A fast blog's a quick blog and a fast time is also a quick time. To whit, 20'21 for 10 miles (five and a half laps) of Castle Combe on Wednesday, to win the first Kinetic One TT of the season and add another to the growing number of teamdrag2zero race wins.
It's a smooth circuit but not that easy to ride flat out, as there are a few corners and chicanes as well as some leg sapping drags. However it was a lovely evening, not a lot of wind, a tad chilly by the time I started but I was more than happy with the fact that it was sunny.
I've been doing a fair whack of training recently and was under orders not to back off for this one, so I didn't. After pegging it from work, I warmed up on the circuit for several laps at a gentle 43km/h. Then it was time to get serious and race, and you can see what happened here - started at an OK 10 pace, set a new lap record on lap 2, then gradually blew to the point of being quite ragged on the last lap.
Funnily enough it was the same time as I did in July last year, when the conditions were slightly better and my legs certainly were. This bodes well and think I've got a sub-20 ride in me, but not until I'm a bit fresher.
Right, off to #paniceat some chocolate I've just #panicbought because the tanker drivers may or may not go on strike.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Rudy Project 1: From the ridiculous to the sublime
After the aborted and bitterly cold Chippenham hilly at the start of March, things completely changed for the first round of the Rudy Project series in Northamptonshire. Sunshine, a light nor easterly and no punctures! And a respectable third place, 40sec behind my Drag2zero teammate Matt Bottrill, who beat young gun Sam Harrison (100% ME - Alex Dowsett's old team) by 14sec.
The course isn't that far from Drag2zero HQ in Brackley. That meant we also had local boy Paul Welsby riding, which thanks to his 14th place in the vets gave us the team prize. If anyone needs a pair of Rudy Project sunnies, give me a yell...
19 miles, tricky distance when you're used to pacing for a 10 or a 25. The course was a rolling out and back jobbie on quiet roads near Litchborough. There wasn't a great deal of flat - unless you count the crests of the hills - which made it difficult to pace. You had to be able to vary your effort and match it to the gradient. Go too easy and you lose too much time on the hills, go too hard and you'll lose too much time everywhere else. It's about as far away from a dragstrip as you get.
I got up at silly o'clock ('cos we lost an hour) to drive out and pre-ride the course. I think it was worth it, although it was a mad rush afterwards to get kitted up in time for the start. Once I did, I felt fast and hoped that would translate into a decent ride.
The first part to the turn was 10.5 miles, tailwind but with more climbing than descent. I enjoyed it, thought I was going at about the right pace and managed to get to the turn in 21'55. By clocking a few people coming back I could see I was up on those who I thought would get close. But after 5 minutes of the return leg, I went off the boil a bit. Yes it was hurting but my mind started wandering. It's a race, it's meant to hurt!
That was compounded by a horse box turning in front of me with about 3 miles to go. It pulled away but I knew I'd catch it on the last descent, which I did and had to scrub off some speed. Frustrating but it's part of TTing on open roads, and there was no way I was going to pull any risky moves. Of course as soon as the road went up again, the horse box's superior horsepower made it pull away again, this time for good. I did my best to get up the 1 mile drag without losing any more time and finished off the race quite well.
I wasn't initially thrilled with my time of 40'52 as I figured closer to 40min would have been possible. But it turned out to be a decent ride, with Matt clocking 40'12 to win it and Sam Harrison pushing him close with his 40'26 - I'm sure we'll hear more of Mr Harrison in future.
All in all a very good day for the team, with Derek Parkinson winning the Border City Wheelers SPOCO to boot.
I'll try and get it together for the second Rudy in a few weeks, as it's of a similar distance. In the meantime, I'm doing the Kinetic One 10 at Castle Combe on Wednesday and the Good Friday 10 on the V718 on April 6. Both Derek and Mark Holton are riding that, so if it lives up to expectations we might be in with a shout of a team comp record.
The course isn't that far from Drag2zero HQ in Brackley. That meant we also had local boy Paul Welsby riding, which thanks to his 14th place in the vets gave us the team prize. If anyone needs a pair of Rudy Project sunnies, give me a yell...
19 miles, tricky distance when you're used to pacing for a 10 or a 25. The course was a rolling out and back jobbie on quiet roads near Litchborough. There wasn't a great deal of flat - unless you count the crests of the hills - which made it difficult to pace. You had to be able to vary your effort and match it to the gradient. Go too easy and you lose too much time on the hills, go too hard and you'll lose too much time everywhere else. It's about as far away from a dragstrip as you get.
I got up at silly o'clock ('cos we lost an hour) to drive out and pre-ride the course. I think it was worth it, although it was a mad rush afterwards to get kitted up in time for the start. Once I did, I felt fast and hoped that would translate into a decent ride.
The first part to the turn was 10.5 miles, tailwind but with more climbing than descent. I enjoyed it, thought I was going at about the right pace and managed to get to the turn in 21'55. By clocking a few people coming back I could see I was up on those who I thought would get close. But after 5 minutes of the return leg, I went off the boil a bit. Yes it was hurting but my mind started wandering. It's a race, it's meant to hurt!
That was compounded by a horse box turning in front of me with about 3 miles to go. It pulled away but I knew I'd catch it on the last descent, which I did and had to scrub off some speed. Frustrating but it's part of TTing on open roads, and there was no way I was going to pull any risky moves. Of course as soon as the road went up again, the horse box's superior horsepower made it pull away again, this time for good. I did my best to get up the 1 mile drag without losing any more time and finished off the race quite well.
I wasn't initially thrilled with my time of 40'52 as I figured closer to 40min would have been possible. But it turned out to be a decent ride, with Matt clocking 40'12 to win it and Sam Harrison pushing him close with his 40'26 - I'm sure we'll hear more of Mr Harrison in future.
All in all a very good day for the team, with Derek Parkinson winning the Border City Wheelers SPOCO to boot.
I'll try and get it together for the second Rudy in a few weeks, as it's of a similar distance. In the meantime, I'm doing the Kinetic One 10 at Castle Combe on Wednesday and the Good Friday 10 on the V718 on April 6. Both Derek and Mark Holton are riding that, so if it lives up to expectations we might be in with a shout of a team comp record.
Sunday, March 04, 2012
Nailed
...Or A Series of Unfortunate Events Somewhere Near Chippenham
Sometimes, despite meticulous planning the night before, things don't quite go your way. When it comes to bikes, there's only so much you can do.
Today's Chippenham hilly was to be my first race outing of the season in the slinky new Drag2Zero kit. And so it was, until it was aborted due to a nail induced puncture before I'd even got to the recently renamed and higher statused (is that even a word?) Royal Wootton Bassett, approximately 22 minutes in. That previous sentence had far too much detail in it so I'm putting this one in as padding.
I continued for another 10 mins on the slowly deflating Planete X FMB (*sniff*) to the top of Callow Hill, where I spotted a marshal who directed me to her husband's car. I found it, got in with another rider who had packed due to the cold (and who generously gave me a lift home to Bath), and spent the next 10mins with the heater full on before I could even take my helmet off.
I know, let's start the race at 10 and run through until just after midday. I was off at 11:20
Did I mention it was cold? That was the real problem today. The weather has been insanely good of late, 10-15 degrees and pretty sunny. Why, on Saturday I was out in 3/4s and arm warmers, enjoying the first heating up of spring. Sunday was a different story. A cold rain blew in from the north west and dumped a lot of water on top of us for about 6 hours. By an annoying coincidence it overlapped with the Chippenham hilly. Even more annoying, when I got home to Bath it was sunny and warmish again. We are not amused.
Riding out to the start wasn't too bad as I was fully rugged up. The computer mount separating into two halves (I blame the A4) wasn't the ideal start so I ended up riding purely on feel. The dial on my shoe stopped working too, but the super snug Smart shoe covers held everything in place. They weren't as white by the end of the ride unfortunately.
I opted for no visor on my Uvex as it was still raining when I rode from the HQ to the start. That turned into a mixture of rain and snow when I got under way. I kept blowing on my hands (aero position be buggered) to make sure they kept warm enough to change gear and brake when needed. And despite the nasty weather I was quite enjoying it, averaging 45 clicks (28mph) out to the bottom of Lyneham bank. It was good to ride without seeing the computer, which I'd stuffed down the front of my skinsuit so I at least collected the data.
I kept it in the big ring on the climb as I really couldn't be arsed with the hassle of moving my left hand to the gear lever (did I mention it was cold?). Got to the top and the crosswind turned tail for a wee bit which allowed me to crank it up before the roundabout. 11.8km down and 16'56 on the clock. Annoyingly there were cars on roundabout (thanks Rob for the shout!) and I had to scrub 30km/h off my speed to wait for a clear run, but once I got going again I made some ground back.
It was warp speed all the way to Royal Wootton Bassett: it was still cross headwind but the shelter from the left and gradual descent helped. I finally saw some more riders ahead of me (I'd passed my minute man inside 3mins but there were two non starters before him). But just as I had them in sight, I felt the tyre go on the last descent before the climb over the railway bridge into RWB. I told myself it wasn't flat, it was just the wind and even if it was I'd damn well finish anyway.
I got to the left turn at RWB in 24'14 with 17.3km completed - nearly halfway, and 1'42 quicker than I'd managed to this point last year, although there was more headwind then. When I turned I realised that it was the tyre that was gone. And I began to lose heart. I passed my four minute man at this point and still seemed to be going quick enough to get to the finish. Right turn to Callow Hill (19.8km) in 27'36, headwind up the climb and that's when the tyre went very soft and I gave up. Annoyed and cold, I got to the top in 31'25 - still leading by around 20sec at this point - and stopped to ask the marshal if there was a car nearby. Luckily there was and I got in. See above for more on that.
That was more or less it. We went back to the HQ to see the damage - lots of riders DNFd, several with punctures, and many more didn't bother starting. All up there were 42 finishers with 2011 WTTA hardrider winner and very quick Bath CC rider Rob Pears the quickest of the lot in 56'14. An excellent ride in those conditions and he certainly was cold at the end. Rob Lyne and Paul Jones rounded out the top three with Peter Georgi the only other rider under the hour today. Brutal. Read Paul's excellent take on it in his blog.
On the positive side I did have a good ride up until I didn't. Power was looking like being 13W up on last year despite the rubbish weather. I'm just annoyed I couldn't finish it off! At least my new teammates Mark and Derek and Matt Bottrill had better days to collect a couple of wins for Drag2Zero over the weekend.
Next up for me will be the Rudy Project round 1 at the end of March before things get going a bit more in April.
Sometimes, despite meticulous planning the night before, things don't quite go your way. When it comes to bikes, there's only so much you can do.
Today's Chippenham hilly was to be my first race outing of the season in the slinky new Drag2Zero kit. And so it was, until it was aborted due to a nail induced puncture before I'd even got to the recently renamed and higher statused (is that even a word?) Royal Wootton Bassett, approximately 22 minutes in. That previous sentence had far too much detail in it so I'm putting this one in as padding.
I continued for another 10 mins on the slowly deflating Planete X FMB (*sniff*) to the top of Callow Hill, where I spotted a marshal who directed me to her husband's car. I found it, got in with another rider who had packed due to the cold (and who generously gave me a lift home to Bath), and spent the next 10mins with the heater full on before I could even take my helmet off.
Did I mention it was cold? That was the real problem today. The weather has been insanely good of late, 10-15 degrees and pretty sunny. Why, on Saturday I was out in 3/4s and arm warmers, enjoying the first heating up of spring. Sunday was a different story. A cold rain blew in from the north west and dumped a lot of water on top of us for about 6 hours. By an annoying coincidence it overlapped with the Chippenham hilly. Even more annoying, when I got home to Bath it was sunny and warmish again. We are not amused.
Riding out to the start wasn't too bad as I was fully rugged up. The computer mount separating into two halves (I blame the A4) wasn't the ideal start so I ended up riding purely on feel. The dial on my shoe stopped working too, but the super snug Smart shoe covers held everything in place. They weren't as white by the end of the ride unfortunately.
I opted for no visor on my Uvex as it was still raining when I rode from the HQ to the start. That turned into a mixture of rain and snow when I got under way. I kept blowing on my hands (aero position be buggered) to make sure they kept warm enough to change gear and brake when needed. And despite the nasty weather I was quite enjoying it, averaging 45 clicks (28mph) out to the bottom of Lyneham bank. It was good to ride without seeing the computer, which I'd stuffed down the front of my skinsuit so I at least collected the data.
I kept it in the big ring on the climb as I really couldn't be arsed with the hassle of moving my left hand to the gear lever (did I mention it was cold?). Got to the top and the crosswind turned tail for a wee bit which allowed me to crank it up before the roundabout. 11.8km down and 16'56 on the clock. Annoyingly there were cars on roundabout (thanks Rob for the shout!) and I had to scrub 30km/h off my speed to wait for a clear run, but once I got going again I made some ground back.
It was warp speed all the way to Royal Wootton Bassett: it was still cross headwind but the shelter from the left and gradual descent helped. I finally saw some more riders ahead of me (I'd passed my minute man inside 3mins but there were two non starters before him). But just as I had them in sight, I felt the tyre go on the last descent before the climb over the railway bridge into RWB. I told myself it wasn't flat, it was just the wind and even if it was I'd damn well finish anyway.
I got to the left turn at RWB in 24'14 with 17.3km completed - nearly halfway, and 1'42 quicker than I'd managed to this point last year, although there was more headwind then. When I turned I realised that it was the tyre that was gone. And I began to lose heart. I passed my four minute man at this point and still seemed to be going quick enough to get to the finish. Right turn to Callow Hill (19.8km) in 27'36, headwind up the climb and that's when the tyre went very soft and I gave up. Annoyed and cold, I got to the top in 31'25 - still leading by around 20sec at this point - and stopped to ask the marshal if there was a car nearby. Luckily there was and I got in. See above for more on that.
That was more or less it. We went back to the HQ to see the damage - lots of riders DNFd, several with punctures, and many more didn't bother starting. All up there were 42 finishers with 2011 WTTA hardrider winner and very quick Bath CC rider Rob Pears the quickest of the lot in 56'14. An excellent ride in those conditions and he certainly was cold at the end. Rob Lyne and Paul Jones rounded out the top three with Peter Georgi the only other rider under the hour today. Brutal. Read Paul's excellent take on it in his blog.
On the positive side I did have a good ride up until I didn't. Power was looking like being 13W up on last year despite the rubbish weather. I'm just annoyed I couldn't finish it off! At least my new teammates Mark and Derek and Matt Bottrill had better days to collect a couple of wins for Drag2Zero over the weekend.
Next up for me will be the Rudy Project round 1 at the end of March before things get going a bit more in April.
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