Week 3 2013 Brrrrrr

Over the weekend i received an email about a competition to win a "Merida" bike through cyclescheme by recording the most number of commutes....

initially I took this to mean distance as well as commutes , so i thought "who else would be crazy enough to cycle to and from work 28 miles each way for 2 weeks" i might be in with a chance!

With low tyres from previous audax on my new winter tyres a purchase was necessary "Topeak Joe Blow Max HP floorpump" I was reluctant to purchase "cold" from halfords, initially thinking i would purchase their cheapo one, however it looked like junk and a waste of £12.99, bit of a check on the web whilst in store revealed that Topeak is almost fixed price so nothing lost by spending my loo laa in store, purchase made, tyres pumped up, sorted

Up early Monday, bike prepared, loaded up with laptop and clothes for the day (normally all of this would be at work so i could cycle light) 

To say it was chilly would be an understatement but i have cycled in the cold many times so all was good, many colleagues were surprised to see me arrive in cycling gear, additionally to save on weight my attire for the day was of a summery nature, again prompting lots of raised eyebrows.

Journey home was nice, as was the journey back in to work the next day and i felt pretty good.

It occurred to me to check the rules of the competition again as it kept ringing in my ears "number of commutes" this didn't concern me terribly as i thought i was doing the maximum number of commutes a day anyway...to work and back.

Closer inspection of the rules and an email later and it was now clear that the highest number of commutes was to decide the winner and in the event of more than one person having the same number, the winner would be chosen at random......"what a crock!!!!"....so someone who has a 1 mile commute has equal chance....balls!!!....worse than that loads of people were claiming 4 commutes a day, how is that possible, so i quit!

journey home was not so enthusiastic and was quite tiring, so to be fair a week of commuting may well have been a bit much on top of working as well, then the real cold came and the snow, so just as well i reckon

No Business like Snow business

I was all geared up for a lunch time blast in the woods at the back of work on Friday, alas this was not to be as we were sent home early...Saturday however was a different story.....

Single speed out, GoPro mounted, Game on

 

Before

After

My attempts at extreme sports cinematography of the very same expedition can be seen here, the route was a simple blat along the edge of the Jubilee river near my house, bike was fast rolling over the snow, it was great to be out even if it was just over 6 miles.

My cycling week didn't end there, Bike show London was on at the excell, The show was quite good overall but nothing like the images of eurobike, worth a visit if you haven't been before but i think my cycling tastes and interests departed the main stream years ago so it left me wondering if i had wasted my afternoon and the admission fee, although the shoulder massage i was duped into having by Ibiza Angels was fantastic and fixed aches i didn't realise i had :-)

Target for the week 90K

Total distance achieved 181.86K

Week 2 2013......a bit poorly

Did not start well........

having completed the 200K audax on the Saturday of the previous week i then started to feel the onset of a cold :-(

For many years i have rarely had any colds but this would be my second in as many months.

starting to feel rougher and rougher at work on Monday I decided to leave a little early, having completed a few urgent tasks.

Ordinarily i would aim to cycle home from work on Monday and then back in on Tuesday giving me a good start to my weekly training miles, as you might expect i kicked that idea to touch and spent Tuesday at home, off sick.

The good news though was that this seemed the littlest of colds and i felt pretty good for the latter part of Tuesday so went to work Wednesday.

This did not leave much time for training and i wondered if it might set me back and give my cold a second wind.

I ignored this thought and road home from work Thursday and back in Friday, it was pretty tough going and both journeys felt a long way, my cold obviously hadn't totally gone, even my phone struggled, recorded an excessive distance on the Thursday and crashed on Friday, but the miles were in the bag, job done, had to use previous gps data for record keeping.
.

No further excursions for this week but i did make another purchase......this time is the TREK clock's more sophisticated brother the "TREK time computer" it's basic, only showing either the time, speed or toal distance, perfect for audax and shall be reserved fot my new audax machine. eBay again, this time £10 instead of £25, bargain i reckon, and you can't buy these easily anymore either.

Target for the week 80K

Total distance achieved 89.2K

Week 1 2013

A good start to the year

New Years Day was a clear day and as i had only managed one ride over Christmas i felt the need to get out on my Cyclocross.
The one ride i had managed over Christmas was to track a route for someone writing a book on cycle rides in southeast, i have a few routes to try out but for my first i thought i would do the shortest and easiest, easiest because i knew most of the route, so navigation would be simpler.
The plan was to follow the GPS and at every junction or as passing any notable feature i would take a picture and write notes to then submit.
The route was only 15 miles so i thought i would cycle to the start which would cover some of the latter part of the route and then start recording, thinking as its only a 15 mile loop a couple of hours should be more than sufficient, alas this was not the case and i had to abandon half way through to get home for some family time.
The second half was then what i completed on the 1st of Jan, my first ride of 2013
I can't give any details of the ride as it's a secret, however i can tell you that cyclocross tyres (continental speed king) were required and i tracked a total of 30.1Km

2nd of Jan as for a lot of people was the dreaded first day back at work, Grrrrr, to ease myself into continuing my training plan and to break up my first working day back i thought i would go for a lunch time ride, another reason for this was an impending audax and the need to test some new tyres...... Just before Christmas, after falling off on the roads, i purchased a pair of Continental Top Contact Winter 2 tyres, these are the dog's doo daa's for winter riding apparently, good for up to 4 inches of snow and grippy even on Ice! so to learn from my previous accident, these were to be fitted for winter road riding. i have a route that i can do in about an hour from work which covers about 15 miles of beautiful Hampshire countryside, quiet roads, a real treat in the summer in particular, alas in the winter most of the roads are covered in mud and rubbish as they are predominantly used by farmers. 25.1Km nailed on a cool sunny winters day, nice

This left me with 15K to go for my week one target of 70K, at this point i should say that in my head my training mileage should be done in the week and is different to "event" mileage, my buddy Tim sees it differently and he is of course right but that's me, suffice to say this is where the "training" miles stopped......next ride was on the 5th "Mr Pickwicks January Sale" 200K audax.

In Tim's world this exceeded training mileage, but in my head i had fallen short of my 70K target by 15K.

"Mr Pickwick's January Sale" was a Black Sheep event organised by Mark Rigby, the majority of audax's i have completed so far have been Black Sheep events, primarily cos they are my mate Tim's favourite events and the start is always the same and not too far from his abode,
The ride went well overall, nicely spaced out controls, every 50 ish k's the only pain of the day was forgetting to pump up my new tyres to proper pressure, 85psi, instead i rode the first 100K on about 55psi, at the 2nd control i managed to get them up to about 70psi which made a huge different but it had taken it's toll on me as it had been like riding up hill from the start, you can read a more in depth precis of the day HERE total k'age for this ride was 201K   

Made a little cycle related purchase this week, "TREK Bicycle clock" 
I had seen one of these on the handlebars of Rob Dean on the Bear Bones 200, since then i had been trying to find the same device, found one on eBay before Christmas and made the purchase, this week i bought another, instead of the £15 RRP i get em for a fiver cos you can't get em in the shops anymore and no-one else makes anything similar.
It's a great little device, particularly for audaxing, defo recommend.

Target for the week 70K
Total distance achieved 256K

2013 the future is bright, the future is Orange

A not so commonly used phrase from the popular mobile phone network that gives us cheap cinema tickets anymore (no promo intended) but one which aptly applies to myself and the year ahead

well the future is at least looking tiring

Roadie
My big plans for this year will for the first half at least be focused on road riding and then i hope to change suit in the latter part of the year to put some miles on the mountain bikes
Why?
because i intend on entering and completing LondonEdinburghLondon 2013
What's that?
It's only the longest biggest nastiest audax in the calendar, 1400Km from London to Edinburgh and back again. It comes round every 4 years and has a limited entry of about 750 people.
The ride must be completed within about 120 hours, give or take, I'm not sure exactly, i leave it to my buddy Tim to sort out the details
in order to train for such an event i intend on completing a RRtY (Randonneur Round the Year) series in which i have to complete a 200K event every month for full calendar year, additionally it is recommended that it is good training to complete an SR series which means completing 200K, 300K, 400K and 600K events inside a year from the 1st of November to 31st of October
to do this, one such plan for LEL suggested the below:
Jan      2 x 100K
Feb      1 x 100K + 1 x 200K
Mar      2 x 200K
Apr       1 x 300K + 1 x 400K
May      1 x 200K + 1 x 600K
June     2 x 200K + 1 x 600K
Jul        1 x 200 then LEL
That's a lot of K's

 

My Buddy Tim has found another training plan which gradually builds up K'age from last November so i'll be doing that at the very least as well

Training plan for LEL below:

2012

Week beginning Nov 26, Training begins. 60k

Week beginning Dec 3, 60k

Week beginning Dec 10, 80k

Week beginning Dec 17, 80 k

Week beginning Dec, rest and enjoy Christmas!

2013

Week beginning Jan 1, cycle 70k, then 80 following week, then 90, then 100, then 120.

Week beginning 4^th Feb cycle 90k, then 120, then 150, then 100

Week beginning March 4^th cycle 150k, then 200, then 100, then 150

Week beginning April 1^st cycle 200, then rest a week, then cycle 100, then 300, then 200

Week beginning May 6^th cycle 400, then 400, then rest a week, then cycle 200

Week beginning June 3^rd cycle 600, then 200, then 200, then 600

Week beginning June 1^st rest, then cycle 400, then 200, then 150

Then LEL!

Thus far i have already completed 2 200K events towards the RRtY in 2012 and successfully completed 2012 part of above training plan...pretty much

Frame Builder
In order to complete the above LEL 2013 i shall be building my own audax bike from scratch, something i am both excited about and anxious about, as i have previously mentioned i can get a bit OCD about all things bike which means meticulous researching of every component, not to mention dimension of my new frame and forks, fortunately with my buddy Tim telling me what rides i need to do for training i can focus on the bike build for the time being

Mountain Biker
I have convinced myself after many angry moments that i might like to have another go at doing the Bear Bones 200, 2012 saw myself, my Buddy Tim and another good chum, Ron complete said event,. However, it was hard and we were last in and completed it in 36 hours, i hated most of it but thought somehow i had been beaten by it, but now we have "the knowledge" although i see it will be the same route but in reverse for 2013, i think we can improve, after all the first man back in 2012 did it in 15 hours B*****d
I said afterlast years event that it was aweful and why would anyone want to do it,must be like child birth....you forget the pain and remember the result, we did finish......just....so now we need to finish faster
This challenge will also need a fair bit of training...but one thing at a time
I also hope to use my single speed Evo2 for my weekly short rides

 

 

2012 roundup

2012 Summary

2012 was a sporadic year, on and off road, generally my mate Tim would ask me if i want to do a certain ride, i would then panic and get loads of miles in before it, i had a big winter, snowboarding which hampered some progress early in on the year, then the rain came of course.

later on in the year i had some thoughts on making my own bike, probably a 29er single speed getting caught up in the media hype on 29er's then i got audaxing a lot more and thought maybe i should build myself a more suitable road bike but one with disc brakes cos rim brakes suck in bad whether on the roads IMHO

additionally it occurred to me that i might have a good start to a Randonneur Around the Year badge, to do this it is necessary to complete a 200K audax every month for 12 consecutive months, so I'll have a go at that i thought, a good start to a big 2013.

Stupidly this then moved to thoughts of a once every 4 years event called "LondonEdinburghLondon" which is 1400K audax to be completed in approximately 120 hours, so I'm gonna have a go at that too

not sure where mountain biking is going to fit in yet

January:

Total distance = 53.58K

Significant rides: 0

February

Total Distance = 512.84K

Significant rides:

• Snowdrop express 123k audax February 18th with Tim and Ron

March

Total Distance = 224.6K

Significant rides:

• Forest of Dean mountain biking March 17th to 19th for Tim Tom Taylors stag do 90.8k

April

Total Distance = 9.96K

Significant rides: 0

May

Total Distance = 33.61K

Significant rides: 0

June

Total Distance = 13.1K

Significant rides: 0

July

Total Distance = 336.9K

Significant rides: 0

August

Total Distance = 575.77K

Significant rides:

• Whinlatter mountain biking August 6th whilst on holiday 18.9k
• 2 Battles 200K audax August 15th with Tim, Ron and Adrian 212K
• First ride on Orange Elite, August 23rd, proper crashed, bike fine, i'm not, smashed helmet, bruised and battered 8.9K
• Torq in your sleep 12hr mountain bike race. August 26th with Rich Newbert, 6 laps, only 75K

September

Total Distance = 506.5K

 Significant rides:

• Hay for a Day 200K audax, September 8th with Tim, 210K

October

Total Distance = 376.44K

Significant rides:

• Evans Ride it - Cannock chase October 6th 35.7K
• Bear Bones 200 - October 13th/14th 220K

November

Total Distance = 568.14K

Significant rides:

• Dinner Dart 200K audax November 17th 245K
• After Dinner Dart 200K audax November 18th 226K

December

Total Distance = 454.47K

Significant rides:

• Kings, Castles, Priests & Churches 200K audax December 8th 202K

Total Distance for 2012 = 3665.91K or 2277.9miles

Clothing

My Buddy Tim gave me this kit suggestion list which he uses to help him decide on how many layers to use etc based on weather

My Clothing

Footwear:
Orange Mountain Bike socks x 2
Lidl cycling socks x 3 (dont snigger they are rather good)
Seal Skinz waterproof socks long (about half way up shins)
On-One thinny Merino wool socks x 3
On-One thicky Merino wool socks x 3
Karrimoor Thick Merino Hiking socks
Shimano SPD shoes
Specialized BG SPD shoes
Specialized BG Defroster waterproof SPD shoes
Bontrager waterproof overshoes 
Planet x neoprene overshoes
Primal Camo overshoes

Legwear:
Endura Humvee baggie mountain bike shorts with liner
Gore paclite waterproof shorts
Scott RC pro Bib shorts
DHB Pace Roubaix padded Bib Tights
Lusso ProGel2 Bib shorts
Assos F1 Mille Bib Shorts
Gore Windstopper Leg Warmers

Bodywear:
Orange Mountain Bikes loose jersey
LEJOG printed Btwin jersey x 2
PBP 2012 giordana jersey
On-One merino base layer
On-One merino 200gsm jersey
On-One long sleeve jersey
Royal Racing convertable jacket
Dare2be water resistant jacket
Polaris waterproof'ish jacket
Gore Oxygen GT AS GoreTex paclite jacket
Endura Gilet

Hands/Arms:
Scott GoreTex/Leather Gloves
Seal Skinz Winter cycling gloves
Specialzed BG fingerless gloves
661 full finger non padded gloves
Planet X glove liners
Endura BaaBaa arm warmers

Headwear:
Endura BaaBaa merino skull cap
Orange Mountain Bikes neck tube buff thing
Bolle clear safety glasses
Bolle light tint safety glasses
Bolle dark tint safety glasses
Giro Athlon helmet
Giro Paul Smith skate style helmet

Footwear cleaning
i have some Spezialized BG defroster shoes and some standard bg shoes and they stink
shimano shoes do not stink (park that thought)

cleaning tips i have gathered for removing said smell

1. Wash as best as possible and put loads of bicarb inside shoe and place in the airing cupboard
2. Wash as best as possible and leave outside to dry, uv and fresh air is the trick
3. Washing machine often good but can dent the drum and if cleats are left in, they could rust in position
4. Wash as best as possible, dry them, put them in an airtight freezer/vac bag and put in the freezer, -22 kills the bacteria, shoes come out odourless 
5. neutrogena antibacterial shoe spray

#(To be born) Obsession

Ok it's a road bike 

but with a twist

January 2013 i will build from scratch my very own audax bike.

Traditionally, audax bikes are quite, well, traditional, taking their cues from the touring bikes of yester-year, quite often steel for comfort or more recently titanium for comfort and lightweight adorned with bolt on mudguards, dynamo cubs and Carradice bags, well in part i shall be joining this fraternity but taking cues from other cycling factions.

Intention is to build a Steel Audax frame & forks, part lugged, part fillet brazed at Downland Cycles with Disc brakes

Spec of components will be largely Ultegra with Hope where possible, some tried and tested parts such as Mavic Open Pro CD rims but with the latest Shutter Precision PD-8 Dynamo hub, latest cyclocross mechanical disc brakes and some carbon where possible to offset the weight of the steel and to further comfort. Additional oddities are likely to be a custom Frame bag instead of the ubiquitous carradice, USB charging off the dynamo for GPS and phone etc

November 2012

2012-11-08

First component purchased........
Handlebars:
Easton EC70 Aero Road Bars in white
Purchased from: Merlin Cycles
RRP: £149.99
Price paid: £79.99

the ball is now officially rolling

2012-11-09
Cassette:
Ultegra 12-2810 speed
Purchased from:
RRP:
Price Paid: £42
Chain:
FSA SLK Superlight 10 speed
Purchased from:
RRP:
Price paid: £25

2012-11-12
Shifters/Levers:
Ultegra 6700 10 speed STI levers
Purchased from:
RRP: £
Price paid: £220.49
Rear Derailleur:
Ultegra 6700 10 speed short
Purchased from:
RRP: £
Price paid: £53.99

2012-11-23 
Seatpost:
FSA SLK Carbon 27.2
Purchased from: Planet X
RRP: £74.95
Price paid: £39.99





2012-11-27
Bikefit at Downland cycles

My first introduction to Downland cycles other than booking the course online...what a great shop, it looked fairly naff and dull from the outside, like and industrial unit, but once inside it was a really nicely laid out shop with visible workshop, on tap teas and coffees and changing rooms.

In separate building was the bikefit room and frame building workshop

Plan was to go through a bike fit, updating my current stead whilst gleaning the relevant information for the forthcoming frame building course.

having looked ta their website and seen the accreditation's they had for bike fit, my expectation was computer alignment through on screen joint recognition bla bla bla, nope it was pretty low tech....a fully adjustable jig which resembles a road bike attached to a turbo trainer, next to it another turbo trainer for my current bike

The time went well, working through from adjusting my shoes then my seating position and finally the bars, Brian wasn't a chatty bloke but seemed to know his stuff, all went without a hitch and was completed in under 2 hours including cup of tea and changing

My Scott was fully adjusted in line with Brian's recommendations and a new Bontrager stem purchased which was considerably steeper and shorter than the stock one

One of the aims i had from the bike fit was to eliminate two "injuries/aches/pains" I suffer from, 1 is a pain at the top left of my left calf just below the knee, the other is a pin behind my right knee cap, as i am writing this in retrospect i can confirm the my left calf is now fine and dandy, however, my right knee is not, i shall be seeking further advice as it seems to be really painful on or off the bike, it usually goes after 20 miles of cycling but if i don't cycle it can get really painful, weird one

this is me before and after:

Yer i know, the camera adds pounds, some how it makes me like i ride a kids bike, honestly i am only 5' 10" and my bike is a rather tall medium cyclocross, hope i don't look that stupid riding it normally.


December 2012

to be continued