Did the Dragon last weekend. Great day out and good solid ride. Change of bike/gears compared to last year, Tarmac with 53/39 x 12/27
Spent the first half of event in company of the Fred Baker boys, took things easier second half climbing solo but tagging up with fast group on final run to home.
Just for the record here are the key stats.
Overall
6:03:26 194W (242 Normalised) Average HR 139, Peak HR 172 77rpm AVS 31.3kph Drift 14%
Climbs
3 small at start:
3:41@359W
4:09@327W
2:55@344W
Bwlch1 11:27@298NW 81rpm 17.8kph
Rhigos 17:23@310NW 81rpm 21.8kph
Defynnog 7:59@268NW 81rpm 23.3kph
Cray 16:51@261NW 83rpm 26.3kph
Coelbrenn 7:45@273NW 85rpm 21.6kph
Cimla 10:14@275NW 80rpm 18.7kph
Bwlch 2 21:00@251NW 74rpm 17.4kph
Llangeinor 4:26@278W 84rpm 19.8kph
Interesting to see cadence nice and high for all climbs except the second Bwlch where heat started to tell and power dropped. Still recovered well and bit of adrenaline on the descent helped finish feeling pretty fresh.
Last years ride was also good but of the two this was the better. In particular finished much stronger with 2008 Bwlch 2 being a real slog and only managing 240W .
Friday, June 19, 2009
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
TDF 2009 - Roubaix rides again
On return from 2006 tour I joined cycleplus (now bikeradar) forum to get some advice on training + be able to offer some in case anybody fancied doing same as I did.
Since then been a couple of people looking for advice and I've done best to help them. Never actually heard of any of them actually doing the ride though..
Couple of months a post came on from Chris Pountney, looking for advice on bike to take if he was to ride tour. Planning to do it slightly differently from me:
- riding full stage per day
- doing supported with some others
- its only 1 part of the "ultimate triathlon" along with swimming the channel and doing the marathon des sables. More stuff here
ultimatetriathlon
I offered Chris advice and encouragement. Then it occurred to me that my Roubaix is just sitting in the garage now as I will be using Tarmac and Serotta (hopefully!!) over summer. So suggested he use this bike. He took me up on offer and last Monday came to pick it up (slightly jetlagged + beard as just arrived back from New Zealand).
Hopefully I'll be meeting up with Chris later this month as I travel down for the GF Pantani.
I hope he succeeds and its nice to think of the Roubaix doing not one but 2 TDFs. Must make it a pretty rare bike.
PS. Seeing Chris we talked about the route. He told me about this site:
http://www.steephill.tv/2009/tour-de-france/
which tries to scoop details of where the route will go. Useful if I ever do it again....
PPS Also prompted to remind myself where I was this time 3 years ago..I thought I had already got to the mountains but in fact was doing the long transition ride down from Brittany. 3rd June 2006 I was doing my once a week easy ride (La Tranche to Rochefort, memories include mad French bikers - on pedal and motor variety + great hotel find)..
Since then been a couple of people looking for advice and I've done best to help them. Never actually heard of any of them actually doing the ride though..
Couple of months a post came on from Chris Pountney, looking for advice on bike to take if he was to ride tour. Planning to do it slightly differently from me:
- riding full stage per day
- doing supported with some others
- its only 1 part of the "ultimate triathlon" along with swimming the channel and doing the marathon des sables. More stuff here
ultimatetriathlon
I offered Chris advice and encouragement. Then it occurred to me that my Roubaix is just sitting in the garage now as I will be using Tarmac and Serotta (hopefully!!) over summer. So suggested he use this bike. He took me up on offer and last Monday came to pick it up (slightly jetlagged + beard as just arrived back from New Zealand).
Hopefully I'll be meeting up with Chris later this month as I travel down for the GF Pantani.
I hope he succeeds and its nice to think of the Roubaix doing not one but 2 TDFs. Must make it a pretty rare bike.
PS. Seeing Chris we talked about the route. He told me about this site:
http://www.steephill.tv/2009/tour-de-france/
which tries to scoop details of where the route will go. Useful if I ever do it again....
PPS Also prompted to remind myself where I was this time 3 years ago..I thought I had already got to the mountains but in fact was doing the long transition ride down from Brittany. 3rd June 2006 I was doing my once a week easy ride (La Tranche to Rochefort, memories include mad French bikers - on pedal and motor variety + great hotel find)..
Monday, June 01, 2009
First 100/ Numb Nuts
Did first 100 yesterday, Hounslow race on A31 just over the border in Hampshire. Lovely sunny day though a bit breezy. Early start (getting up 4.00!), arrived in plenty of time and had a good ride.
Overtook lots of riders and only overtaken by a couple. Was targetting pace of around 240W but difficult as course rolling and breeze. So aimed for around 40kph and came very close to target finishing on 4.06.20. Frustratingly just over a minute over the club record. Still new club age record and great for BAR. If I do 2 hours for a 50 then just need 250miles in 12 hour to hit target 22mph.
Despite not really looking at average power during ride ended up pretty much dead on target with 231W/237NW.
Main limiter turned out to be something not experienced before...undercarriage problems. After 60-70 miles nose of saddle was digging in something rotten and last 30 miles very painful. Problem is on a TT bike its difficult to get relief by standing up every now and then..
Ended up with numb nuts..something needs to be done. I will experiment with saddle postion, moving it down a little and also lower the nose a tad. Will also check out one of these..
http://www.trainingbible.com/joesblog/2008/04/adamo-saddle.html
In meantime Pilates cushion coming in very useful. Sitting on one as I type..
Overtook lots of riders and only overtaken by a couple. Was targetting pace of around 240W but difficult as course rolling and breeze. So aimed for around 40kph and came very close to target finishing on 4.06.20. Frustratingly just over a minute over the club record. Still new club age record and great for BAR. If I do 2 hours for a 50 then just need 250miles in 12 hour to hit target 22mph.
Despite not really looking at average power during ride ended up pretty much dead on target with 231W/237NW.
Main limiter turned out to be something not experienced before...undercarriage problems. After 60-70 miles nose of saddle was digging in something rotten and last 30 miles very painful. Problem is on a TT bike its difficult to get relief by standing up every now and then..
Ended up with numb nuts..something needs to be done. I will experiment with saddle postion, moving it down a little and also lower the nose a tad. Will also check out one of these..
http://www.trainingbible.com/joesblog/2008/04/adamo-saddle.html
In meantime Pilates cushion coming in very useful. Sitting on one as I type..
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