Category Archives: thoughts

More Cyclo Cross

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Bristol South CC and West District legend George Keene was telling a story at the bar the other day regarding a near miss. He narrowly failed to add the divisional CX championships to his lengthy palmares.

George on the Open Turf

determination and raw power

Back then cyclocross was filthier than a wet weekend in Rhyl; the various events took place on working farms and agricultural estates and riders spent far more time walking than riding.

As he told it, he was in the lead until the fateful moment when he somehow collided with a pig. Steve nearly spat his beer out.

that’s nothing…

Blog Paper

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I’ve been writing this blog for a few years now. Here are some thoughts:

I first pressed ‘publish’ on November 4th 2009. I note that I was riding a 72″ gear. Since then I’ve geared down and prefer a 68″ or even a 65″. You lose nothing on the flat and riding uphill is much more enjoyable. I can climb anything on a 65″, whereas on a 72″ there is not much margin for error.

Blogging is a narcissistic process. Maybe not always, but I think in my case it tends to be narcissistic. Maybe I’m being harsh and it’s actually just self-reflexive, rather than self-indulgent, but that’s semantics.

I think there is a vague belief that somehow some of what i write has a relevance to some of what people want to read. It’s unashamedly aimed at cyclists. I am stuck somewhere in a hinterland between being a quite good amateur racing cyclist and a very good amateur racing cyclist. Sometimes i think i’m closing the gap on the super fast people but they always remain tantalisingly out of reach.

My trajectory as a cyclist, over the past 4 years has been really unexpected, and so the direction of this blog has changed. As I’ve experienced more success on a local level (or sometimes even regional! Steady the buffs!) the blog has reflected the process behind that level of success and the feelings and emotions it generates.

There are a couple of truisms that resonate throughout nearly every post: there is always a bigger gorilla (©Jack Thurston) and it never stops hurting, you just go faster (©Greg Lemond).

I get excited by comments. It’s really nice to see that people read it and appreciate what’s being written. Readers seem to follow the blog in ‘spikes’, the readership tickles along at a set figure, then spikes for a month and suddenly lots more start reading and it never goes back down to what it was before. Regular updates are key, but not for the sake of regular updates.

 

By far the most popular posts I have written are reviews, especially my review of the Boardman Air TT. Writing reviews is a really easy way to generate traffic to a blog, but a blog full of reviews makes for really tedious reading. My approach to reviews is simple: if it’s something that genuinely has made a profound difference to my cycling then I’ll review it, or write about it. Coming soon: Carradice Super C: Or Why Messenger Bags Are For Sweaty-Backed Hipsters. It’s really easy to see a blog that is deliberately aimed at generating content and readers. Maybe there’s an argument that it has a purpose and benefit. I think it’s cynical and lazy. It’s taken me a long long time to build up a readership. I don’t recklessly cross-promote. Occasionally I’ll tweet a post or link it somewhere else. I save this for when I think I have something interesting to say.

For the first year I averaged about 10 views per day. 3 of those were family members. The other 7 were misguided search terms. For example, being a cyclist I like to write about the weather. A few of the posts contain the phrase ‘pissing wet’. This has made for some interesting search terms that, i daresay, might not be what the person was looking for. I now get more appropriate search terms and the readership is much larger, and growing steadily – sometimes exponentially, such is the nature of the interweb. It’s been particularly heart-warming to have so many positive comments from people at races about the blog, people saying they read it and like it. It makes it worthwhile.

Lastly, there is one danger of keeping a blog. I tend to write anecdotes or talk about races. I then see friends or local racers at various places and in discussion do what many people do, throw in a few anecdotes. The slightly bored look on their faces tells me they have already read it. I feel like i’m suddenly repeating myself everywhere I go. I have no stories left to tell because I’ve already written them all up. The side effect of having an interesting blog is you become an inexplicably dull person.

 

Last Rides

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Autumn Sweater

I went out on the hill climb weapon this morning for a last session prior to Sunday’s race. It involved several repetitions of short and steep hills in and around Bristol. I did Constitution Hill 3 times and Clifton Vale/Hensmans Hill 3 times.

I then rode through Ashton Court which was still and quiet in the damp autumnal weather. There were some scary looking stags making horrible and angry noises in some kind of lascivious deersex way.

Deer noise

I’m going to give the Rake the once over on Saturday, but that’s it until the race on Sunday… only 3 minutes left.

Cycling Weakly

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Today was a rest day, of sorts. I rode directly to work and then back. If I’m absolutely honest, I have been daydreaming about yesterday all day. It’s not quite a Belgian Classic or the rainbow bands, but winning on Burrington has made my year.

I still subscribe to Cycling Weekly. There are many racing cyclists who have cancelled their subscriptions due to the general absence of anything that might be deemed relevant to the actual racing of an actual racing bicycle. I have more than a few back issues which i’ve been using for research and there is a staggering difference in the level of reporting then and now. It’s an old argument and I’m not about to refresh it. The closest I came to cancelling was last year when they hid the top ten of the BBAR competition somewhere in the results page. This was after Jeff Jones had set a staggering new comp record for the 12 hour. They used up the space instead with a 3 page spread on the ‘Cycling Weekly Classic Sportive’, a 60 mile bun run round some shitty lanes near CW towers in Croydon. The star interviewee, questioned after his epic battle with the southern wilds, was editor Robert Garbutt. It couldn’t have been more onanistic if the sportiviste hacks had lined up a group circle jerk and spuffed en masse over their own bylines.

Lately they have drifted back across to the world of lightweight racing cycles due to the staggering success of Sir Bradley of Wiggins. There may even be a dawning recognition that the next wave of cycling talent is more likely to be found at the counter of Krispy Kreme’s feeder-house than it is in a sportive.*

So obviously it has been a further highlight to find my name on the Cycling Weekly website this week. They have redeemed themselves and I can now forgive their bi-monthly sportive pull-out full bongo open-oyster lynskeytitanium technicolour guide. With any luck I might even be in print come Thursday. In amongst the writerly despair I secretly long to find my name in bold print at the front of the Comic; such is the dualistic nature of modern existence. It’s happened once before, about two years ago. I still dine out on the memory.

*sportivistes: there is room for your not-a-race-races within the broad church of cycling and the press. FACT. there also happens to be room for other disciplines of cycling beyond the ever-growing hydra and utter cash cow that is next year’s sportive calendar.

Get Yourself Seen!

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It’s definitely dark out there at 6.15am. The crepuscular inkiness of just a week ago has been slowly subdued by the aggressive and encroaching hours of darkness. I have been using a Hope Vision 1 for the past 4 years now and it is the best light in the world ever. Stick some decent nicads in there and it’s all the light you’ll need. My Dad (of ‘shit off a shovel’ fame) used to call them nicads, so i now find myself calling them nicads in recognition of the fact that I am slowly becoming my dad, but hopefully without the long ponytail and slobbering dogs. The light is of sufficient strength that you have to point it downwards lest you blind the oncoming traffic and it also serves to encourage car drivers to dim their lights before they’ve come round the corner. It’s cracking, highly recommended. However, with a great light comes great responsibility, and to be blunt about it, I’m fed up with being blinded by commuting cyclists in town pumping out more candlepower than a Bastille day son et lumière. Being seen is one thing, being blinded by your fellow road users is another thing altogether.

If this doesn’t make you want dig out that chopper and fire up an ever-ready box lamp then nothing will… the middle eight is arguably the apex of british songwriting over the last 50 years.

I also won some lights in the VC Walcot hillclimb last weekend so promptly stuck these little beauties on the front and back. They strobe quite nicely and with the Hope Vision i feel suddenly a whole lot more visible on the lanes of North Somerset.

lights marginally less bright than incredibly bright club kit 

The only issue i’ve noticed is a similar ‘raising of the game’ amongst car manufacturers. Gone are the anaemic and milky halogens of yore. Nowadays no car is complete without a set of retina-detaching, high-pulse, 6 billion lumen headlights that steer around the corner and blind the hapless cyclist – even when dimmed. Twice this morning I came across some sort of vorchsprung technodrang wagon with lights taken from a CIA interrogation room, but on full beam. I had to stop at the side of the road because i couldn’t see a darn thing. After the car went past (probably bemused by the angry, fist-shaking, blind cyclist) i was left with two pulsing blotches in the centre of my vision for about 5 minutes.

On the way home today a van driver was incredibly considerate at one of Bristol’s hairier junctions. He then stopped a little way up the road. I made a point of stopping and saying thank you. He laughed kindly, said it was no problem and seemed a little relieved that I wasn’t a crazy mentalist. Belle said later that it’s good to thank people for doing good things.

 

Hill Climb Training

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There is no ambiguity about training for hill climbs. It’s utterly revolting. It hurts like buggery, possibly worse, although i wouldn’t like to speculate any further what with this being a family blog. Yesterday was my first day of ‘proper’ hill climb training, consisting of a few half-hearted repetitions on a fixed wheel. Today was always going to be the full English.

the full english – ascent was 6200ft, the image is truncated. 

The intention today was to get some hills into the legs. More generally, i can loosely break my training block down as follows:

1. Ride hilly routes, tempo, with hard efforts on the hills and some recovery between. (this isn’t all that different to my usual training, just even lumpier and more masochistic).

2. Ride hills repeatedly and as fast as I can until i feel like blowing chunks, or on occasion, begin retching repeatedly on a grass verge, repeat.

3. Eat less, cut out all ancillary gourmet items, including chocolate. when combined with the latter part of (2), this has a significant effect on racing weight.

So it’s a heady mix of losing weight and riding way above both lactate threshold and into the realm of oxygen debt. Frequently. You can see why it’s so much fun.

In order to squeeze a marginal 6,500 feet or nearly 2000 metres into 60 miles you have to plot a careful route that runs up and down the escarpment of the Mendips, or subsitute Mendips for your local range of hills. In the absence of an Alpine Mountain it’s quite tricky to do. By some margin the worst climb of the day was Draycott Steeps. In fact, I would argue it’s the hardest climb in the Mendips and amongst the most difficult climbs you are likely to face. It isn’t absurdly steep, like the Rosedale Chimney, nor is it an undulating and long beast, like Shap Fell. It’s almost as straight as an arrow with a few gentle bends, and it stays at almost unrelenting and consistent 10%, but increases to around 16% as you near the top, just to rub it in. By this point, if you’re stupid enough to ride around with nothing more than a 25 cog to cover your modesty, your legs will be dancing to their own syncopated rhythm and your lungs and chest will be heaving like a rolling, stormy sea. I crested the top and began to relax when i rode almost straight into a herd of cattle coming the other way. the bassy and rasping lows of the friesans were not dissimilar to my ragged breaths.

i like cows, but they also scare me. if cows had brains we’d all be dead by now.

All of which clearly makes it a ‘must-do’ climb and I highly recommend it. I wouldn’t attempt it fixed. Or at least, i wouldn’t attempt it fixed on anything over 50″. Which might make getting there quite a long journey.

Another highlight of the day was the chance to see my favourite road sign.

no charabancs. you must take your charabanc elsewhere.

I also dropped down the Gorge on my way to tackling Shipham. Cheddar Gorge never ceases to amaze me. It’s worth remembering some sage advice given to me once by a mountain biker (unusually, and probably the only piece of sage advice given by a mountain biker to anyone, ever) who i used to work with. he said neatly, ‘think goat’. I didn’t think anything more of his exhortation to think goat, until one day, when descending at about 40mph, i came across a family of goats making the road their own space and had to do a high speed weave and goat-evasion manoeuvre. Ever since then, the motto has been ringing in my ears whenever i stamp on the pedals at the top of the gorge, ready for the blast to the bottom. For what it’s worth, descending the Gorge is a much more spectacular affair than ascending, which is pretty boring. It’s not much of a climb, despite being used for the National Hill Climb Championship a few years back.

think goat!

I saw a peregrine falcon but was too tardy to pap it. Doesn’t help that the Peregrine is the avian equivalent of Mark Cavendish either, the speedy little blighters.

Lastly, i came across a group of cyclists doing a highly specific charity ride, from Lympstone to Arbroath. They turned left before i got to speak to them, but their story is an interesting one. Living in the southwest and near the A38 i used to see End-to-Enders quite often in the summer months when commuting home from work. It’s an arduous undertaking. Maybe one day, when the hills all get too much for my atrophied and old legs.

Raj Soni, BCDS and Bristol Road Club

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Last week, Raj Soni of Bristol Road Club and BCDS died after crashing on Dundry Hill. I didn’t know Raj Soni to speak to, but had seen his name on startsheets. As a member of Bristol Road Club he is a part of the wider fellowship of Bristol cyclists.

At my first ever race, on Burrington Coombe in October 2009, Raj Soni was the fastest junior up the climb. He rode a 9.02, a fantastic time for a 15 year old. He rode with style and conviction. There are some words here.

This morning I went out training, the first attempt at hill climb work. I went over and down Dundry, and stopped for a few moments at the side of the road in silent contemplation. My thoughts are with his family, friends, clubmates, and everyone who knew him.

 

Bike Booms, Bradley Wiggins, British Cycling and Will Fotheringham

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In the previous post i wrote about the current high watermark in British Cycling and the exponential growth in public interest and participation. I suspect further British success will elevate cycling even higher in the collective consciousness.

Today I gave a gallery talk at MShed alongside the Easton Cowboys, a fantastically anarchic football collective. We ranged across a range of topics and the comparisons and contrasts between the two clubs were fascinating. Eventually the conversation came round to the tour and I got the odd feeling that most of the people there knew not just who Bradley Wiggins was, but also Chris Froome. It was slightly surreal. They also had developed a working knowledge of the reasons why Froome sat up when he apparently had the stage victory in his grasp.

Bradley Wiggins is emblazoned across the front page of the Guardian Weekend Sports pages, ahead of the not-racist at all John Terry. Will Fotheringham has also written an excellent article on the Guardian website looking at the rise in British Cycling in depth. It’s well worth a read. The only thing he’s missed out is the effect of the cycle to work scheme which is a key part of the resurgence in cycling. He does make this link in his concise article in Cyclopedia though.

The below-the-line comments seem to be the usual mix of militantly out-there advocacy and statistical madness. There is a common thread though, the need for some kind of change in culture in terms of both driving and town planning. Maybe this will be the next step.

GWR Organiser Speaks

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it’s always nice to find out someone other than my wife, mother or bored clubmates actually read this blog. But with great power comes great responsibility….

I’ve had a comment from the organiser of the Great Weston Road ride in response to this post. Sometimes a post on a personal blog can generate a bit of debate. this one seems to have. In the interests of parity, i’ve printed the comment below:

Hi. I’m the organiser of the Great Weston Ride, the event taking place on the same date the Colin Carfield was scheduled for, and I’d like to pick up on some of the points raised above, if I may.

Firstly, I’m very familiar with road races – my son is a 2nd cat who races regularly, I act as a Club Welfare Officer, and I’ve been involved in organising and marshalling at various road races in the region. So, trust me, I had no desire whatsoever to see this cancellation. But, in this particular instance, in relation to the Great Weston Ride there are one or two assumptions and erroneous conclusions in the piece above that need addressing, and I just felt that one or two actual FACTS wouldn’t go amiss.

FACT – the Great Weston Ride is most definitely NOT a race (nor, indeed, would I describe it as a sportive). We don’t use timing chips and no finishing times are published. And we actively encourage people to stop en route! We do our utmost to emphasise that it’s a RIDE and not a RACE.
FACT – this is an official BC registered and sanctioned recreational cycling event.
FACT – the GWR is getting more people cycling, and more people interested in cycling, which can only be good for the sport as a whole.
KEY FACT – the GWR ran on the same weekend in 2011 and 2010. The Colin Carfield was actually run on the following weekend in each of those years, and was originally scheduled to do so again in 2012 until the organisers were told by BC South that they couldn’t have that date. It might therefore be time better spent asking BC South why they refused the application to run the race on July 22nd. So, as you can see, in this instance there was no ‘riding roughshod’ over the racing calendar.
FACT – so when the race organisers rearranged, THEY moved the race to the same date that the GWR was already scheduled, obviously without knowing about it.
FACT – it simply would not have been safe to run a race along roads where 650+ leisure riders would be strung out, all going at their own pace, chatting, taking in the sights, etc etc – granted, not everyone’s cup of tea (esp. among the racing fraternity), but that’s what you would have encountered, and there should be room for ALL types of cyclists.
There are other points raised that I would politely dispute (eg levels of organisation required), but the key point here is that the GWR was already in situ – it was the road race that moved from its traditional date, and it’s BC South that need to explain that one.
I discussed the situation with the race organisers and wanted to find a workable solution for all concerned (a later start for the race seemd the most viable option to me), but obviously for whatever reason the race organisers (or others) decreed that the best/only option was to cancel.
So I AM very sorry that the race had to be cancelled, and of course I can understand people’s frustrations at that outcome, but hopefully you’ll now agree the cancellation was not in any way the GWR’s fault (as the article, to be fair, suggests might be the case).

and now back to me. i understand his points and i appreciate the time he has taken to make them. i also stand by (most of the comments in) my original post:

I’m not sure that the Great Weston Ride is at fault for the cancellation per se.They are entitled to use the roads. They are entitled to meet the target audience of people who want to ride 55 miles in 5 to 6 hours. However, it is indicative of an alarming trend.

that trend is the uneasy relationship between sportives and road racing. and it pains me that a recreational ride should take precedence over a road race, it really does. The Colin Carfield Road Race has been running since the late 1990s and is one of the most significant road races in the southern district calendar. Racing cyclists make it the centre piece of their season, training from January onwards to arrive at the startline in peak condition. Last year it was won by James Dobbin, twice national hillclimb champion. I imagine the reason that CC organiser didn’t know the GWR was on that weekend was because it doesn’t require the same level of permissions from the local authorities. Hence my suggestion that sportives or non-sportives are subject to a form of regulation. This would help negate any calendar issues. This is called ‘date-fixing’.

i’m all for getting more people into the sport. these people may well end up racing, especially if they see the link between what our Bradley is doing in France somewhere and the type of events you might need to do to try and emulate this kind of performance (in your own small way). it would be nice if there are some races left for them to sign up for.

I don’t buy the popularity argument, that somehow 650 riders in a recreational ride are more important than the capped field of 150 in a road race, simply by dint that there are more of them. It’s the same logic that leads people to believe that Evans is the best bike shop. You end up with only Evans.

My point remains the same, and it’s fairly unconfrontational, there is no FACT (by which you can assume that i am not keen on the use of “FACT” as a capitalised bulletpoint, as though that somehow must therefore make it true because of the emphasis) about it. There is room for both in the calendar. whether it’s moving the start for a road race or omitting a climb for a non aggressive non race non ride chatty day out, it’s a shame some middle ground couldn’t be reached. I strongly suspect it is far harder to move a road race than it is to move a sportive or to change the route. I believe, and i’m not apologetic about this, that a key event in the Southern and even national road race calendar should take precedence over a recreational ride.

In hindsight, i would have changed one thing about the original post (but i won’t change it now, because that would defeat the value of hindsight and somehow make this blog temporally and philosophically scary) i wouldn’t have bundled the MCF and the GWR as one big uber sportivathon, because they are slightly different beasts, but there you go.

We could go back and forth about this for a while; it’s not a race, it is a race, sportives get people riding more than road races, and so on, and so forth. I’ve given the organiser the space on this (personal) blog and i think that debate is a good thing. I’d like to thank him for his comments and wish him luck with the race sportive recreational leisure ride.

Organising a Time Trial (take 2)

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This time last year I broke my duck as a time trial organiser. It was pretty eventful.

This year i moved the event to quieter roads in the knowledge that the course was slower and there would be a significantly reduced field. However, I also knew that the event would run and was optimistic that it would be much safer for the riders, insofar as some of the more extreme variables of traffic and weather were taken out of the equation. If i had opted to stay on the same course for this year then i would have been inundated with a deluge (an apt metaphor, given the inclement weather spiralling across the country in endless occlusions) of phone calls inquiring as to whether the event was to run or not. it’s an impossible situation. Having opted to use the U21/50 (gotta love those course codes) i didn’t face this dilemma. Unless the race required an ark then it was going to run. Even so, an ark can be adapted with aerobars and you could probably slam the front end to reduce drag.

Organising an event is a bit of an effort. It starts long before with lots of different administrative feats and multiple pages on spreadsheets. It needs a corps of caterers armed with various cakes and sundry items. In the absence of a corps, i settled for Belle who produce some spectacular breakfast muffins, a banana loaf and flapjacks. We also put on toast and freshly ground filter coffee. This all went down well. There was nothing left afterwards.

The other severe headache involved in running a time trial is the recruitment of a crack team of marshalls. Some times this isn’t too tricky, but it’s rendered very difficult indeed if your event starts at 6am on a Sunday morning. I picked up two bleary-eyed club members at 5am, just so i could leave them by the A38 for three hours, all for a blueberry muffin and a cup of coffee. The Bristol South CC road race and audax factions came charging to the rescue and I am very grateful. They did a fantastic job standing by the side of the road and ensuring riders were not worrying about where they were going and felt mollified by the calming presence of the luminous squadron.

I have been worried about the race for weeks. It hasn’t been the best timing, what with moving house and other various things, but the race has also been in the back of my mind all this time. It is a genuinely huge relief to have completed the event. Fifties are that much more complex and awkward than 10s, the courses tend to be trickier to negotiate, the riders are on the road for much longer, they need more marshalls and they start at stupid o’ clock. This could be why there are less and less of the longer distance events being run.

The timekeepers are the vital cog of the entire enterprise. Bridget and Ian Boon are longstanding officials in the West district and were fantastic as ever. Bridget is a hugely accomplished long distance time triallist and we were talking today about some of her achievements. In 1993 she won the North Road 24 hour with 457 miles. This was a mixed event – she beat all the men and all the women.

Bridget at the 1994 Mersey 24hr

Along with Ian she set a number of national tandem records, including the National 24hr in 1986 with 463 miles and the National 12hr with 271 miles in 1986 – which still stands. I can’t imagine what it takes to spend 24 hours on a bike, let alone on a tandem. It’s an incredible feat. I felt privileged to be sat with Bridget doing the rider check at the finish.

I’m now quite tired. Nevertheless, i feel like i can get back on the bike and start racing again. Luckily, i have the bike back so i can actually get back on the bike and start racing again. Argos have retrofitted my bling Boardman with a hard-ass stainless steel derailleur tab. Go Argos. There is nothing they cannot do.