Saturday 15 March 2008

EF-Colney Heath-Radlett-Whetstone-EF (60.7km)

Great club ride today with a big turn out. Lots of news from the recent races and exploits of the Finchley RT, though no major results (they consider staying with the main pack in an Elite/1/2/3 race a good result... so would I!).

Kevin had a new bike and Werner is due to get the same one today - a new Shorter carbon frame with Campy Record and Zipp 404's - damn nice bike. The early pace was quite relaxed, with everyone chatting and joking about as usual. At about the halfway point, though Dominic, Werner, me and couple others broke away and rode at a higher tempo, gradually pulling away from the main group.

We must have gone about a minute ahead without really trying and had a comfortable enough margin to ride the first hill at a relaxed pace - the main group caught us at the top. On the other side of the first climb, Werner broke away strongly and I latched onto his wheel. He was pulling at 45kph constantly and I had difficulty keeping up. Before the next hill we slowed down to let the group catch up. Then it was game on.

Lots of attacks over the next 10km, with Werner being the usual instigator. I was well and truly knacked by the end of the ride and the cappuccino at our cafe stop was well deserved.

I did an extra 5km afterwards to go and pick up my racing license at Stav's place. Must start entering some of the mid-week races at Hillingdon!


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Thursday 13 March 2008

EF-Redbourn-Gaddesden-Shenley-EF (94.0km)

Nice long solo ride today, taking advantage of a break in the strong winds we've had recently. The ride was without incident and I was able to keep my HR under control and pace myself well. My legs started hurting with 75km covered and I struggled over the last 20km, but didn't force the pace - just kept it nicely together.

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Wednesday 12 March 2008

EF-Dancers Hill-Trotters Bottom-EF (28.6km)

Another windy outing on the bike, but had to cut todays ride short as the wind was playing havoc with my handling and it was getting dangerous.

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Tuesday 11 March 2008

EF-Brookmans Park-Barnet-EF (39.0km)

A combination of stiff legs and horrible winds made for a short but tough ride. Wish I had have taken my HR monitor with, as I'd liked to have seen my figures on the route back - spending 15-minutes blocks without rest gouging away into the wind. Hope the weather is better tomorrow...

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Sunday 9 March 2008

EF-St Albans-Shenley-Mays Lane-EF (57.5km)

Almost all the regular riders were absent from todays club ride, though notably present were Costa, Ben, Darren, Patrice and David (recently back from Oz). Decided to risk taking my Battaglin out today as well - risky because I've got slick tyres on and the roads were still wet from last night's rain.

The pace was fairly brisk, with Ben, David, a new saffa (can't remember his name!) and I taking pulls at the front. At St Albans someone had a puncture and it was here that five of us decided to call it a day and swing round Shenley for a shorter ride.

In lieu of distance, Ben decided to put the hurt on and pushed the pace pretty high going up the hills around Shenley, which caused me to loose ground and play catch up on the descents (oh the joys of a heavy steel bike...). I found my legs again on the last hill on Mays Lane and pushed the pace at the front.

Ben and I stopped for coffee after and had a nice chat. A good ride, if a little short.

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Saturday 8 March 2008

EF-L.Berkhampstead-Woodside-EF (50.9km)

Nice solo ride through the hills north of Potter's Bar. Feeling good on the bike the whole ride and managed a few hard efforts into the wind on the way back. Generally pleased with the ride and look forward to the club ride tomorrow.

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Sunday 2 March 2008

EF-Kentish Lane-Woodside-EF (43.0km)

Decided to skip the group ride today in favour of a little solo 'me-time' ride on the Battaglin. I put the Garmin in my back pocket, so had no way of telling what my HR was doing - I'd worry about that after the ride...

It was a blustery morning, but it felt warm, so decided on leaving the leg warmers off for the first time since October last year - it was a wonderful feeling to have the wind against my legs again. I warmed up properly and headed out, feeling a bit sluggish but generally OK. My breathing was a bit harder than normal, but I put that down to the awful wind which seemed to constantly be in my face.

I took a new, unknown road just off Kentish Lane at the top of the Elephant climb and went through an area called Woodside that had a longish descent, a quick, steep climb and then another descent that emptied out onto Great North Road. I then made a left and headed back home.

I noticed afterward that my HR was in zone 4.6, 165bpm average! It seemed way too high for the mediocre effort I put into my ride. I might be coming down with something... must watch my foods and get plenty of sleep tonight.

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Sunday 24 February 2008

EF-Waltham Abbey-Chipping Ongar-Walthamsow-EF (113.3km)

AFter skipping riding Saturday, I felt quite relaxed at the start of today's ride and rolled through the first 30km able to hold conversations and generally have a good time. It was all to change as soon as the first hill arrived - a bloody monster and it was hear that I felt how crap my legs were actually doing.

A few miles later and a few guys turned off to do an easier ride. I should have joined them, because all the usual instigators and masters of pain were at the front of the group, all too happy to turn my Sunday into misery. After getting dropped on the next two climbs (and being brought back by Vince and then Dominic), I knew I was ready to ask the guys to just leave me on the roadside - I'd happily dig a nice little grave and just die in it.

Steve's back wheel was playing up and after a couple of stops to try and fix it he indicated that he would just wheel back home slowly by himself. At about 75km covered I took this opportunity to ride back with him. We shared the pace making back to London into a horrible headwind, with my legs turning more and more to lead. It was a death March, and to top it off, when we had to ride up Muswell Hill - a real bastard of a climb.

In all, today was a reminder that hell is always just around the corner. I now feel dead, and will now die on the sofa in front of the TV.

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Sunday 17 February 2008

EF-Dane End-Whitwell-Little Berkhampsted-EF (127.1km)

Today the club went out on a Reliability Ride - the Finsbury Park 100km. We met up at the usual spot and rode up to Potters Bar to start the ride. After signing in and getting our ride numbers, the 'fast' group of about 50 riders left Potters Bar at about 9.20 at a casual pace. There were about 10 Finchley guys on the ride including Werner, Vince, Steve, Andy, Patrice, Kevin, Nick and also the Irish guy who's name I can never remember. Darren was also mixing it up.

After about 5km we came across ice on the road and had to dismount to cross it. 2km further on, without much warning appeared another ice patch on a descent - both the Irish rider and I came down pretty hard. My left knee was scraped and my right hand was bruised from softening the fall. The Irish rider was in about the same shape. After getting my chain back on and re-adjusting my rear caliper I was ready to ride again. almost everyone in the group had not waited for us - just Vince, Werner and a few others had stayed back for us - kudos to them.

The next 20 minutes were spent chasing the pack, the six of us rotating the lead very well. Once we caught them we managed to take a breather for the next hour or so as the sort of casual pace continued. The reason for the easy pace was due to the amount of ice on the road - nasty little patches all over the place, forcing us to slow down then speed up continuously.

On the outskirts of Stevenage at the halfway point of the ride, some of our guys started attacking at the front - pushing the pace harder on the little rollers - eventually the pack split and I managed to stay with the front group of about 10 riders. Werner was on the front and I secretly wanted to tell him to slow down - I was almost at my maximum and just holding the last wheel in the group. Then on a fairly largish climb my body just stopped going hard and I started loosing the pace - riders started overtaking me. I rested up for a minute or so and then latched onto the last riders wheel and dug in, making it to the top with the main group.

On the descent everyone came back together, but the pace was still fairly high. The next climb started straight away - a 3km mofo that gradually steepened from 4% up to 9% for the last 1km. It was on this last steep part that my legs again started failing and I saw a gap opening a couple of riders ahead of me - there was nothing I could do about it. Over the top went me and 2 other riders. We took the descent at a recovery pace and then spent the next 15-minutes chasing a couple of riders ahead of us. 5 minutes later, on a steep but short climb my legs once again gave up and I lost touch with the two other riders - I could see that they'd caught the other two and were now a group of four. I was gutted, but kept the pressure on.

Luckily I caught them again 10 minutes later as they were stopped at a round-a-bout, looking at the course map. Once we knew where we were going we continued on and caught some more riders up ahead - guys that had been dropped off what looked like an exploded main pack. We pressed on together at a milder pace - everyone knew that we weren't going to catch the front guys, so we might as well keep everyone together and work for each other.

The alliance worked quite nicely and we ended up arriving back in Potter's Bar only 2-3 minutes behind the front group. I was nevertheless absolutely knackered and my hurt knee was paining me badly - the blood from the injury had clotted against my leg warmer and hardened - taking it off in the bath later was an interestingly painful experience! The surviving Finchley riders rolled back to Whetstone for a coffee and cake and then our separate ways after.

I think I'm going to have nightmares tonight - screams of ICE! waking me in a cold sweat!

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Tuesday 12 February 2008

My new bike - the Battaglin Project!

My newly acquired Battaglin frame which I finally got round to building up, but its not quite what I was hoping for. As soon as I can find them, I'll be replacing the following:

1. Wheels. Ventos work nicely, but some more traditional non-G3 looking wheels would be better.
2. Handlebars. Couldn't for the life of me find silver handlebars, although I have seen them on ebay - will get round to replacing ...
3. Seatpost. Ditto as with the handlebars - no silver around.
4. Hoods. Black hoods and white bar tape just look odd, so I've ordered a set of white Hudz for campy.

She rides like a dream, by the way - very comfy and surprisingly light and fast up the hills...





...and these were a little gift from my bike shop guy - no cobaltos unfortunately (either he'd sold them a while back or found them then realised how much they could go for on ebay!), but very nice nevertheless - a set of Chorus calipers from 1989 supposedly

Sunday 10 February 2008

EF-Redbourn-Gaddesden-Watford-EF (89.6km)

Another lovely day for riding and another huge club turnout for today's foray into the Chilterns. Feeling very sluggish at the start, my body felt like it was paying from yesterday's efforts, but as the ride went on I started feeling better and stronger. Despite this increase in energy I'd only planned to do about 75-80km as I didn't want to overcook myself after just coming back from sickness.

As with Saturday's ride there was another new guy who didn't really know what he was doing and had to be guided as to the workings of a paceline. There were a few nasty comments from some of the regulars and Dominic kept grabbing this guy's jersey and placing him in the right spot on the road. Poor guy looked like a nervous wreck!

Once we went over Gaddesden, Dave, Graham and I turned off from the group ride and rode nice and smoothly through Hemel Hempsted and Watford back to London. We kept the speed fairly high but manageable, sharing the pace making almost all the way. I felt great and thought I could keep turning those pedals forever...

Bit disappointed that I didn't keep going with the main group over the nastier climbs (Toms and Ivinghoe), but happy that I was able to restrain myself for the "greater good" and ended up having a sweet ride overall.

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Saturday 9 February 2008

EF-Colney Heath-Radlett-Whetstone-EF (57.6km)

Finally - back on the group rides!

Big turn out today in the glorious weather - must have been 25-30 riders. The pace was fast from the start, with the leaders making sure that a nice double paceline formed. Although my HR was pretty high I felt OK and contributed to the pace making.

On the first hill in Radlett I didn't feel like blowing, so started it at the front and worked my way back. Half the field was dropped on this climb, so there weren't too many riders to drop in behind and ended up loosing a bit of ground at the top which I made up on the way down.

Surprisingly I managed to stay in touch for the rest of the ride over the nasty little climbs around Shenley and the fast decent on Mays Lane and furious flat area into Whetstone. I was pretty knackered by the coffee stop and was coughing a bit, though overall I felt fine. A good ride, and looking forward to going some longer distance riding tomorrow.

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Sunday 3 February 2008

EF-Colney Heath-Radlett-Whetstone-EF (54.9km)

After months of hard training with the Finchley group and my fitness peaking very nicely, I finally came down with a pretty bad flu in the 2nd week of January and spent 2 weeks almost completely off the bike. Although I was still able to commute to work, my weekend rides just didn't happen and I definitely felt myself loosing fitness. I was feeling better last weekend, but as fate would have it, the bearings in my bottom bracket ceased last Friday and I couldn't ride that weekend either.

So, after basically 3 weeks without any hard riding I came into this weekend without an excuse not to ride and went out for a solo 55km to see how I was doing. I didn't want to go out with the group because I didn't want to embarrass myself by getting dropped within 15 minutes...

As it turned out I did OK, flying out to Colney Heath with a strong tailwind, averaging 34kph for the first 25km, but paying over the next 30km with fierce head and cross-head winds. The windy conditions made riding very tough, but I managed to keep my HR smooth and paced myself over the nasty little climbs that make up the 2nd half of this route.

With 8km to go I spotted Edgar, the Columbian rider from the Finchley team up ahead and did everything to get on his wheel. Once I'd recovered, we chatted a bit and we shared the work over the last few miles back home. My legs are sore from the hard effort, but it feels good to be out riding again!


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Sunday 6 January 2008

EF-Welwyn-Hitchin- Whitwell-Welwyn-EF (114.4km)

Today's club ride joined up with the Welwyn club, Shorter-Rochford and others for a tribute ride for Pete Bissell who recently passed away at the age of 21. He was the under 23 British RR Champion and was riding as a continental pro in France. His sudden death was a big shock to the cycling community in Britain and especially so for a lot of club riders in North London. Almost everyone in my club had known Pete since he was just a boy, so it was fitting that we join the tribute ride.

We were running slightly late for the meet at Welwyn track so had to push the pace quite hard early on in order to get there in time. When we did arrive there were about 50 riders in the Welwyn track parking lot waiting for the ride to start. After about 20 minutes of waiting and a quick announcement from Darren (who was especially good friends with Pete), we got moving. The icy conditions were a bit much for some in the early miles and a low speed crash brought down 4 riders. Our club guys decided to take the main road instead and we were the first up Digswell Hill.

Waiting at the top of the hill for everyone else to catch up for 10-minutes or so made most of us realise that it was best to split up the ride into various abilities. A group of about 30 of us took the lead and the other slower riders formed groups along the road behind us. By the time our front group arrived in Codicote, were were already far ahead of the other groups so we decided to keep going at our own pace.

On the Hitchin road I had a brief chat to Darren, expressing my condolences... these early miles were done at base pace and was a time for reflecting on Pete Bissell's life and what a great character we was. The mood changed when a car tried overtaking our group only to find oncoming traffic coming straight towards it. The lead oncoming car broke hard and veered off the opposite side of the road, but a car behind this one crashed into the back of it. It didn't seem as if anyone was majorly hurt, so we continued riding. The car that did try overtaking us finally had it's chance after narrowly avoiding a head-on collision, and accelerated past at a manic speed - some people!

After Hitchin Trevor went to the front and upped the pace for a few miles and I helped out a bit in the front along with Andy, Vince and Darren. One of the Shorter riders came up to the front and asked us to slow down as riders were dropping off the back like flies. Trev eased off, but only slightly. After a long, cold descent into a valley, we made a left onto a new road for me and up a hill called Gray's Hill... and it was bloody hard! I managed to stay with the front 5 riders until about half way up, but then went into oxygen debt and made a reluctant decision to ease off and drop back. One by one riders started overtaking me until I was riding in no-mans land - 15 riders cresting the hill, me, then a mish-mash of single and paired riders crawling along to the top.

I decided not to wait for others to catch me up, but instead take up the chase alone - bombing down the other side and then through a small village littered with speed bumps. The front group was out of sight, but I was aided by a slight tailwind and kept the pressure on as hard as I could take it. After about 10-minutes I finally saw the tail of the group and gave it one last big dig to catch on. Recovering at the back of the group I glanced back to see who had made the bridge as well - there wasn't anyone there.

The pace relaxed along the Whitwell road, back through Codicote and returning to Welwyn where half the guys turned off to have coffee and lunch at the track's restaurant. There were 7 of us left, all from Finchley RT. Stav and Nick had turned back ages ago. With 25-miles to go I was already feeling wasted and of course it is exactly at times like these that Trev and Vince go to the front... The pace was high and my legs were turning more and more to lead on every one of the small hills we climbed. I felt extremely grim on the last hill up to Potter's Bar as I hung on to the front two at 20mph.

Everyone expressed how complete devastated they felt (except, of course, the main instigators of the pain dealing!) when we arrived at our coffee stop. ! My body now feels beat up and violated....just nasty!


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Saturday 5 January 2008

EF-Brookman's Park-Radlett-EF (60.0km)

The Finchley boys are definitely upping the pace by a few notches! After doing a few long turns at the front I felt pretty tired - the excess of food and drink over the holiday period catching up with me. After the first hill, Trevor and Vince decided to cancel our little social gathering by turning the ride into a hammer fest deluxe!

Gone were the usual two lines - suddenly everyone was at 95% and hanging on to the wheel in front of them - one by one the unfit were dropping off the back. Shouts of "f****ing hell, EASY - so and so is off the back" kept coming forward, but Trev and Vince were having none of it. I don't know how I did it, but I managed to hang on all the way, even on the last flat section along Mays Lane when the pace was at 50kph+. Even Stav managed to stay on and surprisingly attacked everyone when the pace started slacking off. He didn't last long!

Arriving at the coffee shop, I was speechless and coughing badly. A few new years resolutions running through my head.......

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Tuesday 1 January 2008

EF - Brookman's Park - Barnet - EF (38.9km)

Easy solo ride with effort on the hills only. Surprisingly quick time despite lack of pace. Was going to go out with the club at 10am, but I woke up too late... Saw them gathered at the coffee stop on the way back home.

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