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Thursday, December 31, 2009

31st December 2009

After a week of practising I eventually learnt to get up at a civilised time :-)

I finished of 2009 with my 'Normal 20' ride, that takes me just over 9500 miles for the year :-) I will not record every ride I do, but I thought it would be good to record my 'Normal 20' so that you can see the type of road I ride on....I have sped up and compressed an hours ride into just 4 minutes :-)



Three quarters of the way round I broke a spoke :-( The rear wheel started dragging on the brake blocks, but that wasn't to much of a problem as I had a stonking tailwind.

The Garmin had the ride as 21.45 miles in 1 hour 18 minutes with an average speed of 16.3 mph, route here...

When I got back home I put the bike on the stand, took the back wheel out, took the cassette off and replaced the spoke.

I put the wheel back on the bike and managed to true it, using a piece of cardboard to help find the 'high spot'.

I was really pleased with the end result, the wheel is really nice and true:-)

I also replaced the rear brake blocks, and gave the bike a good clean.

Now I suppose I should reflect on what has happened over the last twelve months.

January...Continued my JOGLE training, but moved from the Dawes to the Merida as the primary steed. Any evening I couldn't go out I spent inside on the Turbo Trainer.

February...Lots of snow and ice, but I still battled on cycling, realised that mountain biking in the snow is not much fun!

March...Weather warmed up started pushing the mileage, did a nice cycle ride to Longleat.

April...Was really worried about my ability to cycle up hills for JOGLE so I cycled around Snowdonia, and spent as many rides as I could cycling up steep hills.

May...Really started pushing the mileage in preparation for JOGLE. Travelled to John'O Groates on the 30th of May and Started cycling back south on the 31st

June...Finished JOGLE (950 miles in 11 days)

Took 1 day off then spent the rest of the month cycling.

July...Did my longest single cycle ride 151 miles to the top of the Black Mountains and back, over 2000 ft to the top! Joined the Chippenham Wheelers cycle club, started time trialling.

August...Started regularly doing my Normal 20 (21 miles) in an hour.

September...Started getting colder and darker in the evenings, Noticed my performance was degrading with the weather :-( No longer abled to do my 20 at 20.

October...Took a week off and managed to crack up some decent miles, did the best Audax of the year so far "The Dartmoor Devil".

November...Was looking forwards to 'The Exmoor Beast" unfortunately the weather was incredibly poor. Really started to struggle with the cold and dark.

December...Here we are :-)

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

30th December 2009

Today would have been a perfect day for losing myself in cycling, Wifey, Daughter and Son all went of to the London smog for the day, leaving me home alone :-)

Problem is I feel very bad about leaving the dog by herself for to long, I walked the family (and dog) to the railway station and took a long walk back with the dog, getting thoroughly drenched and frozen.

I had intentions of going out for an hour at lunchtime...but it was still raining... so I thought I would go out later....I didn't.

Instead I spent the day tidying up the house and fiddling with Fedora Linux on the Laptop.

I did bring the Peugeot in and stick it on the stand and dried of/lubed the chain, I finally got round to sorting out the front de-railer adjustments so I can change up gears again :-)

Ohhhhh I registered for the Dragon Ride today...A little jaunt around the Welsh mountains in June

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

29th December 2009

The weather forecast for today was for snow, it was a pleasant surprise to find no white blanket adorning the garden.

I decided I would cycle over to meet wifey at the mother in laws in Wootton Bassett, Lyneham had the weather observations as...

0900 Heavy Rain 2.2 °C ENE 26 mph 34 mph 8 km 994 hPa, Falling
1000 Light Rain 2.3 °C ENE 22 mph 36 mph 8 km 994 hPa, Falling
1100 Light Rain 2.3 °C ENE 16 mph 29 mph 3.5 km 994 hPa, Falling
1200 Light Rain 2.2 °C ENE 17 mph
8 km 993 hPa, Falling

The ride started of reasonably warm and dry, but that changed! I was also finding it very hard work, little did I know that I was cycling into a 20mph plus headwind.

As I was cycling it started getting wetter and colder.....and wetter...and wetter.....and colder...

When I got to Wootty B I thought it better not to stay and drip all over the mother in laws house, I said hello then immediately good bye and cycled on home.

Bye the time I got home my hands and feet were frozen solid, I was soaked right through.

The Garmin had the ride as 39.42 miles in 2 hours 45 minutes with an average speed of 14.3 mph, route here...

Monday, December 28, 2009

28th December 2009

Woke up far to early for a holiday day... Looked outside and it was dark but looked clear, went back to bed for a snooze, as it got lighter it looked like a really sharp frost and a bit of a freezing fog...Not ideal weather for braving the Salisbury Plain but I had promised myself a return visit to Imber :-)

I had a bit of an idea to ensure the video would point forwards and not down to the ground, I took the lights off the bike and fitted the camera mount.


As can be seen from the photo it was a bit chilly out, Lyneham had the weather observations for the ride as...

0900 Medium-level Cloud -1.8 °C ENE 7 mph
30 km 1005 hPa, Falling
1000 Medium-level Cloud -0.9 °C E 7 mph
25 km 1005 hPa, Falling
1100 Sunny intervals 1.4 °C E 7 mph
35 km 1005 hPa, Rising
1200 Sunny intervals 2.4 °C E 8 mph
40 km 1004 hPa, Falling
1300 Sunny intervals 3.3 °C ESE 7 mph
40 km 1003 hPa, Falling

I had plotted my route to avoid as many main roads as I could, unfortunately this made progress slow as nearly all of the roads had an unhealthy ice and frost covering on them.



But the frost covered fields did look very picturesque



Surprisingly I wasn't feeling to cold....At Bratton I was in two minds whether to deviate from route and climb to the top of the White Horse...The thought of Ice on the descent into Westbury put me off the idea so I stuck to the route.

At Westbury I joined the rather busy A350 for a couple of miles at Warminster I then cut across Elm Hill and joined Imber Road :-)

If you feel bored enough here is the sped up video of the ride down Imber Road (30 minutes into about 3 :-)

The plain is very wide open with no protection from the elements and I started to get cold, very cold!

But I did see the tanks again :-)





Well worth the return visit :-)

After Imber I carried on over the plain heading home via Market Lavington, Worton, Poulshot and finally sticking to the A342 from Rowde.

The Garmin had the ride as 54.74 miles in 3 hours 56 minutes with an average speed of 13.9 mph (I blame the frozen roads and the exposed roads over the plain), The route can be found here...

When I got home my feet were completely frozen, they actually hurt when they were thawing in the shower.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

27th December 2009

Got up and went shopping with wifey, Aldi were advertising a OregonScientific ATC2K Helmet Camera for £59 and I fancied having a go at one :-)

Whilst we were there we also picked up some fleece snow tops, they looked like they may be good n warm for cycling in the cold.

After buying the fun stuff we headed on to Morrisons for the weekly shop and a spot of lunch.

After we got home I spent a couple of minutes fitting the camera to the helmet then got changed and went out for a cycle, perhaps I should have spent a bit longer sorting out the camera position...It was pointing at the ground for most of the time :-(

I did my 'normal 20' then set about cleaning ALL of the bikes, I started at about 2 and finally finished cleaning oiling and fettling with them at nearly 5 :-(

The Garmin had the ride as 21.67 miles in 1 hour 17 minutes with an average speed of 16.7 mph, route here...

To make the best of the forecast sunshine tomorrow I am planning to take another ride to Imber, this time I may take some photies of the burnt out tanks :-)

If I can sort out the camera position properly I may even take a video of the Imber Road

Saturday, December 26, 2009

26th December 2009

Had to set my alarm clock to be sure to make the 8am start for the cycle club boxing day ride.

I was up at 6:30 and finished sorting stuff out before setting of at 7:50 for the short ride to the cemetery gates for the start.

I decided to take the Merida to help reduce the chance of being left behind! I need not have worried, the ride set of at a pleasant pace, one of my water bottles made a leap for freedom, I stopped, picked it up and caught up with the group with very little difficulty.

The ride covered more or less the same route towards Amesbury that I had taken a few weeks ago to Stonehenge.

Rob was on a fixie and finding the hills a bit of a grind, so when Andy had a puncture at Great Wishford David and myself continued on with him, the idea was that it would give him a chance and the rest of the group would catch us up.

At around Boyton a toffee nosed plum swallowing upper class knob took excpetion to us cycling along the road and started having a go at us, I think he was a little taken aback when we bothered to stop and talk to him nicely! (I am not a fan of the so called upper class!)

Unfortunately at Wylye we turned right when we should have gone straight on and the group unbeknown to us had overtaken us, we cycled on slowly to Sutton Veny hoping they would catch up with us (But obviously they never would!), David stopped and waited for them and I continued on to Imber with Rob, David had given us precise instructions on the way forward, apparently we couldn't get it wrong. It was cycle straight on to Warminster and at a T-junction or Mini Roundabout turn right onto Imber Road.

We got it wrong! When we got to central Warminster we stopped and asked a Taxi driver who directed us to turn around and take the left at the top of the hill. (Finally we were on Imber Road)

For those of you that don't know Imber Village was taken over by the MOD during the second world war, all of the residents were evicted, the Village is re-opened to the public over Christmas and the new year every year.


Considering that the road isn't normally used it was in amazing condition

I was totally gob-smacked by the burnt out tanks that were left strategically all over the place, I didn't take a picture as it didn't seem the right thing to do...

As we dropped down the hill towards the village the road became completely frozen.

Most of the village appears to be new built shells for army training...




The Church and the Baptist chapel however are original and well protected.

David had contacted Andy by phone and had found out that they were about 5 miles ahead of us, David had also caught us up.

We continued on to the A360 and Rob decided to go a more direct route to Devizes and Chippenham, I continued on with David sticking to the route.

When we got to the A342 I also decided to take a more direct route home (The ride had taken a lot longer than I expected and I really don't like cycling from Calne to Chippenham, the road is in really bad condition.

As I cycle back past the Cemetery some of the guys were still packing up into their cars, apparently they were only a minute or two ahead of me, not to bad considering I had only shave 4 miles of the route.

The Garmin had the ride as 86.08 miles in 5 hours 30 minutes with an average speed of 14.7 mph, route here...

Hmmmm my bike is now minging again, will have to spend some quality time cleaning them ALL up now...

Friday, December 25, 2009

25th December 2009

Woke up late :-) cooked porridge for breakfast, sat in-front of a nice warm fire with a nice cup of tea and ate the porridge :-)

Did the normal family presents thing....wifey bought me a cycle repair stand and some Continental Grand Prix 4 Seasons tyres for the bike :-)

I obviously needed to try the stand out...so I set about stripping down, cleaning, greasing and re-assembling the bottom bracket on the Peugeot :-)

I had some issues pulling the sprocket crank off :-( and have pulled all of the threads out...I ended up putting the bolt back in loose and drifting the shaft out with a hammer.

The bearing grease was aged and a little dry, I cleaned everything down with white spirit and re-assembled using some lithium based grease.

When it was all back together and adjusted just right, I swapped the tyres over..

After lunch I got changed and went out for a little cycle ride.....

The plan was to do a reverse of the chain gang route.
The Fosse-Way was very Christmassy...

but all of the roads where clear of ice, that was until I turned right at teh end of the Fosse-Way, the road was compacted frozen snow :-(

Being a little pig headed I continued down it anyway!

Thankfully the road cleared after a couple of miles and I was tanking along full steam ahead again.

I unfortunately missed the left turn to Stanton St Quintin and found myself heading back to Grittleton, I hate doing return rides so I decided to carry on to Colerne.

From Colerne it was massive down hill to Batheaston then massive up-hill to Kingsdown. I then headed to Atworth, Whitley then over Gastard Hill and back home to Chippenham.

The Garmin had the ride as 44.27 miles in 2 hours 59 minutes with an average speed of 14.8 mph and over 2000 feet of climb, route here...

When I got back home I started cooking the evening meal...As its the first year....ever that we haven't had hordes of family descend we decided to have a 'normal' lunch and have a nice roast for tea.

After tea we will sit down and watch our traditional family Christmas film - 'Life of Brian', that always puts the whole religion thing back into perspective for me :-)

Thursday, December 24, 2009

24th December 2009

Got up, sorted the fire out and made porridge for breakfast.

Headed of to Chippenham Town bridge for the Christmas eve ride to the pub :-) it was quoted as...
"The traditional Christmas Eve club ride will take place. This will be a 20 mile route for a Christmas Drink at the Dumb Post via the lanes. Meet Chippenham Town Bridge 10:00am. Decorated bikes according to the season are positively encouraged!"
Wifey decided that she would decorate my bike for me...

The main roads appeared to be clear of ice, unfortunately the side roads and cycle ways where a skating ring,

The group ride immediately set of down one of the cycleways and it was a sheet of ice, I opted for turning around and going back home to change bikes!

I swapped the Peugeot for the Dawes, 28 mm Marathon Plus tyres gave me a bit more confidence than 23 mm slick tyres! I then headed out down the lanes in the hope of finding the rest of the group, I didn't find them :-(but the lanes were all ice free :-)

I found myself at the pub an hour too early, So I headed out around the lanes again for another 10 miles or so, arriving back at the pub at 11:50.

I parked the bike up and warmed up in front of the fire with a nice pint of Cider :-)

Wifey pitched up and we ordered lunch, then everybody else arrived :-)

We stayed, ate and had a few drinks then I set of home...Staying ahead of wifey in the car for well over a mile :-)

Spent the afternoon between baking Mince-Pies and playing computer games :-)

The Garmin had today's ride as 22.62 miles in 1 hour 43 minutes with an average speed of 13.2 mph, route here...

Whilst I was cleaning the Peugeot last night I noticed a small amount of play in the Bottom Bracket, I looks like it is a 3 part maintainable assembly, plan is to strip it down, clean it and re-grease it over the next couple of days.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

23rd December 2009

My last day at work for the year :-) and I am working from home :-)

I didn't venture outside at lunchtime, it was still to cold...
1200 Medium-level Cloud -0.5 °C E 2 mph
10 km 990 hPa, Falling
Instead I had a 45 minute session on the rollers in the nice warm and dry :-)

The computer had the session as 16.81 miles in 45 minutes with an average speed of 22.3 mph

That calculates to a cadence of 109 :-)

Going for a real ride tomorrow, I am hoping that all of my cadence work will make a real difference.....

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

22nd December 2009

Night off, played computer games :-)

Monday, December 21, 2009

21st December 2009

Got up at normal time and de-iced, de-frosted the car.

I drove carefully out of the very icy WoodLane and onto the not quite so icy A4, had a rapid jaunt down the A350. When I got to the A429 I was gobsmacked it had not been salted at all, the overnight light snow fall had frozen and compacted on the road, it was lethal! A sensible person would have turned around and locked themselves up in a nice warm house for the day, I decided to continue on...

Thankfully when I reached Gloucestershire they had salted the road and it was a much safer journey, I guess Wiltshire judge the need to salt the roads based on the number of deaths they have caused!

My journey home was much better than the journey to work (Thankfully!), although I did have a stonking headache :-(

When I got in I changed straight into cycle gear then had a quick 30 minutes on the rollers. The cycle computer had the session as 30.04 minutes with an average speed of 23 mph covering 11.51 mph. I had the same strategy as the weekend I sat the bike in 34/13 and tried to hold a smooth and constant high cadence, pushing myself every so often to increase the cadence/speed.

Using my new found methods of calculating cadence I was averaging 112 rpm :-)

I also found that although my headache hasn't completely gone it is much reduced :-)

Wifey had the misfortune of sitting in my office whilst I was on the rollers, she though it would be funny to record a video of me on the rollers, I will save you all the misfortune of watching it, unless you grovel to see it :-)

Edit....Heres the video you all demanded :-)


I did warn you!

Sunday, December 20, 2009

20th December 2009

Got up this morning and it was still a bit chill out! Lyneham had the current observation as...
0800 Clear Sky -3.2 °C W 5 mph
30 km 1001 hPa, Falling
I changed straight into cycle gear and defrosted the bike in front of the kitchen radiator (The living room fire had gone out)

I decided that if the main roads were frozen I would not venture out, the side roads were all frozen solid.


The main roads looked OK, so I headed out to the Wavin main gate for the start of the Sunday leisure ride.

The road seemed OK until just before the Wavin entrance, the B4069 had packed ice on it :-( The Wavin side road had frozen snow :-(

Richard had ventured out on his bike and was chatting with Mike, I pitched up slowly! and a few moments later Paul turned up, it was decided by ALL that we were completely MAD and should turn around and go home.

I had to walk back through the town centre (it's closed during the day), I carried on to the garage and bought some fire lighters, then carried on home.

The very short (3.78 miles) ride is here...

When I got in I lit the fire, then changed down to summer cycle gear for a session on the rollers.

I thought it would be good to put the cycle computer on the bike so that I could see what my speed was doing and ultimately see if I could calculate my cadence accurately.

Unfortunately due to a lack of handlebar space I had to fit it to the AeroBars...

I then set myself up and did an hour, it was bloody hard work!

I was surprised to see that I was averaging greater than 20 mph. At 45 minutes I needed to shift weight as my butt was aching :-( I stopped for a couple of minutes to drink and relax, then I set of again for the last 15 minutes.

When I finally finished my clothes were completely soaked through, and the floor under the bike was swimming.

I tidied everything up and had a fantastic shower, then sat down and googled cadence calculations.

The first one I came across uses google search itself by entering the following function in to the search bar...(((average speed) miles per hour) / ((Wheel Diameter) metres)) * (gear teeth) in (minutes ^ -1)

so for me it was...

((20.4 miles per hour) / (2.097 metres)) * (13/34) in (minutes ^ -1)


This returned 99.7685837

The next calculation returned a different answer :-(

336 divided by your gear inch = your cadence at one mph so times it by you average speed for you average cadence

for me was....

336/ 66.7 = 5.03748 * 20.4 = 102.76

And finally the one I worked out for myself using (HPV Drivetrain Analyser) was....

Distance * crank rev per mile / 60

for me was

20.43 * 293.5 / 60 = 99.93675

So I reckon with some degree of confidence that I am holding just under 100 rpm cadence....

Ohhh for those of you who like me don't really like traditional Christmas music here's an alternative...

Saturday, December 19, 2009

19th December 2009

Got up and instantly froze!

Attempted to warm up in the shower, Spent 15 minutes putting on all of the cycling layers, then wombled downstairs and sorted the fire out.

After the fire was fettled, I assembled the Sherry Cherry Trifle and put it in the front porch to chill.

Then I thought it would be a good idea to retrieve the bike from the shed, the lock was frozen!
after de-icing the lock with some boiling water I then found that the chain, gears, crank, etc, etc ,etc were all frozen :-( So I stood the bike in front of the fire to thaw :-)


After 30 minutes or so the bike appeared to have thawed, I then moved it outside and lubed the chain. (I will clean the bike properly after tomorrows ride).

After donning another couple of layers I headed of to the Chippenham Cemetery for the ChainGang, (I must be mad Lyneham had the temperature at below -4).
0900 Sunny -4.9 °C WNW 7 mph
30 km 1016 hPa, Falling
1000 Sunny intervals -3.4 °C WSW 6 mph
30 km 1015 hPa, Falling
1100 Sunny intervals -1.8 °C W 7 mph
30 km 1014 hPa, Falling
1200 Sunny intervals -0.6 °C WSW 7 mph
30 km 1013 hPa, Falling
I was surprised to find a few peep's already waiting, by 9:30 there was about 10 of us all raring to go! (There are more Mad people in the world than me!!!)

There were a few very icy patches on the route, but thankfully nobody took a spill on the ice :-) That didn't happen until the end of the ride at Corsham, we were all chatting and some stopped at a Zebra Crossing, some didn't and some didn't see! poor old Dylan went down and I just managed to stay upright. There was no damage and no unjuries thankfully.

I took a nice easy ride back to Chippenham with Dylan, then carried on home...

The Garmin had the ride as 40.7 miles in 2 hours 19 minutes with an average speed of 17.6 mph, route here...

Friday, December 18, 2009

18th December 2009

Got in from work, made some pastry for mince pies and put it in the fridge to chill.

Got changed and did a 30 minute session on the rollers, holding as high a cadence as I could bare for the whole session.

After my shower I ate tea then set about making two Victoria Sandwich cake sponges for a black cherry sherry trifle (We have family coming over tomorrow).

I then spent then spent the rest of the evening making Mince Pie's :-)

Thursday, December 17, 2009

17th December 2009

Got in from work, got changed and did 45 minutes on the rollers.

Not much more to say, roll on the weekend when I can get back out on the road again.

BTW I still have the starts of a cold....And I still dont have a cold! I am sure its gonna hit when I am off!

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

16th December 2009

Worked from home today...

Didn't escape at all for a cycle ride...

Worked late.....Then spent the evening playing with Zoneminder on my Fedora box...

Normal cycling resumes tomorrow....

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

15th December 2009

Night Off, Played computer games :-)

Monday, December 14, 2009

14th December 2009

Got in from work, got changed into cycle gear....put AC/DC Black Ice on the computer at moderate volume...

Extended the rollers in the doorway and spent 45 minutes cycling away going nowhere...

I held a reasonable cadence for the whole ride (Approximately 100rpm)...All I need to do now is transfer that to my road cycling!

I still feel like I have a cold about to happen, but I am ignoring it!

Sunday, December 13, 2009

13th December 2009

During the day yesterday I started to feel that I was coming down with something nasty (Started to get a runny nose and my throat was feeling like I had swallowed a bucket of gravel.)

When I woke up this morning I didn't feel any better :-( A wise person would put all of their cycling plans on hold.....I'm not wise!

I started out by searing the beef that had been soaking in red wine/carrots/garlic/leaks/onions over night in the fridge.

After it was well seared I put the beef back in the slow cooker pot (with the red wine etc....) topped it up with some stock then put the slow cooker on low for the day.

I then sorted myself and the bike out for the Cycle Club Challenge ride :-) it was quoted as...
'On Sunday the 2nd of our Challenge Rides will be setting off from the Chippenham Cemetery Gates at 9:00am and going around Slimbridge, River Severn and Cotswolds edge.'

This was unfortunately wrong as it was destined to start at the rugby club at 9:30 (The other-side of town), I decided that I would head of to the Cemetery first at just gone 9 to make sure nobody was waiting there and then head on over to the Rugby Club for the 9:30 start.

I got to the rugby club just in time, David mentioned the words shall we start then? and I was off :-)

After a mile I realised it was only David and myself nobody else was to be seen, we then trudged along slowly and were told that some more peeps had turned up and they would be with us shortly...We span along slowly...

Eventually everybody tagged on and we were off......Although we had a stunning (and unusual) tail wind up the Fosse Way yesterday, this resulted in an unfortunate headwind travelling in the opposite direction today :-(

We also dropped people off the back along the way :-( as we pulled up to wait I suggested that we split into 2 groups, a faster group and a slower one so that people didn't struggle. (We went from about 20 to 2 groups of 10)

I found myself in the faster group (I was the only one that knew where we were going - I had bunged the route into the Garmin). The pace was instantly very fast...uncomfortably fast.......very very fast....(Get the message?) I was getting dropped on almost every hill :-( But I was catching them up on the levels :-)

I am wondering if the pace was to quick for the others as well, quite a few turned of route and headed home?

We eventually settled down to 7, the second quarter of the journey was quite easy :-) very much down hill...

Three of the guys decided they wanted to stop for tea at Slimbridge, the rest of us (4) decided to plough on with the ride (It was only 11:30 and was looking good to be back home for late lunch) they decided they would wait for the second group and tag on with them.

This did unfortunately mean that I was cycling with three incredibly quick people (I did have the advantage that I was the ONLY one that knew where to go :-). The already quick pace picked up a gear, I was able to hang on to a back wheel (just).

Unfortunately EVERY time it came to an incline they dropped me :-(

Anybody would think I was BAD at hills, I am not, they are just better!

Fortunately they did not have to wait for me on any hills (Just slow down a bit) that was until the hill to Hawkesbury Upton - It was steep and slow! (I blame the cold that I am in the middle of getting) They stopped at the top for me to catch up :-)

From Hawkesbuty Upton it was more or less downhill back to Chippenham :-)

It was a really nice ride, although it was a little quick for me(During the summer it would have been fine)

I got back home, shoved the dirty clothes into the washing machine, rotated the beef in the slow cooker (Just to make sure it ALL had a chance to cook), then spent most of the afternoon cleaning the bike......It was minging again!

At least I didn't get cold on the ride, I was working to hard to get cold!

Just hope I don't suffer to much with a cold after not giving it a rest today...

The Garmin had my ride as 77.54 miles in 4 hours 46 minutes with an average speed of 16.2 mph, route here...

Saturday, December 12, 2009

12th December 2009

Got up, put lots of layers on (It was VERY cold!)

I made some porridge for wifey 'n' me for breaky, then headed of to the Chippenham Cemetery for the CDW Chaingang start at 9:30.

It was a fair paced ride, with a miraculous tail wind up the fosse way (only the second time this year)

The Garmin had the ride as 40.84 miles in 2 hours 13 minutes with an average speed of 18.3 mph.

I really do feel that the rollers helped my riding, I felt a lot smoother and I did appear to have a higher cadence.

Friday, December 11, 2009

11th December 2009

Got in late'ish from work :-( Got changed and had another 30 minute go at the rollers :-)

I am getting a lot more confident on them :-)

I worked on maintaining a high cadence, at one point I was holding over 120 rpm for several minutes, I really think a cadence computer would help.

I am interested to see what impact the roller sessions have on my cycling this weekend.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

10th December 2009

Got home from work at a reasonable time for a change :-)

Got changed into summer gear and popped onto the rollers, I was given a stop time of 7:30 by wifey....

I started spinning away at 6:52 and stopped at 7:32....A really.....REALLY tough 40 minutes, I was very tired and soaked in sweat at the end.

It was an awful lot smoother than Monday and I felt a lot more comfortable on the rollers, it will still be a while before I move out of the doorway!.

I was doing some work on a presentation at work today and I think I have under-calculated my cycling miles this year by nearly 200 miles - I will leave it as it is because I cant be arsed to go back through the whole year to check where the error has arisen, I also calculated my total driving mileage (Just to and from work for the year) as over 23,000 miles, when you factor in walking and cycling miles it hits over 33,000 miles! (I must be mad)

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

9th December 2009

Worked from home today...

Managed to get out for a very pleasant 20 at lunchtime...It was almost as if summer was back!
1200 Medium-level Cloud 11.2 °C SW 8 mph 15 km 1018 hPa, Rising
Double figure temperature...

The Garmin had the ride as 21.67 miles with an average speed of 17.2 mph in 1 hour 15 minutes, route here...

At 6pm I went out for my second ride of the day, as the weather was so warm I thought I would go for a pre-cycle club ride,
1800 Mist 8.5 °C S 5 mph 8 km 1019 hPa, Rising
1900 Medium-level Cloud 8.7 °C SSW 6 mph 12 km 1020 hPa, Rising
I headed of out on the 'Normal 20' route but as I got to Dauntsey it was clear that I was going to be to early! so I headed of on to the 10 mile TT route, that added the extra time required to get to the meeting a few minutes late.

The total distance including the ride home from the club was 28.81 miles with an average speed of 16.7 mph in 1 hour 43 minutes, route here...

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

8th December 2009

Night off, played computer games...

Left4Dead 2 again :-)....Managed to get the 'Gardin Gnome' and the 'Confederation of Crunchers' awards :-)

Monday, December 7, 2009

7th December 2009

My "Tacx Antares Professional Training Rollers" turned up from Wiggle today :-)

I had been told by a fair few people that they are a completely different experience to the Turbo Trainer (mine being an Elite Volare Mag Lite), I was told that I will NOT find them boring and you definitely wont need a TV/music to keep you occupied!

When I got in from work I unpacked the rollers and assembled them (Took about 5 minutes flat), extended the frame and made sure no adjustments were needed, the back wheel sits in between two rollers and the front sits directly on top of a third.

I then got changed into summer cycling gear for my initiation...

The first issue...climbing onto a turbo mounted bike is easy, its fixed in place! Climbing onto a bike on the road is easy, you just lean it towards you and hop on..scoot along a bit and away you go!

The bike on the rollers is not fixed! it is three inches higher than the ground, problem solved hop on bike on ground then shifty it on to the rollers!

Now how to start.....well I grabbed on to the bookcase in my office and started pedalling, problem was I couldn't let go of the bookcase without fear of falling.....

Problem solved! move the rollers into a doorway, lean against wall and start cycling :-)

It is a VERY interesting experience! you really have to focus on your balance and smooth cycling. Any erratic handlebar movement could be disastrous! Stopping pedalling is not an option either!

Normally on the Turbo I just work up a sweat and my legs ache a little, the 40 minutes I spent on the rollers flew by, I worked up the same sweat, my legs ached but my upper body also feels like I had worked out!

After the first 10 minutes I did feel like my cycling was getting smoother, even to a point where I could grab a drink without almost falling of the rollers.

I think it may be a few more hours before I am able to move out of the doorway and back into my office!

And if you are feeling brave here is one final photy wifey took as I was just starting off on the rollers :-)