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Rough 200k then. Slushy at the start, lots of main road diversions, and one rather painful ice stack. Couldn't tell you if it was black ice as it was very dark by then. Still, it was worth it for some lovely Cheshire/Shropshire winter scenery and views of snow capped Welsh mountains. Might be the only finisher out of about fifteen starts, might be one other. Note to self, if the organiser send out an email advising people not to start, they may be onto something.
It was icy down south so it must've been bad up that way. I made a point of finishing yesterday's ride in daylight as last week's was pretty bad A roads at night in the pissing rain, just waiting to die. Mine was only 120k. I assume your route was a bit quieter? What sort of tyres are you running? I'm going to try Durano Plus 28s on the Kinesis - they're lighter than they Marathon Plus 25 rear I have currently and I'm hoping a bit more comfortable/safer during winter than the 23 front.
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The usual 700x23s, although the pressure was down to about 80psi-ish as they haven't been pumped up in a bit. Couldn't tell what type right now as the bike is literally too filthy to tell. In fairness, the treated roads were fine, it was just one short stretch between two of them that caught me out. If I had made it another 100m I would have been in the clear. I've quite a bit of experience riding slicks on snow and ice and reckon technique and experience count for a lot more than tyre width. I don't reckon wider tyres would have saved me from the stack. In the end it was as Audax so no real issues with slowing to a crawl for some sections. Diversions probably put me about 15k overdistance though.
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Yeah, we don't tend to get black ice in Melbourne :)
I've ridden in snow and ice for the last 3/4 years I guess so I know roughly what I'm dealing with (our whole bunch rode through a massive patch a few years ago on slicks with no issues but on a Brighton ride everyone except me went down and fbr broke his collarbone). It's the bits I don't see that I'm worried about (and the massive potholes I always seek out and hit in the dark). If I wanted grip, I wouldn't be using cheap, durable tyres I'd be on race tyres :)
I guess I'm thinking more along the lines of every little bit of tyre on the road helps. The roads here will only get worse. Might stop shaving and try 32s in a few months.. what sort of sandals should I buy? ;) -
I also tend to be quite lucky although I try not to think about it. That sort of thing distracts you from the frictionless surface just beneath your wheels.
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A day of bimbletrack at Swinley.
[ame]http://connect.garmin.com/activity/135331887[/ame]
The reprobates gathered, Tester was there early, then Gabes and I followed by Tom. and Unharmed. It was cold, average for the duration at Swinley was 1.5 degrees. By now we seem to be good at wearing appropriate clothing so it was not actually too grim. Plus there is plenty of tree cover so we were never subjected to cold winds.
Decided to do a slightly different take on our usual route out, and headed to Labyrinth as our first named destination. There is a fantastic section of singletrack for nearly the entire route, and we got stuck in. Clearly others had been out on Saturday as the trail was muddy and slippery. I had just received my new Sidi carbon disco slippers and made the decision to install the cleats with the more difficult release setting. Tom.'s joy at this announcement and the likelihood of my imminent unclipping failure was palpable. About 5 minutes into the ride and an inverse cambered corner with mud and roots took me out, wheel span, lost momentum and then the sudden tumble. Thankfully there were 2 of our group and some others there to witness my rolling in the mud (and yes it happened to fast for me to unclip but I doubt the cleat change made any difference). Given the conditions not even my pride was dented by this and I was back up and moving before others even realised my error had occurred.
Thankfully I was not the only one having issues with the ground underneath, clearly I was into falling of bikes on muddy roots before it was cool, as the others then jumped my bandwagon. Gabes I believe was next, followed by Unharmed ending upside down with his bike above him. Even our most adept rider, Tom. had a few moments on slippery climbs. Tester however seemed to escape all such problems, clearly not a dedicated follower of fashion.
It has been amazing watching peoples skills and fitness develop, Gabes' cardio has improved massively in a month of trips to Swinley and clearly his turbo sessions (despite leaving him with dead legs yesterday) have been paying off. It was also interesting to see how the 2cm slip of his saddle on the rails led to some lower back pain, even on an MTB fit can be a serious issue.
Given the treacherous terrain on the day, and taking our regular dives into the mud into consideration, it was clear that compared to this time last year Unharmed and myself are staying upright a lot more of the time and can tackle a lot more challenging sections with a greater degree of success. The regular jaunts out are making a difference. The best thing is that we get to enjoy ourselves more as we become more adept.
There was a comedy bike throwing moment from Gabes when he had a DJ moment of frustration after one section of trail led to a slew of slips and wheel spin. Labyrinth was wet, huge puddles on some of the berms made it interesting - for me it was the question of hold the usual line but be unable to see what was hidden in the puddle or take a less preferable line but know what was under the wheels. First time down i was cautious, the second I was trying to follow Gabes and took the risk. Descending is the greatest of my many areas of weakness on an MTB, still lacking the confidence to let go and for the bike to do all the work.
There was the added excitement of my new fork having rather given up the ghost, the seals seem to have all died and it has been spraying oil everywhere, so it now has an interesting habit of suddenly plunging but in an utterly unpredictable manner. Probably because on descents I try to keep my weight back a bit it was not so bad, but on minor dips it was suddenly sinking.
The climb of heart death after Labyrinth is actually becoming easier, and my heart rate is not rising to such high levels as the first time I nailed it a few weeks ago. After the second go at the descent we noticed some others riding SS and I mentioned to Tester that there were others for him to play with, Jorj I hope you did not take offence (as you suddenly decided it was time to return to the carpark and back home).
We took a meandering route of singletrack back to the Lookout, including finding a couple of new bermed sandy roundabouts in the middle of the forest, before heading out to Stickler and Tank Traps, by this point the effects of the cold were starting to take their toll, it was not so much that we were physically chilled but that the extra work by our bodies to stay warm was really starting to tire us out.
A return home was decided upon, and we all had to work out logistics for cleaning off our bikes, it had been filthy going. Tom. was to avail himself of Unharmed's hose, and Gabes to come back to mine to remove the filth.
There was talk of possible Boxing Day ride, I am hoping I get a chance to burn off some of the xmas xs.
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good to see people getting loads of action and fun out of rides.
going to be in Lanzarote tomorrow for the wierdest winter solstice ever...
for the record though, running competitions are taking up the weekends,
in the week the winter strategys for keeping happy over the winter commuting include-
always having a pair of fresh shoes on the radiator, ready to go after coming in from the rain.
merino.
happy festering season everybody be back after the new year for more weekends rides
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What sort of pedals are you using andyp? I saw some crossers going around Hillingdon the other week.. no, not 4th cats off the track.. actual cx racers. I was very tempted.
You should do it, you'd be a natural.
I'm using SPDs. I've some Eggbeaters that I've used in the mud previously so think I'll go back to them for the rest of the season.
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I raced the London Cyclocross League round at Herne Hill today, organised by Vicious Velo. It was great fun, a really well designed course using the best bits of of the site and lots of sticky, slick mud.
I totally screwed up the start as my left cleat wouldn't clip in so was delighted when they stopped the race after less than 30 seconds when they failed to send us the right way. I made sure I didn't make the same mistake again and was nicely on the wheel of one of the leading vets on the first couple of laps until he lost it on a left hander and I went around him. I had a few moments where I thought it was going to go but held it upright all the way round, but lost of a couple of places to a couple of Dulwich Paragon riders in the last couple of laps.
I rode with my head today, and tried to ensure I finished rather than going all out for a placing, so was pleased with my race and where I finished. I had some more cleat engagement issues but always managed to get them to re-engage eventually. I was very glad I had tubs on though, as it meant I got grip on most of the surfaces.
At a guess I think I'll finish top ten in the vets and, hopefully, top 30.
'Only vets ride with worn cleats.' :)
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Pffft, Andy, we know that you never, ever invest in any new kit. :)
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Not officially the weekend, but I'm off work so...
[ame]http://connect.garmin.com/activity/135951807[/ame] -
Today was the first day of my winter training camp, (otherwise known as Christmas and New Year at my folks in Scotland). On yesterday's train journey from Euston to Glasgow I was filled with anticipation at the thought of the week's riding ahead, further heightened by reading the biography of Robert Millar. Millar, as it turns out, did much of his training as an amateur in the region where my parents live. On Christmas Day 1979 his training ride was "the three lochs", a 70 mile loop starting from Anniesland Cross in Glasgow and taking in the Gare Loch, Loch Long and Loch Fyne, with some punchy climbing in between.
Today's ride partially overlapped with his route, comprising a modest 55 miles from Kilcreggan to Dunoon by way of Loch Long, Loch Fyne and Loch Eck. The only real climb is the pass to "Rest and Be Thankful" in Glen Groe from sea level to 800 feet, but the new road is a steady pull and by no means as challenging as the old gravel road that winds along before jagging up in a series of switchbacks at the head of the glen.
Starting the ride at 8.40, I promptly punctured less than a mile from home. After a quick change and patch I faced a climb of a few hundred metres up the Peaton hill with a 17% pitch. That got the heart pumping and I was zipping along the edge of Loch Long towards Arrochar when the inevitable rain showers commenced. My gloves were soon soaked so I stopped in the village shop in Arrochar to buy some more fresh ones for when the sun came out. The proprietor asked me where I was riding to, then replied 'you must be mad' seeming to add 'I've never been that far in my life' with her eyes.
Out of Arrochar, I started the steady climb over Rest and Be Thankful and was pleased to find a steady rythm that kept my heart rate well below lactate threshold. The work done since October seems to be bearing some fruit, as I was able to switch to the big ring and sprint (sort of) through the last hundred metres before stopping for a snap looking back down the pass (see below). There followed a rapid descent to Loch Fyne with dry gloves but sodden feet.
The remainder of the ride (some 25 miles) snaked along Loch Fyne then Loch Eck, with only slightly rolling terrain. The only challenge was the stiffness in my back, which stems from not being able to get the set-up of the winter bike exactly the same as the summer one. Upon arrival in Dunoon, after a ride of 3:20, I dropped into my dad's office and spent the next 40 minutes trying to regain circulation in my toes.
Back home and after a nap and some food, I now need to plan a route for tomorrow.
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- Festive 500
It started with the Christmas Cracker
[ame]http://connect.garmin.com/activity/136003071[/ame]
One member of lfgss.com took it upon himself to recce a route out into Kent, so I decided to tag along. As it was organised on a forum focusing on fixed wheel bikes, I took mine out for the day. I was even slightly prepared for this one, having tinkered with the bike this week, to the extent of even truing wheels. I had intended to go a tooth down for winter, previously on 49/20 but only had 48/19 in the toolbox so gearing has increased to 66.8 inches, with 25mm winter tyres.
Last night the clothes were laid out, - the decisions regarding layers were made, shoe choice was not made (dominators or dragons), and porridge left to soak. So when the alarm went this morning it was a case of turn on the coffee machine, porridge in microwave and quick shower. By the time I was towelled dry the coffee could be made and the conscious day could begin. Quickly checked the forecast – it was looking not too bad so decided to take the carbon shoes (they are not as weather proof as the dominators) but to pack some overshoes, rain jacket packed, and decided a gillet was in order for the day.
London traffic to the assembly point at Victoria was stop start, but thankfully the last minute shoppers were not up yet clogging the roads. Met Laner and Amygdala at the station and promptly got on a train. A quick train to St Mary Cray and we met the rest of the reprobates, Spybot, Tonyme and Bernie. Tonyme has a contact at a screen printer round the corner from the station so we were lucky enough to get coffee and mince pies and a guided tour of the factory before the ride started. I doubt this will occur on all my festive rides, but this was an auspicious start to the series. The factory immediately made me think of the Reprographics blog by another cyclist http://generallucifer.wordpress.com possibly the funniest, driest account of working in a printers.
There is a certain grim joy to bringing the wrong toy to the party, and our route was bumpy and I am a lump, so things were going to be hard work today. So the perversion of riding fixed where gears would have been preferable was revelled in. From the outset we were quickly into climbing, and my legs were in dragging mode. Probably not helped by the day before doing 50 miles and a visit to the gym. It felt the wind today was not in our favour, but then I have never experienced it to help me, it is either against me – a day of ‘bad legs’, or I have ‘good legs’ and clearly am not wind assisted at all.
Kent is not an area I know well, but some of the lanes were familiar from doing the Tuesday Night Ride Club jaunts. However things have a different aspect between a cold winters day and summer dusk, so it was an odd sense of faux déjà vu. To compound this, there was the sense that I may have also ridden some of today’s course in the opposite direction previously, so it was all slightly disorientating. Thankfully we had our human guidance machine – Oli Spybot, who was constantly giving directions and ensuring we stayed together as a bunch. I am always grateful to people to do this kind of service, it can be quite exhausting taking the responsibility for the groups welfare and he did it with calm and grace.
The Garmin was playing silly buggers today. On all the steepest climbs it would give a %age incline for a while and then suddenly stop telling me any more about the gradient. Not sure if this is designed to protect or antagonise my fragile mental capacities regarding steep hills, at 14 stone, I am clearly not cut out for ascents. It can be frustrating when the data is so usually to hand and it suddenly stops.
Magpie Bottom was one of those ascents, it is preceded by a stinky downwards passage past a herd of cows which was bad enough. The birds arse was even worse, strewn with slimy crap on a ludicrous bit of steep country road, the Garmin stopped giving incline data just after it flashed 18%, my knees were burning and I stood out of the saddle. Clearly my technique was poor – probably too much toe down bringing my weight forwards of the bottom bracket and the rear wheel slipped and my trajectory went from up to straight into the bank, though thankfully got a foot down in time to save myself a tumble.
A lot of our conversation revolved around the days conditions, a gentle drizzle for most of the time. But the efforts we were putting in meant the rate of perspiration and transpiration exceeded the precipitation, so it was not too detrimental. The damp under tyres did impede the descents, some of those would have been so much fun spinning like lunatics, though given the sketchy nature of mud, moss and grit it did not inspire confidence to let go. Max speed achieved was 35.9 mph, so approximately 180rpm cadence was achieved.
We nipped through Knole Park, which was an utter delight, no golf balls came our way which was a relief, the path through the grounds was great fun to let the legs loose on, it offered good grip and clearly there were no cars around to pull out from a side road.
At Knockholt some of the group wanted to visit a pub – the décor sounded bizarre from the accounts given, something to do with a train going round the Christmas tree. Sadly Bernie and I both had things to do this afternoon, so decided we would head back to the capital together.
Earlier this year I was hospitalised down in the West Country, with compartment syndrome after an accident. Came close to losing a leg – it needed rotten nerves and muscle to be removed. Bernie had visited me during those dark days, when I was heavily sedated and the medical staff were not being forthcoming as to a likely prognosis. Thankfully their worst case scenarios did not materialise, and these days the leg has some impressive scars and works quite well, but not as well as it used to. It was a delight to chew the cud with Bernie, without the morphine fug. He is such an elegant rider, I am used to seeing him on ridiculous lo-pro bikes in fixie skidder guise, but this has clearly put him in good shape to spend long time smoothly turning his cranks down in the drops. My riding never feels effortless, Bernie looks like he could spend all day on a bike and not break a sweat.
Had never used the carbon soled shoes for fixed riding, and it did show a gap in the damaged legs pedal stroke, a little deadspot that will need to be ironed out. May have to investigate one legged turbo drills to address this. Carbon soles did make a difference on ascents, the lack of flex and increased power was appreciated today, but they are terrible to walk in.
We parted ways at Bromley and I thought it would make sense to pop in to the lovely people at Brixton cycles to discuss bike nerdery, Xmas plans and just a general catch up.
Hoping to see some of them on Sunday for a Waifs and Strays ride around London (any excuse to get a few more festive miles in). From Brixton it was the familiar route back to Kew, I got into the house and the heavens opened. Some braised oxtail and red cabbage helped warm me up before a quick bus ride to Richmond to pick up the 29er from Bikelab, tomorrow I plan to get a few off road miles done at Swinley Forest. Stupidly forgot the Garmin so can’t claim the 2 miles back home with that bike! - Festive 500
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^^^That road up there looks eminently ridable and worth the trek alone.
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The motorcycle club my dad is in, the Loch Lomond MCC, used to run a hill climb up it every September. We used to form part of a working party who'd go and clear the road the weekend, including digging new drainage ditches to try and keep the road surface free from surface water.
This was back in the late 1970s, but the surface was very rideable then.
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The plan for today was to spin out to Loch Long, hop over to Loch
Lomond by way of Glen Douglas, then return via Glen Fruin. A cursory
glance at the map told me the route was around 35 miles and it was
plain that the rain would be unrelenting. This removed any uncertainty
over choice of clothes, so I donned my thickest gloves and jacket and
set out.The lethargy in my legs unwound itself in the first few miles and I
was soon congratulating myself on getting out in spite of the weather.
I was flowing at tempo and the sensations were good as I made my way
along Loch Long. Forty minutes into the ride the first challenge
revealed itself, with a road leading up and away to Glen Douglas (see
picture below). This rarely frequented road provides a stupendous
climb of about a mile, rising steeply from the wooded shore up to a
moorland plateau. First I was spinning, then grinding out of the
saddle in the lowest gear ratio, before the gradient flattened out
over the top of the glen. My reward was to skittle down a mud strewn
and potholed road for five or so miles until I came to the bonnie bank
of Loch Lomond.I had been dimly conscious that my good pace to that point was thanks
to a tailwind rather than a mercurial transformation in my ability. As
I turned for home that fact hit me slap in the face. There followed a
sapping pull along the A82, with the spray from holiday traffic
ensuring I got fully soaked. So it was a relief to turn into Glen
Fruin, where much of the climbing is done at the outset before the
road sweeps along the edge of the valley. The headwind and rain
intensified and as my power ebbed it became obvious that two bananas
was insufficient sustenance. The chute back down to the Gareloch and
the slow crawl homewards along the shore was made even more
dispiriting when I realised I had *been out on the bike for over three
hours. Three hours!Back home i jumped in the shower whilst drinking a coke so as to
reheat and take on sugar simultaneously. After some food, a nap,
then even more food, I checked Google maps and found my ride had been
closer to 47 miles than 35 miles. So much for judging a route distance
by eye.
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Sorry for hijacking the thread for holiday rather than weekend rides.
Andy - sounds like you used to come up this way a lot. Is there a family connection? My parents moved up here about eight years ago.
Miro - you don't see many cyclists up here, and the a roads can be quite busy with traffic year round, but off the beaten track the riding is amazing. Well worth a visit with a bike to the west of Scotland.
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We lived in Helensburgh for 11 years when I was a kid so I know the area well. We spent a week in Arden 18 months ago, and revisited lots of the areas I'd known. The road alongside Loch Long is as twisty and bumpy as I remembered it. That climb up to Glen Douglas is fearsome. Did you use the new road through Glen Fruin? The old one had that fantasic descent down onto the main road, with banked hairpin bends.
hippy
The_Seldom_Killer
spenceey
dancing james
andyp
Oliver Schick
Shannonball
TheorySwine
miro_o-
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What sort of pedals are you using andyp? I saw some crossers going around Hillingdon the other week.. no, not 4th cats off the track.. actual cx racers. I was very tempted.