YouTube video of the ride to Brighton (9:40) by Andy Allsopp:
Monthly Archive for March, 2010
Friday 26 March saw the biggest and smoothest ride in the recent history of the Friday Night Ride to the Coast. This write-up is a few days overdue – I’ve been a bit sleepy and a bit busy since Saturday to get this written, so sorry for the delay. Anyway…
I got home from work on Friday and settled down for a couple of hours sleep. I never get any real sleep when I try so early in the evening (even after avoiding caffeine all day), but lying down for a rest does help a bit. I got up about 20:30 and headed downstairs for a double espresso and pasta with tuna, then checked the weather forecast. On Thursday, Metcheck had been forecasting a dry night with a very light southerly, which was quite favourable, but during Friday the forecast had started to indicate rain. It was still showing some rain, but not terribly much. That kind of forecast makes it difficult to decide what to wear and what additional clothing to carry. At least I knew how cold it was going to be – no less than 4C. The almost complete cloud cover would prevent it getting any colder than that.
By the time I’d had a shower it was 22:00 and had started raining quite heavily outside. The rain only lasted a few minutes, but it meant that the ground was going to be wet and more rain could be coming, so I slapped a race blade over my back wheel. I didn’t want to carry a bag with me so I set about organising my pockets to squeeze in my waterproofs, phone, keys, money, short-finger mitts and a bunch of gels. Spare tubes, CO2, other tools and things were safely stowed in the little bag under my saddle. Just one more espresso required.
I set off for Hyde Park Corner about 22:40, riding across Richmond Park and up through Barnes, Hammersmith and High Street Kensington. The crowds were already building up under the Wellington Arch as dozens of cyclists arrived from around London and the local railway stations. This FNRttC was a little different to usual. About 60 regulars were attending and escorting a contingent of 65 riders who were fundraising for the Martlett’s Hospice. This made the ride an official CTC event rather than an informal ride, so everyone had to sign in. We had a quick safety talk and then set off at midnight around the Hyde Park Corner one-way system, through little roads to Sloane Square and across Battersea Bridge towards Clapham Common.
A field of 125 riders is a lot larger than the FNRttC had seen before and given that half of the participants were new to the concept of night riding, with some on heavy and/or dodgy looking bikes, one could be forgiven for having a little apprehension about whether or not the ride would run to schedule. The rides routinely arrive at the coast an hour behind schedule with half the number of riders, so how was this one going to fare?
Against the odds, this was probably the smoothest running FNRttC to date. It must not be forgotten the Simon Legg is quite a legend. He had beefed up the group of Tail-End-Charlies (TEC) so there was a high level of expertise available to anyone who suffered a mechanical problem. Canisters of compressed CO2 were in abundance to speed up puncture repair (perhaps this should become a permanent feature). There were plenty of wayfinders at the front of the pack ready to give directions at intersections and mark significant potholes. Riders were appearing on Madeira Drive in Brighton by 8:00 am, which wss right on schedule. It couldn’t have gone much better! Let that be a lesson to my pessimism.
I did my share of wayfinding along the route and marked a big pothole in the middle of Lonesome Lane, just south of Reigate. Standing in the middle of the road signalling for riders to go either side of me, I felt like I should have been blowing a whistle and holding a little triangular flag above my head, like you see in front of traffic islands in the Tour de France. I was really impressed with all of the riders I saw coming past me while I was wayfinding. Even towards the end people were looking fairly fresh and smiley. The half way stop at the scout hut in Horley was instrumental in keeping both spirits and carbohydrates high. The Martlett’s volunteers pouring tea and coffee, and providing sandwiches, cakes and bananas were marvellous. It was a well deserved rest for everyone and well-timed as it came just before Turner’s Hill.
To the half way point there had been two drop-outs. One was a Martlett’s girl who was clearly struggling from the beginning and ended up in the minibus (or sag wagon) early on. The second was Charlotte, who I recognised from the ride to Bognor Regis in August 2009. She had been riding a brilliant looking penny farthing, but had come into mechanical difficulty after one of her cranks fell off after descending Reigate Hill. Despite some attempts, it was unable to be fixed so she unfortunately had to pull out and ride the sag wagon the rest of the way to Brighton.
There were some other interesting bikes on the ride too. One enormous contraption fabricated from at least three bike frames set the rider about two and a half metres above the ground. At the other extreme, a recumbent trike with a swept back windshield placed the rider’s head lower than the height of a 700c wheel. My friends Wheeled Weenie and Cathy rode the whole route on a tandem, the first time either of them had ridden on such a bike. Quite an achievement.
The tallest bike I've ever seen approaching the summit of Ditchling Beacon
The weather was dry the whole way to Brighton and it wasn’t too cold. There were several stops along the way but none were too long. Everything flowed nicely.
A few miles before Ditchling, I noticed that my front tyre had lost a lot of air. It wasn’t flat, but was quite soft. I decided to top it up and keep going. By the bottom of the Beacon it had gone down again, so I stopped to change the tube and then it was up the hill. I’ve ridden Ditchling Beacon a few times, but this time was the hardest I remember. My fitness is just not what it was before the winter and it was quite an effort getting up there. I resolved at that point to start featuring more big hills in my training.
After the Beacon, it was a nice ride past the golf club and down into Brighton for a full veggie breakfast (with hash browns) at the Madeira Café. There I got chatting and managed to put a lot of faces to names I was familiar with from the CycleChat forums. It was nice to meet lots of new people. I also managed to meet on this ride another Willesden CC member who lives not far from me in Twickenham. He noticed my club jacket while we were preparing to depart at Hyde Park Corner and came over to have a chat.
After some breakfast and chit-chatting, a bunch of us, about 12 I think, got ready to cycle back to London. At that point I discovered that my front tyre was gone again. It looks like a little flint stuck in the tyre must have been poking through to the interior just enough to cause a slow leak in the tube. So I changed the tube again and with no spares left, we set off north.
We ascended what must have been one of the steepest streets in Brighton, up under the entrance to the railway station, and continued from there towards Devil’s Dyke. Going down the other side of the Dyke was fun and I clocked about 75 km/h! The route we took followed some beautiful little country roads that were a pleasure to ride through after having been up all night. But there were a lot of hills and one of our number bonked half way up one of them, opting to stop for a long rest before finding the nearest railway station.
We stopped for a while in a little village and grabbed some food and drink to keep us going, then we jumped onto an A road and picked up the pace past Crawley and Gatwick. The group then split with four of us heading north-west and the others heading north-east towards Bromley and central London. We said our goodbyes and Mistral guided us back onto quieter roads towards Dorking. Along this stretch we encountered our first rain since leaving Hyde Park Corner the night before. As it got heavier we stopped to neck some more gels and put on our waterproof jackets. A little later the rain had stopped and I was starting to get a bit hot in the little sweatbag I’d zipped onto myself, so off came the jacket.
With Box Hill towering upwards on our right, we diverted left and took a nice narrow country lane towards Stoke D’Abernon. We started to see a number of other roadies out for their Saturday training rides. Mistral told us that there would be one last hill that is a little steep but not too long. This last hill resides on Chapel Lane and its gradient is over 20% for a good portion of the climb. After almost 200 km and no sleep, ‘not too long’ felt like it would never end and I had to summon every last bit of will power to keep myself going. I got to the top in one piece and took a good long breather while waiting for the others.
We rode past Stoke D’Abernon towards Cobham and past the Chelsea FC training grounds. The road inclined slightly as we approached a bridge over the railway line and then disaster struck. As I put on a little acceleration, I heard a massive clunk, my back wheel stopped spinning and I couldn’t move the cranks. I managed to unclip and get off the bike without falling. My first guess was that one of the rubber straps from my mudguard must have gotten caught in the spokes, but on taking a look it was in exactly the right position and the straps were well clear of the wheel. I took a closer look and then saw that a spoke on the non-drive side had snapped up near the rim and flown into the chain. It had then been wrapped around the underside of the cassette and gotten trapped between the chain and one of the jockey wheels causing the derailleur to bend out of shape.
A non-drive side spoke snapped at the rim and wrapped itself under the cassette, becoming trapped between the chain and a jockey wheel and causing the rear derailleur to bend out of shape
I couldn’t believe it. Not only was I almost at the end of the ride (about 20 km remaining), but the wheel was almost brand new, received from Planet-X in late February. I really didn’t expect to get broken spokes so soon after buying the wheels and in normal riding conditions. I’ve even been extra careful in avoiding bumps and potholes since getting the wheels as I haven’t wanted to cause them any damage. I was gutted.
The four of us all stopped and had a think what we could do. We removed the derailleur, which was bent well out of shape. We managed to get the broken spoke out and then set about shortening the chain with a view to me riding single speed the rest of the way home. That was no good though. The wheel was way out of true, so that was the end of the road for me. I thanked the guys and plodded off towards the railway station, which fortunately was quite close by. A 20 minute wait got me onto a train to Wimbledon where I grabbed an espresso, switched trains and then walked home from Norbiton.
I got home about 17:00. Recovery drink? Bit late for that, should have had it just after I stopped pedalling. Had a shower, got into my compression tights and cooked some more pasta to go with the remaining tomato/tuna sauce from the night before. Visited Wiggle to see what a new derailleur was going to cost me. I could always try bending the current one back into shape, but I don’t feel too comfortable with that. Maybe I could use this as an opportunity to upgrade from 105 to SRAM Rival or Force (or maybe Red, are there any specials on?) Of course I’d need to replace the shifters in that case (how much are they? Hmm, quite a lot. Been awake too long, starting to imagine silly things, spending money I don’t have. Better stop looking before I press Buy.) Felt sorry for myself and set my Facebook status accordingly. Maybe I’d get some sympathy. Opened a bottle of Gran Bombero, the older, wiser sibling of my favourite El Bombero. That’s nice.
Managed to stay awake until 21:00 and even thought for while I might be able to have a cosy evening in with wife, wine and a film, but that was delusional. My head hit the pillow and I was out in an instant.
Mechanicals aside, I had a great night/day out. The FNRttC was phenomenal, the weather was ideal, the ride back was fun and I made some new friends. It couldn’t have been much more enjoyable! The Martletts riders were an inspiration and the charity director who came and shook all of our hands on Madeira Drive was overjoyed with the success of the event.
But I now have a broken bike. I emailed Planet-X telling them what had happened. Dave Loughran got back to me saying that they get very few problems with their Model B wheels but that he’d like to take a look at it. I’m going to get the wheel and broken spoke boxed up tonight and sent back to them. I hope they’ll be able to fix it up under warranty. But for now, I’m off the bike. I’ll keep you updated!
The route we took from HPC to Brighton can be found on Bikely.
Registration for the next FNRttC on 30 April is now open. The route is to Southend-on-Sea. More details here.
I just received in the post my copy of Andy Allsopp‘s book ‘Barring Mechanicals – From London to Edinburgh and back, on a recumbent bicycle‘.
Andy is one of my friends from the Friday Night Ride to the Coast (FNRttC) and I met him properly in November 2009. As we rode through the night towards Brighton, in cold and wet conditions, he was telling me how he had ridden his recumbent from London to Edinburgh and back in July 2009. It wasn’t just something he’d done for a laugh, but was an Audax event that takes place every four years and draws cyclists from all over the world.
Andy Allsopp: Barring Mechanicals - From London to Edinburgh and back, on a recumbent bicycle
An Audax, or randonnée, for those of you not in the know, is a non-competitive endurance cycling event in which participants aim to complete an unmarked route within a set time limit, collecting stamps at ‘controls’ along the way to prove that they’ve followed the course. The London-Edinburgh-London (LEL) is Audax UK‘s flagship event with a distance of 1,400 km and a time limit of 116 hours and 40 minutes, which is a bit under five days. The LEL is a ride that I have recently found myself thinking about quite often. I haven’t really taken part in Audax events before, but I did enjoy a bit of cycle touring when I was a teenager. The next LEL is in July 2013 and I think I’d like to have a go. Watch this space.
Bits of Andy’s story I had already read in his LEL forum thread on CycleChat, but it’s nice to have a printed copy containing a foreword, which gives a bit of history that I wasn’t aware of (and mentions a few familiar names), and a number of pictures and charts. It’s a good read, so if accounts of heroic two-wheeled battles against Mother Nature, mechanical failure and sleep deprivation are your sort of thing, then go and buy it!
I’ll be seeing Andy and the rest of the bunch on tomorrow night’s FNRttC. The destination is Brighton and this month’s edition is a rather special one. This is the first time that a FNRttC is being combined with a charity fundraiser. Martlett’s Hospice are sending 65 riders who are all taking part to raise donations for the charity via sponsorship. They will join 60 of us more regular FNRttCers as we depart Hyde Park Corner at midnight and pedal to the south coast via Sloane Square, Clapham Common, Reigate, Horley and Ditchling Beacon. Whilst this is a nice social ride for us regulars, it could be a big challenge for some of the fundraisers, so our job is to provide technical support, guidance and most of all encouragement. The Hospice is putting on mid-way refreshments at a Scout Hut in Horley for this one rather than us making a café stop.
Although I’m not fundraising for this ride, some of the regulars have decided to and I’ve sponsored Greg Collins. If you would like to make a donation to the Hospice, you can find Greg’s Just Giving page here.
I’ve been keeping a good eye on Metcheck for the last week to see what kind of weather we’re going to be in for tomorrow night. It’s gone from extremely heavy rain all night, to less than a millimetre, to constant but moderate rain and a headwind, to the current forecast which is for no rain at all and a very light, near negligible, headwind. That’s quite a nice prospect, so I hope it doesn’t change again! Whatever the weather though, it’s bound to be a fun and memorable ride. The last FNRttC I did was in November and it was very cold and we got rained on very hard. One person from work who I had convinced to come along had to abandon half way and two others made it to the end but didn’t seem too impressed. It was still a memorable ride, though maybe for all the wrong reasons. Wet and cold together are not so fun.
But, of course, if Andy Allsopp can find it in him brave the elements day and night for 116 hours solid, then I’ve no excuse for being bothered by a little spot of rain!
I rose early this morning and headed out on a casual ride to Box Hill before work. My intention had been to ride from Kingston through New Malden and Epsom, along Headley Road at the foot of Box Hill, up the Zigzag, down the other side to Headley and then home again via Leatherhead, Oxshott and Esher. However, travelling on some unfamiliar roads without a GPS on my handlebars, I quickly made a lot of wrong turns and had to spend quite a bit of time doubling back and stopping to check the map on my phone. This cost me so much time that once I’d reached the bottom of Zigzag Road, I couldn’t even enjoy climbing it as there was no way I’d make it to work on time if I did. I also had to cut short the return, opting for the A243 from Leatherhead through Chessington and Surbiton rather than the marginally nicer and slightly longer A244 and A307 via Esher.
Nevermind. I now know a few more roads and intersections so I will be able to fit more in next time! Here’s the route I took (about 50 km):
It was quite a lot colder at 6 am than I had anticipated, about 3 degrees celcius, so I wore long finger gloves and a thermal skull cap. It was nice and dry though, with a light southerly. In fact, the southerly might have been a bit stronger than I had thought, as I felt quite a lot faster on the northbound return.
A friend from the Cheam and Morden CTC once told me that for the last fifty years Headley Road has often been referred to by cyclists as ‘Little Switzerland’. “I shan’t describe this road,” he told me, “not because I think this would reduce the pleasure of riding it, but because I couldn’t do it justice.” It is delightful.
Instead of going to Richmond Park this lunch time, I decided to have a gentle ride on a flat loop from Teddington along the north side of the Thames to Shepperton, over the bridge at Walton-on-Thames and back to work via Hampton Court and Bushy Park (about 22 km in total). The weather was cloudy but warm with a decent south-westerly. The first half of the ride was fairly gentle, but I decided to increase the pace a bit for the remainder. I hadn’t been out that way before so it was quite nice to learn some new roads.
This map is for a clockwise loop, but I actually rode it anti-clockwise. For some reason Google Maps wouldn’t let me plot the route northbound through Bushy Park.
All had been going well until I got into Bushy Park. Bushy Park has a road running through it with a lane each for northbound and southbound traffic. Near the south end the road splits around a circular pond with a diameter of about 100 metres. The lanes of traffic split at the pond with one lane going around each side. At the north and the south ends of the pond it is possible for traffic to continue around the pond by joining the opposite lane instead of continuing ahead. Traffic performing such a manoeuvre, however, must give way to any traffic already on the lane they are entering. I know this all too well as I had once powered it hard southbound through the park and wanted to circle the pond without losing any momentum so that I could continue with the effort all the way back to the north end of the road. Unfortunately there was a car coming north as I got to the bottom of the pond and so I had to slow right down to let him through. A shame, but fair enough. The give way requirement is quite clear with double white lines painted across the road and of course a give way sign (you’ll be able to see this if you switch the map to satellite and zoom in). One of the good things about the road is that the speed limit is 30 mph as oppose to Richmond Park’s 20 mph. That means it’s usually possible to ride at a fast pace without having to slow down for or overtake traffic.
Today I happened to be heading north and I was approaching the pond at about 35 km/h. Just as I was getting to where the lanes split a small car coming the other way indicated a right turn into my lane. To my complete surprise they didn’t stop at the give way, they didn’t even slow down, they just went straight through causing me to apply my brakes suddenly so as not to hit them. I have witnessed plenty of poor driving before, but it’s been a long time since I’ve had such a close call when going at that sort of speed. I was astounded at the drivers reckless driving and sheer disregard for pretty basic road rules. I shouted my disapproval, “You’re supposed to give way!”, followed by “Idiot!” when they accelerated ahead.
The car was small and a bit old-looking. A girl in her late teens or early twenties gave me a stupid look as they went off ahead of me. I was so furious. I chased after them at 45-50 km/h all the way to the north end of the park. When I got there a queue of traffic was waiting to exit through the park gates so I stopped next to the car and knocked on the window. Two middle aged ladies were sitting in the front. I said, “That was not a roundabout, you had a give way.” Had they said sorry I would have let it go and continued on my way. That’s what I would have expected from the majority of drivers, and I can understand to some degree that a road circling a round pond could be mistaken for a roundabout where one is expected to give way to the right (although that’s not a valid excuse for drivers ignoring road signs and markings, but it could be the cause of a driver misunderstanding the intersection). Instead I got a nasty, “Why don’t you grow up?” They kept edging the car ahead to get away from me, but I continued, “What? Are you trying to kill me? You were supposed to give way to me” I just got a load of abuse in response. And then one of them shouted out, as they finally pulled away from me around the corner, “Didn’t you see the indicator?” I could only follow it up with another shout of, “You had a give way!”
It reminds of two things. The first is an incident that happened to a friend of mine some years ago. He was cycling home from work along a straight piece of road when an older woman in a car wanted to turn onto the road from a side street on the left. Despite seeing him coming, she turned straight out in front of him. He had insufficient time to come to a stop and went straight into the side of her car putting a large dent in one door, damaging his bike and giving him a knee injury that took months to get over. When he asked her what on earth she was doing turning into the road in front of him like that, she replied that as she was indicating, it was his fault for not slowing down to let her through. The ignorance is astounding. Would she have done the same thing if he had been a bus?
The second thing this incident reminds me of, and on a lighter note, is a piece of Jasper Carrott stand-up in which he was talking about his gran’s driving skills (update: it’s actually his mother-in-law, not his gran, and you can hear the clip on YouTube). She knew every detail of the road code by heart. For example, she knew that when pulling into the road from a parking bay, you need to check your rear-view mirror first (to see that nothing is coming, of course). But to her there was no reason behind it, that was just a step that you had to take, so even if a ten foot truck was coming she would think, “I’ve looked in my mirror so it’s safe to pull out” (sound of screeching brakes). Despite the humour, people like this actually exist.
This is the kind of ignorance that contributes to so many injuries and fatalities. There exists a set of drivers that believe cyclists are required to give motor vehicles the priority on all occasions. I see plenty of bad drivers, particularly those who fail to indicate (or indicate after they have begun turning), but the number of good drivers I see on a daily basis well outweighs the bad ones. However, this breed of ignorant road users, the likes of which I have experienced today, really are the worst of the worst. I wonder how they ever managed to get driving licences (or if indeed they hold licences). In fact, it makes me more insistent that drivers should be retested every so often to ensure that driving skills and knowledge of the road code remain at a high level. This whole incident has really got my blood boiling. I can accept that people make mistakes and a lot of drivers I see do take corrective steps when they realise they’ve done something wrong. But to encounter a torrent of abuse from someone who has just put my life at risk by failing to stop at a give way sign is infuriating. Writing this has helped to calm me down a bit though. In hindsight, I wish I’d thought to pull my phone out and take a picture of the car & licence plate before confronting its driver.
What can we do about this rare but dangerous strain of road user? Petition the Government to provide a vaccine perhaps?
I’m back on the bike after a little absence.
A couple of weeks ago I was starting to feel like my fitness was returning. I was feeling stronger when out on the bike and sessions on the turbo were going well. Then we had a long weekend in Germany, so I had a few days off the bike. Then I got sick. I was feeling a bit rubbish last Tuesday, but still went to work. I was completely knackered after the short ride home and then felt very rubbish the next morning so I stayed home. I ended up being off work for the next three days, sleeping a good deal of the time. I tried to do some work from home on Friday, but it wasn’t a very good idea and only lasted 20 minutes.
I felt slightly better on Saturday, still rather poor though. But despite still feeling bad , I had an obligation to head into town with my daughter to do our shopping for Mothers’ Day, something I would have sorted out during the week had I not been sick. I was exhausted afterwards, but it was a successful journey. I felt a bit better again on Sunday and as the weather was so good, we went for a nice stroll along the river and through Richmond Park.
The weather the last few days has been beautiful, but it’s hard getting back to exercise after illness. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly fitness can drop off after a period of inactivity. I rode to work on Monday but only slowly. Any effort felt so much harder than normal and I was plagued with headaches which got worse throughout the day. Yesterday was a bit better and I lengthened my ride home a little, but it was still quite hard to keep up a modest pace. The headaches continued, but were not as bad as on Monday. Today I’m headache free and feeling a lot more alive!
It looked lovely outside this morning and it wasn’t too cold (I’ve actually been wearing my short finger mitts today for the first time in months!) so I left the house a little early and rode up through Richmond Park, then down through Richmond and Twickenham before getting to work in Teddington. The traffic around Richmond was much busier than usual which slowed my journey down quite a bit, but it was good to have ridden a bit further and faster than the previous two days.
By lunchtime it was 16 degrees outside, so there was no option but to get in a lap of Richmond Park! The loop from work around the park via Kingston Bridge comes to about 20 km, which is a nice distance for a lunchtime ride. I discarded the leg warmers, base layer and cap which I had worn to work and got a bit of air to my legs and head for a change. It still felt quite a strain to keep the effort up for very long, and there was a fairly gusty south-westerly, but I managed my lap of the park in 20:43 which is almost as good as I’ve done on any other occasion in the last couple of months. So not too bad, but I need to get back to 18-19 minute pace. I haven’t managed to ride a three lap challenge of the park yet this year (time constraints, not many opportunities outside of weekday lunchtimes…), but I want to improve on my PB of 58:02 this year, and preferably get close to or beat 56:00. The road surface around the park has improved a bit lately, which is nice, and there seems to be a lot less loose gravel than there was a few weeks ago. I still wish they hadn’t bothered with the resurfacing to start with, but at least it’s starting to feel a bit better now.
I’m glad I got out for a quick lap at lunchtime today. There’s nothing worse than seeing nice weather but not being able to get out and ride in it. I might have to ride home the long way tonight, to take advantage just a little bit more! However, the nice weather is not going to stay, so I expect I’ll be getting in a bit more time on the turbo. Metcheck is forecasting rain for the next ten days, which is likely to hit all of us who are on the next Friday Night Ride to the Coast. The last one I did was a frozen washout, so I hope this one won’t be quite so bad!
It’s all starting to come together. Last week I got my new wheels, so I now have a dedicated turbo wheel ready to swap on and off the bike as needed. Then on Friday I built a new shed, so I now have somewhere to store all of the bike-related stuff that has been taking up space in the lounge, such as the Brompton, turbo trainer, track pump, maintenance stand and spare tyres and wheels. I just need to fit some little shelves and pegs in there to store things on/hang things off.
I didn’t get to ride during the day yesterday, which is a bit of a shame as the weather was so good. So I decided to do some turbo training in the evening. Getting ready for turbo now only takes me a couple of minutes: swap rear wheel, engage & go! It’s nice not to have to mess around with swapping tyres, so much quicker and much less grubby.
Tacx Sirius Soft Gel Folding Magnetic Turbo Trainer
I settled into a Carmichael Training Systems (CTS) session, the same one that I attempted last week. Last week didn’t go so well. I had to stop after 30 minutes feeling completely drained, faint and with an urge to vomit. It was the first time I had been on the turbo for a while so I thought that I was just in poor fitness and that I’d overdone it. But I think there were other contributing factors. Firstly, the room temperature had been a bit too high, so this time I made sure it wasn’t so hot. I did have a fan on during last week’s session, but it doesn’t angle up or down very much and the position I’d put it in was mostly blowing air over my head rather than into my face. Last night I got it positioned directly in front of me so it was blasting straight at me for the whole session. Last week I’d also neglected to keep my blood sugar up. I’d had plently of water, but no carbs to keep me going. So I drank one bottle of electrolyte energy drink during last night’s session (along with another bottle of water), finishing it with about 15 minutes to go.
Last night went much better. It was hard work, but I finished the session feeling strong and on a bit of a high. It finished with three descending max effort intervals from three minutes down to one minute in duration. I rode in the highest gear in which I could hold a cadence of about 105 for the last three intervals. It was quite tough, but it felt good to keep the effort consistent to the end of each one. I’m going to try to get on the turbo at least once a week, but two or three times if possible, at least until the summer kicks in and I can start riding in the park until late evening without the risk of being taken out by phantom deer and suicidal rabbits (I once even had a bat fly into my helmet whilst riding laps of Richmond Park after dark).
The problem with turbo, at least doing it by yourself, is that it isn’t very fun. Most of the turbo workout videos are pretty bland as well. The CTS workout, although providing a good range of sprints and steady efforts needed for effective training, is not very interesting to watch. It just has a bunch of riders wearing CTS kit and sitting on nice clean, trainer-docked bikes, arranged such that they would make for a rather novel department store window display. The bulk of the video shows them sweating through the session whilst receiving instructions and comments from the coach. There are about 30 seconds of actual cycling footage in the video I did last night (during a recovery), showing a couple of attacks and a sprint for the line. I’m sure those snippits are suppossed to be motivational, but they are quite short-lived and that’s about as exciting as it gets. Of course, these videos are meant to be for training, not entertainment, and they do serve that purpose.
However, I recently stumbled across some new turbo workouts from The Sufferfest while reading Damien Breen’s blog, In The Saddle. Rather than being organised around a dull set of routine intervals showing other people on turbos, these workouts have a first-person rider’s view of real footage from the classics and the 2009 World Championships. The efforts don’t come in neatly-timed predictable intervals, but in the form of attacks from other riders which need to be chased down. I haven’t tried one yet, but from the demo videos online, the workouts look like far more fun than a traditional turbo session and I think I’ll be downloading one of them soon!