The Richmond Park 3-Lap Challenge

lpg hippy, you're not fat..

lpg, and i'm not blind????

i'm 15 stone..

good point about the seatpost, there, Smithy

surely that would also apply to the dura-ace brakes?

they sold me just the front, it was a good price, it probably takes a while to fit properly and i couldn't be arsed to hunt around to save a few quid.
i already had the saddle.

Furry, as they say, Muff

I'm gonna be giving this a whirl tomorrow at about 1pm-ish. 3 laps, fixed, fast as you can, time yo'self. Anyone fancy it?
Car park/cafe just by Roehampton gate 12:30-1pm.

you still going Brett?

Sorry, I'll still be drinking..

hippy Sorry, I'll still be drinking..

Do you ever stop?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGEKnvXfYkU

Anyone done this yet?

i do 3 laps just can't be arsed to time myself

it takes about an hour...

manged a 20.58 lap today, could go a bit quicker as there was a bit of a headwind and i had to stop at 2 of the roundabouts, could probably take 30-40 seconds off but down to 19min! no way. thats shaved leg and pain territory, and possibly drugs.

well i guess a year of riding has made me a bit fitter
went round today with a mate who had a gps/computer thingy and we did 3 laps at 18,18:10, 18:20 no drafting, mostly side by side with a bit of chatting and got stuck behind dyno-rod going up sawyers. am going to try and go a bit faster tomorrow and see how much i can improve on that time. i waited at the top of some hills as my friend was on gears so i guess there's another minute to be taken off?
i'll hope his computer thingy is accurate? i'll be gutted if i'm still over an hour for the 3 laps.

Enjoying the drugs then...

100% me FTW

100% meth FTW

54:30 is quick for 3 laps in this weather. Well done to you sir.

I'm now scared of leaving the house, I've been hammering the Turbo for about 20 hours a week since November, it's so warm indoors.

Gorgeous to be down there this monrning - a little windy but beautiful sun. I'm running about 72" at the moment and the hills were a bit lung-popping. Still managed 67 mins which is not earth shattering but I'm happy enough - I had a reasonably intense hangover, and no pals to draft, and, and...

So far I'm 4 minutes faster on gears than fixed.

66:25 on gears.
70:05 on 67" fixed.

Weather was better for the geared bike run though.

Comparing the two runs (with a 3km trip to and from the park):

(Pink plot is the geared bike. Blue is the fixed.)

Speed wise: http://www.greenbank.org/misc/rp_comparison_speed.jpg
HR wise: http://www.greenbank.org/misc/rp_comparison_hr.jpg

I slacked off on the first lap on fixed. I also got horrendous cramp on the 3rd lap on fixed on the descent to Ham gate (28.5km on the graph). Had to stop for 30 seconds to stretch it out.

Also, geared bike I can descend faster, and maintain the speed for longer.

Managed 57.3kph (177rpm) on this weekends hilly ride so I'll have to give it another go on fixed soon.

Goal is sub 60-mins on gears. Sub 65-mins on fixed. 3 laps is as near to 20 miles as you'll ever get, so an hour for 3 laps represents the holy grail of a 20mph average.

67" is too low for a RP TT gear. I guess you're just riding what you've got though?

Want

67" is too low for a RP TT gear. I guess you're just riding what you've got though?

Exactly. 67" is currently fitted to get me spinning for the hilly rides. It's what I used for the Elenith and will be using for the BCM.

I could fit the 16T sprocket and go for a 76" gear, but that involves faffing with the chain too (mudguards mean I have limited capacity in the dropouts). May even fit the 48T chainring and go full whack at it with a 79" gear. Will wait for London-Edinburgh-London to be out of the way first.

Hard finding a balance isn't it? I mean generally for road rides, not just RP. Surely a 79" gear is out of the question... knee death on the hills... a 72" gear had me palpatating mildly up the steep one (anti-clockwise). But I can just make it up Sawyer's in the saddle. Was spinning out pretty scary fashion down Test Hill (hipsters try that and tell me you don't need a front brake!), but really good cadence on the flat.

I'd drop it to 69" or so if I was heading out to real hilly country - say around Shere.
Olly

my time was just wishful thinking and an incorrectly fitted speed sensor on a friends bike :-(
however a couple of weeks ago i did a 20.30 clockwise followed by a 19.50 anti clock (supposedly harder that way) and got stuck behind traffic half way down sawyers hill so another 10-20 seconds to take off? i wasn't ready to collapse or puke so i guess riding a bit harder means a sub hour is possible sometime in the next couple of months. on 72gi which seems about right maybe if you wanted to save a few more seconds then a 74-76 would be better but i'm not bothered enough to try it.
not got a geared bike yet but would expect it to be a minute or so quicker over the 3 laps.

Hard finding a balance isn't it? I mean generally for road rides, not just RP. Surely a 79" gear is out of the question... knee death on the hills...

79" isn't that much over 74" which I used to use (and lap RP on). Not something I'd want to run for a long period, but for a few attempts at fast laps I'm definitely willing to go for it. I did London to Thorne (320km) on 76" into a headwind. The Northern section may be flat but there are a few little snaps coming out of Cheshunt which were interesting with a big gear and 6kg of stuff in a bag (3 day mini-tour).

Putting a bigger gear on to cover the lack of spin-fu is going at it arse about face, and I fell into this trap a while ago. That's partly why I dropped down to 67" in order to get myself spinning. Still got some way to go to get to the magic 200rpm.

I'd drop it to 69" or so if I was heading out to real hilly country - say around Shere.

I usually use a 71" gear for my Surrey Hills loop:- [ame]http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/191165[/ame

Gets me up everything except the top of Sheephouse Lane (Wotton to Friday St turn near Abinger Common) and White Down (from the hairpin onwards).

67" gets me up prolonged 15% climbs, with fresh legs I might be able to do White Down, but not when I've done 60km to get there (or even 30km from Westhumble station).

65:00 last night round a sunlit but very windy park. On a 70" gear - was so windy I did not need to brake going down test hill... ...tired myself out so bad I couldn't even call in at Souths on the way home. Weak.