Mr M's Tour de France

5 key training drills

2011-09-13T08:48:00.007+01:00

Taken a break, now I'm back training albeit not as intensely as I used to.

I just do a session on my Wattbike once every other day or so. But it's going well and I'm getting fitter.

I thought I'd just make a note of the sessions I do, they are general purpose and would suit anybody wanting to get fit regardless of what they actually do, cycle, run, row, swim, whatever.

The only thing you need for all is a clock and a measure of distance covered.

There are 5 different exercises. First time through I'd suggest doing them each in order which will help get a good feeling for the pace to use.

Thereafter you can pretty much do them in any order you like depending on how you feel and aiming overall to do all the exercises a similar number of times. Ideally you will do 3-4 sessions per week with a days rest between each. You can do more if time permits and you feel fresh. Try to do at least 2 per week at least.

Notes:

Clock/distance measure is the basic way to set pace. Depending on circumstances others can be used, like resistance on gym equipment or hills if training outdoors. Key thing is that whatever you use is easy to monitor and repeatable. You need this in order to train optimally, also seeing yourself go faster with less effort is a great motivator
All but the first exercise have rest periods. During this time slow to minimal pace but keep moving, do not stop completely.)
Failing: you will have bad days when you cant complete a whole exercise. Don't let this get you down. Make your next session the same exercise, easing back a bit if it guarantees you will complete it, then use this as benchmark for progression.

1: Steady state 1 hour

From cold start and increase pace until you are exercising quite hard but at a pace you feel you can maintain for a full hour. I find monitoring breathing is best indicator for this. Raise pace until you feel you have to breathe through your mouth but its a controlled breathing: you can force yourself to breathe through nose for a short while and still maintain pace.

Progression: At the end of the hour record distance covered. Next time go further.
Variety: This can be a boring workout. To make it more interesting vary some technical aspects of the exercise, e.g. on a bike do 30s at 100rpm every 2 mins or so. Another variant (and very good training) is to do a negative split: second half hour is done at a faster pace than first. If you feel up to it then a more advanced form of this workout is to sprint for 15s-30s every 2-5 mins.

2: 2x20s

Warm up for 5-10 mins then do the following:

20 minutes at pace above that from exercise 1 above. As a guideline you should be pushing at a pace that forces you to breathe hard and often through your mouth.
At the end of 20 minutes ease right back and rest for 5 minutes
Do another 20 minutes. Aim for this 20 minutes to be at at least the same pace as the first.

Progression: Try to increase distance covered in each 20 minutes every time. Good approach is try to set a 20 minute best on the second 20 then make that PB the target distance for the first 20 next time round.

3: Under Overs

Warm up for 5-10 mins. Then do the following:

Exercise for 2 mins at the steady state pace from exercise 2.
Push hard for 1 min. You should already be breathing hard through your mouth>> during this minute you should feel a shift from where you are under control of your breathing to a point where you feel you have to really suck deep on every breath just to keep going. However don't push so hard you give max effort and sprint (except for the first 2-5s or so to get pace up). You have to maintain a high pace for the full minute, not peak and fade.
After the 1 min ease back and do another 2 mins at steady state.
Push hard for 1 minute
Another 2 mins,
Then another minute hard.

Ease right back and do very easy pace for 5 minutes

Repeat all above again and again. So in the end you do 3x9 mins, each 9 min consisting of 3x 2 mins steady, 1 min hard.

Progression: Record the distance covered each 9 mins. Aim to cover more each time you do this drill. Another progression is to do 2 mins steady then 2 mins hard, making each interval 12 mins long.

4: VO2s

Warm up for 5-10 mins then do the following:

5 minutes at the 1 minute pace from exercise 3.
5 minutes rest
repeat 3 times (so total 20 minutes exercise)

That's it. If time permits you can take a long rest (10 mins or so) and repeat.

Don't push too hard on the first interval. You need to complete all 4. The first 3 should be at a very similar pace. Your body takes a while to warm up fully to working at this intensity, so don't be surprised if the third feels easier than the preceding two.

Progression: If you feel up to it push harder on the last. If you succeed in keeping a higher pace to the end use that as a benchmark next time round.

5: 1x1s

Warm up for 5-10 mins then do the following:

Go as hard as possible at a pace you can sustain for a full minute. Breathe really hard just before starting then first 15s or so sprint to get up pace. (you won't breathe much if at all during this time. Sprint should be hard but not max effort, you need some reserve for completion). Hold pace for 45s. You will be breathing very very hard.
Rest 1 minute
Repeat for at least 4 times.

Fully rest for 10 minutes or so then repeat. So total of 8 minutes very high intensity exercise.

Progression: Increase pace of each minute or add extra minutes (so 5x1 minute> 6x1 not just 4x1 minute). Hard alternative is to repeat until exhaustion. So just keep doing 1 minute effort, 1 minute rest until you can't complete a full minute. Keep a note of pace and number of minutes completed and use this as benchmark for the future.

War on Drugs

2010-12-16T10:10:00.002Z

Not really been been updating this blog but thought I would just quickly for posterity record my thanks to Bob Ainsworth for having the courage and conviction to stand up and say "the emperor is stark bollock naked!!" when it comes to the "war" on drugs.

Today Interview

His views got the predictable parrot reaction from his leader. However others do support him. People like Tom Lloyd. Especially interesting, his being an ex Chief Constable. This interview with Peter Hitchens is fascinating and its very much a shame that it got cut off.

Tom Lloyd

For the record in the latter interview I have some sympathy with Peter Hitchens's views. The current policy is feeble. If the end objective was really to end drugs use then there is no choice but to pursue and prosecute drugs users.

Truth is, as both Bob Ainsworth and Peter Hitchens agree, there is no real end objective of the current "war". I don't hold out much hope that anything will change soon, but hopefully more people like Bob Ainsworth will speak out.

Ventoux 2009 - Pro Comparison

2009-08-06T15:25:00.009+01:00

Been a while since last post. Done lots of riding! So catching up bit by bit.

Did the Etape 2009 a couple of weeks back, stage 20 from Montelimar to Mt Ventoux. I had a pretty good ride. My target was to get gold, which for my age was 6:35. Based pacing on combination of the Dragon + WKO file of a cycle club mate who went up Ventoux in around 1:35 at around 245W.

Dragon to 140km looked similar to Etape. So I guessed from that I should aim too get to Bedoin around 4:30 which meant a 1:40 or so climb would mean comfortably getting under target.

Worked scarily well. Went reasonably hard up the early climbs, moving through field well. After first made the mistake of trying too hard to catch group ahead but learned on future climbs just to be patient as sure to be another group coming along. Lost a bit of time on descents but still managed to find quick groups and hit Bedoin dead on schedule.

Climb of Ventoux was a bit tough, especially through forest. I decided not to push too hard and just maintain pace/position. Helped by Cyclefit guys lending me a bottle. Hard towards end but finished OK.

Ended up with comfortable gold around 6:10. Surprised to find self in top 200, top 170 in terms of Ventoux. Beat Erik Zabel, Stephen Rooks and Cedric Vasseur up the mountain and at some point must have passed Alain Prost!

One thing the Etape offers is a unique chance to compare a ride with the pros. Chris Anker Sorenson (Saxo Bank) rode the stage a few days later and finished 30th only 5 minutes behind. His files were shared by Training Peaks and comparison with my ride is summarised below (ride broken down by 3 minor climbs each with a descent/bridging sector, then Ventoux. Latter broken down into first easier stretch then second hard stretch starting in forest).

Interesting to note how in early stages my figures dont vary too wildly from Sorenson's. (though note for Watts he weighs 63.5 to my 70kg). Difference is that I was trying while think the pros were taking it a bit easy.

The last 3 sectors, (run to Bedoin and Ventoux) show the difference between pros and mortals. Power kicks up in run to Bedoin at over 300W (while I am easing back at less than half that).

First "easy" section of the Ventoux is frenetic, over 400W for the pros over 6W/kg. Even they "ease" back up the final climb to a mere 344W.

Total for Ventoux is pro: 360W (84rpm) to climb in 62 mins. (compared to my 242W (72rpm) and 99 mins.

HR graph interesting too. Mine slopes downward with time as I start strong but get tired towards end. Sorensons slopes other way, especially impressive given how many hard days riding led up to this day.

Comparison Spreadsheet (ODS)

Chris Anker Sorensen WKO file

My WKO file

LINK to ALL file

Full Results

Other stuff:

Review/Photos (in French)

Marmotte 2009 - A day of 3 halves....

2009-07-09T14:44:00.003+01:00

Lots to catch up on, will get round to it sooner or later. But just quick note on Marmotte 2009.

In a nutshell it was a ride of 3 halves...

- Great start and climb up the Glandon, 15 mins faster than last year.
- Great finish up the Alp, made the top 100 with climb time of 65 mins

Unfortunately middle was bit of disaster due to puncturing on early Glandon hair pins. Tried to turn but bike went straight on, luckily into side of mountain rather than over edge. I was not alone, another guy already being treated by doc as I crashed in. By coincidence a fellow Brit, in a lot worse shape than I was with a broken collar bone.

Eventually ambulance arrived and we got shuttled down mountain to get patched up. However bike not allowed to come with me as not hygenic enough. Once at med station turned out I was not too bad though told I needed stiches in elbow. Given option to go to hospital to get this but decided against, ditto on waiting for broom wagon. More worried about getting bike back so discharged myself. Tried getting a taxi via local bar but would mean long wait so decided to walk back uphill.

Did so, though made bit of boo boo by deciding to save cleats by walking in stocking feet. So after 8 km or so of uphill slog my cleats were fine. Unfortunately my feet blistered...

Anyway reunited with bike, fixed flats and got lucky as rest fine, nothing broken. Only problem was out of inner tubes. By time sorted I was told I was 15 mins ahead of broom wagon so I headed downhill.

Bit nervous post crash so I took descent easy. As result had to TT along valley, effort here was pretty much same as climbing the Telegraph. Come Galiber a bit despondent, especially when caught in thunder storm. However it passed and as it did so my mood lifted. Climbed this OK and was much cheered when saw Guy and Helyn from KOM just before summit, especially as caught up with some others from KOM.

Another cautious descent from Galibier, then I headed up Alp. This went great, it was hot but luckily I seem to suffer less from this than others.

Had a bit of luck, just when I needed a bit of encouragement a rider from Coventry passed me. I locked onto his wheel for a while and got second wind. Felt strong as an ox come the finish.

So final ride time was 10 hours 12 minutes or so. Pretty crap. However in terms of ride time I was around 5 minutes faster than 2008. Whats more I was 20 minutes faster up the climbs, but lost out on descents. Plus the valley floor was hard work, 20W more effort but lost 2 minutes..plus I had climbed the Glandon twice, once on bike, once on foot.

Post crash, coming down the Glandon I was thinking "never again.." However now I've had a bit of time to reflect I think I will have one more go for a low 7 time next year. Preparation will start next week when I go back to the Glandon to kill the ghost and practice the descent.

Regardless of what happens 2010 that will (probably) be my last Marmotte until 2019. Then I will be 60 and already have a target time of 7:28 (which won the category for Dave Lloyd this year).

Dragon 2009 - Power stats

2009-06-19T08:40:00.003+01:00

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 .

TDF 2009 - Roubaix rides again

2009-06-03T09:49:00.002+01:00

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)..

First 100/ Numb Nuts

2009-06-01T08:39:00.003+01:00

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..

Catching up

2009-05-30T10:14:00.002+01:00

Its been a long time since last post. Quite a lot has happened since then.

March
- last few days at work
- new carpet

April
- celebrating 125 years with Mrs M in Venice (50 + 50 + 25 years of marriage)
- 3 day road race over easter weekend. Great until crash in last 100 yards
- Mallorca training camp
- Mrs M becomes a professional

May
- Helping out at Reading beer festival
- Tour of Ireland (5 days into a headwind, good fun except for getting knocked off last day)
- Etape Caledonia - tacks and first distillery trip
- Tour of Wessex - 3 lovely days of sun and much more fun with Mrs M
- New bike arrives - not quite what I thought it would be...

Marmotte power pacing - guide

2009-04-29T21:36:00.003+01:00

Based on last years experience here is a rough and ready guide on how to prepare for and pace the Marmottte using a power meter.

Put simply the Marmotte consists of 4 big climbs and 2 big descents and a nasty link ride after descent 1. To do well you need to be a good climber and good (at least safe) descender. A powermeter is useful for training for and pacing the climbs, which will account for around 70% of ride time. Its no use for descents which need separate training. (Good advice here: Flamme Rouge Descend Like a Pro). It might be useful for the nasty link section but best thing for this is find a group and work with it.

Rest of this post is about pacing the climbs.

Step 1. Find your "FTP" - this is important for most aspects of training. Its especially so for rides like the Marmotte. For a good guide to measuring FTP see here:

FTP Measurement - Alex's 7 deadly sins

Step 2: Set your goals. Once you know your FTP then the next step is to decide how you want to ride the event, balancing best finish time with chance of blowup. I'd suggest choosing between one of 3 options:

"Death or Glory": Only advised if you are a top quality rider. Basically this means trying to do the climbs at 90%-100% of your FTP. High risk but possible (see the stats for the elite rider below for an example)

"Go Fast" If you want to push yourself without too much risk of blow up aim to climb at around 75% to 90% of FTP. This is the option I took.

"Slow But Sure": If you want to be sure to finish then aim to climb at around 60%-75% of FTP.

Step 3: Guesstimate your climb time for each of the climbs.

From the above you should have a rough idea of the power you will be aiming for. You can use this to plug into a calculator like this: Bike Calculator which will give you an guesstimate for how long each climb will take. e.g. for me FTP 305W weighing 70kg with a 9kg bike the 13km@8% climb of Alpe D'Huez is guessed to take around 67 minutes if I manage 229W (75% of FTP). This is pretty damn close (I actually took 70 minutes)

The output from this will be four sets of power figures and estimated climb times. e.g.

1 Glandon 245W 23km@5% guess 80 minutes
2 Telegraphe 240W 12km@7% 55 minutes
3 Galibier 235W 18km@7% 85 minutes
4 Alpe 230W 13km@8% 70minutes

(Its best to assume that you will lose a bit of power each climb.)

(If you want to guess total ride time add these up and add an extra 2.5 -3 hours for other bits.)

Step 4a: Train to with the climb goals in mind. So try to do rides with average power/time the same as the climbs. So using above example, try riding for 80 minutes at 245W average power. If you can do this, do it again, rest for an hour or so then try a ride of 240W for 55 minutes.

Or to simulate the Telegraph/Galibier climb ride 240W for 55 minutes, have a 10 minute rest then try 235W for 85minutes.

This may sound a bit tough, that's the point. If you cant do the power/time then try reducing one or other and build from there (so 245W for 60 minutes if cant manage 80).

During all these rides eat as you would plan to eat during the event. As a rough guide aim to eat 1-1.5g of carbohydrate per minute.

Step 4b: Supplement this training with training at FTP level. Classic is 2x20mins at FTP with a 5 minute rest.

From this training you will get a feel as to whether or not the guesstimates from Step 3 are right or not. If needs be go back and adjust them.

Step 5. (Optional) do trial run, by doing all 4 "climbs" in a day, with a gap of an hour or so between 1 and 2, 10 mins between 2 and 3, and an hour between 3 and 4.

Step 6: Check your gearing: find hills of 5-12% and just check gearing is comfortable to allow you to put out power needed.

Step 7: Ride. From all the above you should have a good idea of how to tackle each of the major climbs on the Marmotte itself. Get to the start early, tag onto a group on the run up to the first climb, then climb to your target power. Prepare to be flexible though. Events may mean you need to change your targets for each climb. Beauty of having a powermeter is that you can do this in a controlled way. So if feeling good try upping power by 5-10W. If feeling bad lower it a bit.

Step 8. Hopefully finish well. If planning to ride event or similar again then the actuals you managed form the basis for next training plan.

Some real numbers

Marmotte stats: Me vs fellow amateur

Marmotte stats: Me vs top Brit Elite rider

For more general info see the guide here: Marmotte Guide

Presents from France

2009-03-30T14:25:00.004+01:00

Had a very nice trip to Strasbourg week before last, my last while working for Mars. I got wined and dined and received lots of very touching presents, mostly involving cheese or booze, which i guess says something about me (and the French).

This presented a minor logistical problem to get it all back but fortunately going Eurostar which made it a lot easier.

Presents included some Jorq camembert (quite the best I have ever tasted), huge bottles of Maggi (blast from my Swiss past) and both cremant and Pol remy (for Katy's wedding :))...

Fransiscan Golf

2009-03-24T10:51:00.002Z

Just on the subject of golf. Train delays this morning so headed to WH Smith to see if any new cycle mags.

There weren't but there were lots of golf ones. I was tempted but stayed my hand.

I will turn over a new leaf re golf. Previously I read every magazine and bought every gadget in the hope of them turning me into a golf prodigy. None really worked, the worse were those that, briefly, made me a superstar but then, shortly after, left me a dunce. (Law of any new club says that shots hit during practice with it will be perfect, first shots in anger crap. Exception is worse, first shots in anger will be perfect but shortly after worse than crap. Refusing to admit this you will persevere until point where putter would be more effective (unless object in question is in fact a putter in which case subsitute driver))

From the off I will take a lead from my better half and, for golf at least, adopt a Fransiscan attitude. I will get my clubs and any necessities like (hopefully not too many) balls/tees. But otherwise I will eschew all golf paraphenalia and concentrate on keeping the came as simple as possible.

I would like to promise the same re bikes. Can't quite manage this I am afraid but have avowed - no more bikes!

Beautiful Bogeys

2009-03-24T10:29:00.002Z

My passion prior to cycling was golf. I got OK at it mainly through dint of lots of practice rather than natural skill. Still my performance was very variable, most especially I tended to crack under pressure, getting very up tight about every shot.

With time due on my hands I plan on taking up the glorious game again, and it will be interesting to see how my svelte new figure has an effect on my swing.

This in mind I will be getting some custom clubs made. This is not really an extravagance. As a legacy from my father I am a right hander who plays golf left handed (He was a natural left hander so when he taught me cricket he showed me left handed and this has stuck since on all ball and stick games). As a left hander you get hobsons choice when it comes to clubs. I've only ever bought 2 sets in my life and on both occasions I had a choice of precisely 1 set.

So, when the company said they would buy me something on leaving, the obvious choice seemed to be a set of clubs that would fit me properly. Got an appointment for a fitting next month. Did not want to do too much practice in advance as one thing I am hoping is that the long lay off will let me shed old bad habits and I can start from scratch.

Still I was advised to at least make sure I can swing a club so yesterday I had a practice round at the local racecourse course. Slightly gob smacking result. I didnt practice, just paid money and made to first tee. I decided to use "triple" approach, so take it easy and dont worry about being embarassed. Plan was just to hit 7 iron and putter for the round. Slightly amazed that first shot went high, straight and long and that form pretty much continued.

Despite conditions (windy, cold later joined by drizzle) I played the most consistent golf of my life. I only played 13 holes as the weather got more and more horrible, but of these I made 11 bogies, one double bogie (410yd par 4 SI 1 straight into the wind) and one par. Not sure but think this would close to a record in terms of consecutive holes scoring stableford points. (Cant remember a round where I did not blob at least one hole). Also kept same ball (only played course one time before and remember running out of balls that time!)

Icing on the cake was that after a few holes I started using other clubs. One problem when I used to play regularly was that I always had one or two clubs that I did not trust e.g. driver and/or fairway woods. But hit all great.

Put all of the above down, not so much to being thinner/fitter, but being a lot calmer. I was very slow on the backswing and relaxed for the whole time playing. Great result and will bode well for my return to the green stuff.

Thruxton - fun break

2009-03-24T10:21:00.004Z

Latest race from Thruxton Sunday. Nice weather and wind only stiff.

Given up trying to get points at Thruxton. Regardless, if weather is good the race ends in a sprint and I want to stay clear of these with main season due to start soon.

So just for fun I am now riding road races with intention of working hard and making a break, in the expectation that I will be caught but at least I will get a workout as a result.

Had a couple of goes, first time stayed clear for a lap, second for most of a lap until caught by someone who, bizarrely, once with me gave up. Frustrating.

Picture above is nice shot of me ahead of bunch on first break, sadly just about to get caught up hill. Difficult to stay away when race averages over 25mph...

Pride comes.....

2009-02-23T10:56:00.005Z

Following road race success I nipped home sharpish then it was off to London to see Katy. Nice meal at the Horseshoe (sunny T shirt weather ) and then to Brixton to see White Lies/Glavegas. (Found parking dead easy BTW).

Great concert, especially Glasvegas where got to front which was fun (apart from divvy crowd surfers).

Pogoed pretty hard/late night so bit tired in Sunday. But lovely weather again so dragged myself out of bed and went to Mkt square intending to tag along on club run for a light ride. Only 5 of us due to YHA trip.

Headed off but only made it as far as St Gabriels roundabout. Went at it a bit too fast and lost front wheel. Face hit floor and I remember thinking "bugger there goes Spain..".

Luckily no traffic and I slid to a halt. Lots of blood and I was worried I had damaged cheekbone as this had scrapped along the tarmac. But luckily no serious damage.

Other guys great help and called an ambulance. Quick check ascertained I needed to go to A&E so off I went (first time trip to ambulance Slightly honoured as ambulance was brand new and I was first casualty...) to Basingstoke.

There I had a bit of a wait but chilled out and eventually seen by a very nice doctor. Had a chat about cycling and travel, recommended Strasbourg as destination and she seemed very interested..

Once done called a taxi and returned home. Sufficently recovered to be able to get to go to cinema to see Inkheart

WKO shows my fall... round about 30mph when hit the deck...

3 for 3

2009-02-23T10:37:00.004Z

First race at Upavon Saturday, first race as a 3rd Cat.

Went very well. As newbie to course and category I planned to take things easy at the start then see how things developed. Good to see Martyn and Adam from Banjo there...

First couple of laps a bit frenetic then settled down into a comfortable pace (first 2/3 of race only 205W/248NW). The course is quite different to Hillingdon, near 2 miles oval, long section downhill then long drag to finish. And wide wide open, no tricky bends.

Feeling comfortable add mid point so started to think about getting more involved. As luck would have it a guy broke away, looking quite strong. Then another ride went to follow and I tagged his wheel and we took turns to bridge.

Lead rider seemed to know what he was doing (later found out will most likely get to 2) and we worked reasonably well for over 20 mins and made a winning gap.

Unfortunately finish was spoiled by us being caught by E12 bunch who had started 1/2 lap ahead. They seemed to be using us as a target as once caught they eased down (speaking with Martyn later they had had a hard race and were taking a breather to jockey for position ). So hard to separate from them and on climb we actually pulled ahead.

In all confusion we missed last lap indicator so no finish as such, just approached the line and lead guy saw some sort of signal to say we were finishing and put in a sprint. By time I had realised what was going on he had finished.

Confusion continued post race as we were DQed at first, for following E12 bunch. Pointed out in fact more often a case of them following us and eventually sanity prevailed and we got reinstated.

So ended up 3rd. Not bad result for first race following promotion. Bit of a shame won't be visiting Upavon again for a while.

Short and Sharp

2009-02-20T11:53:00.006Z

Been exploring some new territory in terms of training this week. My power profile is above and it shows that while I am pretty strong in terms of 5 and 60 minute power I am a feeble weakling when it comes to short hard efforts of 5s-1minute.

So this week I was down to do 2 new workouts to challenge this area. Never done anything quite like this before so bit of learning along with a bit of pain.

First session was quite simple, 12 x 1 minute with 1 minute rest. Minutes "very hard". Not quite sure what "very hard" is, especially bearing in mind need to do it 12 times in a row so started quite conservatively, building up a little each time. As below shows managed this quite well, probably a bit too well as meant not to be sure if you can complete or not. Doing same again next week and will up target to around 400W.

Second session was similar but different. "15s" which means 4 minutes, 15secs very hard, 15 secs res. Then 3 minutes rest and repeat, then rest then repeat. Following 1mins I pushed a bit harder on this, aiming for above 450W. Quite happy I hit this, but tried little too hard first intervals of last set so faded a bit towards end. Still wasnt too bad, especially as has spent much of day in front garden felling a large and very evil tree.

Will be interesting to see if I improve on future workouts like this. Interesting to reflect on both that if I (and others) had worked anywhere near this hard in break would easily have got away. (1 minute session was equivalent to half of a Hillingdon race).

3rd Cat

2009-02-20T10:49:00.009Z

Not a reference to Choppie (moggy number 3 chez nous) but the fact that last Saturday got a 3rd 7th at Hillingdon to bring points total over the 10 needed to reach first season's goal and get to 3rd category racer.

(slightly better position, but still bit to do)

Last race of the series was the best in terms of tactics. Lovely weather and felt good but didn't let the blood go to my head and held back for first half of race.

(Our starter, great guy and one of the unsung heroes without whom amateur sport would not be possible)

Second half let rip a bit and joined a couple of breaks but didn't work well and were reeled in. So settled for usual plan B but this time made conscious effort to speed up the field on the last couple of laps so as to stretch them out and make sure in good position. Worked well and had clear run into finish and 7th.

Post ride got number of congrats for attacks and got a couple of mentions in race report.

Race 13 Saturday 14th February 2009

A lively last race in the series with almost Spring like weather and little wind saw aggressive riding by Imperial RT riders who had a plan to elevate Stoyko Bussarov to 3rd cat to join his team mates. They worked hard, all three Imperial riders Dave Ryan, Tom Smith and Stoyko leading the attacks but unfortunately the main group were wise to their efforts and neutralised their attempts.

From these efforts three riders did ease off the front - Vincent Leon (Twickenham CC), Martin Sigrist (Newbury RC) and Peter Hedger (Sotonia CC) but after 4km at the front they too were pulled back . This was quickly followed by a concerted loan effort by James Curry (British Airways CC) which looked more promising but again he was caught by the main group and then promptly blew up! With just 5km to go the pace was upped again by Martin Sigrist and Dave Ryan with Stoyko Bussarov tagging on but this too was snuffed out.

On the last lap there was a crash which split the group leaving the result to a group finish with Jai Watson (Dulwich Paragon CC) and Adam White (Reading CC) heading for the line together. The tactical knowledge of Jai Watson ultimately got the better of Adam White with Hamilton Lacey taking 3rd position. Dave Ryan (Imperial RT) won the 4th cat Series having finished highest in the most races without winning a race. Generally the racing was of a high standard with the riders gaining confidence and ability as the series progressed.

Del and Rodney at the cafe stop...

Final round up of a very enjoyable series here:

http://www.imperialracingteam.com/imperialracingteam/index.htm

Making it to 3rd Cat: Stats summary

2009-02-14T18:14:00.006Z

Final race of Hillingdon race series. Great fun and good final ride to get 3 more points and creep into 3rd cat.

Summary of all the races in table below. Goes to show no real link between power during a race and results. Lowest power ride ended up 7th, highest power ride 29th.

Bit surprised by how low the peak power was and how only happened in sprint in 3 of the 7 races.

Stats: (click to enlarge. FWIW guess FTP around 300W, max HR around 184 right now but like I said pretty irrelevant..)

Musical Intervals

2009-02-11T13:22:00.004Z

I like training but to a much lesser degree indoors than out. However UK weather being what it is I spend a lot of time in the garage doing an impression of a hamster on speed on my rollers.

What I really hate is watching a digital something or other tick my life away as I do this or that set of intervals. I've found that counting kj going up is preferable than seconds counting down but even then its hard and not very rewarding going.

So I'm happy that I have found an alternative. It's really very simple, ditch interval times and replace with music tracks. Tried this last two times and worked really well.

Sunday ice descended so road work a no no. I went to the garage and listened to Iron Maiden (A Matter of Life and Death), The Killers (Sam's Town..revelation, great stuff) and the album of the 20xx to date The Black Parade.

Rule of the game was simple. Track 1 Iron Maiden I did at Level 2, Track 2 at Level 3, Track 3 Level 2 and so on. When the Killers kicked in I upped everthing so Track 1 at Level 3, Track 2 at sweetspot, track 3 Level 3 etc.

Finally MCR kicked up again, track 1 sweetspot, track 2 threshold etc. Didnt quite manage to hold this to the end but still v impressive workout. Time flew by and I ended up doing 2.5 hours at 251W which is an all time best (and didnt even feel especially hard.)

Yesterday it was back to the dreaded 2x22s that have given me a fair amount of grief ytd. This time I warmed up to the Killers and then put on Maidens AMOLAD. Rule here was continue warmup track 1 then do 3 tracks and see how long I had done (10 tracks total, 70 mins or so playing time so should be close). Worked great. First interval comfortable and third track pretty close to 22mins. So track 5 cool down and start warming up again then as track 6 kicked off pedal back on the floor for 3 more tracks. Worked even better, all tracks on the album great but 7/8 favourites so finished on real high stomping away to the beat. Result 2 nice steady (well til the end when got a bit excited) intervals, pretty much on the money at 296W/304W. And comfortable to boot.

So plan for the future is to "time" all indoor workouts via songs. Much more fun than watching the seconds tick by...

Listening to Music

2009-02-11T12:54:00.003Z

When I were a lad, listening to music was a long and involved affair. There was next to no music worth mentioning on the radio so to hear any decent music involved a bus trip to town, then to a record shop (early Virgin) where you would search through racks of albums for something that you had heard or been recommended. If lucky and things were not too busy you might be able to get the shop to play you a track or two. Then it was back on the bus and home. Once there the LP was lovingly removed from its sleeve and checked to be scratch free. The put on the turntable, wiped clean of dust, the player switched on and the stylus, oh so carefully, placed in the lead in groove.

The you could listen, but not for too long, around 20-25 minutes at most before having to get up to turn the record over. Listening to a single track was possible but only with a degree of danger as many a record had been ruined by an inadvertent slip of the hand whilst trying to skip the pop single intro.

As a result when you played music you spent a lot of time listening to it. This was often made all the more enjoyable by perusing the album cover, whose 12" square size allowed ample opportunity for artistic license (and made the lyrics easy to read). (Top marks on this front went to Jethro Tull's Thick as A Brick, where the album "cover" was in fact a full on spoof local newspaper..)

OK once you found a record you liked you could put it on repeat play and have it on in the background as less important tasks like homework were performed, but even then the 20 minute repeat meant the music was thoroughly absorbed.

As a result the music of the late 60s/70s has become part of me. I can still recite, word for word, the lyrics of even the most bizarre prog rock opera, "Really don't mind if you sit this one out, my words but a whisper your deafness a shout...I may make you feel but I cant make you think, your sperms in the gutter, your love's in the sink.." to quote the opening of the aforementioned TAAB.

How time's have changed. Now its dead easy to get music and listen to it everywhere. Which is good in some ways but means I just dont listen to it any more. So, far from knowing the lyrics to songs, I often don't even know the titles of the songs....

So.. I have made a sort of late 2009 near year resolution to start listening to music again. So sitting down and paying it attention, CD cover in hand (along with magnifying glass to read the lyrics). And I must say so far this has proved a very rewarding experience.

But I thought this was meant to be about cycling...well it is, sort of. One key time I listen to music is when on the bike. I've found that listening to a CD makes me appreciate it more when I have it playing while training. So I pay it more attention, which in turn has a benefit as it makes the training easier. Which will be the subject of my next post...

Hillingdon No Snow Not Too Slow

2009-02-08T10:50:00.004Z

Penultimate race at Hillingdon. Amazingly following week of blizzard race was on and course was practically snow/ice free. Nice blue skies and sun, though not too warming and had to wrap up tight. Also excuse to wear snazzy and totally OTT NRC ski cap, which did a good job of keeping my ears warm.

I felt good in the morning, a little bit too good in fact. I corrected last weeks mistake and stayed near the front this time, but was a little too eager and tried to make/get into too many moves. As a result once again first half of race had relatively high numbers. First half was 290W/314NW.

Culminated at 20 mins when I made a break for a mid race prime with lap to go. Couldn't really sustain power for 2 mins needed and got caught. Second half of race I eased back and made a point of trying to follow someone who I thought had a good sprint. Still once final 5 laps signalled a break of a couple of riders got slightly away. I took a bit of risk and snuck through a gap that was almost too small and joined them. Unfortunately same story, guy at lead didn't know how to ride in break and just tried to power on. By time got halfway organised we were pretty much caught.

So I went back to plan B and concentrated on getting good run into the finish. Worked fine, plenty of room and avoided trouble. At the back on approach (see above) but overtook quite a few on run in (and not overtaken by anyone) to get another 7th. So another 3 points and just two more to make it to target of 3rd cat. Power for sprint pretty weedy, max 685W, would be interesting to see what I could do with a completely clear run.

Lessons learned:
- Save effort for second half of race.
- If a prime lap take it easy until its passed. Maybe ideal time to attack just after.
- Catching break of two may be better to go past rather than join back.
- Get more to front on final lap of sprint and really give it the max.

January Training Review

2009-02-04T16:08:00.004Z

Another month over. It's been a bit of a funny one training wise. It marks the introduction of threshold work, some road racing and, coinciding with aftermath of Xmas, for much of it I felt OK but not quite as sharp as pre Xmas.

Especially struggled on 2x20s. First interval typically OK but second (natch) tough. But then on last Tuesday of month had a superb workout. 2x22, first was at 304W (so around target), second ended up at 318W, well above target. More impressive was how easy it felt plus the fact that 60 minutes (including warm up/rests) was 299NW, in top 5 all time.

Pattern of spending more time in tempo/sweetspot compared to last year remains though not to such a marked extent. However absolute number of hours is up and as PMC below shows CTL trending nicely up, getting to 100 at end of month.

Behold the Maiden

2009-02-04T15:18:00.002Z

Sometimes it's good to admit you were wrong.....

Bit of back story: A few years ago I made one of the best decisions of my life when I eschewed my morning fix of the Today program in favour of Alice Cooper and Planet Rock. (A decision which both made life more fun but also, paradoxically, improved my awareness of current affairs as I stopped drowning in day to day drivia and was able to get a better appreciation of the big picture..anyway I digress). (PS. (Digressing again) Just mistyped trivia, actually think resultant "drivia isn't a bad word...)

I now have Planet Rock on in the background most of the time. As with all background, something sometimes grabs your attention and comes to centre stage. This happened with a song called (bizarrely) "The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg". Surprised when I heard it was by Iron Maiden as thought I didn't like them. Then I heard another song "For the Greater Good of God". It was knockout and again by Iron Maiden...

A quick search showed both songs came from the "A Matter of Life and Death Album" so I decided to have a punt and bought it. Turned out most every song on the album was a winner and its quickly gained a place in my "top 5 cds of 200x" (Along with, Crave, Generation Sap, The Black Parade and The Rising).

So right now I am slowly but surely working my way through the IM back catalogue and very much regretting what I missed.

Goes to show predjudice can be a bad thing. I am old enough to be close in at the birth of metal, not only in time but place in my teenage years was a fan of bands like Deep Purple (first live concert) and Black Sabbath (our "local band", the one time those of us in Coventry acknowledged the existance of nearby Brum).

When "new" bands came along (like Judas Priest) I gave them a listen but never thought they were as good as the "originals". And some bands I never even gave a chance, Iron Maiden falling into this category. Since then I had to re-adjust at least a part of these views as I found out more about the sometime lead vocalist, Bruce Dickinson (singer, airline pilot, fencer, DJ, screen writer and another example of cool people called Bruce). But now I have to admit I was entirely wrong. Iron Maiden are a truly great band and it's with much regret I missed 30 years opportunity to listen to & see them. Still good news, they are still going strong so may see them before too long...

(But I thought this was meant to be a cycling blog? Well yes and this post is not entirely unrelated. Apart from being great music to listen to at any time, Iron Maiden are really good for intense indoor work, especially above threshold..)

Pointless Fun and Cunning Plans

2009-02-04T15:01:00.004Z

Resplendent in my new Newbury top I took part in Hillingdon round 5 last Saturday. Hatched a cunning plan with some others to go hard from the gun. Typically it all came unhinged. We practiced riding around a bit and just as I went by the start the others got stopped. So they ended up front row of the grid and I ended up last.

From the off the pace was hard. I bust a gut to get to the front, and in fact did peak 5 mins power of season to date getting there. By the time I arrived it was a bit late and despite efforts no break materialised.

So ended in another sprint, I got chopped up and didnt figure in the results. But good news in a way was that one of guys in our group got the victory. Well deserved as he's a class rider. And overall, despite lack of points, my favourite race to date. At least felt got a workout.

Watts were interesting: 280W/301NW.

Compared to last week (when I got 7th) 204W/242NW. Goes to show, power meter only of limited use in road racing.

Official Race write up:

There were only going to be two winners in the 4th cat race; a very strong south-easterly wind (which most riders were unsure of how to combat it) and the rider 1st across the line! A £10 prime was donated by Stuart Stow (now back to racing after 15 years, originally with Feltham RC) to be fought out after 20 minutes.

It was taken by the strong man of the race, a very determined Tom Sutherland (Twickenham CC). The wind continued to play havoc with many riders caught out as gaps opened followed by the inevitable drifting backwards. Hopefully riding in these conditions should be a learning curve for these riders - stay close to the front to avoid being caught out at the back when gaps open and reduce the risk of being dropped. Finally it came down to a sprint for the line and it again went to Prime winner Tom Sutherland from Peter Hedger (Sotonia CC) and Justin Webb (London Dynamos). Tom Sutherland’s transition from rowing to cycling is now well established and with his 3rd Category licence achieved his progress in Elite racing will be watched with interest.

An Officer if not a Gentleman

2009-01-28T15:24:00.002Z

A few weeks ago an A4 letter popped through the door and I was delighted to find on opening it that I had received a promotion...to Officer in the OCD.

The OCD is not Obsessive Compulsive Disorder but is close: The Ordre de Cols Durs: a dedicated band of cyclists who aim to take on hills and climb them.

Of all the things I've done in cycling I think this remains my favourite. I'm just in the process of putting together my claim for 2008 which will add another few thousand metres, that may even be enough to bump me up into the next rank....happy climbing:

Hillingdon race 4: Snowballed...

2009-01-26T10:34:00.010Z

Hillingdon race 4 turned out to be a bit of a washout. Day before I woke up feeling fine and headed off to work.

There we had a bit of fun, celebrating Burns Night (a couple of days in advance).. Whisky wasn't an option and haggis wasn't expected to be very popular..

So the social committee laid on plentiful supplies of IrnBru and Tunnock's sweets..

http://www.tunnock.co.uk/index1.htm

These were a real blast from the past. As a child their caramel biscuits and marshmallow snowballs were a regular Sunday afternoon tea-time treat. I never knew they were part of the Scottish gastronomic heritage and can't remember having any for ages.

Unfortunately I am afraid I rather took advantage of the plentiful freebies and got through several caramel bars and even more snowballs, all washed down by lots of IrnBru.

I felt OK during the day but as evening drew on my tummy went into rebellion and I passed a very uncomfortable/queasy night. I woke up feeling pants and not in best form at all.

At Hillingdon I chatted to a few others about getting into a break and they seemed keen. But once race started plans went awry. I dawdled along at the back of the group for half the ride, then tried stirring myself into action.

But combination of feeling flat and big field meant gettting to front was tricky and by the time I got there all I managed to do was, ironically, pull back a break that was already in progress. Didnt have the energy to go for it myself so just held back and tried for a decent finish.

This worked pretty well, though I was in slightly too high a gear. But still managed a 7th place which gets me half way towards points target.

December Training Review

2009-01-20T17:06:00.004Z

Bit late but quick review of December. It was a very good month and saw me feeling great. As above pies show, again spent much more time in tempo/sweetspot compared to last year.

I relaxed a bit over Xmas and lost a bit of form and gained a bit of weight. Back training again now, will be interesting to see what remainder of January brings....

Snow Trouble

2009-01-20T16:54:00.003Z

Last weeks road race was held in slightly inclement conditions.....here are some pictures

(sadly picture above taken on second to last lap, didnt make it to the end....)

and...excitement... a video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm7DEMv51Jg

Strong and Smooth: First Road Race Points

2009-01-20T16:38:00.004Z

Strong and smooth??? /\

First goal of this season is to get 10 points and make it up the road race ranks from lowly 4th cat to not quite so lowly 3rd.

This quest has taken me to Hillingdon for the last 3 Saturdays to take part in the Imperial Winter Series. After a couple of "essai"s getting to know the course and other riders I took the last race a bit more seriously.

I went hard on the first lap and broke to do the first half of the race solo. The conditions didnt offer a realistic chance of staying away but this let me get to know the fastest route through the various corners and get a feel for what I could do solo.

After halfway I was caught at which time I applied a lesson learned from previous rides and stayed at the head of the group. There were various badly organised attempts at breakaways before the sprint on the final lap. Another lesson was applied and I stayed in correct part of the course, though I stared my windup a bit late. Some fun and games on the final straight as someones foot came loose and caused some riders to go cross country. I managed to avoid trouble and came in 8th. Not great but first 2 points....

My solo attempt got a mention in the race report:

http://www.imperialracingteam.com/imperialracingteam/results0809.html?

4th cats
Surprisingly a smaller field today lined up for the start than for the freezing artic conditions of last weeks race. Although a strong southerly wind provided a different challenge down the back straight, although helping the riders up the drag to the finish.

The wind was not a deterrent to Martin Sigrist (Newbury RC) who attacked from the gun and quickly gained a gap that at one point was in excess of 30 seconds, and he continued to look smooth and strong as he led for over half the distance. Eventually the bunch woke up, however, and within a few laps his lead was reduced to a few seconds and he was swept up by the bunch half a lap later.

Several more abortive individual attacks were launched from the bunch, but without the safety of numbers they were soon brought back as they entered the headwind into the back straight.
A bunch sprint saw Antony Leeson (Addiscombe CC) take the honours on the line from Charlie Pearch (London Dynamo/Cyclefit)

Replacing Batteries In Ergomo Head Unit

2009-01-20T09:05:00.003Z

My original Ergomo head unit died a few months ago due to its batteries becoming knackered.

I got a replacement but decided to have a go at replacing the batteries in the original.

It proved quite easy to do:

Required:
Replacement batteries: HR-4U needed, 1000ma with solder tab. I got them from here
http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&name=SY153T-ND (Very helpful service with ability to chat with technical support before buying). I bought 10 batteries, total cost was $50 of which $30 was shipping to UK. Arrived promptly 5 days after ordering.

Torque Screwdriver 6 : Luckily I already had one of these.

Mediumstandard flat blade screwdriver: (around 1/4 inch tip)

Soldering iron: with smallish tip

Procedure:

Unscrew the black handlebar mount on the back of the unit.
Unscrew the 5 torque screws on the back of the unit. (I had to enlarge a couple of the deeper holes so as to be able to get to the screw, just used a penknife for this)
Open unit and unscrew 3 torque screws that hold pcb/display to case. 1 screw is smaller than others.
You will see the batteries, AAA size.
Unsolder connecting wire (opposite end from main wiring)
Tricky bit: Hardest part of the operation is getting the old batteries out, since they are firmly glued in place. After bit of trial and effort on first one here is procedure that worked for me:
Score down the length of the green plastic battery casing (I used my soldering iron to do this but guess should really use a knife...)
Put tip of flat blade screwdriver between end (the one unsoldered) and case, then use a bit of carefully applied brute force to lever out the battery, which should pop clear of the sleeve.
Now the battery is out its quite easy to unsolder the other end connection (before doing so make a note of terminal polarity.
Before doing anthing else I would now suggest checking that the batteries are the problem. Just use some standard batteries, link to unsoldered ends and check that the display comes on.
Assuming it does, clear out as much as possible of the green sleeves from the battery case.
Solder up the new batteries in the correct polarity.
Put the batteries back into position (I didnt bother with any glue, the fitting is very snug and I didn't want to cause problems when I need to replace again).
Reassemble. When screwing back first 3 screws check the pcb fits comfortably over the batteries. If it doesnt then may need to remove some more of the green sleeving.
Charge up and hopefully continue.
I found all settings had been retained so no need to re-enter, apart from date/time.

PS: If you're reading this far probably got an Ergomo. In this case worth knowing that there is a google group http://groups.google.com/group/ergomo-users?hl=en for Ergomo users

PPS One enterprising lady has put a Youtube movie up of how to do the procedure...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4IQOjaSbY4

November Training Review

2008-12-01T13:02:00.004Z

First 4 weeks of new season's training is now complete.

Been quite hard, total of 63 hours, 1500km, 41K Kcals and 2977 TSS points.

Three staple workouts, SST intervals (on rollers), long rides (around 200W for 3-5 hours, mainly on fixed though also winter Giant for club runs) and level 3 rides 1-2 hours around 250W.

Also been doing club turbo training, short SST intervals of 4 mins x 7. Strangely these have felt hardest though long way from most difficult power/TSS wise. Think due to hot room and me not being used to short intervals/short rest.

Feeling good despite level of work. CTL currently running at 88 and TSB -23 (following 3 hard days of 3 hr long ride/2 hr level 3/3 hr long ride.

Morning RHR is nice and low, low 40s following rest building to low 50s following several workout days. Also keeping to target weight which is good, 8-10lbs lighter than this time last year and no evidence of feeling any less strong or weaker on long rides.

Managing to get feeding sorted out bit by bit. Long 5 hour ride at 200W (3500kJ) seems to be OK on 500cal breakfast + 1500cal on bike. Will use this as benchmark for future.

Compared to last year, figures above show that I am spending more time generally on training but most especially in key tempo and sweetspot zones. 46% of time spent here compared to just 23% last year. Also shows I am pretty much keeping below threshold.

All in all then pretty much on target. Interesting to see how things shape up December. Will have first mini test of sorts Boxing day during our festive 10TT....

Aero power savings

2008-11-28T08:51:00.002Z

Excellent article on aero savings from a full on TT frame compared to normal bike.

http://www.bikeradar.com/road/fitness/article/how-aero-is-aero-19273?source=newsletter&attr=road/2008/11/27#post_comments

Tested indoors and out in various combinations. Results of outdoor test:

Speedway data

Set-up	Estimated Ave CdA (m^2)	Speed (km/h)	Power (W)
Tarmac SL2 \| Road Helmet \| Drop bars	0.310	40.10	306.6
Tarmac SL2 \| Road Helmet \| Clip-on aerobars	0.267	40.27	268.6
Tarmac SL2 \| TT2 Helmet \| Clip-on aerobars	0.256	40.38	261.0
Transition \| Road Helmet \| Aerobars	0.265	40.17	262.9
Transition \| TT2 Helmet \| Aerobars	0.230	40.05	229.0

So I could save 70W when I get my tri bike. Put another way if I can get to a drag of 0.23 then Analytic cycling reckons I can do 30mph! Will be interesting.....

Biking Glossary

2008-11-26T14:53:00.003Z

My note that I rarely bonked in an earlier post caused some splutters. So just for Mrs M (and other non cyclists) here is a short glossary of cycling terms and what they do (and sometimes don't) mean.......

Bonk: Means- running out of energy, usually on a long ride. Caused by not eating enough, solved by eating something... Does not mean: bonking

Rollers: Means- gadget that lets you emulate a hamster in a wheel, pedalling furiously, getting nowhere but getting very hot and bothered. Used for winter training, often in garages due to smell of sweat...Does not mean: things put in hair to make it curly.

Turbo: Means: - another gadget to make like a hamster. Smell of sweat often mixed with smell of burning rubber as back wheel engages with a brake of some sort. Can be very noisy....Does not mean: thing I put on the bike to make it go very very fast.

Wiggle: Online shop that sells bike parts... Does not mean....

Crank: Bit of the bike that connects pedals to bottom bracket...Does not mean: someone who spend his time in garage on Wiggle's turbo rollers.

Assos: Well known, expensive brand of clothing worn by good self on account of it being Swiss like what he is.....Does not mean: what most cyclists have a very big one of, made obvious due to overtight Lycra

Bibs: Shorts with shoulder straps to keep them from falling down when riding a bike. Very inconvenient if suffer pre race nerves....Does not mean: proof that cyclists are all big babies at heart.

Wedges: Something that you put between cleat and shoe to correct bow legs...Does not mean..what wearing too tight Assos bib shorts feels like

Cassette: Something that fits on the back wheel with lots of sprockets. Current record is 11. Does not mean: 70s precursor to cd that made music sound rubbish and that involved spending more time winding/rewinding/getting out of tape recorder when it came unwound than actually listening.

Compact: Smaller chain ring. Used to make it easier to get up hills whilst still looking like a "real" cyclist. Only drawback is that most compacts are used by those who are not compact....Does not mean: what lady cyclists carry in their saddlebags so as to be able to do a quick bit of makeup before crossing the finish line.

Durace: Top of the range brand of bike bits and pieces. Does not mean: Brand of contraceptive

Purring away

2008-11-20T11:27:00.002Z

The other thing about Fitday (see previous post) is that it lets you check out your calorie balance in terms of protein/carb/fat/beer mix.

I've got pretty used to keeping the amount of carbohdyrates up, which is a good thing now that training season has started in earnest.

However does have a slight side effect, which has been particularly notable over past couple of days. It does lead to you having a tendency to "purr" a lot (euphemism courtesy of our cat, who really does purr quite a bit).

This isnt too bad at home as others there all have their own smells and we rub along fine. But may cause problems on daily commute as purrs may not be able to escape overtrousers without considerable noise which will make it hard to pretend it was someone else.....

Fitday - latest

2008-11-20T11:13:00.003Z

I've been using the excellent Fitday program for a while now, to keep track of what I eat/drink and monitor my weight. Slowly but surely my weight is coming down to target of 150lbs and to celebrate progress to date I treated myself to a pair of 30" Levis yesterday..

One thing I am finding is that the usual advice "you need to burn 3500 calories to burn a pound of fat doesnt seem to work in my case. Over the past 28 days I've eaten an average 3,100 cals per day and burnt an average of 3,700 cals. (Pretty sure these figures are right, the cals per day comes from logging most everything I eat and most of the extra cals come from Powertap). So this makes a total of nearly 17000cals burned up which should be near 5lbs of fat. However my weight has just come down by a 2-3 pounds.

I'm not too stressed over this, I guess it shows everybody's metabolism differs and this may explain why I don't bonk, can get away with not eating much on long rides and why I put on weight on cycling trips abroad when I dont worry too much about what I eat.

Long Rides

2008-11-19T10:54:00.003Z

I did my second long (5 hour) ride of the new training season yesterday. Weather was a lot better than the first which was nice, but ride itself was a lot better as well.

Focus for ride was to spend more time in the endurance zone. I managed well:

As the above shows I spent a lot more time in the endurance zone on the second ride and the power trace is smoother and more concentrated in the target zone.

Riding fixed puts some constraints on how much further I can push this but I will aim to do similar on future rides and ride same route on a geared bike to see what that can achieve.

I got some reliable HR readings on the ride as well, very encouraging. Power was endurance but HR was recovery at a very comfortable average of only 129bpm. Decoupling great, only 1.5% for the ride. Proves I still have very good base level fitness.

Faster club runs

2008-11-19T10:36:00.003Z

Our club runs have never been particularly fast but even so have proved too much for some of the older members. (Which considering one of them is 78 is hardly surprising).

So they have started to organise a "slow" (aka wrinklies) ride. Followng this I decided I might as well use Sunday mornings for training. Rather than forsake the club ride altogether my plan is to turn up at the usual start point and head for the same mid-point cafe.

However rides will be fast and focussed on providing training benefit with socialising left until the cafe stop.

Tried it out for first time last Sunday and was happy to find a number of other riders wanted to join me. Unfortunately we had a couple of punctures in first half hour which didnt help but after that we made good progress. Post stop some of the riders found it a bit hard going and I eased up a bit. However ride was still a different beast than previous club runs. Average power was 187W/227NW. A more normal is 160W/204W, though we had one "hard" one a few weeks back that was 173W/240NW. This was far from typical however even so the ride last Sunday was a much better training ride for this time of year. The pictures below show why.

On the typical run most of the ride had little or no training benefit with over 50% of time being in recovery. Last Sunday less than 40% of time was spent in this zone and as a result all the other zones got larger. I plan to continue to do "fast" club runs with plan to get even more time out of recovery and into useful work zones

Allen/Coggan FTP Test October

2008-11-06T10:12:00.002Z

Road test

Roller Test

As a start of season exercise I did a FTP test according to routine in Coggan/Allens "Training and Racing with Power" guide that I got with my Ergomo. Did this for a couple of reasons: felt it would be useful to have some sort of measure to base 2009 on and wanted something I could do indoors as well as out (not especially fancying riding a hard hour, which was basis for my previous FTPs).

Drill is quite complicated:

20 mins at endurance: 3xminute @100rpm with 1 min rest between each: 5 mins endurance

Then "true test" begins

5 minutes all out (VO2max)

10 minutes endurance

20 mins time trial aiming for max sustained power.

I repeated the test on consecutive days, first on the road, second on rollers.

Road went well on 5 minute test, I averaged 346W and it felt OK.

TT was hard to pace and was a bit all over the shop. I started at Hungerford on A4 heading east, then turned up B4000. Finished just after Stockcross. For future tests I think I will go a bit further down A4 before starting, so as to get more time on B4000. Finished up with 304W result. This equates to FTP of 289W after applying reduction of 5%.

Rollers next day I changed routine slightly so that 3x1minute were at 400W level. These went well, but 5 minutes was a bit of a washout and I lost energy midway through, only hitting 331W.

Not surprisingly the 20 TT was much easier to pace than the road and this went well as I slowly ramped pace up through interval. Result was 305W, which surprised me as I expected it to be less than road.

Will be interesting to repeat exercise end of November and see how things are progressing.

October Training

2008-11-06T09:33:00.005Z

My time of, relative, rest is over and I've started structured training again. Broadly plan is to repeat 2008 in terms of training effort (TSS) but to make a couple of key changes
- Leave FTP at 310W, 30W higher than 2008. So same effort actually means more effort *
- Do more intense work sooner, especially sweetspot.

So far on plan on both counts as above pictures show:

On the PMC - Blue CTL has started to move up, at roughly same gradient as it did last year (though from slightly higher base and a month earlier)

Graphs comparing time by zone 2008 v 2009 show more absolute time spent this October vs last in every zone. November will be even more clear cut as November last year was very easy.

Pies show relative time decreased in Endurance/Tempo and Anaerobic and increased in Sweetspot/Threshold/V02Max.

* In theory my FTP has declined to around 290W now. See other post re FTP test.

Chameleon Commuter

2008-11-06T09:13:00.003Z

http://www.airnimal.eu/Chameleon/Ultra.php

Its been a while since I started commuting with my Airnimal Chameleon.

Beforehand it was an experience that I was not at all looking forward to but I have to admit that it's not turned out to bad. Like most commuters I have got into my little routines.

Up at 6.45 & downstairs to put on coffee, Planet Rock & feed the dog
6.45-7.02 Eat cereal, drink coffee, boot up PC and update Fitday/WKO
News at 7.00 trigger to go upstairs and get showered/changed
7.30 leave and get bike out of garage
7.40 Arrive Newbury station
7.45 Catch train for Reading (touch wood only be late a couple of times so far
8.00 Stop for a few minutes outside Reading (always seems to do this)
8.07 Arrive Reading platform 5
8:12 Catch Ealing Broadway train
8:33 Arrive Burnham
8:48 Arrive work

16:50 Leave work
17:21 Catch Reading train
17:45 Arrive Reading platform 10 and go to platform 4
17:55 Buy something from ATM
18:02 Catch Paignton train
18:15 Arrive Newbury
18:30 Arrive home

During this time the Chameleon has served me fine. Its relatively quick and easy to fold up (though took a while to get exactly right) though not as quick as a "proper" folder like a Brompton. Once folded its quite easy to carry and once reassembled a joy to ride. Lugging it off and on train/across platforms has turned out to be a useful weight training session, while the short rides from home-station-work have been a bit of recovery.

So far the weather has been kind but on the few times it has rained my riding gear has kept me snug, warm and dry.

Getting on and off trains is proving no hassle and I am getting the commuter knowledge of knowing exactly where to stand on the platform to get into the right carriage for transfer.

Only thing I would fault the Chameleon on is the bag that the bike is meant to fit into when folded. It is exactly 1cm too small so while it takes under a minute to fold, it takes several minutes to squeeze into the bag. Fortunately this has turned out not to be an issue as the bag is not really needed. So instead I use it to lug my turbo around in.

Ironman - Hints and Tips on Pacing/Nutrition

2008-10-27T10:41:00.003Z

The big Ironman in Hawaii has just taken place and following on from it a few interesting blog entries:

http://blog.trainingpeaks.com/2008/10/ask-the-experts-asker-jeukendrup-on-ironman-performance-and-nutrition.html - Using 16 gels in a bottle for nutrition. Certainly a simple solution. Will give it a try.

http://www2.trainingbible.com/joesblog/2008/10/most-common-ironman-mistake.html - Importance of keeping smooth power profile during a long ride (VI target should be less then 1.05. My rides are more like 1.18, however will be different for rides like sportives I guess)

http://www2.trainingbible.com/joesblog/2008/10/llanos-power-hawaii-2008.html Top performer stats: 4 hour power of 270W/3.75W/kg. For same weight my 4 hours is 230W. Not quite the same but not bad as Joe Friel's rule of thumb is 2.9-3.3 W/kg for young amateurs with half a percent knocked off for every year abover 35. So I should be around 221W, so actually a bit better.

BIG - Isnt the internet wonderful (again)

2008-10-23T14:44:00.001+01:00

Same source as provided the excellent link to map of UK climbs, also directed me here:
http://www.challenge-big.eu/

Heaven sent site for climbers like me..just updating with list of my cols....

Hills I have yet to Climb

2008-10-21T12:19:00.002+01:00

A while back I made a rather forlorn effort to start another blog that would feature the various hills I have climbed...however it has not made much progress (as Mrs M reminds me from time to time..)

Anyway even if I had done more, it would not be half as good as the info contained here http://www.hodology.com/

Once again..isn't the internet wonderful..

Winter Training Webinar

2008-10-20T11:18:00.002+01:00

The wonders of technology. I got the chance to hear Hunter Allen present his views on winter training via a webinar. It cost $39 but I think it was money well spent. http://www.peakscoachinggroup.com/store/store.php/categories/buy-previous-webinars-216

Key points were:

Most people dont train hard enough in the winter
Carry on doing threshold + workouts, but do less often (1x 2weeks for VO2/anaerobic)
Aim to charge up to 100% of capacity, so max of 2 hard workouts per week and one at weekend.
Keep FTP up (even suggested one goal might be to improve)
Do weights if appropriate (e.g. if over 50, so I will keep doing)
Cross train
Stretch/yoga
Think of plyometrics if sprinting is a limiter (which it is for me). Suggested looking here: http://www.sport-fitness-advisor.com/plyometric.html

An e.g. week was

Mon/Wed/Fri weights and a bit of x-train cardio.

Tue 3x15 mins Sweetspot (88-93% FTP) (5 mins rest) then 5x1 minute fast pedalling

Thu 30 mins 110rpm, 30 mins normal rpm with 8s sprint every 2 mins in + 2 gears

Sat 3-4 hour ride 10 power bursts in hour 2 and 45min sweetspot hour 3

Sun 1-2 hours cardio on trainer.

So not exactly easy...but overall in line with my feeling that last winter the "base" months were a little too easy and I would have benefitted from doing some more intense training earlier. So will give ideas above a try this time round.

Catching Cold

2008-10-20T11:11:00.002+01:00

My first cold for as long as I can remember and first since using "First Defence" on a regular basis. But very minor as colds go and probably not a bad thing to get one round about now since not training hard. And pretty inevitable given commuting and fact I spent last week in room with people from all over Europe, most of whom seemed to have a bug of one sort or another.

2008 zones - a retrospective

2008-10-16T16:25:00.002+01:00

I carried out a retropspective analysis of my 2008 training hours, as part of planning for 2009.

The specific reason for doing this was that my plan 2009 is to start training earlier (November rather than December) and to focus on the "sweetspot" zone (85%-95% of FTP) earlier.

I used WKO to put together the graphs above, basically showing total hours trained over the past year, then hours by training zone (all excluding "recovery" time which actually accounts for 60% of total hours..).

It seems I followed my plan pretty well. The Endurance graph shows pretty constant load through the year. The other zones show progressive increase in load through the first part of the year then a steady state in the main event portion, followed by a decrease as I started to take things easier.

I will be looking for similar 2009 with exception that I will plan to make the tempo/sweetspot graphs be flatter and more similar to endurance.

Trial Rolling

2008-10-16T16:22:00.002+01:00

I got some clip on tri bars with a view to doing some "proper" time trialling next year. I fitted them onto my winter bike a la Cyclefit measurments and had a go trying to use them on the rollers.

Proved interesting to say the least. It was like learning to use the rollers all over again and I managed to come off quite a few times, though fortunately the adaptations I made to the rollers stopped the accidents being too bad.

But after 20 mins or so I started to get the hang of things. So will give it another go tonight.

Balmy Burley

2008-10-13T09:19:00.004+01:00

Amazing weather for the first weekend of August sorry October...sunny blue skies and temperatures over 20C. Both days better than any in the "summer" months..

So lucky that this was the weekend chosen for the NRC YHA weekend. 8 of us rode down to the New Forest and stayed overnight at Burley Youth Hostel (see pic above). I rode on my single speed which coped admirably with the task.

I had not visited the New Forest since childhood, probably being put off by the fact that on that occasion my attempt to feed a pony had resulted in bitten fingers...

Anyway happily I have got over that trauma and won't wait as long to visit again. In fact the run we did was perfect for a long steady training ride. Also be perfect for taking Mrs M triking as the roads in the forest are flat as a pancake, with great visibility and we stopped off at the perfect watering hole for her...

Carmichael Field Test

2008-10-09T16:45:00.002+01:00

I got some training DVDs to watch while on the rollers. Trouble is they are really for build/peak stage as they consist mainly of VO2/threshold workouts. Still will be interesting to try them when time comes around.

One of them features Chris Carmichael (of Lance Armstrong fame) and he suggests a field test to set exercise zones. Quite simple, 2x8 mins with 10 mins rest and take power from best interval.

As weather was nice thought I would give it a try on H10/3. Managed first at 330W but second was weedy at only 290. Put that down to fact I have been taking things easy and still on post Munich diet.

Nonetheless a useful benchmark for the future.

Wet Climes

2008-10-07T13:38:00.002+01:00

Did my first hill climb Sunday, incorporated into our club run. Weather was foul and just 7 of us made it. I came 4th in 5:51. Power wasn't too bad at 350W but should have gone better.

Still a useful benchmark for 2009. Did not know about the hill but its good for training with 110m of climbing in 1.8km so an average of 6% with bits around 10.

Good news/bad news

2008-10-07T13:36:00.001+01:00

Good news I have ordered Meivici AE.
Bad news it won't be shipped until March 2009.

But actually not so bad as I won't really want to be riding it over winter and it should come nicely timed with me being put out to pasture...

A Thing of Beauty

2008-10-03T12:42:00.006+01:00

The email from Cyclefit also had a picture of the bike above. A case of love at first sight as far as I am concerned. The bike is the new Meivici AE from Serotta, which is custom built, is utterly, utterly beautiful and I hope to be riding one soon.

Fitted Up/Bottom Powered Bike

2008-10-03T12:34:00.009+01:00

As I have mentioned before I am a great believer in serendipity. So when (as a result of signing up to an newsletter I had long forgotten about) an email from http://www.cyclefit.co.uk/ popped into my in-tray it spurred me into deciding to get myself properly measured up for a bike.

I thought this would be handy for a variety of reasons, my having tinkered around with my position over the year, wanting to get a racing bike and also with a view to time trialling. So I phoned up and booked a session, which took place in central London a couple of days ago.

It turned out to be quite an experience and certainly value for money. I had a fitting a year and a half ago but that just took some basic measurements and put them into a spreadsheet. It was useful (primarily in getting me to heighten my seat) but this was in a different league.

All in all it took around 3 hours to get measured up for a road bike and a TT bike. The major differences from my earlier fitting were that a lot more time was spent measuring/sizing up my body, the fitting took place on a special bike mounted on a turbo (the "bike" had clamps all over it so pretty much every aspect of the frame could be varied in length/angle) and I got videoed.

Each of these had a bit of a revelation..

When I got measured up I found that my right leg is shorter than my left and that I carried my right shoulder lower than my right. Both were news to me, despite living with my body for nigh on 50 years. I also have a tendency to slouch (which isnt news)..

As a result of the leg length difference I got some "wedges" fitted. These fit under my cleats and have a couple of effects. Firstly I have got more on the right foot than the left (which sorts out the difference in leg length) and secondly the angle my feet a bit differently so that they are more in line. The difference these made was amazing. I always thought my right leg was stronger than my left because it felt like it was doing more work. I realise now it was because it was over extending on every stroke. With the wedges fitted both legs feel like they are in balance.

Videos of me cycling were a bit of a downer. I had fondly imagined I had a lovely straight back a la TDF riders. In fact as the picture below shows I look more like Quasimodo then a bike pro. (Reminds me of similar experience I had when I got videoed for some golf lessons. The person on the screen looked like a different person.)

It also shows how far back my knee is compared to the centre of the pedal. After quite a bit of adjustment I ended up looking like this:
Back is a bit straighter (but this is something I have to work on). The effect is to feel much more connected through the pedal stroke. Apparently this is as a result of my glutes working and helping my power. (IOW I need to get my backside working).

Phot also shows how my knee is over the pedal when its horizontal, which certainly feels a lot better.

Once road bike sorted, we looked at TT. This was my first experience riding on aero bars and it was a surprise. I thought they would be uncomfortable but in fact they were really easy to ride on. I managed to find a comfortable position quite quickly and found the bars actually to be a lot easier than riding on my drops.

Anyway here is how I ended up looking:

Not perfect but then looking at some pics of the pros below then there is quite a bit of variety and I don't seem to look like a creature from another planet compared to them.

I left the fitting in a pretty good mood and headed home (aside: stopped for a pint with Phil at Paddington, talked of Munich and beer festivals nearer home, one at Oxford couple of weeks away..)

I set up my Giant winter bike with the new settings and had a roller session. Turned out pretty good, certainly felt a lot more connected. When going hard nothing in my legs seemed to be out of balance or especially stood out in pain terms and limiter was my aerobic capacity, which is I guess how it should be.

Looking forward to trying it on the road..so set up my fixed with new settings (looks a lot different now) and will try it out later today..

Turbo powered

2008-10-03T09:54:00.001+01:00

Article from the most recent edition of http://www.roadbikerider.com/currentissue.htm

Maybe the government should give everyone in the UK one of these. That way we could be sure of golds in 2012, save the planet and solve our obesity problem in one (many pedal) stroke...

"Kinetic Energy Trainer

If you need good grounds for ignoring your significant other to spend time on the trainer this winter, how about: "Hey honey, I'm going downstairs to charge your cell phone for you." Then with permission and gratitude you can hop on a Kinetic Energy Trainer and create electricity while turning yourself into butter. It's done with a generator that retrofits to any Kurt Kinetic trainer and charges a portable power storage unit. (A Black & Decker Electromatic 400, available at stores such as Home Depot for about $100, was used at Interbike.)

According to Kinetic's Paul Carlsen, about 2.5 hours of riding will generate 0.5 kwh of electricity, which, he said, "will charge 50 cell phones or run a television for a couple of hours." Imagine the benefits if kids had to pedal to watch their favorite TV programs. Better yet, imagine the benefits of this technology in third-world countries where power lines don't reach. Let there be light bulbs and refrigeration.

Carlsen said 25 Energy Trainers were made for Interbike, 20 were sold to dealers, 4 were provided to publications for review, and 1 was saved for display. The price is $499 for a Kinetic trainer with the generator installed, or $300 for a generator retrofit kit. Then all that's needed is a bike, a power storage unit and a green attitude. Look for December availability. Not yet shown on the website as this newsletter was published. http://www.kurtkinetic.com

Heavy beer - heavy no more

2008-10-02T09:31:00.002+01:00

The heavy beer wierdness continues...in the 3 days since coming back from the Oktoberfest I have lost 12 pounds....

This hasn't been done by crash dieting..or even keeping off the beer. I've been eating around 2500kcal per day and had a couple of pints yesterday while waiting for train/chatting with Phil.
And apart from beer I've been drinking a lot of water as well.

And workouts don't really explain it, I've averaged around 1000kcal per day riding.

Strange...

Heavy beer

2008-09-29T09:04:00.002+01:00

Got on the scales this morning and found I weighed over a stone more than last Friday, pre-beer fest. Beer is measured in "original gravity" and I now know what it means as I am now back at my original gravity and heavier than at any time this year.

Still I am not too concerned about this, there is plenty of time to get back to my fighting weight between now and Xmas and no major food/drink binge opportunities on the horizon.

Took the occasion to take a look at my weight chart this year and it looks a bit wierd. Steady progressions downwards then rapid spikes up due to some event or another.

Some of these spikes make sense, like Easter, Cornwall holiday and Beerfest. But others coincide with major tours like Ireland, Wessex and the Marmotte. The only common theme I can think of is beer....it must be very heavy.

Once more into the beer my friends

2008-09-29T08:43:00.003+01:00

Well made it back safely from Oktoberfest 2008 and must say had a better time than I expected. All went, pretty much, according to well oiled (as were we) plan: Friday Schnieder, Saturday early start and into tents followed by whatever happens, Sunday white sausages, sweet mustard and more beer.

Getting into the tent was a bit hectic, lots more there than previous times. But once in beer started to flow and we all coped pretty well until Stefans head dropped, joined an hour or so later by John, who also managed to fill one of his glasses... Eventually, and slightly humiliatingly, we were asked to leave the tent...Not due to bad conduct but because we were not drinking enough!!!

Anyway had spent 6 hours or so in there so probably time to call it a day and we headed of for cocktails (poor), burger (good) more beer and a final curry (though only 2 of us made it that far).

Sunday's sausage and mustard sorted me out along with some more beer.

PS travelled to Heathrow and back via bus/train. Worked like a charm...

Drinking Problem

2008-09-25T09:48:00.002+01:00

I'm off to the Oktoberfest for the sixth(I think) and most likely last time tomorrow. No doubt bits of it will be memorable but there are only six of us going, and just two of us have made every trip, and to be honest I am not looking forward to it as much as previous times.

By coincidence my cycling thoughts are taken up with problems on drinking...

Joe Friel has just posted this blog entry which, as he admits, flies in the face of the advice he and most others have given re how much/often to drink during rides.
http://www2.trainingbible.com/joesblog/2008_09_01_archive.html

In a nutshell he is saying "drink when you are thirsty, enough to stop feeling thirsty".

This makes a degree of sense to me, its the practice I followed until I started to read "expert" advice and I don't recall it causing me any serious issues. I have only really suffered twice on a ride:

Dragon last year: when I only took water + a bit of food. My one and only "bonk" came on the last Bwlch climb but that was definitely down to running out of energy not liquid (as evidenced by the rapid recovery following me downing a gel).
Marmotte tryout this year: which was caused by me eating too much too early

I should have drunk more on various sportives and the 12 hour TT but on these felt thirsty and impact on performance was not too catastrophic.

However its worrying that in same week as the above advice another expert says we are not drinking enough!!

http://blog.trainingpeaks.com/2008/09/ask-the-experts-ben-greenfield-on-water-consumption.html

What to believe?

Like most aspects on training its probably a case of different strokes for different folks.

Overall it would be good news if Joe Friel is right, as it makes long, unsupported rides easier.

Since, as mentioned above, my experience "Pre experts" was that I did not need to drink too much I am inclined to go with Joe Friels view. I will adopt that as a default during my long training rides and see how it goes over the winter period.

It helps that one other thing I want to do is to try to do negative splits in training. This should accentuate the impact of not drinking enough. So if I fail do to a workout target, yet don't feel thirsty then I can try to repeat drinking to "little and often" advice and see if that makes a difference. Time will tell.

And now for something completely different - golf

2008-09-25T09:31:00.004+01:00

My sporting passion prior to cycling was golf. However its a game that takes up a fair amount of time, especially if you are no good at it like me. I ended up only playing occasionally, mainly against my dad when we saw each other and after his death my enthusiasm dried up.

Still I have the intention of taking the game up again once time permits and to this end still go down to the driving range every now and then.

Like all golfers I sometimes hit some shots that make me think I have cracked the game. This is always a deception but its worth trying to remember what worked at the time, to at least try again. So I will use this blog to record some "swing thoughts" from time to time.

Here's the first couple:

Slow to top of back swing and start the downswing as slowly as possible.
Focus on outside front quarter of ball and visualise hitting through it on impact

Looking ahead 2009

2008-09-22T15:05:00.002+01:00

It feels like the cycling year is over now. So time to look ahead to 2009 and see what it may bring.

Some initial thoughts on challenges:

LEL 2009: 26th-31st July: a real biggy. 1400km in around 93 or so hours.
Etape Gold: Depending on where/when I would like to have a go at getting an etape gold.
Marmotte quicker: I move up an age category and should get a preferential start position so it would be nice to beat my time this year. Sub 7 hours will be a real stretch target.
12 hour further: I would like to beat my distance for this year, target will be more than 255 miles which would be all time club record.
BBAR: If I'm doing a 12 it would be fun to do a 50 and 100 mile TT as well as this means I get a BBAR http://www.cyclingtimetrials.org.uk/bbar_whatis.asp Apparently you get a certificate if you average over 22mph so this seems like a reasonable goal.
TTs: I will treat myself to a "proper" TT bike to help with above and so I can explore another aspect of the cycling world.
Racing: I really enjoyed the 3 races I did at Thruxton this year and will aim to do more next. Challenge will be to score a few points...
Sportives: Apart from Etape/Marmotte I will put less emphasis on these in terms of timing/standard and rather aim to ride for enjoyment. Tours of Ireland/Wessex will be on agenda again.

Bit of a long list but then I will have some more time next year so hopefully will be doable. Time will tell...

Seasons end - Breaking the Hour

2008-09-18T15:05:00.002+01:00

The 2008 season is pretty much at an end now. However I had some unfinished business. One season goal had been to break the hour for a 25TT and on my one and only official attempt I had done 1:00:56. My Powertap wasn't working that day but I tried again a couple of days later and recorded 1:01:36, setting a new FTP PB of 305W in the process.

Over the past few days September has probably already had more sun than July+August and that made me think of having another go at a 25. So yesterday I headed back to the HCC247 course and made a final attempt to break the hour.

Contrary to the previous 2 tries the wind was blowing from the east. This was good news in helping me to the turn but meant hard work coming back. I set off with a main plan to concentrate on keeping my speedo over 40kph as much as possible with watts around 300W.

All went remarkably well, the time flew by and almost before I knew it I was in Hungerford, then at the turn. I sneaked a look at my AVS and found I was over 42kph so ahead of schedule.

The last 10 miles back into the wind were hard work, with the speedo reading 30something more often than not. However I kept going well and once through Hungerford again the time sped by, so much so that I only realised at the last moment that the finish was in sight. I made a final dash to the line and checked the time. It read 59:55 and I was pretty damn happy.

WKO for the ride above. As well as breaking the hour I also set a new FTP PB 310W/314NW. 30 minute power was also a PB at 317W.

Looking at the splits I was happy with the way I paced the ride. Compared to the previous attempt the sectors were:

Start downhill - 9km

June - 322W/44.3kph (tailwind)

Sept - 328W/43.5kph (headwind)

To Turn - 15km

June - 303W/37.0kph(headwind)

Sept - 305W/42.okph(tailwind)

To Home - 16km

June - 293W/40.6kph(tailwind)

Sept -305W/37.4kph(headwind)

> so I worked harder in all three sectors and especially pleased I kept power constant over the second two. Cadence was up as well with an average of 81rpm compared to 76rpm in June.

Overall then a good way to wind up the 2008 season. Thoughts now moving to what 2009 will bring

Going Green - summer training option..

2008-09-16T13:40:00.001+01:00

Green option for next years summer training...
http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/07/16/mowercycle-human-powered-lawnmower/

Dash for glory - almost....

2008-09-15T15:41:00.006+01:00

My third and last race at Thruxton yesterday. Following experience of the first 2 races I had a plan, of sorts. Part 1 was to shirk work and stay away from the lead, Part 2 was to then make a long break for home to make the most of my "good" 5 minute power and avoid having to battle out a sprint.

Weather was foggy and a bit chilly. But not too windy (though as ever a bit of a stiff breeze on second half of course.

The race started slowly and early pace was very comfortable. As it picked up a few guys tried forlorn efforts at a break but no joy. Daftly, despite best plans I ended up doing a bit of work at the head to catch up a couple of times.

Trace above and lap stats below tell the story

Lap 1 6:05 160W/206NW 126>144bpm 86rpm 35.9kph

Lap 2 5:14 144W/197NW 127>144bpm 84rpm 38.8kph

Lap 3 5:14 180W/208NW 137>154bpm 82rpm 38.7kph

Lap 4: 5:19 204W/252NW 142>157bpm 80rpm 38.0kph

Lap 5: 5:14 262W/297NW 151>161bpm 83rpm 38.3kph

Lap 6: 5:19 281W/316NW 152>167bpm 87rpm 38.2kph

Lap 7: 5:00 270W/000NW 156>165bpm 88rpm 40.4kph

Lap 8: 5:10 289W/311NW 159>168bpm 87rpm 39.3kph

Lap 9: 5:19 221W/245NW 152>165bpm 87rpm 37.6kph

Lap 10: 5:10 252W/270NW 154>162bpm 85rpm 39.5kph

Lap 11: 4:55 338W/000NW 168>173bpm 89rpm 41.5kph

Early laps very low effort, but some harder laps following as I took lead. Partly because its fun, but also trying to stretch field out a bit and check out course.

On final lap I pushed a bit, expecting to stretch field out again. Turning round I found I had escaped and had a large gap. So I put head down and headed for finish. On fast downhill section it felt as if gap had widened and I had (premature) visions of crossing the line solo. But on final drag up to finish I turned round and saw rest of field bearing down on me. Slumped a bit then but rallied and made effort to finish, albeit without and placing.

Looking back at the stats not too surprising that I had not kept away. Break was earned with not too much difficulty, just 40s at 465W. But after then I was pushing 345W which is high but not high enough to escape a full group.

Will learn from this, either breaking later or break then ease down then try to jump off group after catch.

Still all very good fun and definitely something I want to do more of next year.

Mars Alps Tour

2008-09-10T11:29:00.002+01:00

Spent the last week doing a tour with Mars through the Alps. Much of the route was the reverse of the 2006 tour so I saw a number of climbs from the other side (Joux Plane, Colombier, Aravis, Saisies). Also did some of the climbs from the Marmotte again (Telegraphe, Galibier) including climbing Alpe D'Huez for the umpteeneth time this year (though took opportunity to head back of village to bag the col Poutran).

Tour inlcuded some new climbs, we all did the Madeline and I branched off and did a few "extras" (Pteret, Pres, Roselend and Lachat). Of these the col du Pres from Beaumont was the best though I enjoyed all v much as nice to get away from the main road/popular climbs..

Another good 10

2008-08-28T10:40:00.003+01:00

Another 10 last night, this time on the hillier H10/3A course. Downhill out, uphill back, the difference between the two legs accentuated by a brisk wind blowing downhill.

Following last week adopted similar tactic, going out hard then digging in on return.

Did well knocking 10s off my best time last year (which ride also had power highs). Pleased with this as conditions definitely worse. Power was strong, set another 5 minute PB at 372W and power through much of time was also PB.

Looking at my power PBs now all but one are in the current season. The exception is the 1 minute at 519W. My closest this year was 508W. That said I have not really spent much time training at or riding short hard efforts. Before year end I will have a concentrated effort to beat this final PB.

12 Hour - good training for a 10TT?

2008-08-21T13:59:00.003+01:00

After a couple of days recovery from the 12 hour I did the club 10 last night.

I set a ride goal of filling in some of the gaps on my 2008 v 2007 power profile. (I still remember the first time I saw WKO at "Flammerouge" Tony's March last year. One the most powerfull images I got was the ability to compare years in terms of performance. In the graphic above 2008 is the solid line, 2007 the dotted. Over most of the chart the solid line is above the dotted showing how I have improved this year).

Target was 5-6 minute power so I set out to ride the first km at around 300W then put the hammer down and try to keep above 360W.

Turned up on time but a bit late so started down the field. Route was my favourite, H10/3 west of Newbury down A4 to Hungerford and back. Weather was typical August, occasional drizzle and a bit windy. Having done without music for 12 hours last weekend I decided I could do without it for 10 miles. (Quite enjoyed it as bike currently running smooth as silk.)

All went very well. I achieved my training goal and recorded season best power from 5-9 minutes and all time best 5 mins of 359W.

But ride went even better than that. I knew I was going well as speedo was mostly over 40kph, even on return let when I eased off a bit. As ride went on I made a conscious effort to keep it above 40 and managed to hold enough back to finish strong.

Ended up mullahing my PB, knocking 25secs off it with 23.45.

Strangely watts for the ride (321W/325NW) were not any different from slower rides and pacing was opposite to "ideal" with hard first half and "easy" second (not due to wind which was more against on return).

I put improvement down to a combination of factors

- As result of 12 found a comfortable aero position (biggest single factor I reckon)

- Not listening to music I was more aware of breathing

- Seeing speed displayed (previously set to cadence) acted as a motivator

- Being towards the end of rider list I expected to get caught, which had never yet happened. Did not consciously try to avoid this but think must have acted as a spur.

Whatever the reason left me pretty happy.

One final strange thing is HR. It levelled out at 172, which is well short of the 177 that I have done in the past (though more 2007 than 2008).

12 hours - the counting

2008-08-19T15:06:00.003+01:00

After the ride the analysis:

Power/Speed:

WKO file for the 12 hour time trial is above (I forgot to take my HR strap so no HR).

Shows the story of the ride pretty well. I was planning to ride at around 210W or so. In first 4 hours I overdid it a bit, partly due to enjoying myself but mainly because I could not see display due to rain!

As weather brightened and I started the B loops the average speed started to drop though power still around the 210W mark average. Both speed and power took a hit between 6 and 7 hours into the ride during the 30 minute transfer upwind between the B and C loops. This was the low point of the ride and first C loop was pretty poor as well. Only averaged 173W/185NW for these sections, just 30.3kph. Remaining 4 C loops were 1.5kph faster but power still only averaged 178W/186NW. Finishing section was hard going, just 166W/180NW and a slow 30.5kph (though not helped by need to slow down 2xper lap to get water).

Food:

I started off with 4 bottles of PSP + 6000 cals of food (mix of suger sweets, breadsticks, cereal bars, sweet chestnuts and sandwiches). Rain messed food up and I forgot (doh!) I had some cereal bars in my jersey pocket under my gilet. I reckon I ate about 60% of the food so say 3600 cals or so. This probably was not quite enough and I certainly needed to drink more as the sun came out.

Doing unsupported:

It was a good decision not to follow original plan of Mr M Jnr coming along. Route meant it would have been difficult to work out where he could have stopped and it would not have been much help. However mobile (i.e. with car) support would have been a great help. The route was a bit hillier than I expected and I suffered a bit from all the stuff I had to carry. Also it would have helped to have dry food rather than wet mush. Biggest needs though were

-more sports drink (the stops only supplied water, if you kept moving you only got 1/4 bottle. If you stopped it took an age to fill up)

- moral support. My spirits dropped a bit during the B and C loops and I could have done with a familiar face. I could also have done with someone to do the sums for me in terms of pacing. Due to my detour and the fact that my powertap does not record time stopped I was not sure how far ahead/behind the pace I was.

The next time?

Any challenge that really pushes you is a funny old thing. At the time it cannot be over quick enough but soon after you feel like trying again. This is definitely the case for this event. With hindsight I regret not pushing a bit harder and at least got past the 247.1 mile club record.

So I will give the event another go next year, choosing a race more in advance to be sure of getting something that is both a fast course and makes support straight forward.

I will also use aerobars (and other TT gear) next time. I did not want to do this for my first attempt as I did not want to feel that, if I broke the record, it was just because of my equipment.

My ride on Sunday pretty much settled this score. Had I not taken a wrong turn and if the wind had been just a bit less strong I would have taken the record and so have no qualms that my next attempt should try to set the bar as high as possible.

12 hours of wind rain and some pain...

2008-08-19T13:00:00.004+01:00

Well its over. Did my first 12 hour time trial on Sunday and, not surprisingly I guess, it was probably the hardest days cycling of my life.

Limitations on dates meant the event I took part in also happened to be the National Championship. So it was quite a large affair with over 100 riders taking part. The course was around and about Cambridge/Newmarket and consisted of 4 sections
A - Up and down the A11 dual carriage way a couple of times (around 85 miles)
B+C 2 different loops of around 13 miles, each ridden a number of times (in my case 4 times round B and 5 times round C)
Finish: A final loop of near 14 miles that you ride until your time is up (I got round 2 and a bit times)

Having originally planned to rope in Mr M Junior I eventually decided it would be easier to do self supporting as it was not obvious where Mr M J could wait given the various loops. I stayed nearby at on the "Genome Campus", a strange mix of Regency manor house and cutting edge research institute.

12 hours of riding means an early start and I got up at 4.15. On going outside I found, to my gloom, that it was drizzling. Found the start and got numbers, also noticed warning specifically banning use of MP3s.

I loaded food and drink onto bike. Plan was to take all food with me, some on tri-bags on crossbar, reaminder hanging off rear. I started with 4 full bottles, planning to fill up at stops.

Start facilities were nice but only had one poo loo, not really enough given number of competitors. Time was pressing and so had to make use of womens facilities (fortunately was not spotted...)

Only just made it to start in time, still drizzling. Set of and went all of 250m before one of my bottles dropped off the back of my bike. Sorted quickly and set off again.

Ahead of time I thought the first A section would be the worst as it was up and down a long stretch of dual carriageway. However this turned out not to be the case and this was the bit I enjoyed most. The road surface was good and I made good time. This was despite the drizzle turning into occasional downpours. Unfortunately during one of these I managed to get lost and went up the wrong bit of road. Realised after a mile or so and had to conduct a tricky u-turn that including manhandling bike over crash barrier. Still one advantage of early start was that there was not much traffic...

At the end of the A section, despite being soaked, my sprits were high. After 4 hours I had covered over 140km so a healthy average over 35kph. We then moved on to the B course and that coincided with good and bad news on the weather front:
Good news - the rain stopped
Bad news - the wind picked up. It had already been blowing but now this developed into a strong wind.

The B loop was not really flat, more rolling and it had some sections that combined uphill with upwind that sapped the legs and damaged my morale. On the second loop I decided to stop. I rummaged through my food bag and found the rain had seeped in and turned some of my food to mush. Still I scoffed a chicken sarnie and restarted. Though not with much joy, I could see my average speeed falling and started to get a bit down. Not soon enough I was waved off the B loop and onto the C.

This transfer was the low spot of the ride. It was 15km, mostly down a dual carriage way, all the way into wind. It was very hard work and I hated it. Eventually we came to loop C where the sun was out and there were lots of spectators. I even heard someone cry "come on Martin" which confused me a bit. This loop was more enjoyable than B being a mix of slow into wind and fast wind behind. I was running very low on water by this time so made some stops to fill up. This plus taking it easy on the downwind stretch meant my average speed continued to fall and hopes of beating the club record started to dwindle.

They were pretty much gone by the time I was waved onto the finishing course but I soldiered on, aiming to at least hit 240miles. Eventually I was flagged down and told I could stop. Luckily this was right next to the control so I only had a short ride back.

Results took a while to come through but when mine came up I was happy to find I had managed 241.6 miles. Just 5.5 miles short of the club record, even less as the extra couple of miles I did as a detour obviously did not count.

During wait for results the mystery of the "come on Martin" yells of encouragement was cleared up. An ex Newburian was supporting one of the other riders. By coincidence he was the brother of the clubs junior record holder (the one that is longer than the senior one I was trying to break).

Result of the main competition was close, being won with 284.5 miles, just 0.65 miles from second place. Winner, Ian Cammish, is apparently 51, so doubly impressive and encouragement to keep training.

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/Ian_Cammish_Wins_National_12Hour_Championship_article_265729.html

M & Ms big adventure

2008-08-12T13:10:00.002+01:00

Not sure how many beers I had had over a Cornish meal with Mrs M but at some point or other, somehow or other we came up with a cunning plan for a joint challenge to keep us active and save us from premature senescence.

No matter how good Mrs M becomes on 3 wheels its unlikely she will be joining me going up (and much less likely down) any Alps

However she is a good walker and talking about this and what to do when we both have more time on our hands (as birds fly nests and we lay down tools) somehow we both hit on the idea of doing a long walk.

Its much better if any journey has a purpose (e.g. as my original plan to ride the tour) and Mrs M has always wanted to visit Iona, a (very) small island of another (slightly bigger) island off the north west coast of Scotland.

http://www.scotland-inverness.co.uk/iona.htm

So we put 2 and 2 together and came up with the idea of walking there (or at least the bits that did not involve boats). Originally the intention was to walk from home but we thought that may be a bit much so revised plan to start from Durham.

Plan was hatched Friday night and we spent much of a dismal Saturday buying some books and doing some first planning. On first appearences we seem to have lucked out. A route from Durham can make use of some of the long distance footpath network and, judging from Rough Guide advice on distance per day, a rough and ready route marked out on my Truckers atlas seems to show us needing about 30 days or to make the journey. So a pretty big challenge but well doable....time will no doubt tell but this blog will have to broaden into Mr Ms Iona Adventure some time over the next year or so...

Many happy returns

2008-08-12T13:00:00.002+01:00

Mrs M and I kept an appointment we made 25 years ago and spent last week having a second honeymoon at the same hotel in Newquay were we celebrated our first

http://www.trebarwith-hotel.co.uk/

Happily the hotel had not changed much and we had a great time, despite a typically British week of summer weather that saw more use of brollies than beach clothes.

Newquay was much the same as we left it 25 years ago though there seemed to be a lot more emphasis on surfing and no signs of things made from shells or naughty postcards.

Arriving Friday,
Saturday we looked around and spent some time enjoying the sun on the beach just below the hotel.
Sunday we got wet, joined the National Trust and Mrs M made her first ride on her new trike
Monday we went to the Eden project, which was very impressive
Tuesday I went for a long (wet and windy) ride up to Boscastle and Tintagel where I holidayed as a lad
Wednesday Mrs M got smelly therapy and I got a surfing lesson (and chaperoned her for lunch in a dressing gown)
Thursday we enjoyed some more sun on the beach
Friday was spent by me lazing on beach, Mrs M explored Newquay some more.
Saturday set a record for worst weather experienced on holiday so we passed time at hotel and having nice pots of tea/cakes and planning ahead......

We came back with "Trebarwith" a new addition to our bear family plus a new long term challenge....

12 hour TT - how much to eat?

2008-08-12T12:00:00.005+01:00

I am still mulling over how much to eat on the 12 hour TT this weekend.

Interesting couple of articles here

http://www.saris.com/athletes/PermaLink,guid,6db7d592-53a6-4a3e-839b-93703a780ba8.aspx

and here

http://www.saris.com/CalorieCalculator.aspx

Based on latter I have done some sums:

Assuming I weigh 73kg on the day of the ride and that I am pretty fit I will have

73 * 25 cals of onboard glycogen so around 1900 cals.

Assuming I do my plan 220W per hour then I will be using something like

220 * 12 * 3600/1000 = 9500kj

I reckon I am pretty high efficency so cals = 9500 * 1.05 = 10000

The ride will be a bit harder than easy so say 60% of cals come from carb = 6000

So less 1900 from onboard so means I will need to eat around 4100 cals during the ride, about 340 cals per hour.

So that's my plan...interesting to see how it turns out

How to adjust front derailleur

2008-07-31T10:23:00.003+01:00

This can be a bit tricky.

Guides to do this are here

//www.parktool.com/repair/readhowto.asp?id=75

and for Shimano here

http://techdocs.shimano.com/media/techdocs/content/cycle/SI/SI_5JD0A_001/SI_5JD0A_001_En_v1_m56577569830616200.pdf

Indebted to Grahamharpin off Bikeradar forum who knocked up this easy to follow checklist

Lift the bike so the pedals will drive the wheel
Slacken off the cable tension, this will move the mech to the smallest chainring.
Shift rear to largest sprocket
Adjust lower stop screw so there is about 1 mm clearance between chain and front mech cage.
Tighten cable again as far as it will go
Shift to biggest chainring & smallest rear sprocket
Adjust upper stop screw until the change up to the big chainring is easy and does not overshoot.
Set rear sprocket to middle of the cassette
Change down to lowest chainwheel, if the cable was really tight it probably will not change down so gradually relaase cable tension until it changes cleanly.
Check change over both (or 3) chainrings.

Tour of the Black Mountains - the climbs

2008-07-28T17:23:00.048+01:00

The Tour of the Black Mountains has a great sportive route, in my opinion the best in the UK due to the extent and variety of its climbs, linked to great views and (generally) good roads.

The climbs start from the off with 20km up an ever increasing gradient to Gospel pass.

Then after a long descent you a false flat leads you south of Brecon where you head west up the Mynydd Illtud. After that you turn south and a succession of climbs hits you, long ones, steep ones and long steep ones (longest steepest coming on the 160km/100 mile mark).

Finally there are a couple of stings in the tail on the run in to home.

All in all I count 13 climbs in all, listed below. These add up to 2300m climbing. The ride is rarely flat though and you end up doing another 13oom of climbing to make a grand total for the route of 3600m over its 185km length.

(Distances in kilometres)

		Route	Route	Elevation		Distance	Metres	Gradient
Climb		Start	End	Start	End	of Climb	Climbed	Average	Max	Comments
1	Gospel Pass	1.3	20.6	121	540	19.3	419	2.2%	16.2%	U valley, the further you go the steeper it gets.
2	Mynydd Illtud	57.6	63.0	134	340	5.5	206	3.8%	10.1%	Old roman road. Look left to see Pen y Fan
3	Cerrig Duon	76.8	84.1	210	473	7.2	263	3.6%	11.5%	Turn south and head up
4	Bryn Rhudd	89.8	93.8	222	378	4.0	155	3.9%	7.9%	Main road drag on A4067
5	Chwyth	95.3	97.3	338	418	2.0	80	4.0%	6.6%	Short climb after leaving A4067
6	Bryn Melyn	103.7	105.6	257	446	1.9	188	10.0%	14.4%	Sheer climb with hairpins, don’t look up at the bottom, feed at top
7	Aber Illia	112.4	114.2	248	346	1.8	99	5.6%	18.9%	Unexpected wall round a corner in the woods.
8	Sychbant	118.0	122.6	244	400	4.6	156	3.4%	9.2%	Straight on through the cows
9	Ponsticill Reservoir	132.3	134.2	257	362	1.9	104	5.4%	9.2%	Climb out of Merthyr ending in forest
10	Creigiau	140.0	141.5	329	438	1.5	109	7.3%	16.1%	Steep towards end just before feed.
11	Blaen Onnau	158.4	162.7	121	441	4.3	320	7.4%	11.0%	A mini Alp at 100 miles, great descent
12	Crickhowell	170.6	172.0	96	210	1.4	114	8.1%	11.7%	Evil climb around the corner out of Crickhowell
13	Forest Coal Pit	176.7	179.2	162	249	2.5	87	3.4%	11.8%	Last climb of the day!

Gradient details of some of the climbs:

12 hour power

2008-07-21T16:32:00.006+01:00

Following on from previous post I have been thinking about what sort of power I will pace at.

I did a tryout on our 10TT course a few nights ago. Conditions were not very helpful with a strong headwind out and tailwind back. Ended up averaging 36kph for 234W/246NW.

Also tried using calculator here: http://bikecalculator.com/wattsMetric.html which reckoned that 34kph should take 195W on the drops and 240W on the hoods. (Aerobar would be 160W but I will not be using one for first attempt for reasons I will go into shortly).

Based on above 2 bits of info I reckon I will need to average somewhere in the region of 220W or so. This is 10w short of my "endurance" zone so is in the right sort of place. Also taking a look at my normal power curve:

My longest ride was my chase of 5000m climbing last year in France. Here I averaged 216NW for 9:30. This is short of target but that is not really a typical day as it was more of a hard tour than a race. This year on the Highclere I averaged 240NW for 7 hours and for the Marmotte 235 NW for 7:30. Extrapolating these as above gives me a guesstimated 12 hour power of between 230 and 215W. So pretty much dead on what I will need to achieve to do the 12 hours at above 20mph.

I will do a few more trials and see what results....

A new challenge - 12 hours on a bike

2008-07-21T16:19:00.003+01:00

The Marmotte was my main target for this year and now I am suffering a bit from post goal gloom...what to do next.

Actually I already had an inkling from a conversation back on our club tour in France. Ours being the club it is the topic of time trialling had come up at some point or other (not sure why) including 12 hours. This are rarities and our senior mens club record (247 miles) is a bit special for a couple of reasons: it was set back in 1977 (not quite as old as the woman's which dates back to 1964!) and the record for a junior is actually more (255 miles).

Struck me that the 247 miles does not seem so far if you think of it as just being a bit more than 20mph. The problem is the 12 hours bit. However have done day long rides before and reckon I might be able to cope with doing 12 hours non-stop.

Only one way to find out so I have entered an event on 17th August. Just happens to be the National Championships so will be interesting.

Got some good advice that will need a helper to feed and encourage me so I have roped in Master Miff to come along as well..

Beauty of the Beast

2008-07-21T15:46:00.003+01:00

On a completely different topic on return from Legbreaker I was followed by/followed a beautiful yellow Lamborghini Diablo. I actually heard it before I saw it and it made the most fantastic sight and sound.

By coincidence I saw a Murcielago parked up the night before and definitely of the opinion that the Diablo knocks it into a cocked hat in terms of looks.

Legbreaker 2008

2008-07-21T15:21:00.005+01:00

Did the Legbreaker ride yesterday and, as planned, rode it without looking at my power computer (except for occasional peek).

Actually ride is one where power meter is of least use as consists of lots of sharp, steep ascents and hairy single track descents (as profiles above show...). Quite pleased with how I managed on it, I forced myself to go hard on the climbs and took it easy(ish) otherwise. (ish because high winds and occasional showers made going tough, groups did not really form given nature of terrain).

Overall stats were not too bad. I did the ride in just under 6 hours (it was meant to be 130km but a missing signpost turned it into 140km) and set a new PB for 5 hour normal power at 256NW.

The power distribution makes an interesting picture:
Work time was spread pretty evenly across all of the buckets with near an hour being spent at VMax+Anaerobic. This is in sharp contrast to the Highclere Sportive:

and even sharper contrast to the Marmotte:

While happy I did it not sure I will do Legbreaker again. Not so much the climbing (dont mind that) but the fact that the whole ride felt very samey, just a constant succession of short steep climbs, often in woods, followed by similarly steep descents down single track roads. Latter led to a couple of accidents (fortunately all involved are OK) but even if trouble free are not really much fun.

Next weekend is Tour of Black Mountains, with several serious (but for the UK long) climbs which is definitely more my cup of tea. Just hope weather improves a bit...

Marmotte Guide

2008-07-17T14:34:00.004+01:00

Last post on the Marmotte.

Had some time on my hands on the journey back to France so wrote up a guide to the Marmotte based on experiences there.

Put link for it in Wiki under article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Marmotte

Direct link to article here: http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/view.php?id=693883&da=y

(Any changes/comments feel free to email me or add some stuff into Wiki...)

Marmotte - Compared to the best

2008-07-17T13:21:00.008+01:00

Following on from last post there another comparison to be made is with that of Andrew Bye, a top British road racer who came in 9th. http://andrewbye.blogspot.com/

Table below shows how we compared on the various sections of the event. It's possible to add a couple of columns to each set of stats to look at power/weight and power as a % of FTP (Andrew did a MAP in January with a result of 457 which gives FTP of 343 (assuming 75% of MAP). My FTP (as per 25TT) is 305 (BTW my most recent MAP was 408 = 306 @ 75% )

		Me 2008		71	kg			Andrew Bye		74	kg
Section	Distance	Time	Work	Power	Npwr	Npwr/kg	Power %	Time	Work	Power	Npwr	Npwr/kg	Power %
Start to Glandon base	13	0:23	230	152	198	2.7	65	0:23	311	222	273	3.8	80
Glandon Climb	23	1:23	1262	254	268	3.8	87	1:04	1281	331	355	5.0	104
Glandon Descent	42	1:09	572	137	201	2.8	66	0:24	203	137	177	2.5	52
Glandon base to Telegraphe								0:36	606	277	293	4.1	85
Telegraphe	12	0:50	763	250	254	3.6	83	0:40	821	335	338	4.8	99
Tel descent to Gal base	5	0:07	29	74	119	1.7	39	0:06	239	171	239	3.4	70
Galibier	18	1:24	1112	224	229	3.2	75	1:06	1224	306	309	4.4	90
Gal descent to ADH base	48	1:08	396	101	170	2.4	56	1:02	694	185	224	3.2	65
Alpe D'Huez	13	1:10	934	222	229	3.2	75	0:54	1019	313	318	4.5	93
	175	7:34	5298	195	230	3.2	75	6:19	6398	273	306	4.3	89

The statistics from Andrew Bye make impressive reading especially the absolute power on the climbs. (The first climb seems to have been done at over FTP which probably means my guess of FTP based on a January MAP is low.)

The biggest lesson for me, I think, lies in the power % column. Even if I have underestimated his FTP it looks as if Andrew rode the event at a much higher relative intensity than I did. His climbs were all over 90% and is overall ride was at 89%.

My figures seem a bit timid by comparision, after the Glandon (87%) I rode the remaining climbs at a more conservative 80>75%, with my overall effort for the ride being just 75%.

I will try to take some lessons from this:

I am too scared of pain. Partly I am a coward, but this I think is also because I came at cycling through doing long solo tour when each day needed to be judged because there was always another (often harder) day to come. So I am more used to pacing myself to finish rather than finish fast.
Power meters are great for training and pacing but I think I am now paying a little too much attention to mine. I felt great on the climb of the Glandon but got worried because I was over schedule and to some extent I think I made myself take it easy on the last climbs for fear of blowing up.

Coming up this weekend I will be doing another sportive (the "Legbreaker") which I entered just to get the opportunity to see a new bit of the country. I will try an experiment and tape over the displays on my Powertap and Etrex and just ride on feel. There are some tough hills on the ride and I will try to push myself up to and over my pain threshold on these. Should prove interesting...

Marmotte and Power Revisited

2008-07-16T17:11:00.015+01:00

A while back, when Marmotte was still in the planning stage I put out this post:

http://mr-miff-on-tour.blogspot.com/2008/02/marmotte-and-power.html

Having now done the event its time to revisit it.

As a result of a combination of events (cockup-did not reset powertap and planned-did not want pressure of time to make me take risks on descents) I did the Marmotte without actually having any track of time I was taking. Instead I just focussed on aiming to do all the climbs at around 260W and see what happened.

The result was a mixture of no surprise and big surprise.

No surprise was that I overcooked the first climb and did 268NW, doing over 280NW for the first part of this. So later climbs came in at 254NW, 229NW, 229NW.

Big surprise was that I finished in 7:34 so pretty much dead on target of 7:30.

Overall very pleased with result, both in terms of time taken and use of power to train/pace. If I do the event again (and probably will) I think I have enough of an insight to do better.

Table below shows my stats for the ride compared to those I got from the year before.

		Rider 1 2007				Me 2008
Section	Distance	Time	Work	Power	Npwr	Time	Work	Power	Npwr
Start to Glandon base	13	0:21	260	199	235	0:23	230	152	198
Glandon Climb	23	1:21	1193	245	258	1:23	1262	254	268
Glandon Descent	42	1:05	469	120	184	1:09	572	137	201
Telegraphe	12	0:48	732	251	252	0:50	763	250	254
Tel descent to Gal base	5	0:07	43	100	141	0:07	29	74	119
Galibier	18	1:14	1077	241	243	1:24	1112	224	229
Gal descent to ADH base	48	1:06	352	88	152	1:08	396	101	170
Alpe D'Huez	13	0:58	928	263	267	1:10	934	222	229
	175	7:04	5054	199	235	7:34	5298	195	230

There was a difference of 30 minutes in the finish times and most of this is accounted for by the last 2 climbs where my power dropped off while those from the 2007 ride show great pacing to allow a final sub hour climb of the Alpe.

One interesting thing is how even when I put more power into a climb (as on Glandon) this did not translate into me climbing it quicker. Think this is for a couple of reasons.

Experience: the 2007 stats show the benefit of 4 years experience riding the Marmotte. The better you know a climb the better you can pace it in order to turn power into climbing speed. The Glandon for example includes a couple of short descents and if you execute these well you can gain quite a bit of time for not much effort.

Weight: I weighed a bit more than the 70kg I had hoped, due to a surfeit of great food. Also I carried more food than I ended up eating + 2kg of sports drink, due to worries about feed stops. Actually found (if you start in early group/ride fast) plenty of food/drink and if doing again would carry less

Final interesting thing is how much extra power I needed on the descents/rides to base of Telegraph/ADH, yet still lost time. This is just a matter of luck. In both cases I was in small groups out of which only a handful of us seemed interested in doing any work. I think this was in part because I started well back within the first 2000 group to go off. Up the Glandon I moved quickly through the field but all the fastest people were already over the top by the time I hit it. If (most likely when) I do the event again I will get up earlier to ensure a place at the front of the group and may also risk going even harder up the Glandon, so as to ensure on the next section I have some fast company to work with.

SUS08

2008-07-16T12:19:00.004+01:00

As mentioned did the Southern Uplands Sportive last weekend. Couple of things were especially good about the event:

The final climb up to Lowther Hill, the highest road in Scotland at 725m. This is a private road that leads to a golf ball radar station used for military/air traffic control. So we only got the chance to ride it because of the event. It was tough going with some very steep sections but the view from the top made it all worth while (see photo above)
B&B at Allershaw House nearby http://www.allershawhouse.co.uk/ This is a very friendly farm B&B standing all alone on a hill overlooking the moors. What makes the place especially special is that they breed and rear rare breed pigs. This means you get some of the best bacon and pork you have ever tasted. This meant I could not forgo a full Scottish breakfast (including black pud and haggis) on the day of the event, not necessarily the best pre ride nutrition but what the hell...

Blog Guilt

2008-07-15T14:00:00.003+01:00

Just back from holidays and to find an email from Tony "Flamme Rouge" pointing others here...

Only problem with going away is that makes keeping blog up to date a bit tricky and I haven't posted for a while here and now guilty for not doing so...

In a nutshell what's happened over last few weeks

Went to France and rode first ever French sportives in the "Trophee D'Oisans" which consists of 2 full 175km sportives: the Vaujany and the Marmotte in on 2 successive weekends + a mise en bouche for the Marmotte of les Grandes Rousses (up Alpe d'Huez, down then up to Vaujany, a mere 6km@10%). Finally you can grimpe the alpe on the Sunday morning after the Marmotte has finished.

Had a thoroughly good time, spent enjoying the hospitality of the King of the Mountains team, Helyn and Guy. All the events went well, Vaujany done in 7:10 despite a puncture, Grandes Rousse in just over 2 hours including a 58" climbe of the Alple (to the top 300m short of tour finish) 7:34 in the Marmotte and 1:03 in the Grimpe (last being very much a case of a sore head on a sore body after much post Marmotte celebrations.)

Marmotte was a real surprise as pretty much dead on target time of 7:30 made all the more suprising by fact that during the event I did not have any time measure, just power.

Returned last Monday and since them done first ever cycling in Scotland on great SUS08 event, that made 3rd mountain finish in 3 weeks, to Lowther hill. Not quite as high as ADH but definitely steeper in parts.

May write more about all above shortly, but right now thinking ahead to last 2 sportives (Legbreaker and Tour of the Black Mountains.) Then thinking about doing a 12 TT.

Strength Training

2008-06-20T15:23:00.003+01:00

I started cycling to lose weight and get fit. When I started to get a bit more serious and thought about doing the TDF I got some professional keep fit advice from a personal coach who gave me a couple of months training.

This was not cycling specific but general stuff, using free weights and a lot of core workouts.

I was very glad I did this. The core workouts certainly help with the cycling and the general weights work helps, I think, keep you sharp. Also while I want to be a good cyclist, not sure I want the body of one. Finally I think having a bit of upper body strength helps out when you come off.

So I have kept on with the weights and do them year round. I follow the Joe Friel guide of using winter to build max strength, then during the season just aim to maintain with a session or so a week. Latter is because of popular wisdom that aging (or as the US more politely refers to us, "masters") athletes need to do year round strength work. Interestingly though when reading the Robert Millar biog it mentioned he did weights during his build phase and recent interview with David Millar coach said they had learned weights were important part of training schedule.

FWIW and as a reminder to me when I am old and feeble here is my typical strength maintenance (SM) drill. It takes an hour or so to do, with 30s-2min rest between each set, spent setting up next exercise and stretching

SM workout
Core
2 x 90s Plank
2 x 45s Crunch+4kg
2 x 45s Altknees
2 x 45s Backcycle

Upper Body Do here as warm up prior to step ups. (+ figures are weight of bar)
2x202.6@20+2.6kg Bent Row
2x12@20+2.6kg Back Pull

Quads This is only cycling specific. Its also the hardest single exercise. Do single let step ups as no spotter so squats not safe. Also think its now recognised as being better quad drill. Load is 85% of body weight which is close to 90% max Friel recommends so will not up load until next winter, just up number of reps bit by bit.

2 x 8@50+9.6kg Single Leg Step Up

Calves
2x30@50+9.6kg Calf Extensions

Arms (biceps just for show but triceps and lateral raise good for standing climbs)
2 x 9@5.5+1.7kg Lateral Raise *
2 x 20@5.5+1.7kg Triceps Curl
2 x 15@9.5+1.7kg Biceps Curl *
2 x 2mins Single Leg Balance *

* On Pilates cushion: makes the dumb-bell sessions more of a whole body exercise.

Dragon 2008

2008-06-15T14:52:00.000+01:00

(photo copyright phil o'connor, photo bought but not arrived yet)

Did second Dragon ride last Sunday. No rooms near to the event, so I had decided to drive down in the morning. Mrs M convinced me to do otherwise so ended up at a farm near Merthyr Tydfll, about 40 miles from event.

Turned out to be good choice, a: because I ended up with a whole house to myself and got some provisions for breakfast along with friendly welcome and b: because massive queues for the event. Had I driven up in the morning think it would have turned into a very long day.

Got sorted out in double quick time and headed for start. First tryout for new Zipp 303 front wheel (back still on the way). Very smooth, very nice. Met fellow Newburyer at start but no sign of others so we joined the (very) long queue and set off.

Weather perfect, bright but not sunny and no sign of threatened (by crap BBC forecast) rain. Cycled with fellow clubby unti traffic light which split us up. First climb shortly after and I got into serious mode.

Plan was to ride all climbs at or above threshold, taking rest of run as it comes.
9 climbs in all and pretty much managed to hit goal. First 2 where quite big, 4.6 and 6.2k and did each over 300W. Next 3 were a bit difficult to pace as had descents as well as climbs did in a range of 260-280W. Next couple over 300W again. Final couple I took a bit easier at 240 and 260W as by then riding with group.

Met couple of fellow clubbies on the way and ended up haring to line. Final ride time was 5:47, again over 30kph average which again wasnt bad as not really going for speed.

Took time at finish then headed home. Great day, nice climbs, great views, fast descents and good weather.

Sportives/Tours Index

2008-06-14T09:19:00.016+01:00

This post is intended to be an index of info re my sportives/tours so I can find in one place and my be of interest to others who did/planning to do same routes. If in latter category and come across this page feel free to ask any questions re any of the rides via comments...

Links are to WKO files hosted on Dino. Some more recent rides also have GPX tracklogs and and accompanying XLS spreadsheet which shows stuff WKO doesnt show (if you have a Powertap) like elevation profile, gradients, moving average speed and cumulative climbing stats. Some of the older rides have JPG elevation profile, gradients via HAC.

(Obviously will need WKO to view WKO files. WKO/GPX/JPG files are small. Some of the Excel files are around 5MB since contain all tracklog data + calculations/charts.

Sportives

2007

Tour of Wessex Day 1 TOW_Day1_WKO
Tour of Wessex Day 2 No data: terrible weather so did on winter bike.
Tour of Wessex Day 3 TOW_Day3__WKO

Highclere (June) Highclere_2007_WKO
Dragon Dragon_2007_WKO
Roses Round RosesRound_2007_WKO
Tour of the Black Mountains TOBM_2007_WKO

2008

Tour of Ireland Day 1 TOI_Day1_2008_WKO
Tour of Ireland Day 2 TOI_Day2_2008_WKO
Tour of Ireland Day 3 TOI_Day3_2008_WKO
Tour of Ireland Day 4 TOI_Day4_2008_WKO

Tour of Wessex Day 1 TOW_Day1_2008_WKO
Tour of Wessex Day 2 TOW_Day2_2008_WKO
Tour of Wessex Day 3 TOW_Day3_2008_WKO

Highclere Highclere_2008_WKO/ Highclere_2008GPX_XLS/ Highclere_2008_GPX

Dragon Dragon_2008_WKO/ Dragon_2008gpx_XLS/ Dragon2008.GPX

Tours

(Two files for some days, pre and post lunch)

Raid Dolomite Day 1 DolomiteDay1_2007_WKO/ DolomiteDay1_postlunch_2007_WKO
Raid Dolomite Day 2 DolomiteDay2_2007_WKO/ DolomiteDay2Postlunch_2007_WKO
Raid Dolomite Day 3 DolomiteDay3_2007_WKO
Raid Dolomite Day 4 DolomiteDay4_2007_WKO/ DolomiteDay4_Postlunch_2007_WKO
Raid Dolomite Day 5 DolomiteDay5_2007_WKO
Raid Dolomite Day 6 DolomiteDay6_2007_WKO/ DolomiteDay6_postlunch_2007_WKO
Raid Dolomite Day 7 DolomiteDay7_2007_WKO
Raid Dolomite Day 8 DolomiteDay8_2007_WKO
Raid Dolomite Day 9 RaidDolomiteDay9_2007.WKO
Raid Dolomite Day 10 DolomiteDay10_2007_WKO
Raid Dolomite Day 11 DolomiteDay11_2007_WKO

Raid Pyreneen Day 1 Pyreneen_Day1_2007_WKO
Raid Pyreneen Day 2 Pyreneen_Day2_2007_WKO
Raid Pyreneen Day 3 Pyreneen_Day3_postlunch_2007_WKO
Raid Pyreneen Day 4 Pyreneen_Day4_2007_WKO
Raid Pyreneen Day 5 Pyreneen_Day5_2007_WKO

FTP/Weight

2007 285W/73kg
2008 305W/70kg

Hermitage Hilly

2008-06-12T13:43:00.002+01:00

Following trip to Coventry, managed to come back in time for TT in the evening. New course for me, north of Newbury, starting from just outside Hermitage.

Nice evening, threat of showers but they never came. Roadworks on route meant that start was moved to just after traffic light (with finish just before). So course about 100m shorter than official.

Planned to use session as a VO2 workout, going at 340 or so uphill.

Felt great, really sharp and had very enjoyable ride. Hit target in terms of power, finding much easier/better to pedal fast. As a result average cadence was over 80 with work efforts closer to 90.

Managed to get lost on course plus had to slow down hard on downhill junction when landrover ahead stopped. Did not do any real pacing other than trying on hills and end came as a shock. Still felt very fresh and took long road round back to finish doing 5km in level 3.

Despite this managed a time of 33:25 and finished 3/11, only 35s from 2nd. First was 30:01. I reckon the 2 delays on route took about 1:30 so I could have been a comfortable 2nd.

Ride info from Etrex.

WKO file, good to see how much of ride in upper powerband and above (VO2/Anaerobic range)

Mind of a 49 year old in body of an 18 year old

2008-06-10T09:19:00.002+01:00

Little sad but daily habit I have got into since deciding to lose weight has been to weigh myself first thing in the morning, last thing in the evening.

To help with this got myself one of these Tanita scales, which comes with various gizmos to keep a geek happy:
http://www.tanita.co.uk/index.php?id=22&tx_f03showxtcommerceproducts_pi1[showUid]=5&cHash=ae110dfbd7

One of its features is something called "metabolic" age. This tells you how old it thinks your body is (using stuff like weight, fat%, bone density, days in the week, taking away the last number you thought of etc.)

Yesterday evening my fat% was an all time low** at 12.4%. I pressed the "Metabolic Age" button and my scales told me I had the body of an 18 year old...so time to dust off my old LPs, get out my flares and tanks tops once again miss the punk revolution.

** Geek time: Having used the scales for over 3 years I have found the fat % to be quite consistent and make a degree of sense. However it is sensitive to time of day and whether you have eaten/exercised in past few hours. I get the lowest measures in the evening of a rest day after eating a calorie balanced day (so cals in = or a bit more than cals burnt). On days when exercising fat % is usually a percent or two higher and morning measure is similarly a percent or two higher than evening.

Highclere 2008 Sportive

2008-06-09T15:44:00.005+01:00

Highclere 2008 yesterday. Lovely sunny day (again, third year running for this event).

Had a great time. Objective was to ride over 30kph and make an effort on Hannington/White Hill just before finish.

Best part of ride was initial couple of hours, went hard up Woodhay, Coombe and Faccombe then formed a largish (15?) group and assisted in blast down the Test valley. Only about 5 of us took turns but it was enough to see an average of 34kph after 2 hours, not bad given the early climbs.

After 6okm or so the terrain started to get lumpy and group broke up. I ended up with a couple of others that I think had caught group from behind. Worked with them for a while but let them go just before control as already well ahead of target 30kph for ride. A few km past the control was joined by some other riders including some from Army (sportive was being used as a combined services event). We worked for quite a while then, coming to hill at 90km I led up a bit too fast for all but 3. They sprinted to top, but I did not join in as did not fancy busting a gut on second half of ride as at that point was still averaging over 33kph.

Next climb came at 100km and did this solo though shortly after joined by a couple of Pedalon riders who finished 2007 in the fastest time. I latched onto their wheel and was able to work with them for a while. However it was tough going and, while they were obviously pushing for a fast time, I was happy with days work. So I eased off and let them go.

This turned out bad for all of us. A few km on came a very quick descent and at the bottom I passed an ambulance tending to one of the Pedalon riders who had come to grief on a sharp corner covered in grit. I negotiated this OK but shortly after the ride started to head north and into a hot headwind and I really could have done with some company.

I eased up as not much fun riding alone into a wind and I knew I would hit my speed goal. I was sort of hoping I would be overtaken and eventually was though not, frustatingly until I had ridden for 60km solo and the final climbs were in sight. Still being in a group helped in raising tempo up Hannington and White Hills as planned.

Eased up again to enjoy the run home and glad I did when 10km sign came 5km late. Completed ride in 6:48 pretty much spot on my 30kph target.

When final results posted finished with 25th best time. Interestingly the first pair I had ridden with had best 2 times (6:20), second 3 had 3rd/4th times (6:35) and the Pedalon guys were quickest on the course up to point where they came to grief.

Some course info below (interestingly the total ascent was more than I thought it would be at 3000m spot on)

WKO file showed PBs in terms of speed/power for 6 hours. Also shows me taking it easier on second half of ride. Assuming it still happens I may target Highclere as an A event next year and, despite my reservations on sportives being treated as races, ride it to go as fast as possible and see where I end up.

Powertap back - return to HCC247 - new FTP

2008-06-06T15:24:00.004+01:00

Banjo did a great job and got my Powertap working again. Also pointed out that my rear wheel is showing signs of wear with cracks at base of one of the spokes.

Decided to do a rerun of the 25TT. Conditions were pretty much the same and so was result in terms of time (1:01:35) and pacing, fast start, slow to turn and faster back.

Key thing I was interested in was power for the hour and happy to see able to average 305W, comfortably above the 280W I managed same day last year. Getting above 300W was a target for this year and happy to be able to do it sooner rather than later.

Little sad but one other thing that made me happy was that power combined with current weight nudged me up a category in the WKO Power Profile. I am now "Very Good" in terms of 60 minute power at 4.35W/kg. (Still pants at sprinting though..)

Not quite the hour

2008-06-06T12:03:00.002+01:00

Did second 25TT of life (on anniversary of first) Wednesday night. Had goal of getting under an hour but sadly did not quite make it. No Powertap (since its axle sheared in half..) so had unfamiliar experience of looking at average speed and HR to judge pacing.

Got depressed when finding it hard after halfway and had slipped under pace approaching turn. Too late realised that we were riding into a headwind and by the time I had snapped myself out of doldrums had too much to do on return leg. Final time as 1:00:56, over 3 minutes better than last year but still tad frustrating.

Did not realise but I was riding in legendary company as John Woodburn was also taking part. He just managed to beat 60 minutes, not bad for someone past 70.

Stuck resultant time into watts calculator http://www.kreuzotter.de/english/espeed.htm
and interestingly it guesstimated power was 297W, so pretty much what I think FTP is now. Also reckoned I would do 57 mins or so if had tri-bike but will keep from straying down that route for time being at least.

Hoping Powertap will be back from Banjo soon and will try again....

Gradients/Average speeds from Memory Map GPX

2008-06-05T15:17:00.003+01:00

Necessity being the mother of invention, in the absence of Powertap from TT last night I knocked up an Excel file that would take GPX output from Memory Map and give some info on ride.

Quite pleased with result as gives some info that both Powertap and Memorymap lack.

Top plot is elevation, second is gradient (something that frustratingly the Etrex does not display while 305s etc do).

Last plot is average speed over time which for last nights ride clearly shows my fast start, decline as head to turn then speeding up on way back.

Catching Up ---

2008-06-03T13:32:00.002+01:00

Been a while since last proper post apart from boasting of hitting 11 stone again.

Very quickly:
- Did Tour of Ireland. Great fun, felt like a "real" rider being bussed to and from starts, staying at great hotels and having police escorts everywhere. Rode well and did well despite the occasional mechanical. Had a pretty bad fall on day 3 but picked self up and carried on riding.

- Also did Tour of Wessex: rode days 1/2 solo so as to be a better test, did well, only just missing golds due to mechanicals and terrible head winds. Final day weather appalling so stuck with group.

Training going well, 25TT tomorrow night and Highclere this weekend will be good tests. May have to do without Powertap as broke in half and in intensive care.

Yippee I'm a light me

2008-05-20T07:50:00.003+01:00

Its been a while since the last blog entry. Quite a lot has happened, most notably Tour of Ireland which happened last weekend. Had a thoroughly good time there, despite mechanicals and a new, unwanted, PB in terms of fall severity.

However reason for this post is that...finally after 25 years of trying..I weighed myself this morning and had just snuck under 11stones for the first time in as long as I can remember.......so I will give myself a big pat on the back and have an extra bowl of cornflakes each day...

Ergomo vs Powertap comparison

2008-04-12T09:52:00.002+01:00

I carried out a rough and ready turbo test to check Ergomo mounted on my fixed Langster vs Powertap on my Roubaix.

Protocol was pretty basic, I used my HR as a control and did 3 sets of 40 minutes each comprising:
A-Ramp up 100W-270W 10W per minute (so from rest through endurance to top of tempo zone)
B-Hold 270W 3 minutes (so to halfway through)
C-4 5 minute intervals at 260W/250W/240W/250W

Interval 1 was done on the Powertap, Interval 2 on Ergomo, Interval 3 on Powertap.

I chose this power range as I will mostly be using fixed for endurance/tempo riding so its the most important.

I reasoned that if the power was comparable the HR should be as well. During the intervals I kept the HR display off to make sure it did not influence me.

Results summarised in graph above. The first 2 intervals were remarkably similar, exactly the same in terms of power and HR was pretty much the same. Last Powertap interval was up a bit in terms of power and higher in terms of HR. Put the latter down to a bit of cardiac drift and the fact I started the interval 10 beats up on the first two.

Test could be improved and I could repeat with 2 Ergomo intervals and 1 Powertap. Nonetheless seems to show the two are pretty close.

Hungry

2008-03-20T15:20:00.003Z

Did the Hampshire Hilly Hundred yesterday. With the ride to and from Kingsclere it came to a total of 120 miles so comfortably the hardest ride of the season to date and first time over 400TSS points.

Good news was that Giant and my touring gear coped very well with the ride, which included several very bumpy bits (nothing fell off, a good sign).

Bad news was I did not fare quite as well. I was aiming for a 205W+ average. Started well but found it hard to maintain the intensity after 4 hours. Was not helped by having to make several halts/backtracks to check route. Still even taking this into account I found the going got tougher.

Overall it took 8 hours:
2 hours at 207W/239NW
2 hours at 199W/229NW
2 hours at 180W/219NW
2 hours at 170W/208NW

So as time wore on I wore out. Began to feel hungry after 6 hours, so Nutrigrain/jelly babies/raisins are enough. Stopped at a delicatessen in Overton
http://www.hampshire-information.co.uk/details.asp?listid=306
for a bacon sandwich and this worked wonders. For the future will take some more filling food as well as jelly babies.

Still on the good side I made pretty good speed. The whole ride was done at an average of 25kph which isnt at all bad considering I was back on the Marathon+/Slime tubed Giant carrying a fair bit of gear, there was a fair breeze and the route (both elevation and road surface) was far from smooth.

Hungry Hampshire Hilly?

2008-03-18T17:33:00.002Z

Rest day today. Planning a big ride tomorrow though (in perhaps daft hope BBC weathers sunny prediction is right) and will be doing an all day outing following the route of Hampshire Hilly Hundred http://www.sportivecycling.org.uk/

Apart from being a test of the legs am also planning this as a check out of my touring gear which I will be using on the Giant in France next week. Last time this was used was on the TDF so will be like good old times.

Also planning to make the ride a test of feeding strategy. Using the Tri-Talk nutrition calculator I am guesstimating I will need to take in around 2200kcal if the ride takes around the 8 hours I guess it will given the distance, climbing and heavy bike. I will be aiming to ride this at a steady 210W and will be taking a mix of bars, jelly babies and raisins. In theory these add up to the 2200kcal I will need. It will be interesting to see how the last hour compares to the first.

Wet, windy but happy

2008-03-17T12:14:00.002Z

After the initiation by fire last weekend yesterday was wind and water as, surprise, the BBC forecast turned out correct and it bucketed down and blew a gale at Thruxton for my second road race.

Arrived, signed on and sat in the car, only emerging at last minute for a couple of laps at the pits and almost missing the start. Learning from last week checked how many laps and was pretty relieved to hear that we would just be doing 8.

I wanted to go harder than last week, the more so given the weather so as to keep warm. Start was again hard but not fast as we pedalled into a gale, the wind blowing in a very different direction. As a result the climb into the chicane at the end of the lap was not too difficult but the approach was made tricky by a vicious cross wind.

On the second lap some of the youngsters made a break and I tried hard to close them down. The was the first of a number of bursts of enthusiasm from the juniors and each failed, some learning from me. I did a fair share of leading, though the group as a whole seemed to lack any organisation, people taking long turns to pull at the front.

The going was tough, I did not spend much time looking at watts but when I did (mainly on the short climb) I was pushing well over 300. I had little trouble keeping up and with the lead and despite, again, losing count of the laps I stuck with the front group actually being in the lead with half a lap to go. But no push left to power up the final sprint and trailed in around 15th or so.

Did a few warm down, very wet, laps then headed home. Got very cold unshipping bike and was happy to get a warm bath.

Downloaded the stats for the ride and was slightly surprised to see how hard the race had been. Averaged 292W/309NW and set an all time PB for 60 minutes normalised power of 299W. Given that 8 minutes of this included the warm down this left me pretty pleased. As result have changed WKO so my threshold is now 299W.

EZ riding

2008-03-14T18:07:00.002Z

As noted previously decided to use Lifecycle for a bit of VO2 work until lighter evenings arrive.

Being an exercise bike the Lifecycle comes with a number of programs that help lend variety to training and take some of the hassle out of the process. One of the ones I use quite a bit is the "EZ" drill. This apparently stands for "easy" in American though in fact in can be far from this. Basically its a ramp up from a base to beak 75% into the work time, then back to base again. At the highest level 20 setting the peak is 400W which would make this drill harder than my last MAP test (because unlike the MAP when you hit peak you have to keep going..)

Did not feel quite like going for 20 last night but did set target of a warmup EZ12 for 12 minutes then 4 EZs of 20 minutes each going from level 16 (300W peak),17-320W, 18-345W and finally 19-375W. I was not sure at the start I would make it from the end and the last 2 intervals were tough but I just about made it. Used Powertap to capture HR and transferred watts manually to be able to load into WKO.

Work interval for the 5 EZs ended up at 111TSS/246W over 9o minutes with a peak 5 minutes of 344W which aint bad. In terms of VO2 it was just a toe in the water but ended up with near 12 minutes in VO2 territory which is a start.

Other good thing was how tightly my HR matched power. Nice steady rise as power goes up and rapid recovery as it comes down. No sign of it maxing out even on EZ19, peaking at 176bpm.

Last thing of note was that (as I found in test I posted a while back) the Lifecycle seems to be pretty good at delivering accurate watts. I did not seek to replicate conditions for the MAP but in terms of perceived effort the max work at 375W seemed similar to the test and the HR relationship to power ditto looks comparable.

2x20 Fixed/Roubaix Rollers

2008-03-13T11:55:00.000Z

Did a couple of getting to know my bike sessions last couple of days. On Tuesday hooked fixed up to turbo for a 2x20 workout which was also intended to work out interval function on Ergomo and check the HR belt I got for it (it uses Polar coded).

Ergomo interval is nice once you get used to it. Shows useful stuff like averages of power/HR/speed and you can do up to 30 which should be enough for most things. Also like the feature that lets you see TSS/IF on the fly. Very handy.

Workout went pretty well. First 20 I did slow ramp up building to end. Worked out at 285W with just 2.4% decoupling. Second I started harder and did 20secs in each of the starting minutes at 300W+. This was tougher and I drooped a bit 3/4 of the way through. But pulled myself together and pushed on to finish with 283W. Decoupling over 6% (not surprising given power ups and downs).

HR still puzzlingly low, maxed at 173.

Yesterday put Roubaix on the rollers. Target was to get some practice riding on drops as dont tend to do this much so want to practice as will be useful in keeping speed up on sportives (and if I do many more road races).

Amazed how stable the Roubaix felt compared to the Giant. Think this mainly due to tyres and probably especially the slime inner tubes on the giant. These must slightly unbalance the wheeel.

Anyway turned out to be comfortable riding on the drops, though interestingly found I needed to add 5mm to the seat height to feel best. Once got into groove stepped down the gears and ended up in my biggest 53x11 gear. As a result the speed for the 65mins of the workout was pretty quick (50kph) though the watts relatively low (255W/260NPW). Decoupling good at 2.6% and HR felt comfortable. Towards end made specific effort to push above 170 at which time watts hitting 330+.

Interesting comparing power with the Giant. While on Roubaix 50kph is an easy 255W or so on the Giant I was doing 40kph intervals at 305W+. Explains why the Roubaix felt so light after riding all winter on the Giant.

Only issue I have is that seems will be difficult to do 330W+ VO2 intervals on the Roubaix on rollers. This looks like it will mean having to pedal at 100rpm+ and over 70kph which is quite hairy. Other option is doing on the turbo but this will mess up rear tyre. Doing fixed on turbo OK for tyres (as keeping the Marathons on it) but needs me to go over 110rpm. Could go out to ride hills in town but all of them have roadworks + temp traffic lights on. Could go out of town and ride hills but means going down hill quick in the dark.

So will adopt plan L and do a bit of VO2 on Lifecycle for next couple of weeks, after which time evenings will be light enough for post work rides.

First Road Race!

2008-03-10T11:56:00.004Z

Did my first ever road race at Thruxton yesterday. Good news on the weather front as contrary to BBC pessimism it was nice and sunny if a bit blowy.

Got to the start nice and early to register and then did a bit of warm up on my Roubaix, its first outing of 2008. It felt light as a feather after the winter Giant, though I did notice every bump in the tyres.

I had a lot of butterflies in the stomach leading up to the start. They got worse when I saw how big the field was, too many to count but included riders with numbers up to 70+ on top of which were a number of women riders who would be sharing their race with ours.

Started at the back of the bunch which turned out to be a bit of a mistake. Last time I was at Thruxton it was on a motoring experience day and I was blasting round in a Porsche turbo at 100mph. Very different having to do it under your own power but some things remained the same, especially the importance of getting corners right. I took these too slowly at first and suffered the "concertina" effect I had heard about. This is when the leading riders in the group accelarate away and you need to ride twice as hard to keep in touch with the group. It took me several laps to work out how to ride most efficently and keep in touch and the graph above shows this with several power spikes in the earlier laps (which is me riding like billio to get onto someones wheel again.)

Found it does not pay to be a gentleman. On one corner I heard a woman warn she was on my inside so I braked to let here through. Everyone else went as well and I was all my own and took a bit of puff to get back.

This was a bit easier because other learning is that laps are of two halves, as the speed graph above shows. Downhill, with a following wind we pushed 60kph (I did not realise I was going this fast at the time,..) Then you turn, first across, then into the wind and up a hill. Here the whole bunch grinds to a halt. Knowing this gives a chance to catch up on each lap (though only in the beginners race, I understand in higher races this is where you push, trying to get the others to crack).

Started to very much get into the swing of things as the laps passed by. So much so that by the end of the 9th lap (of 10 it turned out though start sheet said 11) I was at the front. Only problem was that I had not been counting and when my earpiece came out (true to habit I was listening to trance music) I sat up to put it back in. Just about then I heard the bell go and everyone disappeared and I was on my tod. I set off in chase and caught half the stragglers but could not latch onto the lead group. Still I ended up around 20th which wasnt bad for a first attempt.

(The speed graph above shows my error very well. Each lap is shown as a nice smooth V except for the last which has a little W at the bottom which was me speeding up, slowing down to put ear piece back in, hearing bell and trying to speed up again). Still the last lap wasnt bad, I did most of it solo and still managed over 40kph. Interesting learning on the hill on last lap as well, my cadence was below 70 and I was finding it hard work. I kicked down a few gears and up into the 80/90 rpm zone and power shot up.

Overall watts for the race were 235/264NW, so not too tough, it was just the occasional that caused a bit of pain, plus the last lap. HR averaged 154 with a max of only 171. Cadence was mostly above 80 but slowed on the hills (need to change down). Decoupling was very good -0.5%.

Felt a bit of a prat for getting last lap wrong. As bit of punishment went for a 60 minute post race ride, first 30 mins I pushed a bit and it was a bit harder than the race itself. Got home and did a couple of hard workouts on indoor bike then recovery, catching up on the Sopranos.

Definitely enjoyed the experience. Another race on next week so will give it another go, hopefully learning the while.