Winter riding #3: Still no mudguards

Actually I might need to buy some new ones...

So I've actually only been out on the bike once* in February which is not what I planned at all. Although having only got in about 5 foul weather rides means my winter kit will last "forever"

I've had the usual sniffles and days when I should be riding but there are jobs to be done, but nothing to really get in the way. I've got decent enough kit that I arrive home frozen through but not delirious. I think in this instance it might have been nice to be going on club rides. Camaraderie and a group of fellow sufferers.

Another issue with winter riding is timing. In the summer you can get up at 6 or 7 and head off out for 80-90km and still be back by lunch. If it's pitch black at 8 o'clock then you need hi vis and lights. Likewise in the summer if it gets to 3 o'clock and I've finished whatever I'm doing I might head out for a ride. In winter you can start to feel the dark creeping in and an afternoon ride can suddenly become negotiating busy retail areas as they close down for the night.

I have this week, however, been finally allocated a locker in the work shower area so commuting in for a ride out after work as the weather picks up suddenly becomes a real possibility. I'll have to look into routes out of London from tower bridge...


*Once on the road bike. I've done errands and the odd commute on the Brompton

Winter riding #2: Still not remembered the mudguards on...

I've been getting out every Sunday afternoon now for the last couple of months. A quick 35-45km ride up to the M25 and around a few country lanes, before heading back home. It's been taking me 1.5-2.5 hours because of traffic towards the beginning and end of each ride. What I'm starting to find peculiar is the routine of it. This ride in all it's variations has started to resemble my laps of the park. I can't go much further out because of the time it takes to get back. By 2.5 hours I'm busting for the loo and I've run out of water. A combination I particularly hate.

When riding a sportive or a ride from A to B the first stop is normally a couple of hours in. Go to the loo. Get some more water. Eat a bit. Get going. Repeat. the only ride in London I've done with any regularity, that even comes close to this is the Richmond park run.

The ride from my house to Richmond park is about 25km. Each lap is around 10km with a cafe at one end and a toilet and tap at the other. Effectively this means you can ride down there and then stop for a bite and a drink. Do a few laps (Stopping to use the loo) and then stop for a coffee and sandwich before heading back home. The whole ride is between 50 and 90 km and you feed yourself twice with a couple of loo stops. Basically an "in city" sportive on open roads. The ride there and back can be a little dull and for some reason always takes 90min on the way back.

What astounded me today was that I'm riding in the same kit that I rode spring and late summer rides. Admittedly there's a merino base layer and the gilet isn't coming off... but still. It's been startlingly windy. Enough to stop me dead-in-my-tracks last weekend, but this time last year I was wearing my jacket over a jersey.

2015 as it nears the end

As we get towards the end of 2015 I can look back from a position I didn't expect to be in.

I signed up to do the Newcastle to London this year but dropped out after my partner asked me to. I wasn't prepared and it wouldn't have gone well. I did spend the year doing sportives for the first time. I did 4 this year totalling 300 miles riding at speed. This is something I intend to keep up and I've already booked my first for next year. Regularly pushing myself with a group of friends meant I went out most weeks and rode hard. On my own.

I didn't do another triathlon. After the broken foot I was scared to. But I'll be back and I already have a duathlon booked for the end of next year.

I've lost weight through the regular exercise and I've done almost as much yoga as I have cycling. I've found the calm, intense, slow stretching and introspection good for improving both my physical and mental flexibility and resilience.

I didn't buy a new bike. Emma is still going strong although she has a few new parts. Some of the remaining original parts have got to be replaced after last weeks adventures.

I now work in a different field for different people at a different organisation. 12 years at Lewisham and now 6 months in a new job.

A lovely day out

I don't get to ride with Jonny very often and this day out had been planned for a couple of months. Quite simply I was going to ride up to his, have a cup of tea with the family, go for a ride, pub lunch and back. 

Inauspiciously I had been out to Camden to enjoy all that Camden had to offer the previous night. For those of you that don't know, Camden mostly offers loud music, greasy food and beer. I may not have been in peak physical form at the point of departure. 

To get to Jonny's house I have to climb out of Stoke Newington up the Holloway Road, and up through Highgate. The first 3 miles are mostly climbing. 

At mile 4 a horrible crunching noise preceded my bike changing itself into top gear. My rear derailleur cable had snapped. 

Never one to let a problem like only having 2 gears get in the way of a nice day out I carried on. The thinking was that I'd bodge it into a medium gear at Jonny's and just get on with riding. 

At Jonny's after a brief respite for cheese on toast and tea I preceded to discover that there was nothing to be done about the gearing. I'd got 2 gears (50x11 and 34x11) and I was 13 km from home. 

Not ideal but I'd survive if there wasn't too much climbing. There were 2 large hills at the beginning and then a few flat miles and shallow swooping descents. By the time we reached the pub there was a loud grinding noise from chain rub at the front derailleur and a clattering as the chain loosely wove through the jockey wheels at the back. I checked the GPS. Another 14.6km done. 

We were at the edge of the M25 so I couldn't be too far from home. 

We looked into the pub. Mostly Middle-Aged, tweed-wearing and definitely not in sweaty Lycra. We sat outside until Debs and A arrived. 

A pleasant lunch with some fine ale followed. The sitting changes and more families arrived. We felt just about OK in Lycra. 

By the time we left the pub, the evening was drawing in. I'd only got prescription sunglasses with me and I realised as it got progressively darker that I'd need to lose them shortly. 

An improbably long descent followed. I must really check how it's possible, but the journey from the pub right back to my house had 2 short climbs. The rest I did in the larger (and less noisy) gear. All 23.5 kms. 

All told, an improbably sunny day and fine riding despite the odds being against us. I'd always wondered how people managed to do long rides like the Dunwich Dynamo on a singlespeed and I think the answer is simply psychological. When I started riding I always worried that I didn't have enough low gears. I don;t worry about that so much now. Some hills are just too steep and long for me to manage, but very few these days. The question is "Can I do this?" not "Should I?" or "Do I want to?"

Cycling in 2015

In my first post of the year I talked about 3 decisions for 2015. Decisions 1 and 2 are progressing nicely with my leaving date getting closer and my first application activity getting under way so onto...

Decision 3: Do a cycling event that pushes me harder than I've been pushed on a bike.

I've signed up to do the Newcastle to London ride.

"Hey!" I hear you thinking. "That's not further than you've ridden before?"

That's right. It's only about 300 miles (483 kilometres). Lands end to John O'Groats is further. This event however has a target time of  24 hours; Which means I  need to average 20 kms an hour over 24 hours. I'll have a couple of hours off the bike and stops every few hours to refill water and snack supplies so my average will need to be nearer 25 kms an hour.

This is a much bigger ride than I've ever managed before. To achieve this I'm going to need to get some progressively bigger distances in between now and August. This is basically the Dunwich Dynamo 2.5 times in one go.

I've got the Velothon  in Cardiff  which is 50 kms as my first mass participation ride of the year and I'm thinking of the Ride to the Sun as an overnight practise run at about half the distance. In between I think I'm going to have to do some hill based interval training and some London-Brighton-London or London-Cambridge-London weekend rides leading up to it.

There is also the small matter of directions....

Winter blues

After an autumn of relative inactivity (due to injury) and an almost unsurpassed selection of invites to parties, beer festivals, catch up drinks, gigs and general socialising; I am feeling extra sluggish as we head into the winter.

Despite some weight gains and a feeling that my heart maybe full of butter and cheese, I am keen to get back out there. I've recently started running again as I have been given the all clear on the broken metatarsal and it is an activity ideally suited to winter mornings. Running in the dark is nowhere near as scary as riding in the dark.

I have, as of this last weekend, broken out the 'windstopper' running tights which proved such a good buy last January. I am still running in a light windcheater and running vest at this point however and am saving the deep winter top for running in snow.

My life has taken an interesting turn in the last few weeks. I have worked at the  same place for 12 years and for the last 4 years have been aware that the department I work in will be restructured at some point. That point is now. The structure going forward seems ideally suited for me to take a promotion and to move on in the organisation. Had it happened 4 years ago I might have done just that.

I applied for an estimate on voluntary severance and it came back with a monetary figure that my employer thinks is worthy of my service so far. In the public sector you don't get pay rises based on work you do. There are no bonuses and there are no awards or presentations for long service. Just an amount when you finally get spat out of the machine.

I have decided to get out before I'm spat out. I'll leave local government... maybe for good while I'm still young enough to try something else. I may try contracting or I may get another job. My aim is to get a mortgage and buy somewhere to live. Once I have that sorted I'm going to work out what to do with the rest of my life.

The hill that beat me (reprise#2)

3 years ago, whilst in the early stages of training for LEJOG, I wrote a blog post about cycling around Richmond park. I had trouble with one of the hills. I wrote about how I hoped to return and beat the hill once I had improved.

I wrote about achieving this in a post back in 2013, however today I noticed a new development

This morning I rose early to meet Jonny at Richmond Park. The plan was for me to cycle down and back, but we would do a couple of laps of the park and have a catch-up. The day that I had gone to the park for the first ride, Jonny didn't make it due to a crash. He was ok but I'm not sure we've ever ridden it together. 

The ride there took a little longer than I remembered but it is effectively the first hour of the Bike to Bestival route.

We set off in the same direction as the very first time. Very quickly we were on the beginning slope of the hill. A couple of minutes later we were at the top. I had had so much trouble with this short sharp hill only a few years earlier. But today it was over before it really began (to paraphrase Morrisey). 

It's odd how perception of effort changes over time. Today's problem or challenge can quite easily become a daily achievement with enough hard work.

I noticed a similar effect with the Dunwich Dynamo. The first year it seemed incredibly far. A gargantuan achievement. This year it rained and I cycled the whole thing with road rash down one leg... and yet it seemed so much more manageable. I wonder if that's how I'll feel about triathlons by this time next year?

Distance and relativity

I've just totted up the distances I've logged on the MWA app since I changed my tyres at the end of april. From the 28th of April to the 4th July I logged 701.8km.

It's all relative...

When I started riding in preperation for the LEJOG ride a couple of years back I would have been astounded at the volume of kms stated above... In fact I was as that was the sort of distances I had scheduled in for training. In reality 300km of the above is training rides. The rest is transportation.

When I got the brompton I was doing about 16 km a day as my round trip commute and found it exhausting at first and exhilerating after that.

By the time I started on the Kona the commute was 32-34km each day as a round trip but I didn't do it every day.

I saw both these as training rides. Now it's just transport.

In the end I thought of the ride to Brighton more as a fun day out than a training exercise. I don't know about you but I think that's a good thing.

The hill that beat me (reprise)...

A couple of years ago I posted a... Post. About training in Richmond park. I'd just bought my current bike and Ken was doing his best to prepare us for our LEJOG effort. Today I went back for the first time to see how I would do in Richmond park given that I'm now nearly three years older but have ridden a lot more.

Despite conflicting ideas about where the park may be... Thanks Richmond council man... I found the park and set off to try my luck.

The loop is not an easy ride by any stretch of the imagination. It is full of headwinds, false flats, climbs and descents. Needless to say the hill did not beat me this time and part of me is surprised it did the first time. It really helps to know that you are climbing the back of Richmond hill which I had already climbed to get into the park today.

Richmond park is 11km approx as a loop. You WILL be passed by men practicing on time trial bikes but this is ok.

Entering at the roehampton gate turn left and follow the road round to the left. Then climb the hill. Then descend. Then climb a bit. Roundabout. Descend then climb a bit. Roundabout. Climb then descend. Then undulate. Roundabout. Then have no idea where you are then climb then descend. Roundabout finish.

Did I mention the wind? It's always bloody windy. It's like a practice Cornwall.

As I lay there on the grass after my last attempt an old guy, maybe 70, pulled up, put his bike in an old estate car, grinned at me and left.

Richmond park is the best practice for a big ride on small roads.

Love it because that's easier than hating it.