A trial session down the Coventry Canal

the speed per mile in a cool graph and the altitude

The route we took from the basin all the way past the RICOH stadium and back

The Coventry Basin

The Coventry canal

Yesterday Rebecca and I had a 2 hour trial session down the Coventry canal, which is the nearest stretch of water to where we work without any locks for quite a long time, thus perfect for a session!

We started from the Basin in the centre of Coventry, just off the ring road. It is a lovely redeveloped area, and the canal itself was largely devoid of the usual floating rubbish.

We managed to go all the way past the RICOH stadium to bridge #9 before it was time to turn back.

It actually felt tranquil and rather pleasant. There was the occasional fisherman, kids, or people walking their dog. Much fewer canal-boats than I expected. I guess because it is a dead-end?

Endomondo rocks!

We recorded our progress using the endomondo app, which gave us a good readout of our progress. Click here for the full statistics and interactive map.

"Quick" canoeing trip at 13 minutes/mile

What is a realistic time?

What is interesting is the total time a trip really, realistically takes. Not just the actual paddling on the water, but getting there, get into the water, walk around a lock, have a break, etc.

Today's challenge

So today's challenge was to determine what a realistic time and distance would be. Jonathan is my canoeing buddy.

I love Endomondo!

I used my GPS enabled HTC phone to record the trip on Endomondo. I have used this many times in the past for my running and cycling. Very, very cool app!

So according to Endomondo Kayaking Workout: "I was out kayaking 9.21 miles in 2h:45m:48s"

When you click on the link you will see the trip super-imposed on Google maps.

A quick calculation shows that we had an average speed of 3.3mph, including breaks and 1 lock.

Scary Calculations

Based on this, IF, IF.......we did 35 miles per day, that would be a total duration of ~11 hours per day including breaks....and we have to do this 4 days long.....ouch....

Fortunately, Endomondo also provides a speed graph, so you can see how long and how fast we went. From this I can see that we actually went at a pace of ~5mph when we were paddling.

We did not paddle for 4 minutes at the beginning, and had a very comfortable 36 minutes break in the middle. You can also see where we stopped for the lock.

Looking at the lap-times graph it shows that we did an average of ~13 minute miles.

35 miles/dayX13minutes/mile=455minutes=7.5hrs/day of pure paddling without a break...still ouch....

Minor improvements to the rudder

I changed the nylon guylines for steel cable so there is no slack in the rudder. This worked much better than feared, as it is a stiffer system to push, but actually it worked great, as it provided more stability.

Bent pedal

I bent the left foot pedal, so I have bought two extra corner brackets, to create a double strength bracket for my feet.