But cigarillos were scarce in the Cheltenham hilly today. At least I was beaten by a clubmate, with Ben Anstie doing a very good ride to pip me by seven seconds. He always beats me on the flat but normally I have the edge over him on a hilly course. But after giving him some advice on how to ride them, he has turned the tables :-) He should do a good ride in the national 10 in two weeks.
We were nearly two minutes in front of third place, so it was convincing. And with Simon Snowden finishing six minutes down on us, we easily won the team prize. Seven and counting, plus Chippenham also won the team prize in Clevedon on Sunday.
Alas, the weather gods were not on side today. The forecast was for a dry morning with temps around 15 and not a lot of wind - ideal really. But there was an overnight band of rain didn't move at all, so we ended up with very soggy conditions and large puddles everywhere. Ben said it was exactly the same last year, and he destroyed the bearings in his Corima disk as a result.
The course was two laps of an 18.7km circuit with 300m of climbing a lap: one steepish 1km climb, one less steep 1km drag and one 3km drag at 3% to the finish. A few sharp corners and fast descents into the mix too. Course record: 54'49 by a certain Stuart Dangerfield, back when he was winning national championships.
I sussed out a lap time of about 29 minutes and when I looked at the start sheet I realised that Ben, who was off 30 minutes before me, had a good chance of passing me just before I started. Bugger, as it's a distraction. Seeding is meant to stop this but I'm not sure how closely the organiser looked at Ben and my recent results, which we put on the entry form.
Bang on schedule, Ben passed the starter for his second lap as I had about half a minute to go. He was out of sight when I started but, being fresher, I had almost reeled him in by foot of the first climb after 8km. I went straight past him on the climb, heart rate hitting 188, and would have put 10 seconds into him. But at the bottom of the descent into Lower Swell (oo err) he flew past me - I wasn't going slow either, averaging nearly 60km/h down there.
Of course, as soon as the road went up again I re-passed Ben and was now just behind my minute man, Derek Smetham, who being a habitual top finisher had been given a '0' number to denote a seed. Last time they put me behind Derek was in Gillingham, where I didn't quite catch him, so I guess I was doing better today.
There was a narrow, muddy dogleg before we turned back onto the main road towards the finish. I took it steady, so Ben came by flat out again. His bike handling is far superior to mine, and that was the difference between us today. We passed Derek but I let Ben stay in front until the end of the lap. I had to drop back 25m behind him and ride in the middle of the road otherwise there would be accusations of drafting, and that's the last thing I wanted.
My concentration had completely gone by this point and my legs weren't doing much better. The second lap, with its long steady downhill start, couldn't come soon enough and I relaxed again, enjoying the open road in front of me. I'd got to halfway in around 29min but realised I'd have to do a really good second lap to match Ben's effort.
I hit the 1km climb and with hindsight realised I'd overcooked it on lap 1. I did it in 2'43 at 411W on the first lap, but only 3'03 at 370W this time. Ouch. I had to slow right down at the bottom of the following descent (give way sign, but it's marshalled and quiet) as there was a car coming down the narrow lane towards me. Then it was a matter of getting through the dog leg, back onto the main road and up the long drag to the finish.
The last part was full of hurt. Even more than the Dursley. When I analysed it later, my last 9km was done in the same time as it was on the first lap, which was good, but the pain factor was magnified a lot. Computers don't tell you this. The three kilometre drag is dead straight and has two flat spots, but of course you don't get any recovery. The final part steepens and you can't quite see the finish until you get over the brow of the hill.
It just kept going. It was like doing the national hill climb at the end of a 35km time trial. It was the toughest finish I've had this year and when it was over it took me a long while to pedal again.
I didn't think I'd done enough to beat Ben and this was confirmed at the HQ: he had 58'32 (a big improvement on his 1:01+ last year), me 58'39. Chris Madge slotted into third with 1:00:18 and Derek Smetham fourth with 1:01:03. We both had good rides but that was by far Ben's best result in a hilly. It must be all the road racing he's doing ;-)
Poor ol' Mark Wareham crashed on the corner at the end of the first lap. His hand slipped off his bars (no bar tape) and he lost it. He was able to drive home OK so I don't think he was too badly hurt.
RealStats: I averaged 318W on the PowerTap but with a normalised power (supposed to be a better idea of the physiological workload - on a flat course, normalised power is usually the same as average power) of 338W. So slightly harder but for three times as long as the Ba'ath 10 on Saturday. I'm not sure how that compares with the Dursley because that (303W/328NP) was done with the dodgy Ergomo. My heart rate averaged 180bpm - several beats higher than usual, not that it tells you a lot.
Cake and restorative tea followed, then the long drive back to Chippenham with Simon. Tell you what, Cheltenham is a nice part of the world.
It's the last hardrider for a while next week: the Somer Valley 29 miler, but not particularly hilly. Gavin Poupart will be back. With the form I've got now, I have a small but finite chance of beating him. I have to if I want to win the series because most of the remaining events suit him rather than me.
I will finish with a historical fact: If Mel Gibson could have run faster, or indeed had had a mountain bike, not nearly as many Aussies would have got it in the Nek at Gallipoli.
Monday, May 05, 2008
Saturday, May 03, 2008
Vindication #2
It is happening again. And I'm not talking about repeats of Twin Peaks.
No, far more importantly, the Ergomo has come out lower than the Powertap in a race-type situation. 306W on the Ergomo compared to 335W on the Powertap in the Ba'ath 10. That's nearly 10 percent! I'd even made sure I set the offset just before starting, but to no avail. Weirdly, if I included the warmup and cooldown, the power averages were a lot closer.
I'll try to find out what's wrong with the Ergomo, although it'll be nice not to use it on Monday as it's quite a bulky unit. But it's orange and matches my skinsuit, unlike the yellow Powertap (which would almost match Bath CC's ONCE colours).
The U47 course was bloody fast, and it made a nice change to ride on smooth roads with a bit of traffic assistance. I managed 20'46 for 9th out of 114 starters, which I was quite happy with. The winner did 19'23, and was surprisingly the only rider to go under 20 minutes. Ben A did 20'27 for 4th and Andy C did 21'53, so we won the team prize. Number six for me+Chippenham this year. Simon S did 22'05 but his head wasn't in it after racing three times this week.
It was hard to hold back on such a course, but I managed to keep enough in reserve so that it never actually hurt, and my average heart rate was about 5-6bpm lower than it would normally be. I think a full on effort would have netted me another 15 seconds or so, which wouldn't have been enough for the podium anyway so I'm not too worried. Monday is more important.
Splits: first 8.5km in 11'05 (slightly downhill but a light headwind, two roundabouts and one left hander). Last 7.6km in 9'40 (tailwind, no turns, bit of an uphill at the end). I was off at 8:11am so while there was a bit of traffic, it wasn't heavy.
There's a 25 miler on a version of this course in June, which I definitely want to do. I was riding slower than 25 mile pace today, so if I got a similar day I could do something in the region of 52 minutes. Our club record is 52'20, so it's something to aim at [Our club 10 record is 20'03, but it was done in 1983 - before disks and tribars].
I could have a go on the R25/3 in Wales, which is even quicker than this course because it has a downhill start but no uphill finish. It's not cheating because the rules allow for it, but the whole "personal best" concept is a bit arbitrary when you have courses like these! Not to mention the British Best All Rounder, which is based on your average speed in a 10, 25, 50, 100 and 12hr. A national championship or a national points series, like the Rudy Project rounds, are a much fairer way of determining who's best.
Chocolate 'n stuff
To matters of import, I returned to Morrison's to source some more chocolate. By a strange (but not deliberate) coincidence, I was served by the same employee who had given me the third degree a couple of weeks ago. I was able to remain incognito, probably because I only bought one block. But I must be more careful in future.
I see Boris Johnson got in as mayor of London, which goes to show that anyone can succeed in politics. They say he's the first conservative mayor of London ever. I hope he'll be as pro-cycling as 'Red Ken'. Time will tell innit.
Song of the day: Blade Runner blues. Tres relaxing.
Weather: not currently raining. In fact, it was pretty noice today. Hence, it gets mentioned at the end of this BilgeProductionTM.
No, far more importantly, the Ergomo has come out lower than the Powertap in a race-type situation. 306W on the Ergomo compared to 335W on the Powertap in the Ba'ath 10. That's nearly 10 percent! I'd even made sure I set the offset just before starting, but to no avail. Weirdly, if I included the warmup and cooldown, the power averages were a lot closer.
I'll try to find out what's wrong with the Ergomo, although it'll be nice not to use it on Monday as it's quite a bulky unit. But it's orange and matches my skinsuit, unlike the yellow Powertap (which would almost match Bath CC's ONCE colours).
The U47 course was bloody fast, and it made a nice change to ride on smooth roads with a bit of traffic assistance. I managed 20'46 for 9th out of 114 starters, which I was quite happy with. The winner did 19'23, and was surprisingly the only rider to go under 20 minutes. Ben A did 20'27 for 4th and Andy C did 21'53, so we won the team prize. Number six for me+Chippenham this year. Simon S did 22'05 but his head wasn't in it after racing three times this week.
It was hard to hold back on such a course, but I managed to keep enough in reserve so that it never actually hurt, and my average heart rate was about 5-6bpm lower than it would normally be. I think a full on effort would have netted me another 15 seconds or so, which wouldn't have been enough for the podium anyway so I'm not too worried. Monday is more important.
Splits: first 8.5km in 11'05 (slightly downhill but a light headwind, two roundabouts and one left hander). Last 7.6km in 9'40 (tailwind, no turns, bit of an uphill at the end). I was off at 8:11am so while there was a bit of traffic, it wasn't heavy.
There's a 25 miler on a version of this course in June, which I definitely want to do. I was riding slower than 25 mile pace today, so if I got a similar day I could do something in the region of 52 minutes. Our club record is 52'20, so it's something to aim at [Our club 10 record is 20'03, but it was done in 1983 - before disks and tribars].
I could have a go on the R25/3 in Wales, which is even quicker than this course because it has a downhill start but no uphill finish. It's not cheating because the rules allow for it, but the whole "personal best" concept is a bit arbitrary when you have courses like these! Not to mention the British Best All Rounder, which is based on your average speed in a 10, 25, 50, 100 and 12hr. A national championship or a national points series, like the Rudy Project rounds, are a much fairer way of determining who's best.
Chocolate 'n stuff
To matters of import, I returned to Morrison's to source some more chocolate. By a strange (but not deliberate) coincidence, I was served by the same employee who had given me the third degree a couple of weeks ago. I was able to remain incognito, probably because I only bought one block. But I must be more careful in future.
I see Boris Johnson got in as mayor of London, which goes to show that anyone can succeed in politics. They say he's the first conservative mayor of London ever. I hope he'll be as pro-cycling as 'Red Ken'. Time will tell innit.
Song of the day: Blade Runner blues. Tres relaxing.
Weather: not currently raining. In fact, it was pretty noice today. Hence, it gets mentioned at the end of this BilgeProductionTM.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Vindication (Ergomo vs. PowerTap)
My long held (well, at least since March) suspicions have been confirmed. Under certain but fairly common conditions, the power readings from my Ergomo tend to drift downwards during a ride. It's to do with the bottom bracket shell cooling down over time, because the Ergomo measures deflections in the bottom bracket axle to calculate power.
You have to zero it before each ride, but as I've found, a temperature change during the ride can throw it out by ~20 watts. This will do your head in if you're trying to use it for pacing a time trial effort. Your average power continues to drop even when you know you're putting in more, or are at least pacing yourself evenly. And then you start to Doubt, which is not being good for the time trialling. Ja.
Today I was able to compare the Ergomo with readings from a PowerTap SL 2.4, which I understand is not subject to these sorts of variations. On a pootle up the bike path, I recorded several intervals, and found that the early ones were consistent across the PT and the Ergomo - to a few watts. But the later ones showed that 20 watt difference, with the PowerTap always giving the higher readout.
This doesn't always happen with the Ergomo, but it does seem to show in races more than training. Maybe the higher speeds are cooling down the bottom bracket? And today the path was wet, which wouldn't have helped. I'm not sure.
I'll use both in the Bath 10 on Saturday. I've going to ride it at 90% effort (aiming for 290-300 watts) and the PT should give me a reliable rolling average.
What I like about the Ergomo is that it's crank based, so you don't need different wheels with PT hubs in order to collect data.
On the other hand, if you have different wheels built from PT hubs, then you can easily use the PT on different bikes.
I like the display of the Ergomo too, as it gives you five readings instead of three on the PT. So you can display current power, average power, cadence (or speed), heart rate, and time. On the PT, you can only display current/average power, heart rate/speed and time/distance/cadence unless you want to fiddle around navigating the buttons while you're racing.
But I love the simplicity of the PowerTap. All it is is a computer and a hub. No sensor, no cables, nothing. The Ergomo has a wire from the bottom bracket to the rather large computer. If I had to pick, I'd probably go for the PT 'cos it's cheaper and seems to give more reliable data.
You have to zero it before each ride, but as I've found, a temperature change during the ride can throw it out by ~20 watts. This will do your head in if you're trying to use it for pacing a time trial effort. Your average power continues to drop even when you know you're putting in more, or are at least pacing yourself evenly. And then you start to Doubt, which is not being good for the time trialling. Ja.
Today I was able to compare the Ergomo with readings from a PowerTap SL 2.4, which I understand is not subject to these sorts of variations. On a pootle up the bike path, I recorded several intervals, and found that the early ones were consistent across the PT and the Ergomo - to a few watts. But the later ones showed that 20 watt difference, with the PowerTap always giving the higher readout.
This doesn't always happen with the Ergomo, but it does seem to show in races more than training. Maybe the higher speeds are cooling down the bottom bracket? And today the path was wet, which wouldn't have helped. I'm not sure.
I'll use both in the Bath 10 on Saturday. I've going to ride it at 90% effort (aiming for 290-300 watts) and the PT should give me a reliable rolling average.
What I like about the Ergomo is that it's crank based, so you don't need different wheels with PT hubs in order to collect data.
On the other hand, if you have different wheels built from PT hubs, then you can easily use the PT on different bikes.
I like the display of the Ergomo too, as it gives you five readings instead of three on the PT. So you can display current power, average power, cadence (or speed), heart rate, and time. On the PT, you can only display current/average power, heart rate/speed and time/distance/cadence unless you want to fiddle around navigating the buttons while you're racing.
But I love the simplicity of the PowerTap. All it is is a computer and a hub. No sensor, no cables, nothing. The Ergomo has a wire from the bottom bracket to the rather large computer. If I had to pick, I'd probably go for the PT 'cos it's cheaper and seems to give more reliable data.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
A Wolf at the Door
Incredibly, despite a very dire forecast for the past several days, it didn't pour today. In fact, it was quite noice and sunny. It just goes to show that They can be wrong.
Today's contre-le-monte fixture was the Swindon hilly, on the same course as the Chippenham hilly a couple of months ago. But because it wasn't particularly windy, the times were a lot quicker. QED. One must move with the times so one was very satisfied with a 53'52, especially as one had won the one in March with a 55'22.
Erm, best get back to the real-time first person...
I was the only one under 54 minutes today, with Chris Madge putting in a solid ride for second in 54'29 and Mark Wareham third in 54'50. Mr Poupart wasn't there as he was doing the Beacon Little Mountain TT (which I may well do next year), where he finished second.
That's a roundabout way of saying that I won! And scored another team prize, this time with Andy Cook (58'31) and Simon Snowden (59'57). Jolly good!
I compared my splits to the first race, where we had a decent tailwind to start with and an indecent headwind to finish. I conceded about a minute to myself (is that second person?) in the first 10km, then managed to peg that back to 40 seconds by halfway. But coming back I picked up two and a half minutes, only losing a little bit of that in the last bit. Interestingly, I did both the two climbs at exactly the same speed as I'd done in March, as they were more or less wind-neutral.
The power meter was not reading very well today. I finished with an average of 290 watts (cf 303 in March), which was bollocksed because I didn't set the offset before I started. I checked it at the finish and it was reading 20-25 watts too low. Thus a 310-315W average would have been more like it, although I have a suspicion even that's low. I should finally be able to compare it with PowerTap data next weekend.
I've even managed to put on a bit of weight, so maybe the Morrison's checkout girl was right about Lily O'Brien's sticky toffee chocolate. Curses. I may have to cut back to half a kilo a week. Still, it's good for going down hills.
Upcoming fixtures: The Bath CC 10 this Saturday and the Cheltenham hilly on Monday bank holiday.
I wasn't going to enter the Bath 10 because it's too close to the Cheltenham one, which is worth hardriders points. But it's on a 'fast' course so a chance to beat my best time of 21'24. That's an utterly pointless exercise, by the way, because I have no wish to ride the national '10', and even if I did, my current best time would be good enough to get a start anyway. And there will be other events on this course this year, so why??
I still don't know.
I think I'll ride it at tempo pace and see if I can get under 21 minutes. The ultimate goal is a sub-20 minute 10, but that can wait.
Cheltenham, on the other hand, looks tough. Two laps totalling 37.6km and 600m of climbing/descending. Not quite as tough as The Dursley, but still a very honest course. And given that I seem to be climbing well at the mo', I should do OK.
A note on the Dursleys: JK Rowling's first years were spent in Yate and Winterbourne, which are about 20km south of Dursley. Inspiration? Maybe I should call my main character "Swindon".
And for those who haven't nodded off yet, today's song was indeed A Wolf at the Door by Radiohead. Five points for guessing that correctly.
Today's contre-le-monte fixture was the Swindon hilly, on the same course as the Chippenham hilly a couple of months ago. But because it wasn't particularly windy, the times were a lot quicker. QED. One must move with the times so one was very satisfied with a 53'52, especially as one had won the one in March with a 55'22.
Erm, best get back to the real-time first person...
I was the only one under 54 minutes today, with Chris Madge putting in a solid ride for second in 54'29 and Mark Wareham third in 54'50. Mr Poupart wasn't there as he was doing the Beacon Little Mountain TT (which I may well do next year), where he finished second.
That's a roundabout way of saying that I won! And scored another team prize, this time with Andy Cook (58'31) and Simon Snowden (59'57). Jolly good!
I compared my splits to the first race, where we had a decent tailwind to start with and an indecent headwind to finish. I conceded about a minute to myself (is that second person?) in the first 10km, then managed to peg that back to 40 seconds by halfway. But coming back I picked up two and a half minutes, only losing a little bit of that in the last bit. Interestingly, I did both the two climbs at exactly the same speed as I'd done in March, as they were more or less wind-neutral.
The power meter was not reading very well today. I finished with an average of 290 watts (cf 303 in March), which was bollocksed because I didn't set the offset before I started. I checked it at the finish and it was reading 20-25 watts too low. Thus a 310-315W average would have been more like it, although I have a suspicion even that's low. I should finally be able to compare it with PowerTap data next weekend.
I've even managed to put on a bit of weight, so maybe the Morrison's checkout girl was right about Lily O'Brien's sticky toffee chocolate. Curses. I may have to cut back to half a kilo a week. Still, it's good for going down hills.
Upcoming fixtures: The Bath CC 10 this Saturday and the Cheltenham hilly on Monday bank holiday.
I wasn't going to enter the Bath 10 because it's too close to the Cheltenham one, which is worth hardriders points. But it's on a 'fast' course so a chance to beat my best time of 21'24. That's an utterly pointless exercise, by the way, because I have no wish to ride the national '10', and even if I did, my current best time would be good enough to get a start anyway. And there will be other events on this course this year, so why??
I still don't know.
I think I'll ride it at tempo pace and see if I can get under 21 minutes. The ultimate goal is a sub-20 minute 10, but that can wait.
Cheltenham, on the other hand, looks tough. Two laps totalling 37.6km and 600m of climbing/descending. Not quite as tough as The Dursley, but still a very honest course. And given that I seem to be climbing well at the mo', I should do OK.
A note on the Dursleys: JK Rowling's first years were spent in Yate and Winterbourne, which are about 20km south of Dursley. Inspiration? Maybe I should call my main character "Swindon".
And for those who haven't nodded off yet, today's song was indeed A Wolf at the Door by Radiohead. Five points for guessing that correctly.
Monday, April 21, 2008
The Dursley
Another win! Results here and pics here.
I took it as a good sign that I didn't get food poisoning after a curry on Saturday night at the Eastern Eye. I'd warned the birthday party of this, as well as the fact that surliness was part of the service. We weren't disappointed on that front as the booking was for 14 and only seven of us turned up. I don't know how the others fared, but I didn't get the dodgy rice this time. Result!
Thus, my vital functions were more or less intact for the Dursley hardriders event on a chilly, misty Sunday morn. The course was shortened from 45 to 36km because of road works, which means we missed the first climb and descent, but it was still 800m of up/630m of down. Here's the modified course (click on show > elevation for the profile).
The HQ was an old scout hut that may have been used to house cattle at some point in the dark ages. Very rural, reminiscent of a few Belgian changing rooms, and cold. As Mike H, the organiser said, it was a proper HQ for a hardriders event. I was glad to get out of it and on the bike to warm up again, making full use of the embrocation I had obtained at minimal expense the previous day.
I was one of the last off and as I rolled up with 30 seconds to go, Mike explained to me why his estimate of the total climbing of the original course was out. I'd reckoned 1000m (using Bikely and Memory Map), he'd said 750m. But he'd used Mapmyride, which discounts climbs of <60m in calculating the total. Pretty shoddy if you ask me.
I'm glad we sorted that out and I set off with algorithms running through my head.
The first 3km were undulating uphill before we hit the first climb past Uley. It's always hard to hold back at the start of a TT because it takes about five minutes to properly settle. So if you've got a climb at the end of that period, you need to be extra careful or you'll die in the arse when the gradient hits 12%.
I was aware of this but maybe not to the point of being "extra careful". I'd caught both my one and two minute men before the top and was sucking in lungfuls of misty air to try to keep the oxygen debt at a manageable level. It's all about the credit crunch.
The bonus of riding at 360W is that you put out about 1600W of heat. That was rather more than the small fan heater back at the Scout Hut. The other bonus was that at the summit I got some cheers from our club president Mike Edwards and his wife Sheila, which is always appreciated.
The descent to Frocester followed almost immediately. It averages 9% so I took it steadily on the twisty wet roads, winding it up when I got a free run at the bottom. It was just a few km to the roundabout, then we had to turn around and come back up the bloody hill. Again, it was one where you got no descent leading in, it just gradually steepened until you were properly on it. I passed a couple more riders and could see my three minute man just ahead at the top.
The next bit was quite nice, an undulating road down to Stroud, with another 2km descent (with two cattle grids) at the end. There was another roundabout at the bottom and we had to return the way we came. I was unlucky to be passed by two cars right at the top of the descent and I couldn't get past them on the way down so I did most of it under brakes. It was worth 10-15 seconds, and I hoped this wasn't going to come down to the wire.
I probably made up a bit of that after I did the roundabout at the bottom and hit the climb quite hard. According to my stats I averaged 390W for the climb, no doubt wasting a lot of heat. It was a relief to get to the top, and even though the last 10km were gradually uphill, I appreciated being able to stay on the go-fast aero bars.
With 5km to go, I saw Mike and Sheila again and they were quite excited. I think Mike even jumped, although that could have been me hallucinating. Nevertheless, I took it as a sign that I was doing well, as he would have been keeping track of everyone. I went as hard as I could to the finish and was glad to get there, although I could have handled another climb OK.
I collected my jacket from the time keeper and he seemed to think I'd done the winning time too: 1:02:57. Always a good sign, but you're never sure until you see all the times written on the results board.
Rode back down to the scout hut with an Italian by the name of Flavio from Oxford Uni CC, who said he was a pro 25 years ago and had started riding again to lose weight and get fit. He was my three minute man who I'd caught after halfway and he ended up with a "long" 1:08 (which means just under 1:09). He'd ridden up from Oxford in the morning - somewhat further than me - and was delighted with the whole event. I think he'll improve a bit more.
I wondered how Gavin P had got on and it turned out he hadn't. He had the misfortune to puncture his front wheel after the top of the last climb. You can't really ride on a flat front tubular for 10km so he had to get a lift back. It's a pity that he didn't end up with a time because I'll never know if I beat him fair and square or not. A few seemed to think I'd done a good enough ride anyway, but ... Given that's his second flat of the year (the first was just after he'd crossed the line in the Severn hilly), I suspect he'll try something more robust than Vittoria Chronos.
I refuelled with a bit of ginger cake and some tea and waited for all the times to be confirmed. That's the most nerve wracking bit of a time trial, trust me. The tension builds as more times are written on the results board, with everyone standing around speculating about who's done what. You don't want to look but you do anyway and you get little pangs when a faster time than yours is posted.
Finally it was confirmed and I got the win by 46 seconds over Mark Wareham - who rode a standard road bike(!) - and 2'09 over Derek Smetham from the local club. Chris Madge (1:05:13) and my clubmate Ben Anstie (1:06:22, after doing a 10 miler the previous afternoon) slotted in next, while our sprinter Simon Snowden recorded a painful 1:18 for 22nd, but it was more than enough for us to claim the team prize from Gloucester. That's number four this year!
The ride home was interesting when I discovered I'd lost a chainring bolt. Not only that, all the other four bolts were loose. Oops. That explains the creaking noise I've had for the last few weeks...
Made it home but had to pay another stealth visit to Morrison's to restock on Lily O'Brien's sticky toffee chocolate. Some bugger had eaten it all in my absence.
No song today but Hung Up by Madonna is a good 'un for time trialling. Saw the last episode of Foyles War too. I hope there are more.
I took it as a good sign that I didn't get food poisoning after a curry on Saturday night at the Eastern Eye. I'd warned the birthday party of this, as well as the fact that surliness was part of the service. We weren't disappointed on that front as the booking was for 14 and only seven of us turned up. I don't know how the others fared, but I didn't get the dodgy rice this time. Result!
Thus, my vital functions were more or less intact for the Dursley hardriders event on a chilly, misty Sunday morn. The course was shortened from 45 to 36km because of road works, which means we missed the first climb and descent, but it was still 800m of up/630m of down. Here's the modified course (click on show > elevation for the profile).
The HQ was an old scout hut that may have been used to house cattle at some point in the dark ages. Very rural, reminiscent of a few Belgian changing rooms, and cold. As Mike H, the organiser said, it was a proper HQ for a hardriders event. I was glad to get out of it and on the bike to warm up again, making full use of the embrocation I had obtained at minimal expense the previous day.
I was one of the last off and as I rolled up with 30 seconds to go, Mike explained to me why his estimate of the total climbing of the original course was out. I'd reckoned 1000m (using Bikely and Memory Map), he'd said 750m. But he'd used Mapmyride, which discounts climbs of <60m in calculating the total. Pretty shoddy if you ask me.
I'm glad we sorted that out and I set off with algorithms running through my head.
The first 3km were undulating uphill before we hit the first climb past Uley. It's always hard to hold back at the start of a TT because it takes about five minutes to properly settle. So if you've got a climb at the end of that period, you need to be extra careful or you'll die in the arse when the gradient hits 12%.
I was aware of this but maybe not to the point of being "extra careful". I'd caught both my one and two minute men before the top and was sucking in lungfuls of misty air to try to keep the oxygen debt at a manageable level. It's all about the credit crunch.
The bonus of riding at 360W is that you put out about 1600W of heat. That was rather more than the small fan heater back at the Scout Hut. The other bonus was that at the summit I got some cheers from our club president Mike Edwards and his wife Sheila, which is always appreciated.
The descent to Frocester followed almost immediately. It averages 9% so I took it steadily on the twisty wet roads, winding it up when I got a free run at the bottom. It was just a few km to the roundabout, then we had to turn around and come back up the bloody hill. Again, it was one where you got no descent leading in, it just gradually steepened until you were properly on it. I passed a couple more riders and could see my three minute man just ahead at the top.
The next bit was quite nice, an undulating road down to Stroud, with another 2km descent (with two cattle grids) at the end. There was another roundabout at the bottom and we had to return the way we came. I was unlucky to be passed by two cars right at the top of the descent and I couldn't get past them on the way down so I did most of it under brakes. It was worth 10-15 seconds, and I hoped this wasn't going to come down to the wire.
I probably made up a bit of that after I did the roundabout at the bottom and hit the climb quite hard. According to my stats I averaged 390W for the climb, no doubt wasting a lot of heat. It was a relief to get to the top, and even though the last 10km were gradually uphill, I appreciated being able to stay on the go-fast aero bars.
With 5km to go, I saw Mike and Sheila again and they were quite excited. I think Mike even jumped, although that could have been me hallucinating. Nevertheless, I took it as a sign that I was doing well, as he would have been keeping track of everyone. I went as hard as I could to the finish and was glad to get there, although I could have handled another climb OK.
I collected my jacket from the time keeper and he seemed to think I'd done the winning time too: 1:02:57. Always a good sign, but you're never sure until you see all the times written on the results board.
Rode back down to the scout hut with an Italian by the name of Flavio from Oxford Uni CC, who said he was a pro 25 years ago and had started riding again to lose weight and get fit. He was my three minute man who I'd caught after halfway and he ended up with a "long" 1:08 (which means just under 1:09). He'd ridden up from Oxford in the morning - somewhat further than me - and was delighted with the whole event. I think he'll improve a bit more.
I wondered how Gavin P had got on and it turned out he hadn't. He had the misfortune to puncture his front wheel after the top of the last climb. You can't really ride on a flat front tubular for 10km so he had to get a lift back. It's a pity that he didn't end up with a time because I'll never know if I beat him fair and square or not. A few seemed to think I'd done a good enough ride anyway, but ... Given that's his second flat of the year (the first was just after he'd crossed the line in the Severn hilly), I suspect he'll try something more robust than Vittoria Chronos.
I refuelled with a bit of ginger cake and some tea and waited for all the times to be confirmed. That's the most nerve wracking bit of a time trial, trust me. The tension builds as more times are written on the results board, with everyone standing around speculating about who's done what. You don't want to look but you do anyway and you get little pangs when a faster time than yours is posted.
Finally it was confirmed and I got the win by 46 seconds over Mark Wareham - who rode a standard road bike(!) - and 2'09 over Derek Smetham from the local club. Chris Madge (1:05:13) and my clubmate Ben Anstie (1:06:22, after doing a 10 miler the previous afternoon) slotted in next, while our sprinter Simon Snowden recorded a painful 1:18 for 22nd, but it was more than enough for us to claim the team prize from Gloucester. That's number four this year!
The ride home was interesting when I discovered I'd lost a chainring bolt. Not only that, all the other four bolts were loose. Oops. That explains the creaking noise I've had for the last few weeks...
Made it home but had to pay another stealth visit to Morrison's to restock on Lily O'Brien's sticky toffee chocolate. Some bugger had eaten it all in my absence.
No song today but Hung Up by Madonna is a good 'un for time trialling. Saw the last episode of Foyles War too. I hope there are more.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Two things
First: I've been on a quest to buy some warming embrocation today, and am surprised at how hard it is to get here. In Belgium you can buy it at any bike shop in various grades of warmness, and it's very popular, forming part of the pre-kermis ritual.
My supply of Sportsbalm Pre Sports Hot Balm (basically vaseline with wintergreen, cayenne, cajeput, capsicum and nutmeg oil - nice and hot) ran out last week and I was in dire need of some more, as it's still freezing and wet here. It substitutes for wearing leg warmers, which seem to be the popular choice for racing in the early UK season.
After trying the bike shops and a big sports store, I eventually wound up at Boots where I found some Raglex cream. It's got capsicum oil in it, which is better than nothing, so I'll combine it with vaseline for rain protection.
It's been raining all day today with a bitingly cold easterly wind, but it should clear up overnight for tomorrow's Dursley hilly. But the roads will probably still be wet at 9am and it ain't going to be very warm. So the skinsuit will be supplemented with the usual long sleeved base layer plus arm warmers and maybe gloves.
Given that it's got nearly 1000m of climbing, I stand a reasonable chance of winning, depending on how I, Gavin P and a few of the others handle the course. After that, I've got three more Hardriders events and one open 10 before I'll take a break. It's a bit stupid doing the season like this, because my 'break' will be in June and July, when it's warm! But I'll resume in August/September, hopefully getting some late summer form.
Second: At the Morrison's checkout this morning, there was a guy in front of me in running shorts who I'd seen riding to the supermarket. Bloody lunatic (unless he had proper embrocation) - it's not exactly the weather to ride in shorts. He had a very healthy looking shopping basket (not even any instant liver and onions) and the chatty Chinese checkout girl was asking him how much he rode, etc. "Most days, about five hours a week" was the response. She did 30 minutes at the gym from time to time, not that there's anything wrong with that.
When it came to my turn, she looked rather disapprovingly at my chocolate mountain. She picked up the first one, an 80g block of Lily O'Brien's Sticky Toffee chocolate, and gave me the third degree. "Wow, I've never seen this before. Do you know how many calories there are in this block? 400!!" she said, obviously not noticing my lean and hungry look.
I said "I know, that's why I bought it. I need the energy."
"And it's got 62 grams of sugar!" She really didn't want to give it to me.
"Yes. I ride more than that bloke there. I do about 15 hours a week." (trying to take it but she had a firm grasp on it)
"I sometimes ride for 30 minutes at the gym."
I finally prised the chocolate from her fingers, hoped that the rest of my comestibles would pass muster and the transaction was completed without further comment.
There's not much of that Lily O'Brien's chocolate left now, for some strange reason.
My supply of Sportsbalm Pre Sports Hot Balm (basically vaseline with wintergreen, cayenne, cajeput, capsicum and nutmeg oil - nice and hot) ran out last week and I was in dire need of some more, as it's still freezing and wet here. It substitutes for wearing leg warmers, which seem to be the popular choice for racing in the early UK season.
After trying the bike shops and a big sports store, I eventually wound up at Boots where I found some Raglex cream. It's got capsicum oil in it, which is better than nothing, so I'll combine it with vaseline for rain protection.
It's been raining all day today with a bitingly cold easterly wind, but it should clear up overnight for tomorrow's Dursley hilly. But the roads will probably still be wet at 9am and it ain't going to be very warm. So the skinsuit will be supplemented with the usual long sleeved base layer plus arm warmers and maybe gloves.
Given that it's got nearly 1000m of climbing, I stand a reasonable chance of winning, depending on how I, Gavin P and a few of the others handle the course. After that, I've got three more Hardriders events and one open 10 before I'll take a break. It's a bit stupid doing the season like this, because my 'break' will be in June and July, when it's warm! But I'll resume in August/September, hopefully getting some late summer form.
Second: At the Morrison's checkout this morning, there was a guy in front of me in running shorts who I'd seen riding to the supermarket. Bloody lunatic (unless he had proper embrocation) - it's not exactly the weather to ride in shorts. He had a very healthy looking shopping basket (not even any instant liver and onions) and the chatty Chinese checkout girl was asking him how much he rode, etc. "Most days, about five hours a week" was the response. She did 30 minutes at the gym from time to time, not that there's anything wrong with that.
When it came to my turn, she looked rather disapprovingly at my chocolate mountain. She picked up the first one, an 80g block of Lily O'Brien's Sticky Toffee chocolate, and gave me the third degree. "Wow, I've never seen this before. Do you know how many calories there are in this block? 400!!" she said, obviously not noticing my lean and hungry look.
I said "I know, that's why I bought it. I need the energy."
"And it's got 62 grams of sugar!" She really didn't want to give it to me.
"Yes. I ride more than that bloke there. I do about 15 hours a week." (trying to take it but she had a firm grasp on it)
"I sometimes ride for 30 minutes at the gym."
I finally prised the chocolate from her fingers, hoped that the rest of my comestibles would pass muster and the transaction was completed without further comment.
There's not much of that Lily O'Brien's chocolate left now, for some strange reason.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Lateralus
First of all, to be consistent I must mention the weather: 10°Ré and sunny today, but with a 30km/h WSW wind blowing. Rejoice!
The event: Bristol South 25 miler, wot I have been looking forward to for several months 'cos I wanted to see how fast a TT bike can go on this course.
It's got a fantastic start: 1km of downhill on the A38, followed by another 11km of rolling gradual downhill, then a 9km up and down loop to rejoin the A38, then another 5km to the turn, then back 14km along the same road to somewhere near the start. But without having to climb the last hill! British time trialling course rules are weird like this.
The A38 has a pretty crappy road surface with lots of potholes, so it's not considered a 'fast' course. But it's fun to ride. Especially to Tool's Lateralus (I owe that tip to Josh).
There was a tailwind for the first part, which made it a lot of fun. I hit 73km/h on the starting slope, and did the first 12km in just over 14 minutes. After doing the middle loop I got to the turnaround (26.4km) in 33'35 - still over 47km/h average. But the way back was somewhat tougher: the last 14km at 36km/h. Caught 10 people though.
Final time: 56'50. Supposedly 295W average, but again the offset was two blips out so it would have been closer to 305W. I'll compare the Ergomo readings when I start testing a Powertap disc wheel.
Although I missed the win by 11 seconds, I was quite happy with my ride. I think on a calm day, a sub-56 minute ride is possible. One of these days I'll beat my long standing 40km record of 55'47. I must have been quicker in 1990...
We won the team prize again (that's three this year) with Andy Cook (1:00:51) and Paul Coles (1:02:46). Allez and forza Chippenham.
I did the first club 10 of the year last Wednesday. It was cold but calm and I got around in 22'36 @ 320W, which is 45 seconds better than I did on my road bike at this time last year. Ben did 22'13, so he's on track for a decent ride in the national 10 championship.
Book launch of the week: Uncle Alex Jones's Morris in the Antarctic (apologies if I got the title wrong). I'm looking forward to reading it though.
Gadget of the week: A Garmin 705. Once I get the road map chip, I'll never get lost again. Plus it has all the cycling data that you could ever want. I'm lovin' it.
Brownie of the week: an almond one from the Epicurean Deli. A really rich, gooey chocolatey slab of goodness. I need these in order to maintain weight, which pleases me. A lot. And I won't mention the 300g of chocolate that has mysteriously disappeared in the last 24 hours.
The event: Bristol South 25 miler, wot I have been looking forward to for several months 'cos I wanted to see how fast a TT bike can go on this course.
It's got a fantastic start: 1km of downhill on the A38, followed by another 11km of rolling gradual downhill, then a 9km up and down loop to rejoin the A38, then another 5km to the turn, then back 14km along the same road to somewhere near the start. But without having to climb the last hill! British time trialling course rules are weird like this.
The A38 has a pretty crappy road surface with lots of potholes, so it's not considered a 'fast' course. But it's fun to ride. Especially to Tool's Lateralus (I owe that tip to Josh).
There was a tailwind for the first part, which made it a lot of fun. I hit 73km/h on the starting slope, and did the first 12km in just over 14 minutes. After doing the middle loop I got to the turnaround (26.4km) in 33'35 - still over 47km/h average. But the way back was somewhat tougher: the last 14km at 36km/h. Caught 10 people though.
Final time: 56'50. Supposedly 295W average, but again the offset was two blips out so it would have been closer to 305W. I'll compare the Ergomo readings when I start testing a Powertap disc wheel.
Although I missed the win by 11 seconds, I was quite happy with my ride. I think on a calm day, a sub-56 minute ride is possible. One of these days I'll beat my long standing 40km record of 55'47. I must have been quicker in 1990...
We won the team prize again (that's three this year) with Andy Cook (1:00:51) and Paul Coles (1:02:46). Allez and forza Chippenham.
I did the first club 10 of the year last Wednesday. It was cold but calm and I got around in 22'36 @ 320W, which is 45 seconds better than I did on my road bike at this time last year. Ben did 22'13, so he's on track for a decent ride in the national 10 championship.
Book launch of the week: Uncle Alex Jones's Morris in the Antarctic (apologies if I got the title wrong). I'm looking forward to reading it though.
Gadget of the week: A Garmin 705. Once I get the road map chip, I'll never get lost again. Plus it has all the cycling data that you could ever want. I'm lovin' it.
Brownie of the week: an almond one from the Epicurean Deli. A really rich, gooey chocolatey slab of goodness. I need these in order to maintain weight, which pleases me. A lot. And I won't mention the 300g of chocolate that has mysteriously disappeared in the last 24 hours.
Sunday, April 06, 2008
I may be some time
It's April but spring hasn't decided to sprung on us yet. We're getting tantalisingly close with a 17 degree sunny day here last Thursday, but the weekend's snow was another thing altogether.
I did my first race in zero degrees (it's the same in Réaumur, for those wondering) today and it wasn't fun. It was another shortened-due-to-road-works-TT, the WTTA hilly: 32km from Malmesbury to Wootton Bassett and back with no real hills and only 210m of climbing.
It was snowing when I left Bath, Captain Oates style, in the morning, but had stopped by the time I got to the start just outside Chippenham. Half of the 45 rider field had taken the sane option and stayed in bed, but I figured they don't call it the Hardriders series for nothing and started anyway. I wore a few extra layers, including arm and leg warmers, a long sleeved base layer and disposable gloves under normal racing mitts so I didn't get too frozen. I also hoped I'd recovered from a brief but fairly explosive dose of food poisoning on Friday. I more or less had, I think, not that it mattered.
There weren't many riders to chase as my minute and two minute men weren't there, and my three minute man ended up putting time into me. So I caught about three riders instead of my usual seven. I wasn't going to push it too hard in the cold either, so was pleasantly surprised to average 298W with a lowish heart rate. All of my races this year have been between 293 and 303W average. But my speed was only 40.5km/h, which is not quick for a course with not a lot of climbing in it. I felt a lot faster than I was, because I seemed to be in 53x14 a lot. But as my cadence was only 85rpm, this wasn't particularly fast. It's not the first time I've fooled myself doing that.
In the end my 47'14 was good enough for another 4th place, with Gavin Poupart doing another solid ride to win in 45'25, followed by Chris Madge in 46'03 and David Kiddell, who seems to do well in miserable conditions, in 46'34. Ben Anstie, who'd won an open '10' the previous evening, did 48'03 for fifth, but we weren't quite good enough to beat Severn RC for the team prize this week.
What I did like was the bit near Wootton Bassett, as there was snow all around us and it looked quite pretty. And the roads weren't icy, just wet, so it wasn't dangerous.
Next week, I've got a standard 25 miler out near the Severn. It was the same course that I did 1:02 on last year after losing three minutes to a busted spoke. I'm hoping for something around 57'00, depending on the conditions. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll be able to crank out some more power if it decides to warm up.
Or I could do some lactate tolerance training, which will improve it. I've just realised that my 5min power is over 6W/kg at the moment, whereas my 45min-1hr power (called Functional Threshold) is closer to 4.3W/kg. According to this graph, it should be around 5W/kg to be at the same level as 5min power. I know I can do this, it's just a matter of training it. Sigh, how tiresome.
It snowed, off and on, for the rest of the day. But in between it was sunny so all the snow melted. Stupid bloody weather (repeat, ad infinitum). At least I could watch the Tour of Flanders. Bloody good race that. Nice to see the Belgian champ win too.
Top book: The Hour, by Michael Hutchinson, one of the UK's top time trialists who failed to break Boardman's hour record in 2003. If things had gone perfectly for him, he might have done it, so he's no slouch. It's a great read because he puts you inside a cyclist's head very well (I definitely don't do that) and it's often hilarious.
Interestingly, Hutchinson's 'numbers' are a threshold of 400W at a weight of 75kg, which is about 5.3W/kg. It's been claimed Tour de France winners have thresholds of 6.7W/kg, although the guy who did the power profile above reckons it's closer to 6.4W/kg. Still, it's a hell of a lot of power and explains why they go so fast.
I note that the baggage retrieval system they've got at Heathrow hasn't been sorted out yet. Maybe another 40 years? And they built Terminal 5 with a car access ramp so steep that cars couldn't get up it in the ice. Geniuses!
I did my first race in zero degrees (it's the same in Réaumur, for those wondering) today and it wasn't fun. It was another shortened-due-to-road-works-TT, the WTTA hilly: 32km from Malmesbury to Wootton Bassett and back with no real hills and only 210m of climbing.
It was snowing when I left Bath, Captain Oates style, in the morning, but had stopped by the time I got to the start just outside Chippenham. Half of the 45 rider field had taken the sane option and stayed in bed, but I figured they don't call it the Hardriders series for nothing and started anyway. I wore a few extra layers, including arm and leg warmers, a long sleeved base layer and disposable gloves under normal racing mitts so I didn't get too frozen. I also hoped I'd recovered from a brief but fairly explosive dose of food poisoning on Friday. I more or less had, I think, not that it mattered.
There weren't many riders to chase as my minute and two minute men weren't there, and my three minute man ended up putting time into me. So I caught about three riders instead of my usual seven. I wasn't going to push it too hard in the cold either, so was pleasantly surprised to average 298W with a lowish heart rate. All of my races this year have been between 293 and 303W average. But my speed was only 40.5km/h, which is not quick for a course with not a lot of climbing in it. I felt a lot faster than I was, because I seemed to be in 53x14 a lot. But as my cadence was only 85rpm, this wasn't particularly fast. It's not the first time I've fooled myself doing that.
In the end my 47'14 was good enough for another 4th place, with Gavin Poupart doing another solid ride to win in 45'25, followed by Chris Madge in 46'03 and David Kiddell, who seems to do well in miserable conditions, in 46'34. Ben Anstie, who'd won an open '10' the previous evening, did 48'03 for fifth, but we weren't quite good enough to beat Severn RC for the team prize this week.
What I did like was the bit near Wootton Bassett, as there was snow all around us and it looked quite pretty. And the roads weren't icy, just wet, so it wasn't dangerous.
Next week, I've got a standard 25 miler out near the Severn. It was the same course that I did 1:02 on last year after losing three minutes to a busted spoke. I'm hoping for something around 57'00, depending on the conditions. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll be able to crank out some more power if it decides to warm up.
Or I could do some lactate tolerance training, which will improve it. I've just realised that my 5min power is over 6W/kg at the moment, whereas my 45min-1hr power (called Functional Threshold) is closer to 4.3W/kg. According to this graph, it should be around 5W/kg to be at the same level as 5min power. I know I can do this, it's just a matter of training it. Sigh, how tiresome.
It snowed, off and on, for the rest of the day. But in between it was sunny so all the snow melted. Stupid bloody weather (repeat, ad infinitum). At least I could watch the Tour of Flanders. Bloody good race that. Nice to see the Belgian champ win too.
Top book: The Hour, by Michael Hutchinson, one of the UK's top time trialists who failed to break Boardman's hour record in 2003. If things had gone perfectly for him, he might have done it, so he's no slouch. It's a great read because he puts you inside a cyclist's head very well (I definitely don't do that) and it's often hilarious.
Interestingly, Hutchinson's 'numbers' are a threshold of 400W at a weight of 75kg, which is about 5.3W/kg. It's been claimed Tour de France winners have thresholds of 6.7W/kg, although the guy who did the power profile above reckons it's closer to 6.4W/kg. Still, it's a hell of a lot of power and explains why they go so fast.
I note that the baggage retrieval system they've got at Heathrow hasn't been sorted out yet. Maybe another 40 years? And they built Terminal 5 with a car access ramp so steep that cars couldn't get up it in the ice. Geniuses!
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Slumming in the south of France
Easter afforded me the opportunity to take the week orf and fly to Nice for some sun, sand and surf. I went with my colleague Robin and we stayed in a caravan owned by one of his friends for a week, indulging in a spot of riding while we were there. I guess you could call it reverse slumming, as we were not that close to Nice, but hey...
We picked a good week to take off, as it snowed and was generally miserable in the UK over Easter. By contrast, we enjoyed lots of sun, although it only got up to about 10°Ré, no rain at all, but some insane winds on the first few days.
The riding was amazing down there. The roads we used - even the minor ones - were generally all lovely and smooth, unlike the rutted lanes and hard surfaces we get in the UK. There was plenty of climbing as well. No real mountains, but we did get up to 700m a couple of times. And nothing really steep either: it was all 4-5% gradients, which means you can spin up them at whatever pace you want, rather than being forced to work for it.
All up in seven days, including a race at Castle Combe last Friday (I was 12th), I managed 870km with 12,000m of climbing and roughly 30 hours of riding time. I haven't done that sort of kilometrage since 1999. Dunno yet if it did me any good but it was fun and it was nice to ride in shorts for a change.
Eucalypts! Just like home...© Jeff Jones
Early on in the ride and Robin is still smiling.© Jeff Jones
Scenery© Jeff Jones
A tree above La Garde en Freinet. We didn't have to climb up this far.© Jeff Jones
Alps (you need good eyesight to spot these)© Jeff Jones
Highlights and lowlights
Radio Monaco. The best radio station we found after touching down in Nice. That isn't as good as it sounds. But when in France... Alas, we couldn't get it in our caravan in La Londe, so we listened to Robin's iPod incessantly. The alternatives aren't really worth mentioning.
The wind. On the third day, we battled for three hours into a 50km/h headwind, and after a 175km ride the previous day my legs were complaining. We turned and climbed up to the Plateau de Siou-Blanc and had the wind behind us all the way home, which was a relief. Unfortunately, we made an error towards the end and ended up riding down a deserted farm road. It suddenly stopped, so we turned around. But as I was reminiscing about the team time trial in Perth, a big gust of wind blew a shower of stones into our faces, then stopped us in our tracks and blew us off the road into the grass. That's never happened to me before. Fortunately, in the last few days the wind died down a bit so we were a bit less battered.
A shed. This marked the turnaround on a very windy day.© Jeff Jones
Robin is pleased that we have a tailwind now© Jeff Jones
Pasta. How much do I love pasta? Let me count the ways... We had it in various forms for five or six nights, broken just once by goulash. Then I had it again when I got home.
One of the many versions of pasta that we consumed© Jeff Jones
Robin enjoys the first of several sandwiches© Jeff Jones
Maps. The ones that show all the roads are good. The ones that are dated 1989 are not as good. One of the roads we were going to follow was paved in 1989, but isn't any longer. I didn't do my usual trick and follow it anyway, after Robin and I spied a group of mountain bikers gingerly picking their way along it. We upgraded to a 2004 edition map after that.
Hmm, it says 'Here Be Beasties' for this bit© Jeff Jones
Bike path. There's a path that follows the coast between Hyeres and Le Cannadel, maybe 30km long, and apart from a few missing bits, it's fantastic. It's purpose built and uses quite a bit of land and small roads, following the main road very closely.
Wheelsuckers. On one of our 'rest days' we passed a guy in the headwind who jumped on our wheels. We didn't mind for a bit, but then we turned towards home and he followed us, not offering to do a turn. There was a small climb with about 20km to go and we picked it up a bit and finally dropped him and that was it, we thought. But he must have chased pretty hard and caught us again with 5km to go, gluing himself back onto our wheels. He followed us all the way to the bloody caravan park before we left him stranded, because the road we were on didn't actually go anywhere else useful.
Good descenders. On the last day, we were descending the final hill, which is fairly technical as all of them are. We both knew it well and weren't hanging around. I heard a wooshing sound past my left ear and a biggish guy flew past me, hands on the hoods! Then he overtook Robin shortly afterwards. We were impressed as we'd passed him on the preceding climb and he didn't look as though he was in a hurry.
The road down© Jeff Jones
The mighty Col du Fourches© Jeff Jones
Are we there yet?© Jeff Jones
Electricity. It got chilly at night, with the wind and the lack of insulation, so we experimented with the heater. There was a fan heater but whenever we turned it on, it overloaded the circuit. Even with just two lights on. So we were forced to try the gas heater. This worked, but you had to put your hand on it to tell whether it was on or not, so it wasn't any use at all.
You can imagine what happened when some builders tried to run a cement mixer off one of the caravan outlets. You'd think after the third time of it cutting out, leaving the whole area without power, they would have cottoned on.
Easyjet. A delay of one and a half hours on the way out, and another hour coming home. Alas, it was the only way. And they charge you extra for each piece of baggage plus more for a bike, of course. Still, it could have been worse. We could have gone via Heathrow and got this, which of course leads me to hum this.
Racing. I did the third round of the Hardriders series today, the Severn RC event. 28.4km/260m of climbing/descent with one 2km drag. With this going through my head, I had a reasonable ride to finish 4th in 42'08, with the win going to Gavin Poupart (again) in 41'14, followed by Nik Gardiner in 41'26 and my Chippenham clubmate Ben Anstie in 41'53. Not bad, as it was a better field than the last event at Gillingham where I was third, and Gavin put 2min into me. And we won the team prize again with me, Ben and Simon Snowden. Allez Chippenham!
I had to ride back down the mountain to get this shot, so I'm including it© Jeff Jones
Tiredness has set in© Jeff Jones
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Eerste zege
Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Season 2008 is go.
It's not quite as good as Thunderbirds, but it beats training.
The disc wheel I borrowed from Cycling Plus last week turned out to be a boon, as I won me first race by a mere two seconds. Over 37km, a disc is easily worth that compared to my 101mm rimmed wheel. Which leads me to the annoying conclusion that I should have borrowed the wheel for last year's journo world's. Anyway...
I had an easy 40km ride out there, and a rather slower 40km ride home. On the way out I was passed by another Bath-based rider who was in a hurry 'cos his start time was half an hour before mine. He made it with time to spare but I can't help thinking he might have burned a few matches on the way out.
Despite dire weather warnings, the conditions were reasonable, if a tad windy on the return leg. It was the same course as the 3-up that we did last year, so I'd worked out a schedule that would give me a time of 55 minutes (we did 56'30 in the 3-up). I figured I could make up lots of time on the hills but would lose a bit on the flats as there was no-one to give me a break. Turns out I was pretty close in my estimation with a final time of 55'22.
I honestly didn't think it'd be good enough to win. I thought somewhere in the region of 53-54 minutes would do it. Anyway, it was and I'm not complaining.
The start was nearly all tailwind, with a couple of little bumps before the first hill after 10km. I'd already passed three riders by the time I reached that, which was nice, and was a little bit up on my schedule. I gave it a bit more gas on the hill and at the top was already 2 minutes quicker than the same point in the 3-up (although we'd had the headwind first then). A steady descent with the tailwind followed and I reached 19km in 26'45 - now a handy 2'30 ahead of the 3-up time and a minute ahead of my own schedule, which allowed for the tailwind start.
At this point I started getting delusions of a sub-54 minute time, but these were mercilessly ground up in the headwind on the way back. I lost all of the advantage on the return on the A4, really struggling to maintain concentration and dropping a little bit of power. So by the time I reached the bottom of the last 2km climb, I was back on level pegging with the 3-up time, and now about half a minute behind my own schedule. I gave it whatever I had left up to the finish, which was just over the top, and it was all over.
The power meter said I'd averaged 304W for the ride, which didn't instil me with confidence as it was a) lower than I did the previous Tuesday in training and a lot lower than I'm capable of when it's properly warm and I've got a few miles under my belt. I think 350-360W is achievable for that distance (not yet though), and that would knock a couple of minutes off the time I did.
But it doesn't matter what your wattage is if you win :-)
I did feel a bit sorry for the second placed guy, as I know what it's like to lose by a handful of seconds. Still, what goes around comes around in time trialling, and I'm sure I'll be in that position again.
It was especially nice to win because Chippenham was promoting the event and as far as I can see, they haven't had a home winner since at least 1992. I did note that a "J Jones" won it in 1993. We also won the team prize (sum of three fastest riders per club) with Simon Snowden and young Tom Marshall. Result!
Got another race this Saturday, which will be on the same course as the Rudy Project round I did last year, down in Bruton. Just under 30km and 400m of climbing. I think I'm going to be hard pressed to beat last year's time of 44'17 because that was done under warm, windless conditions. On Saturday they're predicting heavy rain, a moderate southerly wind and a max of 8°Ré. Blurgh.
It's a stupid time of year to be racing and by far the earliest I've started doing so in the northern hemisphere. I should be watching Thunderbirds and drinking from my rapidly diminishing stock of trappists.
Dammit, I was going to write something more interesting about my misspent youth but instead ended up with the above. There is a reason I call it a bilgespot.
Postscript
I did the Gillingham race today in the wet and it lived up to expectations. I was nowhere near last year's time, finishing with 46'09 for third behind Mr Poupart, who did a very impressive 44'09. I was never going to get close to that, even on a good day. But I was 10 seconds off second place, which was slightly annoying as I lost a bit of time by being careful and waiting for a car at one of the junctions. But I stayed on the bike, which was more important.
I also took the descent at 8km to go fairly steadily, losing around 10 seconds to the guy who I was on the verge of catching at the top. It had a couple of muddy bends that I wasn't confident taking at speed, especially as one of the bits of tape I'd put over the valve holes on my disc was flapping, which was unnerving. I still hit 68km/h but the guy in front of me - who I never quite caught - knew the course and had better handling and confidence, which is what makes for good descending.
Because it was a headwind start, I was already two minutes down on last year's time by the halfway mark, and yet had the same average power. But I lost a little more on the last long drag, despite it being a tail/crosswind, and only made up 15 seconds from the top of the last hill to the finish. So nearly two minutes slower than last year. Oh well.
I'm probably doing the Castle Combe Good Friday race this week, then off to Nice for a holiday (woo hoo!) before coming back for another 30km TT at the end of the month. Jeez I hope the weather is less crap by then.
It's not quite as good as Thunderbirds, but it beats training.
The disc wheel I borrowed from Cycling Plus last week turned out to be a boon, as I won me first race by a mere two seconds. Over 37km, a disc is easily worth that compared to my 101mm rimmed wheel. Which leads me to the annoying conclusion that I should have borrowed the wheel for last year's journo world's. Anyway...
I had an easy 40km ride out there, and a rather slower 40km ride home. On the way out I was passed by another Bath-based rider who was in a hurry 'cos his start time was half an hour before mine. He made it with time to spare but I can't help thinking he might have burned a few matches on the way out.
Despite dire weather warnings, the conditions were reasonable, if a tad windy on the return leg. It was the same course as the 3-up that we did last year, so I'd worked out a schedule that would give me a time of 55 minutes (we did 56'30 in the 3-up). I figured I could make up lots of time on the hills but would lose a bit on the flats as there was no-one to give me a break. Turns out I was pretty close in my estimation with a final time of 55'22.
I honestly didn't think it'd be good enough to win. I thought somewhere in the region of 53-54 minutes would do it. Anyway, it was and I'm not complaining.
The start was nearly all tailwind, with a couple of little bumps before the first hill after 10km. I'd already passed three riders by the time I reached that, which was nice, and was a little bit up on my schedule. I gave it a bit more gas on the hill and at the top was already 2 minutes quicker than the same point in the 3-up (although we'd had the headwind first then). A steady descent with the tailwind followed and I reached 19km in 26'45 - now a handy 2'30 ahead of the 3-up time and a minute ahead of my own schedule, which allowed for the tailwind start.
At this point I started getting delusions of a sub-54 minute time, but these were mercilessly ground up in the headwind on the way back. I lost all of the advantage on the return on the A4, really struggling to maintain concentration and dropping a little bit of power. So by the time I reached the bottom of the last 2km climb, I was back on level pegging with the 3-up time, and now about half a minute behind my own schedule. I gave it whatever I had left up to the finish, which was just over the top, and it was all over.
The power meter said I'd averaged 304W for the ride, which didn't instil me with confidence as it was a) lower than I did the previous Tuesday in training and a lot lower than I'm capable of when it's properly warm and I've got a few miles under my belt. I think 350-360W is achievable for that distance (not yet though), and that would knock a couple of minutes off the time I did.
But it doesn't matter what your wattage is if you win :-)
I did feel a bit sorry for the second placed guy, as I know what it's like to lose by a handful of seconds. Still, what goes around comes around in time trialling, and I'm sure I'll be in that position again.
It was especially nice to win because Chippenham was promoting the event and as far as I can see, they haven't had a home winner since at least 1992. I did note that a "J Jones" won it in 1993. We also won the team prize (sum of three fastest riders per club) with Simon Snowden and young Tom Marshall. Result!
Got another race this Saturday, which will be on the same course as the Rudy Project round I did last year, down in Bruton. Just under 30km and 400m of climbing. I think I'm going to be hard pressed to beat last year's time of 44'17 because that was done under warm, windless conditions. On Saturday they're predicting heavy rain, a moderate southerly wind and a max of 8°Ré. Blurgh.
It's a stupid time of year to be racing and by far the earliest I've started doing so in the northern hemisphere. I should be watching Thunderbirds and drinking from my rapidly diminishing stock of trappists.
Dammit, I was going to write something more interesting about my misspent youth but instead ended up with the above. There is a reason I call it a bilgespot.
Postscript
I did the Gillingham race today in the wet and it lived up to expectations. I was nowhere near last year's time, finishing with 46'09 for third behind Mr Poupart, who did a very impressive 44'09. I was never going to get close to that, even on a good day. But I was 10 seconds off second place, which was slightly annoying as I lost a bit of time by being careful and waiting for a car at one of the junctions. But I stayed on the bike, which was more important.
I also took the descent at 8km to go fairly steadily, losing around 10 seconds to the guy who I was on the verge of catching at the top. It had a couple of muddy bends that I wasn't confident taking at speed, especially as one of the bits of tape I'd put over the valve holes on my disc was flapping, which was unnerving. I still hit 68km/h but the guy in front of me - who I never quite caught - knew the course and had better handling and confidence, which is what makes for good descending.
Because it was a headwind start, I was already two minutes down on last year's time by the halfway mark, and yet had the same average power. But I lost a little more on the last long drag, despite it being a tail/crosswind, and only made up 15 seconds from the top of the last hill to the finish. So nearly two minutes slower than last year. Oh well.
I'm probably doing the Castle Combe Good Friday race this week, then off to Nice for a holiday (woo hoo!) before coming back for another 30km TT at the end of the month. Jeez I hope the weather is less crap by then.
Saturday, March 08, 2008
Het Volk
Sun, sand and surf. I sought them in Gent but wasn't successful, being foiled by the fact that it was Belgium.
Still, there are other things to be had in Belgique, namely beer, bike racing and bonhomie. These things coincided with Het Volk, the traditional opening of the Belgian season and one of the best races on the calendar, oi reckon.
They put the recently retired Peter Van Petegem (wot lives on the col de la Trap Op) in charge, and he devised a nice challenging course. Just like in the good old days, it started and finished in Gent instead of outside a BMW dealership in Lokeren. Way more fitting for such an important race. Especially as the final turn was across the tram tracks right outside where I used to live on Martelaarslaan.
Philippe Gilbert, top rider and eventual winner© Jeff Jones
Check out the plumage© Jeff Jones
Reiny watches© Jeff Jones
Het Volk is go© Jeff Jones
I thought Philippe Gilbert (FDJ) or Tom Boonen (Quick.Step) would win, and after Quick.Step imploded somewhere near Ronse it was up to Gilbert to bridge the three minute gap to the break, which had one of his teammates in it. A nice bit of riding there by FDJ to give Gilbert the perfect springboard for an attack on the cobbles with 20km to go. Race over. Gilbert's a genuinely good rider too. You don't win the King of the Mountains classification in the Tour Down Under without oozing talent.
I watched it from the confines of the Irish pub and then Reiny's shop. It was a most excellent way to spend a Saturday, once I had shaken off the hangover from Friday. I'd gotten into Gent about 9:30 and Reiny, Gab, Gwen and I did not pass go, we immediately went to the Marimain for a few quiet ones.
Watching Gilbert win© Jeff Jones
Saturday night was rather longer. We didn't quite visit as many cafes as last year (seven), but we did manage three or four. The fourth was the Irish pub where we stayed and chatted to Gwen's colleagues for some time (well after closing). It could have gone pear-shaped as the barman kept bringing out shots of blue and green hue, that I believe were alcoholic in nature. Fortunately by that stage we were more tired than drunk and decided to call it a night at around, erm, 6am.
A visit to Mokabon some hours later was in order.
Ahh, Mokabon© Jeff Jones
Notes
I. Wouter Weylandt was the best placed Quick.Step finisher in Het Volk. It just goes to show how important training langs de Schelde is for the condition.
II. Must bring the bike on the next trip, but only if it's longer than a couple of days.
III. Cafe Igor has gone broke. I'm surprised it took that long. You cannot expect a drinking establishment to do well when the floors are deliberately made to be uneven. The lighting was so cold as well.
IV. Rochefort 10° knocks you around when you've been drinking the watered down stuff they have in England.
V. Despite lack of Schelde training and large amounts of drinking, I knocked another 10sec off the times up the two hills I did around here last week. 410W x 2 for four and a bit minutes, which is OK for this time of year. Also managed 310W for an hour and a bit on Tuesday, not going flat out. Which is also OK.
VI. First race of the season for me tomorrow. I have acquired a disc wheel, so hope I don't puncture it on the way out to Devizes. Or indeed during the race.
Wouter Weylandt (L) and eventual second place getter Nick Nuyens (R) on stage© Jeff Jones
Igor has gone broke. Quelle shock© Jeff Jones
Boris and Gab spot a kermis© Jeff Jones
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Bumping for victory
Rowing is the oldest sport at Oxford. Three big regattas a year are held on the Isis (or the Thames, as some people call it) with different rules for each. The different colleges vie for supremacy in each, with a good deal of kudos going to the winners. And of course there's also the Oxford vs Cambridge celebrity deathmatch which has been going on for yonks.
Eights is where it's at and each college has its own boat collection, sharing boathouse space with one or two other colleges. The boats cost £20,000 each so sinking one on the first day of a regatta is generally frowned upon. Because the students are too po' to pay for their own boats, it means an old college boy has to put their hand in their pocket to fund a new vessel. In return, they'll get their name on the boat. This system probably doesn't end up in a high ROI for the old boy, unless they float themselves on the stock exchange and become a going concern. But hey, they're all staggeringly rich so the odd 20K isn't going to matter.
I happened to be in Oxford visiting the other Lucy and Pete, whose bro Ben was rowing for Wolfson in the Torpids three day regatta. I had cycled up from Bath on the final day, Saturday, only getting slightly lost on the way, and was there well in time to learn the rules and watch the races.
Torpids is no ordinary competition where you line the boats up next to each other, fire the gun and everyone rows like buggery to the finish line. Instead, they start behind each other, one and a half boat lengths apart. The idea is to catch the boat in front of you, called 'bumping', then you can stop. You don't actually have to hit the boat, but it happens. More commonly, the cox in the boat in front concedes when there is some overlap. On the other hand, if the boat behind you catches you, you are 'bumped' but have to keep rowing until you either catch someone in front or you reach the finish line.
If you bump someone, you take the place in their next round, slowly moving up the ladder if you've got a good crew. The problem is, there are four divisions of about a dozen each, and because you only get one regatta a year, it can take years to move up a division. The lead boat in div I - should they manage to hold off all those behind it - gets to be Head of the River (uber prestigious). The other thing to aim for is four bumps in a single regatta, which earns your college a set of rowing blades.
Now, on the first day, University College hit a tree on one of the bends of the river and couldn't get going again, losing about 10 places all in one hit. That was disastrous for them, but at least they didn't sink it. And on the last day, we saw one boat catch another but the lead boat couldn't keep going because one guy had broken his oar. High drama there. They lost a few places too...
Ben's Wolfson college had a very good meet, moving up from Div III to Div II, bumping three times but just missing out on the last day on catching Lincoln, which had started two boats in front. St Edmunds (Teddy) Hall had started directly in front of Wolfson, but were faster and bumped Lincoln early, leaving a big gap for Wolfson to close. Meanwhile, Merton was trying to catch Wolfson from behind, and was getting close for a while but didn't do it.
It was surprisingly exciting. Especially when you had someone to cheer for.
The Head of the River, in both the men's and women's I think, went to Magdalen pronounced 'maudlin' College, who jumped a few places to keep long time top dogs Oriel out of the running and down in third place. Champagne concentration in the Isis rose as a result.
Most of the colleges rowed in uniform, and there were some really nice strips. Especially Christ Church and St Johns, who put their white hoodies on when warming up. And the college which had a yellow cross on a red background, which looked like it hailed from the crusades.
We wound up at the Lamb and Flag followed by a restaurant that served excellent bangers and mash, then the Jericho pub, then a bop (party type thing) at Balliol College. Some alcohol was consumed.
All in all, a brilliant Oxford experience.
Retro: What happened to the UQ team?
Talking to Marty, a friend of Lucy's, during the evening revealed that he hailed from the Uni of Queensland. Not only that, he was a good cyclist and did a couple of uni games in the early '90s. I realised our paths must have crossed at least once, and we reminisced about beating Robbie McEwen's team in the team time trial in Brisbane (McEwen won every other event, including the bloody time trial, and he broke away to win the road race solo). Significantly, I learned what happened to the UQ team in the TTT in Melbourne (or Diggers Rest to be accurate) in 1991.
Now, UQ had some decent riders, as we (Sydney) knew after being caned by them the previous year in Armidale. Michael 'Drago' O'Donoghue, Brett Lentz, Brad Hall and Marty formed their TTT team in Melbourne. Uni of NSW were strong too, with Paul O'Neill, Derek Walker and Ben Litchfield, and they ended up winning I think.
But UQ snatched defeat from the jaws of a victory after being forced to rely on a sick Marty as their third man. Brad Hall knew Marty wasn't going to make it so he did the gallant thing and pulled out on the first lap. That left Marty to try to hang on, which he wasn't in any condition to do. He ended up in a lot of trouble and could barely see by the last lap and had to be pushed by the other two just to finish. Hell, we might have even beat them after but that might be wishful thinking on my part. Our team was me, Nick Fletcher, Andrew Redmond (or Tully, possibly?) and Andrew Kelly. We lost Kelly on the first lap and Nick and I had to nurse the third man around for the next two laps.
UQ did get revenge two years later by winning in Brisbane. We got the silver with me mostly sitting behind the diminutive Roy Denoon and Dave and Graham hanging on for dear life. But we passed Robbie McEwen (Griffith Uni) who was dragging around two riders of, shall we say, lesser ability, and the dirty look he gave us was well worth it. It may have had something to do with the fact that Roy trumpeted like an elephant when we passed them.
For the record, we still won it in Perth ('92), Wollongong ('94) and Darwin ('95) but got done by Jono Hall and some ring-ins in Canberra ('96). I love the team time trial.
The way back
After a night where too much beer was barely enough, I was revived by Lucy and Pete's cooking and coffee (three of them, in fact). I discovered where I'd made the incorrect turn on the trip out and navigated to it on the way home. The dead end signs did not deter me. Google maps is always right, innit?
After a few km I saw a wall in front of me, and I realised the road was going straight up it. 15% average grade for about half a km took me up to Barbury Castle and the end of the (paved) road. I was buggered if was going to turn around so I set off on what was now a dirt track and quickly became very muddy. I asked two mountain bikers coming the other way if the road led anywhere, and they assured me it did end up near Marlborough, but I'd probably ruin my bike getting there. You can guess the rest.
6km and 45mins later, I emerged just north of Marlborough, somewhat muddy. Luckily it rained soon after so a lot of the mud was washed off.
It must have done some good as I was able to beat a couple of my hill times later in the week. Then I undid all the work by heading over to Belge for the Het Volk weekend. But that is another story.
Eights is where it's at and each college has its own boat collection, sharing boathouse space with one or two other colleges. The boats cost £20,000 each so sinking one on the first day of a regatta is generally frowned upon. Because the students are too po' to pay for their own boats, it means an old college boy has to put their hand in their pocket to fund a new vessel. In return, they'll get their name on the boat. This system probably doesn't end up in a high ROI for the old boy, unless they float themselves on the stock exchange and become a going concern. But hey, they're all staggeringly rich so the odd 20K isn't going to matter.
I happened to be in Oxford visiting the other Lucy and Pete, whose bro Ben was rowing for Wolfson in the Torpids three day regatta. I had cycled up from Bath on the final day, Saturday, only getting slightly lost on the way, and was there well in time to learn the rules and watch the races.
Torpids is no ordinary competition where you line the boats up next to each other, fire the gun and everyone rows like buggery to the finish line. Instead, they start behind each other, one and a half boat lengths apart. The idea is to catch the boat in front of you, called 'bumping', then you can stop. You don't actually have to hit the boat, but it happens. More commonly, the cox in the boat in front concedes when there is some overlap. On the other hand, if the boat behind you catches you, you are 'bumped' but have to keep rowing until you either catch someone in front or you reach the finish line.
If you bump someone, you take the place in their next round, slowly moving up the ladder if you've got a good crew. The problem is, there are four divisions of about a dozen each, and because you only get one regatta a year, it can take years to move up a division. The lead boat in div I - should they manage to hold off all those behind it - gets to be Head of the River (uber prestigious). The other thing to aim for is four bumps in a single regatta, which earns your college a set of rowing blades.
Now, on the first day, University College hit a tree on one of the bends of the river and couldn't get going again, losing about 10 places all in one hit. That was disastrous for them, but at least they didn't sink it. And on the last day, we saw one boat catch another but the lead boat couldn't keep going because one guy had broken his oar. High drama there. They lost a few places too...
Ben's Wolfson college had a very good meet, moving up from Div III to Div II, bumping three times but just missing out on the last day on catching Lincoln, which had started two boats in front. St Edmunds (Teddy) Hall had started directly in front of Wolfson, but were faster and bumped Lincoln early, leaving a big gap for Wolfson to close. Meanwhile, Merton was trying to catch Wolfson from behind, and was getting close for a while but didn't do it.
It was surprisingly exciting. Especially when you had someone to cheer for.
The Head of the River, in both the men's and women's I think, went to Magdalen pronounced 'maudlin' College, who jumped a few places to keep long time top dogs Oriel out of the running and down in third place. Champagne concentration in the Isis rose as a result.
Most of the colleges rowed in uniform, and there were some really nice strips. Especially Christ Church and St Johns, who put their white hoodies on when warming up. And the college which had a yellow cross on a red background, which looked like it hailed from the crusades.
We wound up at the Lamb and Flag followed by a restaurant that served excellent bangers and mash, then the Jericho pub, then a bop (party type thing) at Balliol College. Some alcohol was consumed.
All in all, a brilliant Oxford experience.
Retro: What happened to the UQ team?
Talking to Marty, a friend of Lucy's, during the evening revealed that he hailed from the Uni of Queensland. Not only that, he was a good cyclist and did a couple of uni games in the early '90s. I realised our paths must have crossed at least once, and we reminisced about beating Robbie McEwen's team in the team time trial in Brisbane (McEwen won every other event, including the bloody time trial, and he broke away to win the road race solo). Significantly, I learned what happened to the UQ team in the TTT in Melbourne (or Diggers Rest to be accurate) in 1991.
Now, UQ had some decent riders, as we (Sydney) knew after being caned by them the previous year in Armidale. Michael 'Drago' O'Donoghue, Brett Lentz, Brad Hall and Marty formed their TTT team in Melbourne. Uni of NSW were strong too, with Paul O'Neill, Derek Walker and Ben Litchfield, and they ended up winning I think.
But UQ snatched defeat from the jaws of a victory after being forced to rely on a sick Marty as their third man. Brad Hall knew Marty wasn't going to make it so he did the gallant thing and pulled out on the first lap. That left Marty to try to hang on, which he wasn't in any condition to do. He ended up in a lot of trouble and could barely see by the last lap and had to be pushed by the other two just to finish. Hell, we might have even beat them after but that might be wishful thinking on my part. Our team was me, Nick Fletcher, Andrew Redmond (or Tully, possibly?) and Andrew Kelly. We lost Kelly on the first lap and Nick and I had to nurse the third man around for the next two laps.
UQ did get revenge two years later by winning in Brisbane. We got the silver with me mostly sitting behind the diminutive Roy Denoon and Dave and Graham hanging on for dear life. But we passed Robbie McEwen (Griffith Uni) who was dragging around two riders of, shall we say, lesser ability, and the dirty look he gave us was well worth it. It may have had something to do with the fact that Roy trumpeted like an elephant when we passed them.
For the record, we still won it in Perth ('92), Wollongong ('94) and Darwin ('95) but got done by Jono Hall and some ring-ins in Canberra ('96). I love the team time trial.
The way back
After a night where too much beer was barely enough, I was revived by Lucy and Pete's cooking and coffee (three of them, in fact). I discovered where I'd made the incorrect turn on the trip out and navigated to it on the way home. The dead end signs did not deter me. Google maps is always right, innit?
After a few km I saw a wall in front of me, and I realised the road was going straight up it. 15% average grade for about half a km took me up to Barbury Castle and the end of the (paved) road. I was buggered if was going to turn around so I set off on what was now a dirt track and quickly became very muddy. I asked two mountain bikers coming the other way if the road led anywhere, and they assured me it did end up near Marlborough, but I'd probably ruin my bike getting there. You can guess the rest.
6km and 45mins later, I emerged just north of Marlborough, somewhat muddy. Luckily it rained soon after so a lot of the mud was washed off.
It must have done some good as I was able to beat a couple of my hill times later in the week. Then I undid all the work by heading over to Belge for the Het Volk weekend. But that is another story.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
The Bath Cider Festival
The concept is very simple and I'm sure very lucrative. Hire a big hall, bring in 100 different casks of cider and serving staff, and charge people £5 to enter and £1.30 for each half-pint of cider. You can even bring in a live band.
It was called the Bath Cider Festival, which was as good a name as any. Luckily it was indoors because it was (is) bastard cold - below freezing at the moment.
There were well over a dozen of us that went, from various circles, and I'd say it was worth the price of admission. Choosing a cider was tricky because you only had a list of names and alcohol percentages. With some you could guess their taste, like Golden Valley sweet or Thatchers Gold, but others were quite random, like Sheep Dip (drinkable), Black Rat (good enough that I had two glasses), Tricky medium (blurgh), or Raspberry Perry (disgusting).
It was probably a good thing that they weren't serving full pints. It took ages to get a drink too, because there were 12 serving staff between several hundred cider drinking folk.
The band was called the Mangledwurzels, a tribute to the famed Scrumpy and Western band, the Wurzels. Alroight? They kicked off with "Combine Harvester" (30 years old but still going strong) and went onto perform "Drink Up Thy Zider", "Threshing Machine" and "Walkin' 'Cross The Yard" (sung to the Police's "Walking on the Moon") and many, many more.
The crowd was, as you'd expect, mostly west country toiypes, including a football team modelled on the Lord of the Rings. They all had yellow shirts with the names and numbers of the players on the backs: "Gollum 14", "Arwen 17", "The Ring 26", "Boromir 23" etc.
Which reminds me of Bill Bailey being interviewed on and old episode of "Friday Night with Jonathan Ross". Mr Bailey explained that he auditioned for the part of Gimli the dwarf in the LotR movies, but he did it in his native west country accent (he was born in Bath). He was told they didn't want to cast anyone with that accent and instead the part of Gimli went to John Rhys-Davies, who was Welsh.
But when Mr Bailey saw the film he realised all the hobbits had west country accents. "'Alroight Mr Frodo?' It was like being at a bloody cider festival!" quoth Bill.
Weather: dry but bloody cold. -3.2°Ré in the mornings.
Riding: good. I've figured out a TT training loop up around the Kingsdown golf course. Two different 8.8km laps + one big lap of 12.5km. 400m of climbing in 40km, so it's a good primer for the hardriders courses.
It was called the Bath Cider Festival, which was as good a name as any. Luckily it was indoors because it was (is) bastard cold - below freezing at the moment.
There were well over a dozen of us that went, from various circles, and I'd say it was worth the price of admission. Choosing a cider was tricky because you only had a list of names and alcohol percentages. With some you could guess their taste, like Golden Valley sweet or Thatchers Gold, but others were quite random, like Sheep Dip (drinkable), Black Rat (good enough that I had two glasses), Tricky medium (blurgh), or Raspberry Perry (disgusting).
It was probably a good thing that they weren't serving full pints. It took ages to get a drink too, because there were 12 serving staff between several hundred cider drinking folk.
The band was called the Mangledwurzels, a tribute to the famed Scrumpy and Western band, the Wurzels. Alroight? They kicked off with "Combine Harvester" (30 years old but still going strong) and went onto perform "Drink Up Thy Zider", "Threshing Machine" and "Walkin' 'Cross The Yard" (sung to the Police's "Walking on the Moon") and many, many more.
The crowd was, as you'd expect, mostly west country toiypes, including a football team modelled on the Lord of the Rings. They all had yellow shirts with the names and numbers of the players on the backs: "Gollum 14", "Arwen 17", "The Ring 26", "Boromir 23" etc.
Which reminds me of Bill Bailey being interviewed on and old episode of "Friday Night with Jonathan Ross". Mr Bailey explained that he auditioned for the part of Gimli the dwarf in the LotR movies, but he did it in his native west country accent (he was born in Bath). He was told they didn't want to cast anyone with that accent and instead the part of Gimli went to John Rhys-Davies, who was Welsh.
But when Mr Bailey saw the film he realised all the hobbits had west country accents. "'Alroight Mr Frodo?' It was like being at a bloody cider festival!" quoth Bill.
Weather: dry but bloody cold. -3.2°Ré in the mornings.
Riding: good. I've figured out a TT training loop up around the Kingsdown golf course. Two different 8.8km laps + one big lap of 12.5km. 400m of climbing in 40km, so it's a good primer for the hardriders courses.
Saturday, February 09, 2008
Disaster!
So seven of us go to Oxalis on Friday for a lunchtime tea/coffee stop. But when ordering coffee, we are informed that the cafetieres are now for one person only, and yet they are the same price. In fact, you now get less than half the coffee as before. The waitress said that she didn't make the rules, but...this is an outrage!
It's gone from being one of the cheapest places in Bath to have coffee to the most expensive by far. If the coffee wasn't so good, I'd boycott it altogether. As it was, I didn't order a cake. And I told them why. It's a false economy to hike the price by more than 100%.
Tea is still shareable between two for the same price, and it's good tea there. Still, I'll have to cut down my visits by more than half.
Fortunately I've found two more places that do half decent stuff. The Epicurean Deli and the Hub Cafe in the alley opposite the Guildhall. They're between £1.40 and 1.50 per coffee, compared to £2.75-2.95 at Oxalis.
I also ventured into McDonald's to try their brew, which is £1.19. I only did this because I was assured by an ex-barista that they have got their machine settings right world over, and they use good beans. This, I'm afraid, is bollocks. It wasn't even Starbucks quality.
On a more positive note, the weather is actually noice:
Drier than Sydney :-)
After an easy week this week, brought on by the two silly-hard rides last weekend, I felt quite good on the club run today. We wound it up at the end and it was nice to open the throttle a bit.
A month to the first TT, which is to be the Chippenham hilly 24. But there are still roadworks on the course, which I did before the club run, so I hope it can be moved. The course that we did the 3-up on last year would be a good substitute.
Sunday I got out with Will and a few other members of the Comedy Super Team for four hours. We went up to Corsham to pick up one guy, then down through Trowbridge, Frome and Wells, coming back a different way to Aquae Sulis.
The real comedy came just after Trowbridge when Simon suggested we get off the main road and take the lanes. It was fine until we hit a section which obviously didn't have much drainage and was covered in black ice and sheet ice.
Simon: "Maybe this wasn't such a good idea..."
Five seconds later, both Stan and Pete slid off, followed by Simon behind me. Only Will and I stayed upright! No-one was hurt, although Stan was covered in manure. We walked through the rest of that section.
Funnily enough, later on in the ride it was warm enough to ride with no gloves. Looks good for most of this week too.
It's gone from being one of the cheapest places in Bath to have coffee to the most expensive by far. If the coffee wasn't so good, I'd boycott it altogether. As it was, I didn't order a cake. And I told them why. It's a false economy to hike the price by more than 100%.
Tea is still shareable between two for the same price, and it's good tea there. Still, I'll have to cut down my visits by more than half.
Fortunately I've found two more places that do half decent stuff. The Epicurean Deli and the Hub Cafe in the alley opposite the Guildhall. They're between £1.40 and 1.50 per coffee, compared to £2.75-2.95 at Oxalis.
I also ventured into McDonald's to try their brew, which is £1.19. I only did this because I was assured by an ex-barista that they have got their machine settings right world over, and they use good beans. This, I'm afraid, is bollocks. It wasn't even Starbucks quality.
On a more positive note, the weather is actually noice:
Drier than Sydney :-)After an easy week this week, brought on by the two silly-hard rides last weekend, I felt quite good on the club run today. We wound it up at the end and it was nice to open the throttle a bit.
A month to the first TT, which is to be the Chippenham hilly 24. But there are still roadworks on the course, which I did before the club run, so I hope it can be moved. The course that we did the 3-up on last year would be a good substitute.
Sunday I got out with Will and a few other members of the Comedy Super Team for four hours. We went up to Corsham to pick up one guy, then down through Trowbridge, Frome and Wells, coming back a different way to Aquae Sulis.
The real comedy came just after Trowbridge when Simon suggested we get off the main road and take the lanes. It was fine until we hit a section which obviously didn't have much drainage and was covered in black ice and sheet ice.
Simon: "Maybe this wasn't such a good idea..."
Five seconds later, both Stan and Pete slid off, followed by Simon behind me. Only Will and I stayed upright! No-one was hurt, although Stan was covered in manure. We walked through the rest of that section.
Funnily enough, later on in the ride it was warm enough to ride with no gloves. Looks good for most of this week too.
Sunday, February 03, 2008
Joyous February
Weather: still stupid. The dryness has given way to less desirous elements although it hasn't snowed darn sarf yet.
Saturday was the best. The temp started at -0.8°Ré but got up to as much as 4°Ré by midday. Thus, the lanes were a bit icy in the morning but at least there wasn't much mud or wind. Robin and I did a slightly longer but less hilly Mendips ride (Cheddar, Burrington, A39 up from Wells) than last week and I finished up with 135km.
Sunday started at 4°Ré and stayed there, although the 5 Beaufort wind (that's 40km/h in real money) made it chillier. I went norf towards the Severn and did a lap of the old Dursley hilly 24 course. 720m of climbing(!) in just under 40km and I thought I did OK to get around in 1hr24. Then I found out that the actual course that'll be used for the race in April this year is a modified version: 47km total, 1010m of climbing/860m of descent(!) That's what I call challenging.
After doing that, I faced a rather sapping 40km ride home into the bloody wind, 140km total. Still, I appear to be gaining some fitness. Another month until me first race. Whee!
In the social drinking stakes, I've finally managed to get to the Old Green Tree, which is a really fine, albeit small pub. It's one that attracts 'characters' rather than just being a pub where the locals are a bit odd. I hasten to add that I am not one of these characters. I'm perfectly sane and I have a certificate to prove it somewhere. I was inveigled to try a few pints of local stout, which was alright until I had a Leffe and realised what beer should taste like. Then I spotted some Chimay...
Reading Writing Home by Alan Bennett. It consists of various observations on his life, a collection of diaries over a number of years. It's quite good once you get into it.
I watched Wales beat England in the rugby, which was unbeloivable. Hasn't been done in 20 years!
Saturday was the best. The temp started at -0.8°Ré but got up to as much as 4°Ré by midday. Thus, the lanes were a bit icy in the morning but at least there wasn't much mud or wind. Robin and I did a slightly longer but less hilly Mendips ride (Cheddar, Burrington, A39 up from Wells) than last week and I finished up with 135km.
Sunday started at 4°Ré and stayed there, although the 5 Beaufort wind (that's 40km/h in real money) made it chillier. I went norf towards the Severn and did a lap of the old Dursley hilly 24 course. 720m of climbing(!) in just under 40km and I thought I did OK to get around in 1hr24. Then I found out that the actual course that'll be used for the race in April this year is a modified version: 47km total, 1010m of climbing/860m of descent(!) That's what I call challenging.
After doing that, I faced a rather sapping 40km ride home into the bloody wind, 140km total. Still, I appear to be gaining some fitness. Another month until me first race. Whee!
In the social drinking stakes, I've finally managed to get to the Old Green Tree, which is a really fine, albeit small pub. It's one that attracts 'characters' rather than just being a pub where the locals are a bit odd. I hasten to add that I am not one of these characters. I'm perfectly sane and I have a certificate to prove it somewhere. I was inveigled to try a few pints of local stout, which was alright until I had a Leffe and realised what beer should taste like. Then I spotted some Chimay...
Reading Writing Home by Alan Bennett. It consists of various observations on his life, a collection of diaries over a number of years. It's quite good once you get into it.
I watched Wales beat England in the rugby, which was unbeloivable. Hasn't been done in 20 years!
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