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22/12/22 - Snow joke
It’s taken me a while to get round to writing this post. It’s but of a painful one for me and I’ve been consciously avoiding it. There’s been a serious cold snap with a serious amount of snow and ice and serious consequences for cycling.
I know, I know, if you have turbo – and I do – you keep calm and carry on cycling indoors. But I didn’t feel calm. Not at all. The week or so of freeze up reminded me a little too much of pandemic restrictions. In particular, it reminded me of early 2021 when I caught Covid while still unvaccinated. The illness itself hit me pretty hard and to add insult to injury I suffered post-viral fatigue for six weeks. During that time I was unable to exercise and became quite depressed, as I rely on physical activity for my sense of wellbeing. And my being, it took a nosedive, to say the least.
From that time I really have a massive appreciation of what people who’ve had long Covid have been going through. The inability to do, causes depression. Not just feeling down and depressed, but actual depression.
Once I was clear of the fever, I was left with a sore chest. As a lifelong asthmatic, this is worrying. As soon as the chest pain eased off, I got on the trainer. Nothing major. Just 15-20 minutes of easy pedaling. And I mean super easy, 130-140w, but my heart rate was much higher than it should be. The following day the chest pain would return and I’d be knocked out energy-wise. A few days would pass and the chest would improve gain and I’d try again with the same results. And repeat for six weeks. It took three of those super easy 15 minute sessions I a row without a reaction to feel confident enough to up it a little and get out on the road.
My fitness had taken a big hit, but I was so determined to get it back and enjoy every second on the bike. I added some midweek road miles to my schedule to regain my base and in about 8 weeks I was flying again. PBs followed that season at 10 and 25 mile time trials, I ran a 5 day spring training camp and completed the King Alfred’s Way over four days. 2021 way a good year for me in the end.
Last week, although still able do static bike training, that lockdown feeling started to resurface. I don’t like it. I like endorphins and I like structured training, but what I like most of all is getting out of the house, seeing some countryside and having a bit of an explore. It’s partly the challenge and partly just being somewhere different.
Initially I tried some Zone 2 virtual rides. It makes sense, right? A couple of hours chugging along building the base while gazing at some virtual scenery on the screen. I just didn’t have the heart for it. Maybe it was the knowledge that the freeze up was going to be going for a while and this felt terminally dull. New plan, for my next ride I took it up a level (or a zone in fact) and managed 70 mins in Zone 3. Not quite the 2 hours I’d planned, but something and I didn’t feel too bored. To be honest, whatever I tried on the turbo felt rubbish, because I was feeling trapped.
My usual week of cycling consists of three midweek turbo sessions (Tuesday-Thursday) and two or three gentle-paced commutes. Monday and Friday are rest days. Then at the weekend I usually I let rip and get out and about and do some longer rides. This is what I look forward to. In spring and summer there’ll be an event or race thrown in most weekends. It wasn’t until the rain which washed away the snow had passed that I ventured out. I took on the Radlett Revolution route and in spite of it being a little busy with motor traffic, I loved it. What a relief. Normal service has been resumed, as they say.
Now that the white out is done, I’m really looking forward to the Christmas break and getting out there on the bike. I’m even going to give the Rapha Festive 500 a go. I’ve actually never done it. I’ve planned my rides out and if anyone wants to join me, I’ve posted details on the forum thread here.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
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14/11/2022 Winter is coming… or is it?
Scary things are on their way. And I don’t mean white walkers, the undead, the Lannisters or sudden wedding massacres. What we fear as cyclists is plummeting temperatures, endless rainy days, high winds, black ice, shorter days and puncture after puncture. Then there is that slick, sticky road grime that gnaws and grinds away on your expensive bicycle components. Perhaps it’s more Apocalypse Now than Game of Thrones. The prospect of taking your pride and joy out in hostile conditions is enough to have you babbling “the horror, the horror…” This year’s unseasonably warm weather deep into November has only served to delay the inevitable and perhaps ramp up the tension, because winter will surely come soon. How will we cope?
First of all, you need to look after your body. What to wear, what to wear? My rule of thumb is that if you feel a little bit cool before you start exercising, by the time you are up to speed, you’ll feel warm enough. I have a winter jacket, but I rarely use it. A merino base, long sleeve jersey and a gilet is enough for me. If I need more than that, it’s usually sub-zero and then I won’t go out for fear of ice. That said, I usually get caught out by black ice where there's some frozen run off once every year.
As I’ve been riding a few years, I have quite a glove collection. Obviously you won’t be wearing mitts, but I think two sets are needed - a lighter, full-fingered glove and a heavier duty thermal glove. You can get an integrated system of light gloves and an overglove. Then there are the lobster-style super heavy duty gloves, also useful at near freezing temperatures or if you feel the cold in your extremities. Some of us do and it’s painful.
By the way, not these lobster gloves.
Those are for Halloween. I mean this kind of lobster-style gloves.
You could also acquire a waterproof set of gloves. Alright, three or four sets. Well, that escalated quickly!Keeping your legs warm is somewhat obvious, wear 3/4s or full tights. And your feet will need attention, because that’s not even funny when you can’t feel your toes. Thick socks and those toe warmers or full overshoes will also help protect your pretty cycling shoes from an early demise. Or you could get a set of winter cycling shoes. I’m a fan. Get a set that is both thermal and waterproof and you won’t regret it. A cap and a buff for for neck should also be in your armoury.
Then there’s the bike. You can winterise pretty much any bike. Start by changing the tyres for fatter and/or more robust ones and I’d urge you to clean it after every wet ride. You should fit mudguards, that’ll make it so much easier to clean and keep the crud off of you and your components. And your fellow riders, of course. Use lights, even in the daytime, and make sure you can fix a puncture. You will get more punctures in the winter and then some more. Nothing worse than standing at the roadside with numb digits trying to repair a flat. If you can do it with your eyes closed, so to speak, it will feel the much easier in tough conditions.
I like having a dedicated winter trainer bike with full mudguards and cheaper-to-replace components. I thought this was a universal thing, but apparently, it’s peculiar to us Brits. A fixed-gear bike fits the bill perfectly for me. The only thing that will wear out is the chain, brake pads and tyres. A new set of each of these will see me through the season. Riding with one gear means no thinking (about gear changes at least), high cadence/pedal stroke practice and overloaded climbing, which is strength work. When spring comes and you switch back to a geared bike, you get the bonus of it feeling so much easier.
OK, now that we’ve drifted onto training. Most cyclists tend to ride slower in winter for several reasons. Whatever the reason – scientific training reason or whatever – it’s an opportunity to be social and have a chat with other riders. It’s a chance to explore, too. Is there a route you’ve been wanting to try, an extension to existing loop you’d like to build in or have you ever just wondered where that road led to? I like to get some daylight in winter, so if I can get out, I will get, but there are always those days. Two, three of four hours in the rain might build mental strength, but is not so great for your physical health. You could just suit up and do a shorter ride or, if turbo training floats your boat, ride indoors. Every gym has static bikes, so you can always get a session in.
Be smart. Avoid days when there’s a risk of ice or if it's sub-zero stick to main roads that have been salted (that's assuming the council have had the gritters out). You absolutely must clean your bike from top to toe if you do that. It’s great to have a hot drink and take on some fuel at a cafe, but don’t stop for too long. It can get really hard to warm up again. It makes sense to be flexible as to what time you head out. Choose wisely. Cycling makes weather forecasters of us all. Will Saturday be dryer than Sunday? I like using the Rain Today app. This will tell you when it’ll rain in the next hour and how heavily with a high degree of accuracy. You can also look further into the future by bringing up their radar map and zooming out to see if there are rain clouds looming beyond the hour mark.
There’s still some racing to be had in winter. Cyclo-cross makes a virtue of the wet and the mud and velodromes have a lovely warm roof and the air is kept at a cosy 28C. Nice! You can even find the odd time trial, sportive or audax. If all else fails, you can always do something apart from cycling, such as cross training, switch to running, weights, yoga, pilates, core work, badminton (did I just say badminton?). You might come back fresher from the change. Or you might find a new passion.
Unsurprisingly, Canadians know a thing or two about cold weather riding, check out this video from Canadian Cycling Magazine about prepping your bike for winter.
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17/10/2022 - The sincerest form of flattery
Il Lombardia - or the Race of the Falling Leaves, as it is sometimes known - is the final Monument of the cycling season. In other words, it’s a big deal and it brings a full stop to cycling's road racing season.
South London cycling club Dulwich Paragon have run a sportive for several years now in tribute called The Ride of the Falling Leaves. And very nice it is, too. I’d say it is my favourite sportive. Starting in south London at the Herne Hill Velodrome with coffee and pastries, you take a lap of the famous circuit before heading out on a beautiful rural route that includes some eye-watering climbs (Toys Hill and Sundridge Hill both come to mind). As if that wasn’t enough, the ride finishes in the grounds of a cricket club, where pasta and a beer are served as part of your entry fee.
So, when Spoke Cycles in Codicote put forward their own more northerly Ride of the Falling Leaves, I jumped at it. Like the Paragon event, this would be 100km (with a 60km option) and the ticket promised beer and frites at the finish as part of the entry fee, with Il Lombardia on the big screen.
On the day, the weather played ball with crisp, blue autumn skies and, yes, there were autumn leaves rattling around the roads. Parts of the route map looked familiar to me, in fact, I think I’ve ridden nearly all of these roads before. For good reason, they are quite lovely. There are no super large climbs – this is Hertfordshire, not Lombardia, remember – but the Spoke route does undulate (a lot) and there are some tough sections.
Whereas I had previously attacked the Paragon’s RoTFL events, aiming for a gold standard time, this year I wanted to play it differently. I wanted to use the event to signal, not the last race, but rather the beginning to my winter training base miles and so I planned go a bit easier. That thought didn’t last long, as I attacked the route from the off. It just felt right and the first part of the course seemed like it was egging me on to do so. I was going great guns, but starting to feel it by 30 miles. And I did regret my earlier exuberance by the 40-mile point, roughly where the food stop was, as my legs were none too happy with me.
It was great to see Spoke owner, Alex Anderson, there staffing the food stop and encouraging riders. I understood from him that there were only 100 places they could offer this year, as they were being cautious with the café’s public liability insurance. Next time could see a much expanded field and their next event… wait for it… it might well be a gravel event. And Alex also revealed that Spoke are looking to expand their menu. Watch that space.
A guy called Rob left the food stop at the same time and we nursed each other through the next 12 miles or so, until his patience or my limited climbing ability expired. I struggled through the last few miles solo and gleefully queued for my chips and pint and a chillax watching others murder themselves at the legit race.
I’d highly recommend both the route and the event. Given that the route comes south, you could do it any time. If you ride up from north London, you could pick it up at Epping Green.
https://ridewithgps.com/routes/40604675
Or you could take a train from Finsbury Park to Welwyn Garden City, which is only 3 miles from Spoke and do either the long or short route. Here’s the shorter version.
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03/10/2022 - Going coastal
When the World Championships are done and dusted, comes the realisation that the season is all but over. We’ve raced or done our big events or challenge rides, maybe quite a few of them. The best of the weather and the party is over, but we still have all the strength and fitness we’ve built up through the summer. All revved up and nowhere to go. What to do, what to do?
Road trip!
Well, off-road trip. I decided to take myself and my hard won vigor on Cycling UK’s new off-road route in Kent, the Cantii Way. And, no, I still don’t know how to pronounce Cantii. This route is 150 miles and is mostly traffic-free and mainly on the coast. Pretty, pretty flat. I knew this would not be as technically challenging as the King Alfred’s Way, which I‘d ridden last year, and that suited me down to the ground. I wanted mellow. And mellow is more or less what I got. Well, what we got.
I planned this a few months back. Regular View from Here readers will have worked out by now that I am something of a planner. This was the perfect ride to get to spend some real-life time with my former colleague Benjamin. We’d worked together for 6 months in the lockdowns. When we weren’t working at getting more people cycling, we were talking about cycling. We just had to get on bikes together.
Planning. It’s half the fun for me. What kit will I take with? What size tyres should I use? Fenders or no fenders? Benjamin was happy for me to create a schedule with all the rest stops at 15-20 mile intervals. I'd researched that they were top rated or at least decent looking and checked their opening times. I maybe went a little bit too far by creating a pacing predictor, so that we could see the likely arrival time at each rest stop according to a range of average speeds. Clearly I’m spending too much time on Excel in my day job.
We were riding this in two days from Ashford, clockwise. The train from St Pancras to Ashford International is just 35 minutes or so away and you are straight onto the route. And we were on the route, but going south not north. Oops. An extra mile there. I went with 35mm tyres and mudguards and soon got to have that choice tested with the roughest part of the route. It was only a short section and 35mm proved to be a sound choice joining the Crab and Winkle Way that links Canterbury to Whitstable. From Whistable onwards, we were on the coast almost the whole way to Dover.
It was sunny, blue sky above, blue sea to our left and we were riding the promenades. Traffic-free, but not pedestrian-free, so we couldn’t blast it. We didn’t want to. Stopping at spots like Reculver, you want to take them in and enjoy them fully. And I always want to chat to whoever is about. Why? (A) I just like meeting people and (B) I often learn something about where I am.
Aside from pedestrian and dog dodging, riding along beside the beaches, harbours and seagulls brought another challenge. Wind. And it was always a headwind. I know it wasn’t crazy windy by the standards of how it can be on the Kent coast, but it was constant. Benjamin couldn’t care less. In fact, he liked it. He’d lived on the Isle of Thanet and he attacked the wind at every opportunity. The wheelsucker in me was delighted. Go, Benjamin!
We sped on towards Broadstairs, where we planned to catch up with a mutual colleague, Patrick. He rode out towards us and escorted us to the Bandstand Café on the front. This seemed like a good choice from my internet scouting. There was a clue in bandstand which I hadn’t considered. There was a performer crooning and playing keyboards over backing tracks. A little sign against his keyboards proclaimed “Nostalgia.” And that’s what we got, perfect for the elderly clientele gathered. It all seemed to fit for purpose until he went a bridge too far and took on Desmond Decker’s The Israelites. With this track it was time for these Israelites to make our exodus from Broadstairs.
We landed at our B&B in Dover – yes, B&B, I’m not ready for bike-camping – and chilled out a little before heading to a pub to refuel. I’d picked out The White Horse which served Beaverton beers and good-looking food. The walls and ceilings were covered in graffiti - names, times and dates. It took us about half an hour and half a pint to work out what this odd decor was all about. Channel swimmers. The big clue was E-F ad F-E. England-France and France-England. Some teams, some solo. One solo swimmer had E-F-E next to a 27 hour time. Zoinks. That is a lot of swimming. It was amazing to be surrounded by all that endeavour. I felt pretty done in after more than 80 miles of fully loaded riding, but wow, 27 hours. Benjamin had to Google the longest solo swim – 77 miles unaided. That must be about 50 hours in the water. The Oregon Quacks team tickled me, as my wife is from Oregon and a graduate of the University of Oregon. Their sports teams are all called Oregon Ducks.
Did I mention the 80 miles fully loaded? I slept hard. And getting up was hard. There was some muscle soreness. After a generous cooked breakfast we got going and the soreness melted away. After climbing out of Dover, we are routed on the hills behind Folkstone. It’s only 500ft above sea level, but it affords some good views of the town, such as it is. The route stays scenic until you approach Dungeness. Bleak doesn’t come close to describing it. Marsh to one side and the nuclear power station on the other. Our rest stop was appropriately named End of the Line. It was a good time to stop because it hammered down while we ate.
The rain cleared bang on cue for the end of our scheduled stop and we ploughed on towards Rye, aware that a significant amount of rain had been forecast for the rest of the day. We passed the power station, but the coastal view didn’t open out until we reached Camber Sands. There was a considerable military area and then an industrial area. We escaped this to enter the Romney Marshes, which have an atmosphere all of their own. I was feeling in good shape, stronger as the ride went on. I even, and this is all true, took the wind for a good long stretch to Rye and pushed the pace.
If you don’t know Rye, well, you should. It is a stunning historic town and I’d picked out the Cobbled Café for our afternoon tea. Assam, actually, and I paired it with Victoria sponge. Tea was delightful, but also paired with a downpour. We checked all our weather apps, forecasts and it looked like downpour would continue for at least the next two hours. We called it and took the train from Rye. That made it an even 50-mile day. Decent enough. I did head to the station feeling somewhat interrupted. I had more, I was growing into this ride, but 2 hours in heavy rain would not be fun. That was it, all done.
A few learning points for me:
- I thought I’d overpacked, especially at the 50 mile mark on Day 1, when I felt like I was dragging a juggernaut along. However, I used or wore everything I brought with the exception of one thing.
- I didn’t eat all the bars and gels I had. I always make a point of packing enough food to be totally independent, but this is far from a wilderness ride. From Whitstable round the coast to Ramsgate there are a slew of cafes on the promenade. And slew of loos, too.
- There are no easy days when you are fully loaded
- On a related note, taking a mini convenience lock is worthwhile for your loo stops
- 35mm tyres were fine for this ride. There are one or two really rough sections, but if you can weather these, you’ll get the benefit on the majority of this route. Not sure if I'd do OK going any narrower in the rough for my personal comfort levels
- There are two (very slightly different) versions of this route, one takes in Margate and the Isle of Thanet, the other cuts out Thanet and add a loop to Winchelsea. You could actually combine the two - it only adds 10 miles
- The off-road section in the run in to Dover is unnecessary. It takes you away from the speedy tarmac descent into the town and instead offers you a track with three of four joy killing gates, just when you want an easy life
- I like chatting to strangers, but when they say "I really am a rubbish photographer," I should believe them and carry on with a selfie
- And finally, however tired you may seem after a day’s ride, don’t underestimate your body’s ability to bounce back the next day
- I thought I’d overpacked, especially at the 50 mile mark on Day 1, when I felt like I was dragging a juggernaut along. However, I used or wore everything I brought with the exception of one thing.
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19/09/2022 - Golden oldies
How on earth does this old chap – me – find himself racing at a national championship? I’m asthmatic and I have a knee deformity. I’ll grant you Ian Botham is asthmatic and (like me) Paul Scholes is both asthmatic and has Osgood-Schlatter disease. But I don’t have their talent, I just don’t have “good DNA.” I train very hard to be by club standards reasonable. And yet here I am at a national championship.
How - in the name of Mike - is this even possible?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0euxBgTEvGQ
Well, by choosing to race a niche (time trials), within a niche (veterans), within a niche (on a tandem). A niche, within a niche, within a niche. Turns out if your category is obscure enough, you don’t have to qualify, you just pay £12 and show up. This why I find myself at the Veterans Time Trials Association (VTTA) National 25-mile Championship with my tandem partner, Richard May alias +RichardM.
Our brilliant plan to arrive 90 mins before the off feels like misguided enthusiasm when the race organiser announces that owing to heavy mists on the course, the start is delayed by 30 minutes. It’s a really heavy mist and we’re informed he can delay the start by an additional 30 minutes maximum, after which we either race or it’s all cancelled. We bide our time and check out the competition. Although there were five pairs entered in the tandem category, one pair did so in error and have requested to race solo. We had plenty of time for a good nosy at the other machines.
So, a gang of four competing for the national title. There are Kirton and Stockley, 81 and 82 respectively and racing on their James Fothergill steel machine. It features a home-rigged water pipe for the captain and it seems the stocker is expecting bad weather with a rain coat lashed to the frame, too.
Then there is Swanley and Churchill (75 and 63), who are riding their Matrix Tank. This is an aluminium and carbon composite frame. The stoker has an interesting hand position on their set up. The top tube is even between the two riders, so the stocker has to have their arms either side of the pilot’s rear end to get in an aero position. We estimate their chain ring at 60T, ie mahoosive!
Lastly there are the Hutchisons (59 and 57) who are also riding a Matrix Tank. It’s unusual to see two tandems of the same mark in one place. Their configuration also has what I’m calling the “cuddle position” and a carbon belt on one side of the drive chain. The cockpit looks flash and they tell us this is a brand new bike for them. Gosh. Earlier in the season we beat them on the F11/10 by just one second. If they’ve made improvements, that second could vanish fast.
Let’s not forget us, Shannon and May. We are the “youngsters” at 58 and 51. We just so happen to have made one or two improvements to the Calfee Dragonfly we race on. The front wheel has been swapped for one with an 85mm depth rim, the tyres are brand new GP5000 TTs, the cockpit has been moved forward 7mm (so the pilot’s head is lower), the bottle with tools in it has been replaced by a small saddle bag, we’ve both got trip socks and aero overshoes on and I am wearing a proper TT helmet. Plus I've lost a whole stone in weight since we last raced. All this must add up, surely.
The clouds seem to have lifted and the organiser announces that we’ll start with the 30 min delay factored in to start times. Right then, onto the turbo to warm up, grab a couple of gels, pop the overshoes on and off to the start. I’d been careful to make a route from the HQ to the start point. It’s 3.5 miles. I don’t want to get lost. However, when we swing out of the car park, Richard’s path is totally at odds with the route on my head unit. He’s following other racers, so no problem. Except time is ticking down towards our start time and my route says we are miles (yes, miles) from the start. I have a total mini melt down and order Mr May to halt. It seems I've loaded the wrong route on my computer and it's guiding us to the E9/25 in Chelmsford. Today we are racing the F2A/25 which is near Cambridge. Oops. Not even the same county. Knowing what has happened I am able to stop freaking out, especially as the start is visible and just 200m down the road.
We haven’t ridden the F2A/25. It’s meant to be PDQ (pretty darn quick). And it’s not a complicated route. Go west to a roundabout, come back to the start, repeat, done. Even with our recent track record of accidentally ending up on a motorway, we’re confident of at least finishing this one. Boom, we’re off and quickly up to an average speed of 27mph. 27.8 at the roundabout. Cripes, this is PB territory. It’s really flat. That’s great, but it means there’s no rest going downhill, just a moment to catch our breath at the turn points. We have to give way at the first roundabout, which sucks our pace a bit, but there no repeat when we do it the second time.
We overtook the senior pair, Kirton and Stockley, at about 6 miles, but don’t see hide nor hair of the other two pairs. It’s not exactly warm, but I’m sweating buckets trying to keep my power up and so relieved when we reach the finish. I guess I was in the “if you’re not sure if you can carry on” zone that Chris Boardman says is about right for time trialling. The other two Boardman zones are “I can’t go on like this” and “I think I could go harder.” I gave it everything and I’ve rarely been happier to snap the stop button and the finish and check the time.
Our official time was 54 minutes and 53 seconds. A PB and a huge improvement on our previous best of 56:13. It's also a club record. Richard was thinking that sub-55 would be a good 2023 target. Think again, buddy. Back at HQ we check the other teams’ times helpfully projected on a big screen. We are the fastest machine by some way. The gap to our nearest rivals, the Hutchisons, is 1:18. A bit more than the single second earlier in the season. But wait. Have we won? Like VAR, we have to wait and check.
The VTTA Championships are handicap events, using VTTA Standards. Standard times that a man or woman is rated against for their age. This means mixed tandem pairs can compete against single sex pairs and all ages get a fair crack at it. It doesn’t feel fair as the adjustment (based on the time difference to your standard time) means that we’ve gone from being the fastest machine to the slowest. And the senior pair, although the slowest, are now the fastest. I’m not one for scripture, but the first shall be last and the last shall be first spins around my head for a while.
Many congratulations to Kirton and Stockley. They actually put in a time of 1:02:53, which is pretty astonishing for octogenarians. I’d be pretty astonished just to be racing in my eighties. Something for us all to aspire to.
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08/09/2022 - The cost of cycling crisis
We all know there’s a cost of living crisis. We are currently getting daily messages about large numbers of the population having to choose between heating and eating. This is very real and very tough. Sports that are expensive to participate in such as cycling, may well see a drop off in numbers or may become increasingly less accessible to people on a low income. Cycle sport can be something of a money pit.
There’s never been a better time to start the recent Hacks for cheap cycling thread.
Kudos to +ChrisGold for getting that that discussion started.Part 1 - groupset hell
At this precarious moment in economic history Shimano have launched their 105 Di2 groupset. For those not in the know, groupset is collective term for the gear and brake system of your bike. Di2 means it’s electronic. And the new 105 Di2 groupset is also disc brake only and comes in at about £1,700. It’s meant to be really good. But there is no rim brake version and no mechanical version being made.
You could – indeed still can for the time being – pick up a mechanical, rim brake 105 groupset for £500 and a brand new complete bike from a respected manufacturer equipped with 105 for about £1,000. For this reason 105 has been affectionately known as the people’s groupset. Why is (or was) that £1,000 price point important? Well, it’s roughly what a new cyclist looking to get serious about cycling is prepared to pay and what you get for your money is seen as good enough to compete on.
Campag decommissioned their 105-equivelent groupset, Veloce, in 2020. They still make their 11-speed, mechanic set, Centaur, which can be had for about £600. However, Centaur is not being made in large numbers. Maybe bike manufacturers should start offering more complete bikes with Centaur? C'mon, give Campag a call! Then there’s SRAM. Their stable are all electronic and start at a price only a few hundred quid below 105 Di2.
The cost of an entry level racing bike will likely rise to £2,000-2,500, well beyond what most new riders are able or prepared to pay. 105 is longer the people's groupset. Without a race-worthy mechanical groupset you either have to go to Shimano’s next level down from 105 - Tiagra - on a cheaper or put up about £2,000 for a bike with one of the lower tier electronic set ups. Is my concern misplaced? Is Tiagra good enough to race on? Will Tiagra become the new people's groupset? It's 10sp and there are disc brake versions. And are SRAM and Camping missing a trick for not having a lower level groupset that could work well on a £1,000 complete bike?
Part 2 - my list of 10 hacks to save you money and keep you cycling
- Join ICC! Seriously. It’s amazing value. You get a heavily subsidised jersey when you join and so many riding opportunities, the forum, this blog…
- Quit the foreign legion and have your own DIY spring or autumn training camp at home. Remember all those routes you wanted to try out? Here's an example, I took a week off to ride and others are invited to join for as many or as few days as they fancy.
- Abide by the one bike to rule them all philosophy. Have a couple of tyre options and a set of mudguards for wet days and sell your surplus bike(s). As Mrs Shannonball says, "How many bikes can you ride at once?"
- Go second-hand. Use eBay, the forum, other forums. Old is still good. Like, er, good old Shimano 105, for instance.
- Excuse me if you’ve heard this one before, but don’t buy upgrades, ride upgrades. Do the miles. That is the bit that counts.
- Race fees add up over a season, so pick your events wisely. Many cycling events are now £50 or more to enter. Audax and reliability rides are usually about £12-15 and time trials are a similar price.
- Talking of adding up, what about all those subscriptions? I mean monthly moolah going out for Zwift, Strava, Training Peak, Trainer Road , RideWithGPS, Wahoo SYSTM, Rouvy and so on. I know I’ve had a touch of FOMO when it comes to these platforms and I’ve shut a couple down.
- Can you fix it? Start with the simpler things, such as punctures, brake pad replacement and popping in a new chain. Let YouTube be your university of bike maintenance and borrow the tools you need, if you don’t have them.
- Friendship is free. Also the views. Those fabulous views are free. Go somewhere pretty, take a digital photo. Share it. Reconnect with other riders and go explore.
- You can spend a small fortune one year on gels and bars, so why not make your own. There’s a ton of recipes out there. I like this one for energy bars, I’m a total sucker for peanut butter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMJEIiWV3VQ
- Join ICC! Seriously. It’s amazing value. You get a heavily subsidised jersey when you join and so many riding opportunities, the forum, this blog…
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22/08/2022 - Physics fail
This summer I spent a few weeks in America. The main purpose was to have a well-earned holiday and catch up with friends and family in Oregon and San Francisco, who we hadn’t seen for three years. While Stateside I also set myself the challenge of trying to defy the laws of physics. I aimed to do this in two ways.
First, I wanted to lose weight while on holiday. I know, crazy. This is never an easy thing and all the more testing when you’re spending time in the US of A, where sugar seems to be added to everything, portions are larger by default and just breathing the air feels calorific. I’d been dieting in the weeks running up to departure and had lost 10lbs. This loss was hard won and I was super keen to avoid supersizing myself.
My second challenge was to ride up Mount Diablo, which is near San Francisco where we’d spend the last three days of our break. Climbing is far from my strong suit and, according to Strava, this would be my biggest climb, eclipsing my ascent of the Puig Major back in 2015. Yeah, I know my limits, so I don’t take on mountains often (or at all) and I considered hauling my ageing, overweight ass up Diablo would be the second way I could break the laws of physics.
The first three weeks of my trip were to be spend with my in-laws in and around Salem in the Willamette Valley. The valley is mainly farmland and pretty darn flat, so little climbing practice was available to me. But I had a plan. I had a series of intensive workouts from my coach, Tim Ramsden, and I had earmarked a couple of reasonable climbs to cut my teeth on – one near Detroit Lake in the Cascades where we were going to camp and another near Waldport on the coast, where we’d spend much of our first week. Alas, on that week it felt like all bets were off as I went down with my second dose of Covid. I did manage four rides before surcumbing, including one up to Orchard Heights, west of Salem, where there are actually some hills and some vineyards. At one view point, I watched the mists rise from the valley.
Aside from the aches and pains of the virus, it was a mega pain to lose a week of training and, once I tested negative, I nursed myself up to speed. I had suffered six weeks of highly disruptive post-viral fatigue when I had my first Covid in Jan 2021, so I was very cautious indeed. On Tim's advice, I was working on heart rate. I started with a couple of Zone 1 rides, then a couple of Zone 2 rides before upping things another notch. I knew from my first encounter with the virus that I should look out for an unusually elevated heart rate, so I worked on HR rather than power to monitor things made a lot of sense. Looking ahead, I still strongly doubted I’d be in any shape to take on my biggest climb when we got to California in a couple of weeks. Darn.
I recovered enough to be riding in our second week while we were camping next to Detroit Lake. The climb I’d found there began three miles away at Idanha and rose 2,100ft over 7 miles. Decent enough for hill repeats? I set out super early, and was greeted by moody looking lake.
However, as WC Fields would say, when I got there, it was closed.
The area around Detroit Lake was subject to one of the worst burns in the autumn 2020 series wild fires that raged up and down the West Coast. A sign proclaimed that there was fire damage on the road – fallen trees and/or “widow makers” to remove. The latter being unsafe trees that might fall – and the road was closed. I managed an out and back towards Breitenbush instead. This was a long and really gentle climb - really a rise - but the ride was limited by another road closed sign 10 miles in. You can see Mt Jefferson and the burn stretching for miles.
This is a clean up job on a vast scale to make the roads and trails safe again. There is an off-road route, the Cascading Rivers Scenic Byway, that runs from Detroit Lake to Estacada, that I was hoping to try. As you’ve guess, this was closed, too.
So, our time in Oregon came to and end. It was great to reconnect with family. Sad, though, to say goodbye and have seen many of our favourite beauty spots badly burnt and to add insult to injury, I’d been badly burnt by Covid. I’d done what I could with my diet, but with no access to scales, all I could do is hope I was still on track.
We still had three days in Berkeley, San Francisco, with our friends the Zapiens. Three years ago I'd tempted Richard to climb Mt Tamalpais with me. The route featured a 10-mile gravel section and some the most beautiful views of the Bay. That ride saw Richard really struggle, but he was so utterly committed that he drove himself to complete it. I “coached him through” by sarcastically (and repeatedly) offering to call him an Uber.
In spite of all that, Richard is still talking to me and has become something of road cyclist in the last three years, riding with the Grizzly Peaks Cyclists and completing a series of century rides. He was up for Mt Diablo and given my Covid and all the climbs he has around Berkeley to practice on, I anticipated having my ass handed to me on a plate.
I hired a decent-looking carbon bike from Sports Basement and we set out early doors towards Mt Diablo so that we could avoid as much of the heat of the day as we could.
We went out through the lush and lovely forests of Tilden Regional State Park and gained 1,000ft, which was nice little warm up. When we got to the far side of the well-to-do towns of Lafayette and Walnut Creek, we entered the Mt Diablo State Park and got down to business. There are two ways to approach the summit, the North Gate and the South Gate. The former is harder and is what we’re doing.
Richard’s wife, Nicolle, had hiked this mountain and warned us repeatedly about rattle snakes. As such, my eyes darted left and right whenever we stopped. I’d seen some benign yellow racers out hiking that week, but really didn’t fancy coming face to face with their venomous relatives.
It was hot now, 90F. I paced myself, I had a 32T cog. I had water. I had more water. I had gels, I had bars, I had more water. I don’t know how long we’d been climbing when we got to a ranger station – much more than an hour. We made use of the restrooms and there was a sobering sign – another 4.5 miles to the summit.
We ploughed on. We got to a campsite with some shade and took another moment. We’d climbed 3,500ft so far and I was working on the basis that this was a 5,000ft climb. Richard said we’re just a few hundred yards from the summit. I’d been working off the wrong figure, in fact Mt Diablo is 3,849ft (and the climb is over 12 miles). Despite knowing the finish was a 17% section, I somewhat excitedly attacked, which I totally regretted as my hamstrings felt like they were going to explode.
Mt Diablo is a lone giant, like Mt Ventoux, so you get long distance views in all directions.
We had some PB&J sandwiches Richard had packed. I bought some choc ices at the visitor center and we chatted to the blissed out people wandering around the summit. One was a young triathlete who ridden up on a time trial bike. That seemed so wrong, but kudos to him.
After we descended, the temperature rose to 95F. Wow. Just in time we reached the Canyon Club Brewery and took in tacos, a chicken sandwich and a couple of their delicious brews. We went from the hell fire of Diablo to being blissed out and chilled out, while being “entertained” by the “country infused vintage rock and roll” of Dave “Ouzo” Land.
I’d been to the mountaintop, but had I lost or gained weight? Back in Blighty I stepped on the bathroom scales and, would you believe, I had actually lost 3lbs. Take that, physics!
Here’s the Diablo route:
https://ridewithgps.com/routes/40579790
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22/07/2022 - A parallel universe
There is another universe out there. You can access it more or less wherever you are in the world. It is quite different from this one. No, you are not entering a scene from the movie Everything, Everywhere, All at Once nor another timeline from Doctor Who. This is off road riding. Mountain bikers know how to get there, audax riders dip into it and the recent gravel phenomenon has opened up this zone to more of us cyclists. But how to get there? I’m going to demonstrate my method, which does not include spells, time machines, selling your soul to the devil or doing something unusual, a la Everything, Everywhere All at Once.
Let me explain first how I ended up hanging out in this other plane. The first lockdown hit us and I got absolutely sick to the back teeth of cyclists drafting me or riding near when we were doing our allowed daily exercise, unvaccinated and living under strict restrictions. I cracked and got myself a second-hand gravel bike, in my case from a club mate, and got off the grid. I wasn’t a complete newbie to riding off road, I had a mountain bike in the Eighties and have done and enjoyed Rapha’s A Day in Hell/Hell of the North events with its long gravé sectors, but at no stage developed any rad, as they say, skills.
I described this existence as off the grid because it’s somewhat quieter there. The traffic consists of occasional horses or dog walkers and there are no shops, close passes or crowds. It’s a land of chuck, chunder, babyheads and peanut butter mud and it can get gnarly. I dipped in the Stateside vernacular a bit there in how Americans describe their “trails.” Blighty puts its best foot – or pedal – forward on a land that consists of Byways, Bridleways and Unrestricted Byways. Farm tracks and livestock abound and it’s all very agricultural.
OK, let’s go to this brave new world. In many ways, it’s actually an old world, ancient even. Some of the best off-road riding you can find is on bygone roadways such as the Icknield Way (110 miles), which claims to be the oldest road in Britain, a 47-mile part of the Pilgrim’s Way, or the Ridgeway (85 miles). In fact, the Ridgeway forms a large part of one of Cycling UK’s series of multi-day off-road routes, The King Alfred’s Way, which loops from Winchester. This sits alongside the mighty 800-mile Great North Trail, the West Kernow Way in Cornwall, Cantii Way in Kent and their latest one in Norfolk, The Rebellion Way.
There are number of organisations that run gravel event rides, too. One of them, Hidden Tracks, are getting in on the longer distance off-road act with a forthcoming London Orbital route. Glorious Gravel and Trail Break are two more gravel event organisers.
Another approach is to search for others riders routes on RideWithGPS (RWGPS), for example, or you could make your own route. YouTuber Simon Willis has a great explanation of how he uses Komoot to create gravel routes on his Always Another Adventure channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sGPp2Slw1U
Or you could use any of the other myriad mapping platforms out there. My way of planning off-road rides is a fairly old school one, in a digital kind of way. I find most online mapping tools are somewhat inadequate and I can struggle with hard copy Ordinance Survey maps, not because of inaccuracy, but because the way things are marked is not distinct enough for me.
I aim to avoid using footpaths where cyclists are legally not permitted. If you do use them, they can be really hit and miss. Many are overgrown and you will hit gates and other anti-cyclist defences. Byways and bridleways for me and the Footpathmap website (FPM) I use is really clear at identifying them. Bright pink for bridleways, blue for byways and green for unrestricted byways. Footpaths are red. This works for me on a psychological level, too, knowing I should avoid the red ones.
I like to draw my routes on RWGPS and have another tab open with FPM for reference. The colours of FPM really pop and it becomes a simple question of joining the blues, greens and pinks to make a loop. Some area have multiple options and this is a good enough reason for me not to simple click two points and ask Komoot or some such app to work it out. The reason I like using RWGPS to buid routes is the Draw Lines function. Most mapping apps have an automatic drawing function to follow the roads between the points you click, but none recognise every navicable byway or brideway. Some you simply don’t get used on auto, so the solution is to switch from follow roads to draw line mode and manually draw that section. Then switch back to follow roads.
Here’s a couple of routes I created using this method.
https://ridewithgps.com/routes/39069823
https://ridewithgps.com/routes/35515738
An alternative, and I’m not joking, is to just get lost. If you don’t slow down enough to explore and enjoy the scenery andwonder “where does that other path go?” then you are missing a lot of the joy universe offers.
How do you go about creating your routes?
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07/07/2022 – Chariot of fire
Imagine, if you will, a huge Roman sports arena, the crowd booming loud and large and gladiators charging around in chariots. Or being chased by chariots. A frenetic and violent scene, full of colour and guts and bloody-mindedness. That, dear reader, is what the Reading CC 25 time trial felt like…
Well, actually, we were west of Reading on a section of the A4 called Bath Road not far from Aldermaston, where warheads for Trident missiles get assembled. And, like a missile, +RichardM and myself intended to launch ourselves on the green Calfee tandem around the course at top speed. And why not? The H25/1 course is one of the faster non-dual carriageway time trial courses in the south, so it has the dual appeal of being both rapid and relatively easy on the eye.
Our very first 25-mile race was on this course and yielded a sub hour time, 58:43, in spite of overshooting one roundabout (“You see that nice marshal in hi-viz?” “Er, no. Oops”). So, going off-course aside, we were hopeful of a decent time. There was a slight alteration the original course. A cycle lane had been put in at the west end and so the turnaround was a little earlier. Really minor change and the course is now known as the H25/1A.
So, to the start line. Some bothersome Velotoze shoe covers had precluded our structured turbo warm up, but no bother, we felt good and ready. Ready enough to decline the offer of being held up on the start line. Not such a great decision, as we struggled to clip in after we pushed off and lost a few seconds in that moment.
OK, let’s rewind a little. Tandem time trialling is a very niche activity. Often we are the only entrants, but the £20 prize had attracted a second machine. This machine was a stunning-looking steel tandem trike. Yes, trike. We’d looked at the results of the team riding it on the CTT website and they were good.
Back in the race we set off with Richard joking that he felt we were going to be chased down by what felt like a chariot from the movie Gladiator.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tVXEltaews
Whilst I was deeply grateful that our rivals were not equipped with bows, arrows, swords and other brutal weapons, I did get the sense that they were breathing down our necks. At the six-mile point there is a turnaround at a roundabout and as we came back we saw the chariot, I mean trike, approaching it. They were definitely getting closer. At the next turnaround, there was no sign. Could we have gained ground? I knew that they were closing because they must have been on the roundabout when we exited it. Darn, overtaken at halfway was not a good look. We were now going back into a slight headwind, which was miserable, but we held on. 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 miles. It wasn’t until the 18th mile that we succumbed to the three-wheeler.
Cool and calm lawyer by day, Richard is an emotional racer and he reacted with a passion. The trike moved ahead of us, but I could feel in the pedals his desire to bring them back. And I looked to raise my game, too. Try as we did, we could only slow down the growth in the gap between us. This was partly down to their strength and good aero positions, but also we had no less than five hold ups for traffic. At one point a van more or less parked in front of us causing a near dead stop. This was suboptimal, to say the least, but part and parcel of racing on the open roads. It can happen, but this was an unusual number of interruptions. Even without them, our competitors would have beaten us, probably by 15 seconds or so. Hats – or should I say helmets – off to them.
Our time was 59:21, them 58:02. Disappointing in a sense, but looking at all the results that day, only about half went under the hour. So, not bad really. That’s it. Exit, pursued by a tandem trike.
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30/06/2022 – Inbetweeners
What do you do in between your races and events? Whether you take part in challenging long-distance rides, hammer around a circuit for ranking points or prefer to go bikepacking, these are the high points of our cycling calendar. This is what makes us tick, what we aim for and our celebration of the joy of cycling. But what do you do in the gaps between? Here are 10 suggestions:
- Let’s get this out of the way first and then move on. Yes, you could always do something not related to cycling. Really. You could. Walk the dog, spend time with friends or family, do some baking (see homemade scones below). Why not do something for others? Volunteer for something, read a book, get another interest. Get some perspective. There are other things in life apart from riding your bike. Honestly.
- OK, enough. Meanwhile back in reality, why not talk about cycling? You may not have a race to take part in, but you could talk about racing. There are a lot of pro races to catch up on and get inspired by. Whether it’s track, crits, grand tours, cyclo-cross, mountain biking or even BMX, it’s the safest way to take part in our sport - from the armchair. Except you don’t burn any calories that way.
- Which leads me to the next thing to think about between events, your diet. This really is an everyday endeavour. You may or you may not want to lose weight, but you certainly need to fuel your rides, you need to recover, you need to reward yourself for all the hard work. And food, well it’s so darn tasty. Actually, working out your fuelling strategy is a good thing to do in the between times. When I say strategy, I mean find out what gels and bars don’t give you an upset stomach and yet are reasonably enjoyable to eat. What do you eat first, gel or bar? How often? Or do you prefer something homemade? Maybe some rice balls?
- And then there’s retail therapy. Perfect to while away the time. This can be fun, but it can get dangerous, because there is always a ton of new products out there and a lot of push to get you part with your hard-earned cash. Why not window shop? That’s what I aim to do most of the time. That’s what I tell myself. Go shopping, but try not to buy anything. Easier said than done with the world of online sales a click away. Must resist, must resist. Cold shower. If you have to have something, make it a reward for an event or achievement. (No, David, waking up does not count).
- Closely related to shopping (and window shopping) is upgrading your bike. There can be an actual need to do this - maybe your wheels are worn, your frame is knackered or your tyres getting shabby. But if we’re honest with ourselves, often it’s our egos that are knackered and getting today’s new tech would make us feel so much better. Mind you, a new bike would definitely make me feel so much better. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.
- You could use your time to do something useful. Like, clean and repair your bike(s). There’s always some small job that gets put off or maybe you just never really clean your bike and get it back to a showroom shine. Now’s the time. You don’t want to turn up to an event with a filthy bike and risk that niggling issue becoming a critical one. See it, service it, sort it!
- I’m getting more sensible by the minute here – you could (wait for it) – do some training. Yes. Focus on what your upcoming event needs from you and do sessions that build the right skills and fitness. There are loads of plans out there, books, apps with plans or you could work with a coach. I work with Tim Ramsden of Black Cat Coaching. Why not mix it up and reverse one of your usual routes, try some hill repeats (I’ve been saying that for year and I will eventually get round to it) or aim to keep with a faster group than usual. Or you could practice your leadership and lead a slower, more comfortable group. Give a little back.
- While you’re at it, you need to make sure you look after yourself. Do you get the rest you need? Service your machine. Do you have any injuries to attend to? If so, you could book a relevant therapy session. Have you had a bike fit? Small difference from a fitting session can have a huge effect. Breathe in and out. Relax…
- …and while relaxing you can dream about your next event. Or better plan your next race. Events are full of logistics. When do you need to leave? Have you got enough time for a warm up? What warm up will you do? Do you have a check list of everything you need for your event? Make one. Nothing worse than being on the start line and realising something’s missing. Like when I recently omitted to pack any gels.
- And lastly, you could always write a blog. About cycling, naturally.
- Let’s get this out of the way first and then move on. Yes, you could always do something not related to cycling. Really. You could. Walk the dog, spend time with friends or family, do some baking (see homemade scones below). Why not do something for others? Volunteer for something, read a book, get another interest. Get some perspective. There are other things in life apart from riding your bike. Honestly.
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An eBay steel - 16/06/2022
All three of my bikes are now quite nice. Too nice to leave on the street. It's a good problem to have, as they say. Coming back from hybrid working, I've started commuting again, albeit once or twice a week. We have a bike room at work, so I can ride a nice bike to the office, but I fear the paintwork getting ruined by other cyclists moving their bikes in and out. I must admit, I've started to pack some pipe lagging in my back to protect my tubes. That's when I knew I had to do something. I also want to be able to cycle to a meeting or go out in the evening on my bike and be able to leave it on the street without fear.
So, I gave myself a brief to find a bike that I wouldn't have a breakdown if it got jacked, but was still fun to ride. And success - I managed to pick up this old steel Peugeot racer from eBay for £60. Not so very much wrong with it. I guess it's from the Eighties, without the decals I can't say which model. It's 7-speed and has eyelets for mudguards. Where the decals had been removed, there was loads of sticky residue left on the frame. A good tip for sticker glue removal is to spray with WD-40 and wipe off.
The biggest issue for this bike - and probably why I got it for £60 - was that the cranks had been cross-threaded, so it was either repair or replace them. Someone had really gone to town trying to put a pedal in the wrong way and the hole was seriously widened. So, I opted for the latter solution as it was a chance to reduce the 52/42 chainrings to compact (50/36) and soften up the 13-23 cassette for commuting.
I got a new chainset from SJS Cycles for £40 and added some Deda bar tape for £8. There really wasn't that much to do on it. The tyres, brake pads, bottom bracket are all good, cables good and chain not stretched, nor the cassette worn. The wheel bearings are good, just a very slight kink in the rear wheel, which I can address later. I had a spare Brooks Cambrian saddle and a frame pump hanging about in my bike shed to finish it off.
Thanks and praise to the ever-useful The Bike Book from Haynes, which I am always referring back to for various jobs on the bike. I especially look for things I don't do that often, such as the crank removal I've just done, bottom bracket and front mech readjustment.
Now, I must remember not to get too attached this bike (or upgrade it further) and remind myself its purpose is to be left on the street and not worried about...
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14/06/2022 – Lemon to a knife fight
At the start line of the Surrey Hills Bike & BBQ I say to the starter (before he manually scans my race QR code), that “I’ve brought a lemon to a knife fight.” He doesn’t get it. Maybe he’s not a Wombats fan, but I’m on my Mason Bokeh gravel bike at a mountain bike event. Having taken an early train from Waterloo to Guildford, myself and +RichardM arrive at the HQ moments before a mass of MTB riders funnel through the start gate, including another ICC rider, +AlexSzomboti. Most appear to be starting bang on 9am, so they are clearly very, very keen. Everyone seems to be on a mountain bike, aside from me, Richard and Alex. Hence my referencing the Wombats. I feel like I’m going to get sliced, either by those who are more suitably equipped and have proper skills or by the course, which promises to be reasonably challenging or should I say gnarly.
I got lured in to entering by (1) the thought of taking on a more technical riding challenge, (2) seeing a truly beautiful part of the country and, of course, (3) the after-ride BBQ (specifically the chilli). It’s only 30 miles, I reflect, how bad can it get? The first two miles are on tarmac and lull you into a false sense of security. Then you hit a rough-as-feck cobbled farm track that would give Paris-Roubaix a run for its money, whilst passing a genteel game of village cricket. It begins… the next mile throws a great quantity of sand and consequently exposed tree roots at you, whilst you manoeuvre on single track. Oh-oh, 30 miles of this?
Well, not 30 miles of sand, but we did return to the sandy trails in the last couple of miles. Along the way there were some tough sectors of various kinds and some more mellow ones. One part with “baby head stones” sticks in the mind. They were hard enough going up, but harder going down. Talking about descending, there were a few V-shaped channels (not sure you can call them trails) we went down. I was super cautious on these, but the MTB folk screamed down with their fancy suspension and fancy bike-handling skills, riding high up the banks of the V on the bends. I got suckered into trying this and almost spilt, then got sensible and slowed down, then got caught in two minds about how to proceed and came off. Lucky for me, I was going very slowly at the time and it was more of a gentle unseating than anything spectacular.
The Surrey Hills Bike & BBQ is organised by Trail Break and they did a great job of marking out the route with arrowed signs and ribbons tied to shrubbery, both in matching orange. These were so frequent you felt really reassured you were literally on the right path and I hardly had to look at the GPS on my bars. Trail Break runs a variety of off-road events that range from MTB to gravel. Their South Downs 100 on 2 July looks awesome, as does the Ridgeway 100 on 11 September. Both of these are more of an emphasis on gravel rather than MTB, but, as with this ride, the MTB rides are just fine on a gravel bike.
I’d go a little further and say there were many sections where being on a gravel bike was better than a mountain bike. Most climbs (on or off-road), I was able to move past MTB riders and on every single bit of tarmac I screamed by the MTBs up, down or flat. However, on the tarmac many roadies climbed past me at pace. This was especially so on Combe Lane. If you don’t know it, this is a really great climb that features in the 100 Great Climbs books. It’s about 0.9 miles long and towards the top it there’s a blind left-hander that reveals a 18% section. Nice. The route, although only 30 miles, is close to the so-called golden ratio (1,000ft of elevation gain per 10 miles), so there are plenty of other rises to test your climbing legs.
There was a healthy field of 176 and, aside from the three ICC riders (all of us on gravel bikes), I only saw one other entrant on a gravel bike. There should/could be a lot more, as this ride is a lot of fun on a gravel bike - plus there’s a BBQ at the end! Like a sportive there are gold, silver and bronze time bands*. Richard and Alex (2hr 27min!) managed gold, while I was 6 mins outside of the gold cut off and made a "strong silver." This was 8th in my age group, so I’ll take that on an MTB course. Not bad for a lemon.
*Update with background from Martin Harrison at Trail Break: The Gold, Silver, Bronze system actually came from mountain biking; specifically from our rides! We have been running this format of Trail Rides since the early 1990s and came up with the Gold, Silver, Bronze bands when we started, as a less formal adaptation of the reliability ride format, to provide a legal way of timing a ride on public rights of way (we used to have category called “Pub” below Bronze too!). When we launched the first of our road sportives in 2006, we carried over the same system to keep the rides legal on public roads. None of the few early sportives that existed in the country at the time used anything like that, but others subsequently started to adopt it and it eventually evolved into a standard for the sportive format.
Things learned:
- Gravel bikes can handle a lot more than you think (and my off-road skills less than I think)
- It's worth trying to do something a bit different
- Some Sunday train services have no toilet. I hear that it can be handy to have a takeaway coffee cup handy, especially when it's a 50-minute journey...
- Gravel bikes can handle a lot more than you think (and my off-road skills less than I think)
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The only way is Essex - addendum
The official RideLondon times show that although Richard crossed the finish line before me in 4:57:13, I was actually the faster rider on the day with an official time of 4:57:12. This is not the first time this has happened when we've ridden a tandem. I have "beaten" Mr May on some Strava segment or other, also by a full second. No bragging to be done, but very a curious phenomena.
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06/06/2022 - The only way is Essex - Part 2
What about the new RideLondon 100 as an event? In truth, I am a little underwhelmed. I’m a big fan and have ridden the Surrey RideLondon a few times, so I absolutely don’t want to rubbish it. I think some of the issues are to do with it being the first one for three years and having been planned in a pandemic ad the failure to attract a title sponsor. I’m very sympathetic to the organisers in that respect and grateful they got it on. OK, that’s my disclaimer out of the way.
Let’s start at the beginning a very good place to start. Now that the nonsense of the speed limited safety car (or fun sponge, as GCN put it), had been canned, I showed up wondering where and how 25,000 cyclists were going to be accommodated and supported pre ride. I’m not sure they were. You just funnelled through to the start line, passing some porta potties on the way. Nothing like the mini festival at Queen Elizabeth Park in previous editions. We edged to the start line and the start was so low key, I missed it. We were cruising along and I hadn’t pressed start on my bike computer! “Have we started?” “Yes.” Oops. Now my Strava ride would not be 100 miles, but 99 point something.
Having built a route around Essex for The Great Escape with Laura Perret and Richard May, I was interested to see what the organisers had come up with. Without blowing my own horn too much, let’s just say that TGE is a far prettier route and more enjoyable. The RL100 route is somewhat dull in comparison. I even indulged in some closed eyes cycling at one point (please don’t try this at home, unless you’re at the rear end of a tandem). Flat it certainly was, but I felt this route really missed the three climbs that its Surrey predecessor had (Newlands Corner, Leith Hill and Box Hill). They are events along the way. You remember them. This is one of the reasons for putting a farm track in TGE. A little off roading is quite an audax tradition. It breaks things up, wakes you up and I guarantee, every rider will remember that track.
Of course riding on closed roads is a great privilege and makes for a different kind of ride. I don’t know if it was just me, but I’ve never seen so many marshals out on this kind of event. They were everywhere. Even on the entrances to farms, where vehicles might come out once or twice a day. Many appeared to be quite bored, on their phones or distracting each other. I think this was a contributing factor to two issues I witnessed. One was a car that got on the course. We were behind this vehicle for a while. It must have gone a mile (and passed several marshals) before a police officer leapt up and charged after it on foot, to try to control things. I have never seen a car on a closed road event before. The other issue was a dozy so-and-so who wandered onto the course past three or four (equally dozy) marshals. This was somewhere in East London on quite a fast stretch of the course with a ton of cyclist screaming by and could have been quite nasty.
What about the finish? Again I wondered what they’d do here. Southwark Park is really near Tower Bridge, but instead of using this (or something similar) as Hyde Park was used previously, we crossed Tower Bridge to a quick fanfare and cheer and then were told to dismount. We all shuffled off to the right on a back street and a quarter of a mile later were handed a medal. You could get water and a power bar or make use of a porta potty. That was it. Shuffle along another quarter of a mile and then goodbye. I think of all the missing elements, this was to most profound. Nowhere for riders to set down and recover, meet up with riding mates, meet up with supporters, refuel, be entertained. No big celebration. For people who had come take part from outside London, there was not even a baggage drop. We headed off the Look Mum No Hands for lunch and that was that.
I hope that there will be more for riders at the start and finish next year. Maybe with Covid fading a little more, it will be easier to plan a proper celebration into proceedings. The event deserves this, as do all the finishers, many who have ridden a 100 miles for the first time.
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05/06/2022 - The only way is Essex - Part 1
I’ve been trying to avoid writing this one. I’m writing about the return of RideLondon 100, and both my own participation and the set-up of the event were a bit of a mixed bag. OK, let’s dive in…
First, let’s look at me and my ride. I’ve done three RideLondon 100s, my tandem partner +RichardM none, so the return after a three-year hiatus of the country’s largest closed road event seemed a good time to get his feet wet. Together, we have done three Great Escapes on his Calfee Design tandem, but that machine has now been converted to a time trial bike. So, his new Bingham Built gravel tandem was pressed into service, shod with 32mm tyres, rather than the 42mm gravel tyres it’s been sporting.
As we know from the Essex adventures we’ve had on our club's 200km ride, The Great Escape, this part of the country is pretty darn flat and consequently very tandem friendly. Steep climbs and tandems don’t mix. For the watts watchers out there, I had put this down as a C event. One that you do for fun, an extended training ride, if you will. Joe Friel’s Power Meter Handbook recommends 75% of FTP for a 100-mile ride and that was my target. If this was an A ride, I’d set aside all targets, go hell for leather from the off and do everything I could to keep with the fastest groups I could hang with. Taking that approach on a ride like this you can’t get too upset if you lose a group, as like London buses, another is along in a minute or two. You surf the groups, hoping not to burn out completely. That approach was not for me this time, 75% of FTP, flat roads, don’t worry about the fastest groups. A bit of a cruise. Enjoy.
Pilot plan: “I think we should be a bit cagey before Woodford.”
Stoker plan: “I’m keeping it at 75% from the off and if I feel stronger later I’ll up the effort”Pilot reality: Went off a bit hard and put out strong numbers for two and a half hours. Followed by, while not exactly cramp, certainly discomfort and a power reduction.
Stoker reality: Kept to the target for two and a half hours, then power slowly reduced. And reduced. And reduced…Did it matter? No. Just a training ride, albeit a 100-mile one. I hadn’t ridden 100 miles since May 2019. Many metric centuries, though. You always have to respect a century ride, I mean the Imperial kind. Whether you ride it easy or hard, it is usually a big deal for the body. Rest, nutrition, recovery, bike prep, what you pack (and later recovery), you have to take it all reasonably seriously.
For fuel, I’m pretty much set in my ways – a bar after 1 hour, then a gel 30 mins later, then a bar 30 mins later, then a gel after 30 mins and repeat. Recently I switched to gel after 30 mins, then bar after 30 mins and repeat. This works for me, especially if I’m starting off quite hard. I know what bars I like, I know what gels I like. Tickety-boo. But for some strange reason I threw something new into the mix – Lucho Dillitos Bocadillo energy bars. This is something I never do. I hadn’t even tried one of these squares wrapped in leaves before RL100. Actually, it was no problem, because it turns out they are pretty much squares of sugar. At least they were to my palate. And they are perfect for instant energy hit!
What about the bike? We were on the Bingham tandem. There was one mechanical issue that Richard had alluded to a week or so before the event, but he didn’t mention it again. It’s really good he didn’t, because I would have been more than a little nervous. After the ride, he did share that one of the nuts in one of the bosses, had scored the carbon steerer. Gulp. Since losing control of my front wheel and having a near collision a time trial, problems with cockpit of a thing of my nightmares. Bing is super comfy, but the set up is very much for gravel. There were bottle cages on the forks for. goodness sakes! In particular, the single chain ring for the drive chain (“one by” or “1x” as it’s known) did not have a high enough gear for us to take advantage of both the tandem and our personal strength – gravity. We were definitely starting to spin out at 26-28mph. I should probably look on the bright side and consider that we were getting some useful rest/freewheeling in, but I think two or three groups went away from us because they had regulation road gearing.
Things learned:
- Check helmet in mirror at start, 100 miles is a long way to ride with a skew-whiff lid on
- 100 miles is a long way, however you ride it
- My sugar cubes were a (useful) kind of South American Kendal Mint Cake
- Check helmet in mirror at start, 100 miles is a long way to ride with a skew-whiff lid on
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25/05/2022 - 2-4-6-8 Motorway
I was quite excited about last Sunday’s time trial. The course for the High Wycombe CC 25 looks very fast, so not only was a PB in the offing for myself and +RichardM, but there was no tandem course record listed on the Cycling Time Trials (CTT) website for the H25/2 course. Time trial courses, in case you didn’t know, have code number. There is a brief explanation of these designations on the CTT site.
Although in our last race we achieved a PB and club record for 10 miles, there were a few mechanical issues. First, the front wheel had a broken spoke, which turned out to be a loose spoke. Second, the rear tyre was rubbing slightly on the frame. Simple solution was swap the 28mm tyre rear tyre for the 25mm front one. Lastly, and more worryingly, the bike seems to drop down to the small chain ring at random moments. Look Mum No Hands! owner and mechanical maestro Sam, identified an unexpected cause – the chainring’s teeth were worn away. Like, really worn away, such that it could not hold the chain. We’d been using an oval carbon set of time trial rings with 56T (T = teeth), but clearly the carbon could not take our combined power, even though we are both of modest club level power. This is one of the ongoing engineering challenges of tandem cycling. These machines are always work in progress in this respect. Sam installed a Specialities T.A. aluminium chainring (this time 58T - see photo below) and that, as they say, should be that. Without a cheese-like chainring or wheel rub and with a properly round front wheel, we should be faster, right?
And the course was encouraging, too. If you look at the course profile of the H25/2 you will see that the first two miles are all, quite profoundly, downhill. This is a freebie "power up," but let me rewind a little before I get to the exciting moment of setting off down this ski ramp-like start…
Time trialling is, to some extent, a question of logistics. Get to the HQ with enough time to register, don your race number, set your bike up, warm up and the find the start line in advance of your start time (but not too soon, as you may cool down from your warm up). How did we do on the logistics front? Not bad, but a few small things stack up. Things like an extra trip to the loo, someone else on the loo for a weirdly long time, chatting to another competitor, your head unit updating automatically and deleting your downloaded maps, lending a multitool to another rider, an unexpectedly slow/uphill ride to the start. All these little things stacked up and we arrived at the start 30 seconds before our start time. That might sound pretty pro, but it was pretty stressful for us. As a result, we did not have the course route on either head unit (given the title of this blog, you can see where I’m going).
OK, we got the countdown 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, go! And despite everything, we were away on time. Wow, what a fast start it was. With the freebie speed from the early descent, we were averaging almost 35mph at the 3-mile point. We were flying. I settled into a groove at my target power, maybe a little higher, and saw we were also above our average speed target at 2, 4, 6, 8 miles. Then, suddenly, disaster. At 8.8 miles we hit traffic lights at a big junction. Traffic lights are something you never get on a time trial course. It could only mean one thing, we had missed a turn and so promptly called a halt. It turns out we’d been riding on the A404(M), a motorway. Oops. A zillion questions pop up, the chief one being “where was the marshal?” Time trials are usually made idiot proof by having at least one marshal at each turn or junction to point you in the right direction. Neither of us saw one, we were just enjoying being rapid.
With more than a little tooth grinding, we set off in the opposite direction from this mahoosive roundabout and made for the HQ. Of course, we passed what should have been our turning. This slip road had no marshal, but there was an arrowed sign, albeit somewhat behind a bush. Hmm. A few miles later we cruised to a halt at the finish line and questioned the officials. Apparently, that slip road is too dangerous to deploy a marshal and they are not really allowed to have signs. Clearly, the be fully idiot proof you need more in place. Load the GPS route, learn the route by heart of have a list of distances and turns on your top tube were simple solutions we quickly came up with to get us out of the idiot camp. DNF. Did. Not. Finish. If you don’t make any mistakes, you don’t learn anything. I can safely say we learned a few things that day.
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Almost, eh?
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10/05/2022 Every second counts
I went out to eat with a group of my old school buddies. Nice gastro pub meal, then heading home I was asked “Why aren’t you on your bike, Dave?” Normally I am, pretty much all the time. “I was training hard yesterday and today, so I needed a break,” I explained. Then I got the look. The look that says are you completely mad: “Training? Training for what?” “Erm, I have race on Sunday.” Still I get that look and realise that training and racing is something that only very few people in their late fifties care to do and fewer care to understand. In which case, maybe I am technically completely mad. I change the subject and head off to the Tube.
That was Thursday. Sunday comes. It’s the VTTA 10 London and Home Counties time trial, to give it its full title. Put more simply, a 10-mile bike race for vets. As you’ll know from my blog, I’m competing with +RichardM on a tandem again and he reliably informs me that the other two pairs entered in the tandem category are superfast and we haven’t got a hope of beating them. Put it out of your mind, David, he urges me.
But this is the F11/10 course. It’s a fast course and we are both keen to improve our best time at this distance. That’s 23:35 set at the ICC Open 10, in fact, on the F15/10 course at Brogborough. That’s a fast course, but I reckon this one is faster. Still, I mustn’t think about winning. On the way there we go through all the process goals and dedicate our thoughts to a PB. Memories of being stuck on the start line for almost 2 minutes while one of us (not me, by the way) fails to clip in, owing to a worn-out cleat, haunt us. The more he tried, the harder it got. OK, so new cleats all round. Richard talks (chiefly to himself) about how he’ll tackle the roundabouts and we move on from the cleat debacle. We even did a proper warm up on a turbo. Yes, tandem on a turbo (see photo for proof). I wrote out the classic British Cycling 20-minute warm up and then, as I am wont to do, made a schedule:
9.30am set up turbo
9.40am warm up
10.00am take tandem off turbo and put in car
10.05am ride to start
10.15am arrive at start
10.23am startDespite what it said in the organiser’s comprehensive 14-page instruction booklet (or should that be novella), it took us half of the 10 mins he states to get to the start from the HQ. Consequently, we have 15 mins on the start line plutzing. Suboptimal. We see the second tandem pair who are riding an elegant blue classic-looking Harry Quinn steel machine. It looks like no slouch with a 65mm front wheel and a disc at the rear. We just get a glimpse of the third pair, dressed in black and looking very pro. Think process, I remind myself. I do, but keep worrying about the strange way the gears keep wanting to shift to the small ring at random moments. It’d done this several times today and clouds my meditation somewhat.
10.23 and we’re off! I feel like I’m in the groove. It feels like I’m going hard, but not at too destructive a pace. I worry my watts are down five from the TT practice session we did last week. First roundabout and we have to give way. I worry this will set us back and that we’ll hit more traffic at the other roundabouts. When we hit the faster sections I get into a kind of courier position with my hands either side of the stem. I worry I don’t hold this long enough.
Somewhere around the 6-mile point, I see our average speed is creeping up. By the time we are at 8 miles it’s 28.3mph. I like it, but I worry about what the finishers have all said to us that “the last 2 miles are brutal and into a headwind.” The last 2 miles are always brutal. I worry our 28.3mph will wither away in the headwind. We crack on after the last turn and I see the second pair approaching the turn. I worry they are catching us. They don’t and finish with what looks like 21.48 on my computer. This would certainly be a PB and a club record.
I’m wrung out. We head back the HQ and I sign back in. I don’t even look at the board. I assume we’ve been beaten. Richard must have looked though, because he comes over beaming and informs me that we’ve won. We’ve won by one second. Wow. In disbelief, I check the board for myself. 21.51 official time and our best rivals 21.52. Now I could start worrying about what could have gone wrong and cost us a few seconds, but I don’t. I grab a cup of tea and slice up some chocolate cake and enjoy the moment. My inner Muttley is thrilled that we’ll be sent medals in the post.
So, there were three tandems, also there was one trike and 110 solo riders, no less. A huge field. This might be the fastest course in the Home Counties and I’d recommend anyone you looking for a PB. You can get to the HQ in Tring by train from Euston or it’s less than an hour by car. There are three more races on the F11/10 this year. Details on the Cycling Time Trials website, but the dates are 18 June, 17 July, 10 Sept. Why not give it a go?
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Good luck!
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+StephendS I'd recommend 32s as minimum. I was on 42s and pretty comfortable. Where there's a will, there's a way though and everything is doable. I do have a couple of sets of 33mm CX tyres that I could lend you.
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21/04/2022 – The F-word
Why? Why would I get up at stupid o’clock only to go and run my expensive equipment through the dirt necessitating a mandatory deep clean? Why would I bounce around on poor surfaces and shake up my old bones so that they become sore and ache? Why ride at speeds much slower that are achievable on tarmac? Why would I want to get lost in the backend of beyond? Why would I do this when my legs were hammered from racing two days earlier at the Welwyn Wheelers Hilly 50?
Why? Because it’s fun! I get more of the f-word per mile off road that in any other form of our sport.
For several years now London Phoenix have staged their Easter Classic sportive on Easter Monday, which takes in Good Easter, High Easter (a bit like The Great Escape taking in Great Bardfield and Great Dunmow). This year, they offered a gravel edition in addition to two road distances. I had planned to ride the gravel event with +RichardM on his new Bingham gravel tandem, but a heavy cold for the pilot (Richard), meant I was on my own for this one.
So, I rode to the start at Fairlop Waters and set off for a session of gravel grinding. Their route is maybe 70% off road, so although only 43 miles, it’s still a fair challenge. With 14 miles there and 14 miles back, this was going to be a big day. Here's the route if you want to take it on.
Two magical highlights for me were happening on a sea of bluebells in Weald Park, which always takes my breath away. And then having to stop while, perhaps, 300 deer crossed the trail in Dagnam Park. I always enjoy it when the odd deer jumps across my path, but this was of a different order, a long train that looked endless. I spent something like 7 or 8 minutes resting and grinning as they stormed, left to right, in front of me.
Two gripes, there was no coffee at the start available until 9am. I don’t know if that’s a gripe or a declaration of war. No coffee = very bad mood from me. The other was where the GPX track was really unclear and I ended up shimmying under a fence to get back on track. Far from having a sense of humour failure when off road routes go wrong, I actually quite enjoyed it. “How the heck did I end up here?” should be a once or twice a ride moment. It’s part of the fun of having a little adventure. Why not?
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Noted. Just, er, focus...
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So, if we have eight excuses for a 25 mile race (above) how many are we going to need for the Prudential Ride 100?
Better get on it +Sir_Shannonball.Prudential? They are no longer sponsors, I think RideLondon is now a partnership with Essex County Council. In any case, I have my excuses.
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11/04/2022 - When second place does not count as the podium
Saturday was the first race of the time trial season for myself and my tandem partner +RichardM. He reported elsewhere how we got on at the Farnborough and Camberley CC 25.
Tandem time trial racing is something of a niche within a niche and we are often the only tandem entered. There was a £10 tandem prize on offer, less than the race fee and often there is no prize. Today, though, we had illustrious company in the shape of national champions Rachel Elliott and Ian Greenstreet. The tenner was always going to be theirs. They are a very rapid and had our proverbial backsides handed to us on a plate, being overtaken at the 5 mile mark by Rachel and Ian.
Elliott and GreenstreetOn the plus side, our tandem worked well. The tandem niche aspect means that more or less every machine in a tandem race is unique. Each pair find their own solutions to making their bikes faster. In our case, the addition of a rear disc wheel in 2021 proved problematic, with a few DNFs and even DNSs that year. Happy to report that after some minor engineering, the wheel has now settled in well now and is doing its job of making two aging cyclists a little faster.
Shannon and MayThe westward section of the course felt really tough owing to a headwind. Rachel and Ian complained that it seemed a slow day for this course. They should know, it’s their home course. By the way, slow for them turned out to be 29.83mph (see unofficial times below). Having checked out their stats on the Cycling Time Trials website, this was true. They usually race at 30mph+ at all distances. Wow.
Perhaps for comfort or perhaps to reconcile my/our shortcomings, I made a list of things I thought were slowing me/us down:
- It was a windy day (see above).
- My Velotose overshoes interfered with my right cleat, such that I suddenly developed 5-10mm of float (we had to freewheel so I could clip in multiple times and I ended up with a sore right knee).
- A 16:00 start time (I’m totally a morning person).
- I did 2 hrs of digging earlier in the day at the allotment (Did I mention I’m a morning person? When I get up I have to do something with my energy. The allotment is now ready for planting, though).
- A 2-hr drive to the start (this does do something mentally).
- We kept 2 bottles on the bike (these cost you 4w each, I’m told).
- The pilot did not wear his pointy TT helmet (he needs to get over his fear of “picking my nose with it”).
- Lastly, we did no proper warm up. We’d planned to do the BC race warm up on a turbo, didn’t, then just gently ambled 1 ½ miles to the start (It made the first five miles - which were into the wind - even harder).
I guess I should have got these “excuses” in earlier, but I’m taking them as learning points for the rest of the season. Still, we managed to finish the race and come home comfortably under the hour, which we hadn’t done since September 2020.
- It was a windy day (see above).
Islington Cycling Club
"You will always be in our hearts and on our roads." - @Giro d'Italia on Michele Scarponi
04/01/2023 - A festive less restive
Happy New Year!
This Christmas I thought I’d try something new. As far as winter training goes, I usually save high volume for March and concentrate on higher intensity sessions until then, mainly sweet spot stuff. This year I’m ahead of schedule and retained a good (for me) level of fitness after my post-season break. Using the Rapha Festive 500 in place of my traditional spring training camp seemed to fit the bill. In the latter I ride 100km a day for five straight days and this sets the scene for kicking on for the higher intensity training that follows. The F500 (I’m calling it that) asks you to ride 500km over 8 days between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. So, as far as being ahead of schedule goes, I’d be three months ahead, with a good base to start 3 months of my build phase. I’d be race ready by the end of March. Here's how I got on, my F500 described in numbers...
Duck pond at Chapmore End, Herts
Days cycled: 8
My approach was to ride every day of the challenge and avoid longer days in the saddle. That means an average of a 65km ride, roughly 2.5 hrs, which wouldn’t impact too much on my family commitments and various other social events. As the first two days are Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, I had less time to ride and I didn’t make the daily average, so there was a little catch up needed.
Turbo days: 2
The weather played ball most of the time, but there were two days that were out and out stinkers. I’m absolutely not up for 2.5-3 hrs of riding in the rain. I can handle an hour or so of higher intensity work, but a long, wet cruise doesn’t appeal to me in slightest. Virtual rides are very much admissible for the R500 and I have a FulGaz account. The world is your ointment with this kind of platform with huge number of films from all parts of the globe to pedal to. With the use of a smart trainer, these offer variable resistance according to the gradient of the oncoming terrain and something to look at and keep your mind occupied. And you can pump out some bangers to keep you motivated.
Days I’d wished I wasn’t doing the F500: 4
I struggled on and off in the last four days. Unusually for me, I seemed to bonk (the cycling equivalent of the wall) quite early on these days. On one occasion, it felt like I left the house having already bonked. I’m not a big boozer, but I was having one or two drinks a day throughout the challenge and I may have been subject to “boozer’s bonk.” Is that a thing? I think it was for me.
Days riding with a fixed-gear: 1
I started the challenge thinking I might ride some or all or it on a fixed-gear bike. How strong would that make me? Very, if I actually did it. My first ride - ridden with DaveJ – was on the Fixie Loop and naturally I rode my fixed-gear bike. Rode it a bit harder than I needed to, with too much time with my heart rate in Zone 3. Oops. I switched to a geared bike and as the fatigue built, I had no desire to go back to the fixed-gear bike. Maybe next year a fixed F500, but not this one.
Distance ridden: 515km
I made a plan of various rides to get me up to 500km. In the event, I had to change my plans for weather and shifting family commitments. On the penultimate day, which was a turbo day, I thought I’d left myself with about 80km to do on the last day. On Day 8 the forecast was abysmal, but it looked like there was a 2 hr window of dry from about 7am. I hit the road at 7.30am aiming to do about 55km and looking to make up the balance on the turbo later in the day. I was so surprised and relived to see a message pop up when I uploaded the 55km ride to say I’d completed the F500. In fact, I’d done an extra 15km. My maths skills are usually better, but a tired body goes hand in hand with a tired brain. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.
Number of rides: 13
There were 8 days and I did 13 rides. More bad maths? Nope. On Day 5 I split my virtual ride (in virtual Cambridgeshire) in two 37km sections with a long “rest stop” in between. On Day 7, I planned to do a 55km virtual Mallorca ride, but I really struggled. I did 33km and blew up. My poor mind tried to work out how to grind out enough kilometres to leave me with a doable distance on the final day. The only way I could countenance this was to do shorter efforts. I rode two virtual laps of Central Park (9.5km each) and found a flattish (virtual again) time trial course (K46/10) in Worcestershire to clock another 16km.
Punctures: 1
This I count as a great victory since the roads were very wet throughout, which always increases the chance of a blow out. Mine came halfway through my longest ride (87km), again not the worst time. What is the worst time? I think in the very first few km or last few km of a ride is the biggest wind up. That always rains on my parade.
Café stops: 0
Nothing seemed to be open. It was perhaps my poor planning. At the least, a warm drink would have been handy on any of my rides.
Bars and gels consumed: a lot
I stocked up before the holiday season and got through most of my supplies. In the main, I was powered by Torq gels and Veloforte bars. I “stack” my fuel by starting with a gel and then bar, then gel every 30 mins or so.
Times proper food was consumed: Once
By the time I did my longest ride on Day 4, I was a little weary of sports nutrition. That morning I made myself a peanut butter and jam sandwich. I found a good spot to picnic at a table of a pub that was still closed in Coopersale, which is just beyond Theydon Bois in Essex. PBJ sandwiches always make me smile and they have the advantage of having a sticky filling, so they don't fall apart easily in you bag or pocket. With a shedload of festive leftovers, maybe I should have wrapped these up in burritos a few times. My method with burritos is to use baking paper and rubber bands to keep them together. Next time...
Things I’d do differently next time