Saturday 31 March 2007

Training: EF-Dancers Hill-Mays Lane-EF

Distance: 32.7km / 20.3mi
Time: 1h08'05"
Avg Speed: 28.8kph / 17.9mph
Avg HR: 149bpm
Elevation Gain: 372m / 1220ft

View this ride data at Motionbased

Just a quick ride to get the legs going after being off the bike on Thursday (had to go to Exeter for the day for work) and only riding half-commutes of Wednesday and Friday. At 8km out my back wheel started getting wobbly - the tyre had popped out of the rim just a bit! Took some pressure out the tyre, it slid back into place and I put some more pressure into it with my hand pump. Completed the ride with a bit of a drag at the rear. Will have to look at the tyre carefully - might need replacing...

Sunday 25 March 2007

Training: EF-Broxbourne-Dane End-EF

After forgetting to change my alarm clock the night before to daylight savings, I almost missed the 10am start of this group ride that meets about 10 miles from where I live. Had to cut my warm up short to make it there on time and ended up paying for it later.

The ride with the group started off slow and easy, with everyone chatting as people slipped passed to take turns up front. Since I was new, the very friendly group wanted to know who I was. There were only seven of us at the start - which included four Brits, a Scotsman, a French guy and me being a South African. The French guy apparently always liked attacking on the hills - very funny as everyone knew him and told me to watch out for his 'attacks'.

There was also a very tall youngish guy who looked like he could kick everyone's butt, but he mostly hung off the back and kept getting dropped on climbs or into any long sections of wind. He claimed he'd just finished driving 8 hours straight from France and only had a few hours of sleep...good excuse! The average age in the group must have been late-30's, 40's...as I would find out, age meant squat here as the older guys were in scarily good shape.

I spent quite a lot of time pulling at the front for the first 30km into the wind as I was feeling strong. About halfway through the ride we turned into a road that I've never been on - beautiful countryside with a few very narrow lanes and 'gate-crossings'. This was the first time since October last year that I'd been in a group ride, but I quickly became used to all the signals and movement in the paceline.

After about 70km covered we arrived back onto one of the roads I knew and from the direction we were headed I knew what was coming - the mile-long slog of Essendon hill - a very nasty steep climb that I always avoid if possible. The French guy attacked and suddenly the race was on. I managed to hold on for half a mile and then my legs started burning badly and saw the group start pulling away. I looked behind and noticed that the tall guy was not there - he must have blown up before me. The group didn't seem to be waiting so at the top and the following decent I went into time trial mode and chased for dear life.

By the time I got to the turn onto the main road I could see them again. I fought my way to them topping 50kph with the tailwind and just managed to latch onto the back for 30-seconds before the next hill. As soon as the last hill started, the French guy was on the front making everyone suffer badly. Managed to stay with them to the top and back to where we'd started that morning. The tall guy was long gone - dropped hard on Essendon Hill, but the others said he'd be OK - he knew the way. There was another guy missing - must have turned off somewhere along the route.

Said goodbye to all and rode home in the same direction as the French guy. In total I did 93-km / 55 miles with an average speed of just over 17mph. This is about the speed I normally ride at when training solo, though this ride was a lot more broken up in pace (ie. both very fast and easy riding), whereas my own rides are usually ridden at a constant amount of effort. In all a great day's riding which has opened my eyes to the fact that I'm a good, strong rider, but could do with some more speed on the hills. Plan to start a regime of hill training twice a week to improve my climbing...also getting my new, fully built up Look KG451 this week, so I could be seeing some improvements soon.


Moving Time (h:m:s) - 3:22:56
Distance - 93.4km / 55.8mi

Moving Speed - 27.6kph / 16.5mph

Elevation Gain - 1112m / 3648ft

Heart Rate - 144 bpm / Zone 3.8

View this ride data at Motionbased



Saturday 24 March 2007

Training: EF-Essendon-Little Berkhamsted-EF

Distance: 33.7 miles / 56.2km
Total time: 1h 52'59"
Avg Speed: 17.9mph / 29.9kph

Just a quick ride to stretch the legs after not riding yesterday (had to take my Look frame to the bike shop to get built up - should be ready by Tue/Wed!!!) Found a cool road that runs from Bayford to Little Berkhamsted and back to Kentish Lane - nice and quiet country road that was in very good condition.

Forgot to start the timer on my Garmin Edge when I left this morning, so no HR/Maps etc...:-( Tried a bit of 15-20 second sprints and a few 1 minute intervals and handled OK. Nice little warm up for tomorrow's group ride.

Monday 19 March 2007

Snowed under

OK, so the weather forecast was for sleet and we did get a couple of mild sleet showers through the day but they seemed to have cleared up by 4pm.

At 5pm I left work and noticed that the sky was slate gray and there was a howling crosswind. Just as I hit the big climb from Camden up to Hampstead and up to the Heath it started snowing - heavily. Trying to suck in the cold air along with big mouthfuls of snow was not fun at all. Got to the top of the 3km climb gasping and freezing cold. The decent down to East Finchley was pretty miserable too. Snow stopped just as I got home - typical...as if it never happened.

Saturday 17 March 2007

Training: EF-Amersham-Whipsnade-EF

First ride for me that headed into the Chilterns and well worth it.

Started off feeling a bit stiff and sore - especially as there were a few pretty steep climbs in the first 20km. The weather was cool and mostly sunny with a headwind heading out towards Amersham. Noticed that I'd plotted a route that actually goes through quite a lot of suburban and high traffic areas and only started getting out into the countryside after 40km...bit difficult not to really as the Chilterns are a lot further west that I normally ride.

After I passed through Amersham the country roads opened up and it was beautiful - the climbs were not really steep - just nice long drags with lovely rolling scenery. Also, I was now with the wind and flew through the forested Whipsnade area and down off the east side of the Chiltern hills. At one point I stopped to take a pic of the scenery with my bike in the shot and the wind blew it over...bending my derailer. Since I didn't want to risk snapping the hanger, I just left it as is and ended up struggling with gear changes over the last 50km.

At Welwyn I really started hurting into a pretty strong crosswind but managed to not blow up completely and kept a good pace to the end of the ride. Feeling very sore now 2 hours after finishing, but happy that I've found such a cool route...and that I didn't have to endure any punctures.

View ride data at Motionbased


Distance: 121.2km / 75.31 miles
Time: 4:24:38
Speed: 27.5kph / 17.1 mph
Pace: 3' 30 min/mile
Calories: 4514
Heart Rate:

Total Elevation:
151 bpm (Avg)
183 bpm (Peak)
1439m














Tuesday 13 March 2007

Whoo-hoo - British Cycling coverage

Checked out the BC site today I came across the news that Eurosport and Cyling TV will be covering some of the major British road races this year.

Quoted from British Cycling:

This year's Premier Calendar road series will be filmed by the team at www.cycling.tv for transmission on the British Eurosport Channel. We've now got first details of transmission dates on British Eurosport - all events will also be available for viewing on cycing.tv after their screening on British Eurosport.

10-11 Mar, Bikeline 2-Day (cycling.tv coverage on British Eurosport 14 March)
01 Apr, Tour of Reservoir (cycling.tv coverage on British Eurosport 8 April)
07 Apr, Girvan 3 Day Cycle Race (cycling.tv coverage on British Eurosport 14 April)
15 Apr, Archer Grand Prix (cycling.tv coverage on British Eurosport 25 April)
29 Apr, East Midlands Int. CiCLE Classic (cycling.tv coverage on British Eurosport 12 May)

13 May, Lincoln Grand Prix (cycling.tv coverage on British Eurosport 18 May)
27 May, Richmond Meet Grand Prix (cycling.tv coverage on British Eurosport 10 June)
17 Jun, Beaumont Trophy Road Race (cycling.tv coverage on British Eurosport 7 July)
24 Jun, The Ryedale Grand Prix (cycling.tv coverage on British Eurosport 8 July)
15 Jun, Blackpool Grand Prix Road Race (cycling.tv coverage on British Eurosport 25 July)
05 Aug, Grand Prix of Wales (cycling.tv coverage on British Eurosport 19 June)
12 Aug, Tour of Pendle (cycling.tv coverage on British Eurosport 1 September)

Sunday 11 March 2007

Training: EF-BullsGreen-Welwyn-EF

Avg speed was up to 32kph after 30km covered due to nice tailwind. Punctured both wheels at the same time just before entering the country lanes area. Couldn't find what caused it on the road - spent 20 mins changing the tubes and repairing one of them. The back tube had a huge hole in it and noticed the back tyre had a nasty little hole in the side wall...still managed to inflate it and it held for the rest of the ride.

Found myself with quite a lot of energy today and was out of the saddle over all the hills. Pushing very hard into the headwind between Welwyn and Potters Bar. Got home feeling great - not tired at all...feeling like I should have put in some more miles, but the point of today's ride was to go hard and fast - not necessarily long and grinding

View this ride at Motionbased

Performance

Distance: 45.87 miles

Time:2:28:51
Speed:18.5 mph

Pace:3' 14 /miHeart Rate:155 bpm (Avg)
Calories:2918
177 bpm (Peak)
Map
Elevation (ft.)
Speed (mph)
Heart Rate (bpm)
Heart Rate Zones
ZoneRange
(bpm)
Time
In Zone
Distance
In Zone
Zone 5167 - 1860h 29m19% 7.89 mi
Zone 4149 - 1671h 42m68% 31.04 mi
Zone 3130 - 1490h 42m28% 6.88 mi
Zone 2112 - 1300h 11m7% 2.63 mi
Zone 193 - 1120h 22m15% 0.58 mi
(none)out of range0h 00m0% 0.00 mi

Posted from www.bimactive.com

















Wednesday 7 March 2007

God I'd love to leave the rat race!

...and join the bike race ...OK I know - lame!

Just had a really crappy past 2 days at work - I absolutely hate my job and finding that it is just not worth it anymore... I would love to leave this city life and find an easy, low hour job in the countryside - can't be too difficult to find... probably going to start looking for something along these lines and I have no commitments to tie me down where I am now. Toying with the idea of moving back to South Africa...

Man, if I had of taken up cycling again 5 years ago and trained as hard as I did when I was 17-19, I'd have tried my damndest to become a pro rider and that would be my job now. At 30 yrs of age, though, there's very little chance of that ever happening (unless of course I train hard for the next 5 years to spend 1 or 2 years as a domestique on a pro team...).

I'll keep training as hard as I can (hell, its only been a year since I took up cycling again) - being good at whatever level I am at is accomplishment enough for me. Ideally I'd love to be my own boss - start my own business. For that I need money - something I'm not exactly flush with. Oh the vicious cycle of life!

Can't I just ride my bike all day?

...anyway, thought I'd record here the fact (hehe) that the guy at my LBS offered to sell me the second hand 2005 Campag Record groupset off his bike for the same price as a new 2007 Centaur groupset. I checked it out and looks in good condition. I agreed and he'll fit it to my Look frame at the end of this month. Can't bloody wait - woohoo!

Sunday 4 March 2007

Training: EF-Little Hadam-Dane End-EF

This ride was to make up for the fact that I missed out on the Chiltern ride - basically woke up a bit too late. It was a completely new route. Oh, forgot to take my HR belt with me :(

Ride started out dry but overcast and a light tailwind on the way out - nice conditions though a bit cold. I was trying out my new Pearl Izumi bibs for the first time and I'd fitted my Vittoria Rubino Pros the night before...loved both of them. Got a little lost after about 30km covered - looks like I'd plotted a route through a dead end on my GPS. Backtracked for a mile and found a different route that eventually joined back onto my Garmin route.

Soon after I was out into lovely country roads and even came across a railway crossing that I had to wait at. Rode with an Irish rider from Ware for a couple of miles but he turned off my route. Got a bit lost again and actually missed out about 15-miles of the ride I was meant to do, but in retrospect it was a good thing because the rain and wind started up after about 40-miles covered.

The rest of the ride slowly deteriorated into misery as I was lashed with fierce conditions. After Hertford I turned onto the hilly part of the Suburban Breakout route (but in reverse) - more misery and pain. Eventually got back home feeling very sore, tired, cold and quietly very happy that I'd survived. Time for the recovery position good, hot food and catch a DVD or 2.

View this ride data at Motionbased


Performance

Distance: 72.59 miles

Time:4:18:36
Speed:16.8 mph

Pace:3' 34 /mi

Calories:4428

Map
Elevation (ft.)

Posted from www.bimactive.com

Friday 2 March 2007

Quick update

So I came down with a really bad saddle sore yesterday - flared up on my commute home. As a result I've decided to take 2 days off the bike to clear it up, though I have my first reliability ride of the year on Sunday (up in the Chilterns) and don't want to be in pain. They're forecasting heavy rain for Sunday so if I still have the saddle sore that morning, it's likely the ride will be absolute misery...

Anyway, here's hoping everything will turn out OK ;-)

I went on a shopping spree today in anticipation of Sunday's ride:

Pearl Izumi Ultrasensor bib shorts
Speacialized gloves (fingerless)
2 x Cliff bars (choc-chip and carrot cake)
Bonus pack of Go (SIS) energy stuff - gels, bars, drink powder

The bibs are great - and about time I owned a decent pair of bibs/shorts for riding long distances. My current pair were worn badly and the chamois was made of crappy foam stuffing...no wonder I'd been getting bad sores. The gloves are comfy but probably won't be using them until April/May when its a bit warmer. Couldn't resist trying one of the cliff bars before the ride - choc chip was delicious and very filling and was also quite moist, so I imagine will be easily chewed and swallowed while out riding.

I'll have to wait until the end of March before I get the parts for my Look KG451 build - bloody work-bonus was shifted a month, so my new frame gathers a bit more dust...it's OK, my Genesis is a reliable stead and great for training (ie. heavy ;-)).

Checked out the Eurosport site today to check the Paris-Nice shedule - looks like they're doing a bit of live coverage, and for people that work they're showing what looks like highlights in the evenings. Don't have all the times yet as they only go up to 15 March so far. The schedule is as follows:

Sun 11 - 16:00 (60min)
Mon 12 - 22:00 (30min)
Tue 13 - 20:45 (90min)
Wed 14 - 23:15 (45min)
Thu 15 - 23:00 (60min)

Can't wait for it to start! Pity Eurosport isn't covering Het Volk on Sunday - some highlights of it would be nice after my Chiltern ride :(


By the way - I've booked my place for the July 1 Tour de FranceLondon to Canterbury Sportive 120-miles - OH YEAH I'M IN BABY!