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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...

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.

https://youtu.be/nNh51G84WZY

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...
  

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.

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. 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.

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
  

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 Trials, 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 time trials 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.

Almost, eh?

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 start

Despite 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?

Good luck!

+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.

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?

Noted. Just, er, focus...

+RichardM

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.

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 Greenstreet

On 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 May

The 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.

04/04/2022 – New bike day

Is there anything better than new bike day? Nothing really, except maybe two new bike days. My first was a test ride on a titanium Mason Bokeh (mine will arrive next week), the second the arrival of the gravel-capable titanium tandem that +RichardM had built up from a one-off Bingham frame. I think I’ve got that “too much cake” (or too much titanium) feeling.

I ordered my Bokeh from Mason Cycles a long time ago, back in June 2021, but had an existential crisis about the frame size and delivery got put back from December to April. Gulp. That’s a big delay. As the delivery neared, I decided to take a day off to test ride a Bokeh and make sure the sizing was exactly what I needed. Mason Cycles is based on a farm near Lansing in Sussex on the south coast. Their HQ, the Mason barn, is near the Downs Link and they had a short test loop lined up for me. In fact, they had lined up owner Dom Mason’s own titanium Bokeh for me to ride. It’s a handsome bike, kitted out with Hunt wheels, plush 42mm WTB Resolute tyres and electronic GRX 1x group set.

What a teaser on two counts. First, it rode like a dream, solid, nimble and perfectly suited to its purpose. And secondly, the Downs Link is seriously lovely. I am going to have to plot a return and really take in this part of the world more fully. I’ve resisted electronic shifting so far, but this worked quicky and flawlessly and has planted a seed in my brain.

I’d had my eye on the Bokeh for a long time. In truth, I was going backward and forwards between two British brands, the Mason Bokeh and the Fairlight Secan, which I’ve seen a clubmate toting on the Gritty 50 and is highly rated by bike reviewer David English. The latter is a classical-looking steel bike, just as capable and modern as the Bokeh. It was a very close thing. Having left his role as Creative Director at Kinesis in 2016 and Dom Mason has created an incredible range of bikes and I’ve fully bought into the vision.

Although Dom’s Bokeh was incredible, mine will be different. It will be alloy and the non-electronic Campagnolo Ekar with lighter Hunt Gravel Race wheels. My intention is to run the 42mm Resolutes in gravel season and 32mm and fenders for the off season, when it will serve as a winter trainer.

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The second instalment of new bike bliss came in the shape of a bicycle made for two. Richard’s Bingham Built titanium tandem. This is a serious bit of engineering, which Richard details fully in the Ongoing build projects thread.

We took this beefy beast out for about 45 miles of gravel riding in south Herts to get a measure of it. What hit me is how oversized the down tube and that (tandem-only) tube between the two bottom brackets is. Actually, and the top tube. All the tubes. But they are so to do a job and it does it well. The most striking thing for me is how those chunky tubes delivered such a silky smooth ride. I know those trails and tracks, and many are quite rough and always leave you beaten up and full of aches and pains. I know it’s not just my age, honest. Four hours later, I felt unbelievably untouched by the bumps and grinds. It was as if the bike had an invisible suspension system. That’s the only way I can describe it. I haven’t finished a gravel ride feeling so fresh. And, yes, I did pedal.

One part of the spec worth flagging is the satellite shifters. This is now a relatively easy addition with the advent of wireless mini buttons. For background, Richard is something of a grinder, while I am more of a spinner. I know this only too well as we race together on a tandem and have even finished one event with an average cadence of 66rpm. Really we are incompatible; I thought so that day. As pilot he has control of the gearing on the time trial bike. However, wisely or perhaps foolishly, he chose to include satellite shifters for the stoker in this build. This was at times hilarious. Both resisting shifting (waiting for the other to click) or trying to get the first shift in (like being somehow "right") or both shifting at the same time (and then someone has to click back down or up). A can of worms has been opened.

Finally, I have to say I was grateful to the pilot for taking a cautious approach to any really dodgy looking bits of the course. Negotiating any kind of technical tarmac is pretty challenging on a tandem, off road it's a bigger responsibility. Speaking of responsibilities, in my opinion, the role of the pilot is a kind of backseat driver-in-chief. To be in charge of the sat nav, pacing and master of all sarcasm, which was, I felt, undiminished by the terrain.

As I write, I’m still charged from this double high. I’m also still waiting for my Bokeh to come (3 more sleeps) and thinking about how much fun I’m gonna have on these bikes. Good things are worth waiting for. I'm feeling very lucky.

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Photo below is Mason Cycles HQ - orange Bokeh blocking the path to the coffee maker

28/03/2022 - Men in black

Time trial shakedown ride

It’s always a good idea to give your equipment a good on-road test before an event or a season of events. So, now that +RichardM, my time trial partner, was back from his winter sojourn in the States, we set up a session to road test the tandem bike we’d be using.

Of course, my first - and most important - question was “what should we wear?” Form is temporary, but style is permanent, I argued. I suggested we go all black. Racing on the road was banned in the UK in 1890. Events still took place, time trials being the least obtrusive and racers did their best to be inconspicuous, racing at the crack of dawn doors (so events were usually over by 8am) and kitting themselves out in black from head to ankle to go under the radar. They never wore numbers and had to be equipped with a bell. So, black then, but no bell.

Ralph Dougherty at speed in a 1930s time trial dressed all in black including tights and alpaca jacket. Rather daringly he has rolled his sleeves up to show some flesh whereas the norm would be to have sleeves down and the hands in black mitt.

The course we chose was to be our very own Club 10, which starts in South Mymms. This was developed by former committee member +aidan who also wrote a great introduction to time trialling and an FAQ in the club newsletter back in April 2016 that is still worth dipping into.

It’s not the flattest 10 course, but has pretty standard features. It’s an out and back and has a few turns and roundabouts. But it is a very near course, so it you want to practice doing a 10 mile time trial, this fits the bill nicely. Islington CC has run 3 club races a year on this course for several years and it would be great to see them back on the programme after a the Covid interruption for next season. Time trialling is such an accessible form of racing which requires to special technical or group riding skills and you are only racing yourself, so it's truly for all ability levels.

Time trialling is also a good way of benchmarking your fitness, which is partly what brought me and Richard to the South Mymms course. We decided to ride at roughly the effort we’d do for a 25-mile event. I’d call that 9/10. Once we’d finished, we both felt fresh and greed that we’d each put in an 8/10 effort, while slightly beating our race power from last year. This bodes well.

Our time was not good, but we were stopped by traffic three times and were not wearing any aero kit. And then there was brake rub. The part of the shakedown ride that relates to the bike revealed an ongoing teething issue with the disc wheel, which is leaning annoyingly on one brake pad. A marginal loss to add to the traffic and lack of pointy helmets. Other issues with the bike were all solved, so overall we came away feeling positive.

Our first race is the Farnborough and Camberley CC 25 on 9 April, which looks a reasonably fast course. Top tandem pair Ian Greenstreet and Rachael Elliott hold the course record at 00:48:42. Their record is not in jeopardy from us, but we’ll look to improve our own PB.

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Time trial race opportunities
You can view and enter all the open races on the Cycling Time Trials website. It’s pretty cheap (£10-14) and you usually get tea and cake at the HQ after. North Road CC, Finsbury Park CC and Hertfordshire Wheelers all run a series of club 10s that are not too far away and are open to non-members taking part. If in doubt, call or email in advance. In fact, North Road are credited with staging the very first time trial in 1895, a 50 miler.

+Zac I think Stan turned one road early when I first rode it with him. I kept that in. 2.0 could be worth an attempt...

All true.

22/03/2022 - In praise of the Fixie Loop

As we head into British Summer Time, take advantage of the midweek club rides, including this one.

Somehow I’ve ridden the Fixie Loop 99 times. As I close in on a century of rides on this local route, I’m reflecting on just what it is that keeps drawing me back to it. I’ve ridden it fast (chasing KOMs), slow (as a recovery ride), as a kind of intro ride for friends or just a shorter ride on days when a long stint just isn’t possible. Oh, yeah, and sometimes I even ride it on a fixed-gear bike.

I learned the loop back in 2012 from Stan Cmakal at London Phoenix. He called it his “fixie loop," although he was riding a lovely green Wilier geared bike that day and we were a 3up. The route stuck with me and when we were looking to start our first midweek club rides at ICC, I put this forward for Thursdays. Later we added the North London Hills and Radlett Revolution for Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Does the Fixie Loop lend itself to fixed-gear riding? Pretty much, although for the 25 miles from my front door, it’s about 1,250ft of elevation gain. Translate to a century ride and 5,000ft of climbing doesn’t sound so fixie friendly. But there are no 10% sections, almost all the rises feel pretty gradual, so you should not end up feeling too over-geared on a fixed-gear.

Snaking its way out of the capital, but never straying too far, it still manages to feel quite rural. It achieves this by darting around mainly back lanes and between Totteridge, Potters Bar and as far north as Welham Green. There are several long stretches without traffic lights, junctions or give way, so you can work in some good length intervals, if you like.

What’s on the route? Llamas! If you’re lucky you can catch a glimpse of these creatures at Royal Veterinary College and Equine Practice and Referral Hospital on Hawkshead Road. It’s the largest and longest-established vet school in the English-speaking world and is a college of the University of London. (You know I had to look that up, right?).

Just before the RVC, there is what appears to be a castle remnant. Could this Grade II listed building be some form of llama defence scheme? It turns out Folly Arch (also on Hawkshead Road at the junction with Swanley Bar Lane) was actually part of a grand garden design from the 1700s.

Getting back to cycling, I naturally created a Strava segment for this route. Well, it was possibly the only way for me to get a KOM. But I did. This was after the club had been running rides on it for a while, so I did have some competition. Fresh from a Mallorca training camp, I rode it solo and attacked all the way through, I got lucky with the lights in Potters Bar and gained the KOM with a respectable 1:10:08. There followed much grief for me when co-club founder +RichardM and +michool nabbed it off me. Ironically, it was on a tandem. It felt like mechanical doping, but hats off to them anyway. I think Dorian took it next riding in a group. Charlie Salt currently holds the KOM (57:29) and Marine Guerin the QOM (1:05:55).

Here's the link to the club thread on the Thursday Fixie Loop rides. However you choose to ride it, I hope you enjoy this route.

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/37681289

14/03/2022 - Bike not fixed, so I used a fixed bike

In my view you can’t get much more old school than doing pre-season reliability rides. Well, it turns out you can. This weekend I ended up doing a reliability ride on a fixed-gear bike. I know, pure masochism and even more old school. This was not my first choice. I’d had some indexing issues with my road bike and the shop thought it was down to a wonky drop out. A simple fix. So, I duly booked it in. However, it turns out the drop out was true, but the entire drive chain needed replacing. The shop had all the parts aside from the hill-friendly 12-29T cassettes I favour. No probs, I’ll just order one myself and fit it in a few days, except it won’t arrive until after the weekend and my next reliability ride. So… the only choice is my only other bike – my trusty Bob Jackson Vigorelli. I had it set up with a reasonably modest 68in (49:19) gear. It’ll be fine, I tell myself...

There are six Chiltern Classic routes and this week I chose to do the Harp Hilly Hundred route, which is as you’d expect, quite hilly. It starts from King’s Langley. There is something of an overlap between these routes, so you do get a strong sense of déjà vu. Well, it’s actual vu, because there is repetition. Most rides pass through Link Road in Great Missendon, Wendover features in all of them and there is an odd castle-like building that is something is do with a reservoir. There’s a photo below. It’s somewhere between Chesham and Berkhampted. It turns up so much, I think I've been seeing this turret in my dreams, too.

There are five main climbs in this ride. The first is a long slow one up to Ashridge as you leave Berkhampsted, which takes you through some lovely woodland. The second is shorter, but more brutal rise on the B4546 up to Whipsnade. This tops out at 13%. Then there’s a compulsory climb at Wendover Woods, Ivinghoe Beacon and finally there’s quite a challenging ramp out of Berkhamstead.

On a fixed-gear bike you have to commit climbs like these mentally and physically. Being in a inappropriate gear, you have to keep it turning (or churning in my case). You can’t think of easing off or you will. If you do, it’s so much harder to get going again. After the Berkhampsted climb there was a strong dip and rise in the road on Leyhill Road. On the downhill it said 14% and it looked similar going up. This got int my brain and somehow I conspired to unclip on the right side. I’m blaming worn out cleats (since replaced), but once you stop on a grade like that, it’s so hard to start again and clip in. You can ride downhill, clip in easily, turn around and then climb. I was not going to climb this twice, so I hoofed it for 100m to the top.

Last week it was my bike that lacked reliability. This week the bike held firm, but the body was tested more sorely. Sore being the operative word. I finished the Verulam ride feeling strong and Training Peaks gave me 273 TSS (Training Stress Score - a scientific measure of how hard the ride was). This week, I finished feeling utterly ruined. I could barely stand up that evening and Sunday I suffered with the DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness). And the TSS score? A paltry 217! Clearly Training Peaks knows nothing about fixed-gear riding. Sections when you’d normally freewheel, you’re still pedalling because of the fixed-gear. It’s a TSS rip off, but my legs know and I’ve scheduled an extra recovery day before I do my next session. The next long ride will not be on my Bob Jackson and will feel so much easier.

Almost forgot the most important thing, the rest stop. I used the café at the Tring Garden Centre on Bulbourne Road. The food is decent, but I should point out that they have expanded the café enormously without a comparable increase in staff, so you might have to queue to order in busy times. There is a good outdoor space and tons of space inside. I had an americano and a bacon and sausage sandwich before heading off to tackle the Wendover Woods climb.

Here's the route. You can drive up or take a train to nearby Hemel Hempstead from Eutson.

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/29202474

Here's photographer Judith Parry's images from the Verulam event, taken near the top of Whiteleaf Hill. Some even manage a smile.

07/03/2022 - My fitness proved more reliable than my bike

The view I’ve had mostly through the winter has been from my shed atop my turbo (see photo above). But this weekend I did a road event. Not exactly a mass event with 150 riders, but the Verulam Reliability Ride was the first event with the possibility of riding in groups I’d gone in for since the pandemic . In fact, the Verulam Reliability Ride was the last event I rode just before the first lockdown back in March 2020, so there was a nice symmetry about riding it again. The 2020 ride dang near killed me with 5,000ft of gain over 70 miles. I was struggling with fitness that spring.

I was so delighted that this event was taking place. I am a massive fan of Reliability Rides, they are just so English and give me that day at Wimbledon, Test match at Lord’s feeling. Village hall, tea, cake and sandwiches, it’s all good. I know, I’m an easy date. It’s similar with time trials. It’s the grass roots of our sport and it’s so uncool that it is in fact super cool.

The Verulam Reliability Ride is part of the Chiltern Classics series of six rides that take place January to March. Reliability Rides are traditionally ridden as pre-season leg testers and this series fits the bill perfectly. Plus they only cost about a tenner to ride and you always get a good feed at the finish. It’s old school base training for me and I usually ride one or two each year. When I came to plan my season in December, I checked the organising clubs’ websites and it looked like none were being staged, so I elected to ride all the routes in DIY mode. It turned out that two are being staged, the Verulam Reliability Ride on 6 March and the Berkhampstead Reliability Ride on 13 March.

The Verulam ride went really well for me. It features some brutal ramps up (to 18%) and a few longish ascents. Whiteleaf is now indelibly printed on my psyche, but I handled them all steadily and (almost) finished feeling strong. I say almost because I had quite a few flats, ran out of tubes, switched to patches, but had only one. When the cupboard was bare and no sign of passing riders, I did what I’d never done, I admitted defeat and called HQ. The organiser, Alan, drove out and picked me up. I was not bothered by not finishing, it wasn’t a race and I was only five miles from the finish. We had a good chat in the car and listened to the Arsenal match on the radio before arriving at the HQ and refuelling on sandwiches, tea and cake. It was a good day.

Memo to self: check stock of patches in advance and pack three tubes rather than two.

All these Chiltern Classics routes are fabulous. All are quite testing, with plenty of challenging climbs, technical twisty roads and rough but quiet back lanes.

If you fancy the Berkhampstead Reliability Ride, it starts and finishes at the Musette Café in Aldbury. You could drive there or take a train to nearby Tring from Euston.

An occasional blog by David Shannon +Sir_Shannonball the club founder and club secretary for six years on (you've guessed it) cycling...

Darren - you could send an FOI request to Barnet Council to ask if any concerns had been raised about this pothole and if there were any repairs or maintenance work scheduled.

Thanks for the reminder, +katiebonnar - I have submitted a couple to you by email.