Ramping up

I'm well into the final eight weeks of training, now, and have been trying to up the intensity to reflect that. Tuesday was an 80km, multiple hill-climbing leg-buster, whilst yesterday was more of a sprint, chasing Ribble riders in a high-drag T-shirt and shorts combo. Neither ride had an average of over 30kph, though, and my thoughts have increasingly turned to this weekend's time-trial.

Some of you may know or have realised that Saturday marks the 50 days to go point, which, according to a foolish post made way back when promises were a dozen for a penny, means that I should have completed a 5-hour solo century. I choose to interpret the wording of this target as liberally as possible, and say that it means by the end of said date, which gives me Saturday to accomplish it.

Somehow.

I am not ready for it, that's for sure. I've given my legs a spin today, and shall completely rest them tomorrow, but there's no getting around the fact that 20mph for more than an hour is still a challenge for me. I need every advantage I can get.

I'm going to get a few of said advantages, touch wood. I've selected the Isle of Bute as my parcours for the day. With a 22 mile main loop, any time I post would be illegal according to the British Road Records Association, but traffic is light, there is a single set of traffic lights and one mini-roundabout, and somewhere around 150m of climb per lap. Weather is set to be overcast, with 6mph winds from the south-east. Couldn't ask for better.

Some advantages, though, I won't allow myself. Whilst the road is hardly representative of Wales, I want my ride to be as close as possible, which means carrying two bottles on the bike plus food in my jersey and repair kit in the saddle bag. I'll be wearing my peaked, cross-country helmet, and won't be attaching bar extensions. For a course where weight will make marginal difference, but aerodynamics will feature heavily, I'm basically just sticking one finger up at my lower back and saying "get on with it".

Bute is the best chance I've got. If I miss this target, I don't know how I'll recover in time.

This blog is in danger of becoming rather depressingly negative sometimes, so I feel I should point out that I'm not purely a swirling vortex of thought-electrons. True, I have some doubts about how rapidly my speed is increasing, and, indeed, threshold power seems to have been stuck since shortly after Christmas, but I do also have nice thoughts.

One of the more bizarre ones is one that I've noticed echoed by other cyclists in literature. A road cyclist spends a lot of time staring at various parts of their body in various states of mental instability, (stop sniggering at the back), and it's not uncommon to hear that some find that they derive pleasure from strange things. There's the obvious rhythm and speed (again, stop it!), but some start to find their wrists, or their arms, or hands, rather beautiful. It's not necessarily narcissism - it's just a by-product of looking at things for a very long time in a very weird state of mind.

So, then. My thing that I like about me when I cycle: my knees. More specifically, the shadow of my knees into my lower legs with the sun behind me as I piston my way eastward at the end of a day. I got to see this a lot in Cornwall, so I suppose it's only natural that I find some pleasure in it. The thought of transmitting so much power and strength through a joint that appears half the width of the calf that swoops out beneath it, descending and rising roughly three times every two seconds, is as much a picture of home to me as a front door. I've seen that shadow scudding across so many roads as I make my way towards wherever I'm to lay my head for that night that it joins together every one of them - every ride, and every night. All roads are one.

I'll just keep riding them faster.

Anybody else have a favourite part of themselves whilst cycling?

Good trails!

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/robrideswales

Ride (hc) - peak district

So, here I am, finally writing up something that happened last weekend...

The weather had certainly taken a turn for the worst up here - rain was forecast for the whole weekend, and, for once, it wasn't budging. Thanks to the persistence of the forecast, I was able to plan accordingly, and got myself and my bike down to Manchester, leaving me under humid, muggy but rainless skies with plenty of time to wonder how I can justify training expeditions like this once Fiona moves away.

Sunday cleared the skies with a fantastically warm puff of parched air from Spain, an event I was actually rather unprepared for as I headed for the hills with bare arms and legs. I considered several times stopping, but it seemed a terrible waste to buy an entire tube of sun block only to throw most of it away because I had insufficient pocket room.

It was clear, as I made my way up the rolling hill from Tintwistle with the wind firm behind me, that I wasn't the only thing parched; with the exception of Torside, which houses a sailing club, all the reservoirs in the Etherow Valley were looking too low to extract from. I swigged again from my bidon and took the turning for Holme pass.

The climb was a good start to the day, especially with a couple of wheels to catch. I couldn't quite get the leader before the crest, cursing that I had forgotten to use my Salbutamol inhaler that morning. As he stopped to wait for his mate, though, I began down the far side.

Wow, the peaks are steep.

As I've said before, I'm no demon on the descents - especially ones I haven't ridden before. Braking into the hairpins from the top, even with good visibility, was an exercise in precise judgement of traction and luck. For those not used to descending on a road bike, the basic compromise is that all of your weight wants to go onto the front wheel (not necessarily a bad thing) which means almost all of your braking wants to be done on the front wheel (if you want it done quickly), but you really want to avoid the front wheel washing out during turns. Hence the fundamental rule: get all your braking done before you turn in.

Easier said than done, especially on steep switchbacks.

After a breeze down the valley, I turned around at Honley to take the A616 into Sheffield, where heavy traffic on Ecclesall road made the long slog out a baking nightmare. Not a lot to be said about this portion of the journey, other than it wasn't as bad as it sounds. Just nothing special.

At Hatherage, it was time to stop to refill bottles and grab something to eat. That something to eat turned out to be about 200g of yogurt-covered peanuts - a decision I regretted later in the sweltering heat on the pass, my stomach having no fun whatsoever in extracting instantly usable energy from these dairyfied oil pellets.

So, speaking of the pass, then. Winnat's pass. Oh, yes. I'd heard of it, I'd clocked it on the map - I knew I had to try it. For about a kilometre, the average gradient must be somewhere around 20%. Yessir, this is the biggun.



It broke me.

No exaggeration, no hyperbole at all. My bike was fine. I wasn't. For the first time in years, I was forced to stop on a climb. I couldn't breathe, I felt nauseous, my legs were giving way and there were absolutely no gears left. I struggled up to just over half-way, not even having the spare capacity to yell and curse, then collapsed, panting, over the bars.

This was pain. Real pain. I could not do this pass. Not on a 34x25. I was beaten, by a road, and it hurt.

I wasn't going to walk.

No way I was going to walk.

Two minutes later, I stood up again. I false-started, then got going, for once my cleat just popping into the pedal without fuss. The grimace on my face would have scared small children and animals, but the two walking cyclists who I passed merely offered me a cheerful "keep going".

I did. I dread to think how many miles I put on that chain, stretching it up there, but I kept going. I got to the top. I had meant to take a photo, but my legs were on the verge and I knew I had to keep spinning.

Winnat's pass. My new nemesis.

Next time, it'll be a 34x28.

It took me a full 90 minutes to recover from the effort. The average speed of the second half of the ride, which came in at 160km (almost 180 including getting to and from Hyde) was down at 25kph. I have never been that thoroughly broken on the road before, but I'm proud to say that I kept going.

I really, really hope that effort was worth it.

Good trails!

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/robrideswales

Renfrew bunch - getting dropped

With the late evenings and (unpredictable) good weather, we're well into that time of year when it becomes worthwhile and enjoyable to go out on group rides after work. After hearing about a fast group in Renfrew from a few of the Glasgow United guys, I decided to try them out for speed yesterday, an atypically bright but blustery evening along the Clyde.

After only getting lost once for each of my digits, I managed to get to the meet-up point, where people slowly turned up in drips and drabs. They weren't a particularly loud bunch, but I wasn't really in it for the banter. Most of them seemed to be racing fairly regularly, and the surprising lack of truly 'bling' bikes I saw I took to be evidence that a lot of these guys had separate training and race-day wheels. Hairless legs and zero-percent body fat were side-by-side with alloy frames and 200mm steerers.

We were off with almost instantaneous approval, leaving me without time to even turn my gps tracker on (not that it would have counted towards anything, being a bunch ride). For the first half hour, progress was swift and easy into the wind, the group turning over well on flat ground, averaging above 35kph. At least - it felt easy. Occasional checks of my hrm revealed I was actually running in the low 170s coming up toward the front of the pack, but I didn't think too much of it. Word was, we'd just be taking it steady.

As we turned south and started to climb, I started to slip toward the back, but, hearing heavy breathing on my shoulders, I knew that I couldn't have been exerting myself much more than the others. At the top of the climb, I was a bike-length or so back, which was a shame, but not totally unacceptable.

The big surprise came as we hit the descent/flat with the wind behind us. The speed picked up rapidly, and, not knowing the road at all, I started feeling uncomfortable in the bunch as speeds topped 30mph. I allowed myself to slip to the back, to give me room to manoevre.

Then I started to drop off the back.

Hang on, what's going on here?

I couldn't work it out. I wanted to blame it on aerodynamics - on the tall head-tube of my bike, of the peak on my helmet. The basic truth was obvious, though. These guys had an extra 20 or so Watts in the legs that I didn't have.

It was excruciating. With the benefit of hindsight I can see several places where I went wrong - I wasn't changing gear, and as a result my cadence dropped down into the 70s - way off my optimal. I should have sprinted back and tried to hold on, but I was too worried that I would blow up before I covered the distance. I could have found a way to go faster. Surely.

I guess perhaps part of me was expecting them to wait somewhere, but they didn't. As a matter of fact, they turned around at some point and passed me in the other direction, but not knowing the route or where they individually lived I thought better of turning and tagging on to an unknown destination and instead took the road that I knew.

It was a humbling experience. It's been a long time since I've been dropped like that, and I can't even remember the last time it happened on the flat.

I don't want it to happen again.

My average speed for the ride was 34.6kph, so despite the moving wind shield the whole time we were riding west I still couldn't hit my Wales target. I did stop a couple of times to wait for people or navigate, but that in no way compensates for the shelter I'd received. Without the bunch, that average would collapse.

My legs hurt a rare amount the following morning, so perhaps it was worth something. At any rate, I have a new target.

Good trails!

Http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/robrideswales

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Arran (x1.5)

***The next few posts may be out of chronology a bit***

The Scottish weather can be awkward. Not because it rains all the time, but because it doesn't. Raining all the time, or at predictable times, I can deal with. It's the unreliable forecasting that gives me problems.

From Thursday on, this weekend was being predicted as a washout for Scotland. Sure enough, on Saturday, it piddled down all day, and, figuring that it'd be my only exercise, I went down the gym and duly thrashed myself.

That evening, the forecast changed.

Let's be clear here - I don't have weekends to spare. In the rare event I have 'nothing else on', and I get given a training opportunity, I have to take it. It's the only way I can progress. So I went to Arran.

Initially, I wondered whether the weather had reverted to the original forecast - light drizzle in Glasgow was an ominous portent. Nevertheless, I figured that I'd be heading out from under the cloud, and, full of optimism, I wore nothing but a jersey and some xc shorts. There was a chance I could best my century, after all. Regrets could come later.

My legs were heavy, but I felt in good spirits as I pushed the bike onto the ferry, noting with appreciation that there were lighter skies in the west. A couple of laps around the island - roughly 110 miles. If I went clockwise, that'd only really expose me to a so'wester when it could help me, and would get the lumpy terrain out of the way early. A perfect plan. Best check the timetable, though.

Ah.

In order to make the last ferry, I would have to average over 30kph. Overall. Inclusive of stoppages.

Well, maybe I'd be onto a flier. And I'd get lucky with mechanicals. Maybe.

I don't particularly fancy commenting on the weather throughout this - the only reason I brought it up was to explain that I wasn't approaching this century with anywhere near fresh legs, so I'll just say now that it was dry throughout with a low ceiling of cloud, and be done with it. There.

I shot south out of Brodick and instantly started suffering on the hill. My heart rate monitor was mounted on the handlebars (where I'd wrapped a sock to provide the strap with purchase) , and after this first warm-up indiscretion, I tried to make sure I stayed below threshold for the rest of the ride, no matter how slow I was going. This ride was genuinely going to be on my limit, without question. I took a couple of inhaler puffs and pushed on.

The south side of the island seemed to drag on, a headwind componding the Cornwall-type terrain. Whenever the road started to point downhill, it would always seem to throw in a few sharp bends and the road surface would deteriorate into something that buses would fear to roll on. Once I got onto the flat on the west, though, it'd all average out.

I got to the flat on the west.

It wasn't averaging out.

I'm not sure if the wind was against me or what, but it was a huge slog to maintain 20mph on what should have been flat terrain. After miles and miles of this, I crested a very, very sharp hill, and everything changed. Suddenly the wind was behind me, and the same effort was netting 37kph. This was brilliant.

Well, it was brilliant for a while. Then it became euphoric.

Riding bikes is a funny old hobby. You work so hard, consistently, putting your body right on the limit of what it can sustain, and then sustaining it, maybe for hours at a time. Add to this the freedom and lonliness of the road, the beauty of the world around you, the speed and the sensation and... maybe it's just a sum of all these things. Maybe it's something more. I don't know. All I know is that there are times when riding a bike can make me feel like nothing else on earth can make me feel.

I'm not talking about it just making me happy. Yes, riding bikes makes me happy, sometimes very happy. This is different. It's happened less than a dozen times, usually after more than an hour's cycling, generally with the wind slightly behind me to provide easy, flowing speed, often with music in one ear. It's chemical. It's bliss... euphoria is the only word adequate to describe it. It happened today as I came over the crest of the last of a second set of yumps along the coast, the wind behind, accelerated easily up to 40kph and held it there. Dry tears welled up in my eyes, a lump formed in my throat, and a beaming smile forced its way across my face. Anyone nearby would have thought me insane as, for a period of about half a minute, great, sobbing, hysterical bursts of laughter issued forth from my mouth. I was giddy. I was ecstatic. Nothing else in the world makes me feel quite this way. It is utterly irresistable and fantastic and if you have never felt that way before, and you are capable, I urge you to develop a comfort for riding for long periods alone on a bike, and see if it does it for you. If anyone else has a similar experience, I'd love to hear it.

I don't ride for that sensation - it isn't common, and cycling is good enough anyway. I am wary of writing about it, though. Don't let the government get wind. I'm sure anything that feels that good with no adverse affects would be bound to be deemed illegal.

The rest of the ride was a very mixed bag. Crossing back over the island, I overtook a dawdler in a car at 75+kph, which was exciting. However, my flapjacks in my jersey had amalgamated into one sticky mess that thudded into my stomach like a cannonball. Deciding that I was too tight on time to do a second loop, I crossed the middle of the island to repeat the north loop - a crossing that was considerably steeper than expected. I reached for a gel - an sis smart 1 for my personal records - which I found tasted pleasantly like a slightly rubbish berry yoghurt, but didn't sit well in my stomach and left me feeling unable to even get into a comfortable tuck through most of the last hour. Clearly, further research is required here with respect to feeding on the bike.

My final average was 29.9kph over about 90 miles- disappointing despite my excuses. I had only unclipped once the whole way around, to inspect a phantom flat tyre, and the loop is ideal time-trial territory. I'm just straight up not where I should be right now in terms of fitness.

I apologise for the lack of photos - I was utterly focussed on the ride. Arran was looking well, but, with the low cloud, not at its most picaresque through my happy-orange glasses.

Good trails!

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/robrideswales

Low-impact riding

Things have been quiet around here for a while, now. It's not that I'm not doing anything - it's just that I'm not doing anything particularly notable. I'm feeling good, the graph's on an upward trend (though nowhere near fast enough), but I haven't exactly been putting in any epics, at least in part because it's nice to have a life.

If I ever had a training schedule, it's been entirely forgotten as the (previously) unwritten rule has become "if it's dry - ride!" It's difficult to know whether this type of low-discipline, varied riding is the most effective way of going about things, but I feel that any time on my real bike is worth far more than in the gym. I might test that hypothesis a bit more in the future.

Anyway, then. What I mostly wanted to write about today was a genuine look at the carbon impact of cycling, with genuine numbers. Not a "most people" sort of analysis, mind - this one's looking squarely at me. So here we go.

What set me wondering about this was an interesting article about the bicycle component manufacturer Hope (http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/hope-technology-behind-the-scenes-30437). Since Hope machine most of their bits, there is a lot of resulting off-cuttage that must be sent back round the recycling loop, and I wondered how much this would affect the carbon footprint of the bike.

As it turns out, this part isn't as bad as I had feared. According to the Inventory of Carbon & Energy materials table, creation of virgin aluminium emits 12.79kg of CO2 equivalent per kg of aluminium, whereas recycling requires only 1.81kg CO2e/kg, so an order of magnitude reduction in energy required to recycle rather than extract aluminium. However, the overall number is still large: this is a far cry from the 2.89/0.47 of steel, and not all that much better than the 20.6-42.5/14.7 of titanium.

Let's say, for simplicity's sake, that my bike is 10kg, and consists primarily of aluminium, and, as a worst-case scenario, the average number of times that the aluminium has had to go around the cycle is 3 (i.e. virgin, then 3 recycles) to account for machining. This means that that material cost of my bike is 182kg of CO2e. A pretty big number, but only the same as emitted from burning 80 litres of petrol. Two tanks, and you've paid for your bike. I'll be conservative and say 400kg all in for manufacturing and transport, and then amortise that over the projected life of the bike - again, I'll be conservative, and say 10000 miles.

So, at a guess, for my road bike, I've got an embodied carbon footprint of around 40g per mile, or 25g per kilometre. Compare this to the 130g+ of the average family car on the market today, and we're already looking pretty good - especially considering that the full lifecycle emissions of the car have been ignored.

What about my fuel, then?

For better or worse, I mostly feed myself bread, getting through over 1000 calories a day of the brown stuff. This is my main cycling fuel, along with pasta and rice.

• Assuming 1000 calories per hour, at 20mph (i.e. 50 calories/mile),
• and a calorific content of bread of 2600 calories/kg (http://www.alfitness.com.au/food-calorie-counter.asp?id=443&foodName=Bread&page=),
• emitting 0.75kg CO2e/kg bread (http://timeforchange.org/eat-less-meat-co2-emission-of-food)

that comes out to 19.2g of bread per mile, and 14.4g of CO2e. Per kilometre, then, that drops to 9g.

So, here we are then. A total of 34g of CO2e/km. Not a bad ratio, for a single person. As soon as you double it there might be issues with the 60g/km target that vehicles may one-day hit, and with 4 of you, you're getting into the region of currently achievable emissions figures (again, we're ignoring embodied costs in the car, somewhat unfairly).

So, there's what I consider to be a realistic figure. It's noticeable, though, just how much it is dominated by the embodied carbon in the bike. Merely by switching to steel, you can downgrade that a good 5 times, and, of course, how you fuel yourself can make a significant difference.

Carbon fibre? Well, I just don't know about carbon fibre.

Now I'm starting to wonder what happens when we include the embodied carbon in the road infrastructure.

Good trails!

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/robrideswales

Ride(tt) - Lennoxtown loop (new pb)

Ok, so I know the computer doesn't say any different to last time, but it was on 32.4 as I got stuck behind a car coming into the courtyard, and I lost at least 0.2kph to not being able to engage my pedal properly after each light. The speed peaked at Lennoxtown, at about 33.8kph, with a westerly wind behind me.

Without any traffic, I reckon I could have gone 33 clear.

Next time, eh?

Good trails!

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/robrideswales