We got another hotel as rain was forecast overnight and we were exhausted.

Early the next morning we made a decision that should have been made before we set off....

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h3...202010/088.jpg

Yep. Tent and everything in a skip. We should probably have taken it to a charity shop but I was going completely bonkers carrying that much weight around and couldn't cope with having to carry it any longer.

There was more spectacular scenery and more horrible hill climbing between Hamilton and Carlisle on Tuesday, but by now our primary focus was on getting there not on sight-seeing! When we stopped in Carlisle for food, I somehow miraculously lost the bike lock key between the back of the pub and the table. This meant we lost about an hour while we searched and called out the locksmith who kindly cut up the lock with a circular saw (free of charge when we told him where we had come from!). But we really had to work to get back on schedule, and we ended up cycling until 11.30 in the dark and the fog along dangerous country roads to Penrith.... Scary stuff. We were literally diving into the bushes whenever we heard a car coming. When we got to Penrith we found that the hotel I had booked was another 5 miles away, but thankfully there was somewhere with a cancellation nearby. I did not want to go back onto those roads before sunrise!

Soon after leaving on Wednesday morning, we were greeted by this welcoming sign.

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._1383232_n.jpg

Bollocks!

Oh well. It actually wasn't too bad since we had ditched a lot of the weight and we had come so far already. We also knew that we were coming home!! Wednesday night we reached a local bar in Machester to meet a bunch of friends and that really pushed us on, making that our fastest 100 mile day! We had to get out of the bar quickly though as everyone seemed intent on buying us shots to sabotage our ride! It was great to sleep in my own bed again for the night.

On Thursday, we planned to go for 115 miles from Manchester to my uncle's house near Hereford. We did have a bike problem for the first time, a puncture in Shrewsbury, and with us both being bike novices who had literally never changed an inner tube before we were a bit worried, that was until we saw a bike shop literally just across the road who sorted us out for free!! Running good at bike rides!! It was a long day, but we knew it was fairly flat so it was doable and we were greeted with a cold beer and a big fry-up! Heaven! :)

On Friday we had a pretty spectacular day, including going past Tintern Abbey in the Wye Valley,

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._2995558_n.jpg


and crossing the old Severn Bridge, which unfortunately I have no pics of, only a vid which I haven't uploaded yet. But anyone who knows the bridge knows it would be pretty special, it's suspension bridge about a kilometre long with huge towers and marks the crossing from Wales into England.

We managed to push on to Taunton, leaving us way ahead of schedule, and Jon's parents came with a caravan giving us relief from the bags and a guaranteed place to stay overnight, for which I am eternally thankful!!

Throughout the trip we'd been going past cyclists doing the trip in the opposite direction, as well as being overtaken by some more serious cyclists going our way, some of whom cycled alongside for a chat which was really nice. On Friday night we met a group of 3 cyclists and their support driver, who turned out to be one of the nicest people I've ever met! Now that we didn't have the bags we were able to pretty much keep pace with this group despite our exhaustion, and he was always there to fill our water bottles and cheer us up! He even took this picture of us, one of my favourites from the trip

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-...2_993263_n.jpg

We got past the Bodmin moors on Saturday, leaving us only 45 miles for the final day. Way ahead of schedule! It was our first stress free day really, the end was in sight and the hills, although ever present and annoying, just seemed to fly past!

We reached the finish around 1.30pm and celebrated in style! Jon's parents had created a large banner for us and showered us in bubbly which was amazing :D FINISHED! In 8 days, 8 hours, complete with comedy sunburn...

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h3...202010/163.jpg

Here we are with one of the other group. The camaraderie between cyclists was really special and something I will remember about the experience.

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._4964580_n.jpg

I don't have the picture by the sign yet, it should be in the post from the professional photo company, and it will take pride of place on my wall for a long time to come!

Overall we raised about $2k for charity, and we managed to avoid paying the 10% of the total raised from our own pockets per day we were late, which could have become expensive pretty quickly!!

It was an awesome experience, I'm not in a particular rush to do anything like it again for a while because I'm still sore, but I'd defintely recommend it Adam! You can just plan/train as you go :P

Cliffs:

Made it back in one piece and on time.
Ow.

nice work dude! sounds/looks like you had a great trip. I copied my version of the lolz cliff notes below.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by badgers

The only training either of us had done was a 3 mile cycle into college and neither of us had ever cycled more than 20 miles in a day. The plan was to cycle 100 miles every day for 9 days, so needless to say not many people believed that we would complete this on time!
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I also saw a hitch-hiker getting picked up in a hummer by a dodgy looking man
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Yep. Tent and everything in a skip.
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, I somehow miraculously lost the bike lock key between the back of the pub and the table. This meant we lost about an hour while we searched and called out the locksmith who kindly cut up the lock with a circular saw
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a bike problem for the first time, a puncture in Shrewsbury, and with us both being bike novices who had literally never changed an inner tube before we were a bit worried,

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way to go. congrats raising that money for charity and making it to the end!

That is incredibly impressive, Badgers. I can't believe you guys cycled that distance with little to no bike knowledge, kind of makes me feel better at least!

How were your legs? I've been told by the second day the pain when you wake up is horrifying but once you get going you're ok, any truth to that?

At gg man, that's quite some distance! 100 mile days cycling is really hardcore, hope you got some well deserved pints back in Manc.

Thanks guys! :D I wasn't too bad on the second day, but that definitely sounds accurate from the 3rd morning onwards. Walking and especially running became more and more difficult lol, but after about an hour on the bike you get into a rhythm and it's not too bad, until you stop! One unexpected problem was that my hands swelled up after holding on to the handlebars all day, and they still haven't gone back to normal. It's a bit of a problem seeing as I'm a drummer... Other than that I feel pretty much back to normal now, which is nice!

I've immediately gone back to being a lazy dickhead... World cup fever has taken it's toll on me and I may be stuck to the sofa for a month or so.

epic stuff