Colin's Biking Bits

It's Time For Me To Do Something Different

2010-02-15T11:16:00.002Z

I started this blog at the beginning of 2007; the start of my quest to win some bike races. The previous year I'd participated in a couple of master's road races and a few club time trials, my competitive spirit had been rekindled and I was raring to get fit. I discovered the heart rate monitor, modern training techniques and the huge advances in racing cycle equipment. It was vastly different to when I'd previously raced in the eighties. I was 28lb heavier and just wanted to "solve the problem" of winning again.

At the end of 2007 I'd gained a silver medal in the season long LVRC national road race series and had won gold in the LVRC national championship time trial, not only winning my age category, but winning the event outright. Better still, I'd bought a power meter and was engrossed in trying to understand how to use it effectively. I followed up with a winter of hard training, overdid it, recovered and during 2008 managed to win silver and bronze national medals in the season long Rudy Project national master's series; this time it was for time trialling on sporting courses. The road racing didn't go so well however as I struggled to work out how to train for both disciplines simultaneously.

I approached the 2007/2008 winter quite differently and it went very well. Although my threshold power of around 315W didn't increase, my abilities over efforts of shorter durations saw great improvements. I even improved my sprint which was my weak spot. 2008 was to be my "swan-song". I'd worked out that I wasn't good enough to compete with the best riders on a week by week basis and win as well. I could be "up there" in the top 6 places for most races but that wasn't what I wanted. Instead, I only rode 11 road races during the season of which I finished 9, winning 5, coming second twice and having two fourth places as well. By the end of July I'd just had enough of road races and decided to spend the rest of the season time trialling. I had my eye on the over 50s gold medal at the British Championships but didn't make my intentions public for a while. After a couple of months of the most intense training that I've ever done in my life, with a new threshold power of 330W and a couple of practice events I got my gold medal and champion's jersey. It was one of the proudest and most satisfying moments of my life.

It's been an enjoyable 3 years, but because I'm not a naturally gifted athelete (whatever that means), it required a huge ammount of commitment. I have been very fortunate in having a partner who has never complained about my obsessive approach, continual tiredness and about the time I've spent out on the road. I've reached a point now however where I want to do something different and need to move on. I love riding my bike, in fact I like training as much as I do racing; perhaps even more! I want to go for bike rides, use our tandem and get out across the fields on my mountain bike. I want to continue my long term quest to climb all 284 Scottish Munro mountains before I get too old. And as a new project (which may last a couple of years) I want to produce a series of fine art photographs that portray Leicestershire's forgotten history.

This will be my last post on this blog and I'd like to thank all those who have read my ramblings and also left helpful comments. The blog has been a major source of motivation for myself; an opportunity to share what I've learnt and the mistakes that I've made along the way. I've had a lot enjoyment doing it. It's a wrench to stop posting every couple of days, but I've reached the point where I don't feel as if I've anything new left to say. I expected the blog to be read by a few friends, but never imagined that it would have attracted over 70,000 visits. I know that is not a high hit rate by internet standards, but this is just the account of one middle aged cyclist's very amateur quest for some personal success.

Best wishes to you all in your own quests for success, staying fit or whatever it is you do on a bike.

Colin...

(comments on the blog are now closed)

The Old Routes

2010-01-24T16:11:00.007Z

After looking out of the window this morning and seeing that the roads were reasonably dry, I got out my MTB fitted with 700c wheels and 32mm tyres and set off to explore some old Leicestershire routes.

Ridgeway Lane, Syston - South Croxton

The Six Hills from Ridgeway Lane

The first port of call was Ridgeway Lane, part of an ancient track that ran from Tilton On The Hill across Leicestershire to Beacon Hill (the site of a Celtic hill top fort) and beyond. Three to four thousand years ago (a mind blowing thought), people travelled along this route on their way from Denmark to get gold from Ireland. As I stood on the roadside, to my left a skylark (my first this year) sang above the open field, whilst to my right a standing stone, almost buried, sat amidst the winter crops but with its top aligned with Beacon Hill a number of miles away; perhaps it was a way marker for those ancient folk who passed this way. In the winter's sunshine, the views from the ridge were extensive, but I imagined what it must have been like 3000 years ago with dense forests, no skylarks and only the odd glimpse of the next highest landmark, that of Beacon Hill.

South Croxton "please help use reduce our --pee-"

The old ridgeway continues along a straight line of foot paths, but I chose to follow it as close as possible on tarmaced surfaces until I reached Tilton On The Hill. Here, an it joins an even older route from Avebury to The Wash in Humberside. My route however, led me along the bridle path to Marefield

Bridlepath, Marefield Lane

The area of "high Leicestershire" is littered with field roads, bridle paths and byways. Many of these tracks were once main routes for local folk, but became forgotten back ways after the Enclosure Act in the 1845. Today, they offer an alternative way to see the rural nature of the surrounding countryside. Riding down the hill from Tilton and into Marefield is like finding an part of old England, the lane is sunken in places, crosses a couple of fords and then climbs up to enter the shrunken hamlet of Marefield itself.

John O'Gaunt LNWR Viaduct

I rode a short distance along the old London, North Western Railway line, now overgrown and disused since around 1970. Between Marefield and John O'Gaunt, a 14 arch viaduct with an average height of 60 feet now rots away. Built in 1848, it is just a reminder of another route across Leicestershire that is now longer a thoroughfare.

I made my way back from Marefield along a string of narrow lanes, field roads and byways past and through lovely named named places such as Robin a' Tiptoe Hill, Skeffington village and Rolleston. It was drizzling when I got home and I'd been out for 5 hours and yet only ridden 50 miles. With an empty stomach, but a mind full of the things I'd seen, I rode down the drive a contented cyclist!

Sleddale Swindale MTB Mountain Bike Adventure

2010-01-04T21:12:00.004Z

For a couple of years I'd been eyeing up the old quarry track from Sleddale over the fell to Mosedale and wondering about an off road ride that I could turn into a full circuit by cutting down into Swindale. We've stopped at the same Cumbrian cottage at Newby, 5 miles from Shap, for the past 3 years over Xmas, and the cold conditions we had this last Xmas meant a good adventure was there to be had!

The temperatures were well below freezing when my two companions and I set off. The lane from the cottage up to the A6 at Shap had been salted and had improved since we arrived a couple of days before. We made good progress through Shap before turning onto the lane leading to Sleddale.

Soon, there was no evidence of the tarmac surface beneath our tyres but despite the hard ice we were still maintaining both good traction and progress. After Green Farm, a gate led us onto the open fell side and our track continued along and above Sleddale Reservoir.

The track steepened and finding a line to take whilst still remaining upright became continually harder. The snow had drifted onto the track itself and riding on it's verges became the best option. Soon we reached the mountain wall, dividing the farm land from the wilder areas and by now we were rather hungry. Being at a higher altitude, the wind was whipping around us and we hunkered down behind the stone wall to get some food inside us. We all agreed that somehow the cheese and ham sandwiches tasted even more delicious in the wintry conditions!

Our next target was the summit of Hare Shaw, not a high fell top, but given the rising wind that was making it very difficult to hear each other speak and coupled with a fresh heavy snow storm it was an inhospitable place to be sure.

We left the bikes beside the now faintly visible track and made our way to the fell top. It was not far but deep drifts meant that had to wade through powder snow before reaching the summit cairn. The wind was so strong that on returning to the bikes our footsteps had been filled in and obliterated.

Continuing on two wheels was no longer an option. However, seeing as we had reached the watershed it made sense to continue down into Mosedale. The light had become murky, but as we were now on the leeward side of the fell we could concentrate on traversing the terrain with somewhat better visibility.

The bikes had to be pushed, tugged, lifted and carried. We worked out that the best technique was to push the saddle rather than the handlebars which had the effect of sinking the front wheel into the snow. Care had to be taken to avoid falling into streams hidden under drifted snow whilst steep sided gulley's loomed up out of the gloom and had to be crossed.

It was an adventure that pulled and tugged at our limbs and joints and required a number of rests in order to get a second wind. Eventually we reached Mosedale Beck's icy waters flowing down the valley and the next barrier to our progress. Thick ice had formed inwards from it's banks and more of the same covered the boulders that would have at other times have made suitable stepping stones. There was little else for it other than to just "go for it" and get across. It was an inelegant but effective crossing, even if some of the freezing water did find it's way inside one's boots.

With the river crossing behind us, the final descent off the fell down into Mosedale was ahead. Steep slopes led down past Nabs Crag and Force's [water] Falls and eventually we reached the track to Swindale Head. After stopping to admire the stunning glacially formed rocky bowl, attendant moraines and erratic boulders, we set off to the tarmac lane that leads out of Mosedale to Rosgill. There had been no gritting here and the lane was covered with a good two inches of solid ice for it's full three mile length. Despite this, riding along seemed easy in comparison to what we had been doing an hour before.

Swindale, monochromatic and moody in the waining winter's afternoon light was a delight to cycle along. Farmhouse chimneys smoked, windows glowed with yellow light and the promise of cosy rooms, sheep dogs barked fervently at us as we passed. Sheep busied themselves trying the scrape holes in the snowy ground in order to find some grass and robins flitted onto the stone walls as if begging for some stray scraps from passing travellers. It was a proper Christmas scene.

We climbed the long 1 in 8 hill out of Rosgill then took a bridle track directly across open fields to the A6 north of Shap. With empty stomachs, tiredness, red faces and a final battle of a three mile stretch of headwind we made our way back to the cottage, hot chocolate and food. It had been a good day that left me wondering how it could take four and a half hours to bike just 23 miles!

Green Lanes And Tow Paths

2009-12-20T16:50:00.004Z

It was another gift of a day, very cold, sunshine and too good to be missed. Swapping the narrow tyres of my road bike for the fat ones of my mountain bike I set off after breakfast for an "off road" adventure. Armed with a map and a pair of reading glasses (in order to be able to read the map), I made my way south west towards Atherstone. No snow had fallen just a few miles away from home, but there was a lot of thick ice to be seen everywhere. I picked my way through a series of bridle roads, narrow lanes, field roads and enjoyed the winter scenery.

Crow Lane, meandering across fields from Pinwall to Orton On The Hill

Sheep grazed on frozen frosty fields whilst flocks of fieldfare, having flown south from Scandinavia, harvested the red berries which adorned the otherwise bare hedgerows. There were groups of lapwings searching for grubs amongst the wintering crops and a couple of herons flew up out of way, no doubt searching for toads on dry land as the streams were frozen. I made over to Orton On The Hill and then on to Gopsall Wharf where I turned down onto the towpath of the Ashby Canal.

A frozen Ashby Canal, near to Shackerston. Construction of the canal began at this point in 1795.

The canal passed through woods and past many rural scenes. After Shackerston it follows the Battlefield Steam Railway where the train made it's towards Bosworth just over the field away to my right, a plume of white steam and smoke rising into the cold air, a romantic scene quite opposed to the true industrial origins of both the canal and the railway. The canal wound it's way under cattle and road bridges, over the aqueduct at Shenton, past Albion Hill where Richard III died in the battle of Bosworth in 1485. The whole area was also the location of many skirmishes between Roundheads and Cavaliers during the Civil War too. Eventually I reached Sutton Cheney Wharf where a large group of mallards skated on the ice chasing bread thrown by some children. With a setting sun on my back I made off up Fenny Drayton Lane and took the direct route home.

An unusually named narrow boat moored on the canal. Whether the owner's name, a marine reference or an effort to tell us something else is anybodies guess!

My bike was covered in blocks of mud which froze solid as the sun set and the temerpature dropped further. For the last 5 miles changing gear became an impossibility. I'd been out of the house for between 4 and 5 hours and was quite ravenous. I could hardly wait for bread to be toasted and beans to heat through before eating, and that big steaming mug of tea went down rather well too!

Back Ache And A Successful Course Of Self Treatment

2009-12-09T12:12:00.004Z

When I fell off my bike at the beginning of October, not only did I break a little finger which proved to be a very painful affair, but I also damaged my lower back. Now I'm no stranger to back ache having suffered a spinal fracture some time ago, but I'd not had any back pain for a long time. Following October's spill, I was suffering with aches and pains in my lumber region throughout the day, even waking in the night too. The ache moved around, changed and didn't seem related to any particular activity. Cycling, sitting, lying or lifting were all activities where I may or may not get an ache. I was considering revisiting the physiotherapist that I'd used previously but then one night during the small hours I remembered Sarah Key's Back Sufferer's Bible on my bookshelf. I re-read it and it was if a light had been turned on. Key's explains that the majority of pack pain in the lumber area is caused by a stiff segment in the spinal column. I remember my physiotherapist explaining the same thing as he manipulated my back. Key's prescribes a number of exercises that should be done each day and also recommends regular application of NAIDs.

The following day I commenced a twice daily programme of exercises and applied ibuprofen cream to my back religiously four times a day for a week. The result has been dramatic and since doing this three weeks ago I have only had a couple of days with a slight ache when I have then repeated the exercises and gained relief.

The programme takes about 10 minutes and involves:

Lying down and pulling knees tight to chest in order to bend the spine

Spinal rocking

Crunches which incorporate stretching with hands beyond the toes

Squatting into a ball and bouncing the bottom up and down slightly

Touching toes in a standing position whilst lightly bouncing up and down

Repeating the toe touching whilst twisting the back with one arm upright and the other doing the toe touching, first one arm then the other.

The clue in all these exercises is to learn to relax the spine whilst doing them. The idea is to allow the spine to rotate, open up and for the segments to move around in relation to each other. I have found this easier to do to if I meditate on what is happening whilst it's happening. It's also a good opportunity to do some deep breathing and what I imagine are good stretches for the time trial position too. In particular, spinal rocking is very interesting to do. The sensation as one rocks on the spine is discomfort and feelings of stiffness that subside after a while. It feels just like the sensations that I recall from the physiotherapist's couch. Interestingly, one of the first Google "finds" for this technique was a Livestrong video "How To Do Spinal Rolls". This website also had a huge resource of other exercises, health and fitness tips too.

I intend to carry on with a regular programme of these exercises, it's an opportunity to do some of the stretching that I promised myself I would do but now has more purpose too. To be able to take my own recovery into my own hands has been a bit of lesson in that you don't always have to suffer, visit doctors or get other treatment all of the time (not that I do much of that anyway). Backs are funny things and people who suffer often get frightened about what you can and can't do. Some would respond to these exercises by saying that "bouncing" whilst stretching shouldn't be done, but Key's is very specific in her prescription and reasoning and her methods have worked very well for me.

Mountain Bike Ride MTB From Blair Atholl ~ The Disappointing Munro

2009-11-16T19:20:00.003Z

Another mountain bike, walk, mountain bike adventure:

I was the first person to park in the Forest Lodge car park at Blair Athol, subsequently I had the early morning trail to myself and it was only as I was descending back from the Munro’s summit that I met another walker who exclaimed “I’m a bit disappointed with this Munro!” I felt quite sorry for the chap, I’d had a fantastic morning out and my mind was full of the things I’d already seen. I left him with a “Well, I can’t say I’ve ever found a boring Munro yet, you just have to look for different things” and he carried on with his route march towards the summit.

The track exits from the woods onto open wilderness

After very heavy rain the day before the morning sky promised good things. I cycled away from the car park and up through glades of beech, sycamore, larch and pine. Beneath my tyres was a carpet of bronzed beech leaves with brilliant yellow sycamore leaves in stark contrast. The sound of my bike flushed a woodcock out of the undergrowth and I watched it fly up the hill. Once on the open moorland track, I felt a sense of awe at the huge open space of heathland stretching out in front of me. It was all uphill, but with a steady gradient and on a good surface of compacted gravel and hard earth. This was such a contrast to the outing that I’d had the previous week to Am Bastier on Skye: there were no terrifying and vertiginous drops, no need for total concentration where a careless step and subsequent slip would without doubt have been fatal. Bleak heather clad moors of Athol’s hills replaced bleak rock and knife-edge ridges of Skye’s Cuillin Mountains. Here, a sense of solitude and an engagement with nature was easy to realise.

Uphill for a few miles with remote but easy cycling

The track stretched out in front and to my left the burn, still full of white water, rushed downwards. There were plenty of red grouse around and I was constantly being scolded. The sunlight played it’s symphony of light on the land and white clouds still hung to areas of higher ground. After approximately 5 miles, the track rounded a corner and there before me was a large herd of red deer. I counted at least 40 animals then gave up as I began to see more and more against the dark vegetation. Stags were both up and down the hill and the glen reverberated with the deep, from the pit of their stomach roars. The deer, having been spooked by my presence moved swiftly across the extremely deep heather to a safer place from where they could monitor my much slower progress.

Allt Scheicheachan bothy, a mile of rougher track still to cycle

I soon reached the bothy at Allt Scheicheachan and stopped to have a nose around. It was very tidy, with stone flagged floors, a cast iron hearth, tables and bunks. It was a diminutive building amidst a wild landscape. This was supposed to be where I should leave the bike, but after a dash through a rather deep ford and having still maintaining dry feet, I continued to cycle up alongside the burn almost to the head of the glen from whence I proceeded on foot. There had been a thickening of the cloud and the bright sunshine was showing less and less. As I reached the plateau, a golden eagle flying low and almost dawdling flew right over the top of me. As it enjoyed a couple of typical "tumbles" through the air I could clearly see by it’s wing markings that it was an adolescent. I watched it make way over the mountain and out of sight.

The deep heathers were soon replaced by sub-arctic tundra type dwarf varieties, only a couple of inches high, interspersed by incredibly clean looking lichens, and amongst the short ochre grasses, bright green, yellow and brilliant red mosses. It was truly wonderful tapestry of colours and textures. As I neared the summit, which by now was veiled by thin cloud, the rock changed to rounded granite boulders and the path was typically Cairngorm type grit. A mountain hare, upright on it’s hind legs watched me approach then made off though the boulders. A large group of ptarmigan, whistling as they do, casually moved along close by, virtually indistinguishable by means of their plumage against the grey rocks.

Lunchtime view, dull weather but a myriad of subtle hues and tones

After a quick look at the summit’s shelter cairn I descended back out of the cloud and found a good rock upon which to sit whilst I ate my lunch. The views south, west and north over the Highlands were superb as the low light levels revealed the landscape as subtle tones of greys, browns and mauves. I heard a loud rattling sound across the moor and there was another herd of deer with two stags locking antlers, one of them soon distancing itself from the other who proceeded to roar for some time.

After unlocking my bike I set off back to the bothy. A hen harrier rose up out of the heather and as I rounded each bend we had a game of chase with the bird perching then flying on a bit further. It was an easy ride back along the track as I hardly had to press on the pedals, the sun had gone for good but the cloud had risen again and I felt smug about having enjoyed the best of the day. When I got back to the car I realised that my rear light had fallen off somewhere along the way. I hope “Mr Disappointed” found it, I’m sure it would have made his day!

Shorter Lap Length ~ Chung Test

2009-11-10T12:30:00.004Z

The Chung testing that I did on Sunday was about improving my test protocol for forthcoming trials. I've settled on using Desford lane at Kirby Mallory because it is extremely quiet, has an ideal V shaped elevation profile and the road surface is good. The only real downside is that because it is so narrow, I've had to teach myself to to perform very consistent, very slow 1.5m radius U-turns whilst in the aero position. I can't quite manage it without slightly lifting my inside elbow out of the padded rest, but I am travelling so slow at this point that I don't believe that it makes a difference.

I started off using a slightly longer lap of 0.85km with short and much reduced gradients at either ends. This allowed me to use a couple of gateways and easier U-turns. The problem was that slowing down (even allowing for still going uphill) was difficult to judge. It was too easy to get my speed wrong and then not be able to soft pedal to a low enough speed to permit a u-turn to be done (no braking allowed).

I then cut the lap length down to a mere 0.65km by lopping off the flatter end sections but necessitating even tighter u-turns. To my surprise I found that whilst I had to practice a bit of low speed bike control, turning on a steeper section of road did result in a cleaner power trace. There was no dithering on the pedals either before or after the turn as I tried to judge my speed. In addition, the laps take less time and look more consistent across a full set.

On Sunday I did 10 laps on the longer lap and 10 on the short lap. I then repeated both sets of laps a second time. Because I don't have a deep understanding of the maths behind the model, I had wondered whether the slower sections of longer lap improved the results. I have been unable to detect any real difference in the results. There may even be an indication that the shorter laps are more consistent from lap to lap but the figures weren't conclusive. However, as a result of these latest tests I will continue to use the shorter lap length and will carefully mark out my U-turns on the road before doing any more tests.

Un-ewe-sual Traffic Jam

2009-11-08T18:11:00.006Z

I had a "pottering around off the bike type of day" yesterday, and will do every weekend until at least Christmas. I did some much needed maintenance on my mountain bike. Whilst in Scotland, none of the gears had worked very well and when I stripped down the cables it became apparent that the "outers" were badly corroded. My rear hydraulic brake had also needed bleeding which took a while. After alternating between tapping the brake body lightly, pumping and squeezing the brake lever whilst opening the bleed screw for about 30 minutes I finally managed to get all the air out of the system. I'm just waiting for some new brake shoes to arrive from Ebay and I'll be all set for some more off-road riding over Christmas. I also ordered some outer gear cable too. I found out that you can buy Jagwire 4 and 5mm diameter cable by the metre at a much lower price than you pay for the precut kits of cable.

The battery in my SRM "pro" cranks died during the week. For a couple of days it wouldn't work after the bike had been left in the cold garage overnight, but was OK after being stored in the warm during the day at work. On Thursday evening, the offset became very unstable and then the meter stopped working altogether halfway through the training session. I've swapped the cranks out and have to send them back for a replacement battery. It's times like this that I'm glad I've still got a Powertap as backup.

The weather has been good, but not calm enough to allow any meaningful Chung trials to be carried out. Later on this morning, despite a light breeze, I peddled off to Peckleton again in order to do some trials where I varied speed across the test laps. It was an effort to find out if my test protocols can be improved to provide better data. When I've analysed the results, and if they show any useful findings, I'll make a report. It was worth going because I learnt that my test venue is very quiet, even during daytime. It was also an opportunity to fulfill one of my other targets of riding my TT bike at least once a fortnight throughout the winter. I saw one car, a cyclist and a horse rider. Oh, and a large flock of sheep been shepherded along by the farmer. I can honestly say that I've never been held up on a Leicestershire lane by a flock of sheep! The road was quite wet from overnight rain, and after the sheep had passed by there were little piles of very green and sloppy dung all along the road. Undeterred, I carried on and completed 40 laps in total. Needless to say, the bike and my clothes required rather a good wash down when I got back home!

Glenelg Cycling Route ~ MTB Mountain Bike

2009-11-05T22:37:00.016Z

Our holiday cottage amidst the backdrop of the Isle Of Skye

During the first week of our Scottish holiday we stopped in Glenelg. Our cottage was located on the shore of Glenelg Bay, at the head of the Sound of Sleet and the fierce tidal currents of the Kyle Rhea straits. Today Glenelg is a remote Highland crofting community but was once an important place to cross over to the Isle of Skye. It's spectacular surroundings, tranquility and remote nature belie the fact that this was once an area of intensive industry. It's hard to realise that there was once a pervading stink of rotting fish at Arnisdale and an industrial smog at Glenelg due to herring fishing and the burning of seaweed for chemicals destined for the glass industry. The area would have also been an important stopping off point for travellers, tinkers and cattle drovers all who would have served to increase trade.

I set off on my bike and past the Bernera Barracks, built by the English Hanovorian government in the early 1700s to house up to 200 soldiers in order to help suppress the Scottish Jacobites. The officers were housed in cottages that still stand on the 'main' road that passes through Glenelg. The austere barracks are now in a dangerous state of ruin but are still imposing and impressive.

I was soon making my way past the crofts and along the edge of the Sound of Sleet. As in many Scottish communities, there is a large memorial built in memory to the fallen in the two great wars. The loss of local men had a huge impact on these areas and for small villages, the Scottish memorials are often much more elaborate than the simple crosses and plaques found in English locations.

After turning off the Arnisdale road and up into Glen Beag, views of the sea loch disappeared and were replaced by a typical crofting landscape comprising of small areas of land cleared for grazing and then the higher mountain terrain. Soon I came to the first and largest of the three brochs in the glen. These prehistoric buildings are stone roundhouses and date from around 2,300 to 1,900 years ago. The one shown in the above picture, Dun Telve, is the second highest surviving Scottish broch and the best on the mainland. It stands at just over 11m high but was partly demolished in the 18th century when the stone was used by the English to build the Bernera Barracks. With their intricate internal passages and fine stone masonry, these structures are very impressive and worth a visit.

Mountain ash

A couple of miles further on, the road runs out, becomes a rough track, and soon starts to climb up the head of Glen Beag, over into wilder terrain and down to Glen More. After some overnight rain there were the sights and sounds of waterfalls all around.

Directions in the middle of nowhere!

The tarmac surfaced roads in Scotland are often of much more recent origin. Rights of way such as this trail really are ancient. The old Scots didn't tend to use vehicles, preferring to travel fast over the mountainous terrain by more direct routes. This was a problem for the English with their carts, who when seeking military control, simply couldn't transport their munitions and provisions quickly enough.

The head of Glen More is rugged, however the track is still good and provides fine views of Beinn Sgritheall. This is a mountain of Munro status that Shirley and I had climbed the previous day. It provided a relentless ascent from the beach at Arnisdale on it's other side. We even wet the soles of our boots in the sea water to say that we'd completely climbed it! After sitting on a heathery knoll to eat some cake and to drink in the surroundings, I set off once again.

Suardalan, an old croft

A little further on, the track degrades somewhat and the isolated remains of a croft come into view. This would have been a truly remote place to live demanding a high degree of self sufficiency.

The house was built in the 1870s and last inhabited in the 1920s was made weatherproof once again in the 1970s for anyone to use as an overnight shelter. It is quite a cosy, well appointed bothy, with a wood burner, bunks and the usual bothy utensils.

After the bothy, the ground becomes very rough and necessitates a couple of miles of "ride a few metres walk a few metres" as the settlement of Moyle and the river are reached. Eventually I joined up with the military road which is today's only route by car into Glenelg, excepting the Kyle Rhea ferry from Skye which only operates during the summer month. The ferry has operated since the 1600s and is a turbulent sea water crossing. The road takes in several hairpin bends and climbs from sea level to 1100ft over the Ratagan Pass and was constructed by the English to link the Bernera Barracks to Glen Sheil. From Moyle it was an easy ride back down to Glenelg Bay to end an enjoyable and interesting trip out.

Martin Webster ~ National Track Champ!

2009-11-03T22:19:00.003Z

Tonight saw a return to training again, well a 48 mile ride with two laps of the Walton circuit at least. After only riding off-road for a total of between 60-70 miles during the last couple of weeks, the road bike felt strange. Not only that but I lasted just an hour at a moderate pace before I started to fade. I've just need to get back into the groove.

I joined up with Phil and Martin Webster who recently had success in the LVRC track championships: a gold in the scratch race and bronze in the points. Martin had a nasty accident back in May, he sustained severely torn muscles in his shoulder after being knocked off by a car in his first road race of the season. In September, Martin started training with Phil and myself again, staying with the pace for as long as he could then dropping off. After putting in some good miles on a late training camp in Majorca, then adding a couple of weeks of intense speed work with Phil as his "training hare" he unleashed himself on the track championships.

In the scratch race he made what sounded like one of his trademark cheeky attacks, sneaking away just after an escapee had been caught and there was a lull in pace. With only half the race completed, Martin found himself half a lap up and in no man's land. After about 5 laps he dug deep and with a "I felt like I was floating" feeling managed to take a lap on the pack. He then found himself counting down the laps, having to police every move there on after and feeling great relief in the closing laps when he knew that victory was his. Congratulations are in order!

So, last night, three national champs each from either road race, time trial or track disciplines enjoyed a moonlit evening around the south Leicestershire lanes. Oh, and I got dropped on the final couple of hills. My legs said "hold on, take it easy", my stomach said "I need some fuel" and my head was just good!

Am Basteir ~ Something A Bit Different!

2009-11-01T17:13:00.002Z

See here for an account of an exciting day out on the Isle of Skye

A Scottish Escape

2009-10-31T20:15:00.002Z

The Cuillin, Isle Of Skye, Scotland

I apologise about the break in posts. We've been 'sans' internet in remote areas of Scotland, with little or non existent mobile network coverage but amidst awesome surroundings. We've been mountaineering, off road biking and just relaxing. We've had sunshine, torrential rain, incredible star spangled night time skies and stunning morning mists. In fact, we've had such a relaxing time that after our departure this morning, we'd covered about 10 miles before we realised that I'd not loaded our bikes onto the roof of the car. After an about turn to collect them we set off again only for Shirley to announce that she'd forgotten her coat too! After the long drive south, 10 hours later and with no further mishaps we were home, another holiday over but with plenty of adventures and wonderful sights to recall.

The Power Of A Picture

2009-10-16T18:44:00.005+01:00

The results from Wednesday night, tests 1, 3 and 5 were all repeats of the same set-ups. Test 2 was wider aero-bar extensions. Test 3 was with the bottle and cage removed. The real take home message concerns the spread of the results within each set of laps. I think that most of the variation is occurring during my U-turns due to the lane being so narrow. Next time I'm going to take a sweeping brush to ensure that there are no lumps of mud and stones to roll over. Otherwise I'm getting pretty good at tight turning circles in the aero position at only 1-2mph!

All that will have to wait though as I'm going to have a couple of weeks completely away from my road bike and anything to do with a power meter. I'm intending to enjoy a few days riding on my mountain bike, going off road and generally enjoying a different sort of cycling. I've maintained CTL at 90 tss/day up until now and am going to trade it for having a bit of fun until November the 1st. I will however be giving some thought to the constitution of my base training through to March, followed by a time trial flavoured 2010 season.

Roadside Supper

2009-10-15T15:12:00.002+01:00

Despite very still weather conditions I had to do at least some training this week, so on Tuesday as normal I joined up with Phil for an hour of sweet spot followed by a more sociable block of level 2 riding. It was a great evening but the temperature plummeted as the sun went down. It was dark when I got home. We will probably do the same again tonight.

Last night was another incredibly still evening so I grabbed my TT bike and went off to do some more Chung tests. I repeated Sunday's sessions as well as trying a couple of other things too. I'm pleased to be getting repeatability from session to session within 0.005m^2. Given the amount of variables involved that doesn't seem too bad. I was a bit more careful last night and ran a second control set of laps after every change that I tested (ABA sequencing). It was a total of around 65 laps with only 3 vehicles and one dog walker disturbing the tests ~ not bad for evening time. I took a thermometer out with me to record the temperature between runs and there was a 4 degree drop over the whole session. I've also been tracking the humidity and pressure values of my weather station against ukweather.com where you can access hour by hour weather change records for your area. After converting pressure values to our local elevation I'm getting good agreement.

As the dusk descended, a rather wild looking farm cat meandered down the lane, looked at me disdainfully and promptly caught a shrew. It took just 3 laps worth of riding at around 80 seconds a lap until the only remnants that I could see of the shrew was a snout and a tail!

Tyre Rolling Resistance And Poor Road Surface

2009-10-13T16:19:00.005+01:00

My last set of tests turned made me realise just how much the road surface can affect the rolling resistance of a pair of tyres. The only differences between the two tests that I carried out on Stapleton Lane (rough with pot holes) and Desford Lane (very smooth except for two metres of gravel) were obviously the surface and the fact that the tests weren't done at exactly the same time. Whilst the results from both lanes indicated that one tri-bar position was better than the other, those carried out on the poor road surface resulted in a wider spread of calculated CdA figures. However, when I looked at the differences between medians for both sets of tests they were similar:

Desford Lane, 0.259 and 0.265m^2 or 0.006m^2 difference

Stapleton Lane, 0.309 and 0.312m^2 or 0.008m^2 difference.

I had assumed a coefficient of rolling resistance (Crr) of 0.005 for both sets of tests, but in reality the Stapleton Lane tests must have yielded a higher Crr. However, if everything else REALLY was the same, then CdA values for both sets of tests should have been identical for each respective tri-bar position.

I took the CdA values that I had obtained from Desford Lane of 0.259 and 0.265, plugged them into the Stapleton Lane elevation calculations and solved for Crr. I got values of 0.0084 and 0.0085 which are pretty close in my book and were as they should be: greater than for Desford Lane. Once again the methodology delivers perfectly logical results (I'm sure the Robert will say "and why shouldn't it?") and leaves me feeling even more confident about what I'm trying to do.

An Improvement In Precision ~ Chung Test

2009-10-11T15:32:00.019+01:00

Be prepared for a long post! I went out VERY early this morning in order to do two tests, repeated on two different lanes:

The Lanes:

The first lane, Desford Lane at Kirby Mallory, was the one that I measured last night, 0.85km per lap, 13.5m elevation change with a hill at either end. The far U-turn is good, but the near one requires riding on some rough and loose gravel for approximately 2 metres. The road surface is very good and it's easy to hold a good line along the route. The lane is not all that well sheltered, especially at the start of the lap.

The second lane, Stapleton Lane, also at Kirby Mallory, is superbly sheltered with high hedges and overhanging trees, a longer lap length with a little less elevation change, has perfect U turns but the road surface is rather bumpy with pot holes that have to be avoided.

I had both lanes completely to myself and there was no disturbances due to any traffic at all.

Weather Conditions:

It wasn't perfectly wind free, though when I arrived at Desford Lane there wasn't sufficient breeze to turn the vanes on my anemometer, but I could hear the wind rustling the top branches of the tallest trees. When I finished my second set of laps, the wind had increased sufficiently to disturb the long grasses on the road side and still very slight at up to 1.5mph.

I then went to Stapleton Lane, where due to its sheltered position, there was no detectable wind for the duration of the tests.

The Tests:

Time trial bike set up as per the British Time Trial Championships except for Ksyrium SL wheels and Bontrager RaceXLite AC tyres at 115psi and lights. I wore leg warmers, arm warmers, a skin suit, no over shoes, a Giro Atmos helmet and track mitts. Due to my injured elbows I was forced to hold the tri-bars about 50mm back from their ends whereas I would normally have my hands over the gear changers. For the first test the tri-bars were set at my normal 90mm inside-inside width. During the second test, I reduced the width to 50mm which is probably as narrow as is practical. For all tests I assumed a Crr on the road of 0.0051 meaning that any CdA figures are relative rather than absolute. SRM offsets were checked at the beginning and end of each set of six laps. Each set of laps started and ended with a U-turn which ensures that all the laps overlay themselves on the graphs.

Results:

Desford Lane, 90mm gap, CdA median of 6 laps 0.265m^2 (0.002 std dev)

Desford Lane, 50mm gap, CdA median of 5 laps 0.258m^2 (0.003 std dev)

Significance test 100% (excellent)

Stapleton Lane, 90mm gap, CdA median of 6 laps 0.312m^2 (0.006 std dev)

Stapleton Lane, 50mm gap, CdA median of 6 laps 0.309m^2 (0.007 std dev)

Significance test 21% (very poor)

Desford Lane, 50mm tri-bar gap

Desford Lane, 90mm tri-bar gap

Stapleton Lane, note inconsistency of elevation profiles.

Discussion:

All the tests from both venues indicate that narrower tri bars offer an advantage. In the case of Desford lane the results seem clear cut. On the other hand, the results from Stapleton Lane weren't good and I suspect that despite the sheltered location, the poor road surface and lower overall changes in velocity over the laps meant that the data was very dirty. If I didn't have the Desford Lane results, I would be saying that the tests were inconclusive.

On the fourth lap of the second set of laps on Desford Lane, I hit the gravel at the U-turn awkwardly and felt the bike slow down more than on the other laps. This resulted in an increased CdA being calculated for that lap, which due to the consistency of the other laps was easy to spot. I subsequently excluded it from the analysis. Including it dropped the significance test to 85% and increased the median CdA to 0.260m^2 which is still isn't a disaster by any means.

I tried to solve for Crr and to get the change in elevation for the Desford Lane tests to match my GPS measurements but with no joy. There's something I'm not understanding with respect to this. It could be that my GPS is reporting a greater elevation change than there actually is. Over both sets of laps the minimum virtual elevation varies between -12.28 and -12.73m, whereas the average of 4 measurements with my GPS was -13.5m. There is a similar difference at the middle U-turn of the "W" shaped lap profile. Although my GPS has a proper altimeter, and doesn't rely solely on satelite triangulation, there is a fair bit of aliasing of around 4 feet per reading (I switch units from metres to feet for "better" resolution) and 6ft across 4 separate measurements. I probably need to do try to determine Crr on a hill with a much greater elevation change in order to reduce the effects of any measurement errors, preferably a hill for which I can find some proper Ordnance Survey spot heights.

Overall, I am very pleased with these results which are another step up on the improvements that I saw on my early morning outing to Thurlaston Lane. Wind and passing vehicles DO disturb the data, even when tests are conducted at the higher speeds that I was achieving on Thurlaston Lane. You can still detect the effects of different test set-ups, but these become more difficult to resolve if the changes are smaller. Today also showed that the road surface is equally important, though it has to said that Stapleton Lane is particularly poor. The laps do not have to be as long as I was thinking, and around 1km is ample and allows for more laps to be done. When I start to try to measure even smaller changes in set-up I may have to do more laps and a shorter lap length will help with that. 10 metres plus elevation change is better than the shallower changes in elevation on lanes I first started using provided that you can still maintain a constant uphill position on the bike.

This was a good test to do. It validated Desford Lane as a good place to test and showed that my test protocols have improved a lot over the last 4 weeks. Also, in High Performance Cycling, Jim Martin and John Cobb wrote that alterations in elbow pad width had only a small effect on drag area. That makes it particularly good that I managed to detect differences.

As I reported in a previous post, I find the narrow tri-bar width particularly uncomfortable on my wrists (current injuries aside). I think that may be due to having straight extensions and it could be that bent extensions (J shaped) would be better.

Finally, Chung testing although being very rewarding makes you tired! It's quite an adventure being out so early and having the very dark countryside to yourself with only the sounds of foxes and owls. It was equally good to crawl back into bed at 7:15am and fall asleep until almost midday!

Addendum: My mapping software reports an elevation change that's closer to the virtual elevation on the bottom points of the "W" shape. Google Earth is as far above the virtual elevation as my GPS data is below. It makes me smile to think that despite owning a pretty expensive Garmin 60CSx, and having what was at one time unthought of mapping software, the Chung method might just be the most accurate altimeter I have access to!

What A Day!

2009-10-10T19:18:00.005+01:00

Robert Chung kindly suggested a way to me of determining Crr (rolling resistance) so I had a go at it with the test data that I'd already got. To cut a long story short, the exercise made me realise that my data was too contaminated and that I really needed a traffic free stretch of road to use in the future.

After scouring the map once again, I "discovered" a lane only a few miles from home that I had never been along before. So today I went off on my TT bike went off to explore. The lane was good but unbeknown to me there was a very shallow ford in a dip immediately at the bottom of a hill. I hit the water at speed, which was less than an inch deep, no more than a couple of feet wide and the the bike slid out from under me. It's a long time since I've fallen off and I'd forgotten how fast it happens. I was pretty shook up, my tri-bars were twisted but straightened out OK, the gear levers very badly scratched up, the rubber covers were worn away, my power meter wouldn't work because the magnet had fallen off the chain stay, my Assos jacket was torn and I was rather sore. After the initial shock subsided, I went home, found that I'd also damaged my watch, got road rashes on both hips, both elbows and my little finger had ballooned up and was a funny colour ~ thankfully though, nothing was broken.

Unperturbed, I fixed my bike and set off again to check out two alternative lanes. These turned out to be better so I used my GPS to measure distances and elevations, did a number of laps in order to get plenty of GPS data and went home. The next problem was that my GPS wouldn't download any data to my PC, the reason being that I'd forgotten to actually tell the GPS to record anything in the first place! Feeling rather embarrassed and cross with myself, I decided to return and do the job properly on the best lane of them all. It was getting dark so I went in the car and walked two laps, a small torch and pen in one hand, a note book and GPS in the other. I only saw one car during the whole time that I was there and the driver followed me before stopping and asking me what I was doing. I must have looked rather strange, and she was clearly suspicious and gave me a rather funny look as I tried to explain that I was measuring the height of the road. I guess normal people don't usually do things like that in the twilight on a Saturday night when Strictly Come Dancing is on the TV!

The good news is that I think I've found a good stretch of country lane to use. It's a shorter lap length than I have been using, but has good turning points, a hill at either end so slowing down isn't a problem, is exceptionally quiet and has a good surface as well. Hopefully I'll get the opportunity to do some tests tomorrow and to collect some "clean" data. Right now I'm off to enter my GPS data into an Excel sheet and then to create the elevation profile. Here's hoping I'm not too stiff and sore in the morning.

Oh and we ordered a Chinese and only half of it arrived. Shirley says that its something to do with Saturn entering Venus and that's really confused me. I wonder if I should just stay in bed tomorrow!

Featured Comment ~ Chung Test #6

2009-10-07T19:52:00.006+01:00

"Interesting series of tests.

When I first started, my experimental technique was so lousy that I didn't realize how precise the method can be. I wasn't bothered by cars or wind -- I was happy enough that it could produce any results at all. With experience I've learned that, under the right conditions, the results can be very, very precise: I've seen files collected under very calm conditions with precision around .0006 m^2. If you're looking for small differences, you have to be pretty careful.

I find that my first run is often lousier than subsequent runs as I learn how fast I can go and hit the same marks. Chalk helps. I try to hit a high(er) speed early and decrease the average speed across laps so I know I can hit the marks. It's possible to vary speed and pry apart the (CdA, Crr) pairs -- I'll describe that in more detail if I ever come out with version 2.0 of the presentation."

Robert Chung

Robert Chung, the creator of the aerodynamic testing method that I am so enthused about, kindly left me this comment on my last post. Whilst the Internet is often blamed for a lot of bad things, it's times like this that makes you reflect on how good it is too. I visit the various cycling forums pretty much every day. They include Slowtwitch, Wattage Training and Google Wattage plus others. I tend to "lurk" and only comment on the very rare occasions when I feel I REALLY have something to offer (there's many with greater expertise than me). However, I do take a lot from them, for example during the last month I have scoured the Internet for details on this form of testing. I've read and re-read all the various forum threads and gleaned as much detailed information as I could. Of foremost importance was the paper that Robert kindly placed in the public domain, closely followed by the spreadsheet created by Alex Simmons and placed on the Wattage Forum. Without these documents I wouldn't have had either a starting point or a clue of what to do. Whilst there's a lot of crap on the forums (and Internet as a whole), it's the willingness "to share" of people like Robert that completely restores one's faith. Since I started this blog, my fellow competitors have often remarked that I "give my secrets away". I just don't look at it that way, we are all at different stages of our development and it's only by sharing that we each improve. In my research for information on how to best perform this method of testing, I've not found one definitive single source of details. Hopefully my own learning experiences can be of value to some other like minded people.

Full Time Trial Set Up ~ Chung Test #5

2009-10-06T15:15:00.003+01:00

A clear night on Sunday persuaded me to get up early yesterday morning and go out to get some more data. My bike was exactly as per my previous tests only I moved my tri-bar extensions closer together by 50mm. There were dead calm conditions again, but despite testing at 6:30am, Monday morning meant that there were more cars around. After work, in the evening, it was still extremely calm so I went out and repeated the same test again. Last of all, I fitted my 909 disc, 808 front wheel, wore skin shoes and my 5 year old Specialized aero helmet and did another 6 laps (as if I was racing except for a front light under the extensions).

Morning test (Ksyriums and road helmet), CdA 0.281m^2

- compared to CdA 0.293m^2 on Saturday morning with wider extensions

Evening test (repeat of morning test), CdA 0.279m^2

Full TT gear and equipment, CdA 0.254m^2

Several points have become clear:

- Any amount of traffic does disrupt the tests. The standard deviation for yesterday's tests is double that of Saturday's when it was very quiet. Whilst large differences are easy to detect, smaller changes in position and equipment would be outside experimental error if there's traffic on any of the laps.

- I do 6 laps and wouldn't want to do any less. It's easier to see which laps may have provided contaminated data, however I need to improve my recording of any disturbances during the tests.

- The last test is first one that I've done where I have been able to use reliable Crr figures for my tyres (from BTR). That alone makes comparison of absolute CdA figures with previous tests difficult.

- I need to redo my tests a few times to see what sort of session to session repeatability I can achieve, along with removing any "contaminated laps". It may be that this method is best used to provide comparative rather than absolute CdA values. That would mean repeating a reference set of laps at the beginning of every session.

- Riding with the tri bars so close together is quite painful and is not practical. My wrists were aching at the end of the tests. It leaves me interested to determine whether the 0.012m^2 difference to Saturday is real or not; though I suspect not.

I was quite surprised when I downloaded into WKO, 145tss and 43miles gained by just doing a few tests!

Windy Crr Test ~ Chung Test #4

2009-10-03T17:39:00.005+01:00

Today really wasn't the day to do any more tests, we've had very strong winds but I wanted to do a couple of things. I've carefully measured and recorded the positions and heights of my saddle, base bars and extensions using a builders 1 metre long level. I've not been comfortable with the tip of my saddle this year at all, in fact in each if the three time trials that I rode the saddle slipped down and became very uncomfortable. There is no micro adjustment device on the Giant clamp and if I go over a bump the saddle slips and tilts downwards. So I've made some little wedges of varying thickness that prevent this happening. The wedge that I tried out today dropped the nose by 5mm, felt more comfortable but in turn made the saddle seem too low on the seat post.

On the next calm day that I can get out to do some testing, I want to try to establish what the rolling resistance of my tyres is. I also wanted to try to eliminate the "offset" first lap that I mentioned in "Chung Test #3" by starting and ending a set of laps with full U-turns. It was also an opportunity to get a few minutes worth of level 5 training done too. I rode out on my Specialized Armadillo tyres which are like riding on hardened garden hose: if I was going to be able to detect a difference then these tyres should show it up! Despite the strong winds I did see a difference.

The above chart shows the laps overlaid and levelled using the figure for CdA of 0.289 that I established last week. Now I know that with the wind that this is no longer true, but I also retained the Crr value of 0.005 that I had used for my other wheels as well. The elevation profile is not properly levelled and shows the finish of the lap as being higher that of the start!

This chart however was levelled using the same CdA (I didn't change my position on the bike), but this time I increased Crr to 0.0084. Now the elevation profiles are much better excepting for lap 5 when something else also occurred: maybe it was windier and there were a few cars around too. The point is that the method does show my Armadillos to be the very slow tyres that they are. Starting the laps with a U turn also got rid of the offset too!

Loosing Weight

2009-10-02T18:44:00.003+01:00

Phil and I had a great autumn evening's ride yesterday, clear skies, great sunset, an almost full moon and Venus glowing brightly in the southern sky. The lanes are quite a picture of reds and yellows this year which makes a change from the rather drab transition from summer to winter that we've experienced the past couple of years.

Despite being an 176tss ride, there was no prizes on the intensity stakes, rather for that of hunger pangs. I'm now on my third week of cutting back and trying to loose some fat. If I don't do this I end up getting to the end of winter and being far too many kilos too heavy. Whilst doing this over the last couple of years I've noticed that I never loose weight in a particularly linear fashion. In fact, there always seems to be one day that I seem to suddenly loose half a kilogram after not having seen any progress for a couple of weeks. I've also noticed that this often followed a day of needing to have frequent trips to the loo to pee! This article from Lyle McDonald's Body Recomposition blog probably explains why. I guess that you just have to be patient, wait and watch the scales rather than trying to cut back on calories even more.

Leicester Tester

2009-10-01T14:30:00.002+01:00

Check out local lad and fellow racing cyclist, Colin Parkinson's blog LEICESTERTESTER. Colin, a keen competitor in the Best British All Rounder time trial event, recently recently took a gold medal in the European Masters Point Race at Manchester. Congratulations Colin!

Time Trialling ~ Going Faster And Faster

2009-10-01T11:42:00.004+01:00

Albeit asks:

"What's your opinion on when to invest in a TT bike? Let's assume, money isn't the problem (within reason!) but just justifiable spend: my current approach is I've set a 25TT time I need to beat before I splash out and then I expect to get noticeable improvements (everyone I speak to says the speed difference is very noticeable). However, perhaps I'm wasting valuable opportunities to grow stronger & get used to a bike. At last weekend's TT I think I only spotted one other 'standard' road bike!"

When I started cycling again five years ago after a 14 year lay off, I rode a few time trials on my road bike too, complete with clip on aero bars and a disc wheel. I did OK but I knew that I needed longer than 12 months in order to re-develop my cycling specific strengths. The following year I bought a time trial frame and subsequently beat my previous personal best times over 10 and 25 miles which were set 20 years ago on a road bike (with no disc wheel but it did have clip on aero bars). I also won the LVRC national championship time trial, beating Roger Iddles' course record as a bonus too. Since then I have gone significantly faster over 25 miles (and I've not really tried over 10 miles). In 2008 I targeted the national Rudy Project masters series and was rewarded with a silver medal on actual time and a bronze on target time. This year my focus was on road races, but after I got a bit fed up in August I switched my attention to riding just three time trials and ended up winning the gold medal for my age group in the British Time Trial Championships. Next year I'd like to win a nationally open time trial event, I don't mind how small an event or who the competition is, I'd just like to do it.

I've not written the previous paragraph as an opportunity to boast, far from it as my performances are not particularly good compared to some athletes who are of a similar age to myself and who only choose to ride with more exalted company. It's also clear from my experience that a modern time trial bike does allow you to go faster. However, two important points in this respect have emerged from my last couple of seasons. One concerns the power that I can produce on the bike (FTP) and the other how fast I can go for that power. I've had a veil lifted from my eyes about what I need to do in order to beat more people in time trials next year. In fact I'm so excited about it that I think it will be my primary focus for the next 12 months and that road racing will not be a priority at all. My view is that if I tried to mix my targets I will only dilute my efforts and thus have excuses for not doing well in time trials.

Now there is no way that I am as powerful as I was back in 1989, but there is no doubt that today I can go faster on a bike than I could back then. I also believe that although I will be another year older I can go even faster next year. However, at my age, and with 4 consecutive seasons of training and racing under my belt I am not going to be producing significantly more power next year. This year I did see gains in my FTP, but that was because for the first time in my life I managed to "peak". Next year I'll try to improve and learn more about this process and who knows, my FTP might be better, just not significantly so. Albeit's circumstances may be different in this regard, physiologically he might still have more "to get out of pot", have age on his side and might also benefit from a better training plan than the one he has been following.

There are riders beating me in time trials who might not necessarily have a better power to weight ratio than I do but they go just go faster. The big realisation for me is that time trialling is NOT just about power on the bike. Technique, pacing, adaption to the specifics of the event and AERODYNAMICS (equipment and rider's position) are all very important. My training this winter is not going to be just about power on the bike, but also testing out details and experimenting. I've got two sheets worth of A4 notes of things I want to explore and none of it requires spending lots of cash on equipment that might just be marketing hype.

The bottom line is that the riders who are good at this particular discipline of cycling do not ALL possess fantastic FTP levels or spend thousands of £ on equipment. They are good because they have attended to the details. They have chosen the best equipment within their budgets, are uber slippery from an aerodynamic view point and that make sure that the power they do produce is utilised as efficiently and as effectively as is possible. The devil is in the detail!

Without A Lead

2009-09-30T12:56:00.002+01:00

I ride along a main road for a short distance each work day morning, there's heavy traffic but it's slow moving and for most of the way I'm in a bike lane. Before I turn right at some traffic lights I move over to the right to get into a filter lane. It's never normally a problem.

This morning, the road was greasy from a the first drizzle of rain that we've seen for a while, I look over my shoulder, there's a gap and I move over. I start to accelerate around the back of the car that's just passed me but is slowing down when suddenly on go the brake lights and it stops rather abruptly. I saw some movement on the pavement from over the top of the car, slammed on my brakes just as something small and white passed right across my front wheel, my back wheel had locked up but I managed to maintain control. The small white object was a young and very small West Highland Terrier that had seen people standing at the bus stop across the road and had decided to investigate. It's owner, a woman who had a mobile phone in one hand and a cigarette in the other, had also run out after the dog and was shouting "grab his collar". I shook my head in disbelief and without saying anything just moved on to the traffic lights.

I don't think anyone who witnessed the incident could believe that somebody would be walking a young dog, on a busy road, at the busiest time of the day, with both hands occupied and without a lead! It reminded me of someone I knew who who killed a dog that had just run out into the road in front of his car. He calmly got out of his car, opened the boot, retrieved a black bin liner bag, put the dead dog in it and gave it to the distraught owner who could only say "what about my dog?" His reply was "what about my wife and child in the car?"

Measuring Tyre Circumference Or Rollout ~ Chung Test #4

2009-09-27T18:18:00.002+01:00

If you want speed or distance to be recorded accurately, then you need to measure your tyre circumference carefully. This is my method:

I inflate tyres to the pressures that you normally use them at. For training on my Specialized Armadillos that's 100psi, but for racing on Continental Competitions it's 110psi for the front and 115psi at the rear.

I then wrap a piece of insulation tape around the tyre and line it up exactly against another piece fixed to the ground as per the above image.

I then sit on the bike and roll forward for 5 revolutions of the wheel, at which point I stick another piece of tape on the ground. I repeat this procedure three times to ensure that there is no error. I use a fence alongside my driveway to support myself and help keep the bike moving in a straight line.

The distance between the start and end pieces of tape are then checked using a long tape and the result is divided by 5 to give a more accurate tyre circumference measurement.

Time Trial Tri Bar Height ~ Chung Test #3

2009-09-26T13:00:00.018+01:00

I've cracked it! This morning I started testing at 5:30am along Desford Road between Thurlaston and Desford cross roads. It was dead calm though I was surprised to see on average one vehicle on every other lap up and down the lane. The figures that have emerged from my analysis have left me "gob smacked!" I am now heartened in the knowledge that I can now apply this method of testing aerodynamics: it really works and does provide meaningful data if the tests are properly controlled.

Test data: 3 sets of 6 laps

As a bonus, it also proved to be a good little work out too, 92tss and if I'd been in the mood could have been a VO2max session. Overall it took 100 minutes including the 3 mile ride out and back from home.

Elevation profile for half a lap

Yesterday I took my GPS out and rode very slowly around 2 laps of the loop which happens to have perfect places for the U-turns. I then used the GPS track data to determine the elevation profile of a full lap. The heights and distances I got from this method WERE different to data taken from both Google Earth and my MapSource software. However, as I will show, the average GPS elevation profile matches up extremely well will the Chung Test results. If I'd have relied on say, Google Earth, I'd be left scratching my head about the precision of the Chung Test method.

I also did a careful "roll out" test on my bike in order to ensure that reported speeds were accurate. I'll do a post on my test protocol for this.

I tested three variations of position this morning, test 1 with the bars at the height shown in the above image, test 2 at 50mm lower and test 3 at 50mm higher.

Graph of data from 1 of the 18 laps from today's tests

The above graph shows the results after the "Chung elevation profile" (solid blue line) has been levelled to determine the CdA. The red dotted line is my GPS elevation profile, and the dotted block line is just a trend line of the Chung data that made the "elevation levelling procedure" a little easier to do. Most importantly, elevation gained and distance travelled from a profile calculated from speed and power matches up REMARKABLY well with the GPS data. Sometimes the effort of trying to be as accurate as you can with data collection pays off and this is one such example. The graphs for all 18 laps are as good as this. It is clear that the steeper hills on this course and totally wind free conditions during the dark hours of the morning meant that I was rewarded with better data. The increased downhill velocity seems to have ironed out any disturbances from passing cars too.

Here's a chart showing the 6 laps from the third run all overlaid over each other. The first lap (orange trace) is always shown offset a little. This offset has no affect on the analysis, what is important is that all elevations and distances are still correctly calculated. During the tests that I've done over the last seven days, I've not seen anything close to being as good as this.

Proof of the pudding!

Statistical significance: anything over 95% is very good.

Median values: All agreed with my initial "rough" levelling across all 6 laps of each run.

The results:

Bars highest: 0.293 m^2 CdA

Bars mid position: 0.288 m^2 Cda

Bars lowest: 0.282 m^2 Cda

As a rule of thumb, 0.005 m^2 Cda approximates to 50g of drag or around 5W which in turn very roughly translates as 40 seconds over 25 miles.

I've been racing with my bars in the middle position and I don't know how much power I can produce with them any lower. Given the improvement that I made during the 5 weeks that I rode this bike this year I'd say I can adapt some more. It may also be worth trading power for better aerodynamics to get a real world gain in speed. At least I now know what sorts of figures to consider. I can't wait to do some more testing, but right now I'm going to catch up on some shut eye!

Wind And Traffic ~ Chung Test #2

2009-09-25T11:03:00.006+01:00

I've went back to Pingle Lane, Potters Marston last night for the third time to repeat the same tests as before. The purpose is to get some confidence in my Chung Test methodology. The results were very similar to the past two times but not good enough. Last night, the conditions were different again. More traffic meant that on average I had a passing car on each lap, and there was a tail wind on the reverse leg of the lap. Previously there had been slight cross winds.

I've now got myself an anemometer (£20 from Ebay) to go with my portable weather station. The wind last night was very low and varied between 0mph and 3 mph, but I certainly noticed the difference with slowing down on the reverse leg. I had to knock off the power much earlier in the run to prevent using the brakes on the u-turn.

The CdA results from the tests were in the same ball park as for the last two occasions, and the difference between being aero and sitting up was again similar. However the precision is not sufficient to be able to detect the difference that I need to see.

However, something significant did happen last night. On my last set of laps, the wind speed to start with was varying between 0 and 2mph but at the end of the run it had completely dropped. The above chart clearly showed that the test conditions did indeed change during the run. My conclusion is that you really do need wind and traffic free conditions to notice small changes in CdA. No medals for realising that! The tests I've done do go to show though that it's always worth experimenting in less than ideal conditions, collating the data and allowing a picture to emerge. Something will stand out somewhere along the journey.

The the road that I've been using has an elevation gain of 6m which I mapped out with my GPS. The Chung method's sensitivity can be improved by introducing greater changes in speed. My next trials will be on a different road which has a "V" shaped elevation profile, greater elevation gain (I can get up to greater speeds downhill). I'll also try doing the tests early in the morning before people are up and about in their cars. This afternoon I'm going to measure the lap elevation and distances, very carefully check my tyre roll out lengths and re-calibrate my SRM power meter.

High Intensity Intermittent Exercises ~ Tabata

2009-09-25T08:04:00.004+01:00

If your feeling in the mood for real pain, only have a few minutes for a workout and want the maximum return for your effort (both anaerobic and aerobically) do some Tabata intervals . They are on my list of possible things to do next year so this extract is of interest. Six or seven 20 second intervals at 170% of VO2 max with only 10 seconds of rest, hmm, I wonder if I can do that!

Aerodynamic Modelling ~ Chung Test #1

2009-09-22T11:03:00.007+01:00

Aerodynamic drag testing is something I promised myself to do this time last year and I've finally got round to having a go. I scoured Google Earth and had four trips out last week in order to find a suitable venue, somewhere relatively traffic free, safe, with good tarmac and suitable for slowing down without using the brakes and for making u-turns. There was a strong wind all week so none of the data that I collected would make any sense but the exercise was useful. It allowed me to learn about the process, practice executing u-turns on my TT bike in the aero position and to set up an Excel spreadsheet to analyse the data. Finally, on Sunday morning I settled on a good section of country lane (Potters Marston Lane) and wind free conditions allowed me to collect some good data.

I've selected the "Virtual Elevation Model" proposed by Robert Chung as a method for determining CdA (you may need to be a member of the Google Wattage forum in order to view the link). I've spent a good deal of time on various forums gleaning as much information about the process as I can, but there is still no substitute to getting out there, having a go and learning from your mistakes.

The course that I used has a "U" shaped elevation profile that allows me to slow down whilst still applying pressure to the pedals, make controlled u-turns and return to make continuous laps. I have good sight of any traffic (there's only a few cars) and can judge my speed to avoid it without using the brakes and whilst still maintaining an aero position on the tri-bars of my TT bike.

On Sunday morning I was interested in proving out my test protocol rather than trying to test variations of position, so I made two sets of laps, one sitting upright on the base bars and the other on the tribars in the aero position.

The above graph shows the elevation plot for one of the runs (though I actually did 8 laps per run). The model calculates the elevation profile for the laps using speed and power data. It also requires that you enter values for variables of rider + bike mass, atmospheric conditions (pressure, humidity, temperature) and tyre rolling resistance. I also downloaded data from my GPS and checked it against the above graph. It showed that lap lengths and elevation gained matched up extremely well.

I then separated out the individual laps and resolved the model to give me a CdA value for each lap. I did some statistical checks on the CdA values for both sets of laps and the data looks to be good with clear water between both tests. The aero position has a much lower median CdA value and there were no anomalies in any of the data . The following graph shows all six laps of one set plotted on top of each other after they have all been resolved in the model:

This was a heartening start to a new line of investigation.

Last night there was a breeze and I repeated the same exercise with the following result:

I cannot resolve these laps, there is clearly some disturbance in the data and the elevation gained on the laps is incorrect. I suspect that the wind was assisting in one direction and the model sees it as a change in elevation. As is to be expected, wind is the main enemy when trying to perform these tests. My next step is to wait for calm conditions and repeat these initial tests then start to attempt looking for real CdA improvements on my TT bike.

Some New Goals For The Winter

2009-09-21T12:56:00.003+01:00

Just because it's the "off-season", it doesn't mean that you can't have some appropriate goals that will help make next year better. I've been making some that include the following:

To ride my TT bike at least once a fortnight throughout the winter;
To loose some weight, target 11st 10lb;
To stretch regularly, in particular to increase flexibility of shoulders, hips and back;
To get in a routine of lifting weights and doing plyometrics twice a week;
To get some good hill walks done;
To research and reduce my CdA (aerodynamic drag) on my TT bike;

...... you gain confidence by achieving reachable goals!

Autumn Evening Ride

2009-09-18T09:13:00.002+01:00

Well Autumn has well and truly arrived! We've got cooler evenings and it was dark when I got home last night. Phil and I met up with Matt Barrett and lo and behold, Martin Webster turned up to. It was Martin's first ride with us since his accident in early May. He says he's trying to get fit in order to train with us in November! I've no idea what he might mean :). Matt was steaming, fully enthused with his cyclo cross season, he piled on the pressure on the hills and kept a good tempo on the flats. Phil and I (well Phil mostly) took it in turns to ride along side him. For once, I enjoyed riding at the back though I was still putting out 400W plus in places. It was enjoyable and gave my legs a bit of a blow out. I went for another walk on Wednesday evening, well 1 mile with almost 600ft of ascent and descent and my calves and the tops of my thighs were mighty sore!

How Fast!~ Bicycle Land Speed Record

2009-09-18T09:08:00.002+01:00

"Sam Whittingham and Barbara Bautois pedaled recumbent bikes to the records on Nevada Route 305 near Battle Mountain, about 220 miles northeast of Reno.

The 32-year-old Bautois’ speed of 72.5 miles per hour Wednesday night broke the women’s record, set in 2005, by 6 mph.

The 37-year-old Whittingham’s speed of 82.4 miles per hour Tuesday eclipsed the men’s record he set last year by 0.1 mph.

Nearly two dozen cyclists from around the world are taking part in the 10th annual event through Saturday.

Organizers say one of the world’s straightest, flattest and smoothest surfaces helps bikers pick up speeds before being timed over a 200-meter distance."

Source: Yahoo Sports

I'm not part of your race!

2009-09-16T10:32:00.003+01:00

I missed this and with 6520 ratings it's been around for a while. If you can't see it in full width, click on the video to open it up in You Tube.

Letting Go

2009-09-13T19:06:00.002+01:00

The first couple of weeks after the last race of the season are always hard. Hopefully, you've gained so much strength, ability and form during the season, but now you have to give it up. It's difficult. I've only race 14 times this season, but as followers of this blog will know, I've made those events count by finishing in the prize money for all races except for 2 that I didn't finish. I've trained very hard in order to get the results that I have. It's been a successful season, one that I've enjoyed and where I've achieved my goals. Mentally though I've had enough, I couldn't face any more intense training and I need time to climb back into my hole and recharge.

Shirley and I went for a very pleasant couple of laps walking around Croft Quarry this morning. My photographic project on this local nature reserve has proceeded well during the year, but in recent weeks I've not seen too much to capture my eye. Nature has got tired as the summer wanes, the greens are dull and drab and no longer have the vibrancy of spring, plants have come and gone and there is change in the air. I voiced my emotional trauma of letting go of fitness to Shirley. She understood what I meant and immediately drew an analogy to what we were witnessing in nature. Young trees would soon be shedding their summer glory, withdrawing their energy but shooting forth next spring stronger and more established. Even older trees still grow and produce new growth. They were wise words!

So it is with fitness. I could not continue to train with the amount of high intensity that I have during the last few weeks. It's time to look back over the season and to consider what I've learnt, to discover what I was successful in (and I don't meant in races) and to decide what I want to achieve next year (of which I have an embryo of intention). It's time to back off mentally and to do some other things whilst still looking after myself physically. That means reduced time on the bike, cross training and being careful with my diet. It's time to research how I want to approach the winter months in order to build a better and more appropriate foundation for intensive training next season. In fact I'm REALLY looking forward to the next few weeks. At some point you have to go slower in order to become faster and next year this old tree will still grow new shoots!

British Time Trial Championships ~ Last Post!

2009-09-07T22:39:00.005+01:00

Spotted on the circuit, this car could only belong to a British time triallist!

Wiggins was something to behold and I really couldn't believe how fast a bike could go along a country lane, it was jaw dropping. I completely forgot about waiting to see our domestic super hero Michael Hutchinson on the last lap who looked pedestrian in comparison.

What was interesting was the amount of times that Wiggins whipped up his pace with out of the saddle efforts. On short climbs (like this railway bridge) and out of the corners he just stomped away. However, on the main but short climb of the day, with the smoothest of actions he'd change gears to the little ring, stay seated and simply zoom upwards with high cadence. There isn't another word to use but "zoom". He was the only rider that I saw who made use of the little ring and now I wish I had too: it was all too easy to rise into a level 6 effort.

Matt Bottrill was a silly boy after being caught at about 12 miles for 2 minutes. This picture was taken at around 28 miles and Bottrill was still hanging onto Wiggins' back wheel, Bottrill's mouth was open and with sweat visibly spilling out of him. Wiggins later twittered "I hope Matt Bottrill enjoyed his motor pacing session". Needless to say Bottrill was disqualified and in my opinion should face further disciplinary action.

My race was over 2 laps, whereas Wiggins completed 3 laps. Over his first 2 laps he was 6 mins 58 secs faster than me! Make that 8-9 minutes if he'd only done the 2 laps ~ what can you say but "wow!".

Wiggins' starting effort, smooth as silk, straight as an arrow and soon disappearing out of sight and I'm not exaggerating.

Emma Pooley, another world class athlete, silver medalist in the Olympic time trial. How small is she? Her power to weight ratio must be phenomenal! She got gold, raced over 2 laps and beat me by 64 seconds. The silver medalist Wendy Houvenaghel, gold medalist in the Olympic Pursuit beat me by 34 secs, and I tied with the winner of bronze, our domestic queen of time trials Julie Shaw.

Bike checking to UCI regulations. Note the high tech measuring gauge, a cunningly shaped piece of wood with a spirit level. Also in use was a pair of verniers used for checking aero foil cross sections. Around 1 in 3 competitors were told to make adjustments, a seat to be put back 5 or 6 cms, 8 cms to be lost off bar extensions and padding to be added to base bars were all common instructions. One young competitor (rather well spoken, cocky and sure of himself ~ you know the type) tried to have an argument. "Have you got a copy of the rules?" he asked the UCI Commissaire and proceeded to request morphological exemption. The UCI Commissaire responded with great control and calmly told the lad that he didn't need to be quoted rules, had been 15 years in the post and that the bike needed to be sorted out before anyone competed on it! In contrast, Michael Hutchinson rolled up with a bike that was precisely set up and on the limits with a "someone knows what they were doing" comment from the commissaire!

The day was great and it was simply the best event that I have ever taken part in. The organiser and the North Bucks Road Club did themselves proud and have set a very high target for all who follow. Podium girls, flowers, music, good headquarters, warm up routes, signage, marshals and many other things made it good. Only the spectators let the side down by thoughtlessly and parking on the course in preference to walking a couple of minutes from more than adequate car parking facilities ~ you'd expect more from active people.

The last thing that was really good was receiving a tap on the shoulder, turning round and meeting Darryl Webster who I hadn't seen for many years. He had spotted me across the crowd and sought me out. Later, in his role as guest of honour and presenter of medals he said "you old dog you, still up there then!", coming from an ex multi national champion and continental professional and in front of the crowd that made me feel extra good!

British Time Trial Championships ~ Race Day!

2009-09-07T12:56:00.011+01:00

After winning the VC Nottingham RR and subsequently feeling rather run down I had an easy week before launching into 3 weeks of very hard intervals, one open 25m time trial and an open 10m time trial both for much needed practice. All my training was done on my time trial bike in the aero position and I had a bit of difficulty adapting to it but the power gradually got better. Interval sessions were a mix of supra-threshold and high end VO2max and took some recovering from. Just over a week ago I was feeling the negative effects of extremely hard training again, a sure sign being the onset of a second bout of painful mouth ulcers this summer. Last week I tapered for the first time ever with a little intensity (but not too much), my mind played tricks with me and physically I didn't feel good at all. After a complete rest day on Friday, I had a 2 hour steady/hard ride on Saturday morning and in the evening spent some time meditating to Josh Horowitz's "Ultimate Cyclist" mind training CD. It helped, cleared my mind for the following day and I slept well that night.

I'd reconnoitered the TT course during the week, knew exactly where I was going to park off the circuit (but only 4 minutes ride from the start), warm up and had worked out a time schedule from arriving at 9:15 to my start slot at 10:59. It went like clockwork, I ate my last jam roll with two hours to go, and then continually sipped an energy drink, I was away from other competitors and had no distractions to contend with whilst going through my preparations. I'd also made sure that all my gear was organised and that I had everything was to hand in the order that I needed it. Just as I started my preparations I got a text from Phil with words of encouragement which was exactly what I needed.

I would have been disappointed with a bronze medal, pleased with a silver but didn't really expect to win gold. Geoff Platts was the seeded favourite and an extremely experienced rider but I reasoned that he might not turn up or he could have a bad day. I'd also had difficulty deciding on a race strategy too. Given how I'd felt during the week, I half expected to be pushed to ride at what I thought was my TT bike threshold pace of 320W for the first lap then trying to push harder for the second lap. It seemed like the best plan, though a little voice was telling me to wait and see but just not go crazy. On Saturday, I had mentally washed away all the negative thoughts I'd had last week, I knew that I couldn't have prepared better either in training or on the day and my ultimate goal was to make sure that I'd did my absolute best.

I lined up at the start and right on cue Geoff Platts rode by looking good. I settled into some deep breathing and calmed myself and before I knew it I was off down the road watching average watts on the power meter. At 5 miles I'd averaged 330W and was feeling much better than I'd anticipated, I wasn't going flat out so I carried on to complete the first lap (10 miles) at the same pace. Over the hill I had a swig of my drink and began mentally shouting at myself that this was a national championship and that there was no holding back, I switched the average power display off and just concentrated on "getting it all out". I didn't look at the power meter after that but just focused on a spot further up the road, on cadence and on effort. With a couple of miles still to go I sensed myself starting to fade but with the words "national champs" loud in my mind I picked up the pace again, made a big effort up the final hill and over the top to the finish line. A quick check of average power showed 332W and I knew for sure that I really had done my best: 47 minutes at 332W was an all time record for me (probably 329W FTP) and I was very, very pleased.

I had to double check the results board and didn't really believe that I'd been the fastest "over 50's rider" until I was asked to take the top step of the podium ~ talk about elation! After a phone call to Shirley, then another to Phil I set off for a very enjoyable afternoon to watch the main events of the day, the ladies and senior tim trials of which I'll report in another post.

The power data didn't reveal anything else particularly interesting, cadence was 101rpm which was good as I pedal faster when trying rather than pushing harder. VI was 1.01, the first lap was 334W and the second 329W so not text book pacing! The masters event ranged from 30 years and upwards and overall I was 26th out of a total of 126 starters. The winner, Jeff Jones, was 2min 16secs faster than me. Notable scalps for me for Andrew Meilak, Colin Parkinson, Andy Eagers, Roger Iddles and of course Geoff Platts.

I would like to thank Shirley who has patiently put up with another season of cycle racing. I've told her that it was only 14 races this year but she says that it didn't make any difference! At this level in the sport it is only a personal endeavour, one that I take too seriously at times but Shirley never steps on my dreams and she provides much needed balance when I need it most. Thanks also to Phil who puts up with my sometimes excessive power based training experiments, frequently provides me with his considerable experience and is a good cycling companion. Lastly, it was the Welland Valley's club coach, Dave Birch who sowed the seeds for entering this event. At the end of my 2007 season, Dave suggested it could be an event to enter but I wasn't brave enough to have a go last year. I don't think I would have considered it if it hadn't have been for Dave as I don't really understand the contents of the CTT handbook!

------------------------------

Power file (1 min smoothing applied):

Red line: I wore a HRM belt! Max 173, average 170 bpm. No decoupling that I can detect unless you want to count constant bpm with a 1% drop in power on the second lap.

Green line: Cadence, max 123, average 101rpm (100 is my natural cadence)

Yellow line: Power, faded from around 38 mins but really drilled it up and over the final hill. Dotted lines are level 4 (threshold) limits for 329W FTP. I've seen an 11% increase in power over 4 weeks of riding my TT bike which matched (maybe slightly bettered) what I had achieved on my road bike.

Orange line: Altitude, course was rolling with one appreciably steep section, 3 junctions, two of which required coasting and one tight bend. Road surface was poor in many places with potholes, and both sunken and raised repairs. For the first time this year I ditched carrying a spare tubular and even removed my speed sensor from the forks in order to save some watts! Conditions were mild with a rising breeze.

British Time Trial Championships

2009-09-06T19:44:00.003+01:00

Look Shirley, I've got some loot!

It's 7.30pm, I've just got home and it's been a very long day. My last event of the season and I won the gold medal in my age group. Needless to say, I'm euphoric and am at this moment enjoying a beer! I'm very tired so you'll have to excuse me as I'll leave the full report until tomorrow.

Brake Blocks (Pads) For Zipp Carbon Wheels

2009-09-04T17:02:00.003+01:00

I just thought I'd share my experiences with the brake blocks that I use on my road and time trial bikes. I race exclusively on Zipp tubular wheels, 404, 808 or a 909 disc. When I use either of these bikes for training or for warming up at an event I use a pair of aluminium rimmed Mavic wheels.

With carbon rims it's important to use brake blocks that are specifically designed for the purpose and there are many types out there; the performance of which are all discussed at length on the various cycling forums. In addition, some riders will say that you should swap your brake blocks if you decide to use aluminium wheels and in certain instances this is true. For example, my experience with Shimano's Dura Ace 7700 Carbon blocks is that they work well both in the wet and dry and on both aluminium and carbon rims. The problem that I saw was that if you use them on aluminium rims, small particles of rim material become embedded in the block. The blocks will then become very effective abrasive pads when used on a carbon wheel and should therefore be reserved just for race day.

I don't like the inconvenience of swapping brake blocks and prefer to change just the wheels. Fortunately Zipp carbon rimmed blocks perform quite differently. Again, they work well in all weather conditions and on both types of rims, however they wear in a completely different manner. Whereas the Dura Ace blocks seem to behave like a conventional block by melting and smearing themselves on an aluminium rim, the Zipp offerings are made of a material (the sales blurb talks about all sorts of high tech stuff) that turns to dust in preference to melting. The little reported advantage of this is that foreign particles do not seem to become embedded in their surface and a carbon wheel's life is subsequently not compromised. A pair of Zipp blocks last me a season on either bike which probably is not that good a life at £19 a pair, but they are very convenient and I am completely relaxed in using the same blocks for any of my wheels.

A Funny Old Week

2009-09-03T20:36:00.002+01:00

It's been a strange week of biking and I'm not quite sure of what to make of it. It was to be a week of holding back, but in the event that has not been a problem in the slightest. On Monday I did a few fast cadence intervals of around 5 minutes each at 95% and 110rpm. Tuesday I went out with the plan of completing JUST 4 six minute intervals at just over threshold, I did three and the fourth was a bit of an effort so holding back wasn't a problem, and yesterday I did 4 three minute intervals at 115%. Today I did two laps around next Sunday's time trial course and again, two 20 minute efforts at 90% felt like a lot of effort. I'm going to have a complete rest day tomorrow and intend to follow that up with a steady but easy couple of hours riding on Saturday.

I'm really ready for a rest from intense training and I don't want to think about another interval again for quite some time. Sunday will have to take it's chances, either I'll be able to put in a respectable performance or I'll be just there to enjoy the day, to watch Bradley Wiggins in action and to cheer on local time trialling ace Mat Bottrill. I've put out some decent wattage numbers during the last month, and whilst it's possible that I started intense intervals maybe a week too early there's no way I've lost too much fitness in the last week so it must be in my mind. I'm not tired, have had plenty of sleep over the last few days and I'm not feeling physically weary. My CTL has dropped from 105 to 95 tss/day over the last four weeks: I had an easy week after my last road race when I felt a bit run down, then I've done nothing but hard intervals for the last three weeks when you would expect a further CTL decay. TSB is currently sitting at +7 and I think I've done everything right to make this week a final taper (maintaining some intensity but with reduced duration and all rides less than current CTL).

I had hoped that I'd feel as if I was really "buzzing" but I don't, I kept trying to visualise doing some good (but cut down) interval sessions this week but they haven't happened. Now it's just a matter of riding on Sunday and doing my best on the day as I can't do any more in terms of preparation.

Jack's Last Laugh

2009-08-31T16:21:00.007+01:00

Family and friends of Jack Coe met today at the Six Hills Cafe, to witness his ashes being scattered along the verge of the A46 on the Six Hills. The Leicester Forest CC evening events, open time trials, the Six Hills and Jack are synonymous and it was his wish that this final act should be carried out. For many, many years Jack used to ride out to the Six Hills cafe every Wednesday with "the lads".

Steve (Spilly) Hill had been charged with the solemn responsibility of riding Jack's bike to the cafe. The bike arrived, cleaned and polished with it's Campagnolo chainset gleaming in the sunlight. Steve however, looked a little glum and it turned out that on the journey, true to his nickname of Spilly, he had suffered a mishap. His false teeth had fallen out en route and subsequently broken in two. Normally he doesn't bother with them, but on this occasion he was under strict instruction to look as well turned out as the bike he had to ride. Joan, Jack's widow was delighted with the turnout as well as with Steve's tale of woe. It was widely accepted that Jack would have been highly amused!

Afterwards, we all rode on to another of Jack's haunts, the Lakeview Cafe at Holwell, where we enjoyed good food, plenty of reminiscing and a lot of laughs. Steve, however, due to his incapacitated state was disappointed in not being able to partake of his normal bacon sandwich. Afterwards, we had a very enjoyable ride through the lanes back to Leicester.

I never cycle along the A46 these days, but when I pass the Six Hills Cafe in the car I'll always spare a thought for Jack.

The A46, 20 years ago a good training route where two abreast was never a problem. Time trials are still held here but it is a very busy road.

Jack's last bike, one that he was proud of but hardly got to ride it.

Steve, saying a few emotional words prior to Jack's ashes being scattered.

Lincolnshire RRA 10 mile TT

2009-08-29T19:59:00.002+01:00

A cracking 10 mile course just north of Lincoln (C10/28), straight out and back along a B road, a simple turn at a small and very well marshaled roundabout, with not a very good road surface if your only interested in going fast and a few ups and downs despite it being in Lincolnshire. The course ran along the edge of an escarpment of hills overlooking an extremely attractive view of extensive flat lands stretching out to the west. A strong cross wind was blowing in from the flat lands and the course was exposed in most places which persuaded me to use a Zipp 404 front wheel in preference to my deeper 808. The event was also the Lincolnshire RRA championship and it had attracted an unusually (for a sporting sourse: so I was told) good field of 93 riders.

I used this event as a dress rehearsal for next week's British Time Trial Championships and as a further opportunity to hone my TT skills. It went well..... very well infact. I averaged 339W to the roundabout and 357W on the return leg. That gave me 349W (109%) for both average and normalised power (VI was excellent at 1.0). The only criticism that I have of my performance was that my concentration during the last 5 minutes was not sufficiently focused on effort. In training I have done better and I will spend some time during the next few days visualising how I must feel over the last quarter of a time trial. Incidentally 349W is my highest ever 20 minute effort, on a road bike or a time trial bike! I warmed up on my road bike and it felt strange in the same way as my TT bike felt when I first started using it a few weeks ago.

The results were as follows:

Julian Ramsbottom (senior) 20:33 ~ how do you go that fast!

Ian Dalton (42 year old) 21:31

Patrick Owen (senior) 21:35

Marc Mallender (senior) 21:44

Me (50 yr old) 21:45

Needless to say, I am very pleased with today's power figures and with my final placing in only my second open time trial of 2009 against younger guys who specialise in this discipline.

10 mile time trials take a bit of practice and I really wasn't sure how hard to try for the first half. Today's average power figures suggest that my FTP on my TT bike has improved over the last 3 weeks and may now be between 325 and 330W.

Other things that today reminded me about for next week were:

- get an early fix of the time keepers time and synchronise my watch.

- spend time visualising the different segments of the time trial, effort, concentration etc.

- work out the journey time and allow 2 hours to warm up and get ready (90 mins wasn't enough)

- change my shoe cleats (they are looking a bit warm)

- warm up on my TT bike (it takes time for the SRM offset to stabilise)

Otherwise everything else was good!

Intervals Of Ascending Intensity

2009-08-27T13:05:00.006+01:00

The last block of intensive training ~ for this season at least! After a weekend of rest following last week's sessions, I completed a great new workout on Monday, pushed myself through 40 minutes of sub-threshold on Tuesday (it was as much as I could do to hang on to a 304W average) and repeated Monday's session again tonight.

I wanted a workout that was different to the super-threshold and Vo2max intervals that I've been doing the last couple of weeks. I also wanted to challenge myself to work more intensely in the second half of a training session as the 25 mile time trial two weeks ago showed that I was lacking in this respect.

Here are tonight's figures which are based around my FTP on my time trial bike. All the intervals were done on the tri bars in the aero position and I focused hard and managed to maintain a steady average power output from the beginning to the end of each one:

20 minutes at 101% (322W), 5 minutes rest.

10 minutes at 107% (341W), 5 minutes rest.

5 minutes at 115% (369W), 5 minutes rest.

2 minutes as hard as I could which was 392W or 121%

The workout took 52 minutes with an overall intensity of 97%, however this belies how hard it was. This year I have completely banished my fear of Vo2max intervals: last week I rolled off 24 minutes worth at 380W without a problem. However, in tonight's workout, the 5 minute interval felt unbelievably hard as what had preceded it seriously affected my ability to maintain just 369W (I'd been aiming for 370W!). This is one workout that is going down in the book for next year!

On Tuesday, after Monday night my legs were sore, and tonight I just know that they are going to be bad tomorrow. It's daft how punishing yourself can make you feel so smug!

I've got a 10 mile time trial on Saturday which is a dress rehearsal for my final event of the year on the 6th of September. The next few days will be about trying to practice a few time trial skills, get some rest and ride a few miles with a little bit of intensity thrown in.

UCI World Road Championships

2009-08-26T19:08:00.003+01:00

On the 16th of August 1970 the UCI world championship road race finished at Mallory Park, only five miles away from where I now live. The race was won by Jean-Pierre Monsere. Sadly, the following March, Monsere was killed in an accident with a car.

I frequently cycle past the gateway shown in the above picture. The road race passed through the local Leicestershire villages and finished on the Mallory Park motor racing circuit. The tarmac road shown in the picture was constructed solely for the purposes of the race in order to link the road from Sutton Cheney to the racing circuit. Today it just forms part of a field that is used for grazing. When I pass it, I often imagine what it must have been like, quite different from today's scene! At the time I was only 11 years of age lived in Nottingham and knew nothing of the world of cycle racing.

Hail Rayner The Champ! ~ LVRC National RR Championships

2009-08-24T07:08:00.003+01:00

Phil's winning move (photo courtesy of Steve Sayers)

Rob Blackburn, Phil Rayner, Andy Eagers

Yesterday, Phil Rayner in his inimitable style and with true class won the LVRC National Championship Road Race for the B age group (45-49 year olds). In hs words:

"Everyone was watching me and Paul Stubbs and after several skirmishes on the 1st lap Andy Eagers got away with Colin Roshier and three others (one was the nat crit champ from the Hillingdon CC). Paul Stubbs and I tried many times to get away but you know how it is when everyone gets chased down. The gap however never got more than 70 seconds as about 6 of us kept the pace high. This went on for the rest of the race and on the last lap we could see the break on the finish hill. After working hard I felt rough with 2 [laps] to go so I went to the back for a rest and gobbled all my gels. I had decided to put in one big attack from Bruntingthorpe to Walton after the hill on the last lap and only Tim Booth came with me (who was riding very well).
We caught the break with a km to go, I went to the front and rode hard up the steep part of the hill with Roshier and Eagers along side then around the bend geared up to the 15 cog and went for it and won easily with the remnants of the bunch coming up behind very quickly. Andy Eagers did well to hang on for 3rd."

Congratulations Phil!

Cycling 1895 Style #2 ~ A Bed For The Night

2009-08-21T10:38:00.004+01:00

Late in the 19th Century there was change in the air for the traveller. Inns had a tough time of it but by creating affiliation with the newly formed Cycle Tourist Club, new opportunities were created:

"The proprietor of a C. T. C. house enters into a contract with the club, specifying that he will at all times receive and entertain any members of the club, whether ladies or gentlemen, who produce a valid ticket of membership for the then current year, and that he will charge them a tariff of prices, which the contract then proceeds to set forth. These agreements are mutually beneficial. They suit the innkeeper, because to him it means practically the monopoly of the trade to be done with cyclists, the number of whom would hardly be believed. Many hotels fell into sleepiness and decay when railroads took the place of coaches, and have now through the medium of cycling tourists revived, and do a profitable business, though teams of galloping posters have disappeared for ever. But the arrangement is by no means one-sided. The cyclist also profits by it. He is a new creation; his wants are novel and strange, and a specimen of the class descending on an hotel not specially prepared for his reception would probably cause more consternation than delight. The cyclist's hours are uncertain ; he is as likely as not to arrive in the middle of the night, or long before breakfast. Whatever the hour of his arrival, he is quite certain to be very tired, very hungry, and very hot. He will have very little luggage: and though he should arrive at midday, he will certainly want to go to bed; not necessarily to sleep, but for the practical reason that bed is the best place for him to wait in while his clothes are being dried. To the good people at a cycling inn, these vagaries are the merest matters of routine; equally a matter of course is the request of the guest to be called and have breakfast ready at an unearthly hour of the morning; for the favourite plan of the younger spirits, who go careering over the country at the rate of eighty or a hundred miles a day, is to get over thirty or forty of them before breakfast."

From "Cycling", The Badminton Library Of Sports and Pastimes, 1895 by the Earl Of Albemarle and G Lacy Hillier.

Time Trial Bike Position

2009-08-20T21:50:00.004+01:00

Jason Swann of the Nottingham Clarion, the club that promoted last Sunday's 25 mile time trial, kindly sent me these images that he took. They are very timely and it was great that he had captured both side and head on shots of me in my racing position. Thanks Jason, much appreciated!

I'd made a couple of modifications to my helmet so that it sat higher up on my forehead and it looks like I managed to achieve my objective of getting the tail to sit closer to my back. I tried quite hard to concentrate on keeping my head up rather than tipping the helmet vertically. It was a case of looking down at my power meter by moving only my eyes which I'd made easier by positioning the meter about 50mm further forward on the tri-bars than it had been.

The bars are now 30mm lower and have felt fine this week. I had no problems on Tuesday, neither tonight with 24 minutes worth of level 5 all at 375W. I'll try going lower again this weekend.

Three sessions of high intensity training in five days have left me ready for a rest so the next two days are going to be very easy. I've no need to worry about maintaining training load (CTL) any longer as I'm very near to the end of my racing season, it's more a matter of trying to fit as much speed work of a suitable type and rest into my time as I can manage.

The Green Bicycle Murder

2009-08-19T10:48:00.003+01:00

Ronald Light's Bicycle

On the 23rd of August, British Cycling's Skyride have an organised cycle event, from Leicester, that will retrace the route and events of the infamous 1919 Green Bicycle Murder that was never solved after the chief suspect was acquitted.

An account of the case with pictures

http://www.leicesterchronicler.com/greenbicycle.htm

Newspaper articles from 1920:

http://www.leicestershirevillages.com/gaulby/newspaper-articles-of-the-green.html

40 Minutes Of Threshold With Negative Splits

2009-08-18T20:18:00.004+01:00

Probably my best paced session ever!

Following Sunday's time trial, I wanted to complete a workout tonight that addressed both pacing and getting used to making a finishing effort at the end of an event. Mindful that the events that I've entered in a couple of weeks time are on sporting courses, I chose to train for 40 minutes over two laps of my small Walton circuit (altitude is shown on the graph by the orange line, cadence green and power yellow). This meant that I would need to factor in the effects of riding up and down hills into my pacing. Sunday effectively gave me a "time trial position FTP" of 320W (which is 2% lower than on "the drops" of my road bike), so I knew that I ought to be able to ride for 40 minutes at greater than 320W. I also didn't feel fully recovered from Sunday so didn't want to push too hard tonight. It made more sense to use today to improve other skills rather than beat myself up physically.

I started out at a conservative pace of around 315W and gradually built up the pace so that I was really making an effort for the last 10 minutes. The average watts for my 10 minute splits were as follows:

0-10 mins 314W NP

10-20 mins 315W NP

20-30 mins 330W NP

30-40 mins 341W NP

Overall normalised power was 326W which ties up perfectly with my "40 min power is 102% of FTP" rule of thumb.

This was a particularly encouraging session on a number of fronts. Pacing was good as were my negative splits in spite of the undulating terrain (VI was 1.01). I also got to practice going around corners at speed whilst maintaining my position on the tri-bars and not touching the brakes. I took time to think about my line around the corners and eased off in order to adjust my speed. I'd also lowered my bars by a good 30mm and didn't detect any loss of power nor felt uncomfortable on the saddle either. My average power was 20W (6%) greater than I was managing on this bike just 6 weeks ago, but better still, 10W higher than I managed on this circuit last year when I was training for Rudy Project events. It's my intention to train intensively on this bike for another couple of weeks, so it will be interesting to see if I can squeeze out any more power.

Notts Clarion 25 Mile Time Trial

2009-08-16T20:17:00.003+01:00

My annual open 25 mile time trial. Despite being on my doorstep, I've never ridden this course before but I really enjoyed it. Held on a circular route around the attractive Vale of Belvoir, it was relatively flat, on quiet country lanes (except for a few miles along one not-so-busy single carriageway A road) with a highly variable quality of road surface and a fairly strong Westerly wind.

Knowing that I couldn't sustain my road bike FTP, but conversely not knowing what I could manage on my time trial bike, I decided to aim for somewhere between 315 and 325W for the first 20 minutes then just try to sustain my effort for the remainder of the ride. I was riding this event purely for myself as opposed to riding it for the purpose of competition's sake. It was really a test to see whether the past three weeks of shorter duration intervals on my time trail bike had worked. It was also an opportunity to test my ability "power wise" on the time trial bike.

At twenty minutes I'd averaged 325W and felt good. Bowling along at 35mph with the rumble of a disc wheel and the whoosh of a front Zipp 808 on a straight country lane was exciting until I had to brake hard and wait for a car to turn right (there was no way around it as the driver waited for an oncoming car to pass before he turned), then later on just at a section of double bends and even narrower lane I came up behind a convoy of farm vehicles, a tractor, a combine harvester as wide as the lane itself, both being led by a Land Rover with flashing amber lights. There was no safe way around them as the bends were all blind and that combine had very large mean looking wheels that seemed to take up the whole width of the road. So much so for entering an event on a low traffic count sporting course! Keeping my objectives in mind, I made the best of the situation and got back underway as soon as I could. Average power had dropped to 320W and stayed at that level for the rest of the ride.

I finished feeling extremely pleased with my effort, knowing that it had been far better than my last outing at the WVCC club event a few weeks ago. The past three weeks worth of intervals that I've done, whilst having been quite an experiment, are certainly working well. The weakness that today exposed was in the closing miles when I would have liked to have been able to "press on harder" rather than just "hold on". But knowledge is power and I now have to think about how to improve in that area. The bike felt very comfortable and I might try to gradually get lower again in order to get out of the wind a bit more.

I was second fastest on the day, being beaten by Lee Tunnicliffe (a 19.58min man for a 10m TT ~ and not a 50 year old vet!) by 14 seconds. I'd also beaten local time trial ace Ashley Long by 40 seconds too. My average speed was exactly 27mph, I'd really enjoyed myself and came away wanting to do more of this sort of thing.

Shimano Hollowtech Bottom Brackets ~ Ultegra, Dura Ace 7800 and 7900

2009-08-13T15:08:00.003+01:00

Some time ago Phil replaced the bearings in a Shimano HollowTech bottom bracket and saved himself a few £. Today, just out of curiosity, I turned myself a two stage mandrel to remove the plastic cover and the bearing out of an Ultegra bottom bracket. It worked very well and didn't leave any marks on the parts. The bottom bracket shells are marked with the words "Do Not Disassemble" though I can't see any mechanical reason for not fitting new bearings provided that proper attention is given to keeping everything square and undamaged. The bearings are readily available and despite the press fit, Shimano also use a Loctite type product to retain them in place. There is also a delicate labyrinth seal under the plastic cover that needs to be carefully cleaned and replaced correctly. I then took a look at a Dura Ace 7800 shell and quickly realised that there was no easy way to disassemble it. Unlike the Ultegra shell, the Dura Ace version which has thicker sections, doesn't allow any sight of the bearing from behind. As a consequence a mandrel can't be used to push the bearing out. Out of interest I weighed both versions and both were identical at 47 grams.

A quick look at the Wiggle website showed that they are no longer stocking the 7800 bottom bracket and the only option is the newer 7900. However, this document shows that the 7900 is compatible with all previous HollowTech cranksets. The 7900 version is said to have new seals that reduce the ingress of foreign matter and also improve rotational smoothness.

Cycling 1895 Style #1 ~ Disliked Cyclists

2009-08-12T13:20:00.003+01:00

"When cycles began to increase and multiply in the land, it

was natural that the riders of them should organise themselves

and assume a corporate existence for mutual support and

defence. This was no doubt a matter of more urgent necessity

in the early days of cycling than it is now. Cyclists were at

first looked upon with distrust, if not with positive dislike. It

is possible that bicyclists, who were the earliest exponents of

the art, were more aggressive and made their presence felt more

acutely than is now the case. It was some time before horses

got accustomed to them, and at first it was the fashion among

some of the younger men to cover their coats with braid and

blow bugles in the streets. The dislike with which they were

regarded, if not deserved by the great majority, was in some

instances sufficiently well merited. But these customs have

long been things of the past. Cyclists now behave with the

decorum of judges on the bench ; the equine race seems to

have made up its mind that there is nothing in it ; and even in

the wildest districts of the country the half-brick of welcome is

now seldom heaved at the cycling stranger.

Though the number of wandering cyclists increases year by

year, it is probable that none of them will ever again undergo

the experience of an early martyr in the cause, who roused the

wrath of the driver and guard of the St. Albans coach ; the

latter worthy provided himself with a lasso, and when the

cyclist tried as aforetime to race the coach, he found himself

dexterously lassoed and dragged in the mud. That guard is

reported to have discovered by practical experience that a

cyclist is a being not outside the protection of the law, and the

incident is generally supposed to have contributed considerably

to the development of the institution, then, and for a short

time afterwards, known as the Bicycle Union, now merged in

the larger and more important body called the National

Cyclists' Union."

From "Cycling", The Badminton Library Of Sports and Pastimes, 1895 by the Earl Of Albemarle and G Lacy Hillier.

TT Tri-Bar Height Versus Power Output

2009-08-11T12:56:00.012+01:00

This video was mentioned on today's post at Cadence Blog. Watching it made me think about my attempts to get comfortable on my time trial bike. After raising my tri-bars on Sunday and lowering my saddle by a full 3mm, I rode at endurance/tempo pace for 90 minutes yesterday evening. I felt far more comfortable and maybe a bit more powerful. I wasn't shifting around on the saddle as I had been and I didn't get sore in the nether regions either. My bike was very comfortable last year and 3mm is a lot of change so maybe I've shrunk!

In the above video, a lower "aero tucked" position reduces the rider's frontal area from 0.65 to 0.61 metres squared. Reversing this wouldn't be too dissimilar to the change that I've made to my base bar position. However, from my recent training sessions I think that I have struggled because of the lower tri-bar and my sustainable power output is down by as much as 5% compared to on my road bike. I never noticed this last year but I had trained on my TT bike from late winter onwards. Last year it was my road racing that suffered as opposed to time trialling ability and I never raised my road bike FTP as high as I have managed to this year.

So I thought, what if a 0.61 frontal area lowers my FTP by say 5%, and 0.65 by 2.5%, which position would be best? Of course it's all hypothetical, but I've run some rough and ready numbers through the Machine Head PowerCalc programme to see the effect of these values. The higher bars at -2.5% of FTP are 44 seconds slower over 25 miles than the lower bars at -5% of FTP. Even if I could ride at my road bike FTP with the higher bars (0.65) I still wouldn't be quite as fast as with the lower bar (0.61) option at -5% of FTP.

So I've got an open mind about what I'm doing with my TT position except that first and foremost I need to be physically comfortable. It's probably a bit beyond my abilities to carry out any meaningful tests, but there is a decision to be made about the trade off of power output in exchange for the benefits of reduced drag. They have always called the time trial the race of truth, meaning the strongest rider wins, but it's the rider with the best balance of strength and aerodynamics that is quickest.

John Cobb's advice is not to assume that lower and narrower tri-bars are better, but to realise that it depends on the rider. He says that the rider who "looks right" isn't necessarily in their optimum position and he has achieved improvements for many competitors by raising the bars. My rather simplistic comparisons assume that a change in position would realise the same aerodynamic differences as the rider in the video. All the same, it's still interesting. Another little snippet from Cobb is that you are better off riding with a bottle on your bike rather than without, see here.

Helmet Pads

2009-08-10T08:56:00.004+01:00

I like to keep a helmet permanently in my racing kit bag so that I don't have to worry about forgetting it, so last year I bought a nice new lightweight Giro helmet just for training. Last week, after I got soaked for the nth time, I decided to wash the flimsy lycra fitted foam pads that serve to line the helmet's inside. One of them disintegrated as I pulled it off but fortunately I remembered that a spare set had been included with the initial purchase. Once the new pads were fitted, I couldn't believe how snug and comfortable the helmet felt as it made a big difference. I'd never thought about it before, but a bit of searching revealed that replacement sets of pads were readily available. I also found out that helmet manufacturers may only support current models as they recommend that you change your helmet every 3 years. Well, I don't know whether my new helmet was purchased at the beginning or the end of it's product life cycle, but I've ordered a couple of spare sets of pads to keep me going for the next couple of seasons. Which reminds me, my winter training helmet must be six years old and I ought to replace it before October.

The Little Person Talks

2009-08-09T14:38:00.009+01:00

This morning, on my way out to Sutton Cheney, I infiltrated a large group of riders from the Coventry Road Club all looking very smart in their blue club strip. One of the "old boys" in the group asked me where I was off to and I explained how I used the long straight lane to Fenny Drayton for time trial intervals. He laughed and said that if we'd got more sense we'd be spending Sunday mornings doing something else, but all cyclists had a "little person" inside them that didn't allow them to just go for a ride. "The little person", he said, "instructs us to push a bit harder and go faster, then when we get home and incapable of anything else for the rest of the day it tells us that we did good." When they turned off in the direction of Shenton he shouted "but don't let your little person get too much the better of you!"

So, another attempt at 8 minute intervals on my TT bike. I managed 5 intervals with 2 minute rest periods at 320/325W before I ordered my "little person" to be quiet, then after 15 minutes I did three 4 minute intervals at 330W with 4 minutes rest. I'm just not rocking and rolling in the aero position like I was doing on my road bike when two weeks ago I did six 8 minute intervals at 340W. The TT bike is certainly testing my muscles differently and the lower power output feels just as hard. I want to at least complete a full set of eight of these intervals, so I'll dial down the watts to a strict 320 maximum next time and see how it goes. I'm hoping to ride a 25 mile time trial next weekend and I still need to fix a target wattage for myself. It certainly isn't going to be anyway near as close as what I recently tested at on my road bike.

The TT saddle has been making me sore as well, so I've lowered it by 3mm and raised the tri-bars up (for the second time) some more. I'll test it out tomorrow and see how it feels. My "little person" is being quite wise and is now telling me not to get too hung up about performance in terms of absolute power output, but to settle on a "do-able" baseline and just get on with making the most of the last few weeks of the season. It should be a period of learning without any self imposed pressure to succeed, an opportunity to enjoy trying some different things out but not over doing it.

Sunny Weather At Last

2009-08-08T18:28:00.002+01:00

It's seems like we've just had rain and more rain this last couple of weeks, so much so that I've got used to putting on wet cycling shoes each morning and evening. Thursday evening was wet, wet and even wetter (but not cold). An hour of sweet spot on my TT bike went by ok, though I could have done with lights as it was so murky. The weather finally broke yesterday afternoon, the sun came out and I had an enjoyable couple of hours on the TT bike in the aero position. I'm still not all that comfortable and don't feel as strong as I am on my road bike.

Today has been great, we went out on the tandem, had a few laughs, stopped at a cafe for lunch but they didn't take debit cards, cycled on to find a bank and were ravenous when we finally got some food. It's just been good to feel the sunshine again.

For Fast Acting Relief Try Slowing Down

2009-08-06T12:55:00.002+01:00

I haven't slept at all well over the last 10 days and after Sunday's race I had a day of extreme tiredness on Monday. I still hadn't recovered on Tuesday when I attempted a threshold interval session. I got half way through my 3rd interval, decided I wasn't up to it and went straight home. It was an easy decision to reschedule this week for "recovery only": I've fulfilled all my road race ambitions for this season and mentally need a change of focus for the remainder of the season. I never used to be able to let myself respond like this, would have kept training and then got run down. That's exactly what I did in March 2008, my training just stagnated, my legs constantly ached and I was always tired. Now, I've learnt that you just have to back off before that happens. A few days away from training doesn't make much difference, and what you loose in fitness you often make up for in mental freshness.

There's still a couple of months left of this season and I just have to decide what I want to do. It will most likely involve my time trial bike which so far has gathered dust for most of 2009. I think that I would like to experiment with some different sorts of training, shorter training sessions, different interval sets etc. I'd better get some planning done with no more two hour 300W+ marathons required!

Power Meter Training ~ FTP Testing

2009-08-05T15:26:00.001+01:00

For really nailing my FTP I favour a 40 minute test. This is not something that you will normally see as an advocated test duration but my reasoning is as follows:

20 minute efforts have a high anaerobic content. You can reduce your anaerobic energy system's contribution prior to starting your test with a 5 minute "all out" blast but you are still left with having to extrapolate your FTP value. With respect to that, you don't really know what percentage of your 20 minute power your FTP is. 95% is often quoted but this varies from person to person dependant on the shape of their mean maximal power curve at the time of the test. By implication therefore it is also dependent on how well developed the various energy systems are at that point in the persons training cycle.

60 minutes efforts are the gold standard. For the best result go and ride a 25 mile time trial where a sub 60 minute ride won't make any difference to the final result. In training though, a 60 minute effort is not only hard but it is difficult to recover from.

40 minutes is just right for me. It also counts as a good threshold workout that I can schedule into my training plan, I can recover from it within 48 hours and I know that my anaerobic energy systems have had a proportionally low contribution to the final average power. I also know from experience that my FTP will be reliably between 98 and 99% of my 40 minute power. I no longer worry about being super accurate in defining my FTP and within 5 watts is good enough. It's what you do with the data that matters and I don't believe that a couple of watts here or there would affect my Performance Management Chart sufficiently and affect decisions that I take about the direction of my training.

I have learnt that a good FTP test should have similar average and normalised power results. In other words, the Variability Index (VI) should be very close to 1.00. This shows good pacing and that there has been a dependence on aerobic energy systems. I treat any results with intensities above 1 (100%+) and higher Variability Indexes with care and more as an indicator that I still need to do a better test. I also need to know that I've finished with nothing left in the tank. Usually I have an idea of what the final result will be and I'll pace myself at very slightly below this for the first 20 minutes. The second 20 minutes is all about either maintaining your average or building up on it, it's time when (hopefully) the average display on the meter slowly builds up by another watt every few minutes. When I'm testing, I've learnt not to watch the meter during this second half of the test. My mind is all too good at regulating my effort with the visual feedback it receives. I get better results if I concentrate intensively on cadence, smoothness, form and on some point in the distance. I'll often count pedal strokes, 5 on the left leg then 5 on the right and am surprised when I look down that see that the average has risen by another watt.

I generally do this test at least three times during the year's training cycle and I don't worry about my training stress balance (TSB) on the day, rather how I feel. I know at the end of the test whether it was a good test or just another level 4 session. In between tests, I've learnt to keep an eye on the power level histograms and intensity factors for appropriate rides and races as these serve as an additional indicators of the need to re-test FTP. I also use the same circuit as I described in the last test for all FTP tests.

Power Meter Training ~ Choice Of Circuits And Pacing

2009-08-03T13:04:00.004+01:00

I've been asked a couple times by fellow LVRC members about my functional threshold power (FTP) testing concerning routes and pacing. There's a whole lot of advice all over the web about power testing and it's difficult to sift through it and arrive at a solution that fits. The training forums are not always helpful either, with members who do know the answers answering questions with a "you ought to do a forum search before asking us that" kind of answer. In an effort to show how I've used my own experience I'll do a number of posts that summarises a lot of the things that I've written about in the past but is rather fragmented within the contents of this blog.

After the first few weeks of using a power meter, I soon realised that in order to train specifically I had to find training routes that matched the demands of the planned training session in terms of terrain and distance. Other important criteria was the desire to use the safest of routes that had good visibility, safe junctions, low volumes of traffic, were suitable for use in the dark and were within easy access of home. This wasn't easy and I had to do a bit of research to identify the best country lanes for the tasks. Most of my training now takes place on the same stretches of tarmac and I know the training stress scores (tss) that each day will yield before I leave home.I also know every pot hole, drain cover and the best line through each bend and corner.

The above map shows my Bitteswell circuit where I now do the majority of my bread and butter threshold sessions as well as FTP tests. Bitteswell is 14 miles and equi-distance from both home and work. The ride out often incorporates some sweet spot riding and the return some sprints or other intensive efforts. There are other straighter, flatter and more ideal roads nearer to home but they are too busy for my liking. The circuit is 5 miles long and has two road junctions, only one of which is a "give way" and it is only very rarely that I ever have to give away to any traffic. Apart from in the wet, all other bends on the circuit are safe and can be taken at speed. The circuit has a total ascent of 155ft and there are only two small hills, the worst of which rises a mere 54 ft over 0.4 miles. The main stretch allows a good 6 minutes totally uninterrupted riding and rises 75 feet over 2 miles (it's also very good for doing level 5 and 6 intervals on other days too). I feel safe using these lanes in the dark and the are only occasional cars to be seen.

To train your threshold power and use your time most effectively you need to ride in your threshold zones. When I do workouts aimed at improving this area I try to spend as much time as possible in zone which means taking care on both uphill and downhill sections. This is not as easy a pacing task as it would be on the indoor trainer and requires skills to be learnt and old habits to be unlearnt. However, that helps pass the time and makes a 40 minute effort pass more quickly! I like to use the average power display on my meter in order to keep my starting effort in check, to prevent me pushing too hard uphill and then to maintain the effort downhill too. Starting efforts and downhill power are what most people seem to find difficult and intuitively our minds tell us something different to what the power meter shows. However, if the target is to maintain an isopower output then it has to be mastered. If I concentrate really carefully, I can maintain level 4 in all places on the circuit except for the two corners.

There's also a lot of talk about 20 + 20 minute interval sets. As I understand it, Dr Coggan used a stretch of suitable road for threshold training that required either a dead turn or a roundabout (I can't remember which) after 20 minutes and before returning. His intent was to complete 40 minutes worth of level 4 training, not 20 minutes plus another 20 minutes. The science shows that 40 minutes will promote a degree physical adaption whereas say 20 minutes will do little more than maintain current abilities. Longer than 40 minutes is unlikely to produce pro-rata improvements in power but would have other benefits provided that you can recover rapidly enough to carry on training within an appropriate time frame. I have found that I can do successful 40 minute sessions on two consecutive days provided that my training stress score for the first day is not greater than 150 points.

VC Nottingham Road Race ~ Win #5 2009

2009-08-02T16:47:00.004+01:00

I don't know how it happens, but the Velo Club Nottingham always have good weather for their event. After yesterday's drizzle, storms and very dull conditions, a clear blue sky this morning was very welcome. I had even left off washing my bike until today to see whether it was worth doing it or not! I always enjoy this event, it's only 40 minutes drive from home and is on good lanes, relatively flat but with a tough drag up to the finish and only one other small hill to attack on. There is always a wind blowing and the open lanes tend to make this a deciding factor in the race.

Our race started very slowly, so slow in fact that we got caught and passed by the 60+ year old riders. I decided that we had to get by them before we could start to race properly and led our bunch back past. The racing still didn't pick up and I think we nearly got caught again. I had a few little digs but I was being very heavily marked and it was clear that today I had to employ some different tactics. I sat back in the bunch and sure enough two riders were allowed to escape. I knew that I could attack at the bottom of the main drag and catch them and in doing so a break of seven riders formed. The break lasted 20 miles but it wasn't going hard enough and on the straight sections we were dangling in front of the bunch. I knew that we would be caught so I made a soft attack on the drag in the hope that a smaller break would be left but it didn't work. I'd disrupted what rhythm there had been in the break and no one now wanted to work together, I even got told that if I hadn't attacked we would have stayed away! I waited until we were just getting caught and could see the first riders just starting to relax because "they'd managed it" and I made an all out effort, up a hill, round a left hand bend and then couple of miles of maximal all out effort assisted by a tail wind. Only Gary Hill had managed to latch onto my wheel and we were soon out of sight. Gary came through a couple of times and then told me that it was my race. I agreed to tow him round provided that he didn't contest me at the finish. After two and a half laps of flat out riding I left Gary on the drag to cross the line for my fifth win of this season. Gary came over the line next to take the first placed D category rider in only his second event of the year.

In terms of power file analysis, there's not much to say, except that the winning move was really a repeat of one of the level 5 intervals that I've been doing this last couple of weeks. I could see riders struggling to cross over to me and I knew that by riding flat out for around 4 minutes, assisted by by wind that there was little hope of them managing it. It would have been difficult for me too if someone else would have taken the initiative. Attacking just as a break gets caught is also good. Those in the break had been making an effort and I was later told that the bunch had been working hard together to catch us. That also meant that those riders also needed a bit of a "breather" too. Having the knowledge that I could ride very hard in training for a few minutes and then recover enough to ride at threshold is an big boost to my confidence too.

Thursday Night ~ Up A Notch

2009-07-30T20:17:00.005+01:00

After heavy storms this afternoon, Phil and I had a very nice sunny evening albeit with a stiff westerly wind. We started with some more level 5 intervals and followed up with a 40 minute sub-threshold session. This week I only did 20 minutes worth of intervals at level five, but I targeted 395W which was 10W higher than the last two weeks. This gave me an 120% intensity in line with my recalculated training zones as per my new FTP. Obviously the intervals were harder to do and maintaining a hard sub-threshold pace afterwards was equally difficult but very satisfying: as Phil said "just like the final break in a road race", which was a coincidence because that was what it was meant to be like!

Five 4 minute intervals with 4.5 minute rest periods (that's just how long it took to get back to the bottom of the drag), intensities of 120%, 120%, 120%, 119% and 116%. Then 40 minutes of sub-threshold at 96% (316W) with a bit of "through and off" thrown in. Overall 2 hours at a normalised power of 296W. 206tss for the day.

Functional Threshold Power Test (FTP) ~ A New Record

2009-07-29T12:10:00.006+01:00

Yellow: power

Orange: altitude

Blue: speed

Green: cadence

Sunday's interval set told me that I needed to do a functional threshold power (FTP) test as my normalised power over 1 hour at 325W was 3% higher than the 315W that I've been using for my FTP since returning from my May holiday.

Last night I rode out to the Bitteswell circuit and over 3 laps and on dry roads was able to complete a good 40 minute test. It was a solo effort and I reasoned that given the power levels that I'd been working at last week I should aim for around 330W. I was very careful to concentrate on pacing and after the first 10 minutes of controlling power output, I concentrated solely on effort, pedalling form and maintaining a smooth style. I checked my SRM offset before and after the test and it dropped by only 2Hz. That difference is negligible and errs on the side of under reporting power by a very small amount.

The above power trace reported the following: 40 minutes with normalised power 335W, average power also 335W (VI 1.0) and average cadence 100rpm. First 20 minutes 334W, second 20 minutes 336W.

Since owning a power meter, this is the highest set of numbers that I have EVER seen for a 40 minute effort and gives me a new functional power level. Cadence was ideal, I never once over cooked myself on the hills and maintained my effort on the descents which resulted in the variability index (VI) of 1.0. The fact that both average and normalised power values are equal makes me very confident about accepting the test results. The effort only really told in the last 10 minutes when I really had to "drill it" and I finished with nothing else left to give. The only times that I normally see power numbers approaching this level is when I've been paced by Phil who is good at riding alongside and pushing harder in the last few minutes. That made this effort all the more pleasing

The normalised power that I can maintain for a 40 minute effort is 101-102% of my FTP. With a test result of 335W that puts my new FTP between 328 and 331W. If I'd have carried on for another 20 minutes there is no way that I would have lost a full 7W and it's an outside chance that I could have managed 331W if I'd had a number on my back. My gut feeling is to accept 328W as the anchor point for recalculating my training zones as a couple of watts makes no difference and I know that I could definitely have managed to maintain that power average.

My weight yesterday was 11st 13lb or 76kg which puts my FTP at 4.3W/kg. It's nice to think that the power meter has helped me to train myself to be stronger, but I don't think that is the only area of improvement. As well as strength, it's also helped me to discover better pacing, suitable cadences, improved concentration on effort, the best circuits to use how best to get a good test result which is a bit like learning how to pass an exam.

Things That Used To Go under The Saddle

2009-07-28T12:01:00.002+01:00

Advice from a cycling manual published in 1895 on preparing for a cycle tour:

The wallet [saddle bag] should be looked over carefully and the necessary spanners placed therein; unless they fit every nut (a most unusual occurrence with most firms in the cycle manufacturing trade), a good adjustable wrench should also be carried. The spanners etc should be wrapped up in a stout piece of rag to prevent them from rattling; the oil can should be rinsed out with a drop of paraffin and the nozzle carefully cleansed with a bit of wire, and then a pin may be put down it and the cap screwed on, after which it should be filled with a good sound oil with plenty of body; some string and a couple of feet of fine copper wire will often come in useful, and an extra nut or two may be added to fill up an unoccupied corner. A long air pump, with the orifices closed against the dust, should be clipped to the frame, and an 'S.F.' or other good repair outfit in a box put into the wallet.

A spoke -tightener is necessary with some machines, but it is not a good plan to ride the class of vehicle which requires this appliance; the tourist's wallet will therefore contain the following items:

- The spanners supplied with the machine.

- One adjustable wrench.

- One oil can carefully filled.

- A pneumatic tire repair outfit.

- A piece of copper wire.

- A yard or two of string.

- A piece of rag to wrap spanners in.

- Some nuts and other odds and ends.

What Goes Under The Saddle

2009-07-27T13:29:00.003+01:00

A friend of mine will smile wryly when he reads this. A couple of weeks ago he went out on a long training ride and at around the furthest intended distance from home in his ride a spoke broke in his back wheel. As a result the wheel was so badly out of shape that it would not pass through the brake calipers. After messing around for a while he knocked on the door of a farm and explained his predicament. The lady of the house brought him a pair of bolt cutters, which although not being the most suitable of tools did allow him to remove the broken spoke. By this time he had also managed to remove the brake caliper and wedge it up and out of the way. A slow and careful ride back home then took place.

This last weekend, he decided to complete an other ride, again some considerable distance from home. After making a particularly hard effort up a steep hill his chain snapped. Unable to do anything in this instance, his only course of action was flag down a white van and hitch a lift back. Oh dear!

All this made me think about what I carry with me on my bike rides so I made a list:

Waterproof jacket: I've had a Gore Paclite jacket for four years, it folds up very small and weighs next to nothing. I never go out without it, even on the warmest of days and it's been brilliant. Going back 25 years or more I never used to carry waterproofs as you always got as wet inside as outside, but today's fabrics are quite excellent. I use it a lot, especially on summer evenings after I've completed a set of intervals and still have 30 minutes worth of riding to get home.

Pump: I've a traditional frame fitting pump on my winter bike and carry a mini pump at other times. I haven't used them for a very long time though but I like the knowledge that they are there if I need them.

Gas inflator: I think these gadgets are great and always carry a couple of gas cartridges too. I buy the cartridges from Ebay in bulk, they last me a long time and are a lot cheaper than getting them from the bike shop.

Mobile phone: Hardly ever use it, but it's there for letting Shirley know about any problems.

Cash: For very, very occasional cafe stops and social runs.

Overshoes: A pair of Lycra overshoes just to put on if I've not already got some normal wet or cold weather ones on. They just keep your shoes looking nicer for longer.

Inner tubes: Three spare inner tubes. I've occasionally trapped an inner tube in my hurry to get on with my training and had to use a second one. I don't like riding with no back up at all!

Tyre levers: Plastic levers for road tyres, metal ones for MTB tyres. I've never needed to use levers since I swapped to only using Mavic rims which seemed to be machined to better tolerances, but you never know.

Multi tool: Each multi tool I've got has the common Allan keys, a chain splitter and a spoke key too. Apart form a pair of Ksyriums that I use occasionally in the summer, all my wheels have old fashioned spoke nipples that allow for easy on the side of the road "get me home" repairs.

Chain quick link: I've used a number of different versions of these and they've all been good. Its so much easier to just remove a broken link and put a quick link back in it's place to get you home. It happened a couple of times to me before I started managing and changing my chains to a strict maintenance programme.

Length of old tyre: A 50mm length of old tyre carcass with the beading cut off to put inside a tyre that has got slashed or torn. Before I started using Specialized Armadillo tyres for most of my riding I was glad of this on a number of occasions.

Magnifying glass: A small flat plastic diffraction lens because my near sight is not what it was. On the rare occasions that I get a puncture, I can feel the offending foreign object in the tyre carcass but can't see it. Sad isn't it!

Cable ties: A couple of cable ties. These got me home once when my freewheel packed up.

Toe Strap: A old fashioned toe strap that has served a myriad of uses.

Ventolin Inhaler: Summer use only.

All these things fit neatly in either a small under the saddle bag that I use along with a screw top container that fits a bottle cage and even holds my Goretex jacket.

Mission Accomplished ~ Supra-Threshold (Cruise) Intervals

2009-07-26T22:17:00.002+01:00

Friday afternoon I rode my TT bike for 90 minutes, an hour of which was sweet spot at 93% through the lanes where I took it very easy on wet and greasy bends.

Yesterday we had planned to go for a walk in the Peak District but a flat car battery put paid to that. I'd left my side lights on after returning from last Sunday's race, and as neither Shirley or I tend to use the car during the week it got unnoticed. It was supposed to be a bike free day but I had to cycle seven miles to buy a charger for the princely sum of £10.66.

Today, after a lazy morning followed by the excitement of watching the Tour's finale, I didn't go training until the rain had set in. It took me 30 minutes to ride to Sutton Cheney and a good straight stretch of country lane that I've not used for a while. My target was to complete the workout that I bailed out of on Thursday night, but with a slight change to suit the length of available road. Six intervals later, each of 8 minutes duration and all at 108% followed with 2 minutes rest period, I felt highly satisfied with my efforts despite being soaked.

Today's mean maximal 60 minute power was 325W at 103% which suggests that my FTP is probably moving in the right direction again and that I need to do a 40 minute test before too long. Today's energy output for the interval set was 1057kJ which compares well to Tuesday's level 5 interval set of 988kJ in terms of work capacity.

BBC Thoroughly Modern ~ The Bicycle

2009-07-24T09:39:00.003+01:00

Last night the BBC showed this programme on BBC4:

Documentary series about objects the Edwardians either invented or advanced. One of the most important inventions of of all time, the improvements made by the Edwardians meant the bicycle allowed the city dweller to escape to the country, provided a truly democratised means of transport and is even credited with widening the gene pool.

The Halesowen A&CC members got some good coverage riding old bikes from the Coventry Museum Of Transport. Slightly superficial programme but fun to watch. Some interesting Edwardian innovations and facts about early cycling. I particularly liked the handlebar plugs that unscrewed to reveal a puncture outfit stored inside the bars. At the time the cost of a new bike equated to around £1500 which puts an interesting perspective on today's prices.

To watch the programme click here

10 Minute Intervals

2009-07-23T21:02:00.005+01:00

Tonight's action ~ Three 10 minute intervals with power averages (not NP) of 109%, 109% and 108%. I was aiming for 110% but didn't quite make it and what I did felt hard enough as it was. I'd intended to do four intervals but a heavy storm had me putting my waterproof coat on and thinking better of it. Tuesday's workout had been a "break through" session and had left me pretty tired yesterday so I wasn't too disappointed. I used my Bitteswell circuit and started my intervals so that I only had to make one left hand turn where I had the right of way. One lap gave me a 10 minute interval and a 4 minute rest period which was very convenient. It's quite difficult to find enough safe straight road with the right terrain to do longer isopower intervals that's also within 15 miles of home. Overall it was 38 minutes of work at a normalised power of 103%. After the storm had blown away the sun came back out and on the way home I did five "all out" 1 minute efforts, hitting 500W plus on all of them. Another 199tss today at 86% NP (and CTL is bouncing along between 100 and 105 tss per day quite nicely.

Alternative Tour De France Photographs

2009-07-23T13:06:00.003+01:00

Pictures with a difference from Brent Humphreys in his Project Le Tour mostly of tour fans. First click on the main logo then you have to click on the part shown image at the right of the screen to see each next frame.

More Level 5 And Wobbly Legs

2009-07-21T20:37:00.005+01:00

More level 5 intervals last night, same venue as last week, same general format except that a headwind on the interval meant that I didn't get quite so far up the drag and then got blown back down. The result was that I actually managed a 1:1 work/rest ratio for the 4 minute efforts. The difference this week was that I did intervals until I couldn't maintain a minimum wattage of 355W.

The results for each 4 minute interval expressed as a percentage of FTP were as follows:

124%, 120%, 120%, 118%, 118%, 116%, 114%, 113%, 115%, 111%

Needless to say, I finished feeling utterly washed out, had to sit on the edge of the road whilst I put some extra layers back on and was glad of the tailwind that aided my journey home. The interval set took 76 minutes, had a training score of 122tss with an overall normalised power of 98%. Actual wattage values varied between 384W and 351W. Total training score for the day was 208tss.

Last year I dreaded level 5 intervals and was unable to maintain 115% for four 5 minute intervals even if I extended the rest ratio. Yesterday I did a total of 40 minutes worth of level 5 at an average of 117%. I don't know how much my 4 or 5 minute mean maximal wattage values may have improved since having a power meter but my work capacity at these power levels is far better than it ever was. A lot of this improvement may well be due to a different mind set rather than physical ability, but either way the power meter has made it possible, it's very satisfying and feels like it is quality training.

Notes To Self #6 ~ Protest Reactions

2009-07-21T12:05:00.003+01:00

A few weeks ago I made a mistake of visualising myself winning a particular race and feeling the adrenalin rush of success before it had happened. During the race other conflicting thoughts took hold of my mind and told me that I couldn't win because because because... It's well known that when we start to expect outcomes such as winning that we provoke other negative sub-conscious reactions that can limit our ability. I was aware of this but still fell foul of it which just goes to prove that hard experience is sometimes the best teacher. As soon as you think "I will win" another voice says " Oh no you can't" and then of course you are are immediately in a defensive frame of mind. When this happens all the reasons why you might not succeed start to surface, become mental barriers and you become a mix of emotional conflict and stress with a disrupted physical rhythm.

What I should have done when I started thinking about outcomes was to have imagined red flashing lights, blaring klaxons, immediately changed my mental TV channel and subsequently took back control of my mind mid track. I should have then started to think in terms of just performing to the best of my ability on the day and what was required to achieve that. Maintaining this sort of outlook ensures that we have an attacking frame of mind, whereas if we are fighting the possibility of failure we will inevitably be trying to defend our expectation. If we make "doing our best" a goal and that is what we end up doing despite the race's overall outcome then we have succeeded. There are many other things outside our control that can happen in a cycle race that upset the plans that we might have and subsequently our ability to win. If our only goal is to win and that doesn't happen then we can only see failure and that can be quite damaging. Changing to a positive mindset puts us back into an attacking frame of mind as opposed to the defensive one that protest reactions will create and we are more likely to achieve an outcome of winning.

Look Keo Carbon Pedal Bearings

2009-07-20T13:28:00.007+01:00

When I bought my current road racing bike 4 years ago I had Look Keo Carbon pedals fitted and they have been great. Two years ago I extravagantly upgraded to the titanium version and have since used the standard Carbons on my winter bike. When I rode the time trial a week last Sunday there was a nasty squealing sound coming from the right pedal which got worse. By the end of the event the pedal had become difficult to rotate by hand and it was clear that the bearings had failed (that's my excuse for only winning by 10 seconds!).

A quick search on Google pulled up this Weight Weenies forum thread and guess what, the bearings really aren't designed to be serviceable and Look don't offer a replacement facility. First, you are supposed to use a special tool to remove the pedal body from the spindle, but I found that a pipe wrench did the job just fine with no damage. Secondly, there is no way to pull the existing bearings off the spindle, you simply cannot get behind them even if you tried to make a homemade puller. Its annoying that such an expensive purchase isn't made to be user friendly.

I proceeded to put the spindle in a centre lathe and machined away the aluminium bush and remaining bearing housings off the spindle. They came away with relative ease once I had thinned down the metal, but they were definitely well pressed on. The bearings are two standard ball race, metal shielded sealed units, 10mm inside diameter, 15mm outside diameter and 4mm width. I got some sent overnight from Simply Bearings Ltd for a total cost of £10.24 including postage. I've used this company before and with Paypal they are very easy to do business with. I also had to make a replacement aluminium "press fit" retaining collar (see picture on Weight Weenie forum thread), this had an inside diameter of 9.95mm (interference on pedal spindle), outside diameter of 13mm, width of 7mm and a chamfer on the outside away from the bearings of 45 degrees by 0.5mm. I then made a sleeve to allow me to push the bearings and bush onto the spindle in a vice (this ensured that I was only pushing the internal part of the bearing housing). It's worked a treat and my pedal is once again functioning as it should at a fraction of the £176 for a new pair. I believe that both the standard and titanium versions of the carbon pedal use the same bearing system.

Addendum:

There is also a needle bearing race fitted into the pedal body itself. Before reassembling clean out the bore of the body and the needle bearing itself and put a good wad of grease on the spindle before refitting. I've now taken all my pedals to pieces, cleaned them, run some machine oil into the ball bearing races and heavily greased the needle bearings. I've also realised that when I have to replace my titanium pedals (the bodies wont last for ever and the needle bearings aren't get-at-able) I can buy the steel version and just swap the spindles over! Also, on my failed pedal there was zero evidence of any grease having been applied by Look in the first place. All my other pedals still had a fair amount of fairly clean looking grease inside them.

Tour Of The Wolds ~ Win #4 2009

2009-07-19T20:15:00.004+01:00

I'd had a bad night's sleep having been awake since 4am and felt pretty lousy when I turned up at the race headquarters. Trying to forget how slow my brain felt, I set off for a warm up lap with Paul Stubbs and reminded myself how tough the climb was on the race circuit. It's not steep, but a 3 mile long 2% gradient which was made worse by a persistent head wind. Being straight it goes on and on and on. It's more difficult to get away on a road like this because you are in view of any pursuing riders for a long long way.

I'd wondered about how to ride this race but had no plan other than to take any opportunity that came along. In my mind I'd visualised being in a break, attacking some time later on at the start of the climb and soloing to the finish line. During the last few days I'd run this mental picture through my mind a few times, not about crossing the line first and thus assuming a win, but rather about making the move and visualising the solo effort that would be required.

The race started at a steady pace and I slowly moved up to front of the bunch. There were a couple of attacks near the crest of the hill then again along the very fast 36mph tailwind section. There was a slight lull in speed and I made a seated effort which took me up to 38mph and only Steve Macklin was observant enough to see the move. With Steve glued to my wheel I rode at level 5 for a few minutes in an effort to establish a good advantage before the climb. After I'd kept a hard pace over the climb a couple of times Steve remarked that we'd got a massive gap so we settled down to doing short turns of pulling on the front and worked together really well. With just over a lap to go I started to feel extremely hungry and at the beginning of the penultimate ascent of the climb I got the onset of cramps (hamstrings and calves) and in both legs! My strength deserted me whilst Steve battled uphill into the headwind by himself. I tried to manage myself out of the situation and feeling very weak I gobbled down a couple of gels, drank the rest of my drink and prayed that Steve wouldn't have any ideas about attacking me. At the top of the climb there were a few metres between us and if he'd pressed any harder on the pedals I don't think I could have responded.

Being unsure of Steve's finishing ability, I'd intended to jump after the lap bell, but by now I was just hoping that I could find some strength later on. The tailwind section gave me the relief that I needed and the gel bars kicked in as I started to contribute to the pace again. Our gap was still good and reasoning that barring a mechanical problem I wasn't going to do worse than a second place I kept looking for my opportunity. Just after the final corner and at the beginning of the climb, Steve looked over his right shoulder to check the situation. He'd left me a gap on the left and I jumped, felt instant relief that my legs hadn't locked up into vicious cramps and then soloed up the long climb to the finish. I was really pleased to see Steve cross in second place and we had a long wait until a chasing group arrived. We'd done well together, each having a hand in the other's success in the way that sets cycle races apart from most other sporting activities.

At the prize presentation a joke was made that we'd had time to shower, wash our cars, cut the grass and do various other things before turning up to collect our rewards. I came home with the Stuart Reader Memorial Trophy for the second year in succession.

With respect to today's power file, there is nothing exceptional to report. Normalised power for the 44 mile break was low at 283W due to my poor performance part way through when I dropped right off the pace for around 15 minutes. The initial attack was a bit sneaky, not high power but just taking advantage of a drop in speed. Surprisingly, I managed to ride the final 2.5 miles at 98% which just goes to show how effective modern sports foods really are. On reflection I didn't eat properly yesterday. I forgot to take something to eat for after my training session and didn't eat any lunch until late afternoon. That meant that I didn't eat a huge amount for my dinner either. I came away from today's event having eaten all my post race food and still feeling extremely hungry. I guess we live and learn!

Short TT Pacing Ride

2009-07-18T17:28:00.002+01:00

The weather changed for the better today so Shirley and I drove over to Bitteswell to repeat our bike rides from a fortnight ago, she on her road bike and me on my TT bike. Plain and simple, 10 minutes warm up, 40 minutes sub-threshold at 93% whilst focusing on even pacing and 10 minutes warm down. It was a success as average watts was only 2W lower than normalised watts ~ I now want to be able to repeat this at 100% threshold. I like this outing, it's purposeful, it's intensive but has a low recovery overhead (only 70tss), we both get some exercise and are only out of the house for an hour and a half.

Scarey

2009-07-18T10:39:00.003+01:00

Next time I get worried about descending I'll watch this from Cozy Beehive, gives me the heebie-jeebies at the first bend ~ make sure you watch the full video though.

Some Shorter Intervals

2009-07-16T22:11:00.003+01:00

30 minutes worth of sweet spot after work took me to a flat and quiet stretch of country lane that I favour for shorter intervals. 3x 2mins, 3x 1min and 3x 30secs turned out to be a bit of a mixed bag of anaerobic efforts as I quickly realised that my aim of equal recovery durations wasn't on the cards. Power on the last 2 minute effort was 9% lower as I faded badly over the second minute. I extended my recovery periods for the other intervals and did better but I think that the initial effort had stung my legs. Next time I'll won't be so ambitious at the start but will focus on hitting my target wattage range for each interval. I'm working on the basis that it's better to get sustained time in at the right power level rather than letting it drift down towards that grey area in between training zones. If, and as I get better at the intervals, I would then attempt to reduce the recovery time between them.

Dark clouds and heavy drops of rain meant that I was soon dispatching myself back to Leicester, making a few more "all out" efforts on the hills. Arriving home rather wet and earlier than is usual on a Thursday, I thought "I've not done enough", but the power data said otherwise and reported a training stress of 185tss at 86% for 2.5 hours of riding. That's a good reward for a ride with a variability index of 1.48 that necessarily contained a fair amount of time spent recovering.

Enjoyable Afterwork Biking

2009-07-15T13:09:00.002+01:00

I had a cracking day of biking yesterday. After leaving work at 5pm I rode out to a little lane to do some intervals. I was going through that "Do I really want to do this? Are my legs up to it?" type of mental turmoil but in the event I had a good workout. My target was to do six 4 minute intervals at as close to 120% (378W) as I could manage. The lane I choose has a 2% gradient and there was also a head wind too. The last 20 seconds worth of each interval finished over the crest of the incline which meant having to "push on" in order to keep my power up. It didn't qualify as hill repeats, but it was still a slightly different sort of effort to riding on the flat. It took me just over 4 minutes to return to the start and commence the next interval. I was pleased at being able to maintain an average of 118% with the intervals varying between 121% and 116%. The interval set took 46 minutes and overall normalised power was 99% suggesting that I got the intensity/rest ratio about right.

I had my annual WVCC duties to fulfil, so I rode over to Kibworth, was caught in a storm and got soaked all before I had time to stop and put my waterproof top on. By 7:45 I had dried out and was standing on a roundabout waving a red flag, marshaling and shouting at the club riders as they competed in the evening 10m TT. It was interesting to see the variety of riding styles and abilities of the competitors all of which took it so very seriously.

When the action was over I set off home and had recovered quite well from my interval session. It had clouded over and I raced home at a spirited sweet-spot pace, getting wet once again with a mile to go. It was quite late, but with another 60 miles and 218tss in the bag I felt pretty good once I'd showered and eaten. As a result, today is now restricted to an easy 10 mile recovery ride.

A final thought for the day: where do kids of today do what we used to do behind the bike sheds?~ see here

What's Your FTP?

2009-07-12T20:09:00.004+01:00

Ian Rawson of the Dinnington Road Club asked the following question:

"When you first started training with a power meter what were your test wattages? (i.e 5mins, 20mins, FTP etc), and what are you current ones? Or, how much have you improved your power over the period?"

I first got a power meter after having had what was for me a successful year of road racing. My first test, late in August was over 20 minutes and I managed 321W NP. I just rode around for the next few weeks with the meter to get some data into WKO. Late in November I tested again and managed 301W NP. I set my zones around an FTP of 300W which "seemed" right regardless of the latest 20 minute test and worked from there. I didn't do tests at any other time durations such as 5 minutes, but thinking that the Holy Grail was FTP I focused my winter training on threshold intervals. By June of the following year I'd managed to maintain a well paced hour at 325W NP (VI 1.05) and as time trialling was that year's focus I didn't work on any other area of fitness. Not surprisingly I struggled in road races, but as I analysed my power files the penny dropped as I started to realise that success was about more than just FTP and wattage values over discrete time durations such as 5 and 20 minutes. The power meter was telling me what watts/kg I needed to produce to break away from a bunch, to stay away, how many "matches" I needed in my armoury as well as how much energy (kJ) was needed to be in with a shout at the end of a race in terms of duration and intensity. So, if I could do what I saw was required in a race whilst I was training, then I knew that I couldn't blame fitness on poor performance in competition. During the last couple of years, using a power meter has taken a different slant and I think that I now understand the subtle difference of training "with" rather than "to" a power meter. I now view a winter of handle bar chewing threshold sessions as definitely training "to" a power meter. I no longer worry about whether FTP is say 315W or 316W because I don't believe that the whole FTP based training model (of which I am a committed disciple), including the performance management chart is that sensitive. In other words, I don't think that working in a finer resolution for FTP would change any decisions I make about my workouts or how to train or rest. I believe that you have to look at your performances in a cross section of your rides over an extended period of time rather than just using the result of singular 5 or 20 minute tests. To that end I keep a careful eye on my mean maximal power charts and check that the trends are moving in the right direction rather than looking for single high numbers which may be just the result of good freshness and form. To quote Dr Coggan "training is testing and testing is training".

This last winter I decided not to focus solely on FTP, but rather across the whole spectrum of training zones within a sort of modified periodisation model. This came about after listening to one of Hunter Allen's webinars and it made for a much more interesting few months of training that I will repeat again. My best FTP for this season is lower at 320W (and today it's closer to 315W) yet I think my power files show that overall performance in terms of "wattage" in road races has been better than last season. I'd have to do a lot more level 4 training to increase watts/kg by what is only 1.5% to match last year's maximum FTP when I suspect that I was pretty close to my ultimate ceiling in terms of my physical abilities. That extra time would have to be to the detriment of training other areas of fitness and energy systems because there is only so many days to train and recover in a week. At the end of the day it's about trying to determine what capabilities are required to meet your goals and then to maintain a suitable balance. It's a huge learning curve that helps makes this hobby extremely enjoyable. The best thing I could do in a quest to realise my potential would be to get a coach but I'm not that committed, ambitious or deluded about my capabilities. What I do within the confines of LVRC events and the occasional time trial gives me a lot of satisfaction and feeds my ego plenty.

Ian, thanks for the question, but don't forget that important as it is, it's not FTP alone that matters, rather as a lean looking Bradley Wiggins is testament to, it's watts per kg that determines whether you are up there with the best riders that you choose to race against. When I did that second 301W 20 minute FTP test I was 3kg heavier than I am today and today I can maintain over 340W for 20 minutes. Coming back to your question, I am less concerned with original test wattages versus current ones except to try to preserve the strength that I have today with each passing year. I think that I have "improved my power" because the power meter enables structured, focused and measurable workouts and an approach that engrosses and motivates me.

Welland Valley CC 25 Mile Time Trial

2009-07-12T19:46:00.003+01:00

Today ended what has been a really enjoyable but hard week of cycling, 244 miles, 806tss, 13 hours and a total of 4 hours of threshold work. As I rode out to the club's 25 mile time trial for the annually awarded scratch and handicap trophies, the roads were quickly drying after rain during the night and although windy it was nice and warm. I'd had to put a new Continental Competition tubular tyre on my disc wheel last night after I'd discovered a worrying slash in the centre of the tread of the tyre which had done 2 years good service. Being my first time trial of the year, I was a bit nervous and the plan was to ride at an average of 315W and to see how long I could sustain the effort. It didn't quite work out like that as I inadvertently set my PCVI interval beforehand and then slowly meandered up to the start line on foot before mounting my bike. The result was that in the first few minutes I was totally confused about my starting effort as the displayed average watts were very low compared to the perceived effort ~ the time taken to wheel my bike up to the line with zero power was being factored into the interval! Consequently, my pacing was embarrassingly bad, but hey, I'm big enough to admit to not thinking quick enough and not having the presence of mind to restart another interval on the computer.

What followed was 57 minutes of self doubt where I nearly packed at around 14 miles as I struggled to maintain the effort that I'd aimed for. It was a ragged performance, coupled with poor mental focus and provides yet another lesson to learn from. On the plus side it finally got me to complete an hour's effort on my time trial bike which otherwise felt comfortable enough and where normalised power was 315W (310W average). Given the nature of my ride I really didn't expect that and I believe that with better concentration I can do better, especially as I still felt fatigued from Thursday's marathon training session. I must also remember that it's only 8 days since I completed my first threshold effort on this bike and on that occasion only managed 300W for 40 minutes.

Splits were 331W, 305W, 305W and 314W which just shows the effect of starting far too hard and suffering mid ride. In the heat of the moment it's soul destroying when you find yourself struggling to maintain mid tempo pace and you know that you should be riding at at least 40w higher ~ I was so close to taking my number off until I reasoned that it was my pride that was taking control. The fact was that whatever the result I was nicely rounding off an overload week, putting some more intensive miles in the bag and besides chewing the handlebars there was a nice day, good tea and cake at the head quarters to be enjoyed. Sometimes I can be far too hard on myself.

Today's power file (click on image to enlarge but don't laugh too much!):

Yellow = watts, dotted line is 315W normalised power.

Red = heart rate, just for entertainment!

Green = cadence, 98rpm average, I freewheeled down one hill as I ran out of gears and used 39 x 21 on two occasions.

Orange = altitude, it's a rolling course!

And today's funny quote from The Tour was the replay clip of Tom Boonen falling off, " and there goes Boonen doing a nose dive for the white lines" ~ that made me chuckle!

Jans Voigt

2009-07-10T08:58:00.005+01:00

I always like to watch Jans race because he's a real tough cookie. Texas Tailwind published a list of little know facts about Voigt and they are very funny. The ones I particularly liked are:

Jens once had a heart attack on the Tourmalet. Jens counterattacked repeatedly until he kicked its ass.

Jens Voigt doesn’t have a shadow because he dropped it repeatedly until it retired, climbing into the CSC team car and claiming a stomach ailment.

Jens Voigt once challenged Lance Armstrong to a “who has more testicles” contest. Jens won… by five.

The first time man split the atom was when the atom tried to hold Jens Voigt’s wheel, but cracked.

There are plenty more and I had difficulty selecting just these four. See here for the full list of facts

2 Hours In Level 4

2009-07-09T22:42:00.004+01:00

65 miles and 248tss including 2 hrs at 96% or 302W NP which is my best ever 2hr session in training. Pacing wasn't too bad either though I did fade somewhat in the last 15 minutes. I spent a good hour above 100rpm too which was something I tried to concentrate on until holding power became the more important focus. I wasn't feeling all that fresh either, I'd was sore yesterday after Tuesday's time trail training but still went and did some sprints in the evening. Legs are totally frazzled now and I'll need a couple of days with NO intensity!

Rode my winter bike as the weather looked dodgy when I left home this morning, but this evening was perfect, not too warm with a good breeze, sunshine and dry roads. This session has pushed CTL back up to 103tss/day but TSB has dropped below my warning limit of -15. Somehow I don't think there will be any temptation to do anything other just potter to work and back tomorrow.

Heard a funny thing on The Tour highlights tonight. Which team is sponsored by a well known manufacturer of GPS devices? Guess which team couldn't find the way to the start of yesterday's stage and got there with only 5 mins left to sign on!

Dope

2009-07-09T14:37:00.002+01:00

List of cases or who the mighty were,

Timeline of cases or how the mighty fell.

A Better Time Trial Training Session

2009-07-08T12:57:00.003+01:00

Yesterday saw me back on my time trial bike once again. The afternoon's heavy thunder storms had abated, but there was still rain in the air and the roads were very wet and greasy. In addition to having lifted my aerobars by about 2cm, I've also moved my elbow rests apart by a similar amount but without separating the extensions any further and it instantly felt much more comfortable. After last Saturday's 300W effort I wasn't sure of quite what to aim for but settled on 315W. 40 minutes went by very quickly, but it still wasn't a particularly well paced effort. On the plus side I managed 314W average (317W NP) which was pleasing and proves that I adapt relatively quickly to the aero position (that's always good to know for future reference). Also, the average power had kept dropping as I slowed significantly on all the corners and bends due to the wet roads. Whilst I finished the interval feeling like I couldn't do any more, better cornering would have yielded a higher average wattage though it still doesn't reflect my road bike FTP. Cadence was better too and I averaged 102rpm after making sure that I changed down a gear whenever the effort started to feel at all "heavy".

The power file showed that I struggled from 20 to 30 minutes and that I'd been allowing watts to rise a bit too high on the inclines. On my next outing I'll be working on controlling this aspect a bit better and hopefully maintain more even watts throughout the whole interval. Because I've not done any time trial training this year I've lost the art of more careful pacing. Like anything, it's an exercise of practicing, measuring what you've done and feeding back what you learn back into your next workout.

Vic Sutton RR ~ An Achilles Heel Of Descent

2009-07-05T17:17:00.002+01:00

Paul Stubbs had the excellent idea of meeting early and going for a ride around the course which was new for this event. It was good to meet up again and provided a very pleasant hour. The East Yorkshire hills were stunning in the morning sunshine. From the top of the Wolds Way the views south over the flat lands of the Humber were framed with enormous fluffy white clouds and provided quite a panorama.

Today's race course provided 8 miles of steady ascent followed by a very fast descent. The sting in the circuit being that half way down the descent there was an acute angled left hand turn, followed immediately by another significant downhill section with double bends and poor road surface on the racing line. This is what I dislike most about bike riding and I determined that my best chances were to go for an early break so that I could descend within my own comfort zones.

At the 2 mile mark I had escaped the bunch and settled into a steady pace. Knowing that there was a long way to go I kept my power at threshold and pushed into level 5 on the hills. I also raised the effort more over the summit in an attempt to gain a few more seconds over the bunch. On the first lap they were hovering at around 20 seconds, but on the second I seemed to have pulled out a bit more time. However, on the exit from the descent I'd lost a lot of what I'd gained, was once more in clear sight and was finally caught just after the halfway point. I had another couple of attempts to escape but was now being heavily marked. Making the third descent with the bunch totally unnerved me, I felt quite unsafe and a liability for the safety of the other riders as they passed me at speed on both sides. It didn't take more than a few seconds for me to decide to call it a day.

They say that you should always try to find some good in your performances whatever the final outcome and today's power file provided me with no shortage of just that. After a week of wilting in the heat, I'd managed to ride for an hour with normalised power at 101% of FTP. My 40 minute normalised power was only 2 watts lower than this season's best, and when I attacked 2 minute power was a second best too. These numbers have now given me a lot of confidence to stick to my plan of working on FTP for a couple of weeks, in the knowledge that on another course and another day they are good enough to put me in the frame ~ I just need to stay away from races that require technical bike handling skills.

Threshold Session On TT BIke

2009-07-04T15:18:00.003+01:00

I finally got round to the 40 minute threshold session on my TT bike which was supposed to have taken place last Tuesday. Shirley wanted to go out on her bike too, so we drove across to the Bitteswell circuit. We were just about to set off when Phil thundered past with a whir of gears and a "morning", a couple of minutes later he was pedalling back after have just completed a 40 minute session himself ~ talk about coincidences and chance timing! He and Linda had cycled out to do some training around our mid-week threshold circuit.

My target today was to complete 40 minutes on my TT bike, not to be concerned about power except to maintain threshold zone and to aim for 100rpm cadence. I had also raised my aero bars a couple of centimeters to where they were at the beginning of last season as they had felt rather uncomfortable on the level 2 rides I've done over the last couple of weeks. After a 10 minute warm up I set off at a conservative pace of around 95% of FTP and managed to maintain (though not comfortably) this for the full interval along with my target cadence.

Towards the end of the interval my thighs were aching in different places to when I'm on my road bike and it was a timely reminder that I need to practice these efforts again, not only on my TT bike, but in general training too. What with the weather and a couple of other issues I have been remiss in this area. This happened last year but the power came back after a couple of weeks of practicing. Today's power trace showed a lack of steady effort and poor concentration on form.

Despite this I'm pleased that I've finally done this workout and at the moment am not too concerned with the outcome. Thursday's ride had been 190tss leaving me tired yesterday, TSB has been negative for over three weeks now, we still have hot and humid weather and experience tells me that I'm just out of practice.

A Bug In The Computer

2009-07-03T09:19:00.001+01:00

Cavendish’s ’numbers’ – wattage output mainly – rarely add up to the world class performer that he is and irritate those who like to reduce sport to a science.

“I was like a bug in Sebastien’s computer which ruined all his sums. I’ve got two things he can’t plot on a graph, passion and an ability to suffer. To me there is no limit. To me there is no universal rule of cycling except that the bloke who rides fastest wins the race.”

From today's Daily Telegraph

Hot Conditions And Training

2009-07-02T13:13:00.002+01:00

Since last Saturday we have been subjected to a bit of a heatwave. Later on after Sunday's race I realised that I was somewhat dehydrated and since then have made a big effort to drink plenty of fluids. I managed a level 2 ride on Monday with some sprints, but Tuesday was a different kettle of fish. The evening temperature was 30 degrees C with high humidity and thousands of thunder flies were in the air. I started of with good intentions of a 40 minute threshold workout, but after 10 minutes I gave in and just rode home as it was just too hot. Last night was even hotter at 32 degrees C but it wasn't quite so humid. I rode out to Billesdon and circumnavigated the north side of Leicester at sweetspot pace for 90 minutes and it was enough.

I accept that hot conditions like this will disrupt my training plans and they already have. Heat creates additional stress so that it FEELS and IS harder to train. It slows us down and reduces the amount of work that we can do in training. We have to accept that in adverse conditions overall form will suffer and that workouts need to be shorter and/or of a reduced intensity.

When the air temperature is around 32 degrees C and humidity is also high, the body will struggle to maintain an even and safe temperature. Normally the body looses heat through perspiration, but when humidity and air temperature are high then sweat cannot evaporate and sits on the skin. Inevitably, body temperature will rise as a result.

I'll be drinking plenty, taking more out than is normal with me on my rides and knocking off the intensity it I feel dizzy, faint or nauseous. Even if I can't manage the intensity in training whilst these conditions last, I can still maintain and even build some training load. Just like the snow we had in the winter, this weather won't be for ever and then I can get back on track.

Sports Drinks And Gear Cables

2009-07-01T15:39:00.006+01:00

After having been drawn into the marketing hype surrounding sports drinks, then asking more "what do I need" questions last season, then reducing my consumption of these products even further it's good to know that an expert expresses similar views to my own, only this expert's view is based on a lot more science than my anecdotally formed opinion is. I eat plenty of fresh produce, fruit, seeds and such like, consequently don't worry about mineral intake and don't see any need to have additional chemicals added to my "on the bike" drinks. For my training runs which rarely last longer than 150 minutes I eat something digestible a couple of hours before and now don't even bother with energy drinks. I don't feel like my training is suffering as a result and I'm simultaneously helping my difficult to control waistline by doing so. I DO like a scoop of carbs in my bottles when racing but I think that is more to do with feeling like "I'm all prepared and ready to go" rather than actual need. As I've said before, there are too many strong arguments that say that our mineral concentrations actually increase as we get dehydrated. The only supplement I continue to take is magnesium phosphate which I believe helps reduce spasms and cramps especially in my feet post exercise. When I get phases of suffering from these I take a supplement for a few days and it seems to work. See Joe Friel's latest views here.

Changing the subject, I got a good deal on STAINLESS gear cables. Prices for these can vary in the local bike shops from between £3 and £5 each. I got 10 from EBAY with end crimps and free postage for a total of £9.98. It only took me 5 minutes (as opposed to a couple of hours trip out) to make the purchase and I didn't get drawn into buying stuff I don't need as I probably would have done in a shop! I always like to keep a spare cable in my workshop and now I won't be buying any more for a long time.

British Cycling Four Year Plan

2009-06-30T12:50:00.004+01:00

From Bike Radar:

British Cycling is aiming to meet the following objectives:

Inspire Britain through success and establish the country as the leading cycling nation in the world. Focus will be on the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and Team Sky's participation in the Tour de France. Aim is to produce a British winner of the Tour in the next five years.
Get more people on bikes through a series of mass participation cycling events with British Sky Broadcasting. Aim is to get one million more people cycling once a month by 2013 through the new Skyride initiative. There will also be a comprehensive programme of led rides and sportives.
Boost cycling as a sport by investing more and better resources in growing competitive cycling at a grassroots level for all ages and abilities. Aim is to increase number of quality cycling clubs, link schools to clubs and increase number and quality of events, and also improve coaching.
Improve 'playing environment' for competitive cycling by creating a network of nationwide traffic-free facilities. British Cycling will also continue its efforts to improve access to the public highway for events and competitions.
Exercise Britain’s international influence by staging major events in the UK. British Cycling is implementing a comprehensive bidding programme for major international competitions, with recent successes including the right to host the UCI BMX World Championships in 2012 in Birmingham and the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup in 2010 in Dalby Forest, Yorkshire.
Position British Cycling as an essential resource for all cycling enthusiasts by embracing all disciplines, needs and interests. Aim is to grow membership from 27,000 to 100,000 by 2013.

There can be no doubt about the success story surrounding British Cycling and the organisation must be the envy of the cycling world. However, whilst watching our athletes come home with the bacon brings tears to my eyes, after having had a British Cycling racing licence for the first of year of my return to competitive cycling I haven't bought another one. The simple reason being that I just didn't think that the organisation could offer me anything that I wanted. Whether right or wrong, I have formulated the distinct view that British Cycling's view of masters racing was that it is a "dead end" and not an area of the sport where there should be any focus of attention. The prestige "Peter Fryer "masters racing series has (I believe) died and a search on the British Cycling website for it produces zero results. In later years, races that were held under the Pete Fryer banner were nothing more than a nod to the events that used to take place. Searches for "veterans" and "masters" yield nothing except for a rather buried listing for the 2009 Masters Championship RR on the 19th July. In this event last year I was led to understand that there were no start sheets mailed out (email or web only) and the prize money was a poor reflection of the expensive entry fee. As a master cyclist, a £68 a year licence plus expensive race entry fees is a lot of dosh for what is on offer.

It will be interesting to see whether British Cycling really do support their new objectives in an aim to promote cycling for cycling's sake. I suspect though that these objectives are tactics that will be used to support an overall strategy of funding and finding the best potential competitive cyclists in Britain. That being the case, there would seem little need to support masters racing despite some of the objective details.

It's a bit of a shame for the more competitive and aspiring masters riders than myself, but I accept the way things are and am thankful that there is a League of Veteran Cyclists. I think that British Cycling is absolutely right in having a crystal clear focus on what the goal is, and in order to achieve that they have to concentrate on the areas that will be most fruitful. Masters racing just (probably) isn't one of them, "c'est la vie".

Protest Reactions

2009-06-29T13:48:00.002+01:00

Not doing as well in a bike race as I would have liked to have done is difficult to accept and so it was with yesterday's result. I entered both yesterday's and next weekend's races because I knew that they would be tough and challenging. Originally, my intention in choosing them was not to win, but to get exposed to a couple of hard events, get racing back into my legs, exposure myself to level 5 and 6 efforts and allow me to concentrate on rebuilding my threshold power during mid week training. The simple fact is that I've now only raced twice during the last seven weeks, and on one of those occasions it wasn't really a race, rather a solo sub-threshold session. Realistically, I should expect to suffer when I'm required to make efforts that I haven't prepared for and just accept it when it happens as being a necessary part of a longer plan.

It's important to reflect on the bits that went well in a race. Yesterday I was able to ride at the front of the bunch during the first half of the race, I also pedalled as strongly as anyone else up the major climb never once feeling under undue pressure. I was able to ride at high threshold and didn't need to ride in level 5 as I was doing in hill repeat training just over a week ago. That knowledge tells me that my training has been good and that I ought now to be concentrating on improving other aspects of my ability. I should also be circumspect about about my condition on the day. I have been ramping up my training load again and am not as fresh as I was in late April and early May and this will continue for a few weeks yet.

Where I didn't do so well was in my head. I allowed any focus on doing as well as I could to be distracted by my long term emotional fears about being a poor climber and descender. I even told other riders before the start that I disliked technical descents and instead of trying to calm myself and think more rationally about the bike handling, I allowed my fears to control my performance. I should have turned the problem on it's head, put ultimate success out of my mind and used the occasion as an opportunity to improve and so had an emotionally positive event. Instead I tensed up and throttled my performance both mentally and then physically through needing to compensate. The power spikes that my SRM data shows on the exit from each descent must have been so much greater than for either of the two riders who were in front of me. The experience made me into a racing cyclist with a negative approach.

Protest reactions occur when we tell ourselves that we can "win" and another voice in our minds tells us that might not happen because of something else occurring. Physiologists tell us not to think in terms of winning, but rather in terms of doing our best. We can be in control of the latter, but too many things outside our control can stop us winning including protest reactions. If we loose when we expected to win then it's all too easy to believe that we are useless and inadequate thus affecting our longer term view of ourselves. It could also influence the way we train. For example I could take yesterday's performance and decide to concentrate on improving my anaerobic work capacity. That, however, would not be sensible within the longer term picture for the rest of this season. It's difficult to recognise the thoughts that we may have that will produce protest reactions and is something I have to be more alert towards. Last week Bike Radar posted a very good interview with Emma Pooley where it was reported that 'Pooley says she tried to avoid thinking about a specific result going to the Olympics last summer. Her reasoning – and one which is shared by many sports psychologists – is that obsessing about a particular outcome brings more stress and less chance of success than simply focusing on getting the very best performance out of yourself on the day. “I tried not to have any expectation of a result,” Emma told us, speaking about the time trial. “Obviously I wanted to win, but I concentrated on riding the perfect race."' See here for the full interview.

Brendan Chiu Memorial RR ~ 4th

2009-06-28T17:41:00.007+01:00

Today, three ex pro riders showed me how to ride a bike race. In the summer heat, and on the hilliest race I have EVER ridden, my lack of racing miles and a moment of inattention proved to be my downfall. Dave Cumming attacked near the top of the first major climb and I was totally unaware of it until after the race's finish. He managed a superb ride and finished around 20 seconds in front of the rest of us. How I never knew that he had escaped is a mystery to me and to stay away on that terrain was impressive indeed. The bunch split into two groups fairly early on in the race with Alan Kemp (10 years my senior) doing a lions share of work to keep the pace high on the hills. Alan set the pace up the lower slopes of the main climb of the day, that of Titterstone Clee Hill, and was replaced by Phil Thomas as we made our way up Angel Bank. I moved to the front for the last mile of the climb which took a total of 15 mins. I was very comfortable riding at a steady high threshold pace and it felt just like training! At the summit there was only seven of us left and the rest were nowhere to be seen. The remainder of the race was a series of fast descents and tough climbs. Both Alan and Phil made several attacks and by the time we reached the final couple of miles, other than Dave Cummings who was off up the road, there was only three of us left. On the last climb, Alan attacked and then Phil, I countered then tried to go but there was nothing extra left in the tank! We rounded the final bend, Alan, Phil and then myself. Alan took up the sprint for second place from the front and had Phil lined out behind him with me at the rear. Despite hitting 996W I couldn't make any impression. Seeing what both Dave Cumming and Alan Kemp did today has left me with a huge amount of respect for these classy guys, who along with Phil Thomas have a history of cycling successes that puts me in awe.

Today's power file shows a hugely different picture from that of two weeks ago. Normalised watts may have been similar at 95% of FTP but the variability of the effort was very different. Despite having only attempted one attack during the race, I made a significant number of level 5 and 6 efforts, the pattern of which changed through the event. The second half of the race had a number of descents with difficult bends at the bottom, followed immediately by another steep hill. Descending is not something I have practiced, or at which I ever feel confident, and I found myself hanging off the back by the time the lead rider had rounded the bend. Most of the attacks from Alan or Phil came on the exit to these bends and I had to make too many significant efforts to get back to the front. Basically, I burnt too many matches through a lack of bike handling skills, and secondly suffered from a lack of anaerobic work capacity due to a lack of racing miles. I can't remember riding a race where my time spent in level 6 exceeds that spent in either level 4 or 5!

Having said all of that, I really enjoyed the race and am pleased with the result. The ride put me out of my comfort zone, both for climbing and descending, and was different for not being on a standard circuit. It was race of survival as well as demanding cycling skills other than being able to ride well at threshold.

An Enjoyable Summer Evening

2009-06-26T12:07:00.002+01:00

Cracking training ride last night, sunny and warm but with an ideal cooling breeze. We rode out around our Welford loop for the first time since before my holiday. For the first hour I used the sections between road junctions to ride at 105% of FTP (330W) followed by 10 minutes at 100% then three 1 minute efforts at as close to 130% as I could manage. This worked out to be a total of 30 minutes at 105% in roughly 4 minute intervals with around 40 second rest periods. In total along with the 1 minute efforts it yielded a normalised power of 101% over the hour. Afterwards we rode at endurance pace and I made three 10 second all out efforts, all of which were approaching 1100W. It was a pleasing session with a high training score of 215tss necessitating a recovery ride today!

Sunday's Race Route

2009-06-26T09:06:00.002+01:00

Sunday's triangular single lap out and back race route with ascents of Brown Clee Hill and Titterstone Clee Hill. The handbook said it was hilly ~ and that's hilly!

Training Update

2009-06-24T12:57:00.000+01:00

On Monday night my legs were a bit sore from Sunday's hill repeats but I wanted to go for a ride. My target over the last 3 weeks since my holiday has been to raise my training load above 95CTL before I start to concentrate on trying to improve my functional threshold power again. Whilst threshold rides that score over 150tss leave my legs feeling weak on the day after, level 5 hill repeats don't have quite the same effect. A level 2 ride with some level 7 neuromuscular 10 second efforts was a perfect workout on the day, it gave me 107tss, allowed me to practice jumps from around 15mph and contributed to maintaining my training load.

Because I've only raced once in the last seven weeks, and that occasion had been a long solo effort, I wanted a harder mixed ride last night. I was in luck as Matt Barrett turned up and gave me exactly what I needed. We rode for an hour, hard on the hills and towards the end I was being really pushed to either hold his back wheel uphill or ride alongside him on the flat. My average power was 308W and normalised power was 324W. It was the variable nature of Matt's effort that made it hard for me but it was something I needed to do in readiness for my next race.

Last night my chronic training load (CTL) was at 100tss/day and is now high enough. I've got races planned for the next two weekends which means that I can spend training time concentrating on threshold sessions from now on for two or three weeks.

Notes To Self #5 ~ I Am Ready

2009-06-22T21:05:00.004+01:00

I'll write it out again - just so it sinks in a bit more:

I can use every situation to my advantage

I am in total control

I am very crafty

I am the winner

I am completely prepared

I don't have any limits

I don't allow any distractions

Nothing can prevent me from doing my best

I convert weakness into strength

It's All Uphill

2009-06-21T21:00:00.002+01:00

After a very pleasant day's hiking in the Peak District yesterday, it was back to on the bike training today. I rode out to Charnwood Forest again, this time to Beacon Hill which is not quite so steep as Polly Botts lane but is longer. Four ascents, 6 minutes each at 116% of FTP with 3:40 mins rest period felt hard. My legs were toasted after 4 minutes on the final attempt and average power dropped to 110%.

I spent an easy 15 minutes cycling across to Polly Botts Lane and then did four more hill repeats, 3 minutes 30 seconds each with 2 minutes 30 seconds rest period. By then I'd had enough and pottered home. It was a very satisfying session, 145 minutes round trip and 175tss. The hill repeats, including all rest periods had taken 73 minutes at an overall average of 98% of FTP. It's strange when I do this sort of training. Because I seem to spend quite a lot of time freewheeling down hill and turning round in the road I am left with the impression that I haven't done very much. This is despite the knowledge that I actually spent a total of 38 minutes just above the middle of my VO2 max training zone. The downloaded data however shows that it was a hard session and that my tired legs are to be expected.

Since my holiday three weeks ago, my training load has increased spot on to plan and has risen to 97tss/day. At the end of last week's hard block of training, TSB had dropped to -18 and it took both Friday and Saturday for me to loose the soreness from my legs. On Friday I rode my TT bike for an hour at a low tempo pace and it felt a bit easier than it had done the previous week.

A Triad Of Training Sessions

2009-06-19T09:09:00.002+01:00

Tuesday evening I was still feeling the after effects of Sunday and really couldn't stomach a threshold session. I settled for a level 3 ride with 40 mins of sprints. These were 20 second efforts with explosive starts, standing for 10 seconds and then seated whilst trying to hold higher cadence, pedalling form and power above 600W. Overall normalised power for the 40 minutes was 98% of functional threshold power (FTP) and the complete session yielded a surprising 178tss.

Wednesday I felt up for some hard efforts so after work I pedalled off into Charnwood Forest and made 6 ascents of Polly Botts Lane. 3 minutes 30 secs per ascent at 116% of FTP with 2 mins recovery between each interval. I got home, legs somewhat frazzled just a couple of minutes before a heavy rain storm. 148tss.

Last night, my legs felt a bit blocked after the efforts of Tuesday and Wednesday, but unperturbed I managed 20 minutes at 96% FTP, then a further 40 minutes at 97% followed by a couple of 1 minute level 6 hill efforts on the way back home. I got struck with my summer asthma for the first time this year and finished the threshold efforts feeling like someone had their hands around my neck ~ not nice but I felt pleased with my three days of training. 176tss.

Cheap Bikes And Cycling Widows

2009-06-17T13:06:00.003+01:00

You can kit out a family of four with bikes for a princely sum of £240, wow! Announced this week by ASDA when Halfords have also reported further increases in bike sales. It would appear that during a recession tea bags are not the only commodity that increase in sales.

And I liked this. I think that Shirley, my long suffering and very understanding wife could have written most of this about me! There are some differences though, I wash my own kit, don't go out training at the crack of dawn, our kids have all flown the nest and we BOTH love going out on the tandem. Never thought of myself as a "born again cyclist" though and what the hell is a gimp?

On Cramps And Not Panicking

2009-06-16T16:48:00.002+01:00

I've kept thinking back to my cramps during Sunday's road race. I still believe that I suffer from cramps simply because I sometimes ask my muscles to perform in a way that they are not sufficiently trained for. I really don't believe that it is anything to do with nutrition, hydration or salt levels. Quite simply, it's been quite a few weeks since I asked my legs to pedal steadily at over 300W for 2 hours continuously. I was aware of this and had scheduled such a workout for Thursday this week, I just didn't expect it to take place during Sunday's race! It was a hard effort for me, especially so as my current CTL is lower than it was and yesterday I was physically drained. On a scale of 1 to 10 I marked myself down as being a 9 (extremely tired). Despite some good sleep last night I can still feel plenty of soreness in my legs today.

What pleased me most about Sunday was how I reacted to getting cramps and for me it was the biggest lesson of the day. I'd just got over the last but one hill on the circuit, had descended to a flat section and was riding along at a steady pace when I felt the hamstrings in my right leg go into spasm. I tried stretching by standing on the pedals and leaning right over the handle bars but that only brought partial relief. I really needed to get of the bike and touch my toes to get a full stretch, instead I changed down a couple of sprockets and pedalled lightly. Then, without warning the same thing happened in my left leg and I had to stretch that too. Pedalling whilst stood up out of the saddle helped a little but I felt that my legs would lock up completely if I wasn't careful enough. I did a bit of deep breathing to calm myself down whilst I sorted my emotions out, there was no point in panicking as I had a good view back down the road and the lead car with the bunch was still out of my sight. So I sat back down in the saddle, gently turning my legs and drank some fluid for some distraction. Within a minute or two of doing this the sensations had subsided, I was back on my way and there was still no sign of the bunch. Once on the final tailwind section I knew I was OK and I was pedalling strongly again. I must admit to using 39x25 on the final hill in order to prevent stressing my legs any more, locked up legs with only a quarter of a mile to go would have been a tragedy!

With the "mind training" that I've practiced over the months I've prepared for this sort of occasion. When something goes wrong you have to give yourself space to rationalise your options as it's so easy to panic and then make things worse. I did exactly that in a race last year and ended up not finishing when at worst I would have been the second rider over the line. This time something in my mind said "remember, calm yourself down and you can manage yourself through this".

Ramin Minovi Memorial RR ~ Win #3 2009

2009-06-14T19:04:00.004+01:00

First race for 5 weeks, an extremely bad night's sleep and a bad attack of pre-race nerves meant that I felt all at sorts at the start of today's race. Martin Bush attacked twice in the opening miles of the race and the bunch were slow to respond. Martin Hackley made it hard for the rest of us up the first ascent of Sutton Bank then Martin Bush attacked again just after to summit ~ this time there was no response and a gap developed. Something instinctive told me that the bunch weren't very alert and after only 4 miles of racing I accelerated away to catch Martin Bush. After another couple of miles I was by myself and had established a good lead. On the last lap I started to suffer with bad cramps in my hamstrings. It has been 5 weeks since I last made an effort like this and my body was complaining. I didn't panic but slowed right down, stretched my legs and pedalled more easily until I felt the painful sensations subside. By now I'd only got another 5 miles to go and there was still no one insight behind me. I was in 39 x 25 on the last ascent of Sutton Bank and took victory after 45 miles of riding alone and with over 3 minutes to spare on the bunch. It had been a long lone break of 1hr 55mins at 306W normalised power (298W average) and very tiring. I'd planned to do a 2 hour grind at 290W this coming Thursday, today's race now means that I can do something more exciting!

I have ridden this event as the Seven Stoke RR three times, but this year it was held as the Ramin Minovi Memorial Race. Ramin was a classy cyclist, ABCC coach and a driving force in the LVRC. He attended last years event looking very frail and was lost to cancer soon afterwards. He always made it a good event, well organised, supporting charity, and with an ethos of distributing prizes to as many riders as possible. Ramin was very much in our minds today and he would have approved of the event organisation. It was an honour to be presented with an extremely nice trophy for my efforts along with vouchers for also taking the midway hill prime.

Summer Sunshine

2009-06-13T14:55:00.002+01:00

This morning we had a very pleasant 3 hour ride on the tandem, soaking up the sunshine and admiring the lush roadside verges which have been so colourful this spring. Leicestershire lanes are very attractive and we are fortunate to be able to leave the house and be in open countryside within a few minutes. The tandem provides a great way of getting out and enjoying the fresh air together as it completely levels out differences in physical ability. Not even walking in the hills can do this so well where Shirley struggles to keep up with me uphill and I can't match her on the flatter sections. We were both ravenous when we got home and demolished beans on toast with grated cheese and sweet chilli sauce!

I finally managed an hours riding on my TT bike yesterday evening. A position that felt so good last season is now very uncomfortable. I couldn't hold myself on the aero-bars for more than a few minutes at a time without having to shift around ~ it made my shoulders and arms ache. Enjoyed it though and I had forgotten how fast it was. There wasn't much in my legs yesterday and I pottered around at 190W but still averaged 22mph.

Mechanicals

2009-06-12T09:07:00.002+01:00

Nice day today. I thought I'd dig my time trial frame out as I've not had it out of it's dust sheets since last September and I need to get used to riding in the unnatural position that it demands. A steady tempo ride in the sun this afternoon seemed like a nice idea. First problem was that it was without a chain. After quickly swapping over my Dura Ace SRM cranks I fitted a new chain and put my training wheels in the frame. I set off to work but then realised that I still had to pair up the PCVI ~ next problem was that there was no cadence magnet. I went back into the garage, found a rare earth magnet and cable tie, took the rear wheel out and after a number of attempts managed to fit it. It would have been so much easier if I'd have noticed the omission BEFORE I fitted the cranks!

After pairing and offsetting I made my way off to work. I'd forgotten how crap the brakes are on the TT bike compared my normal bikes ~ there's so much drag and hysteresis in all of those hidden cables. I'd almost got to work when the rear gear cable snapped! Oh well, maybe I will get out for that ride later on. I just like to ride straight from work, there's always a temptation not to go out when I go home first.

Last night was great, sunshine and warm enough for bare legs. Even the fairly strong breeze wasn't unpleasant. Phil had a better offer for the evening, so it was just Matt Barrett and myself, me on my old winter jalopy and Matt on his team sponsorship top of the range carbon KTM bike with light wheels ~ nice bike! We rode out to the Bitteswell circuit at sweet spot pace and then did a 40 minute threshold interval. It was a good workout, a couple of watts higher than last weeks epic effort but felt SO MUCH more manageable. I feel OK this morning too and not overly sore despite preceding the 40 mins at 103% with 20 mins at 90%. I just need a couple of weeks to consolidate this sort of effort and get used to riding the TT bike again.