Category Archives: BSCC

A distinct lack of inclemental impedence

Posted on by
2

Today was the Bristol South CC 10 mile open time trial, taking place on the U7b, or as it’s affectionately known, ‘the graveyard’. Generally, it lives up to its moniker, burying any hopes or dreams of a fast time with all the clinical brutality of the grim reaper. The usual high-score combo is a lovely tailwind out, lulling you into throwing everything at the tarmac in the hope of a fast time, only to find the turn gives way to a wall of wind; all souplesse disappears as riders slip down through the cogs, trying to get over the three lumpy bits (including the mythical Col de Gossington Bridge) and somehow make it across the line without hæmorrhaging too much time.

Last year I won the event, but this year I was under no illusion that the feat might be repeated. Several extraordinarily fast men had decided to make the pilgrimage to the West’s fifth fastest 10 course, including Kieron Davies, Jon Wynn, Ben Anstie and Robin Coomber, all of whom have hefty 19s to their name and a clutch of 49 minute 25s. I decided that the best strategy was one i occasionally employ: PLF.

About fifteen minutes prior to the start, the wind dropped almost completely and a heartwarming stillness descended. I felt good, and continued to feel good all the way to the turn, scratching out a 29mph average. I took the roundabout at a decent pace, trying not to think about rolling a tub and grateful for the absence of any cars, then headed back for the home leg. It took me about 400 metres to realise that the return leg was going to be equally fast. As soon as i’d got over the three short climbs i whacked it into the 11 and completely mullered it, turning over the big gear with a sense of rhythm and circularity. I scraped home in 20.43, slicing a marginal 3 seconds from my PB on this course, set on a balmy and warm September morning last year. I was also only 5 and 8 seconds respectively behind two fellow competitors who normally eke out much larger margins.

It’s quite pleasing to set a PB. It means that whatever else happens – or whatever times other people turn in – you can rest assured that you have produced the best ride you could. It’s sometimes interesting on fast days (and it was clearly a fast day) to see how other people cope. I find it surprising that other riders don’t always put in a rapid time, but you never can tell what sort of form or fatigue people have brought with them. My form seems to be on an upward trend, I’ve been relatively focused and working hard and my weight has dropped to around the magical 67kg mark. This is important, the last 2 or so kilos of weight loss take time and come with the right kind of riding and structure. I place quite a lot of stock on the idea of ‘racing weight’, partly because i know that when i’m just a bit lighter i climb with much more freedom and pace. I did a couple of very hilly rides at the weekend and assaulted several climbs in and around the Mendips, enjoying them rather than toiling to the top. Keeping an eye on the bigger picture is always important in the early part of the season; hard work pays off in the long run.

The social side of time trials was very much in evidence today, it was great to catch up with others and talk at random. In the white heat of the post-race endorphin and caffeine mania i heard myself saying, ‘there was a distinct absence of inclemental impedance’. The person on the receiving end of this slab of pseudogibber looked at me and edged slowly away towards the results board.

It’s always good to lambast a few triantelopes as well. I met a rider I hadn’t seen for some time who had been spending some time amongst the triathlopeds. He seemed happy to pile in with the general ribbing of the tritard world and their shonky bike handling skills. I recounted a story of how i passed a group doing a 4up at a Castle Combe TT one evening last year. I found the experience unsettling; they were doing a 4up and yet still contrived to be riding at around 5mph slower than me. And i wasn’t going very fast. I think that same evening i saw one of the tripods do his 5 laps at around 19mph, then drop his bike and start running around the edge of the track in his sleeveless top and armwarmers. I resolved never to return. 

Recently I ended up having to overtake a triaptoplod on a full TT bike, head down, going across the downs the other morning. I held off for ages but in the end had no choice. His pace was fluctuating oddly, occasionally going up about a mile per hour or so, then dropping two. I was on a 65″ gear with a carradice saddlebag full of heavy things like fruit and sandwiches and books and shoes. I gave him a puzzled look and as i came through asked what he was doing. He said, through stuttered breaths and out of the salt-stained corner of his mouth;

“Intervals”

I was rendered speechless. Tritards: the turducken of cycling.

oh yeah i’m gonna put my inside pedal down and tame that corner in my groovy tritard hotpants with utility girdle drink station yeah yeah

Tomorrow is the Westbury Hilly. I shall have to see what the legs feel like.

The Welsh Championship 25

Posted on by
Reply

It sounds slightly more glamourous than it actually was. Today I trekked to Wales for their 25 mile championship event. In truth, it wasn’t that different to any other event on the R25, it’s a course that attracts the strongest, fastest and scariest riders in the principality, and from over the border.

It was my first run at the Glynneath bank this year. I try to head over there a few times a year because there is always the tantalising promise of at least a personal best, and possibly a 30mph ride. For a slower rider like me it’s subject to the vagaries and whims of the weather, and especially the wind direction. Today wasn’t too bad, a headwind out and tailwind back is the preferred option. It was a bit too windy so I bore this in mind and moderated my ambitions. I wanted to beat my old PB and come in under 52 minutes. If i got close to 50 minutes then that would be a bonus. I was riding blind, entirely on feel. I couldn’t find my garmin this morning. I used my wristwatch instead to get a sense of where I was. This ended up being a little bit confusing, i kept thinking i was off on a 10, when I was a 1, which skewed my calculations. I realised eventually. I also recognised belatedly that i shouldn’t go by the ‘real time’, because my watch is set to ‘work time’, which is very different to ‘garmin time’. I turned it off after about 15 miles.

There were some luminaries on the startline, including Andy Wilkinson. 25 miles is a bit on the short side for Andy who has ridden 547 miles in 24 hours and done the End to End on a recumbent thingy in 41 hours. He also managed a paltry 317 miles for the 12 hour. That’s 20mph for 875 miles, 23mph for 24 hours and a ridiculous 26.5mph for 12 hours. He proved today that he can also ride 25 miles at 31mph. He is unquestionably one of the legendary figures of time trialling in the UK.

Andy en route to the 12 hour record

I felt quite good, held a reasonable speed going out and chased it hard coming back. I managed a 51.36, which is a minute or so down on my best time, but still works out at a 29mph ride. I think there is a 30mph ride in there somewhere, but I’m more reliant on the conditions than some of the other super strong men. Jeff Jones won the race with a mid 48, with Wilkinson second. I’m not sure what position i managed; perhaps grazing the outside of the top ten.

It was nice to be racing in vaguely mild temperatures, without knee warmers or arm warmers. I used my new disc wheel which i got second hand from Mike at Strada. It came with some interesting new decals so I left these on. The bearings on the new wheel are smoother than the proverbial codpiece made of cashmere and it was a psychosomatic dream.

i love hooters: matches the colourway so had to stay.

Allen Janes came along for the day out and did a bit of riding around Rhigos whilst me and Danny got to grips with the fast tarmac. We talked racing and club things on the journey over and Allen came up with some startling statistics: he has ridden over 1300 open time trials. This includes nearly 800 25 mile races. He has calculated that his average speed for the 800 is 24 miles per hour.

Allen pauses for a moment to contemplate every minute of every single time trial, all 1300 of them.

Allen with his dad Ernie in the late 1950s.

It’s always grand to catch up with Allen.

Training Through

Posted on by
Reply

Wednesday night is generally seen as club time trial evening up and down the land. It’s good training, providing the opportunity to blast out an interval prior to the weekend. Over the past few seasons I’ve generally been fairly refreshed and race-ready, but that’s changed this year. Different times and circumstances mean that I’ve made some adaptations to my training. I am racing less and probably training a bit more consistently, this includes training through the midweek races and saving my energy almost resolutely for the weekend.

After Sunday’s horrible hilly i took it fairly steady on Monday, only doing 14 miles. Tuesday was a busier day, a hilly ride on a 68″ gear, about 25 miles for the day. Yesterday I rode to work on the bongo-weapon – Wednesday has become the day of bongo commuting. The 10 mile race ended up being sandwiched with about 60 miles of riding at 21mph. as a result, i felt a little bit off the pace and really struggled to crank it up on the way out. I dribbled back into Bristol a while later, my legs in bits.

bongo commuting

I was kimmaged (famously angry anti-drugs campaigner who blew spectacularly in a Tour stage up the Galibier and was overtaken by a bearded tourist with full panniers) twice today on the way into work; scalped by a fully-laden nodder and some chap on a hybrid. I felt weak and overdone. The only consolation was overtaking a triathlete on his full bongo-weapon on the downs. I was spinning a 65″ gear at about 17mph, replete with Carradice. He had his head down and his shoulders were rolling like a tumultuous sea. I found it strange. I asked him what he was doing. He said ‘intervals’. He rounded the corner and got out of the saddle, churning out the power and pushing up to a blistering 20mph.

The interesting thing about racing less is you tend to get more time to train. I think it’s an approach that should work, but I can’t really tell for sure. We shall see. I’m now taking things very steady in anticipation of the Welsh Championships at the weekend.

Megahilly vs Frightened Cyclists

Posted on by
15

This weekend I organised a race in the Cotswolds. I use the term ‘race’ quite loosely; it’s been described as an exercise in unremitting nastiness, the 5 hills of hell and the hilliest hilly ever. It used to be organised by Mike Hallgarth, a local luminary in the TT scene, but of late the event has been lying dormant. After a bit of back and forth we agreed to resurrect it during a conversation one balmy evening at a hill climb on Stouts Hill, under the assumption that if you keep talking about it, it might never happen, whereas if you stick it in the handbook then that’s that.

Organising an event is a considerable undertaking, especially a hilly time trial with a complicated parcours. It requires a lot of willing marshalls and all sorts of other people to help. To this end i was indebted to the support of the Dursley Road Club and Bristol South. The important task of providing the cakes was taken up by Belle, with a selection of delicious chocolate brownies, mini banana muffins and flapjacks various.

Prior to an event I tend to hope for a couple of things: a dry day with not much breeze, but primarily a dry day, and an event run without any accidents or injuries. It is always in the back of my mind when organising any kind of race on public roads that there is an element of risk involved; it’s inescapable, i guess the aim is to do everything you can to minimise the level of risk and ensure that everybody rides quickly, but safely. This is magnified on certain courses like dual carriageways, but also hilly courses where there can be blind corners, or sleepy villagers meandering into the road at 9am possibly not expecting to see some bongo-clad bongorider hurtling through the sticks at 36mph, or several extremely fast descents.

Steve Green in the new kit

The race took in the gentle climbs of Wotton-Under-Edge, Crawley, Frocester, Selsey and Stouts, totalling 1000 metres of climbing in 28 miles. The Little Mountain Time Trial, a classic and long standing event viewed as seriously lumpy, manages to pack in slightly less climbing over 11 more miles. This puts things into perspective. On the day most competitors, bar about 4 (myself included) turned up on road bikes, it simply wasn’t seen as a TT bike course. To be fair, any race where you’re averaging between 15 and 18mph isn’t really one that rewards slipperiness. At the last minute i opted to take the TT bike and just left it as it normally is, heavyweight disc wheel and trispoke, the works. I could have saved around 1500g if i’d switched wheels, but couldn’t be bothered to change the brake blocks. I was also more worried about making sure all the preparations were made for the event than fine-tuning my assault on the course record.

The course starts on a 6 minute climb which doesn’t help matters. I caught my minute man very quickly. After a fast descent and a savage climb up through Uley it turns left to Frocester. Things get interesting here because you have to descend a very long hill at speed whilst contemplating the creeping awareness that you have to return from whence you came; uphill. It’s made worse by the sight of other riders struggling horribly to ascend; a harbinger of doom. The same happens on the descent of Selsey, you get to see your comrades gripping the handlebars and hear the death-rattle of hill-blasted lungs long before they come past at 2mph.

After Selsey there’s only the one climb left. Finishing on a climb is particularly horrible, you can’t really get everything out, you just have to cling on for dear life, pedalling squares from bottom to top. Strange things happen as time and space collapses in on itself; i could see Graham Douchebag up ahead through the tree canopy – i’d caught him for fifteen minutes, but couldn’t summon up the energy to get across the last 30 yards. At this point i harboured deep regrets over my smallest gear ratio of 44:25. By the time i limped across the lane i was ready to vomit. I felt ready to vomit for the rest of the day, and probably most of Monday.

home-made steampunk results board

I came second to Derek Smetham by a slender 6 seconds. I’ll settle for that, you can’t win your own event after all and I descended like a fretful grandmother on a raleigh 20. Derek rode fast and fearlessly with only a cloth cap and skin suit for company.

Derek: power to weight writ small

After the event I broke my Strava embargo because i wanted to see the split times for the ups and downs. I gave away hours on the descents but made up slabs of time going uphill and on the flat. Several other people uploaded their data from the race to Strava. I imagine somewhere there’s a keen cyclist who has been sitting proudly on the KOM for Selsey, Wotton, Stouts, Frocester and other such climbs for about a year or so, feeling invulnerable and the king of all the Cotswolds, only to turn on their computer on Sunday and find they’d slipped from 1st to 13th in the blink of an eye. In the space of 28 miles i managed to notch up 16 KOMS, most by around 20-30 seconds and some by as much as a minute. I think there’s probably some very suspicious Cotswold riders out there now wandering what the hell just happened to their digitised high score table. The odd thing is at the time it didn’t feel super-fast, i wasn’t in hill climb mode and was trying to moderate my efforts slightly to avoid blowing up spectacularly. I also know that although i did a 5.54 or so on Stouts, i’ve managed close to 5 minutes in a hill climb. It’s interesting to suddenly see the comparisons with other riders again, and a bit of an ego boost if i’m honest. Nevertheless, my hatred of Strava remains entrenched; it’s a part of the inexorable digitisation of the outside world.

One last thing – the HQ i used was the Scout Hut at Conygres, up above Wotton. It’s got a certain rustic charm insofar as it’s not much more than a cowshed. As Steve pointed out, it’s fast become the West DC’s answer to the Roubaix Showers.

conygres cowshed

Roubaix showers

I’ll be running the event again next year. People were universally positive about the race, despite – or in spite of –  it being ridiculously hard. Well done to everyone who rode; it’s rare that races can afford such a sense of achievement amidst the pain.

Um Bongo, Um Bongo, they drink it in the Congo

Posted on by
3

Today i went full aerobongo for the commute to work: skinsuit, space helmet, disc wheel, trispoke, shoecovers, everything. I mistimed my commute and ended up over ten minutes early, sat outside on a kerb in my spangly new BSCC skinsuit waiting for the site to open and ignoring the bemused gaze of passers-by. I scraped a 20mph average for the hilly 15 miles.

#bongocommute #bongoweaponry #startledfellowcyclists #slightlyembarassinghackbike

The reason for my aero commute (or lessons in using a crane to squash a fly) was that the last Aust classic league was taking place after work. In a couple of weeks the action shifts to the lake. I needed to have a ‘bit of a dig’ before this weekend’s race and also wanted one last go at the course record for this year. Tonight’s race consisted of 2 separated 5.3 mile races with an aggregate time and individual times recorded for posterity.

It was grand to catch up with people, most of the club-mates were looking utterly resplendent in their new team kit – many thanks to Ade Ridley for a sterling design that captures everything that is important about the club. One chap was sat on the grass getting things ready; he had the dreaded 13 on his back. I told him it was upside down, trying to imply that he needed to turn it the wrong way up in order to escape the curse, but he looked at me blankly and it suddenly seemed a bit complicated to explain so i left it. After my first circuit i saw him wrestling with a puncture and felt bad, as though somehow I’d created the situation by drawing attention to the number error.

Number wrong way up.

It was a fairly balmy evening and I even went so far as to shed my kneewarmers; but there was just enough of a headwind on the way back to dent my ambitions. Nonetheless, i decided to absolutely shank it for the first 5.3 mile circuit in a sort of ‘shit of bust’ (another thing my dad used to say) attempt at the CR, then see what happened on the second 5.3 mile circuit. In the end I came agonisingly close, turning in a 10.46, with the course record being 10.42. It suggests that on the right day the record should be within reach, perhaps even fairly straightforward. Unfortunately that day never seems to come and the window on this course opens and closes very quickly. it’s now closed for another year. The second lap was a formality, I was a busted flush and knew it from the very first second. I coasted round about 30 seconds slower.

This weekend sees the mega-hilly, a truly horrible event in the Cotswolds. I’m organising it and riding. Should be a blast, if a very slow and painful one.

Big Guns

Posted on by
Reply

Bristol South held an open 25 Mile time trial today near Falfield. It’s often a quietish race with about 30 or so riders and can be a good opportunity to place highly. For some reason a large field of 70 took to the start with several very quick roadmen hidden in the pack. The silver medallist at the junior National Championships in last year, Seb Baylis, looked resplendent in his Madison Genesis team kit. The team DS is one of the legendary British roadmen of the past decade, Roger Hammond. Seb emerged out of the MDCC club where Colin Lewis cracks the whip and Tiernan-Locke cut his teeth. .

Also at the sharp end was Will Bjergfelt; an international mountain biker turned roadman, now employed by MG Maxfuel and riding the tour series and premier calendar.

It’s unusual to see such established riders at a local time trial. I spoke to Will afterwards, he’s very friendly. He started to tell me about his training regime after I mentioned how i like to ride before and after work. He does the same, but with some minor differences.

My hard training day: 16 miles before work, 25 miles after with a couple of hills thrown in at a 17mph average.

Will’s hard training day: 45 miles before work, 90 miles after, up and down the Mendips and all over the place at ridiculous speeds.

I started to feel slightly unwell but i think i managed to hide my incipient queasiness. Will came past me during the race on the two lap section of the course. He was putting out the power on the flat and then easing off on the climbs before absolutely smashing it again. It was interesting to watch, i normally just annihilate myself all the way round. He turned in a 54 something, Seb Baylis did a mid 55 along with Ben Anstie, and I got pipped by one second by Richard Spink who had an awesome ride, turning in a 56.06.

The U18 is a very tough course, rolling up and down and quite exposed. I like it, but it’s a challenge and going under the hour is quite a feat. I was aiming for a 57 so felt pleased to get a PB. Perhaps I could have gone a bit harder, it’s difficult to know. Next time I’ll have to aim for a 55. All of this is rendered academic by Rob Pears’ startling 52.47. This is the sort of time people look to nail at the Welsh course, not on an undulating (800 feet of climbing), draggy, lumpen road surface near Bristol. It’s possibly the best ride I’ve seen outside of Hutch’s two comp records last year.

All in all, a very fast day. In fact, 2 and a half minutes quicker for me than when I rode there in February. I’ll settle for being within spitting distance of the professional riders.

Nothing Cold Can Stay

Posted on by
10

I went out on a training ride today. It was my longest ride for a very long time, which isn’t saying all that much – i only break the 20 mile barrier in races. I managed to eke out 45 miles with some uppity climbs and far too much ice. I assumed it wouldn’t be all that icy. i was mistaken.

Dundry Hill, north of the wall

I had to walk a couple of times on account of hazardous icy descents, especially near Butcombe. The average temperature for the entire ride was a balmy 3 degrees. I managed  4,200 feet of climbing, taking in the scenic cols of Dundry, Blagdon, Shipham, Wrington and Belmont, with a 16mph average. Things were looking great on the way out, but the headwind on the way home had me grovelling.

On the plus side there was a huge twitch going on at Chew Valley Lake. Men in khaki fatigues and expensive binoculars lined the walls of the dam. Today’s unusual visitor was an Osprey, circling the lake in a flash of black and white with outstretched talons. The raptor was returning from Africa to Scotland or Scandinavia.

I’ve just about had enough of winter’s icy grip. Steve Douchebag is heading to Ireland in 4 days time for a saddlebag tour – taking the necessary kit for a sub-zero Nordic biathlon probably defeats the purpose of a saddlebag tour. Mike and chums are somewhere out into the wilds of Hereford as a warm-up for their visit to Belgium and return bike ride. I’m sure like most normal cyclists they anticipated maybe being able to use the armwarmers or a nice gilet, as opposed to the full thermal battlegear they are doubtless currently using.

Even the weatherman on the terrorbox the other day referred to the current unseasonal blast as ‘unprecedented’.

The Hardrider treatment

Posted on by
1

taking the bike for a walk

Today’s stage of Tirreno-Adriatico was an exercise in living purgatory for the (fool)hardy bicycle racers. It included 3 ascents of the Muro di Sant’Elpidio, a piffling 27% ramp which caused mayhem and destruction. Horrible rain and wind contributed towards an enormous list of 54 DNFs. When even Zdenek Stybar calls it ”one of the hardest days in my career”, you know it’s been tough.

Stybar in happier, simpler times

It was too much even for some of the hardened members of the peloton;

“It has nothing to do with bike racing, I call it sadomaso”; Cancellara

“In dry conditions would have been the hardest parcours I’ve ever done! With rain and wind turned into something between epic and insane!”; Quinziato.

Chris Froome lost time to Nibali who managed to get into a breakaway with well-known mountain goat Peter Sagan. It was a peculiar day where the form book and any sense of normality was rent asunder by the savagery of the weather and the parcours. Froome said he was overgeared on a 36:28. Sanchez changed bikes just so he could use a 30 tooth cassette.

Zig-zag wanderer, as Don van Vliet might have said.

All of which made for a brilliant spectacle as the professionals zig-zagged their way up the cliff face with all the elegance of drunken lizard.

Meanwhile, I managed to squeak into the online version of Cycling Weekly. I like it when that happens.

A sense of loss

Posted on by
6

I rode my first hilly of the season. I enjoyed the race but now feel a bit battered and slightly out of it. There were 10 BSCC riders on the startsheet.

There were 3 BSCC riders on the startsheet for the Severn Bridge Road Race. The E12 event is a national curtain-raiser for the season ahead and featured a host of professsional trade teams, including Rapha Condor. It was abandoned after a rider from Herbalife Leisure Lakes was killed in a collision with a car.

I’m not going to speculate on anything to do with this. It’s a tragedy. You go to a bike race in the morning and expect to come home again in the afternoon. This hasn’t happened for one of the riders today. It’s heart-rending. My thoughts and feelings are with the friends, family, team-mates, riders in the race and anyone touched by it, no matter how distantly. It touches all racing cyclists and we all feel the sense of loss.

Kuurne-Bruxelles-Kuurne vs the Severn 25

Posted on by
1

This weekend saw the opening salvo in the ‘spring’ classics with Omloop Het Nieuwsblad on the Saturday followed by Kuurne-Bruxelles-Kuurne on the Sunday. The weather is invariably really nasty, especially in 2011 when a really large rubbish bin blew into the road and did for Stijn Devolder. Skip to 40 seconds or so to see the aftermath.

In the event, KBK was cancelled. A gentle dusting of snow provoked fears for rider and spectator safety. Back in the day both riders and spectators would have been rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of an epic battle with the elements. Alas, not any longer. The myth of the Flandrian hardman has been dealt a small blow by the forces of health and safety and incessant commercialism.

LBL in 1957; only 15 hardy finishers from a field of 107

Meanwhile in Blighty, the early doors time trial season continued apace. No such cancellations here, with the Severn 25 taking place in bitterly cold weather with gentle snow flurries. To be fair, if the weather at Falfield was the same as the weather in Belgium I wouldn’t have ridden.

I rode the 20 miles to the start. It was an eye-watering 3°. I opted for some fairly full-on winter gear including a pair of giordana super roubaix leg warmers and my neoprene overshoes. On arrival i’d misjudged the time slightly, just enough to get even colder and then have to warm up again. I kept most of my winter kit on.

The U18 is a tough and demanding course. It’s not flat, by any stretch of the imagination and riddled with potholes, much like any road surface in the UK. There is a line of craters at one of the turns that has been there for the past 4 years. It used to be a row of small recesses, but with each passing winter they’ve deepened and become more challenging. The marshalls on the corner are issued with a rope ladder and winch to extricate any unfortunate racers. A nasty headwind put paid to any ambition for a fast time; only the last 4 miles were what might be regarded as ‘quick’ and it came as a relief after 21 miles of nihilistic struggling in the bitter north-easterly.

Times were slow; even slower than usual, with the exception of Rob Pears who carded a 55.16. I came 4th, about 8 seconds adrift of 3rd and a further 45 seconds away from 2nd. I’m pleased with my efforts, again, it’s the same as last year. even though the time is slower everything else seems the same; the difference between me and the others, the comparison with riders of similar speeds. It was a great day in terms of training, even if it was absolutely freezing cold and hard to get excited or motivated. When it’s really cold it’s just too difficult. All told, I managed around 70 miles for the day.

Next week is the Chippenham Hardrider. If it looks like it’s going be anything like it was last year I’ll be using a cape and wearing nine pairs of gloves.