Tag Archives: tejvan

Early season sprightliness on the A361 (FDW 10)

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The first race of the season is probably the worst one of the lot. It’s the moment when all the pre-season fannying around is dispelled in a few short minutes and you find out in simple terms whether you’re going well or riding like a sack of potatoes. As such, there’s a hefty degree of race anxiety, even though no-one wants to turn up in peak form for the Frome and District Wheelers 10 mile time trial in early February. The best you can hope for is a sense of things being not as quick as you might have hoped, but not as slow as you perhaps feared. And so it goes.

Trotters warms up by getting into position for the ‘crane kick’ from the karate kid part 1

The weather was kind, if a tiny bit chilly. It didn’t cause any problems though and my armwarmer/kneewarmer/defeet glove combo was perfect. I was very cautious on all the roundabouts, scrubbing off all my speed and cornering gingerly, to say the least. There was some sort of time equation in my head; 10 seconds gained on the course could easily become 6 months lost after a heavy crash.

Ed and Rob were also riding in the red and gold, both on fixed. Rob opted for a healthy 97″ and Trotterz went big with a hundred and something, dialling in a long 23. I managed to ride 22 dead, 1 second slower than last year. I’ll settle for that. I was also up on a few other people which was comforting and took home £15 for 3rd place. Ben Anstie and Tejvan Pettinger were both a cut above, with Ben edging it by 3 seconds in 21.26. There were some other impressive rides, James Coleman blasted round on a road bike, making the most of his Ludgershall legs, Steve Potts put in a quick time, Richard Spink managed to complete the course in short order, even with one of his ski poles swinging all over the place.

I shall move on to the next event with a degree of confidence and the knowledge that I’ve put in a race effort – always the hardest thing to replicate in training. Apart from all of that, it was great to catch up with various people I only ever see at races, especially Tejvan who I somehow managed to miss last year. The social side of time trialling is perhaps overlooked. Today’s event had all the hallmarks of club life; a village hall, sturdy mugs of tea and hearty cake, lots of gentle banter between racing cyclists and a presentation of used banknotes in brown envelopes.

thanks to the host club

Perspectives on the National Hill Climb Championship

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There are a number of photo galleries online.

Velo UK have a comprehensive set.

Chorley CC have captured some frightening hill climb gurns.

There is also a video nasty on youtube:

There are various race reports and blogs:

Cycling Weekly.

Tejvan’s take on things. 

Hamilton Wheelers…

This image is from Velo UK. It encapsulates the climb: rider in complete agony, struggling to keep it together, spectators having a whale of a time, beaming from ear to ear.

Shap Fell Hill Climb

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Yesterday I made the epic trek to the lake district to take part in the Kent Valley Road Club hillclimb. It’s 9 miles long and finishes at around 1400 feet. It’s never really steep, and there are several sections of slight downhill. the last 2 miles could probably qualify as a nasty hillclimb though, it’s steeper and quite daunting.

i rode my condor acciao, which is considerably heavier than my old hillclimb bike, probably an extra 2.5 kilos. The wheelset was a set of zipp 340s, and they were lovely. however, i can’t help but feel that i lost some time on the ascent due to the extra weight. some other riders used time trial bikes, and the winner, tejvan pettinger, rode with tribars. it’s one of those thorny ones where there’s no clear benefit to either.

i managed third place with 30 minutes dead. I am pleased with this, it was a windy day, again, and i held off the scary challenge of a legion of Scottish racing cyclists – their national junior team was on the way home from an Isle of Man stage race and broke the journey with a quick bit of hillclimbing. One of them – Tom Arnstein, was riding at Revolution when I spectated in January. Quite a strange experience to be riding in the same race.

Peter Greenwood came second, he is a racing snake in his 50s, who set the course record some time ago. pretty impressive.

this is the steepest  descent you can see, with the cyclists in the foreground starting the battle with the last two miles:

prior to the M6, Shap Fell used to be a fearsome route over the high ground…

BSCC Hillclimb, Burrington Combe

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the club hillclimb has been in the back of my mind since last year: back then it was my first open event and i rode to 5th place on fixed wheel, with little or no awareness of how it happened or why. looking back, i’m still none the wiser. it’s felt like an erratic boulder.

a year further on and everything looks a bit different; i’ve ridden quite a lot and raced numerous weekends, it’s been a bit of an exponential learning curve.  and yet all year long the club hillclimb has been lurking beneath the surface, it sits in my subconscious, a horrible big fish rising up to meet me in the  shallow shadows of a murky pond. it’s the cause of self-doubt, the interminable worry that i might never go as quick again.

in preparation to go as quick again, i spent the weekend with my feet up, eating bread and cheese, drinking squash and watching the pro peloton get covered in rain and mud in la classica delle foglie morte. I offered silent thanks to no-one in particular for the promised clear skies here in albion. this morning was indeed clear and beautiful, but also by some distance the coldest morning of the autumn thus far; the kind of cold that creeps malevolently with icy grasping fingers, through the interstices and into the house. intense effort and intense cold are not comfortable bedfellows; it invades and assaults the lungs and chest. but those are the breaks; as if riding uphill fast wasn’t painful enough…

i’ve had plenty of time to think about this one; and on the morning of the race i felt quite calm and unperturbed. the sun warmed the higher slopes of the coombe, but the ascent was shrouded in shadow, and a lot colder. i got to the start in good time, within two minutes of the push, thus staying as warm as possible for as long as practical. it makes an enormous difference knowing the climb; judging the effort becomes more instinctive and much more effective. at three or four key points where the gradient kicked up i rode more softly than i would instinctively, not kicking on and standing up in the pursuit of seconds, but sitting down, maintaining cadence and riding through the short ramps. On Burrington this is the important thing, and it’s a climb that rewards a seated, regular effort –  each sharper section is linked by a longer drag during which you can press on and move up through the gears, gaining in pace and speed. beyond this, i didn’t overly analyse it, but just went for it, riding hard and pushing it as close to the edge as i could. i had no sprint at the top, i just pursued the same relentless cadence as my aching legs propelled the bike forwards. a sprint at the end of a hillclimb sometimes strikes me as the pursuit of time already lost.

it was an exercise in suffering, but unusually i wasn’t waiting or silently begging for the finish, or fighting the demons; both the cartoon devil chastising my lack of pace, or the angel urging me to ride more cautiously. the deafening inner monologue was strangely quieter than usual, replaced by a repetitive focus on breathing and cadence and a sense of distance – almost from myself. i was still accelerating over the line, but had no sense of time to go on, and no way of knowing. it felt quick, but as per usual, on the descent a few riders seemed to have infinitely more souplesse, rode more effortlessly and danced across the camber of the sweeping uphill curves.

i knew i wanted to get under 8 minutes; anything else would be a disappointment; last year i managed 8.01… i felt quicker and lighter this year. the top end of the field was packed with featherweight thoroughbreds, including rob gough, james dobbin, tejvan pettinger and luke dunbar. i came fifth in 7.45. i have a feeling this might be a new club record on this course. i am over the moon and this afternoon i have eaten carrot cakes made by belle; they tasted even more delicious than usual.

1 Tejvan Pettinger 7’10
2 Rob Gough 7’27
3 Luke Dunbar 7’29
4 James Dobbin 7’36
5 Paul Jones 7’45
6 Robin Coomber 7’57

 

graham, riding his beautiful 1950s cantiflex bates to a quick time

 

 

derek on the warm-down

 

Dovers and Saintbury

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this morning heralded the second (and third) events of the weekend. i started early — took my bike, to Weston-Sub-Edge for the Warwickshire Road Clubdouble hillclimb. In terms of the competition, it was an altogether more challenging affair, with a veritable glut of finely-honed (read: borderline underweight) racing cyclists. It’s a prestige event, and a chance for the contenders to check out the course for the National in a couple of weeks time, as well as lay down a marker. The first hill was long, nearly two miles, with lots of changes in gradient, the second – Dovers –  was a steady climb, quite steep, with a fast finish. there were two hours between climbs, allowing time to sit down, cool down, have a coffee, a jam sandwich, before getting out and about to warm-up again for the second hill.

a couple of things struck me quite forcefully today. there were a range of abilities and ages competing, all of whom were going far far away from any semblance of comfortable cycling. in some ways, it doesn’t really matter if you are fast or slow, riding upwards on a bicycle always feels slow; i feel i should be going faster, and become locked in mortal battle with my cadence, trying to eke out a few more revolutions, hoping i can change up a gear and my legs will not lapse into a crampy sulk. that’s it really, racing up hills is slow and painful, it’s an indescribable battle of will, seeing how far you can go before everything grinds to an undignified halt. in a double hillclimb the self-doubt is amplified with the waiting and the exertion. the inner monologue that accompanies the climb is something i may try to explain for you at a later date (coming soon! Inception! on bikes!).

the first climb felt about right – not too savage. i spoke to tevjan (the winner) beforehand and on my way up i saw him coming down – he cheered me on, and i said thanks. afterwards we laughed about this and he said lightheartedly – and i knew it was coming – something along the lines of ‘if you can say thanks you weren’t trying hard enough’. which is very much the spirit of hillclimbs; catchers, retching and the unscheduled seeing of stars. incidentally, the giving of the prizes at haytor was delayed because two of the recipients were puking violently at the side of the road on account of their efforts. and possibly an ill-timed lunch to meet the 2pm start.

the second climb felt better; for around a 100 metres or so. after this point the build up of lactic and the pain in my legs from my third hillclimb in 24 hours became suddenly, pressingly apparent. the sage advice given to me was ‘give this one everything because it’s shorter than saintbury’. which i duly did, throwing my ‘keep the pot boiling’ advice out with the bathwater. however, giving it everything is conditional on just how much of everything you’ve got. i had a small amount of everything, which just about got me up and over the 14% climb, i even got out of the saddle at the end for a reckless, jellied-eel of a sprint. and today, this evening, i am deliriously happy with pulsing endorphins. I came tenth in a race featuring elite riders and national champions.

and as a postscript, there’s no logic to it. if i ride my bike a lot, and deliberately choose hills, and ride over them, and be careful what i eat, this is what happens. it’s not scientific. i appear to be quite good at riding upwards for lengths of time over 3 minutes, at steep gradients. it’s an odd talent to have. it’s not much use in the wider world; it is the most arcane and physically tough of disciplines. when struggling up toys hill 6 years ago with friends after returning to cycling, i would never, ever have thought that i had the capacity to achieve these kinds of results. there may or may not be a salutary tale there somewhere.

tomorrow is a rest day.