Right, time for an udpate.
El Tour de France was just superb this year, and I normally don't like the Tour that much. The racing was excellent from day 1 and we got all sorts of Drama and Action. Like Cadel winning overall, which was well deserved and no doubt good for Orstrayan cycling. I hope they declare a public holiday and knight the bugger. That's what sportspersons get innit?
I also enjoyed THOR winning a couple of stages, resplendent in the rainbow jersey. To have the world champ win in the biggest race is always good. The one where he chased down Jeremy Roy and just blasted by him in the final kilometres was magic.
Cadel...oh I mentioned him. He can time trial a bit, unlike the Schleck Bros Andy and Fränk (silly place for an umlaut) who apart from being joined at the hip are way too skinny to be any use against the clock.
In my opinion, they clearly need to hit ther local pie shop and cäke haus and start bulking up. I think the addition of several litres of beer and 1kg of Milka each day should do the trick. If they haven't gained 10kg by next year's Tour, they're screwed. And although they will probably be in the broom wagon on the climbs, they'll make up for this on the descents. What goes up must come down and 10kg of blubber makes you go quicker downhill. Another fact. Or fat.
Don't believe me? Look at this story from this year's Criterium International. Frank Schleck, who went onto win, did the final TT with a Camelback stuffed down his jersey. Sorry, you can't do that. If you want a gut, you've got to eat pies, it's the law.
What else? There was Flecha and Hoogerland's crash into the barbed wire, courtesy of a looney driver. If riders aren't safe at the Tour, there's not much hope for the rest of us. Hoogerland is pretty awesome for getting up and finishing the race.
And who could forget Thomas 'TiTi' Voeckler? Nearly 2wks in yellow and only dethroned by his own fighting spirit on the last alpine stage. Had he dropped back to the peloton instead of trying to bridge the gap to Contador and Schleck on the Galibier, he might have stood a chance on Alpe D'Huez. Oh well, more to come from him methinks.
Then there was Evans. Oh I mentioned him. How about Cav? Five more stage wins, green jersey this year and he's still only a nipper. More to come from him too.
Only one positive test too, which is a good sign.
Going fast in a 50
I've been going ok of late and managed a really fast time in the BDCA 50 last Saturday. 1:39:03 (48.7km/h in the new money) to win the event and become the sixth fastest 50 rider of all time (with the caveat that any pro would beat that standing on their head but they don't typically do 50s). A couple of seconds quicker would have put me fourth on this list ahead of Graeme Obree (ex hour record holder) and Nik Bowdler (twice BBAR winner). That's good company.
The A50/6 course is always fast, so Saturday was a showdown between most of this year's BBAR contenders. Julian Jenkinson was there, having recently clocked 3:31 for a 100(!) and I figured he'd win it. Or Studodd would.
But surprise surprise I did, after Stu DNFed (hit a manhole and did something bad to his back) and Jenks managed 1:41:42 (4th). Scott Povey did an excellent 1:40:08 for 2nd, then Derek Parkinson finished third in 1:40:49.
The ride itself was one of those where you knew it was going to be quick. Like last year (when I did a 1:45:08) there was a headwind on the outward leg which given that it's all uphill you would think would really kill the speed. But for some bizarre reason - probably traffic and shelter - it's not that bad. I got to the far turn (35km) in 46'52, a full 2'30 quicker than last year. Then bombed back down the hill, did the flat 11.5km dogleg out to Rocester and back a minute quicker than last year, then went at warp speed for the last 20km, which I did in 22'35! Converting back to miles, I did the final 25 miles (40.25km) in 45'54 and the final 10 miles (16.1km) in 17'56.
Power wise it wasn't a bad ride but not a PB by any stretch. Also although I did it 'flat out' I wasn't spent at the end, it was just that lifting it at any point on the way back felt like it might be a bad idea. But there were several points where I eased up, took time to fiddle with my helmet and skinsuit, freewheeled, waited for cars in front of me to get around the roundabout, took a drink, had a gel, turned on the radio to see if Radio 2 had gotten any better (it hadn't), etc.
From that point of view it was good as I know there's a bit more there. Maybe I'll beat it next year...
Next up for me is the Breckland 12hr, which promises to be both fast and boring. I hope to improve on my 280.74 miles I did last year, but all the signs are there that it's possible.
Sunday, August 07, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
And the last shall be first
Righto, time for a wee update. This will not be news to Facebook friends although it might be to Google+ friends/acquaintances/family/other.
Training
Following the national 50 I've done three weeks of very solid endurance work. It wasn't easy, especially the second week, but I came through alright. In fact, the planets aligned just after my 40th birthday and I managed a couple of power PBs in the same week. Nice.
Racing
The first one was at the Castle Combe 10 on Wednesday, where I managed to knock a substantial chunk of time off the course record to post 20'21 on a completely traffic-free circuit. That's a shade over 47km/h in the new money and I was pretty happy at being able to do that without being sucked along by a stream of traffic. As you can see from the lap splits (ignore the first, which was a bit under half a lap) I started a bit conservatively but got quicker as it went on. The main reason being was because I couldn't quite believe I could sustain the number that was showing on my power meter for the full 20 minutes, as I'd never done it in the past.
But it turned out that I could, in fact I could up it towards the end because I'd gone out comparatively steadily. An even split would have been better but there wouldn't have been much more than a second or two in it. I'll take a power PB any day: 20W up on last year's best, 13W up on this year's and 5W up on my all time best (set a few years ago in a club event), all using the same wheel.
Me @ Castle Combe
© Simonthecyclist
Fast forward to Sunday's North Middlesex and Herts CA 100 and I did it again, although not by as much. It was a similar course to the first part of the Icknield 12hr that I did last year - a few laps of the A1 followed by one and a half laps of a finishing circuit up the A421 then back along a B road. The wind was blowing about 20km/h from the SW and it made life tough coming back from the northernmost roundabout and really difficult going up the A421 towards the finish. More on that in a bit. Going the other way was fun though.
I was off last in a field of 54 (not all of whom started), which is always an advantage in an early morning event. I had a nice evenly paced ride, finishing in 3:39:43, which is 1'39 better than my PB. It was also good enough to win by 18'30 from Paul Gamlin and Dave Johnson. I did wonder how I'd go against Dean Lubin, who'd done a 3:40:09 recently and who was off 4min ahead of me. I clocked him at 1/3 distance and had taken 1'30 out of him, but he stopped a bit further on as he probably knew it wasn't going to be any quicker than 3:40.
Power-wise, it was a good ride. In contrast to previous 100s, I managed to negative split by a few watts in the second half compared to the first. That's also reflected in the time splits: 1:50:12 to halfway, 1:49:31 for the second half.
Me @ the NH&HCA 100
© Dave Jones
The finishing circuit was rather cruel but I knew what to expect having driven over it the day before. The first part was a 7km section on the A421, with two long uphill drags and a shorter downhill bit in the middle. All into the teeth of the wind. At least the road surface was good. You then turned off onto a rough B road and went back 7km with the wind behind you. Only to repeat the headwind section and finish after only 1.5km of tailwind. This had a negative affect on the average speed.
Before I hit the finishing circuit, my average was 44.5km/h, ie good enough for a short 3:37. But the extra headwind turned that into a long 3:39 - and I did the finishing circuit at +10W above the rest of the ride!
It could have been worse: had I done my usual trick of dying with an hour to go I would have lost buckets of time. Many riders did, and that became quite apparent on the headwind sections. There was some real suffering going on.
After I finished, the organiser Gordon Hart pulled up beside me in his car as I was riding back to the HQ. He said I was first to finish, which was good as I hadn't spotted Dean Lubin for a while and thought he might have taken time out of me. But what Gordon meant is that I was actually the first rider home despite being the last to start. I'd caught the entire field. I am still quite chuffed with that!
Results and more pics here
Training
Following the national 50 I've done three weeks of very solid endurance work. It wasn't easy, especially the second week, but I came through alright. In fact, the planets aligned just after my 40th birthday and I managed a couple of power PBs in the same week. Nice.
Racing
The first one was at the Castle Combe 10 on Wednesday, where I managed to knock a substantial chunk of time off the course record to post 20'21 on a completely traffic-free circuit. That's a shade over 47km/h in the new money and I was pretty happy at being able to do that without being sucked along by a stream of traffic. As you can see from the lap splits (ignore the first, which was a bit under half a lap) I started a bit conservatively but got quicker as it went on. The main reason being was because I couldn't quite believe I could sustain the number that was showing on my power meter for the full 20 minutes, as I'd never done it in the past.
But it turned out that I could, in fact I could up it towards the end because I'd gone out comparatively steadily. An even split would have been better but there wouldn't have been much more than a second or two in it. I'll take a power PB any day: 20W up on last year's best, 13W up on this year's and 5W up on my all time best (set a few years ago in a club event), all using the same wheel.
Me @ Castle Combe © Simonthecyclist
Fast forward to Sunday's North Middlesex and Herts CA 100 and I did it again, although not by as much. It was a similar course to the first part of the Icknield 12hr that I did last year - a few laps of the A1 followed by one and a half laps of a finishing circuit up the A421 then back along a B road. The wind was blowing about 20km/h from the SW and it made life tough coming back from the northernmost roundabout and really difficult going up the A421 towards the finish. More on that in a bit. Going the other way was fun though.
I was off last in a field of 54 (not all of whom started), which is always an advantage in an early morning event. I had a nice evenly paced ride, finishing in 3:39:43, which is 1'39 better than my PB. It was also good enough to win by 18'30 from Paul Gamlin and Dave Johnson. I did wonder how I'd go against Dean Lubin, who'd done a 3:40:09 recently and who was off 4min ahead of me. I clocked him at 1/3 distance and had taken 1'30 out of him, but he stopped a bit further on as he probably knew it wasn't going to be any quicker than 3:40.
Power-wise, it was a good ride. In contrast to previous 100s, I managed to negative split by a few watts in the second half compared to the first. That's also reflected in the time splits: 1:50:12 to halfway, 1:49:31 for the second half.
Me @ the NH&HCA 100 © Dave Jones
The finishing circuit was rather cruel but I knew what to expect having driven over it the day before. The first part was a 7km section on the A421, with two long uphill drags and a shorter downhill bit in the middle. All into the teeth of the wind. At least the road surface was good. You then turned off onto a rough B road and went back 7km with the wind behind you. Only to repeat the headwind section and finish after only 1.5km of tailwind. This had a negative affect on the average speed.
Before I hit the finishing circuit, my average was 44.5km/h, ie good enough for a short 3:37. But the extra headwind turned that into a long 3:39 - and I did the finishing circuit at +10W above the rest of the ride!
It could have been worse: had I done my usual trick of dying with an hour to go I would have lost buckets of time. Many riders did, and that became quite apparent on the headwind sections. There was some real suffering going on.
After I finished, the organiser Gordon Hart pulled up beside me in his car as I was riding back to the HQ. He said I was first to finish, which was good as I hadn't spotted Dean Lubin for a while and thought he might have taken time out of me. But what Gordon meant is that I was actually the first rider home despite being the last to start. I'd caught the entire field. I am still quite chuffed with that!
Results and more pics here
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Nat 50 + visitation
The visitation was first, in the form of little sister Lucy, who was on a work trip to the UK and popped down to Bath for a hello and a sightsee.
The sightseeing involved approximately 12km of walking up and down hills. Very pleasant as we saw some nice bits of Bath that require a bit of local knowledge to spot. No pics owing to still busted camera. I must get a new one.
My legs were somewhat knackered after that, but I figured/hoped it wouldn't matter too much for the 50. In hindsight I don't think it did, as my power was pretty much bang on what I thought I could do. That was enough to get me another 8th spot, which was satisfying. It's strange, in the national 25 I was delighted, but in the 50 it felt more like confirmation that the 25 wasn't a fluke. You reset your standards when you improve.
I was happy for a few other reasons too. The main one was that I'd got an early start time (along with Richard Simmonds and Andy Bason). In a morning event this is usually a bad thing as temperature and traffic increase throughout the morning, which means you go quicker later on. I was off at 9:15, but most of the other quick guys were off between 10 and 10:30. It doesn't sound like it should matter but it can be worth minutes in some cases. And worse if you're off at 8am...
So I treated it as two races, one between me, Rich and Andy - to whom I could compare directly - and the other against the rest of the field.
I set off fairly hard into the wind as I thought it was better to counteract the slowest part of the ride with more power. It wasn't long before I passed Sean Yates (yep, the ex-pro wot is now director of Team Sky), who was on his second lap and not looking to be having an easy time of it into the wind. The road didn't help matters either: it was hard and bumpy and it's definitely not a fast course. It was a case of picking a line through the bumpiest bits and hoping you didn't get slowed down too much.
The tailwind back home was nice and I felt quite comfortable at what was close to my usual 1hr power. Never a good sign, as I know from experience. However I'd committed to this strategy. I think both Rich and Andy had this idea too, as they were 15 and 10 seconds up on me after the first lap.
Lap 2 was different. I dropped 13W but only 9sec (the splits in the results weren't taken at the end of the laps, rather at the 20 and 40 mile marks). In 20 miles at my speed, 13W should be worth 36sec so you can already see what difference conditions make. To put that another way, had I started at 10am, my first lap would have been 27sec quicker, my second and third - that's harder to tell. All up losing between 30sec and a minute based on start time is tough in a race like this! However, it's incentive to get quicker in order to get a better position on the grid.
At least I felt OK and wasn't in danger of blowing up, but I also didn't have loads left for the final short lap. I had now moved ahead of Rich (who'd beaten me on the same course by 2min a week previously) by 36sec so he'd clearly paid a higher price than me for a hard start. Andy Bason was still 9sec up so it was close.
I lost a few more watts for the final 9.6 miles but these were also my quickest (20'31) - both thanks to the conditions and also because we didn't have to go up to the second roundabout, only the first one. After gritting my teeth into the headwind the final time I flew home. The last 4.8 miles in 9'12 - that's 50.7km/h in real money. Yes it was marginally downhill, which helped!
Final time: 1:47:36, which was about 45 sec up on the previous week, when I wasn't going quite as hard. That was good, as a few people I spoke to afterwards, like Chippenham's Mark Woolford, who'd ridden both went backwards by 3-4min today as it was so windy.
Bason had lost a bit of ground to me and finished in 1:47:58, while Rich ended up with 1:49:31, which I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have been happy with. Anyway, I had the lead for a bit but I could see that British long distance legend Andy Wilkinson (12 hr comp record holder with 302 miles) was motoring up and down the course and I was certain he'd demolish my time. He did with 1:45:13 which gave him third spot in the end. Hmm, I wonder if I can find 20W...
I had to wait a while before the final times were in and lo and behold, what a battle it was between Matt Bottrill and Michael Hutchinson! Bottrill was up 13sec at 20 miles, then just 7sec at 40 miles, but Hutch turned it on in the last 10 and reversed the deficit to a handy 16secs by the finish. That is not very much: 2W in power terms, or the difference between perfect pacing and slightly off pacing, or socks, or a head fairing as opposed to an aero helmet. It's really not much.
Bottrill was disappointed afterwards as he's never been that close before, but I'm pretty sure he'll get there in the next year or two. He has been flying this year and my own guesstimates (as I've raced them both) had him very close to Hutch. He was unfortunately off his best in the 25, which is why Hutch beat him fairly comfortably. But not in the 50 - where Hutch wasn't at his best.
It's good to see as we need a bit of competition at the top to stir up more interest in the sport.
Pics here (I'm on P7, P10, P19, P23, P26) and here
Results here
Report here
The women are a different matter. Julia Shaw was in a class of her own again and beat Rebecca Slack by over 6 minutes. It was a pretty grim day for them on Saturday too. I'd raced that course in the rain the previous week and it's no fun.
Next up for me: was going to be the national 100 in Yorkshire but I didn't get in as the organisers didn't receive an entry from me. Unfortunately you generally only find this out when the start list comes out, by which point it's too late to do anything about it. Annoying but not the end of the world, and I'll find another 100 to ride.
The sightseeing involved approximately 12km of walking up and down hills. Very pleasant as we saw some nice bits of Bath that require a bit of local knowledge to spot. No pics owing to still busted camera. I must get a new one.
My legs were somewhat knackered after that, but I figured/hoped it wouldn't matter too much for the 50. In hindsight I don't think it did, as my power was pretty much bang on what I thought I could do. That was enough to get me another 8th spot, which was satisfying. It's strange, in the national 25 I was delighted, but in the 50 it felt more like confirmation that the 25 wasn't a fluke. You reset your standards when you improve.
I was happy for a few other reasons too. The main one was that I'd got an early start time (along with Richard Simmonds and Andy Bason). In a morning event this is usually a bad thing as temperature and traffic increase throughout the morning, which means you go quicker later on. I was off at 9:15, but most of the other quick guys were off between 10 and 10:30. It doesn't sound like it should matter but it can be worth minutes in some cases. And worse if you're off at 8am...
So I treated it as two races, one between me, Rich and Andy - to whom I could compare directly - and the other against the rest of the field.
I set off fairly hard into the wind as I thought it was better to counteract the slowest part of the ride with more power. It wasn't long before I passed Sean Yates (yep, the ex-pro wot is now director of Team Sky), who was on his second lap and not looking to be having an easy time of it into the wind. The road didn't help matters either: it was hard and bumpy and it's definitely not a fast course. It was a case of picking a line through the bumpiest bits and hoping you didn't get slowed down too much.
The tailwind back home was nice and I felt quite comfortable at what was close to my usual 1hr power. Never a good sign, as I know from experience. However I'd committed to this strategy. I think both Rich and Andy had this idea too, as they were 15 and 10 seconds up on me after the first lap.
Lap 2 was different. I dropped 13W but only 9sec (the splits in the results weren't taken at the end of the laps, rather at the 20 and 40 mile marks). In 20 miles at my speed, 13W should be worth 36sec so you can already see what difference conditions make. To put that another way, had I started at 10am, my first lap would have been 27sec quicker, my second and third - that's harder to tell. All up losing between 30sec and a minute based on start time is tough in a race like this! However, it's incentive to get quicker in order to get a better position on the grid.
At least I felt OK and wasn't in danger of blowing up, but I also didn't have loads left for the final short lap. I had now moved ahead of Rich (who'd beaten me on the same course by 2min a week previously) by 36sec so he'd clearly paid a higher price than me for a hard start. Andy Bason was still 9sec up so it was close.
I lost a few more watts for the final 9.6 miles but these were also my quickest (20'31) - both thanks to the conditions and also because we didn't have to go up to the second roundabout, only the first one. After gritting my teeth into the headwind the final time I flew home. The last 4.8 miles in 9'12 - that's 50.7km/h in real money. Yes it was marginally downhill, which helped!
Final time: 1:47:36, which was about 45 sec up on the previous week, when I wasn't going quite as hard. That was good, as a few people I spoke to afterwards, like Chippenham's Mark Woolford, who'd ridden both went backwards by 3-4min today as it was so windy.
Bason had lost a bit of ground to me and finished in 1:47:58, while Rich ended up with 1:49:31, which I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have been happy with. Anyway, I had the lead for a bit but I could see that British long distance legend Andy Wilkinson (12 hr comp record holder with 302 miles) was motoring up and down the course and I was certain he'd demolish my time. He did with 1:45:13 which gave him third spot in the end. Hmm, I wonder if I can find 20W...
I had to wait a while before the final times were in and lo and behold, what a battle it was between Matt Bottrill and Michael Hutchinson! Bottrill was up 13sec at 20 miles, then just 7sec at 40 miles, but Hutch turned it on in the last 10 and reversed the deficit to a handy 16secs by the finish. That is not very much: 2W in power terms, or the difference between perfect pacing and slightly off pacing, or socks, or a head fairing as opposed to an aero helmet. It's really not much.
Bottrill was disappointed afterwards as he's never been that close before, but I'm pretty sure he'll get there in the next year or two. He has been flying this year and my own guesstimates (as I've raced them both) had him very close to Hutch. He was unfortunately off his best in the 25, which is why Hutch beat him fairly comfortably. But not in the 50 - where Hutch wasn't at his best.
It's good to see as we need a bit of competition at the top to stir up more interest in the sport.
Pics here (I'm on P7, P10, P19, P23, P26) and here
Results here
Report here
The women are a different matter. Julia Shaw was in a class of her own again and beat Rebecca Slack by over 6 minutes. It was a pretty grim day for them on Saturday too. I'd raced that course in the rain the previous week and it's no fun.
Next up for me: was going to be the national 100 in Yorkshire but I didn't get in as the organisers didn't receive an entry from me. Unfortunately you generally only find this out when the start list comes out, by which point it's too late to do anything about it. Annoying but not the end of the world, and I'll find another 100 to ride.
Monday, June 06, 2011
The national 25
Time to update el blog as I've just passed the main focus of the season, the national 25 mile championships. And done good too, finishing 8th, a mere 2'18 behind Dr Michael Hutchinson. Yes he had a mechanical but still, it's the closest I've ever been to him in a 25, let alone a national, so I'll take it.
To recap and I never get tired of reminding myself of this fact, in 2009 I finished 43rd @ 6'23 behind Hutch. In 2010 I was 16th @ 4'03. This year 8th at 2'18. So two more years and I'll win, ho ho. It's extrapolations like that that send companies bankrupt.
8th is a good result for me, as this is the most keenly contested championships for the amateurs. And it's also generally more popular than the British TT champs (pros can ride both, but they prefer the BTTC). So more competition, which is a good thing.
That said, the course, which started in Holsworthy in Devon, was more like the BTTC than a typical CTT course in that it contained hills. A couple of which I needed the small ring for, even down to 39x23! It also had more climbing than descending, so in that sense was like an early season hardriders course. On the other hand, apart from one corner and a roundabout that required braking, it was non-technical. And the roads were nice smooth tarmac for the most part.
The prep and the women
Liz and I drove down the day before to stay with relations of friends of ours (Lowenna and Mark), and we were generously given beds for the evening and large quantities of food. Which you don't actually need for a one hour race but hey...
Low was nervous as it was only her second 25 (she's done plenty of 10s and three(!) 12hrs). Plus she was on a new TT bike, which takes some getting used to. I spent some time sorting out her helmet so that it sat properly on her back, made sure her numbers were OK, gave her a few tips on the course and left her to it.
Liz and I cheered her and the rest of the women as they went up the first hill. We got a few nods of recognition and thanks as we named the riders correctly. It was interesting seeing how some of the women tackled the climb, which was fairly steep. Some flew up it out of the saddle, some were all over the shop in the big chainring and some rode it on the extensions to maintain a good position.
Eventual winner Julia Shaw did this, and it was clear that she was sticking to a set power as she wound her way smoothly up the hill. By contrast Chrissy Radon and several of the others were quicker on the climb but clearly paid for it later on, as Shaw won in 59'20 by over three minutes! Radon was second and Jane Kilmartin third at nearly five minutes. Our Lowenna was 25th in a very decent 1:14:36. There's room for improvement but that's not bad going for someone who had a serious accident earlier this year.
My turn
I was off at 3:10 so plenty of time to partake of some sandwiches at the HQ, a cup of coffee, a milkshake and anything else I could find in my bad. OK so you do get hungry before these events.
The start was in the town centre and we had a start ramp, a jazz band and even a closed road for the first bit. Have a look at the pics here to get a flavour of it. There are a couple of pics of me on Page 4
Off the ramp and with a twisty downhill start it was easy to pick up speed. I hit 60 before it was time to rein it in for the corner at the bottom of the hill, which led straight into a 7% climb. Change down, do not drop chain(!), try to keep myself from getting too excited, appreciate the cheering of Liz, Low and Mark on the hill and settle in.
Once at the top I picked up speed again, and was quite surprised at how quick it was into the headwind on what were apparently tiny downhill sections. I think the fact that the course was well sheltered from the wind helped, plus I was probably giving it a little too much gas. It wasn't long before I reached the main downhill bit, a dead straight 2% drag that we'd have to come up at the end. That was fun as I could just wind it up and relax, knowing the first and most tricky part of the course was behind me. Annoyingly I had to hit the brakes at the bottom as there was a car turning right ahead of me and riders coming up the other way, but that was only worth a few seconds or so.
Then it was up a two stage climb into Highampton. I thought I was going well until I heard the rush of a disk wheel next to me and my minute man, Andrew Griffiths, flew past me on the second climb. I was a bit shocked but I know he's a good rider (U23 national champ) and would have started quite hard. He quickly pulled away and I thought that was the last I'd see of him, but as we came into Highampton I could see I was gaining on him again. There was a short and very wet descent after the town and I picked up even more time, eventually deciding to overtake him a few miles before the turn.
He was having none of that and quickly re passed me, although I did wonder whether his early efforts were starting to take their toll and I might take him on the return leg. It was not to be. I had him hovering about 50m ahead of me until we got to Highampton coming back, then he just shot off and put 20 sec into me like it was nothing. That was actually a bit better from my point of view as I could concentrate on what I was doing.
The last drag was fun. We had a bit of a tailwind but it was nearly 5km at 2%. Full gas time. There were some flatter sections in it that I used to recover, but for the most part it was give it everything. I passed Liz, Mark and Low at the pub halfway up and they gave me another cheer, which was nice! Liz even took some video, which I have secured worldwide distribution rights for:
Once at the top it was flat out for another three minutes to the finish. It's hard finishing on a downhill as you feel a bit cheated somehow. I think I managed to expend my available energy though. And overall I managed the course fairly well considering I'd not pre-ridden it.
That was it. I rolled back to the HQ, packed the car, got changed, grabbed the all important bit of cake and cuppa tea and then wandered over to check the results. I knew I'd gone under 56 minutes (55'54) and a few people I chatted to seemed to think that was a decent time. But I didn't know so I started from the back of the field and checked every rider on the result board, counting any who had beaten me (I knew Griffiths had of course). Thankfully there were only a couple on page 2 who were quicker, and these I expected to be.
When I got to page 1, the top seeds, I was surprised at how many - and who - had gone slower. And by how much. Top 10 was the main goal of the season and I was at 6 when I got to Bottrill, Holton and Hutch. I was surprisingly quicker than Holton and was even more surprised at how close I was behind Bottrill (1'42) and Hutch (2'18). I learned later that Hutch had dropped his chain that probably cost him 30-40sec but still, it was better than I'd hoped for. And Bottrill was interesting: he's been putting more time into me in the Rudy Projects than that, but I managed to pull some back in the National.
I realised I was eighth, saw Liz and suddenly got the shakes, spilling my tea in the process!! Luckily the chocolate cake was unharmed. It was a pretty nice moment and you don't get that very often.
Power: tick. Not quite a PB but close enough.
Pacing: tick
Position: tick
Onwards and forwards. Next up: a test ride on the national 50 course this weekend, followed by the national 50 a week later.
U7B postcript
I did manage to break my 20'30 on the U7B 10 mile course a couple of weeks ago. 20'27 to be precise, on a pretty windy day. That is a tough course to ride fast.
To recap and I never get tired of reminding myself of this fact, in 2009 I finished 43rd @ 6'23 behind Hutch. In 2010 I was 16th @ 4'03. This year 8th at 2'18. So two more years and I'll win, ho ho. It's extrapolations like that that send companies bankrupt.
8th is a good result for me, as this is the most keenly contested championships for the amateurs. And it's also generally more popular than the British TT champs (pros can ride both, but they prefer the BTTC). So more competition, which is a good thing.
That said, the course, which started in Holsworthy in Devon, was more like the BTTC than a typical CTT course in that it contained hills. A couple of which I needed the small ring for, even down to 39x23! It also had more climbing than descending, so in that sense was like an early season hardriders course. On the other hand, apart from one corner and a roundabout that required braking, it was non-technical. And the roads were nice smooth tarmac for the most part.
The prep and the women
Liz and I drove down the day before to stay with relations of friends of ours (Lowenna and Mark), and we were generously given beds for the evening and large quantities of food. Which you don't actually need for a one hour race but hey...
Low was nervous as it was only her second 25 (she's done plenty of 10s and three(!) 12hrs). Plus she was on a new TT bike, which takes some getting used to. I spent some time sorting out her helmet so that it sat properly on her back, made sure her numbers were OK, gave her a few tips on the course and left her to it.
Liz and I cheered her and the rest of the women as they went up the first hill. We got a few nods of recognition and thanks as we named the riders correctly. It was interesting seeing how some of the women tackled the climb, which was fairly steep. Some flew up it out of the saddle, some were all over the shop in the big chainring and some rode it on the extensions to maintain a good position.
Eventual winner Julia Shaw did this, and it was clear that she was sticking to a set power as she wound her way smoothly up the hill. By contrast Chrissy Radon and several of the others were quicker on the climb but clearly paid for it later on, as Shaw won in 59'20 by over three minutes! Radon was second and Jane Kilmartin third at nearly five minutes. Our Lowenna was 25th in a very decent 1:14:36. There's room for improvement but that's not bad going for someone who had a serious accident earlier this year.
My turn
I was off at 3:10 so plenty of time to partake of some sandwiches at the HQ, a cup of coffee, a milkshake and anything else I could find in my bad. OK so you do get hungry before these events.
The start was in the town centre and we had a start ramp, a jazz band and even a closed road for the first bit. Have a look at the pics here to get a flavour of it. There are a couple of pics of me on Page 4
Off the ramp and with a twisty downhill start it was easy to pick up speed. I hit 60 before it was time to rein it in for the corner at the bottom of the hill, which led straight into a 7% climb. Change down, do not drop chain(!), try to keep myself from getting too excited, appreciate the cheering of Liz, Low and Mark on the hill and settle in.
Once at the top I picked up speed again, and was quite surprised at how quick it was into the headwind on what were apparently tiny downhill sections. I think the fact that the course was well sheltered from the wind helped, plus I was probably giving it a little too much gas. It wasn't long before I reached the main downhill bit, a dead straight 2% drag that we'd have to come up at the end. That was fun as I could just wind it up and relax, knowing the first and most tricky part of the course was behind me. Annoyingly I had to hit the brakes at the bottom as there was a car turning right ahead of me and riders coming up the other way, but that was only worth a few seconds or so.
Then it was up a two stage climb into Highampton. I thought I was going well until I heard the rush of a disk wheel next to me and my minute man, Andrew Griffiths, flew past me on the second climb. I was a bit shocked but I know he's a good rider (U23 national champ) and would have started quite hard. He quickly pulled away and I thought that was the last I'd see of him, but as we came into Highampton I could see I was gaining on him again. There was a short and very wet descent after the town and I picked up even more time, eventually deciding to overtake him a few miles before the turn.
He was having none of that and quickly re passed me, although I did wonder whether his early efforts were starting to take their toll and I might take him on the return leg. It was not to be. I had him hovering about 50m ahead of me until we got to Highampton coming back, then he just shot off and put 20 sec into me like it was nothing. That was actually a bit better from my point of view as I could concentrate on what I was doing.
The last drag was fun. We had a bit of a tailwind but it was nearly 5km at 2%. Full gas time. There were some flatter sections in it that I used to recover, but for the most part it was give it everything. I passed Liz, Mark and Low at the pub halfway up and they gave me another cheer, which was nice! Liz even took some video, which I have secured worldwide distribution rights for:
Once at the top it was flat out for another three minutes to the finish. It's hard finishing on a downhill as you feel a bit cheated somehow. I think I managed to expend my available energy though. And overall I managed the course fairly well considering I'd not pre-ridden it.
That was it. I rolled back to the HQ, packed the car, got changed, grabbed the all important bit of cake and cuppa tea and then wandered over to check the results. I knew I'd gone under 56 minutes (55'54) and a few people I chatted to seemed to think that was a decent time. But I didn't know so I started from the back of the field and checked every rider on the result board, counting any who had beaten me (I knew Griffiths had of course). Thankfully there were only a couple on page 2 who were quicker, and these I expected to be.
When I got to page 1, the top seeds, I was surprised at how many - and who - had gone slower. And by how much. Top 10 was the main goal of the season and I was at 6 when I got to Bottrill, Holton and Hutch. I was surprisingly quicker than Holton and was even more surprised at how close I was behind Bottrill (1'42) and Hutch (2'18). I learned later that Hutch had dropped his chain that probably cost him 30-40sec but still, it was better than I'd hoped for. And Bottrill was interesting: he's been putting more time into me in the Rudy Projects than that, but I managed to pull some back in the National.
I realised I was eighth, saw Liz and suddenly got the shakes, spilling my tea in the process!! Luckily the chocolate cake was unharmed. It was a pretty nice moment and you don't get that very often.
Power: tick. Not quite a PB but close enough.
Pacing: tick
Position: tick
Onwards and forwards. Next up: a test ride on the national 50 course this weekend, followed by the national 50 a week later.
U7B postcript
I did manage to break my 20'30 on the U7B 10 mile course a couple of weeks ago. 20'27 to be precise, on a pretty windy day. That is a tough course to ride fast.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
49.7 km/h
Or 30.8 in mph, but that doesn't sound as fast.
That was my average speed in today's Chippenham 10 on the U47, a popular 'dragstrip' 10 mile course. In time terms, it gave me 19'26, which was good enough to win by 10 seconds from Chris Ball, with Rob Pears another second behind. More impressive was my occasional training partner Stu Dodd did an unofficial 18'59 after having had his entry lost in the post. That's quick!
I haven't done a quick 10 since my 19'45 on the V718 a year and a half ago, so didn't know what to expect. It didn't look fast as it was chilly (10 degrees ish when I set off) and the wind was blowing a bit from the west but it was sunny. The course runs SE-NW so it was a tail crosswind out, head/cross back. And the return leg is uphill, so you really want a southerly to blow you back.
My start time was 8:20am, meaning I had to leave home at 5:45 for the 50km ride up. It was just enough time to get up there, have a bit to eat, sign on, pin my number on and warm up. My legs felt OK and I had a power number in my head that I thought I could maintain, but it was not to be. Still, I made the best of what I did have.
<Switching to real time past tense mode>
5,4,3,2,1 go and I use the slip road to get up to speed, hitting 60km/h by the time I'm on the dual carriageway. Then it was just hold it and not push too hard on the outward leg to Cricklade.
There are two roundabouts at the turn, which is a bit of a pain (one is better). I get to the second one (5.1 miles/8.3km) in 9'34. Gary Woodward is there and shouts that I'm well up. Which I was as most of the faster guys hadn't ridden yet.
Sprint out of the roundabout and back onto the dual carriageway for the return leg, which I'm dreading. But despite being a head/crosswind and uphill, it's not too bad and I'm seeing speeds in the high 40s. I flick the computer over to distance and start to work out how fast I need to cover the remaining kilometres to do a 20, 19 or ... an 18. Pretty fast, it turns out.
5km in 6mins will give me an 18. This is not possible with an uphill headwind finish. 5km in 7'30 (40km/h) will give me a 20'30. That would be poor. Let's hope I don't slow down.
The equation looks better at 4km to go. 6min (40km/h) will give me a short '20' but 5min (48km/h) will give me a short 19. Unlikely. 3km to go and I'm pretty sure I can ride it in 4min (45km/h), despite the headwind starting to bite. The numbers distract me from the effort, which is both a help and a hindrance.
It gets hard for the last bit and I stop calculating. Dig in, don't lose too much speed and get everything out. I can see the average power dropping as I get closer to the end, a consequence of going out a wee bit too quick. But I can do it and lift it as the road turns into the wind and steepens.
Last km and it's hurting as it always does but I know I'm on for a decent time so push through it. I've got a bit left for a small sprint up the finishing sliproad and that's it. Done.
The computer says 19'26 and this is later verified by Mike and Sheila, the time keepers. Nice! That's a PB by 19seconds.
I don't think it'll be good enough to win, so roll back to the HQ to get sorted, have a cuppa and some fruit cake and chat to the others. A lot aren't happy with their times as it was a little cold and windy. This course can and does get a lot faster, on the right day but today wasn't that bad.
I crane over the crowd in front of the results board to see what the quick riders did. James Wall DNS, Rob Pears 19'37 (we're usually pretty close) and then, surprise, Chris Ball 19'36. He's done an 18'51 so is pretty rapid and I was shocked to beat him. However he has had quite a few back problems so I'm sure is not at his best. Stu's happy with his unofficial 18'59 though. He is flying.
And to cap it off, we were second in the team prize too with Andy Cook and Matt Griffin. Nice one chaps!
Next up: Bristol South 10 next Saturday. Goal: sub-20'30.
That was my average speed in today's Chippenham 10 on the U47, a popular 'dragstrip' 10 mile course. In time terms, it gave me 19'26, which was good enough to win by 10 seconds from Chris Ball, with Rob Pears another second behind. More impressive was my occasional training partner Stu Dodd did an unofficial 18'59 after having had his entry lost in the post. That's quick!
I haven't done a quick 10 since my 19'45 on the V718 a year and a half ago, so didn't know what to expect. It didn't look fast as it was chilly (10 degrees ish when I set off) and the wind was blowing a bit from the west but it was sunny. The course runs SE-NW so it was a tail crosswind out, head/cross back. And the return leg is uphill, so you really want a southerly to blow you back.
My start time was 8:20am, meaning I had to leave home at 5:45 for the 50km ride up. It was just enough time to get up there, have a bit to eat, sign on, pin my number on and warm up. My legs felt OK and I had a power number in my head that I thought I could maintain, but it was not to be. Still, I made the best of what I did have.
<Switching to real time past tense mode>
5,4,3,2,1 go and I use the slip road to get up to speed, hitting 60km/h by the time I'm on the dual carriageway. Then it was just hold it and not push too hard on the outward leg to Cricklade.
There are two roundabouts at the turn, which is a bit of a pain (one is better). I get to the second one (5.1 miles/8.3km) in 9'34. Gary Woodward is there and shouts that I'm well up. Which I was as most of the faster guys hadn't ridden yet.
Sprint out of the roundabout and back onto the dual carriageway for the return leg, which I'm dreading. But despite being a head/crosswind and uphill, it's not too bad and I'm seeing speeds in the high 40s. I flick the computer over to distance and start to work out how fast I need to cover the remaining kilometres to do a 20, 19 or ... an 18. Pretty fast, it turns out.
5km in 6mins will give me an 18. This is not possible with an uphill headwind finish. 5km in 7'30 (40km/h) will give me a 20'30. That would be poor. Let's hope I don't slow down.
The equation looks better at 4km to go. 6min (40km/h) will give me a short '20' but 5min (48km/h) will give me a short 19. Unlikely. 3km to go and I'm pretty sure I can ride it in 4min (45km/h), despite the headwind starting to bite. The numbers distract me from the effort, which is both a help and a hindrance.
It gets hard for the last bit and I stop calculating. Dig in, don't lose too much speed and get everything out. I can see the average power dropping as I get closer to the end, a consequence of going out a wee bit too quick. But I can do it and lift it as the road turns into the wind and steepens.
Last km and it's hurting as it always does but I know I'm on for a decent time so push through it. I've got a bit left for a small sprint up the finishing sliproad and that's it. Done.
The computer says 19'26 and this is later verified by Mike and Sheila, the time keepers. Nice! That's a PB by 19seconds.
I don't think it'll be good enough to win, so roll back to the HQ to get sorted, have a cuppa and some fruit cake and chat to the others. A lot aren't happy with their times as it was a little cold and windy. This course can and does get a lot faster, on the right day but today wasn't that bad.
I crane over the crowd in front of the results board to see what the quick riders did. James Wall DNS, Rob Pears 19'37 (we're usually pretty close) and then, surprise, Chris Ball 19'36. He's done an 18'51 so is pretty rapid and I was shocked to beat him. However he has had quite a few back problems so I'm sure is not at his best. Stu's happy with his unofficial 18'59 though. He is flying.
And to cap it off, we were second in the team prize too with Andy Cook and Matt Griffin. Nice one chaps!
Next up: Bristol South 10 next Saturday. Goal: sub-20'30.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Loss, update
Been a while, as usual.
The first news isn't good: Wouter Weylandt's death in a crash during Monday's Giro d'Italia stage was a shock. Yes, cycling's dangerous and pros do crash a lot, but rarely is it fatal. Poor kid.
My memories of Wouter are mostly on this blog, back when I used to regularly do the Schelde ride. He was often on it and made a point of winning the sprint to the cafe at the end. This was even before he turned pro. He had an awesome turn of speed and I can remember being on his wheel a few times when he went. I think I might have even held it once, but that's probably wishful thinking.
I didn't know him personally. In fact he supposedly got annoyed at me for referring to his training 'langs de Schelde' when he turned pro with Quick.Step. Because it was seen as a slightly amateurish thing to do, maybe? Although we did have a number of pros on that ride.
It doesn't matter. He's no longer with us and I hope he rests in peace.
Other stuff
On a more positive note, I've managed to squeeze in a few races in between doing some ceiling painting and watching Wills and Katherine get hitched (it was a royal wedding don't you know). That was a good day out actually, but I digress.
First up was Rudy Project 3 at Buxton in the Peak district (I missed round 2). 3 laps of an extremely tough 11 mile course, which more or less went: climb 4 miles, go across the top 2.5 miles, descend 4.5 miles. The climbs had a few sharp pinches but overall they weren't too bad, it's just that there was zero flat to get into any sort of rhythm. The descent was fun - better once I learned how to do it. Especially the 20% bit with a tight bend at the bottom.
Unfortunately, Mr Bottrill punctured on that bend on lap one with about a mile to go to the finish. He did well to hold it up and skid off the road, then rode on the flat to the finish, got a wheel change, and still did a quicker lap than me. End result: he won by 3'30 and nearly broke the course record. I finished second and was happy with that.
Two days later and I backed up for the Beacon RC Little Mountain time trial. 41 miles, hilly but not quite as hard as Buxton, and generally good fun. Unfortunately I had a mechanical at the end with 1 mile to go. As I was changing into the little ring for the last climb. Dropped the chain, couldn't put it into the big ring to get back on, had to stop and put it back on by hand. Lost 30 seconds, but got beaten by 2009 national hill climb champ Matt Clinton by 44 seconds, so at least it didn't make the difference. It was annoying though! Results.
My power was a bit lower than it was for Buxton, but that was to be expected. It was as good as my best 50 mile TT last year though, so that was a good sign as Hutch usually takes 4min out of me on that course.
Scroll forward a week and it was off to Wales for the Ogmore Wheelers 25 on the slightly slower of the two fast Welsh courses. It's the same course as I set my PB of 49'58 on in 2009 so I was hopeful of another sub 50min ride.
As you can see from the results, it was not to be. The wind was a strong NE, which kills the speed on the uphill return leg and makes the course slow. This is despite the outward leg being a fair bit longer and having a massive downhill at the start.
To give you an idea, ignoring the ski slope start and just taking the out and back bits of the course. Going out to the turn (slight 0.2% downhill, tailwind) I averaged 56.2km/h. Coming back, it was only 39.5km/h. Close to a sub 50 but no cigar. Funnily enough I was 10W up on my previous two rides on there, but ~45 sec slower. But better, I was third, only 2'29 behind Hutch and 1'07 behind Mark Holton, who were 1-2 at the national 25 last year. A good sign.
Finally I did the 4th round of the Rudy Project at Doncaster on Saturday. I did this last year and it was my best ride of the season so I was hopeful of another good one. I drove up in lashing rain for three hours, then turned off the motorway and lo! it was sunny and dryish. That was good. Breaking my visor on the way up was not so good. There goes 6W :-(
The race was fast though, partly due to the warmer conditions, partly due to more power. Last year, 59'04, this year, 57'42 for third behind Bottrill and pro triathlete (and very good bike rider) Phil Graves. Bottrill broke Jason Macintyre's course record by 38 seconds and I have him down as favourite for the national 25. Yep, even ahead of Hutch.
My ride was not only better than last year, it was probably my best since I started TTing. The combination of doing my best power since '08 with a much better aero position equalled a quick ride. 44.5km/h on a course that is definitely not a dual carriageway dragstrip (which really flatter your ability). It's not super tough - two laps with a gradual climb plus a short sharp one each lap, and a few tight corners - but it's a better test of your all round skill and fitness. Probably close to what you'd encounter in a pro race. Someone like Cancellara would average 50km/h on it, no question.
So I'm more than happy with where I am, fitness wise as we approach 'national' season.
What next? A fast 10 this Saturday on the U47, weather permitting. I'll ride up and back though, so it'll be a good 4.5hrs. Best on that course is 19'50, so I'll try and improve that.
I'll do something similar the following weekend on the U7B 10 course. Best there is 20'48 I think, and I know I can improve on that. If I have a great day then a short 20 is possible. The course record is now 19'58, set by my mate Stu Dodd, who practically lives on it.
In between there's the Chippenham club 10 tomorrow. I did it twice last week for training and clocked 21'17 and 21'33 (PB is 21'12). I think the wind is more favourable tomorrow so let's see if I can break 21'00... And if the new Giro Selector is up to the task.
Weather: stunningly dry and just 3mm of rain in April, although it's gone back to normal again now. It was amazing. I thought I was in Oz.
The first news isn't good: Wouter Weylandt's death in a crash during Monday's Giro d'Italia stage was a shock. Yes, cycling's dangerous and pros do crash a lot, but rarely is it fatal. Poor kid.
My memories of Wouter are mostly on this blog, back when I used to regularly do the Schelde ride. He was often on it and made a point of winning the sprint to the cafe at the end. This was even before he turned pro. He had an awesome turn of speed and I can remember being on his wheel a few times when he went. I think I might have even held it once, but that's probably wishful thinking.
I didn't know him personally. In fact he supposedly got annoyed at me for referring to his training 'langs de Schelde' when he turned pro with Quick.Step. Because it was seen as a slightly amateurish thing to do, maybe? Although we did have a number of pros on that ride.
It doesn't matter. He's no longer with us and I hope he rests in peace.
Other stuff
On a more positive note, I've managed to squeeze in a few races in between doing some ceiling painting and watching Wills and Katherine get hitched (it was a royal wedding don't you know). That was a good day out actually, but I digress.
First up was Rudy Project 3 at Buxton in the Peak district (I missed round 2). 3 laps of an extremely tough 11 mile course, which more or less went: climb 4 miles, go across the top 2.5 miles, descend 4.5 miles. The climbs had a few sharp pinches but overall they weren't too bad, it's just that there was zero flat to get into any sort of rhythm. The descent was fun - better once I learned how to do it. Especially the 20% bit with a tight bend at the bottom.
Unfortunately, Mr Bottrill punctured on that bend on lap one with about a mile to go to the finish. He did well to hold it up and skid off the road, then rode on the flat to the finish, got a wheel change, and still did a quicker lap than me. End result: he won by 3'30 and nearly broke the course record. I finished second and was happy with that.
Two days later and I backed up for the Beacon RC Little Mountain time trial. 41 miles, hilly but not quite as hard as Buxton, and generally good fun. Unfortunately I had a mechanical at the end with 1 mile to go. As I was changing into the little ring for the last climb. Dropped the chain, couldn't put it into the big ring to get back on, had to stop and put it back on by hand. Lost 30 seconds, but got beaten by 2009 national hill climb champ Matt Clinton by 44 seconds, so at least it didn't make the difference. It was annoying though! Results.
My power was a bit lower than it was for Buxton, but that was to be expected. It was as good as my best 50 mile TT last year though, so that was a good sign as Hutch usually takes 4min out of me on that course.
Scroll forward a week and it was off to Wales for the Ogmore Wheelers 25 on the slightly slower of the two fast Welsh courses. It's the same course as I set my PB of 49'58 on in 2009 so I was hopeful of another sub 50min ride.
As you can see from the results, it was not to be. The wind was a strong NE, which kills the speed on the uphill return leg and makes the course slow. This is despite the outward leg being a fair bit longer and having a massive downhill at the start.
To give you an idea, ignoring the ski slope start and just taking the out and back bits of the course. Going out to the turn (slight 0.2% downhill, tailwind) I averaged 56.2km/h. Coming back, it was only 39.5km/h. Close to a sub 50 but no cigar. Funnily enough I was 10W up on my previous two rides on there, but ~45 sec slower. But better, I was third, only 2'29 behind Hutch and 1'07 behind Mark Holton, who were 1-2 at the national 25 last year. A good sign.
Finally I did the 4th round of the Rudy Project at Doncaster on Saturday. I did this last year and it was my best ride of the season so I was hopeful of another good one. I drove up in lashing rain for three hours, then turned off the motorway and lo! it was sunny and dryish. That was good. Breaking my visor on the way up was not so good. There goes 6W :-(
The race was fast though, partly due to the warmer conditions, partly due to more power. Last year, 59'04, this year, 57'42 for third behind Bottrill and pro triathlete (and very good bike rider) Phil Graves. Bottrill broke Jason Macintyre's course record by 38 seconds and I have him down as favourite for the national 25. Yep, even ahead of Hutch.
My ride was not only better than last year, it was probably my best since I started TTing. The combination of doing my best power since '08 with a much better aero position equalled a quick ride. 44.5km/h on a course that is definitely not a dual carriageway dragstrip (which really flatter your ability). It's not super tough - two laps with a gradual climb plus a short sharp one each lap, and a few tight corners - but it's a better test of your all round skill and fitness. Probably close to what you'd encounter in a pro race. Someone like Cancellara would average 50km/h on it, no question.
So I'm more than happy with where I am, fitness wise as we approach 'national' season.
What next? A fast 10 this Saturday on the U47, weather permitting. I'll ride up and back though, so it'll be a good 4.5hrs. Best on that course is 19'50, so I'll try and improve that.
I'll do something similar the following weekend on the U7B 10 course. Best there is 20'48 I think, and I know I can improve on that. If I have a great day then a short 20 is possible. The course record is now 19'58, set by my mate Stu Dodd, who practically lives on it.
In between there's the Chippenham club 10 tomorrow. I did it twice last week for training and clocked 21'17 and 21'33 (PB is 21'12). I think the wind is more favourable tomorrow so let's see if I can break 21'00... And if the new Giro Selector is up to the task.
Weather: stunningly dry and just 3mm of rain in April, although it's gone back to normal again now. It was amazing. I thought I was in Oz.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
A small update
Just on the training, mind.
The last three weeks since Rudy Project #1 have been interesting in terms of the ol' power development. I was quite happy with what I managed then, as I'd built on my power at the Chippenham hilly at the start of March. If I could hold that for the rest of this season, I'd not be doing badly.
But there has been no slacking off since then as Ric is determined that we can push through last year's plateau. We haven't changed things since Feb/March either: my absolute training load has gone up slightly with longer sessions but my relative load has started to level off. That means that 'a lot of training' now feels normal, which means I'm fresher for each session, which means I find it easier to increase power from week to week.
This is important in the threshold workouts (the oft used 2 x 20min) as these give a very good idea of what your current 1 hour power (FTP) is. From experience this year, if I can average X watts for a 2x20 session (not counting rest) then I can add a few watts on top of that on race day for an hour.
It also tracks well to tempo power in certain circumstances, but because that's not maximal it's harder to draw a comparison. And longer rides don't seem to change much, although I have added about 10W in the last couple of weeks to my long rides, which is nice. Compared to similar rides I was doing last year, I'm about 25W up. That's good and I am hoping to get near that across all power levels.
What's better is being able to recover from these rides very quickly. And being able to put in hard efforts during the ride without knackering me for the rest of the ride. It's a particular kind of fitness (most would say it's base but I think Alex and Ric of RST refer to it as depth) and it feels amazing as it gives you almost complete control over your body.
Case in point: I did 3hrs on Saturday at a hard endurance pace, down towards the Mendips. In the middle I went up the Burrington Combe climb the fastest I've ever done in training. I turned around at the top, rode down and did it again at exactly the same speed and power as the first time, modulating power according to the changing gradient but still maintaining control over the effort. I got to the top and rode home at pretty much the same power and heart rate as the first part of the ride. Result: fastest Mendips ride I've done on the road bike. Power numbers to match.
Previously if I did this my heart rate would stay high after the climbs, my legs would be shot and my power would drop 20-40W. It's very nice not to have that happen.
Drinking booze at Phil N's birthday for the rest of the day probably wasn't the best recovery option but today's long ride went surprisingly well.
Next up: two mountain time trials, one in Buxton on Friday and the Beacon RC Little Moutain TT on Sunday. Both 1hr30-1hr45 so I won't get an idea of my one hour power just yet.
The last three weeks since Rudy Project #1 have been interesting in terms of the ol' power development. I was quite happy with what I managed then, as I'd built on my power at the Chippenham hilly at the start of March. If I could hold that for the rest of this season, I'd not be doing badly.
But there has been no slacking off since then as Ric is determined that we can push through last year's plateau. We haven't changed things since Feb/March either: my absolute training load has gone up slightly with longer sessions but my relative load has started to level off. That means that 'a lot of training' now feels normal, which means I'm fresher for each session, which means I find it easier to increase power from week to week.
This is important in the threshold workouts (the oft used 2 x 20min) as these give a very good idea of what your current 1 hour power (FTP) is. From experience this year, if I can average X watts for a 2x20 session (not counting rest) then I can add a few watts on top of that on race day for an hour.
It also tracks well to tempo power in certain circumstances, but because that's not maximal it's harder to draw a comparison. And longer rides don't seem to change much, although I have added about 10W in the last couple of weeks to my long rides, which is nice. Compared to similar rides I was doing last year, I'm about 25W up. That's good and I am hoping to get near that across all power levels.
What's better is being able to recover from these rides very quickly. And being able to put in hard efforts during the ride without knackering me for the rest of the ride. It's a particular kind of fitness (most would say it's base but I think Alex and Ric of RST refer to it as depth) and it feels amazing as it gives you almost complete control over your body.
Case in point: I did 3hrs on Saturday at a hard endurance pace, down towards the Mendips. In the middle I went up the Burrington Combe climb the fastest I've ever done in training. I turned around at the top, rode down and did it again at exactly the same speed and power as the first time, modulating power according to the changing gradient but still maintaining control over the effort. I got to the top and rode home at pretty much the same power and heart rate as the first part of the ride. Result: fastest Mendips ride I've done on the road bike. Power numbers to match.
Previously if I did this my heart rate would stay high after the climbs, my legs would be shot and my power would drop 20-40W. It's very nice not to have that happen.
Drinking booze at Phil N's birthday for the rest of the day probably wasn't the best recovery option but today's long ride went surprisingly well.
Next up: two mountain time trials, one in Buxton on Friday and the Beacon RC Little Moutain TT on Sunday. Both 1hr30-1hr45 so I won't get an idea of my one hour power just yet.
Saturday, April 02, 2011
I move well, don't I?
Thus spake Irma Prunesquallor to her brother Alfred in Titus Groan (or was it Gormenghast?).
This was before she organised a grand party with the stated intention of securing herself a man. Which she did do in the form of Professor Bellgrove.
I kept getting reminded of this quote at last night's dinner party organised by one of the girls at work. She has already got a man (French), who was tasked with cooking for the remaining eight of us. He did a fine job, which is lucky because it is his job.
That left the rest of us (women outnumbering men 3:1, I am spoken for, you do the maths) to make the most of the occasion, which we did until approximately 3am. The combination of strong characters, food and wine was a real assault on the senses, but a hell of a lot of fun. Top marks.
3 hours on the velocipede the today wasn't quite as much fun, but I got through it.
Rudy Project #1
© David Jones
The first round of the Rudy Project time trial series was last weekend in Essex. Twas a 25.5 mile (41km) course on rolling twisting mostly back roads. I stayed in a B&B run by a triathlete who'd broken her hip after crashing on black ice in January. She's a multiple age group winner at world level so is pretty keen to get back into it. But a few more weeks to go before she can ride again.
We had another guest in the form of Michelle King, who went on to win the women's race by 2'30. I was clearly in good company although the next day I didn't end up winning by 2'30. In fact I came third to Matt Bottrill by 3'10. It just goes to show. What, I'm not sure.
I actually had a very decent ride - in power terms it'd be in my top 4 since the start of 2009. Encouragingly, it was nicely up on the Chippenham hilly a few weeks ago, so the training is paying off. I also beat a few riders who I thought would beat me, so that was nice.
But my 56'52 looked positively slow compared to Bottrill's 53'42. He took nearly 6 minutes off the course record and that's a hell of a ride. Second went to Andrew Griffiths in 56'18. He's the U23 national champion so there was no shame in being beaten by him.
Bottrill has improved a lot over the last year, either in power or aero terms or both. I remember in round 4 of the Rudy Project last year I got within 1'30 of him on almost the same power over the same distance. So basically he's opened up another 30W on me, and that is an impossible gap to bridge. And he's not even peaked yet, according to his coach! It'll be interesting to see how he fares against Hutch, come nationals time.
So while I was perfectly happy with my ride, it will change how I focus on the rest of the season.
Here are some short vids of us in action, courtesy of Scott Povey's girlfriend. Scott unfortunately crashed during the race but at least he wasn't badly hurt and ended up finishing 10th in 59'01.
Me, "moving well"
Scott Povey, also moving well
Matt Bottrill, moving well and a hell of a lot faster than the rest of us
This was before she organised a grand party with the stated intention of securing herself a man. Which she did do in the form of Professor Bellgrove.
I kept getting reminded of this quote at last night's dinner party organised by one of the girls at work. She has already got a man (French), who was tasked with cooking for the remaining eight of us. He did a fine job, which is lucky because it is his job.
That left the rest of us (women outnumbering men 3:1, I am spoken for, you do the maths) to make the most of the occasion, which we did until approximately 3am. The combination of strong characters, food and wine was a real assault on the senses, but a hell of a lot of fun. Top marks.
3 hours on the velocipede the today wasn't quite as much fun, but I got through it.
Rudy Project #1
© David Jones
The first round of the Rudy Project time trial series was last weekend in Essex. Twas a 25.5 mile (41km) course on rolling twisting mostly back roads. I stayed in a B&B run by a triathlete who'd broken her hip after crashing on black ice in January. She's a multiple age group winner at world level so is pretty keen to get back into it. But a few more weeks to go before she can ride again.
We had another guest in the form of Michelle King, who went on to win the women's race by 2'30. I was clearly in good company although the next day I didn't end up winning by 2'30. In fact I came third to Matt Bottrill by 3'10. It just goes to show. What, I'm not sure.
I actually had a very decent ride - in power terms it'd be in my top 4 since the start of 2009. Encouragingly, it was nicely up on the Chippenham hilly a few weeks ago, so the training is paying off. I also beat a few riders who I thought would beat me, so that was nice.
But my 56'52 looked positively slow compared to Bottrill's 53'42. He took nearly 6 minutes off the course record and that's a hell of a ride. Second went to Andrew Griffiths in 56'18. He's the U23 national champion so there was no shame in being beaten by him.
Bottrill has improved a lot over the last year, either in power or aero terms or both. I remember in round 4 of the Rudy Project last year I got within 1'30 of him on almost the same power over the same distance. So basically he's opened up another 30W on me, and that is an impossible gap to bridge. And he's not even peaked yet, according to his coach! It'll be interesting to see how he fares against Hutch, come nationals time.
So while I was perfectly happy with my ride, it will change how I focus on the rest of the season.
Here are some short vids of us in action, courtesy of Scott Povey's girlfriend. Scott unfortunately crashed during the race but at least he wasn't badly hurt and ended up finishing 10th in 59'01.
Me, "moving well"
Scott Povey, also moving well
Matt Bottrill, moving well and a hell of a lot faster than the rest of us
Sunday, March 06, 2011
It begins
Today was me first race in five months, the Chippenham hilly 24. Always a good way to kick off the season.
Alas my winning streak of three came to and end courtesy of a top quality ride by Douglas Dewey, who broke my course record with a superb 53'49 in unfavourable conditions. I managed second in 54'56, just ahead of Rob Pears (55'09) and Chippenham won the team prize with me, Simon Snowden and Paul Coles, which was nice.
Interestingly, Doug Dewey (who is still an U23) won the first ever 25 that I did back in 2007, the Severn RC 25. Think he did a 56'12 whereas I managed a 1:02ish.
A bit like last year it was freezing again, but once I got to the top of Lyneham Banks it was OK and I felt as though my hands would last the distance. The nasty ENE wind made it hard though, as it was head or head-crosswind for 3/4 of the race and only tailwind for about a quarter. A SW wind makes a world of difference on this course, but it wasn't to be today.
Power outputages were reasonable today, nothing special but I didn't expect that. But also above what I managed for most of last year. I've not done any top end work and I didn't even back off (much) for this race, so hopefully there are some more watts to be had. In the past two years this race has always been my best power of the whole season - something I want to avoid this year.
So it's back to the grindstone before my next race, which will probably be the first round of the Rudy Project at the end of March if I get my entry in in time.
Finally, good luck to Ma with her knee op. Hope you're walking, riding, huntin' shootin' fishin' again soon :-)
Alas my winning streak of three came to and end courtesy of a top quality ride by Douglas Dewey, who broke my course record with a superb 53'49 in unfavourable conditions. I managed second in 54'56, just ahead of Rob Pears (55'09) and Chippenham won the team prize with me, Simon Snowden and Paul Coles, which was nice.
Interestingly, Doug Dewey (who is still an U23) won the first ever 25 that I did back in 2007, the Severn RC 25. Think he did a 56'12 whereas I managed a 1:02ish.
A bit like last year it was freezing again, but once I got to the top of Lyneham Banks it was OK and I felt as though my hands would last the distance. The nasty ENE wind made it hard though, as it was head or head-crosswind for 3/4 of the race and only tailwind for about a quarter. A SW wind makes a world of difference on this course, but it wasn't to be today.
Power outputages were reasonable today, nothing special but I didn't expect that. But also above what I managed for most of last year. I've not done any top end work and I didn't even back off (much) for this race, so hopefully there are some more watts to be had. In the past two years this race has always been my best power of the whole season - something I want to avoid this year.
So it's back to the grindstone before my next race, which will probably be the first round of the Rudy Project at the end of March if I get my entry in in time.
Finally, good luck to Ma with her knee op. Hope you're walking, riding, huntin' shootin' fishin' again soon :-)
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Update and bike bits
1) Our phone doesn't work. I blame TalkTalk or the damp.
2) I know we're not done with winter yet but thankfully the second half seems a lot better than the first half. There's been precious little sun in February, so much so that when you do see it you really appreciate it. However it hasn't really got below zero that often and we've been snow-free in the UK's southern quarters.
That means no more early morning roller sessions :-) Instead I've been able to get out on the road for a few hours in the mornings prior to striking a blow for BikeRadar and beyond. This is more than I'd normally do at this time of year (erm, riding wise), however that's what El Coach says and it's easy once someone else takes on that responsibility.
Things appear to be going in the right direction, although it's not quite time to start hitting power PBs in training, it's about doing the work to set things up down the track. I'll make another assessment in about a month (first race in a couple of weeks), but it's Nationals time in June when I'd like to be going well.
I have to go back to the start of '08 for a similar pre-season training load. Then I did a bit of intensity but it was mostly a case of getting the miles in. It took until May before I really started to fire, then did another big mileage block in June and had a really good July-September - definitely the fittest I've been in the last four years, just not as fast because of positional and bike improvements. If I can regain that level of fitness this year, I'll be really quick.
Speaking of the bike, I'm still riding a Spesh Transition but will graduate to a Shiv once the weather gets nice enough :-) To be honest I don't think it'll make a huge amount of difference, but it'll be fun riding it. There will be some reportage on BikeRadar once I get it up and running.
And speaking of equipment, I managed a spate of five punctures in one week a couple of weeks ago. Quelle bad luck, 'cos I was riding four different wheels/tyres. The worst was puncturing at the turnaround of a 65km ride, having a spare with a hole in it and having to ride home on the flat. Most of them were new tyres too, which was annoying. So I scrounged a Panaracer Extreme Duro from a tyre test and so far it's up to scratch. Grippy, rolls pretty well and (fingers crossed) I haven't punctured on it. My other tyres are Hutchinson Fusion IIs, but you can't get these easily any more, so I'll have to upgrade to Fusion IIIs. These are awesome tyres.
What else? For the dark mornings I'm using an Exposure Flare rear light that I bought off the basis of a Cycling Plus lights test. It's a brilliant light, pardon the pun. At 75 lumens it's way brighter than most LED lights, although the technology is improving across the board. On the front I've got a Light and Motion Stella 200, which is not the brightest front light you can get but it's fine for road use. What I like about both these lights is that they'll strap to anywhere on your bike - no mounts required.
Finally I've been using a CycleOps Joule 2.0 for recording power data (and a Garmin Edge 705 on my road bike). The Joule gives you a lot of on-board data during the ride, the most useful being normalised power. But no maps unfortunately. The Garmin leads the way here and the Edge 800 is the new must have toy.
2) I know we're not done with winter yet but thankfully the second half seems a lot better than the first half. There's been precious little sun in February, so much so that when you do see it you really appreciate it. However it hasn't really got below zero that often and we've been snow-free in the UK's southern quarters.
That means no more early morning roller sessions :-) Instead I've been able to get out on the road for a few hours in the mornings prior to striking a blow for BikeRadar and beyond. This is more than I'd normally do at this time of year (erm, riding wise), however that's what El Coach says and it's easy once someone else takes on that responsibility.
Things appear to be going in the right direction, although it's not quite time to start hitting power PBs in training, it's about doing the work to set things up down the track. I'll make another assessment in about a month (first race in a couple of weeks), but it's Nationals time in June when I'd like to be going well.
I have to go back to the start of '08 for a similar pre-season training load. Then I did a bit of intensity but it was mostly a case of getting the miles in. It took until May before I really started to fire, then did another big mileage block in June and had a really good July-September - definitely the fittest I've been in the last four years, just not as fast because of positional and bike improvements. If I can regain that level of fitness this year, I'll be really quick.
Speaking of the bike, I'm still riding a Spesh Transition but will graduate to a Shiv once the weather gets nice enough :-) To be honest I don't think it'll make a huge amount of difference, but it'll be fun riding it. There will be some reportage on BikeRadar once I get it up and running.
And speaking of equipment, I managed a spate of five punctures in one week a couple of weeks ago. Quelle bad luck, 'cos I was riding four different wheels/tyres. The worst was puncturing at the turnaround of a 65km ride, having a spare with a hole in it and having to ride home on the flat. Most of them were new tyres too, which was annoying. So I scrounged a Panaracer Extreme Duro from a tyre test and so far it's up to scratch. Grippy, rolls pretty well and (fingers crossed) I haven't punctured on it. My other tyres are Hutchinson Fusion IIs, but you can't get these easily any more, so I'll have to upgrade to Fusion IIIs. These are awesome tyres.
What else? For the dark mornings I'm using an Exposure Flare rear light that I bought off the basis of a Cycling Plus lights test. It's a brilliant light, pardon the pun. At 75 lumens it's way brighter than most LED lights, although the technology is improving across the board. On the front I've got a Light and Motion Stella 200, which is not the brightest front light you can get but it's fine for road use. What I like about both these lights is that they'll strap to anywhere on your bike - no mounts required.
Finally I've been using a CycleOps Joule 2.0 for recording power data (and a Garmin Edge 705 on my road bike). The Joule gives you a lot of on-board data during the ride, the most useful being normalised power. But no maps unfortunately. The Garmin leads the way here and the Edge 800 is the new must have toy.
Saturday, February 05, 2011
It's February
Thank goodness January is over. Despite spending half of it in Oz, I still find the lack of light when I get back to the UK hard going. February is somewhat better, as the mornings start to get lighter and you don't feel as though you're spending the whole day indoors or in the dark.
Also I managed to get sick with a virus the day after I got back from Oz and that knocked me out for a week. It's happened to me several times now - long haul flights are the worst thing for getting sick.
So my first week back at work consisted of half a day in the office, three days in bed, then a return on Friday. Hardly ideal as January is quite a busy month. Still, things are falling into place and I'm hoping that BikeRadar will have some solid growth this year.
Training has thus been delayed, although I'm back to where I was now. The good thing about doing lots of base work is that you don't lose much if you have time off. The downside is that if you've been riding for many years, as I have, you don't see much in the way of fitness gains. Case in point: I did a 3hr ride today that was almost the same average and normalised power and heart rate as one I did over the same route in early November. And I've done a lot of miles in the intervening period.
The real question is whether this base will lead to a higher peak than previous years when I start to get stuck into some harder work. I'll probably only realise that come June, when my target races are (national 25, 50, 100). But I'll also do some Rudy Projects and a few local events early on to see how I'm going.
Other news: the Chippenham club do has come and gone, and it was a good 'un. We were graced by Sarah and Barney Storey, wot have won many world championships/Olympic golds in para-cycling and swimming. I collected five trophies this year (Liz is not a trophy, despite what she says on facebook). Followed closely by Luke Davies, who managed four. I think Luke raced over 80 times (or was it 100?) last year and did some huge PBs, which is impressive.
Movies: 1) The King's Speech. Very good with Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and a bunch of other good actors/actresses/actuaries. If you haven't seen it then do. 10/10.
2) Black Swan. Natalie Portman, Barbara Hersheybar and a few others. I'd describe it as a ballet-horror fusion with a dash of lesbianism. Liz and I weren't sure if the horror elements really worked. And Portman's portrayal of madness is classically overblown. 6/10.
Finally, happy birthday to my granmother Joan, who is 90! Wish I could be there to celebrate it with youse all.
Also I managed to get sick with a virus the day after I got back from Oz and that knocked me out for a week. It's happened to me several times now - long haul flights are the worst thing for getting sick.
So my first week back at work consisted of half a day in the office, three days in bed, then a return on Friday. Hardly ideal as January is quite a busy month. Still, things are falling into place and I'm hoping that BikeRadar will have some solid growth this year.
Training has thus been delayed, although I'm back to where I was now. The good thing about doing lots of base work is that you don't lose much if you have time off. The downside is that if you've been riding for many years, as I have, you don't see much in the way of fitness gains. Case in point: I did a 3hr ride today that was almost the same average and normalised power and heart rate as one I did over the same route in early November. And I've done a lot of miles in the intervening period.
The real question is whether this base will lead to a higher peak than previous years when I start to get stuck into some harder work. I'll probably only realise that come June, when my target races are (national 25, 50, 100). But I'll also do some Rudy Projects and a few local events early on to see how I'm going.
Other news: the Chippenham club do has come and gone, and it was a good 'un. We were graced by Sarah and Barney Storey, wot have won many world championships/Olympic golds in para-cycling and swimming. I collected five trophies this year (Liz is not a trophy, despite what she says on facebook). Followed closely by Luke Davies, who managed four. I think Luke raced over 80 times (or was it 100?) last year and did some huge PBs, which is impressive.
Movies: 1) The King's Speech. Very good with Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and a bunch of other good actors/actresses/actuaries. If you haven't seen it then do. 10/10.
2) Black Swan. Natalie Portman, Barbara Hersheybar and a few others. I'd describe it as a ballet-horror fusion with a dash of lesbianism. Liz and I weren't sure if the horror elements really worked. And Portman's portrayal of madness is classically overblown. 6/10.
Finally, happy birthday to my granmother Joan, who is 90! Wish I could be there to celebrate it with youse all.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Snow
Jeez this is late.
The snow came extra early to the UK this year, prompting the usual calls of "why weren't we told?" and "what is the government doing about it?". Clearly what we need is a better global warming policy. Something along the lines of "If we made everything hot all the time it wouldn't snow."
I think I'll stand for PM on that platform. I reckon I'll get a few votes as long as the election is in winter.
Snow does mess up the general flow of things but it's not the end of the world. What is poor is that things like airports get closed for longer periods than is necessary. Heathrow got down to one runway for a few days, which surprises me because if they can figure out how to clear one runway then two shouldn't be a big problem. But there's probably something else, like the planes being frozen to the spot.
All countries in the Northern hemisphere suffer, it's just that some are better at dealing with it than others.
I consider myself a bit lucky that I got out of the UK to sunnier climes down under. The word was "only turn up for your flight if it's been confirmed". Mine was, but still I had to queue outside terminal 3 before being allowed to go and check in. Even after boarding I was still nervous, as we were sitting on the tarmac for quite some time while they de-iced the plane and crammed a few more passengers on. Big sigh of relief when we took off, I tells ya.
Sydney was warm and wet but it beat snow and -5 degrees. I was there for three weeks and caught up with most of my rellos (sorry to those who I missed!) and some of my friends (ditto). This was in between training and trying to sort things out for ma and pa's retirement move. Our attic is full of stuff that we've all dumped there over the years and it was time to do a mega-sift through and turf out anything that didn't have intrinsic value. That was about half of my worldly belongings. But it was nice to rediscover some gems from the past, including my sketchbooks featuring original drawings of the morbid but generally well received grim reaper Christmas cards.
The other things that was interesting to dig up were my old training diaries. I can't believe how many kilometres I used to do! In '99 and '04 I cracked 30,000km for the year and in several other years I got pretty close to that number. In recent years I haven't managed over 20,000km and even that's considered a lot by amateur standards.
I concede it probably wasn't the most effective way of training back then. Alex Simmons, coach and para-cyclist, who runs the excellent Turbo Studio in Randwick among other things, said that even if it wasn't ideal back then, your body doesn't forget all those miles and they've probably helped in recent years.
Training wise, I did do a fair bit more riding in Oz than last year, but not silly miles. Just three weeks of solid riding. I'm paying for it now unfortunately as I seemed to have picked up a virus on the plane. Blurgh.
Movies
I saw a number of movies courtesy of Virgin's in-flight entertainment. Here is my executive summary:
On the way out I went for action movies, starting with Salt (starring a certain Angelina Jolie). It's a spy movie and I can't remember much of it now, but at the time it was worth watching. I then moved onto The Expendables, which featured every 50yr+ action hero you could think of and was directed by Sly Stallone. Utter shite.
The A-Team promised more and almost delivered. I was never a fan of the original so I didn't get into it. It needed a big screen too. I saw something else that was also poor. So I'll give the flight over a 1/4 for movies.
Coming back was better. I started with The Social Network, which was a lot better than you might think. It's based on a book called Accidental Billionaires (thanks Piers - I also read this on the plane) which tracks the creation of Facebook by Mark Zuckerberg and his mates at Harvard in 2004. Although it's reportedly not close to being 100% accurate (especially as far as the characterisation is concerned), it does give you an insight into how this site came into being and its incredible growth. Almost 10% of the world's population is now on Facebook and it continues to grow.
One of the reasons it works is that to set up a profile and connect with people you already know, you need to use your own name. No it doesn't force you to do this but few of your friends will recognise you if you don't. So many other social network sites missed this rather crucial element, and turn into cesspools of anonymous hate and stupidity quite quickly.
What it does is retain some of the human element, even if it is just a profile, and that means people aren't afraid of using it. Add a clean, easy to use interface and bang, it's a goer. The fact that Zuckerberg studied both psychology and computer science probably had a lot to do with its success. He understands people a lot better than most programmers - sorry for the stereotype - and realised what they wanted.
Movie number 2 was Scott Pilgrim vs the World. It's based on a series of graphic novels about Scott Pilgrim, a bass player in a band, and his attempts to woo a girl. He gets her and then has to defeat her "seven evil exes" which he does in computer game style. It's Canadian so the humour is offbeat. It also moves very quickly so you'd better be paying attention.
Then I saw The American. This doesn't move quickly. It's got George Clooney in it as an assassin who's trying to get away from it all. He moves to Italy and doesn't manage to get away from it all. It's nicely shot and there's plenty of style but no substance. I kept waiting for something to happen and it didn't, it sort of petered out in a predictable way.
Finally I saw Iron Man 2. Another comic based flick and pretty good. It would be great on a big screen but it still worked on a tiny one. Premise is: Tony Stark (Iron Man) is looking for a cure to his terminal illness at the same time trying to prevent the Baddies and the US Govt from taking over his privately run vigilante operation and its associated weapons. They do and a shootout ensues. I won't give away the winner.
The snow came extra early to the UK this year, prompting the usual calls of "why weren't we told?" and "what is the government doing about it?". Clearly what we need is a better global warming policy. Something along the lines of "If we made everything hot all the time it wouldn't snow."
I think I'll stand for PM on that platform. I reckon I'll get a few votes as long as the election is in winter.
Snow does mess up the general flow of things but it's not the end of the world. What is poor is that things like airports get closed for longer periods than is necessary. Heathrow got down to one runway for a few days, which surprises me because if they can figure out how to clear one runway then two shouldn't be a big problem. But there's probably something else, like the planes being frozen to the spot.
All countries in the Northern hemisphere suffer, it's just that some are better at dealing with it than others.
I consider myself a bit lucky that I got out of the UK to sunnier climes down under. The word was "only turn up for your flight if it's been confirmed". Mine was, but still I had to queue outside terminal 3 before being allowed to go and check in. Even after boarding I was still nervous, as we were sitting on the tarmac for quite some time while they de-iced the plane and crammed a few more passengers on. Big sigh of relief when we took off, I tells ya.
Sydney was warm and wet but it beat snow and -5 degrees. I was there for three weeks and caught up with most of my rellos (sorry to those who I missed!) and some of my friends (ditto). This was in between training and trying to sort things out for ma and pa's retirement move. Our attic is full of stuff that we've all dumped there over the years and it was time to do a mega-sift through and turf out anything that didn't have intrinsic value. That was about half of my worldly belongings. But it was nice to rediscover some gems from the past, including my sketchbooks featuring original drawings of the morbid but generally well received grim reaper Christmas cards.
The other things that was interesting to dig up were my old training diaries. I can't believe how many kilometres I used to do! In '99 and '04 I cracked 30,000km for the year and in several other years I got pretty close to that number. In recent years I haven't managed over 20,000km and even that's considered a lot by amateur standards.
I concede it probably wasn't the most effective way of training back then. Alex Simmons, coach and para-cyclist, who runs the excellent Turbo Studio in Randwick among other things, said that even if it wasn't ideal back then, your body doesn't forget all those miles and they've probably helped in recent years.
Training wise, I did do a fair bit more riding in Oz than last year, but not silly miles. Just three weeks of solid riding. I'm paying for it now unfortunately as I seemed to have picked up a virus on the plane. Blurgh.
Movies
I saw a number of movies courtesy of Virgin's in-flight entertainment. Here is my executive summary:
On the way out I went for action movies, starting with Salt (starring a certain Angelina Jolie). It's a spy movie and I can't remember much of it now, but at the time it was worth watching. I then moved onto The Expendables, which featured every 50yr+ action hero you could think of and was directed by Sly Stallone. Utter shite.
The A-Team promised more and almost delivered. I was never a fan of the original so I didn't get into it. It needed a big screen too. I saw something else that was also poor. So I'll give the flight over a 1/4 for movies.
Coming back was better. I started with The Social Network, which was a lot better than you might think. It's based on a book called Accidental Billionaires (thanks Piers - I also read this on the plane) which tracks the creation of Facebook by Mark Zuckerberg and his mates at Harvard in 2004. Although it's reportedly not close to being 100% accurate (especially as far as the characterisation is concerned), it does give you an insight into how this site came into being and its incredible growth. Almost 10% of the world's population is now on Facebook and it continues to grow.
One of the reasons it works is that to set up a profile and connect with people you already know, you need to use your own name. No it doesn't force you to do this but few of your friends will recognise you if you don't. So many other social network sites missed this rather crucial element, and turn into cesspools of anonymous hate and stupidity quite quickly.
What it does is retain some of the human element, even if it is just a profile, and that means people aren't afraid of using it. Add a clean, easy to use interface and bang, it's a goer. The fact that Zuckerberg studied both psychology and computer science probably had a lot to do with its success. He understands people a lot better than most programmers - sorry for the stereotype - and realised what they wanted.
Movie number 2 was Scott Pilgrim vs the World. It's based on a series of graphic novels about Scott Pilgrim, a bass player in a band, and his attempts to woo a girl. He gets her and then has to defeat her "seven evil exes" which he does in computer game style. It's Canadian so the humour is offbeat. It also moves very quickly so you'd better be paying attention.
Then I saw The American. This doesn't move quickly. It's got George Clooney in it as an assassin who's trying to get away from it all. He moves to Italy and doesn't manage to get away from it all. It's nicely shot and there's plenty of style but no substance. I kept waiting for something to happen and it didn't, it sort of petered out in a predictable way.
Finally I saw Iron Man 2. Another comic based flick and pretty good. It would be great on a big screen but it still worked on a tiny one. Premise is: Tony Stark (Iron Man) is looking for a cure to his terminal illness at the same time trying to prevent the Baddies and the US Govt from taking over his privately run vigilante operation and its associated weapons. They do and a shootout ensues. I won't give away the winner.
Thursday, December 02, 2010
Frozen bilge
It's the best kind because it's easier to avoid. Although it can be slippery.
Right, the cold hard facts: it's been the coldest most widest spreadest snowiest start to the UK winter in approx 17-33 years, depending on your penchant for stats. What this means is that it started snowing all over the shop last week and hasn't really let up, although it might soon. So the north is once again buggered and so is the southeast and Wales. That leaves Cornwall, which has mostly been spared. Bath copped a fair bit too.
On the days that it hasn't snowed it's been really chilly. A couple of mornings where it's been -5 in Bath, colder once you leave the confines of the city. And up in Scotland it's already been as low as -21, and could easily get colder. The record is -27 so I'm keeping an eye on that.
I managed to get out for a few rides after the snow started but this week I've been indoors on the rollers, and am better for it. It's quite nice not to have to wash 4 tonnes of cycling kit after every ride. Shorts and jersey is fine for a 1hr session in the work basement. It is cold down there but after 10mins with no wind blowing over me, I quickly warm up. The main reason is that I'm putting out about 1kW of heat (250W of which goes into the pedals). The body's fuel conversion inefficiency can come in handy sometimes.
Back home, I am rather glad that we got the heating fixed in time. The pipes are quite narrow so it doesn't exactly chuck it out, but we've got a back up fan heater in the living room which is useful. The fact that it looks like a coal oven and even glows, well we'll ignore that.
So even though it's been raining lots in Oz, I'm still looking forward to it in a few weeks.
Onto more important things, we saw two movies recently. Harry Potter 7, Part I, Deathly Hallows. Pretty good all round, some small diversions from the book including a slightly racy Harry/Hermione scene, and a few bits were cut or severely shortened (a good thing).
Liz and I reckon that of the three main stars, Rupert Grint (Ron) has got the brightest future ahead of him. He can do expressions. Daniel Radcliffe hasn't mastered it yet (acting, that is), and Emma Watsername is a little better, although at least she can do a nice sideline flogging Chanel No. 3.
Robert Pattinson (Cedric Diggory out of Harry Potter IV) has done well though. He's now a useful vampire method actor.
Beowulf was the other movie wot we saw, on telly not on the big screen. It's a bit of an oddity, as they used a motion capture technique to make it semi-animated (real actors turned into 3D animations). Why? To save money I guess.
The outcome is rather disappointing, as by going 3D you lose all the expression that a human being could bring to the role, unless that human being is called Keanu Reeves. So while it gives you more scope to do krazee stunts, it's essentially a waste. OK Angelina Jolie's in it but still...
The storyline is changed somewhat from the original. Yes Beowulf still defeats Grendel with his bare hands, but then it veers wildly off tack by having him being seduced by a beautiful Grendel's mum, instead of slaying her. That's just a gratuitous use of Ms Jolie's talents if you ask me. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Then she ends up siring a dragon, wot kills and is killed by Beowulf at the end.
So yeah it's a nice way of tying it all together but I think it's taking poetic licence a bit far. In actual 8th century fact, Grendel's mum was not easy on the eye (I know, I drew her for a historical piece in 5th class) and the dragon was no relation.
On the other hand, the poem is a bit disjointed. A bit like this blog.
After reading it, I can see how Tolkein was influenced by it*, especially in the Silmarillion.
Finally, I see that arsenic based lifeforms have been discovered outside of parliament (that was a bit of political satire there). There is hope then, although not necessarily for us.
*Beowulf that is, not this blog.
Right, the cold hard facts: it's been the coldest most widest spreadest snowiest start to the UK winter in approx 17-33 years, depending on your penchant for stats. What this means is that it started snowing all over the shop last week and hasn't really let up, although it might soon. So the north is once again buggered and so is the southeast and Wales. That leaves Cornwall, which has mostly been spared. Bath copped a fair bit too.
On the days that it hasn't snowed it's been really chilly. A couple of mornings where it's been -5 in Bath, colder once you leave the confines of the city. And up in Scotland it's already been as low as -21, and could easily get colder. The record is -27 so I'm keeping an eye on that.
I managed to get out for a few rides after the snow started but this week I've been indoors on the rollers, and am better for it. It's quite nice not to have to wash 4 tonnes of cycling kit after every ride. Shorts and jersey is fine for a 1hr session in the work basement. It is cold down there but after 10mins with no wind blowing over me, I quickly warm up. The main reason is that I'm putting out about 1kW of heat (250W of which goes into the pedals). The body's fuel conversion inefficiency can come in handy sometimes.
Back home, I am rather glad that we got the heating fixed in time. The pipes are quite narrow so it doesn't exactly chuck it out, but we've got a back up fan heater in the living room which is useful. The fact that it looks like a coal oven and even glows, well we'll ignore that.
So even though it's been raining lots in Oz, I'm still looking forward to it in a few weeks.
Onto more important things, we saw two movies recently. Harry Potter 7, Part I, Deathly Hallows. Pretty good all round, some small diversions from the book including a slightly racy Harry/Hermione scene, and a few bits were cut or severely shortened (a good thing).
Liz and I reckon that of the three main stars, Rupert Grint (Ron) has got the brightest future ahead of him. He can do expressions. Daniel Radcliffe hasn't mastered it yet (acting, that is), and Emma Watsername is a little better, although at least she can do a nice sideline flogging Chanel No. 3.
Robert Pattinson (Cedric Diggory out of Harry Potter IV) has done well though. He's now a useful vampire method actor.
Beowulf was the other movie wot we saw, on telly not on the big screen. It's a bit of an oddity, as they used a motion capture technique to make it semi-animated (real actors turned into 3D animations). Why? To save money I guess.
The outcome is rather disappointing, as by going 3D you lose all the expression that a human being could bring to the role, unless that human being is called Keanu Reeves. So while it gives you more scope to do krazee stunts, it's essentially a waste. OK Angelina Jolie's in it but still...
The storyline is changed somewhat from the original. Yes Beowulf still defeats Grendel with his bare hands, but then it veers wildly off tack by having him being seduced by a beautiful Grendel's mum, instead of slaying her. That's just a gratuitous use of Ms Jolie's talents if you ask me. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Then she ends up siring a dragon, wot kills and is killed by Beowulf at the end.
So yeah it's a nice way of tying it all together but I think it's taking poetic licence a bit far. In actual 8th century fact, Grendel's mum was not easy on the eye (I know, I drew her for a historical piece in 5th class) and the dragon was no relation.
On the other hand, the poem is a bit disjointed. A bit like this blog.
After reading it, I can see how Tolkein was influenced by it*, especially in the Silmarillion.
Finally, I see that arsenic based lifeforms have been discovered outside of parliament (that was a bit of political satire there). There is hope then, although not necessarily for us.
*Beowulf that is, not this blog.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
In no particular order
We have hot water and heating again after many months. A good thing, as we're now hurtling towards winter with reckless abandon. I won't bore you with the details, suffice to say it wasn't just a new boiler that was required and good plumbers are in high demand. It's all that central heating bizzo.
The shortest day of the year is just a month away. Thankfully by then I should be headed to Oz on a non-Qantas non-Air China flight. Air China jacked their prices up by nearly £500(!) this year, which is capitalism gone mad I tell you. Although they were still cheaper, I couldn't face Beijing Airport for a measly £200 saving.
Qantas makes me nervous for some reason, so I'm taking an alternative option.
I'm quite looking forward to Oz, although it means I'll miss the Cycling Time Trials Champions Night in January. Bummer, because I think I won a medal for finishing second in the national TT series. But you pays your money...
That said, it had better have stopped raining in Oz by the time I get there. November in the UK is always a bit crap. Apart from the odd sunny day it's grey, stormy, occasionally frosty and there's wet leaves everywhere. I've been out when it was -2 on the bike path but it wasn't so bad as the sun was out. Worse was when I took John, Sam and Kirsty out one day and there were two crashes equalling one broken thumb and a separate case of a ruined pair of knees. All in one 45km ride. Oops.
I've actually been doing a fair bit more than I usually do in November, which I've traditionally treated as a rest month. However because I finished racing at the start of October, everything has been moved forward. It's not been so much hard work as solid amounts of riding. As such I'm still as fit as I was (on average) during the season, although a damn sight slower. Winter cripples your average speed because of the cold and all the gear you have to wear. But as I'm finding out, not your power.
Hopefully I can build on this going into next year. We shall see.
Finally, I'm not sure whether it's appropriate to end on a sad note. I don't think it is, so this is enough.
The shortest day of the year is just a month away. Thankfully by then I should be headed to Oz on a non-Qantas non-Air China flight. Air China jacked their prices up by nearly £500(!) this year, which is capitalism gone mad I tell you. Although they were still cheaper, I couldn't face Beijing Airport for a measly £200 saving.
Qantas makes me nervous for some reason, so I'm taking an alternative option.
I'm quite looking forward to Oz, although it means I'll miss the Cycling Time Trials Champions Night in January. Bummer, because I think I won a medal for finishing second in the national TT series. But you pays your money...
That said, it had better have stopped raining in Oz by the time I get there. November in the UK is always a bit crap. Apart from the odd sunny day it's grey, stormy, occasionally frosty and there's wet leaves everywhere. I've been out when it was -2 on the bike path but it wasn't so bad as the sun was out. Worse was when I took John, Sam and Kirsty out one day and there were two crashes equalling one broken thumb and a separate case of a ruined pair of knees. All in one 45km ride. Oops.
I've actually been doing a fair bit more than I usually do in November, which I've traditionally treated as a rest month. However because I finished racing at the start of October, everything has been moved forward. It's not been so much hard work as solid amounts of riding. As such I'm still as fit as I was (on average) during the season, although a damn sight slower. Winter cripples your average speed because of the cold and all the gear you have to wear. But as I'm finding out, not your power.
Hopefully I can build on this going into next year. We shall see.
Finally, I'm not sure whether it's appropriate to end on a sad note. I don't think it is, so this is enough.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Journo world's 2010
This...
Photo © Robert Kühnen
...is why I still race. The feeling you get when you cross the line having given it everything and you know it's a winning time.
This...
Photo © Robert Kühnen
...is also nice.
That was the story of the 2010 journo worlds in a nutshell. There's a full report here too.
The full story
The slightly longer version starts with a poorly timed visit of the Ridley factory in Belgium on Thursday, the day before the journo world's kicked off. The visit was necessary for work but it didn't help with my last minute preparation. I had no chance to ride during the day and from past experience this always knocks the edge off me the next day (it did this time too). I don't handle rest particularly well.
Somewhat ironically, we were shown Ridley's latest aero developments, including a non-existent wind tunnel (it's coming) and a super dooper aero fork. And two days later, it turned out my closest rival in the TT was riding a Ridley Dean time trial bike. I suspect it was more coincidence than a Belgian plot to unseat me in the TT. It didn't work anyway.
Friday morning, train to Lierde, sign on and meet the rest of 'Team GB' (matching skinsuits, identical to the ones worn by the real British team. Yes I am both British and Orstrayan, wotcher g'day). Robin Coomber and Ian Osborne, who'd driven over in the Mountain Biking UK van the previous night. We thought we'd squeeze in a couple of laps of the course before the team time trial started later, and a wise decision it was.
20 corners in 10.7km. Bumpy concrete roads, potholed asphalt, speed humps and a few small climbs. That was the course and it was a bit of a shock to the system. The first time around it, my left elbow pad slipped on every bump, so I needed to make some modifications to my bar set up. It wasn't as aero as I would have liked but at least I had no surprises.
The second time around it we sort of worked out a formation but it was a tough course to ride as a team. Very few long straights where you could swap over and lots of corners where you could lose a ton of time. So the plan was: I do most of the work, Robin does a third and the more technical sections, Ian hangs on for dear life.
It almost worked.
Fast forward to just before the start. We got lost on our warm up and had just found the way back when Ian punctured. Argh! I had a spare wheel to lend him but it meant we were a little compromised. Worse still, we didn't have a chance to do the final part of our warm up, which involves going at race pace for a short while. This is to remind your legs what they're about to do. Too late for that. We were off.
I started at the front and got us up to speed on the first downhill bit. From 0-60km/h in 30 seconds. Then Robin took over for the first and tightest corner. I followed, checked that we'd still got Ian, left Robin in front for the next two corners and that was the first kilometre.
Then it was my turn again. Bend, corner, corner, 60km/h, sharp corner at 30, back up to 58, bend, another one, too fast come off tri-bars and slow down too much. Less than 3km and Robin takes over, yelling at Ian to drop back but he doesn't and I take last wheel. Bad idea because Robin pushes it hard on the uphill and Ian slowly loses the wheel until I can come round and pull him back, past Robin, who slots into second. 3.5km. We've already lost the race but we don't know it yet.
Time for me to do a longer turn, not hammering but opening up a bit. It's mostly straight with just one bend in 1.6km, so I can crank the speed up gradually without dropping anyone. Slow from 52 to 38 for one bend, then down to 30 for the next one as we reach Deftinge. I did a race here once. Quite some time ago actually. That means this blog is over six years old.
I digress. We're halfway now and Robin gets back on the front, taking us through the next corner out of Deftinge (that didn't take long). We go through the back of town via a few more corners and onto a tiny road next to a cornfield. Memories of racing over roads like this. I shouldn't have been reminiscing though, I should have taken over from Robin on this bit even though we'd previously agreed he'd do the next section because it was downhill and technical.
Bad idea - I'm much fatter than Robin therefore faster on the downhills. I end up freewheeling and sitting up too much as we rattle along at 48-52km/h. That's it. 3km to go and I come through for the duration. Up a sharp hill at 430W, take the next corner fairly well, then assume the position on the longish drag into the headwind. I'm flat out here and hoping that the others are hanging on.
Corner, bend, hammer, another corner and we're into the finishing straight which goes down then up and up some more. It's block headwind here and I can only hit 52 on the descent. The climb to the finish is long enough to really hurt and I am at this point. Robin comes past near the end, I get out of the saddle to try to hold his wheel but I can't quite, and Ian is barely on mine.
We cross the line in 15'05 and I'm blown. The second half was a lot better than the first but not starting hard enough cost too much time and already I can hear that we're one second behind Team Grinta! who have the quickest time so far. That's disappointing as although they knew the course and had decent riders (Frederik Backelandt, won the U30 TT last year, Roel Van Schalen, who beat me in the TT three years ago and Lorenzo Derycke, who is very strong and had been drafted in especially for this team), we thought we could still beat them.
It didn't matter in the end as Team Belgium 1 came home in 15'00 to win. Dieter Roman (TT winner in 2006), Brett Wauters and Rik Lintermans combined extremely well to get around the course quicker than the rest of us. They had the home advantage and made the most of it, but they deserved it.
It also caused me a few worries for the next day as I now knew how good the Belgians were on their home turf. This was going to take a good ride, unlike last year where I did a relatively crap ride and still won by a minute.
Podium ceremony done, we retired to the Berendries B&B run by the wonderfully friendly and generous Christina and Marc. Highly recommended and I've stayed in a lot of B&Bs. Back to Lierde for the post-race pasta party (which was a good idea on paper) and thence to bed for a proper night's sleep.
The individual
The next day was better. I'd rehearsed the course in my head over and over and had a much better idea of which lines I'd take in the corners. Again it was an afternoon start so we had time to get properly ready.
Ian was off first, in the over 40s category. He did a creditable 15'58 for 5th place, but was a little disappointed as he'd initially been told 15'08 which would have been the winning time. The winner was Dutchman Roel Kerkhof in 15'11, who together with his friend was also staying at our B&B. Journo world's regular and top bloke Julian Bray was 2nd in this category, just 6 seconds behind Kerkhof. Sooo close and I bet there was plenty of post-ride analysis of the corners.
Warm up
Photo © Robert Kühnen
Fred Backelandt rode first in the U40 category and did a really fast time: 14'48! Did the team slow him down yesterday? Luckily neither Robin nor I knew this before we rode, or we would have been worried. In any case I had already decided that I'd need to break 15min to have a good chance.
Robin went 4th last and had a disaster. The bumps made his saddle tilt down about 1km into it and he had to do the rest of it in a very unnatural position. Brilliant ride to finish in 14'58 but it wasn't enough unfortunately. It was worse for Robert Kuehnen, who took some of these photos. He did 16'19 but had to take 30sec out because his rear brake fell off!
I was off last. I saw Guido and Lucien at the start and Grote Jo was somewhere along the parcours too. Excellent to see them and I hope they enjoyed watching.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1, go! And I'm off again.
Photo © Robert Kühnen
This time the tailwind isn't quite as strong so I have to work to hit 60 on the first downhill. Then it's the sharp, tight right hander and I get around it without running into the wall. The next two corners I'm much quicker than the previous day, 3-4km/h. I'm not holding back and not looking behind.
Whenever I see my computer I'm encouraged by the numbers. This is definitely better than yesterday (final average was 23W up) despite working just as 'hard'.
Up to halfway and I can feel that I've gone faster, the corners flowing much more freely. Of course as soon as I think this I muck one up and it's the one into Deftinge. That's a few km/h off and at least a second. I'm a bit more cautious around the next few although I'm still pushing it on the straights in between. I reach the narrow road next to the cornfield and can see I'm catching my minute man. Hmm, when to pass?
I try to get him out of the next corner but I'm not close enough yet, which means he gets the perfect run on the potholed downhill section. I'm up to 54km/h here and close the gap, having to wait a few pedal strokes before I can get round him. Motorbike in my way too (there's one per rider).
I hit the gas again on the sharp uphill, mess up the next corner (argh!) and tackle the second last drag. Again, it's flat out, albeit not as much of a headwind so I can nearly manage 45. Last few corners, could be better but there's no time for that now. I really wind it up on the last descent: 56km/h and that gives me a great run up to the finish. Out of the saddle again, getting every last drop of power out and hit the line at maximum effort.
Photo © Robert Kühnen
A quick look down: 14'31. Plus 5sec for the start. 14'36. That's good.
It's confirmed by the announcer: "Jeff Jones, nieuwe beste tijd! vierteen minuten, zesendeertig seconden!"
Woo hoo, dunnit!
The satisfaction is huge and I high-five Ian just after the line. It's an unbeatable feeling - as you can see from the very first photo. Congrats from Guido and Lucien and it's in the bag. Podium time.
I felt sorry for Frederik though. He was beaten into third by a few hundredths of a second by his compatriot Jonas Heyerick, who was absolutely over the moon with that. Jonas had trained for the last 9 months specifically for this race, losing nearly 20kg, getting properly set up on his bike and kit with professional training help, and had chronicled it all in a column for P Magazine called 'From donkey to racehorse'. He had a busload of supporters too, who were awesome and loud, despite being a bit annoyed that I'd won.
Robin was annoyed with 4th and who knows how close it would have been had his saddle not slipped? But that's part of it unfortunately.
A rather posher reception followed and Ian got abominably drunk.
Kermiskoersen
The road race the next day was a reminder of the kermises I used to ride in Belgium, but without the relentless attacking. Much easier all round, except for the hill which was ridden pretty hard. Five laps, 12km a lap, fewer corners than the TT and a finish that involved a short steepish climb, a quick descent, three fast corners then the finishing straight.
My vague plan was to try and get away, either alone or with a small group. I knew I had little chance of this as the bunch was over 50 strong, had some useful riders in it and some team tactics. Also the last time I got away alone I won by three minutes so I didn't think I would be allowed much room.
That proved correct, although I did have a few stabs at it. The last one was promising as I took a few riders with me who were prepared to work, but the Belgians were vigilant and chased it down.
Mark Koghee rode a great race as he did manage to get away early. He spent most of the race alone in front until the eventual winner Christophe Moec bridged across to him on the last lap, then rode away. Even though Moec was caught by a small group over the top of the climb, he still beat them in the sprint. Chapeau!
I was OK on the climb, as the following video clip by Jo Vandenheulen shows, but was clearly too far back to be in with a shout. Thus I rolled in at the back of the second group in 14th.
Robin, on the other hand, had been looking after himself the whole race and stayed with the leaders on the climb. He can sprint a bit and managed a fine third. Another well done that man!
Eikenmolen - last lap. Moec leads, Robin in 5th, me in 12th. Video by Jo Vandenheulen
And that wraps it up for another year. A good 'un, by all accounts.
PS: Blenheim Palace went poorly. I punctured halfway. Grr.
PPS: I may even post some pics from our Skye/Edinburgh holiday.
Photo © Robert Kühnen
...is why I still race. The feeling you get when you cross the line having given it everything and you know it's a winning time.
This...
Photo © Robert Kühnen
...is also nice.
That was the story of the 2010 journo worlds in a nutshell. There's a full report here too.
The full story
The slightly longer version starts with a poorly timed visit of the Ridley factory in Belgium on Thursday, the day before the journo world's kicked off. The visit was necessary for work but it didn't help with my last minute preparation. I had no chance to ride during the day and from past experience this always knocks the edge off me the next day (it did this time too). I don't handle rest particularly well.
Somewhat ironically, we were shown Ridley's latest aero developments, including a non-existent wind tunnel (it's coming) and a super dooper aero fork. And two days later, it turned out my closest rival in the TT was riding a Ridley Dean time trial bike. I suspect it was more coincidence than a Belgian plot to unseat me in the TT. It didn't work anyway.
Friday morning, train to Lierde, sign on and meet the rest of 'Team GB' (matching skinsuits, identical to the ones worn by the real British team. Yes I am both British and Orstrayan, wotcher g'day). Robin Coomber and Ian Osborne, who'd driven over in the Mountain Biking UK van the previous night. We thought we'd squeeze in a couple of laps of the course before the team time trial started later, and a wise decision it was.
20 corners in 10.7km. Bumpy concrete roads, potholed asphalt, speed humps and a few small climbs. That was the course and it was a bit of a shock to the system. The first time around it, my left elbow pad slipped on every bump, so I needed to make some modifications to my bar set up. It wasn't as aero as I would have liked but at least I had no surprises.
The second time around it we sort of worked out a formation but it was a tough course to ride as a team. Very few long straights where you could swap over and lots of corners where you could lose a ton of time. So the plan was: I do most of the work, Robin does a third and the more technical sections, Ian hangs on for dear life.
It almost worked.
Fast forward to just before the start. We got lost on our warm up and had just found the way back when Ian punctured. Argh! I had a spare wheel to lend him but it meant we were a little compromised. Worse still, we didn't have a chance to do the final part of our warm up, which involves going at race pace for a short while. This is to remind your legs what they're about to do. Too late for that. We were off.
I started at the front and got us up to speed on the first downhill bit. From 0-60km/h in 30 seconds. Then Robin took over for the first and tightest corner. I followed, checked that we'd still got Ian, left Robin in front for the next two corners and that was the first kilometre.
Then it was my turn again. Bend, corner, corner, 60km/h, sharp corner at 30, back up to 58, bend, another one, too fast come off tri-bars and slow down too much. Less than 3km and Robin takes over, yelling at Ian to drop back but he doesn't and I take last wheel. Bad idea because Robin pushes it hard on the uphill and Ian slowly loses the wheel until I can come round and pull him back, past Robin, who slots into second. 3.5km. We've already lost the race but we don't know it yet.
Time for me to do a longer turn, not hammering but opening up a bit. It's mostly straight with just one bend in 1.6km, so I can crank the speed up gradually without dropping anyone. Slow from 52 to 38 for one bend, then down to 30 for the next one as we reach Deftinge. I did a race here once. Quite some time ago actually. That means this blog is over six years old.
I digress. We're halfway now and Robin gets back on the front, taking us through the next corner out of Deftinge (that didn't take long). We go through the back of town via a few more corners and onto a tiny road next to a cornfield. Memories of racing over roads like this. I shouldn't have been reminiscing though, I should have taken over from Robin on this bit even though we'd previously agreed he'd do the next section because it was downhill and technical.
Bad idea - I'm much fatter than Robin therefore faster on the downhills. I end up freewheeling and sitting up too much as we rattle along at 48-52km/h. That's it. 3km to go and I come through for the duration. Up a sharp hill at 430W, take the next corner fairly well, then assume the position on the longish drag into the headwind. I'm flat out here and hoping that the others are hanging on.
Corner, bend, hammer, another corner and we're into the finishing straight which goes down then up and up some more. It's block headwind here and I can only hit 52 on the descent. The climb to the finish is long enough to really hurt and I am at this point. Robin comes past near the end, I get out of the saddle to try to hold his wheel but I can't quite, and Ian is barely on mine.
We cross the line in 15'05 and I'm blown. The second half was a lot better than the first but not starting hard enough cost too much time and already I can hear that we're one second behind Team Grinta! who have the quickest time so far. That's disappointing as although they knew the course and had decent riders (Frederik Backelandt, won the U30 TT last year, Roel Van Schalen, who beat me in the TT three years ago and Lorenzo Derycke, who is very strong and had been drafted in especially for this team), we thought we could still beat them.
It didn't matter in the end as Team Belgium 1 came home in 15'00 to win. Dieter Roman (TT winner in 2006), Brett Wauters and Rik Lintermans combined extremely well to get around the course quicker than the rest of us. They had the home advantage and made the most of it, but they deserved it.
It also caused me a few worries for the next day as I now knew how good the Belgians were on their home turf. This was going to take a good ride, unlike last year where I did a relatively crap ride and still won by a minute.
Podium ceremony done, we retired to the Berendries B&B run by the wonderfully friendly and generous Christina and Marc. Highly recommended and I've stayed in a lot of B&Bs. Back to Lierde for the post-race pasta party (which was a good idea on paper) and thence to bed for a proper night's sleep.
The individual
The next day was better. I'd rehearsed the course in my head over and over and had a much better idea of which lines I'd take in the corners. Again it was an afternoon start so we had time to get properly ready.
Ian was off first, in the over 40s category. He did a creditable 15'58 for 5th place, but was a little disappointed as he'd initially been told 15'08 which would have been the winning time. The winner was Dutchman Roel Kerkhof in 15'11, who together with his friend was also staying at our B&B. Journo world's regular and top bloke Julian Bray was 2nd in this category, just 6 seconds behind Kerkhof. Sooo close and I bet there was plenty of post-ride analysis of the corners.
Warm upPhoto © Robert Kühnen
Fred Backelandt rode first in the U40 category and did a really fast time: 14'48! Did the team slow him down yesterday? Luckily neither Robin nor I knew this before we rode, or we would have been worried. In any case I had already decided that I'd need to break 15min to have a good chance.
Robin went 4th last and had a disaster. The bumps made his saddle tilt down about 1km into it and he had to do the rest of it in a very unnatural position. Brilliant ride to finish in 14'58 but it wasn't enough unfortunately. It was worse for Robert Kuehnen, who took some of these photos. He did 16'19 but had to take 30sec out because his rear brake fell off!
I was off last. I saw Guido and Lucien at the start and Grote Jo was somewhere along the parcours too. Excellent to see them and I hope they enjoyed watching.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1, go! And I'm off again.
Photo © Robert Kühnen
This time the tailwind isn't quite as strong so I have to work to hit 60 on the first downhill. Then it's the sharp, tight right hander and I get around it without running into the wall. The next two corners I'm much quicker than the previous day, 3-4km/h. I'm not holding back and not looking behind.
Whenever I see my computer I'm encouraged by the numbers. This is definitely better than yesterday (final average was 23W up) despite working just as 'hard'.
Up to halfway and I can feel that I've gone faster, the corners flowing much more freely. Of course as soon as I think this I muck one up and it's the one into Deftinge. That's a few km/h off and at least a second. I'm a bit more cautious around the next few although I'm still pushing it on the straights in between. I reach the narrow road next to the cornfield and can see I'm catching my minute man. Hmm, when to pass?
I try to get him out of the next corner but I'm not close enough yet, which means he gets the perfect run on the potholed downhill section. I'm up to 54km/h here and close the gap, having to wait a few pedal strokes before I can get round him. Motorbike in my way too (there's one per rider).
I hit the gas again on the sharp uphill, mess up the next corner (argh!) and tackle the second last drag. Again, it's flat out, albeit not as much of a headwind so I can nearly manage 45. Last few corners, could be better but there's no time for that now. I really wind it up on the last descent: 56km/h and that gives me a great run up to the finish. Out of the saddle again, getting every last drop of power out and hit the line at maximum effort.
Photo © Robert Kühnen
A quick look down: 14'31. Plus 5sec for the start. 14'36. That's good.
It's confirmed by the announcer: "Jeff Jones, nieuwe beste tijd! vierteen minuten, zesendeertig seconden!"
Woo hoo, dunnit!
The satisfaction is huge and I high-five Ian just after the line. It's an unbeatable feeling - as you can see from the very first photo. Congrats from Guido and Lucien and it's in the bag. Podium time.
I felt sorry for Frederik though. He was beaten into third by a few hundredths of a second by his compatriot Jonas Heyerick, who was absolutely over the moon with that. Jonas had trained for the last 9 months specifically for this race, losing nearly 20kg, getting properly set up on his bike and kit with professional training help, and had chronicled it all in a column for P Magazine called 'From donkey to racehorse'. He had a busload of supporters too, who were awesome and loud, despite being a bit annoyed that I'd won.
Robin was annoyed with 4th and who knows how close it would have been had his saddle not slipped? But that's part of it unfortunately.
A rather posher reception followed and Ian got abominably drunk.
Kermiskoersen
The road race the next day was a reminder of the kermises I used to ride in Belgium, but without the relentless attacking. Much easier all round, except for the hill which was ridden pretty hard. Five laps, 12km a lap, fewer corners than the TT and a finish that involved a short steepish climb, a quick descent, three fast corners then the finishing straight.
My vague plan was to try and get away, either alone or with a small group. I knew I had little chance of this as the bunch was over 50 strong, had some useful riders in it and some team tactics. Also the last time I got away alone I won by three minutes so I didn't think I would be allowed much room.
That proved correct, although I did have a few stabs at it. The last one was promising as I took a few riders with me who were prepared to work, but the Belgians were vigilant and chased it down.
Mark Koghee rode a great race as he did manage to get away early. He spent most of the race alone in front until the eventual winner Christophe Moec bridged across to him on the last lap, then rode away. Even though Moec was caught by a small group over the top of the climb, he still beat them in the sprint. Chapeau!
I was OK on the climb, as the following video clip by Jo Vandenheulen shows, but was clearly too far back to be in with a shout. Thus I rolled in at the back of the second group in 14th.
Robin, on the other hand, had been looking after himself the whole race and stayed with the leaders on the climb. He can sprint a bit and managed a fine third. Another well done that man!
Eikenmolen - last lap. Moec leads, Robin in 5th, me in 12th. Video by Jo Vandenheulen
And that wraps it up for another year. A good 'un, by all accounts.
PS: Blenheim Palace went poorly. I punctured halfway. Grr.
PPS: I may even post some pics from our Skye/Edinburgh holiday.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
