After last week’s heavier load, my plans for this week included a lower mileage, especially at the weekend, which conveniently coincided with my parents coming to stay. Knowing this, I’d planned to extend my commute home to take in some longer rides in the evening. But trying this out on Monday evening, I quickly realised that this wasn’t going to be a particularly clever thing to do. Large potholes left by the winter weather and lack of light does not make a happy marriage for a cyclist on thin road tyres. My light strategy is to be seen, rather than to see, so my flashing lights don’t give a great view of the road in the dark – ok when most of my commute is lit by street lights, not so good when elsewhere. Next week may be better for evening rides, given the change to British Summer Time which means it’s lighter later. But until then it wasn’t worth the risk. The potholes, unless really deep, aren’t really the main problem – what I think is more dangerous are the large, long cracks that have appeared, running in the direction of the traffic – get your front wheel stuck in one of those and it’s almost guaranteed to throw you off your bike and onto the hard black stuff. And the other major hazard I’ve found is the increased amount of gravel on the road that’s come out of the potholes, particularly hazardous when cornering. I might be coming across as a bit soft here, but I’m determined to make the start line of the Tour if nothing else.
Psychologically, I find it incredibly hard to have a lighter training week. My inclination is to keep building the miles, in the belief that more is best. But all the training manuals state that you need to build in recovery time to let your body adjust to the increased workload asked of it in previous weeks. So, I have to accept that a recovery week is a physically necessity every once in a while, however frustrating it is to hold back when your legs are feeling good. It doesn’t feel natural, whatever the experts say! Although most of my illness or injury usually follows periods of increased training, so there must be some truth in it I suppose.
In the end, I managed to squeeze in a quick ride out to Box Hill and back on Sunday afternoon, getting home just before the rain arrived luckily. I was joined by Jake, a friend of Clare’s, for the ride. Jake has been seriously bitten by the cycling bug, has become ridiculously keen in a very short space of time and is now signing up to ride the entire Tour de Force, having previously planned to ride only a few stages between the Alps and Pyrenees. As such, he issues a constant stream of questions on kit, preparation, training, technique, etc in the mistaken belief that I possess sufficient expertise to answer them – although I’m more than happy to give my tuppence-worth. However, I am in the unfortunate position to have experienced the discomfort needed to fully answer his question about whether he needs chamois cream…nasty business, details best kept between cyclists. The ride home from Box Hill was fun – mostly downhill, mostly downwind, mostly good roads, and therefore mostly high speed. And the views from the top of Box Hill were amazing, looking South over Surrey, crystal clear at around 4.30pm, unlike the shroud of mist or haze that usually greets me on my typical early morning rides out there.
This week in the year is one of those tantalising glimpses of what might be, just before the prize is ripped from your grasp, forcing another month’s wait. I’m talking about my morning commute, which I have been doing in the dark since the end of August, through the misery of winter’s grip. In the last week of March, with a cloudless sky, I can ride to work without any lights – I can’t explain what joy that brings and what a difference that makes to the start of the day. But just when I get to that watershed moment, it gets taken away by the change to British Summer Time and I am once again plunged into darkness for another month (daylight creeps forward by 2 minutes every day – I know, I look at this too closely).
A tougher week of training awaits me next week…
Weekly totals
Commute – 100 miles
Other rides – 48 miles
Funds raised to date £1528.
Sunday, 28 March 2010
Sunday, 21 March 2010
That’s a bit more like it
Just back from a great ride out with the Tour de Force. A beautiful day for cycling, with little wind, (mainly) dry roads, and sunshine – hooray! After the winter we’ve had, this extra warmth was really appreciated by everyone, and spirits were noticeably high from the off. Although temperatures were only around 14C, compared to recent months where temperatures have struggled to get to 5C, it felt like a summer’s day.
The riders met up at Godalming station and the plan was to head out south and loop back east and north to take in some of the North Downs. I was a bit late arriving, having mistimed my cycle down there, but luckily spotted the TdF peloton turning out of Godalming onto a minor road just in time. The first half of the ride was fairly easy-paced, with a couple of longish stops for punctures, but no-one was complaining about hanging around in the unfamiliar warmth of the sun. Following a brief refill of hot chocolate and toasted panini in a picturesque café by a fishing / camping site - picturesque that is if you purged the unsightly caravans from your view of the lakes – the pace quickened a bit and there was some tidy group riding, with proper paired-up drafting (well done Steve, your coaching is starting to pay off…).
The real test of the ride was to come after 40 miles – especially tough for those who hadn’t ridden that kind of distance before. Turning north from the outskirts of Cranleigh there is a particularly menacing stretch of steep stuff that reaches a gradient of over 20% towards the top (double chevron on the OS map!). At this stage most of us have already misjudged it, believing the peak would come a lot sooner, so just when your body is really starting to hurt, the road steepens further and requires a final all-out lung-busting effort up the wall to the summit. The last time I’d ridden that climb I’d already had over 100 miles on the speedo, and was desperate to stop, but was forced to carry on climbing given the two cars behind me and no space to pass. This time, although I’d already completed about 75 miles, it was a whole lot easier, but still a hard grind. Of course, the reward for such energy-sapping graft is a stunning descent off the top, down into Shere through dappled sunlight cast by the beech and fir woods (which is even more amazing in autumn).
The loop was a little shorter than originally planned at 50 miles, but with the ride there already in my legs and the return to Putney still to come, I wasn’t complaining. Clare did really well on her first half-century, keeping up with the pack and showing a lot of improvement already. She also managed to tick off another first – falling off her bike, while stationary with her feet clipped in. To be fair to her, it was on the difficult 20%+ climb, and having run out of puff, unclipped one foot to put it down, only to fall over in the other direction. I didn’t see it (damn!), but now she’s broken her ‘clip-in fall over’ duck, just like every cyclist has to as a rite of passage. Rick Wates continued a long Wates tradition by falling over at standstill at a junction (again).
Although alone for the return to Putney, it was quick and enjoyable, with a slight tailwind to help me along at over 20mph most of the way. Slightly slower than that (!) over the punishing climb out of Shere onto the North Downs, but overall felt much better than any ride I’ve done over 50 miles so far this year. Finally home after 120 miles. Finished with a cold bath – Paula Radcliffe says it helps recovery – I say it was unbearably cold and is still unproven!
Good news is that my knee pain (see last week’s entry) has shown no signs of reappearing. I went to see a physio anyway during the week – she was as mystified as me – but said there appeared to be no damage to cartilage, tendons or ligaments, although control of my knee was poor due to weak glutes (new exercises to perform on a daily basis) and my ITB was very tight (back to the excruciating, self-induced pain of the foam roller). Very relieved to get a clean bill of health though.
I finally got a call from Holdsworth Cycles to say that my commute bike was ready for collection after a full service and a long wait for delivery of a new rim. The bike is now in excellent condition, with a new chain, cassette, front ring, gear/brake cables, brakes and a rebuilt rear wheel! Almost like new. What I love about Holdsworth Cycles is that they clearly take a lot of care over the service – granted they had my bike for over two weeks, but returned it in concours condition. I’m sure the mechanic had waxed the frame as I hadn’t seen it look that good since I bought it, and he’d also filed down and rounded off the broken edges of my mudguards which I’d snapped trying to bend them beyond their natural elastic limits! Nice change to be able to ring them later and compliment them rather than having to complain about the level of service as I've had to with lots of other companies.
And bmycharity, the fundraising website that the TdF (and I) are using, having previously sent notice that it was to close for lack of funding, has been saved by Help for Heroes, and is therefore to continue trading. Phew!
So a good week overall. Feeling positive.
Weekly totals
Commute – 89 miles
Other rides – 120 miles
Funds raised to date £1403.
The riders met up at Godalming station and the plan was to head out south and loop back east and north to take in some of the North Downs. I was a bit late arriving, having mistimed my cycle down there, but luckily spotted the TdF peloton turning out of Godalming onto a minor road just in time. The first half of the ride was fairly easy-paced, with a couple of longish stops for punctures, but no-one was complaining about hanging around in the unfamiliar warmth of the sun. Following a brief refill of hot chocolate and toasted panini in a picturesque café by a fishing / camping site - picturesque that is if you purged the unsightly caravans from your view of the lakes – the pace quickened a bit and there was some tidy group riding, with proper paired-up drafting (well done Steve, your coaching is starting to pay off…).
The real test of the ride was to come after 40 miles – especially tough for those who hadn’t ridden that kind of distance before. Turning north from the outskirts of Cranleigh there is a particularly menacing stretch of steep stuff that reaches a gradient of over 20% towards the top (double chevron on the OS map!). At this stage most of us have already misjudged it, believing the peak would come a lot sooner, so just when your body is really starting to hurt, the road steepens further and requires a final all-out lung-busting effort up the wall to the summit. The last time I’d ridden that climb I’d already had over 100 miles on the speedo, and was desperate to stop, but was forced to carry on climbing given the two cars behind me and no space to pass. This time, although I’d already completed about 75 miles, it was a whole lot easier, but still a hard grind. Of course, the reward for such energy-sapping graft is a stunning descent off the top, down into Shere through dappled sunlight cast by the beech and fir woods (which is even more amazing in autumn).
The loop was a little shorter than originally planned at 50 miles, but with the ride there already in my legs and the return to Putney still to come, I wasn’t complaining. Clare did really well on her first half-century, keeping up with the pack and showing a lot of improvement already. She also managed to tick off another first – falling off her bike, while stationary with her feet clipped in. To be fair to her, it was on the difficult 20%+ climb, and having run out of puff, unclipped one foot to put it down, only to fall over in the other direction. I didn’t see it (damn!), but now she’s broken her ‘clip-in fall over’ duck, just like every cyclist has to as a rite of passage. Rick Wates continued a long Wates tradition by falling over at standstill at a junction (again).
Although alone for the return to Putney, it was quick and enjoyable, with a slight tailwind to help me along at over 20mph most of the way. Slightly slower than that (!) over the punishing climb out of Shere onto the North Downs, but overall felt much better than any ride I’ve done over 50 miles so far this year. Finally home after 120 miles. Finished with a cold bath – Paula Radcliffe says it helps recovery – I say it was unbearably cold and is still unproven!
Good news is that my knee pain (see last week’s entry) has shown no signs of reappearing. I went to see a physio anyway during the week – she was as mystified as me – but said there appeared to be no damage to cartilage, tendons or ligaments, although control of my knee was poor due to weak glutes (new exercises to perform on a daily basis) and my ITB was very tight (back to the excruciating, self-induced pain of the foam roller). Very relieved to get a clean bill of health though.
I finally got a call from Holdsworth Cycles to say that my commute bike was ready for collection after a full service and a long wait for delivery of a new rim. The bike is now in excellent condition, with a new chain, cassette, front ring, gear/brake cables, brakes and a rebuilt rear wheel! Almost like new. What I love about Holdsworth Cycles is that they clearly take a lot of care over the service – granted they had my bike for over two weeks, but returned it in concours condition. I’m sure the mechanic had waxed the frame as I hadn’t seen it look that good since I bought it, and he’d also filed down and rounded off the broken edges of my mudguards which I’d snapped trying to bend them beyond their natural elastic limits! Nice change to be able to ring them later and compliment them rather than having to complain about the level of service as I've had to with lots of other companies.
And bmycharity, the fundraising website that the TdF (and I) are using, having previously sent notice that it was to close for lack of funding, has been saved by Help for Heroes, and is therefore to continue trading. Phew!
So a good week overall. Feeling positive.
Weekly totals
Commute – 89 miles
Other rides – 120 miles
Funds raised to date £1403.
Sunday, 14 March 2010
New wheels :-) but new knee pain :-(
A big thank you to all who have donated to date – I have now passed the minimum fundraising commitment of £1200, but hope to secure many £1000s more for the William Wates Memorial Trust over the next few months. Especially as I’ve only sent emails to about 25% of my target list and only about 25% of those have responded at this early stage.
So this week I spent many enjoyable hours looking at the myriad of available wheel deals on the internet and cross-referencing to the huge number of very helpful reviews written by both cycling experts and mere mortals like me. However, in reality I was only going to consider either Campagnolo, which I know and like, or Mavic Kysrium, which I know several other people have and like. Clearly if money was not a limiting factor, I’d also be looking at Zipp wheels, which are generally thought to be pretty special – but being carbon are less resilient to potholes (and dogs – ask Marcus Burghardt, Tour de France 2007!) and are ridiculously expensive. In the end I decided on some Campaganolo Shamal Ultras after finding a very good price from an ebay merchant that was over £150 cheaper than the next best – they are 2 steps up in the product range from the ones I am replacing, so should deliver a better ride. Visually there is little difference other than being titanium coloured instead of the black on my current Zondas.
Very excited to receive the new wheels inside two days – thank you High On Bikes for an excellent service. They look and feel amazing. But I had a brief moment of panic when I saw the wheel size was 622x15c instead of the 700x23c that I’d been expecting – was that the reason they’d been such a good price? Feeling like a prize idiot I looked online to discover, to my great relief, that the former measurement is the newer international coding and the latter the older French version. Phew!
As the bike shop is still waiting for my new rim to be delivered for my commute bike, I had to ride into work on my new wheels. I thought initially that I was imagining that the Shamals are more smooth than the Zondas. But after a few rides on them, that is exactly what feels different about them – they are super smooth. Must be higher quality bearings used in the hub I suppose. Very pleased with them.
Took the afternoon off on Thursday to watch Molly in a school hockey tournament. They played 7 games in a round-robin format and did brilliantly, with a couple of crushing wins and some very tight games elsewhere that could have gone either way. I was really proud and impressed by Molly’s play and their team ended up with the bronze medal, very close to silver – a thoroughly enjoyable and exciting afternoon. I never really played hockey, but it’s a good spectator sport, although it looks quite vicious to play with sticks flying around the ankles, hands and head - almost makes road cycling look safe!
So all was going really well, and I was desperately looking forward to trying the new wheels out on a long ride on Sunday. But then, disaster! Sitting at my desk at work on Friday I could feel my left knee starting to get painful. Which was all very strange as I could not remember twisting it awkwardly or banging it on anything – I had moved my saddle forward by about 3 or 4 mm, but surely that couldn’t be the cause. By the time I got changed to go home at the end of the day, it was feeling exceedingly sore around the top of the knee, just where the quads join the knee above the patella - especially when flexing the leg at the knee. I had an uncomfortable and increasingly concerned ride home, and then the pain got worse over the rest of the evening to the point at which I could barely flex it. Now I was really worried – could this be the start of a really long lay-off the training, or worse jeopardise my entire participation in the event itself? How was my knee going to cope with repeated daily 110+ mileage over mountainous terrain if it broke down on a 15 mile commute?
As is the way these days, I attempted to undertake some self-diagnosis online. But there’s so much unqualified information and recommendation that it’s difficult to know I’d be following the right advice and not making it worse. However, the most likely causes looked like poor inner quad strength, pushing too-big gears, or just overtraining - but to me most of these would have involved a more gradual increase in pain compared to the sudden escalation I had experienced, apparently without specific trauma. I felt hugely frustrated and deflated, worrying about the worst-case scenario of how to break it to all those generous donors that I was no longer able to complete the TdF. But more out of desperation than expectation, I emptied the freezer of ice and sat with an ice pack over my knee for about 2 hours. Then went to bed.
Saturday morning I woke at around 7am and tentatively moved my leg – to my delight, although a bit sceptical initially, there appeared to have been a rapid improvement. I repeated the ice treatment on Saturday evening and by Sunday morning I was feeling no pain. Hugely tempted to go for long ride, I resisted in case I aggravated the injury and settled for a single lap of Richmond Park with Clare, at a fairly sedate pace, having reset my saddle to the previous position. No pain or other issues at all – all a bit mystifying and have booked in to see a physio next week to discuss /diagnose/treat. Talk about highs and lows!
Weekly totals
Commute – 83 miles
Other rides – 17 miles
Turbo – 1 hour
So this week I spent many enjoyable hours looking at the myriad of available wheel deals on the internet and cross-referencing to the huge number of very helpful reviews written by both cycling experts and mere mortals like me. However, in reality I was only going to consider either Campagnolo, which I know and like, or Mavic Kysrium, which I know several other people have and like. Clearly if money was not a limiting factor, I’d also be looking at Zipp wheels, which are generally thought to be pretty special – but being carbon are less resilient to potholes (and dogs – ask Marcus Burghardt, Tour de France 2007!) and are ridiculously expensive. In the end I decided on some Campaganolo Shamal Ultras after finding a very good price from an ebay merchant that was over £150 cheaper than the next best – they are 2 steps up in the product range from the ones I am replacing, so should deliver a better ride. Visually there is little difference other than being titanium coloured instead of the black on my current Zondas.
Very excited to receive the new wheels inside two days – thank you High On Bikes for an excellent service. They look and feel amazing. But I had a brief moment of panic when I saw the wheel size was 622x15c instead of the 700x23c that I’d been expecting – was that the reason they’d been such a good price? Feeling like a prize idiot I looked online to discover, to my great relief, that the former measurement is the newer international coding and the latter the older French version. Phew!
As the bike shop is still waiting for my new rim to be delivered for my commute bike, I had to ride into work on my new wheels. I thought initially that I was imagining that the Shamals are more smooth than the Zondas. But after a few rides on them, that is exactly what feels different about them – they are super smooth. Must be higher quality bearings used in the hub I suppose. Very pleased with them.
Took the afternoon off on Thursday to watch Molly in a school hockey tournament. They played 7 games in a round-robin format and did brilliantly, with a couple of crushing wins and some very tight games elsewhere that could have gone either way. I was really proud and impressed by Molly’s play and their team ended up with the bronze medal, very close to silver – a thoroughly enjoyable and exciting afternoon. I never really played hockey, but it’s a good spectator sport, although it looks quite vicious to play with sticks flying around the ankles, hands and head - almost makes road cycling look safe!
So all was going really well, and I was desperately looking forward to trying the new wheels out on a long ride on Sunday. But then, disaster! Sitting at my desk at work on Friday I could feel my left knee starting to get painful. Which was all very strange as I could not remember twisting it awkwardly or banging it on anything – I had moved my saddle forward by about 3 or 4 mm, but surely that couldn’t be the cause. By the time I got changed to go home at the end of the day, it was feeling exceedingly sore around the top of the knee, just where the quads join the knee above the patella - especially when flexing the leg at the knee. I had an uncomfortable and increasingly concerned ride home, and then the pain got worse over the rest of the evening to the point at which I could barely flex it. Now I was really worried – could this be the start of a really long lay-off the training, or worse jeopardise my entire participation in the event itself? How was my knee going to cope with repeated daily 110+ mileage over mountainous terrain if it broke down on a 15 mile commute?
As is the way these days, I attempted to undertake some self-diagnosis online. But there’s so much unqualified information and recommendation that it’s difficult to know I’d be following the right advice and not making it worse. However, the most likely causes looked like poor inner quad strength, pushing too-big gears, or just overtraining - but to me most of these would have involved a more gradual increase in pain compared to the sudden escalation I had experienced, apparently without specific trauma. I felt hugely frustrated and deflated, worrying about the worst-case scenario of how to break it to all those generous donors that I was no longer able to complete the TdF. But more out of desperation than expectation, I emptied the freezer of ice and sat with an ice pack over my knee for about 2 hours. Then went to bed.
Saturday morning I woke at around 7am and tentatively moved my leg – to my delight, although a bit sceptical initially, there appeared to have been a rapid improvement. I repeated the ice treatment on Saturday evening and by Sunday morning I was feeling no pain. Hugely tempted to go for long ride, I resisted in case I aggravated the injury and settled for a single lap of Richmond Park with Clare, at a fairly sedate pace, having reset my saddle to the previous position. No pain or other issues at all – all a bit mystifying and have booked in to see a physio next week to discuss /diagnose/treat. Talk about highs and lows!
Weekly totals
Commute – 83 miles
Other rides – 17 miles
Turbo – 1 hour
Funds raised to date £1403
Sunday, 7 March 2010
First signs of Spring
This was the week the sun came back from wherever it’s been hiding for the last few months. Not exactly warm, as there’s been a cold Easterly wind all week as well, but standing in the sun and out of the wind you could definitely feel some Spring warmth (through the still multiple layers of winter clothing). And it didn’t rain – hoorah!
With my commute bike still being mended, I used the mountain bike to get into work this week. Shod with nobbly tyres, it’s not great for use on the road, and I had to get used to the humiliation of slow speeds and being overtaken all the time by faster roadies on the very competitive Embankment commute home. Looking for the positive, maybe harder riding is good training time…
Had a very tough mid-week turbo session, where I used a pyramid style programme to gradually build up to a peak of effort and then slowly wind it down again. Not sure whether it’s more tortuous on the way up or way down, but it hurt like hell on both sides! My heart rate was up in the 160-180bpm range throughout versus average of around 140bpm when out on long rides. I watched the second episode of Michael Palin’s trip along the Himalayas during the session (conveniently 1 hour long), which was of particular interest to me this time as he travelled through Northern India, visiting some of the places where I’d spent 6 months in 1990 as an 18 year old, trying to lose my public school persona through the very unoriginal (and almost definitely ineffective) route of long hair and earrings. Fond memories of Simla, Dharamsala/Mcleodganj – especially when Palin had a private audience with the Dalai Lama, as I had done with my fellow teachers in 1990. Not sure I really fully appreciated then that I was meeting a World leader, a Noble Peace Prize winner and an icon of our times.
I’d intended to get 90 miles done this weekend, but in the end managed only 77 miles. But I was totally spent by the end of it, having ridden the second half into a stiff cold breeze, and I took in several hard climbs in the North Downs, so feel it was a good training session overall despite the lower than planned mileage. But I realise that I’ve got to get a lot more hill-work into my weekly rides from now on. It was also my first ride of the year on my ‘summer’ bike, which was kinda special – it is very light and incredibly stiff, so great for climbing and handles superbly (it’s the one in the photo at the top of the page). Good to be reacquainted after about 4 months apart. However, on inspection I noticed (like my commute bike last week) that the rear wheel rim is now quite well worn and probably needs replacing relatively soon – Mr Fun says the opportunity to spend more money on kit is always appealing and the perfect chance to upgrade. Mr Sensible says keep the cost down and make do or at worst replace with like. So I know that next week I’ll be checking lots of wheel deals and working hard to justify any upgrade potential to myself…(starting now) it will of course be sensible to replace them (see I’ve already convinced myself that both front and rear wheels should be replaced) before they are completely spent, as I’d then have a spare pair to take on the TdF with me incase anything breaks on the new set.
Weekly totals
Commute – 75 miles
Other rides – 77 miles
Turbo – 1 hour
Christenings – 4 brothers, all in one go!
Funds raised to date £975
With my commute bike still being mended, I used the mountain bike to get into work this week. Shod with nobbly tyres, it’s not great for use on the road, and I had to get used to the humiliation of slow speeds and being overtaken all the time by faster roadies on the very competitive Embankment commute home. Looking for the positive, maybe harder riding is good training time…
Had a very tough mid-week turbo session, where I used a pyramid style programme to gradually build up to a peak of effort and then slowly wind it down again. Not sure whether it’s more tortuous on the way up or way down, but it hurt like hell on both sides! My heart rate was up in the 160-180bpm range throughout versus average of around 140bpm when out on long rides. I watched the second episode of Michael Palin’s trip along the Himalayas during the session (conveniently 1 hour long), which was of particular interest to me this time as he travelled through Northern India, visiting some of the places where I’d spent 6 months in 1990 as an 18 year old, trying to lose my public school persona through the very unoriginal (and almost definitely ineffective) route of long hair and earrings. Fond memories of Simla, Dharamsala/Mcleodganj – especially when Palin had a private audience with the Dalai Lama, as I had done with my fellow teachers in 1990. Not sure I really fully appreciated then that I was meeting a World leader, a Noble Peace Prize winner and an icon of our times.
I’d intended to get 90 miles done this weekend, but in the end managed only 77 miles. But I was totally spent by the end of it, having ridden the second half into a stiff cold breeze, and I took in several hard climbs in the North Downs, so feel it was a good training session overall despite the lower than planned mileage. But I realise that I’ve got to get a lot more hill-work into my weekly rides from now on. It was also my first ride of the year on my ‘summer’ bike, which was kinda special – it is very light and incredibly stiff, so great for climbing and handles superbly (it’s the one in the photo at the top of the page). Good to be reacquainted after about 4 months apart. However, on inspection I noticed (like my commute bike last week) that the rear wheel rim is now quite well worn and probably needs replacing relatively soon – Mr Fun says the opportunity to spend more money on kit is always appealing and the perfect chance to upgrade. Mr Sensible says keep the cost down and make do or at worst replace with like. So I know that next week I’ll be checking lots of wheel deals and working hard to justify any upgrade potential to myself…(starting now) it will of course be sensible to replace them (see I’ve already convinced myself that both front and rear wheels should be replaced) before they are completely spent, as I’d then have a spare pair to take on the TdF with me incase anything breaks on the new set.
Weekly totals
Commute – 75 miles
Other rides – 77 miles
Turbo – 1 hour
Christenings – 4 brothers, all in one go!
Funds raised to date £975
Sunday, 28 February 2010
Mud, glorious mud
Given the downpour on last weekend’s Tour de Force ride in Richmond Park, I suppose it was no surprise that I have been commuting under a rain cloud all week. By some miracle, my proper soakings have come mainly on the homebound leg, giving me time to dry out my clothing, helmet, gloves and shoes before the ride in the following morning. Getting drenched on the way into work at 5.30am is no real hardship in itself, but with nowhere to dry clothes in the office, putting cold soggy clothes back on for the ride home that evening is seriously unpleasant. I have full waterproof clothing – trousers, jacket and overshoes – but when it’s raining really hard and there’s lots of water on the road too, it’s almost impossible to keep everything dry.
Perhaps then, not the best week to extend my home commute by 2.5 miles to take in the ride up the hill to Putney Heath. Not exactly the longest or most demanding col I know, but it adds a new dimension to the daily route and hopefully will bring some modest benefit to my climbing fitness given the rest of my commute is essentially flat.
During the week I’d started to notice that my commuting / winter bike was making a strange noise on every revolution of the wheels – like a rubbing noise, suggesting a tyre or wheel rim was catching the brakes or the mudguards. But there was no sign of the noise when I was spinning the wheels while off the bike, so nothing was rubbing, and the noise continued if I was on the bike, but not pedalling, so nothing to do with the bottom bracket or pedals. However, a quick inspection of the wheel spokes revealed several loose ones (front and rear!), which is very likely to be the cause of the mystery noise. I tightened a few up, but in the end decided that the bike shop was best placed to sort this out - my efforts were likely to leave the wheel distinctly out of shape and looking like it had been run over by a lorry. So the bike is now in hospital (the fantastic Holdsworth Cycles on Lower Richmond Road), getting a full service at the same time – and the mechanic has rightly pointed out that my rear wheel rim is severely worn out and needs replacing…so yet more expense (but still cheaper than commuting by train/bus and a whole lot more convenient and enjoyable).
To try to balance home, cycling and work life, I try to start my long weekend rides early in the morning to get home in time for the rest of the day. This typically means getting up before 7am – which doesn’t sound too bad, but hits the sleep bank after getting up at 5.15am all week for work and often coming after a late night out on Friday or Saturday. So you can imagine my utter delight when Cress suggested I do my weekend ride on Sunday afternoon while she hooked up with friends who have kids the same age as ours. Complete bliss – 2 consecutive lie-ins in one weekend, and we didn’t go out on either Friday or Saturday night, so a big win for shuteye hours.
Continuing the week’s wet weather theme, the forecast for the weekend was dire. The BBC website was expecting ‘heavy rain’ and high winds for the whole of Sunday – conveniently now presented in 3 hour chunks. And Saturday’s forecast also predicted consistent heavy showers. Not particularly inviting for bike riding. And since my winter road bike was now holed up somewhere dry and warm awaiting some tender R&R, and there was no way I was taking my ‘pride and joy summer bike’ out in this weather, I stayed in…well not exactly as it turned out. My third bike (extravagant I know, but my collection is still not complete – topic for another day!) is a beaten up old Scott mountain bike which I put together from some old parts I had lying around after buying the frame secondhand off ebay. The idea being, that I can ride it around town and it won’t get nicked (ha ha), and also use it to ride on tracks and towpaths with the kids. It’s not a particularly good fit, nor particularly advanced compared to some the amazing full suspension mountain bikes now commonplace. But it seemed like a great alternative to sitting on the turbo trainer – so I dressed for the poor weather and went out to Richmond Park for a couple of fun laps round the perimeter track, and a couple of circuits of a very muddy Wimbledon Common – 2.5 hours of seriously entertaining splashing around, and an excellent work-out. Got to ask myself why I hadn’t spent more of the winter doing this. Returned home with bike and self caked in mud, but with exercise needs thoroughly sated and still warm and toasty from the effort – Garmin suggested over 2500 calories burned, with an average heart rate over 140bpm.
To finish the end of the week on topic – I rode home from mates’ house on Sunday evening in jeans…in a biblical downpour.
Weekly totals
Commute – 85 miles
Other rides – 32 miles (offroad)
Turbo – 1 hour
Funds raised to date £569
Perhaps then, not the best week to extend my home commute by 2.5 miles to take in the ride up the hill to Putney Heath. Not exactly the longest or most demanding col I know, but it adds a new dimension to the daily route and hopefully will bring some modest benefit to my climbing fitness given the rest of my commute is essentially flat.
During the week I’d started to notice that my commuting / winter bike was making a strange noise on every revolution of the wheels – like a rubbing noise, suggesting a tyre or wheel rim was catching the brakes or the mudguards. But there was no sign of the noise when I was spinning the wheels while off the bike, so nothing was rubbing, and the noise continued if I was on the bike, but not pedalling, so nothing to do with the bottom bracket or pedals. However, a quick inspection of the wheel spokes revealed several loose ones (front and rear!), which is very likely to be the cause of the mystery noise. I tightened a few up, but in the end decided that the bike shop was best placed to sort this out - my efforts were likely to leave the wheel distinctly out of shape and looking like it had been run over by a lorry. So the bike is now in hospital (the fantastic Holdsworth Cycles on Lower Richmond Road), getting a full service at the same time – and the mechanic has rightly pointed out that my rear wheel rim is severely worn out and needs replacing…so yet more expense (but still cheaper than commuting by train/bus and a whole lot more convenient and enjoyable).
To try to balance home, cycling and work life, I try to start my long weekend rides early in the morning to get home in time for the rest of the day. This typically means getting up before 7am – which doesn’t sound too bad, but hits the sleep bank after getting up at 5.15am all week for work and often coming after a late night out on Friday or Saturday. So you can imagine my utter delight when Cress suggested I do my weekend ride on Sunday afternoon while she hooked up with friends who have kids the same age as ours. Complete bliss – 2 consecutive lie-ins in one weekend, and we didn’t go out on either Friday or Saturday night, so a big win for shuteye hours.
Continuing the week’s wet weather theme, the forecast for the weekend was dire. The BBC website was expecting ‘heavy rain’ and high winds for the whole of Sunday – conveniently now presented in 3 hour chunks. And Saturday’s forecast also predicted consistent heavy showers. Not particularly inviting for bike riding. And since my winter road bike was now holed up somewhere dry and warm awaiting some tender R&R, and there was no way I was taking my ‘pride and joy summer bike’ out in this weather, I stayed in…well not exactly as it turned out. My third bike (extravagant I know, but my collection is still not complete – topic for another day!) is a beaten up old Scott mountain bike which I put together from some old parts I had lying around after buying the frame secondhand off ebay. The idea being, that I can ride it around town and it won’t get nicked (ha ha), and also use it to ride on tracks and towpaths with the kids. It’s not a particularly good fit, nor particularly advanced compared to some the amazing full suspension mountain bikes now commonplace. But it seemed like a great alternative to sitting on the turbo trainer – so I dressed for the poor weather and went out to Richmond Park for a couple of fun laps round the perimeter track, and a couple of circuits of a very muddy Wimbledon Common – 2.5 hours of seriously entertaining splashing around, and an excellent work-out. Got to ask myself why I hadn’t spent more of the winter doing this. Returned home with bike and self caked in mud, but with exercise needs thoroughly sated and still warm and toasty from the effort – Garmin suggested over 2500 calories burned, with an average heart rate over 140bpm.
To finish the end of the week on topic – I rode home from mates’ house on Sunday evening in jeans…in a biblical downpour.
Weekly totals
Commute – 85 miles
Other rides – 32 miles (offroad)
Turbo – 1 hour
Funds raised to date £569
Sunday, 21 February 2010
On the road to recovery
I've avoided the turbo and swimming pool all week, and thankfully felt sufficiently better to get out for a longer ride at the weekend - but not that long as the monthly Tour de Force was almost a complete washout. On what was actually quite a nice weekend weatherwise, the three hours of riding round Richmond Park were filthy - wet, windy and cold - while the rest of Saturday and Sunday was relatively bright, dry and warmer. Great turnout though and enough riders to need to split into three separate groups. Some rather amusing attempts by Steve to organise some bunch riding with 'through and off' technique, but I think everyone was having trouble enough seeing anything in front of them with the amount of spray coming off the road, and the general cold-induced numbness in feet and fingers. I noticed that sitting behind my wheel was quite popular as I was one of the only riders with mudguards. Richmond Park still seems to be taking its toll on tyres, with at least 6 punctures in the group, and a few turning for home prematurely, understandably fed up with the wind and rain. A few brave souls stuck it out for a bit longer, but everyone was done well before the planned stop-time of midday - thoroughly soaked, cold and mostly pretty miserable. My 5 laps were a long way short of what I'd originally planned, but I thought it better to call it a day before risking a return of my headcold or worse. Clare did superbly well on her first group outing, keeping up with most of the riders, and going 50% further than she'd ever been before too - and she was trying out clip-in shoes for the first time ever, successfully avoiding any comedy moments by remembering to clip-out when stopping. Hoping for a longer ride next weekend.
Had an interesting email from Tour de Force organiser and my room-mate on the Tour, Rick Wates this week. On the suggestion/recommendation of one of the other TdForcers, he is thinking of adding a physiotherapist to the Tour, with the idea that she would be available to ease the aches and pains at the end of each stage and return us to a fit state where we can get back in the saddle the following morning. Obviously it's not going to be free for those that want it, but even a half-hour massage every other day is going to be a massive help, especially given how tight my hamstrings seem to get.
As part of my regular checks on equipment, I noticed a crack almost an inch long on the inside of my helmet. Not quite sure how it got there as I haven't had an off for a while and don't remember dropping it recently. But anyway, there it was, and a crack in a lid is not good news - pretty terminal actually, so I had to buy a new one this week. Yet more expense, but I'd had it for about 4 years, so it had covered a few thousand miles and seen a few spills. The model to replace my old lid is now called the Specialized S-Works and is one of the lightest available. Frustratingly I'd seen it online at a discount of 20% a couple of weeks ago, but that retailer had now sold out. So I paid full price £130...but the lid is so much improved on the old one, with a much better fitting mechanism, and the padding is now attached without velcro - which previously could be uncomfortable on your forehead if the padding slipped.
I also bought a beanie to sit under my helmet and keep my head warm - the new helmet seemed to have much better airflow too - good on a hot summer's day, but a bit chilly in the middle of this cold winter. It's made by Altura, and being relatively thin but tightly woven, it's good at keeping the windchill out, without causing too much of a fug-up like my thicker headband.
Bike shops are dangerous places for my wallet. But seeing that Putney Cycles had a good selection of the energy bars / gels that I like, I took the opportunity to stock up. Having tried most of the ones on the market over the last 3/4 years, I find I can stomach (almost actually like) the Powerbar gels - strawberry/banana and vanilla flavours only, and the bars by Clif and Mule. Most of the others either taste revolting or are so hard to chew that you get jaw ache. However, I did also see a Cookies and Cream bar by Powerbar that sounded so good I couldn't resist getting one to try, although it does feel like a piece of concrete in the packet, so not sure if it's going to be that easy to eat on the road.
Had an interesting email from Tour de Force organiser and my room-mate on the Tour, Rick Wates this week. On the suggestion/recommendation of one of the other TdForcers, he is thinking of adding a physiotherapist to the Tour, with the idea that she would be available to ease the aches and pains at the end of each stage and return us to a fit state where we can get back in the saddle the following morning. Obviously it's not going to be free for those that want it, but even a half-hour massage every other day is going to be a massive help, especially given how tight my hamstrings seem to get.
As part of my regular checks on equipment, I noticed a crack almost an inch long on the inside of my helmet. Not quite sure how it got there as I haven't had an off for a while and don't remember dropping it recently. But anyway, there it was, and a crack in a lid is not good news - pretty terminal actually, so I had to buy a new one this week. Yet more expense, but I'd had it for about 4 years, so it had covered a few thousand miles and seen a few spills. The model to replace my old lid is now called the Specialized S-Works and is one of the lightest available. Frustratingly I'd seen it online at a discount of 20% a couple of weeks ago, but that retailer had now sold out. So I paid full price £130...but the lid is so much improved on the old one, with a much better fitting mechanism, and the padding is now attached without velcro - which previously could be uncomfortable on your forehead if the padding slipped.
I also bought a beanie to sit under my helmet and keep my head warm - the new helmet seemed to have much better airflow too - good on a hot summer's day, but a bit chilly in the middle of this cold winter. It's made by Altura, and being relatively thin but tightly woven, it's good at keeping the windchill out, without causing too much of a fug-up like my thicker headband.
Bike shops are dangerous places for my wallet. But seeing that Putney Cycles had a good selection of the energy bars / gels that I like, I took the opportunity to stock up. Having tried most of the ones on the market over the last 3/4 years, I find I can stomach (almost actually like) the Powerbar gels - strawberry/banana and vanilla flavours only, and the bars by Clif and Mule. Most of the others either taste revolting or are so hard to chew that you get jaw ache. However, I did also see a Cookies and Cream bar by Powerbar that sounded so good I couldn't resist getting one to try, although it does feel like a piece of concrete in the packet, so not sure if it's going to be that easy to eat on the road.
Weekly totals
Commute - 75 miles
Other rides - 38 miles
Snooker - 2 poor quality frames!
Sunday, 14 February 2010
Bit of a set-back - laid low with the lurg
Rather stupidly, I'd been congratulating myself on avoiding even a common cold over the last two years - what a healthy chap. Wrong! Not sure of the exact reason, but I have a nasty head cold, streaming nose and am feeling pretty rough. Probably a combination of the step-up in training, too many late nights at work and out with friends, booze and a couple of days standing in the cold watching football. But as a result, I haven't done any time on the turbo, and didn't go out for a ride this weekend either. Managed to get a swim in before the onset of the cold. But now just trying to be sensible and speed the recovery process along, so I can get back into training as soon as possible.
On Tuesday evening I went to see Fulham beat Burnley 3-0, with a couple of guys from the office. One of them, Paul, has 4 season tickets there, and took us along as kick-off was past his sons' bedtime! His seats have a great view of the pitch, but the wind doesn't half rip round that stadium coming off the river. Burnley were completely outplayed, but their support didn't stop singing for the whole of the second half - impressive!
Weekly totals
Commute - 60 miles
Other rides - zero
Swim - 1500m
On Tuesday evening I went to see Fulham beat Burnley 3-0, with a couple of guys from the office. One of them, Paul, has 4 season tickets there, and took us along as kick-off was past his sons' bedtime! His seats have a great view of the pitch, but the wind doesn't half rip round that stadium coming off the river. Burnley were completely outplayed, but their support didn't stop singing for the whole of the second half - impressive!
Weekly totals
Commute - 60 miles
Other rides - zero
Swim - 1500m
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