A culinary Tour de Force

Seeing as Ma and Pa were over from the Antipodes last weekend, we decided to sample the finest cuisine that England had to offer. Or not.

The Turkish in the Marmaris wasn't too bad, although Dad decried the paucity of hummus. He was brave enough to try the "selection of house wines", ie red or white. Throwing caution to the wind, he opted for "red", and on drinking it he made the face he usually does when confronted with this sort of varietal.

Ma decried the lack of dressing on the salad, but I assured her this was normal for these parts. How can you eat a salad without vinaigrette? There's almost no point.

I stuck to beer (rule number one of drinking) and enjoyed it and the very meaty dinner.

Day 2. I squeezed in a fast four hour ride through the Mendips. Burrington in 8'32 and Cheddar in 8'44: easily my fastest times up there this year, and not that far off the times I did in the hill climbs last year. I therefore conclude that doing lots of hills, eg in Welsh Wales, makes you faster up hills. That's quite a revelation, I know, and I'm calling it Jeff's Patented Training(tm). Just remember, you read it here first.

I joined Ma and Pa in the Arnos Manor hotel on the outskirts of Bristol (Christ, now every idiot looking for that hotel on Google will find this blog entry). A very fine establishment it is, though. The dining room was a converted cloister and had interesting chairs in it that were a) very heavy and b) had Latin inscriptions on them that dad was going to decipher.

Dinner there was better than the previous evening, although I can't for the life of me remember what we had. The wine was a hell of a lot better, causing me to ignore rule number one but not pay too heavy a price. Breakfast was good, although snaffling a croissant from the swarm of French locusts at the next table required all my speed and cunning.

Ma & pa at brekky in the Arnos Manor. Note table of French locusts in the background and a distinct lack of croissants.
© Jeff Jones

We needed the fortification for the drive to Oxford: the M4 is stunning at this time of year. We had a lunch date with John, my 97 year-old cousin who's probably at least eight times removed. John first came to Oxford in 1911 and has done many things since, a very interesting chap. He used to walk everywhere and after a long pilgrimage once turned up at my Aunt Margaret's place in Yorkshire, dripping wet, aged approximately 82. This madness must run in the family because I once turned up at my Aunt Margaret's place in Yorkshire, dripping wet, aged 26, after one of the coldest four hour rides I've ever done (it was midsummer, after all). That was in 1998 so things really haven't changed at all.

The restaurant at the end of the universe

The Trout Inn. Don't be fooled, they don't serve trout and it's not free.
© Jeff Jones

Lunch was at the Trout Inn, an incredibly popular pub in Godstow, where Cousin John once composed a poem. I say "incredibly" because as a result of the millions of people there, it had the slowest service in Christendom. After I recounted this to a colleague later, I was assured that along wait for a table was par for the course. It was terrible and we nearly died.

Luckily, we got a seat before the heat death of the universe (to quote another John) although while waiting for food we were able to observe the evolution of several stellar bodies all the way from protostars to supernovas. It was truly enlightening and I never knew a Hertzsprung-Russell diagram could be so useful.

In the end I opted for the garlic mayo, which was accompanied by chicken and chips. Cousin John had a dry salad; Dad I'm not sure, but I don't think it was Isis trout; Ma had a slice of cured leather.

Ma engages Cousin John in conversation while dad watches the universe slowly cool
© Jeff Jones
Waiting for Godstow. At least it was pleasant
© Jeff Jones
The Thames or Isis
© Jeff Jones

We noted that the Trout Inn had the aircon running at full blast, which given that all the doors were open led to a power failure. I guess we could have gotten away without paying (they wouldn't accept John's cheque, which was rather annoying) but alas, we had cash. I should have tried to pass them a 25million Zimbabwean dollar note, which will be worth at least 10 or 11p once they revalue the currency there. Update: it's worth less than that now.

We bade Cousin John farewell and headed for the noice town of Bradford-on-Avon, where we hoped to find some better cuisine and service for dinner. The first port of call was the Lock Inn, but alas the kitchen wasn't open on Sundays. Then we tried the adjacent Canal Tavern, but didn't have much more luck. Their oven had broken so we had a choice of sandwiches or burgers. Everything else was "off" and it reminded me (strongly) of a Peter Sellers sketch. Oh well, it does you good to have a fling occasionally.

Dad had a look at the fish and chipper, but that was closed "due to lack of available staff". It was not looking like our day, but eventually we did find an Italian place that did half decent pizzas and wine, and was actually Open. I'm now sure that the real reason the Romans left Britain was because they were starving.

Bradford-on-Avon is rather noice
© Jeff Jones

El Tour

At the time of posting, it's a good one innit. Without knowing what's going to happen on Alpe d'Huez, I'd say Evans has got to be the fave. He's odd but I like him. I remember when they put him in B grade (because he was a mountain biker) in the Canberra Two Day Tour over 15 years ago and he wiped the floor with everyone. Forget the TdF, the Canberra Tour is a proper race.

JL Augustyn needs some descending tips. Even Denis Menchov could give him some.

Testing times

I still seem to be pedalling reasonably well. I did 21'41 for the club 10 @ 355W the other week, 35 seconds knocked off my best and one of half a dozen people to ever go under 22 minutes on that course. The course record is 21'27. I guess that's possible, especially with some aerodynamic tweaks.

I also did the Chippenham open 25 on the fast U46B course. Alas, it wasn't as quick a day as last time - a stiff norwesterly put paid to that - but I had a relatively better ride than I did in the Cheltenham 25, finishing third in 53'46 behind John Tuckett (52'54) and Bill Moore (53'00). We won the team prize and the West District team championship too with Ben and Andy - number 10 for me this year.

To give you an idea of how much the wind affected things on a fairly flat course, my splits on the two up and back 12km sections were 19'05 @ 341W (~38km/h) and 13'20 @ 309W (~54km/h). Despite the low power coming back with the tailwind, I didn't feel as though I could go any harder. Maybe it helps having wind or a hill to push against, but I also could have done with a bigger gear than 53x11. I never thought I'd say that!

My overall average was 328W, 13W higher than it was for the Cheltenham 25 but 1'44 slower. It's interesting that conditions can affect times by that much.

Bilge in July

I have to say that this blog has deteriorated since its launch in 2004. The bilge was far more entertaining then, even if it was still mostly about bike races. Even I laughed. To be or not to be, that is the question.

</soliloquy of bilge>

With that out of the way, I must needs update the world on the weather around these 'ere parts.

In short, it's raining again. Just like most of last year, followed by winter, spring and then the alleged summer this year. I've started keeping track of the Days It Rains and at current count, it's 19 of the last 23.

Amazingly, it didn't rain much yesterday (Tuesday), it was merely very windy. Why was this important? It wasn't really, except it made the Dursley 25.1 miler - the ninth event in the Hardriders series - slightly more pleasant. Not much, mind, as the course is a bit soul destroying. It was nearly two laps of a triangular circuit around Didmarton, starting with a fast, slightly downhill bit through Westonbirt, followed by a 5km uphill drag on rough roads up to the A46, then a real slog along that (not much in the way of smooth tarmac) back to the start. 330m of climbing/300m descent and the wind was behind us for the first bit but against/across us for the other two legs. I recced the course in similar conditions on Saturday in 1hr07, going hard but not flat out, with no aero kit. On the basis of that I thought something around 57-58 min was doable.

It was a small field but most of the top riders in the series were there: Gavin P, David K, Derek S and my clubmates Ben and Simon. Gavin set the course record last year at 56'24, but said he did it in ideal conditions. That gave me something else to aim at.

As it turned out, I did my best TT of the year. I got around in 56'49 at an average of 335W, nearly 20W higher than I did for the 'fast' U46B 25 mile course in June, but nearly 5min slower! Gavin finished second at 41 seconds, so it was more convincing than any of my previous wins over him, which have been by <10 seconds. Ben, who got his first category licence on the weekend, was third at 1'44, just ahead of David Kiddell. Only one other rider broke the hour. Simon did a 1:02 so we were comfortably home for the team prize.

© Andy Sexton (with permission)

That tips the Hardriders series well in my favour now, although it's not quite over. I have five wins and one second, Gav has three wins and three seconds. He's unlikely to ride the next event in August but said he'll try to get fit for the last two in October. But if I win one more, then there's no way he can overhaul me. And once Ben does his sixth event, we should comfortably win the team trophy, which would be cool.

Including club races, I've actually won four TTs in a row (nine for the year), so I guess all the miles I did in June didn't hurt.

Ma and Pa expected for weekend Visitation. If we're really lucky it'll stop raining.

The Dave Lloyd Mega Challenge

What a monster of a ride. 220km with just over 5000m of climbing - yep, it was all of that. But I finished with a pretty reasonable time of 8hrs12min (8:01 riding time). Not bad considering it rained hard for two hours in the middle and I punctured at the end. It was the quickest too, not that it's a race ;-)

Satnav blindness

I caught the train to Wrexham and rode 30-odd km to Ruthin on Saturday, using a simple route I'd plotted on Bikely and saved to my Garmin. But I made the classic mistake that owners of Satnavs make: following the directions blindly. Unlike me, the Garmin had a mind of its own and deviated from my planned route to go the shortest possible way to Ruthin. I think I'd set it to "avoid major roads", so my route got overridden, so to speak. I dutifully ignored the road signs, one of which said 'dead end' and instead watched the purple line on my GPS and read the instructions...

"Turn right onto unpaved road"

What? This can't be right! But I continued, because I'd just climbed a hill and didn't want to retrace to climb another one.

It was indeed an unpaved road, but I could see it led straight down between Moel Llanfair and Moel y Plas into Ruthin. A mountain bike would have been fine down it, but a road bike with 23mm tyres? Ich don't think so. So I half walked, half rode down and got into town about half an hour later than I would have if I'd ridden on the road. Such idiocy!

"Turn right onto unpaved road"
© Jeff Jones
You idiot
© Jeff Jones

Fortunately, I had managed to get a room in the sumptuous Ruthin Castle hotel, sharing with Bruce Barnes, one of the co-organisers. I assume he was called that to save confusion. A somewhat disorganised Kirsty made the trip up too. I got there just as the Organising Party (including Mr Lloyd) arrived and learned that dinner was in the offing. Brilliant! There were at least three large shindigs going on, including a medieval banquet in one of the other rooms. That looked pretty good.

A bit of Ruthin Castle
© Jeff Jones
I've stayed in worse places
© Jeff Jones

Dinner involved various quantities of wine and meat and some fun tales from Yorkshiremen Fred and Dave, who were part of the organising crew. Dave became very good friends with the wine waiter over the course of the evening, enlisting Kirsty's help on occasion.

Fred used to be a cyclist, now has a bung leg and is trying to lose weight: "Used to be able to drink 30 pints a day but now 16 pints and I've 'ad it."

I retired for the evening, thankful that Bruce didn't snore. Still didn't sleep, which was a bit annoying.

Kirsty, Dave and Fred at dinner. Absence of food meant more wine.
© Jeff Jones

A tough day out

[There will be a report on this in Cycling Plus 214]

It was drizzling on Sunday morning. Does it ever stop raining in this country? The weather reports I'd been checking said it would clear during the course of the day, so I wasn't too dismayed, although the reports did turn out to be somewhat wide of the mark.

A bowl of porridge and two cups of the finest Welsh coffee was enough to get me going but I waited for 25 minutes after most of the field of 400 or so had left until I started. Meanwhile I got some tips from Dave Lloyd about the descent of Moel Arthur. He advised me to stick to the right because it was too rough on the left. Good advice, although I forgot which one of the many descents it was. I realised afterwards I'd followed his advice anyway. I've had past experience of finding smooth bits of road to ride on...


Porridge and Welsh coffee. What more could you ask for?
© Jeff Jones
Kirsty went for the Welsh tea
© Jeff Jones
Should I wear SPF 60+ ?
© Jeff Jones

The first climb out of town was probably the hardest of the day. The Bwlch Ben Parras averaged 12% for over 2km and included a 27% bend and a few slippery cattle grids. Ouch! At least I was fresh, so there was no thought of getting off. I passed many people just on that hill.

There was lots more to come though. 1000m of climbing in the first 25km, same again in the next 25km. Horseshoe Pass had a great descent but I saw a few overcooked it on the second bend. Here's me going down it. Then it was up to World's End, which I thought was beautiful apart from the savage gradient.

I don't blame people who changed their minds at the second feed zone (100km) and went straight back to Ruthin, doing the 110km route instead of the full monty. Because by that stage the rain had started and it was a headwind for the next 60km on the aptly named "Road to Hell". That was hard work, especially as I couldn't see anyone in front to chase, except the odd person I passed who had punctured on the wet gravelly roads. Actually I couldn't see much at all because of the stinging rain.

Somewhere up one of the hills I passed Nick Bourne, the organiser of the Tour of Wessex. He's a strong rider but he ain't built for hills. I had a brief chat before he let me go my unmerry way. The next I saw of him was when I was leaving the feed zone at Bala, having warmed up with a quick cup of coffee, some malt loaf and a chat with friendly northern Fred and Dave. I yelled at Nick to get some coffee, because it was a lifesaver. I never thought I'd say that about coffee in Wales.

The rain stopped at last and I dashed along Lake Bala, thankful that the wind would soon turn in my favour. I was averaging 27km/h and had only stopped for 5 minutes so I thought an eight hour time was doable. The back of the Bwlch-y-Groes was another steep single lane climb but I could at least enjoy some of the amazing scenery in Snowdonia national park. Near the top I could see a couple of riders just ahead - one at a minute, one at three minutes.

I nearly caught the first guy at the top and followed him down the steep and rather fun but technical descent to Lake Vyrnwy. I passed the next guy on the next climb - Pen Bryn-y-Fawnog - which was the final big one. Much like the previous bloke, he told me he was knackered.

The descent off Pen Bryn-y-Fawnog was very quick and not too technical, although there were a few bends that could catch you out. Alas, when I got back onto the lovely smooth main road, I heard the dreaded 'pss...pss...pss' from the front tyre. Buggerbugritbuggerbugritbugger! It was a bit of glass that had gotten lodged in the tyre. I extracted it, replaced the tube, pumped like mad and was back on the bike in five minutes, only being passed by the one rider.

I caught him again with about 20km to go, just as we were tackling the final few 'stingers'. One of them, Melin-y-Wig, was as steep as the very first climb, just not as long. Double ouch. At the top, my companion stopped to lend another puncture victim his pump. I kept going, as I'd already done my puncture time for the day. I passed another who was waiting for his mate, and enjoyed the final 8km downhill to the finish. It turned out I was the second rider of the 'Mega' home (quite a few who'd done the Mini ride had already finished) and had the fastest time by 10 minutes. I was well pleased with that.

I'd given a 20 minute headstart to Kirsty, but it took me nearly three hours to catch her, so I wasn't surprised when she came in having done 9:17, which was the fastest of the handful of women who tackled the full distance. She was likewise well pleased.

I'm definitely pencilling this one in for next year.