Racing on Springs

The Tallboy, then.

Like riding a sofa of fun.

Bases covered – 29er, 100mm of suspension either end, full xt drivetrain, fox RP23 shock with ProPedal platform damper on the back, RockShox Reba RL on the front, and, just to make sure that there was a low point, Avid Elixir brakes, which did the job, but, like most Avid brakes, weren’t set up fantastically well and didn’t have wonderful “lever feel.” The rest of the bike, though, put a smile on my face for the whole time I rode it.

I was allowed to take the black beauty out for an orientation spin around the course. My first blast around the skills loop demonstrated the sheer volume of grip now available at the back through the combination of larger wheel and supple suspension. Power could go down whenever the pedals were in a position to spin, and with the smoothness of the ride, my feet were almost always in place.

Though not exactly a racer’s bike, it didn’t feel lardy going uphill; the platform damping losing little energy when climbing seated, and the steepish head angle preventing the front wheel wandering too far. This is one of the obvious compromises SC decided to make in the Tallboy’s geometry sheet – a steep headtube angle to sharpen the steering, lowering the otherwise truck-like wheelbase and countering the gyroscopic tendency for the bike to plough through the corners. I feel that they might have taken things just a tiny bit too far, though, as once or twice the bike did feel a little divey through corners, but it’s a reasonable compromise to make.

The 700mm bar felt perfectly adequate leverage-wise for the short-ish cockpit, and I never felt cramped through my chest or wrists. Shifting weight back and forth was easy and effective, though at times a little more length on the front might have been useful.

My only major complaint was that, with rather wide, flat pedals, I was frequently striking rocks – particularly awkward on the one set of steps that I never managed to clear. Whether the bottom bracket is particularly low, or whether it was just inattentiveness on my part with worse-case-scenario pedals, I don’t know, but it was one of the few aggravations in the ride.

For everything else, it was fantastic fun. The VPP geometry never felt like it was buckling under pressure, never put too much feedback through the chain, and, despite obviously hitting its limits at some points, never bottomed-out harshly. The chain did derail at a couple of points, but a clutch-type derailleur could probably solve this. If anything, perhaps the bike was too detached, floating above the trail, encouraging speed where it might have been prudent to slow – especially when chasing after riders, post-race, I failed to lift-off over a rise which concealed a slight right-hander and, with my wheels unweighted, I carried straight on into the bushes, the pins on the platform pedals carving some deep parallel grooves into my shin.

I didn’t care. I was having too much fun.

The race itself went well, as I sat comfortably on Phil’s wheel, with him in second place, waiting for the final dash up the fire road. Sadly, with only a couple of miles to go, I hung up my rear wheel and pinch-flatted. Hands shaking with adrenaline, it took a couple of spectators to help me strip the tyre off, and almost ten minutes went by until I was back on the trail.

It was still the most fun I’d had in a race this year.

No mere binary decision making – push on, stay back, move up, sprint, draft…. – the race was a constant battle against the trail, myself and my fellow competitors, egging them on or following their wheels. Passing was a nightmare on single track, but the delight at clawing riders back on the climbs, and feeling no-one on your rear wheel as you pressed for home was a delight closer to running than bike racing, but infinitely more exciting.

My confidence boosted, I now cannot wait for Relentless. If I ride half the bike that the Santa Cruz is, I will be happy.

So, a Tallboy unicycle, then.

Big fun on big tyres

It has been a while.

For unentertaining and irrelevant reasons, keeping this blog has been a low priority for a while; I found that I was unable to write anything nice, so I preferred not to write anything at all until good humour returned. As with so many of the gaps in this repository’s record, I shall now make a claim that I shall go back and bridge that void.

Given my record, I would not blame you if you didn’t hold your breath.

Onwards, to the recent past, however, and we strike my inspiration - a neat parry to the blow that was landed when the inspiration struck me.  Over the next couple of posts, I shall tell you, oh benign but hopefully slightly curious reader, of a recent discovery of mine. Or, rather, re-discovery.

Mountain biking is jolly good fun.

To take you through to this conclusion, we must start with a disappointment. A few weeks ago, with the Cycle the World 24 hour cycling event coming up, it was finally discovered that we would be unable to field our team to defend our title. As something of a rebound, however, Andy immediately suggested that we switch our focus to another full-day event – Relentless 24.

“But wait,” you say. “Isn’t that a mountain bike event? I thought you were a roadie.”

I commend you on your knowledge of matters both public and personal, but also know this – I used to rather enjoy mountain biking. Not that I was ever very good at it, but, growing up in the valleys, it seemed to be the thing to do. With trails so abundant, and roads so forbidding, a day spent on rocky common paths was a thrilling adventure. Indeed, you could even use a mountain bike to take you places – not even just to the trail head, but also to college, across the Beacons to visit my father, or nearly anywhere that was on a Beeching line – i.e. nearly everywhere, full stop.

Then came Cornwall. Hilly, fieldy Cornwall, with no common ground, no trail centres, nothing but the coast-to-coast mining trail. For want of rent, the last mountain bike was sold, and I was committed to tarmac, for better or worse.

So I seized with both hands the opportunity to ride again, and, indeed, race again on loose surfaces. I had everything I needed… apart from the bike. And the skill.

The latter, I could work on.

It was with something like panic that I scanned through my schedule until the date in late October of the race. So few opportunities to train, but so much more confidence required... There were two weekends open to me. The first, I decided to spend at Newton Stewart, riding hire bikes around Kirroughtree. The second, I hope to visit Fort William and recce the course. I pray that will be enough.

So onto Kirroughtree.

Set deep in the border hinterland of Dumfries and Galloway, Kirroughtree is one of the quieter of the Seven Stanes trail centres. The bike shop at the trail head – BreakPad – hires out a variety of mountain bikes, from fairly basic hardtails through to high-end full-sussers. I had elected to spend my time on a Kona Fire Mountain, an entry-level, 26” hard tail with a fairly simple fork, but reasonable hydraulic brakes. This was more about skill than comfort, so I figured it would suit my purposes.

As soon as I got there, though, my priorities began to shift. Explaining my predicament with respect to skill and the imminence of Relentless, the shop hand Phil stopped me and informed me, with a glimmer in his eye, that there was a race on tomorrow. Open entry. Perfect for training.

Excuses flashed through my head. I only had shoes for flat pedals. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t want to hurt myself. But, realistically, this was perfect – almost suspiciously so. If I wanted to feel confident in time for Relentless, I would have to race.

I agreed that I would give it some thought as I spun around the park.

Once around the Blue loop, once around the Red, it took a while to get back into the swing of things. On the positive side, the weight distribution on the Fire Mountain is wonderful – a trait shared with all Konas that I have ridden. A short, front-wheel liberating rear end paired with a high-leverage cockpit enabled me to get my weight where it needed to be, so long as I was smart enough to anticipate it.

Sadly, the rest of the spec was merely serviceable. Coming from SLX on my touring bike, the small triggers and lack of two-way release on the Acera shifters left me out of gear far too often. The weak spring on the Alivio rear derailleur made every descent a gamble as to whether the chain would still be on the same ring when you wanted to drive out of the bottom, and the shifting – whilst reliable, was nevertheless hesitant and uncertain. The non-series hydraulic brakes did their job with minimal fuss, and were probably the best part of the package, but were balanced by the fork, which was undoubtedly the worst.

Kona Fire Mountain - an adequate, if unexceptional, entry-level mountain bike

An entry-level RockShox XC28 Even with the preload as low as it could go, sag was practically non-existent with my 70kg frame, and I was reliant on the (by my standards) balloony 2.2” tyres to absorb any smaller impacts. With no rebound damping, and far too heavy a spring, the fork saved me in a few pinches but did absolutely nothing more. If I was to race, it wouldn’t be on this.

Maintaining traction was proving to be an issue at times, more so between my feet and the pedals than the tyres and the ground. Despite dropping my heels, the hits came thick and fast, at times only dislodging my feet slightly to one side, but enough to slightly change my line and prevent me from pushing on until I had corrected myself.

I feel like I am being too negative on the bike, here, so please take my faint praise in context, and not as damning. When I say the drivetrain was reliable – it was. It shifted into the correct gear (eventually) every time. The brakes worked well and even had a degree of modulation, which cannot be taken for granted at this level.  The wheels were fine, the tyres gripped well, the fork was never dangerously uncontrolled and the frame geometry itself was tremendous, if a little harsh on the rear end and, if you are being ridiculously petty, a little soft at the bottom bracket. At the price paid, the Fire Mountain is a good bike. However, knowing what else is out there does colour one’s opinion somewhat, especially when the else is worth more than all of my bicycles combined.

Rolling back to the BreakPad, I knew I wanted to race. I knew I would rather not race on this. I wanted something a little more friendly grip-wise – probably a 29er. I wanted something that wouldn’t bounce me off flat pedals – probably a full-sus’. I wanted something with a positive drivetrain and good shocks.

What I wanted, as it turned out, was a Santa Cruz Tallboy.

Mavic R-SYS SLR

“Stealthy”

It’s an odd pick for what seems to be the word of the year for the bicycle industry (my critics would point out that the “stealth” trend has in fact been on the cards for the past few years, but bear with me). Seemingly in a backlash against the lurid neons of the eighties, and the boring blues and pastels of the turn of the millennium (which I’m going to mostly blame on a certain Trek bicycle company and their associated athletes and sponsors), bicycle fashion has been heading towards the black and highlighted, when necessary, with slightly blacker blacks. Some would liken the aesthetic to an F117. Others, to riding Darth Vader’s bicycle.

Whatever anyone’s personal opinion on the matter, our bicycles are getting darker, so get with it or join the counterculture.

Jumping onto the bandwagon with both wheels is Mavic, who has finally brought the stealth aesthetic to aluminium rims with their latest R-SYS SLR clinchers. Ostensibly a revision of their “exalith” super-hard braking surface treatment, these wheels couldn’t be any more bang-on-trend if they launched their own video-sharing social networking fourth-generation app on Google Glass. Billed as a lightweight but stiff wheelset for both going up and coming down mountains, the SLRs have more techny acronyms than can slot into a computer’s north bridge and sound, both in hyperbolic description and in road noise, like something from another planet.

By milling the heck out of the rims and reinforcing the thin braking surface with their pitch-dark anti-teflon, the French wheel geniuses have made a catch-me-if-you-can set of all-day wheels that rub shoulders with carbon wheels going uphill, and outbrake them going down.

Of all of Mavic’s wheels, the SLRs make most use of the (in)famous Tracomp hollow carbon spokes, spec’ing them on both sides of the front wheel and on the non-drive-side of the rear, complementing them with two-cross bladed spokes on the drive side to take drivetrain torque. The result is striking; on the front, at least.

For such a low spoke count, the front wheel is admirably solid laterally, and, in conjunction with a braking surface which at least equals (though I cannot say betters) the best performance of any alloy wheel, encourages attacking descending. If your front end isn’t tracking where it should be as you loop down mountain switchbacks, it certainly won’t be stiffness that is lacking.

That stiffness can bite back as sharply as the brakes bite deep, though. With little give in the wheel itself, you are entirely reliant on the tyre to grip. Whilst the spec’ed Griplink clinchers do a fine job here, their relatively narrow footprint made me wish for some floatier tyres to really match the performance of the wheel. Pressure and suppleness are equally vital to really get your money’s worth.

And then there are the brakes. Supplied with their own hard pads, the rims are virtually workshop files looking to strip of speed, and like industrial equipment, they do so loudly and roughly. I am assured that given time, the pads/rims come to an accord when they meet, but until then expect them to yell like there’s no tomorrow. Racing, I got a few rebukes for what was heard as panic-braking, but in fact was nothing but a slight scrubbing of speed.

Not that I would particularly want to panic-brake on these wheels. Modulation on the grippy rims is nigh-on discrete, and with very little mass out at the edge, lock-ups are a very real possibility, especially in wet conditions.

Out back, things aren’t quite so startling. With the pads making a pronounced “phvee” sound every time they contact the rim, you’re never in any doubt about whether you’re touching or not, and, disappointingly, like a beautiful senorita, the Mavics do sway.

I tend to set up my brakes pretty tightly, so the fact that I had to completely release the rear brake in O’er the Crow should be taken in context, but for a wheelset that sets its stall out to be a climber’s friend, this was an unpleasant surprise.

Make no mistake, these feel like light wheels, and never more so than when out of the saddle – spinning up hills whilst standing is a lag-free delight as the wheels take no effort to spin-up, either through inertia or torsion. It’s a shame, then, that every few strokes would be met by that attention-grabbing “phvee.” I am by no means a heavy rider, at 70kg, and have never had anything like this level of deflection before. Ok, so I haven’t ridden a wheelset within 450g of these before, but at more than five times the price of my normal race wheels, I was expecting better.

Finally, there’s the aerodynamics. I’ve heard strange things either way about Tracomp spokes – about how their thicker girth means that the air passing over the trailing edge of the wheel is already so disturbed that there’s no net increase in drag, and how having less spokes is more important than having lots of aero ones.

I’m not buying it.

Regardless of whether it’s down to the spokes or the rims these do not feel aerodynamic in the slightest. And that’s fine. They’re not meant to be. But bear that in mind if you want an all-purpose wheelset.

What’s more, the centre of drag on the front is in a peculiar position, leaving the forks unstable when subject to gusts from the side. It’s not powerful – there’s not enough area to feel like you’re sailing like on aero rims – but it introduces a small-amplitude oscillation that you have to damp out with your own controls. Like a fly-by-wire fighter, the bike feels like it wants to show off its nimbleness to such an extent that you have to reign it back to keep it in a straight line. It’s not much, and not all of the time, but it’s fair to say that these aren’t great cruising wheels.

Make no mistake, these are “good” wheels by any measure. If you want lightweight wheels that are going to last more than a thousand miles, that are as comfortable going downhill as they are going uphill, that have consistent braking surfaces and the go-anywhere convenience of a clincher, you aren’t going to find many better than these. Switch from a £300 pair of wheels to these, and your bike will suddenly gain that lift-with-your-little-finger wow factor and you will be able to climb faster, and that’s a fact. However, they are not perfect, and aren’t necessarily £1300 better than that £300 pair. They aren’t aerodynamic, the brakes can be grabby and very noisy, the rear wheel is nowhere near as stiff as it could be and the tyres are merely ok (on the front, anyway. The rear seems to be ok, though I have lost traction a couple of times, but couldn’t honestly say whether that was down to the tyre or me not being used to such a lightweight wheel when standing uphill). Only you can make the decision as to whether they’re worth what they cost to you.

That being said, if you’re desperate for a black, aluminium braking track, the decision has been made for you.

Vive le mode.

Square One

It was bound to happen some day.

Today was the "O'er the Crow 'n' Doon" race, put on by GJS Cruise racing. A national B, E123 race, it'd be my first chance to play with the "big boys", including Evan Oliphant and the whole Herbalife team. Twice over the famous Crow Road climb, we would complete two 26 mile laps before finishing with a flat sprint into the wind.

These are my training roads, and I was as confident as I could possibly be on them. I had sessioned the descent, memorising every bit of rough surface, and a friend had very kindly let me borrow his £1600 lightweight Mavic SLRs, bringing the total weight of the bike down to about 7.2kg. Conditions could hardly be more ideal.

My first indication that things weren't quite right was before we even started. Having ridden out to the race at a leisurely pace, I hadn't really warmed up, and had no element of my normal pre-race sharpness as I lounged around the strip. Perhaps, knowing that I had no chance in the overall, I wasn't coming into it seriously.

The race started well enough. I positioned myself near the head of the bunch, and allowed myself to drop back as the cross-winds lined us out. Too far. I realized far too late what a sterling job the wind had done of stretching out the bunch, and without intention I found myself too far back to cover the race properly without a huge stretch of exposure.

Coming up the hill to Killearn, I clawed back some time, but we were then into a headwind, and the line grew even longer. I told myself that I would make an effort on the flats between Strathblane and Lennoxtown, with the wind behind us.

I didn't.

Whether because of fear of oncoming, or simple laziness, I put off the attack. I figured my climbing would be good enough to get me up there when the Crow came.

Here, alarm bells should have been ringing. Cattle prods should have been zapping my ankles. This is racing 101 - you need to be at the front before you get to the obstacle that might split the bunch. I wasn't.

As we climbed the first time, an oil tanker met an oncoming car where the road narrowed. It was anarchy. With barely enough room for two riders to pass at a time - one either side of the oncoming car - the bunch split, and I was left on the wrong side.

Moving up steadily past the stragglers, I was unable to put much time into the bunch, and they dangled twenty seconds or so in front of me as we entered the fast, tailwind-assisted faux plat at the top. I figured I would be able to catch such a large group on the descent.

I wasn't able to.

In fact, other riders started coming back. Admittedly, on aerodynamic bikes with deep-section wheels, but I have always maintained that they don't make that much of a difference. I couldn't understand it. Why was I having to sprint downhill to keep up with these guys?

Into the headwind at the bottom, and I was on my own. Again. After three or four miles, a pursuant group caught me and I started working with them, and for a while we stood a chance. Of the group of more than a dozen, though, only 8 of us worked at all, and frequently the hangers-on would come up alongside the last chainganger, completely disrupting the rhythm and causing big gaps to grow.

Needless to say, I didn't miss a turn unnecessarily.

We were within 5 seconds of the main bunch when we turned into the wind, and the order was destroyed. Unable to work in a standard chain-gang formation, riders would sprint up the outside and hold momentum, driving the front of the bunch faster and faster and harder and harder into the wind. With only four of us now working to claw back these final few seconds, it was becoming brutally hard work.

Gasping, grabbing, wringing my bars, I was unable to keep the pace. As I burst, I waved riders around me, but they seemed to take forever to take up the chase. Within a minute, though, I was on the back of the group. A minute of whiplashing and concertinaing later, I was off it.

Two minutes of recovery was enough, but the gap had grown out to thirty seconds. I chased hard onto the back of the service car, but couldn't get past it. The hill to Blanefield was enough to finish me off, as the cars surged and sagged up the steep incline, and there was nothing more to do but swear at myself for letting go.

Furious that I was letting everyone and everything down - not least Simon's wheels - I got my act together in the tailwind between Strathblane and Lennoxtown and pushed hard. It was far, far too late though, and on a flat section, I stood no chance at all.

Back into the Crow, I thought the bunch was in sight, but it turned out to be Sterling BC out for a Saturday ride. I span past them all, but couldn't make out the racers from the club runners.

There were only a couple of burst souls to pass on the never-say-die descent, and it was then over.

45th. My lowest ever finish in an unhindered race.

To finish so far off the back, with no mechanical or physical reason to be, is simply unacceptable. My only hope is that this will turn out to be the kick-up-the-rear-end that I so clearly need.

Next week is my target - Brenig.

Let's hope I've learned something.

God rides

If there's a god, he probably cycles.

The more you think about it, the more it makes sense. Why else make cycles the apotheosis of human movement? Any greater technology requires use of energy not our own. Many older technologies require the exploitation of others (arguably symbiotic, but when I imagine a full-grown Jesus riding a petite donkey, I can't help but feel he would have rather been on a velocipede.)

It informs us why this God never answers your prayers when you want him to - he's usually out riding, and you need to leave a message. He'll get back to you at the next natural pause.

While He's riding, He's a part of the world, which must get rather existential. There's no barrier around a rider; He's just on his way somewhere, being a part of the lives of everyone he passes.

Of course, He knows the value of hard work. Someone who could make an entire universe would do repeats of the Tourmalet just for kicks; if he lives in Heaven, that's a heck of a hill to attack at the end of a day's work.

The wonderful thing about theism is that none of these conjectures can be proven wrong, and the only real "truth" is that which "feels right." In which case, I need to change my opening sentence.

God rides a bicycle.

Amen.

A bigger break

Almost a year of waiting was at an end last week. Not for a win, or a particular race, or any other type of result - but for a race in good weather. Short sleeves and mitts were finally the order of the day at the Dunfermline Road Race - ten and a half laps of a triangular up-across-and-down course with 60 other 3rd and 4th category riders.

Basking for a good hour on a wall outside the library, I could hardly have been more relaxed or content. It had been a rough week, recovering from some sort of low-level virus that had kept me mostly off the bike. Many of the riders had been at Gifford, so idle banter rather than laser-like-focus was the preparation, and a spinning lap was the warm-up.

I had overheard that the race was going to go hard from the off, so I was mindful of gaps as we ascended for the first time. For once, it felt like I was doing some work, and I was glad of it - what was tough for me would be unbearable for others, and once fatigue started to set in, a break could go.

Purely on the basis of pace, I expected the fight to go out of the bunch and the break to get away with somewhere between 5 and 3 laps to go, but I wasn't rigid with how I interpreted this. On lap 3, almost a dozen riders were away off the front as we came across the flat, a stiff breeze slightly behind us. It was enough to encourage me to bridge, but the gap was closed almost as soon as I got across. Not a wasted foray, as I now knew that the top road was far from a good place to attack.

With six to go, I pushed the pace up the hill, for the dual reasons to clawing back another break going nowhere and to start tiring the bunch, in preparation for the final selection.

Four to go, and it was time. A group of 3 got just enough of a gap off the front of the bunch to make it worth it, so I slipped out of the back of the peloton and repositioned myself in the middle of the road to attack on the steepest part of the course.

Almost inevitably, just as we got there, a BMW came the other way, and for once I was praying for the car to accelerate. It seemed to take forever to get past the bunch, and as soon as its tail-light passed my bar, I was away.

Carrying momentum through up the hill, I flew off of the front of the bunch. With no chase left in them, I knocked the pace back slightly and chased onto the leaders by the top of the hill, joined by a few others to make a break of nine, which swiftly became eight.

A lap of sustained pushing was all it took to get safely clear, but it was enough to warn me that I couldn't take the finish for granted. I wasn't the only one working hard, but others did seem to be finding it easier. Nevertheless, I had too much pride to ever skip a turn. It would be good training anyway.

We worked with a good rhythm through the next two laps - not too difficult, but confident that we could stay away and all get points for our troubles. It wasn't until the last third of the last lap that the games started.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I didn't know how to play this. The run-in was along the flat section, with the finish line on top of a small rise which I knew from experience was tough to lead up from the front. Nevertheless, I couldn't seem to soft-pedal enough to fall back. Second wheel as we came into the base of the climb, I was fully off the pedals waiting for the attack. Bad move.

When it came, it was far enough and fast enough that I couldn't catch it, having robbed myself of all momentum. The riders on my wheel were able to continue the jump, but I was out of it, finishing in seventh.

I can't be unhappy with the outcome, today. A great race, in good conditions. Properly difficult. Tactically, I was aware enough, and physically I was fit enough, to bridge to the correct break and guarantee myself some points. Crucially, though, I gained more experience. My failure from the ending set-piece was clear and unambiguous - and regardless of whether I know how to win from a similar situation now, I certainly know one play to avoid if I don't want to lose.

Here's hoping I get many more chances to practice.

Awkwardness

The bike's running more smoothly than ever, and yet it feels wrong. Awkward. The low front end screams "aerodynamics" - tuck in and hide from the wind - and yet I am propped up, a rucksack bulging off my spine, loose trousers rolled up over my calves. It isn't how this bike was meant to be ridden, but this is the ride to get to the event where I can ride it as it was meant to be ridden.

It's like walking to a festival, or navigating a foreign airport; that frisson of excitement tempered by the slightly uncomfortable awkwardness of it all.

My trainers are in fluttering plastic bags strapped to the side of my rucksack, obstructing my view over my shoulder and making me feel even more vulnerable as I roll with calm determination down the A-road.

It is a sad fact that if I lived somewhere with more predictable weather, I wouldn't need to take half so much kit, but I am racing here because this is the country where I live, and there is no race better than the one you can get to.

That being said, it isn't easy. Thanks to how early the start is, and it being on a Sunday, and since none of my clubmates are racing as well, I needed to catch a train down to Dumfries on Saturday, to stay in a B&B a few miles from the start line, to get up on a sleety, gusty morning and roll across to line up with a few dozen gents and ladies who have travelled from as far afield as Fife for just over an hour of pace and stress with only the most fleeting chance of glory.

There is undoubtedly a better compromise that this unstable, tumourous configuration of rider, bike and bag, but I would not dare (even if it were possible) to desecrate my race bike by attaching anything to its frame or seat post.

A few years ago, I would never have forseen this situation, the apotheosis of a "first-world problem." If a bicycle is primarily for transportation, then surely I should abandon my shallow aesthetics and attach a seatpost rack. With a carbon pin and lightweight wheels comes responsibility, however. To gouge the lacquer; to allow a pannier to swing into the wheel - could be catastrophic.

It is possible that I have found my "n+1" - a steel-framed beauty that can take the loads of a beast of burden, yet still be ridden hard hard for those races where the racing is more critical than the winning (which should, of course, be all races).

It is difficult but to feel that bicycle racing is a technological arms race, and the "zing" that one gets from a properly race-optimized frame is as astonishing as it is welcome. Now that I have access to it, I do not wish to lose it, but can I bring an element of it into something more practical?

Is there one bike that can do it all? I will search, but I also know this: The feeling of release can only come after being pent-up. Things can only feel truly right after you have seen wrong. The most most amazing bike in the world will feel like a tool if it is used as one. So, in a strange way, I can find happiness in my awkwardness.

After winter, comes the spring.

A fair weather race

Here's an interesting question:

What's better, finishing 11th or 21st?

Is there any difference? In a field of 80, neither carries much weight. Neither's much to write home about.

Ok, how about this one:

What's better, finishing in 11th or finishing on the floor?

Hitting the deck can hardly be considered a good thing, but at least it shows you tried. At least it's a story. On the other hand, they do say that discretion is the better part of valour.

Gifford this year was possibly the "twitchiest" race I've ever been in, with barely a moment not requiring coverage of the brakes and full concentration. From the first lap, it was obvious how it was going to end. With a headwind on the climb, the ones and twos making an effort to get away were never going to stay out. It would be a bunch sprint. Moreover, the pack wasn't cycling through, and the pace was low, meaning that hardly anyone was dropped. It was going to be a fifty-or-more-strong bunch finish, where everyone would think that they had a chance.

It was exactly the sort of race where you needed a team-mate or two, and I was unsurprised when two ERC youths took first and second. Without anyone to take me to the front, I had to move early, pulling through as we came to the last climb and trying to slot in third or fourth wheel. It wasn't happening, though, as more and more riders came around. I swiftly found myself, once again, boxed in, in an extremely nervous peloton. Contact was rife, with some riders taking it better than others, and my heart was in my mouth from fear rather than effort. As the sprint began in earnest, someone's spoke snapped and clattered around, the commotion luckily disappearing off my right shoulder. This at least bought a smile to my face as I had just gotten my wheel fully rebuilt by Dales to avoid that exact problem. The riders in front of me faded, and I fought and pushed for any gap going, crossing the line as one of about 20 riders who could-have-maybe-got-7th. Or, as it turned out, 11th.

As a race, it would have provided spectacle and excitement to anyone watching. Racing in it, it merely felt dangerous and slow, through no-one's fault but the overall level of experience of the peloton.

Despite everything, we all came home safely. The ratio of luck to judgement is, however, questionable.

Sramano

It is one of the greatest conflicts of ideology of our time, standing shoulder to shoulder with the great questions - Capitalism or Socialism? Theism or Atheism? To be, or not to be?

Shimano or SRAM?

At once, a clamour arises in the Blogosphere. Whistles are blown and bells rung as the footsoldiers arise from the fortified trenches of weight, action and reliability, with the Japanese and American sides matching shot for shot. In a glittering silver-and-carbon-fibre Armoured Personnel Carrier the Italian Campagnolo forces drink espresso under cover of an impenetrable but expensive barrier of Aesthetics. Magura, Rotor and Avid fire shells randomly onto the field, disrupting all sides as they evade and adapt. An underdeveloped lad named Microshift pulls the boots from the fallen.

Without the battlefield, the unbiased customer reaps the rewards of so much bloodshed with lighter, more beautiful, better-performing products, suffering only the uncertainty of which side to back with their next purchase. Having sampled both, it is time for me to deliver a verdict.

Riding Shimano 105 5700 last year was a joy for someone used to the slightly flexy sora and tiagra, groupsets that are admittedly reliable but view inputs as suggestions more than orders.

The Shimano action is indubitably excellent. Snapping up and down at the rear is positive and near-instant, and at the front the chain is shoved aside from the ring harder and faster than a compromised sport from a Dutch bank. This absolute certainty of execution is, however, tampered by doubt in control in some conditions. In thick gloves, from the drops, it is possible to catch both the downshift and upshift lever when only aiming to upshift, and on the return it is possible to catch loose ends of glove fingers between the levers.

You might argue that this is a criticism of the gloves, not the levers. I might reply that that means nothing to me when I wish to silently attack like an unseen assassin on a frozen moorland, and then announce that desire with a rapid traversal of half a dozen gears as my numb fingers cannot distinguish between the levers.

It isn't a common occurrence, but it is definitely worth thinking about if you ride a lot in bad weather.

By direct contrast, SRAM have gone for an idiot-proof single-lever system. By which I mean that there is a single lever with which to prove that you are an idiot, not that the system is in any way infalliable.

I run last-generation SRAM Force on my race bike now. Mentally, it does take some getting used to. On the back, as you probably know, clicking the shift lever once knocks you up a gear, and pushing it further pushes you up the cassette. When I say click, I do mean click, mind. For those used to the almost damped workings of a Shimano system, the dog-chewing-on-gristle crunch of the SRAM ratchet system sounds almost broken the first time you hear it. Wincing slightly, you accept it as the price you pay for some seriously lightweight shifters. Then you take it out for a ride, and have to rewire your brain.

The concept of the action is easy. Apart from the odd attempt to swing the brake lever at the start of rides, I never struggled with thinking what action to perform for what result. The differences come with your decision-making process.

Upshifting takes almost no motion, and happens as soon as you release the paddle. Downshifting might take up to a full rotation of the wheel, but starts as you start pulling cable, similar to Shimano. Like me, then, you may be used to "pre-tensioning" the cable coming into the base of climbs, where you hold the downshift lever ready so that you can shift as soon as your cadence drops. If you're comfortable just powering over, you just release and carry on.

Except on SRAM, you've just upshifted.

It's a simple matter of keeping your fingers away from the levers until you're ready to shift, but it has caught me out once or twice. Caveat Shiftor.

On the front, we see the first big compromise of SRAM. You really do have to "force" the chain outboard, and you're up shift creek without a paddle if you've forgotten that you were in the "trim" position. A full sweep should either fully release or fully tension the cable, and with a short hold at the end of the surprisingly long arc you can usually have faith in an upshift. If you knock it halfway, though, you shift the derailleur halfway inboard and full sweeps sometimes only seem to knock it back into "trim", when they should take it fully back out. Another half-click and you're fully released and can start afresh, and it is something that you can get used to, but it did cause me much aggro before I was comfortable with it. I guess it's lucky that I don't get much use out of anything other than the big ring.

The hoods are a matter of preference. Force feel more dainty to me, and fit well without gloves. 105 probably fits my gloved hands better, especially the space between the levers and the bars which I like wrapping two fingers around. Neither offer the larger nubbins of the top-end groups and Sora, which I like pushing my palm into when I'm trying to run my forearms flat, so I guess the cheap set wins this round. Consolation prize for Sora, for providing the most comfortable aerodynamic position on bikes that probably don't care.

The brakes honestly seem much-of-a-muchness, with only a better set of after-market cables on Force changing the feel at all. That being said, the stock pads on 105 are shocking in the wet, whereas the stock pads on Force are Swissstop greens. I have to give this one to SRAM, then.

What else is there? What elephants in the room am I missing?

Ah, aesthetics. Well, since I'm on BB30 I never had to suffer the ignomy of hideous Shimano cranks, and the rest of the group pretty much just works. I should add that I think the new Dura-Ace cranks show a step in the right direction, so I'm not against Shimano per se.

If the new DA is a step in the right direction, though, the new Red was a massive flying leap to become the best looking modern groupset on the market. My Force isn't such a joy to look at by comparison, but it ties in well and doesn't rub on my heels. Definite point to Force here.

Well, that about sums it up, doesn't it? Ok, so Force is about half as expensive again as 105, but you get a better-looking chainset, equal to better performance at the back with an unmistakable shift action, worse performance at the front with an easily mistakable shift action, equal or better brakes and YMMV ergonomics. I guess I'm done, then?

Wait? Wait for what?

Oh, weight!

Alright, so this isn't like-for-like. Force is supposed to rival Ultegra, not 105, after all. But it beats it, comfortably. In the upgrade, I dropped half a kilo from my race bike, making it only a set of wheels away from being a climber's dream in aluminium. If you're looking to upgrade from 105, then, and your options are Ultegra or Force, my verdict would be:

Read my review, ignore the weight and the price, and switch "Ultegra" for "105" whenever you see it.

If you really want an answer, from a personal point of view, I can only offer you this:

If Shimano makes kit that works this well,
And SRAM is so much leaner,
No logic on Earth could ever tell,
Why gentlemen prefer Athena.

Artisan Carbon Fibre

No big post this week, just wanted to draw attention to this bikeradar tour of the Look factory, in response to my post a few weeks back that talked about making carbon fibre bikes. It makes for an interesting read, but note that, from a background dealing with fibreglass structures and with some idea of what to expect from the bike industry, Look is not typical in making its frames from individual fibres - I would expect pre-pregs to be far more common.

That being said, this is definitely the way to engineer a bike to be the best that it can be, so it's probable the Cervelo Rca is similarly hand-laid, and it seems to me that the Canucks might have the edge over the French in pure frame engineering (from what I've heard. I'd love to be speaking from experience!), but, as you can read, this level of detail takes a lot of time and effort.

And I'd still prefer something welded!

First win

What a difference a year makes.

The sleet drained the start line of the SWSCP Amstel Road Race (4th Cat) of colour as we faced the wrong way, the route diverted due to conditions. I wore a coat under my gilet to protect me from the worst of it, whilst I had embro' on under my leg warmers and gloves. I felt no concern about overheating - I knew the pace we were likely to do, and felt it was better to be comfortable than sleek but freezing like most of the others.

We rolled down and out through the neutral zone. I was concerned that a break might go and be allowed to stay away, especially as the commissaire had been particularly adamant that we weren't to cross the white line, severely limiting the mobility of the peloton, but I had found myself near to the back of the group due to where I had stood in the briefing. So it goes. I would find a way.

Perfectly sheltered on the gently rolling road to New Galloway, I found holes and slowly made my way up through the group, always with one eye on the lead car in case of a break. I was completely comfortable, following every pulse and stretch of the peloton with easy spin ups and coast downs, my aerobic conditioning meaning that I was never getting anywhere near "the red."

A sharp left over the bridge and the first break was away, but was neutralised and left to dangle a mere few yards in front of the bunch for miles. The road narrowed and became rough as we turned south along the loch, and there were no lines safe from potholes, but I was convinced that if I flatted, as many did, I would be able to chase back. Mostly by luck, I avoided the worst and waited for my chance.

Turning back to the east, a lone rider was allowed to gain more than five seconds on the bunch. A space to pass the bunch never came, so I was forced to ride the line, calling "on your right" to attack and bridge, expecting to be able to pull away with a partner. Unfortunately, I sped past him and he couldn't catch my wheel - his rear mech' was broken and he was down to one gear. Realising quickly that the game was up, I sat up and slipped into the peloton at about fourth wheel.

From there, it was a simple matter of following wheels. I knew that I would be able to hold the pace up the gentle hill to the finish, so all that was required was to follow any breaks, do no work for anyone else, and wait for the sprint.

Second wheel for the last three miles, I was blatant and cheeky, but if the rider in front wanted to continue to drive and scupper his chances, who was I to turn him down? The final corner, 250m to go - I dove in, took the shortest line, drove hard out of the corner and pushed on to the finish whilst kids yelled and marshals clapped. A check over my shoulder, and then it was hands off the bars and... well, I couldn't actually think what I wanted to do with them. My natural reaction was a fist-clenched, elbows-back pelvic thrust, but hands aloft seemed far more traditional. I think I went for somewhere in between, and then both, which, if not covering all bases, should at least require them all to be cleaned before they can be used again.

That is the story of how I won my first race. As you can tell, it was a long time coming.

Good trails!

Stop kidding yourself

Hands up if this sounds familiar: You work nine to five plus commuting, but you want to do physical training when you get home for a race, for an event, or just to feel good. You get home. You're tired.

You can't be tired though, because you need to push hard to get the most out of your training. So you go to the cupboard and grab a snack; maybe you put the kettle on. While you eat and drink, you settle down on the settee and watch some TV, or play a game, or just catch up on what's going on in the wide world of the Internet.

Two hours later, there's not much time left in the night to train, and you're still not feeling fresh. You drag yourself to your bike, or push yourself into your shoes, scrape your way out the door and go for an hour. It's only in the last half hour that you even start to wake up.

You get home, desperately try to find some food that you can shovel into yourself in the twenty minute post-exercise window, and know that you won't be able to get to sleep for hours yet, pushing back your sleep pattern and driving the whole thing round again.

This lecture isn't a parable about preparation - although it's fair to say that it's easier to get on the bike or get fed if everything you need has been organised beforehand. It's actually about that dead time after you get home.

The worst part of this whole self-perpetuating cycle is that dead time - the time that you feel that you cannot do anything, but also that you feel is wasted. Physically and psychologically, it takes "it" out of you; convinces you that you could be working harder, if only you had the energy.

You're kidding yourself.

I don't mean that you couldn't work harder. I mean that you're kidding yourself if you think that what you are actually doing is resting, that browsing websites for an hour is going to replenish your batteries for a seven o'clock assault on the roads. If you need rest, take rest. Don't be half-hearted about it.

Critical to me in this after-work window is working out what I need. If I haven't been able to snack in the afternoon, I'll probably want some carbohydrates to bring my energy levels back up, so I'll munch on some oat cakes. If I'm not alert, I'll make a cup of coffee and drink it.

Then, crucially, I'll sleep.

Not deeply and, if my flatmate has anything to do with it, often not for long, but it works better than not even trying. Caffeine takes time to affect the body. If you nap for twenty minutes immediately after taking a dose, you'll wake up as the effects begin to kick in, leaving you thoroughly refreshed and ready to go.

Accept that you do need rest if you are to train well, and target it. Don't think that sitting still and turning your brain off is enough. It takes no more time, and is far more effective, if you set aside a period and just go to bed. Just as with getting on your bike for a training ride - clothes, helmet, tyre pressures - make it a psychological event. Get undressed. Turn off the lights and set your alarm. Do the things you do to go to sleep, and wake up twenty or thirty minutes later knowing that your time was well spent and you're good to hit to road.

Enjoy your rest. You've earned it.

Good trails!

Watching Cyclocross

I'm not going to claim to be an expert on cyclocross, because I am not. However, in the matter of bad weather I can be considered at least a proficient amateur, as most of us can claim to be that live in these drizzly isles.

So, when I say that the Scottish National Cyclocross Championships were undertaken in classic cyclocross weather, take that to mean that it was that particular blend of sleet, wind and cold that one would associate with a Belgian winter, and one that, sadly, could not be ameliorated by a regular supply of that nation's beer.

We can let this organisational oversight slip, however, since the races themselves were well-organised and brutal. The championships had been delayed from earlier in the year, when frozen ground would have made the undertaking too dangerous, and a new venue had been sought, found and accepted by East Kilbride Road Club in Strathclyde Park - a mixed country park to the east of Glasgow where riders could expect gravelly chicanes in the car park, off-camber mud, a drag up a fire road and several hop-skip-jumps over steep bankings and up kerbs.

As an open championship, the range of abilities was vast, from fitness up the hill (the deciding factor in all the races) through to the technical finesse to jump onto bankings and up curbs without hanging up the rear wheel (a lack of which technique costing several riders punctures). In all races, the pack swiftly blew apart, but none more so than in the senior men's, where Rab Wardell pulled out 30s in the first lap and cruised to extend the lead from then on.

It is a good type of racing to watch, provided that you are well wrapped up, combining as it does the easily traversed courses and viewing options of a circuit race with the wide-open rider-based racing of a rough classic. (With tongue firmly in cheek), it was a lot like watching a cross-country race, with more mud and speed, but less (average) skill and terrible brakes.

For myself, though, I can't claim to be tempted to try it. It suits someone who is able to just power through anything, sprint up hills and recover in any free second - which sounds fun. It's just the mud - I wouldn't want to put my bike through that!

Good trails!

Dispatches from Berlin

I am criss-crossing the wide and quiet streets of Germany's capital in early and chilly March sun, and trying to take lessons on how to make a city friendly to cyclists.

The early cynic in me shouts out - bomb it! The wide boulevards, holding roads some fifty metres across, with pavements of a dozen more, not to mention tram lines, cannot fail to provide enough room for everyone and more besides. Rebuilding our medieval road systems to accomodate such thoroughfares would require wholesale reconstruction of our city centres. The situation seems hopeless.

And yet, there are lessons.

Simple things are done, instead of being and afterthought. Road furniture exists, and is still plentiful, but is regulated to a single strip that divides pavement from roadway. There are no surprise bins in off-road cycleways, and pedestrians only dodge each other, not the road.

Importantly, cyclists are provided for without exception. There is always a marked lane along every major road. They are given five or ten seconds explicit grace at traffic lights by their own, separate signals. The roads are well-kept, with 30kph limits on all minor roads.

Drivers can still be aggressive, but I have only seen that aggression shown toward other drivers. People feel safe. Almost the only helmets I have seen have been on Segway riders.

Establishing cause and effect here is difficult, and there are a whole host of natural componding factors - the flatness of the terrain being a primary one - that may amplify any differences. Nevertheless, it is a cause for hope. Full separation does not seem to be necessary - just full provision, with appropriate speed limits and faith in the state of the infrastructure; faith that it will be in a state fit to ride; faith that it will be treated for the conditions; faith that it will lead you to anywhere that you might want to go. Faith that it won't lead you forks-first into a flight of stairs or waste bin.

It seems simple. That is the greatest reason for hope of all.

Good trails!

I will do Science to it

It takes a big person to use a power meter, which isn't to say that you need to have legs like Sir Chris Hoy to benefit from training with one. Rather, it is a reflection of yourself that is too true to be beautiful. Whatever ambitions and dreams you may have about your potential are leadenly anchored by numbers on a screen, often lower than you would hope.

I am borrowing a powertap wheel from a friend, and using it has been both informative and slightly disappointing, though its use as a training tool can hardly be overstated. I would be curious to compare the difference in times over time-trials from riders with power meters compared with aerodynamic wheels, because I suspect that simple knowledge of your effort would allow you to outperform even your best unmetered attempts.

As well as the training benefits, using a power meter has allowed me to check something that I had been wondering about for a long time - the accuracy of Strava power estimate. With the wheel on, I rode my standard loop and compared the measured power over segments with the two bracketing calculated values. Here's what I found:

Speed (low)	Power	%diff	Speed (measured)	Power	Speed (high)	Power	%diff
Climbs
34.5	280	-14.6	34.8	328	35.1	299	-8.8
28.3	263	-12.6	28.3	301	28.4	259	-14.0
Flats/rolling
34.4	206	-12.7	35	236	35	228	-3.4
34.1	196	-31.2	34.6	285	34.6	203	-28.8
34.9	215	-23.8	35.3	282	35.3	197	-30.1
35.6	242	-18.0	35.9	295	37.6	286	-3.1
Overall
32.4	214	-24.4	32.9	283	34.3	227	-19.8

Huh. So, basically, on climbs, Strava underestimates power, usually on the order of 10%. On the flats, though, it can be anywhere from 3% to 30%! The overall estimation was low by more than 20%.

Ok, so this isn't exactly science - more evidence is required. Nevertheless, I think I have showed 2 things:

1) You can't train with Strava

2) Strava tends to underestimate power.

Good trails!

On Adjusting Expectations

Reporting from here in Scotland, I can relay, to the surprise of precisely no-one, that the winter is long.

It's getting to that stage now where I'm starting to feel like we should be out of it already. On the weekends, almost unbidden, I am finding my pedals mysteriously attached to my race bike. My legs scream for light and air, and so endure being smeared with embro' for the merest semblance of summer riding. I push hard - not just for training, but because I am barely wearing enough layers to stay warm for ten minutes stationary.

It seems mad, sometimes. The work; the time; the effort put in over the off-season. For five months of the year we prepare for the next seven - the "good" seven. All of these non-rides - the city-centre commuting, the long nights of base training, the quick blasts to test out the bike - don't seem to count towards the legendary "good days", where the miles tick by under a warming sun, or where you're tooth by jowl with a jostling pack of enthusiastic racers, or where you can stop and sit out in the sun and feel without looking which panels of your kit are black and which are white.

If there are any blessings to a long winter, it is that it encourages you to stay true to a training plan. When the options for training are unstructured hill repeats up and down a pitch black hillside versus sitting for an hour in a temperature-controlled room with a heart rate monitor and a laptop stuck on an online stopwatch, the scientific approach seems most appealing to me.

Which isn't to say that it's easy. I have been following a back-to-back interval day plan by Chris Carmichael, and whilst I cannot yet give results to vouch for its efficacy, it certainly does the job of making me utterly, pathetically knackered.

The short duration of intervals makes starting easy - there are hardly any excuses not to do them if you are only going to be on the turbo for an hour - but the intensity also makes those durations the longest possible time you can imagine.

Earplugs in both sides to drown out the drone of the turbo trainer are the only distraction from the task at hand. At the end of the fourth of seven sprints, my eyes are squeezed shut, my brain searching through my legs for a single patch of muscle fibres not screaming from the effort, then switching my position slightly to force them to fire. In left and right ear it's Bad Religion:

I look for inner wealth,
By punishing myself.

It's gut-wrenching, vicious stuff. Every time I open my eyes and glance at the clock, there are fractions in my mind.

Fifteen more seconds. Three-quarters of the way there on the fourth sprint of seven. Once I'm done I'll be over half way through this block. And there's only three blocks. So I'm already over one sixth done.

For the longer-durations, it gets more and more complex, as I set out the minute markers that signal the end of one phase and the start of another. For all the dullness and repetition, I cannot afford to let my mind wander, or else my efforts will follow it. The furthest I can go is to a race, or a dream. To holding more than 450 Watts towards Hampton Court Palace. To jumping up on the pedals and dancing to the top of the Angliru.

The delusions sink in, somewhat. The winter has been long - I believe I may have mentioned that - and it has been even longer since I raced. I want to believe that a metamorphosis is being undertaken, that these long hours will result in something wholly unrecognisable once I get back onto the road.

I should stop asking for miracles.

The plan suggests that Saturdays can be used for crit'-pace rides, which I tend to take as liberty to time-trial or climb or otherwise test myself. Every time, I go out with the idea in my head that I will now, somehow, be unbeatable. That I will have trained myself into a state better than I ever have been, fitter and lighter than the best of my best. It is, of course, a wholly preposterous idea.

Looking at things logically, I am still midway through my first real training block of the year - I have put barely six weeks of true, race-preparation effort in. I still haven't done any real climbing work, and I have a kilogram or two to lose to get to race weight. The idea that I would, at this stage, be better than my best last year, after all the work I had put in then, is an unintentional slight on my past self, and completely unreasonable. Benefits come after training, after all, rather than during.

Yet still, I desire for my performance to saltate. Looking back on how I have developed over the last two years (as this blog very handily allows me to do), I can see the massive steps that I have taken.

But this is just time being compressed by paucity of information and uninteresting memory. At least I have the time stamps to confirm what I know - that between those posts, days, weeks and months went by where I worked, and worked hard, at becoming a better rider. Not all of it was fitness work - some of it was very necessary rest and kidding around - but it was all part of building up who I am and making me proud of what I have achieved.

So I'll carry on, and I won't take my disappointments too seriously. It's a long winter, but there'll be days, soon. Good days.

Stealth Cycling

It may surprise some reading this, but I wasn't always happy being a cyclist. I loved cycling, but appearing as one of those (as I saw) aloof, self-regarding masochists - a road cyclist - was something I made every effort to avoid. This was made easier by my starting out in mountain biking, where the lycra tends to be hidden underneath more durable layers and the shoes remain useful when you get to where you're going.

Say what you like about road cycling, full race kit makes it difficult to actually ride anywhere. You can't carry enough layers to keep you warm when you stop; wearing nothing but a layer of tight-fitting fabric around your nether regions doesn't present a view you want to share too much; and, most importantly, the shoes are lethal. Before I had any interest in cycling as a fitness tool and recreational activity, and surely long after, I saw (see) cycling as a method to get from place to place. When I got to my destination, I would then want to do whatever I came there to do without looking or feeling like a cyclist. I still cycle to work every day, and I wear normal clothes.

The point that I am slowly coming to is that I've felt, from the beginning, that most cycling should not require "looking" like a cyclist - especially not once you get to your destination. Thus, "dual-mode" clothing has always interested me.

High vis is good on a bike. It's not great - it's not attractive, and that's a reasonable consideration. I work in an industry that clashes with people's aesthetic tastes daily, and to dismiss the desire for the world to look pleasing is to give up any attempt to engage with one of our most important stakeholders. Intuitively, making things beautiful is worthwhile because it provides "free" pleasure. Despite this, high-visibility clothing is a useful enough an "attention-grabber" to be worthwhile using on a bicycle on public roads. Today, anyway.

As soon as you're off the bike, though, it looks daft.

With this in mind, I made a few "modifications" to some of my kit. Whilst I'd only be the last word in fashion if my appearance actively drove away the audience, I think they work quite well.

Pedal reflectors work well, because they're dynamically moving lights. The more dynamic lights you can have, the better off you are. Hence reflective trouser clips.

But these are naff.

As any good urban cyclist - and the good Sir Chris Hoy - will demonstrate, the only appropriate method for keeping one's cuffs out of the drive train when the weather is within your tolerance is to roll up your trouser leg. Rapha is well aware of this, with highlights and branding on the inside of the leg. But you don't need to pay over a hundred pounds to get a pair of cycling-specific jeans.

Hi-vis vests are cheap, commonly available from pound shops, and they have several strips of a certain highly reflective tape on them - probably made by a certain American chemical company that is so large that its only close competitor in the field of tape-backed artificial products is Simon Cowell. 

Pulling this tape off and sewing it onto the outside leg seam on any pair of jeans makes an instant reciprocating reflector that is entirely hidden when the jeans are rolled down. Stealthy!

You may notice that my stitching is, to use the technical term, naff. This is for several reasons:
1) I am lazy
2) I am no good at sewing
3) I forgot to check which side was reflective, so this is actually my second attempt, so I was bored
4) I plan to go over it later with fabric glue, otherwise known as "the friend with a sewing machine for people who don't have any friends with sewing machines."

From the same vest, I made some modifications to my rucksack. Just throwing a vest over your rucksack is effective, but looks unbelievably naff, so I put a bit of thought into this one.

I put a strip of reflective tape onto the back, to shine back whenever I'm sat up at lights. Most of the rest of the vest I sewed onto the bottom of the bag, so that when I'm pedalling with my backside in the air, it's visible, but walking around during the day it's pretty discrete. It's stood up ok over the past year and a bit, but my poor stitching needs replacing now.

Finally, something not for me, but for the bike. As we all know, bike-mounted lock holders are the work of the devil, destroying the lines of the bike, but what are you supposed to do when you need to carry your U-lock, but don't need a bag?

Well, any urban cyclist worth his salt will tell you that you stick it in your belt. But you have to lock it on to be secure, and it stresses the belt loops. What can you do?

Holster.

You can buy these, but what's the need when you can make one yourself? All you need are a few strips of unstretchable fabric.

If you're like me, you'll have a good few pairs of jeans with crotches worn out by saddle time. Even if you're able to fix them, you'll always have one that you're using to take patches from.

Sew the strips around the lock, close enough that it can't slip through, and put a couple of belt loops on the back. Bob's your uncle.

You can buy equivalents of all of these ideas (although I don't know of any rucksacks that limit their high-vis to the underside), but what's the need when you can mod it yourself?

So there you go. Just remember the golden rule: As with single-speeds, it's not hipster if you've Done It Yourself.

Carbon Fibre's Carbon Footprint

I've been meaning to do this one for a while, but I'm afraid that I don't have any real answers for you (or me) yet. I wanted to answer the question: "What is a carbon fibre bicycle's carbon footprint?" under the conditions of me buying a new carbon fibre bicycle and riding it, using similar approximations to my estimates about metal bikes: http://towalestwowheels.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/low-impact-riding.html

It's not that simple, though.

First of all, I cannot find any data for the lifecycle carbon emissions of carbon fibre composite, even from my old, faithful source, the Bath University Inventory of Carbon & Energy. The best I can do is Glass Reinforced Plastic - GRP - which, at 8.10 kg CO2e/kg of material, is better than virgin aluminium, but carbon fibre cannot come from a recycled source for a large component (frame, fork, wheel, crankset... pretty much anything other than a bottle holder), so I would expect the composite bike to come out worse overall. More importantly, though, working off this number ignores how difficult carbon fibre is to produce compared to glass fibre.

I should probably give a quick explanation about what a fibre composite material is, for those who don't know.

Glasses and ceramics can be pretty strong. Think about the portholes and viewing domes on submersibles - they are under enormous pressures, yet barely compress at all. The downside of that rigidity is that if you do try to bend them, they tend to crack and break, very suddenly.

To overcome this, we can make these brittle glasses and ceramics into fibres. This does several things - primarily, it aligns the crystals of the structure along the fibre (especially with carbon); secondarily, by placing fibres side be side instead of in one homogeneous structure, if there is a defect in one of the fibres, it shall not propagate through the whole structure.

These fibres tend to be very strong in tension, but obviously, when compressed, they buckle. To hold them together, we need to put them in a "matrix" - a bonding material. This is typically something like epoxy resin, and the resulting material is a "composite" of the fibre and matrix. Steel-reinforced concrete is a large-scale fibre composite material.

As mentioned, the fibres tend to be very strong in tension along the axis that they are aligned. To obtain strength in other directions, we bond layers of composite one on top of the other, with the plies of the fibres in different directions.

The balance between the ratio of fibre to matrix, and the diameter of the individual fibres, also affects the mechanical properties of the resulting material, notably affecting the ratio of its tensile, compressive and shear strength, as well as how brittle the overall material is. I'll come back to this later.

Ok, so there's your primer. So how close is glass fibre composite, in manufacturing, to carbon fibre composite?

Glass fibres are made by melting (primarily) silica glass beads (marbles) at approximately 1250 degrees C, which gravity feeds through a sort of strainer and gets pulled into a strand.

So, glass needs to get pretty hot, right?

Not compared to graphite.

There are a few different type of carbon fibres, but one process for structural-grade graphite fibres is the polyacrylonitrile (PAN) process. This starts with a reel of PAN fibres, run it through a controlled oxidisation furnace at 250 degrees C, then into a pyrolysis furnace to drive off any non-carbon atoms at 250 degrees to 1500 degrees, and finally a graphitization furnace to draw out those crystals which warms the strand from 1500 degrees to a whopping 2500 degrees C. Yes, that is considerably more than the melting point of most (if not all?) steels.[1]

So carbon is a totally different animal to glass.

What about the other end of its life, then? What about recycling?

Well, that's actually been pretty well covered in the cycling press. Most large manufacturers offer some form of carbon composite recycling, with Specialized even offering to take in frames from manufacturers who aren't running their own schemes. However, it's not a panacea. Here's a thoughtfully-written piece on the issue:

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112493049/the-dirty-secret-of-carbon-fiber/

I do wish, however, to come up with a slight rejoinder to some of Peter Suciu's closing remarks, where he claims that carbon fibre takes some of the artistry out of design and production.

In my opinion, this is utterly incorrect.

The argument is that 3D CAD design and 3D printing takes humans out of the loop. In reality, we are taking about being out of the loop on things we never really had a say in anyway. How many bike builders cast their own lugs, let alone draw their own tubes? If anything, fibre composites give us more control over the design and feel of our bikes - and it is certainly a lot easier to make a bad one. Invisible things like layout and fibre choice make almost continuous differences, as opposed to the very discrete options of alloy and tube diameter. The laying of "pre-preg" plies or even (as I believe occurs for Look) individual fibre layup is an incredibly taxing job, requiring high dexterity and attention to detail. Manufacturing the moulds alone is a high-precision task, and developing new ways of keeping the internal surfaces of carbon fibre objects "clean" has been one of the major areas of innovation for the bicycle industry over the past few years.

Carbon fibre certainly hasn't taken the human out of the loop. If anything, it is its necessity for hand-layup that has caused so many manufacturers to outsource production to the far east. The design is now more intricate than ever, but based on invisible properties such as durability and stiffness. There will come a day when you can be an artisan carbon-fibre manufacturer - when there is a standard set of lay-ups, moulds and mandrels to iterate on without worrying that your tinkering is going to ruin the ride. Until then, fibre based composites are still an exciting engineering challenge.

I feel I should draw this post back together, as responding to that article has drawn it off-course somewhat.

I cannot guess the carbon impact of a carbon-fibre bicycle, but I have good reason to believe, based off of the GRP values and the relative energy intensity of carbon fibre as well as its inability to be recycled in long strands, that it would be more carbon-intensive than an aluminium bicycle, and therefore than a steel bicycle.

On the other hand, a well-made carbon-fibre bicycle could conceivably outlive an aluminium one, assuming that it is well-sealed. So don't feel too bad.

At least it's not titanium...


[1] Composite Materials for Aircraft Structures (1986); Brian C Hoskin & Alan A. Baker; AIAA Education series,  Washington DC

Getting started racing - part 2

This is part 2 of my quick run down of the things that made me the most nervous before my first Cat 4 race. Let's get straight into it, then...

2)  How fit should I be?

Other versions of this question: How much power do I need? What should my power to weight be? What should my weight be?

None of these questions can be answered. If you are sharp enough tactically, you can race successfully with minimal power and maximal weight. If you are super-powerful, you can pull away on certain courses no matter what your weight. If you're super-light, you could well finish with so little fatigue that you can mix it with the big sprinters.

None of this comes close to assuaging the fears of a first-time racer, though, so let's try to be more concrete.

Firstly: if you can, join in with a chaingang at least once or twice. Regardless of whether it fits in with your training, getting your head in that wheel-following, high-speed zone is going to make far more difference to your success in racing than a missed interval session. Most chaingangs are considerably faster than a C4 race - expect to get dropped at some point, but try to hang on for as long as possible.

So, if chaingangs are faster than a C4, how can you tell if you're fast enough?

Ok. If pushed, and I had to put a number on it, I would say that I would have been happy enough racing when my fitness was at a level where I could sustain, without being on the rivet, 20mph for more than 25 miles over undulating terrain. So there you go. If that's a struggle, you may find your first race a rather demoralising experience. If that's not a struggle, you may still find your first race a demoralising experience if you don't use your head and follow the race.

C4 races can be viciously fast. 40kph averages are quite a step about the low 30s a reasonably sharp club run will be running. However, they can also stop dead - very frustrating if it's because the bunch is being controlled to let a dangerous break go. If you don't have the fitness to go all the way, it's better to just sit in an accept the will of the peleton for the time being. You will be left to dangle if you find yourself in no-man's land.

I guess that those are the two biggest points I wanted to address, but I guess there's time for a few quickies:

3) Will I crash?

Maybe. People will undoubtedly crash into you. If the questions are: Will I hit the deck? Will there be damage? The answers are yes, and yes. Sorry.

4) Will I be shouted at?

Yes. Sometimes it's because you're doing something dangerous. Sometimes it's because some people have a lot of pent-up aggression. Just watch your line and learn when you can.

5) I can't corner. Can I race?

Sadly, yes, and if there's one thing that you can guarantee, it's that you won't be the worst. Less facetiously:  if you can hold a line, yes. You may make it harder on yourself and whoever's behind you, but that's their tough luck. Most races take very safe lines and speeds around all sharp corners and roundabouts, since everybody's tyres are different and nobody wants to be the guy to slide out or to be next to the guy that slides out. If you're in a break, expect to push things quite a lot harder, and descent speeds can be quite scary in a bunch, especially in the wet, so a little bit of confidence won't go amiss, but so long as you're not a danger to anyone else, and you're willing to make back any lost ground, you can learn on the job.

6) Can I cross the centre line?

Commissaires will tell you that you cannot cross the centre line of the road, and that riders doing so will be removed from the race. This does happen, so don't get stuck out there, but it's a simple fact that a bicycle race doesn't work if people can't change their position in the bunch, which frequently occupies the entire lane. If you need to move up, do so on a clear piece of road, do it quickly, and slip back in as soon as possible. There is a considerable advantage to be had for groups attacking on the opposite side of the road around blind curves, but don't be that guy. You could have a serious accident and, worse, get the race called off.

7) What's the best regional-level racing bike?

Why, the Cannondale CAAD 10, of course! Although, if Glasgow Green Cycle Club's new sponsor, Dales Cycles, wishes to lend me some test bikes to try and change my mind, I'm open to experiment...

Good trails!

Getting started racing - part 1

It's that time of year when mildly obsessive people in possession of bicycles (or who have in their possession bicycles - I never really understood the former sentence construction, no matter how apt it might be in this particular case) start thinking about what to do with them when light returns once again to the world. One of the things that the more competitive and less self-preserving bike-nuts might wish to do is race them, but, if they haven't raced before, they might have a few questions about how best to go from now (being mildly inclined to race a bicycle) to then (being a taller, more suave Mark Cavendish and/or Marianne Vos. Maybe not taller than Marianne Vos. Maybe I should stop being heightist and get on with it...).

If they are you, or at least, you number among they, this post and the next one may be for you, providing clear but massively biased answers to the questions that come first to my mind when talking about British Cat 4 racing, based on one season's experience. Clear, I should clarify, in the way that these first two paragraphs aren't.

Enjoy.

1) What kit will I need?

This is a biggy, so let's break it down.

The Bike

"It's not about the bike." Except when it is. We need to subdivide further.

Frame/Forks

I've seen people win on all sorts, but there is a noticeable trade-off between skill needed and how easy your frame makes it. Fundamentally, weight doesn't seem to be as huge an issue in C4 as just riding a bike that you can make work for you. If you're a powerful rider, anything that fits will do you fine. If you're flexy, lightweight, and a bit of a wimp when it comes to putting the power down (like yours truly), you'll need something that's going to allow you to get into an aerodynamic position.

Frame aerodynamics are almost completely ignorable, and will provide a perceived difference only. Better to get something that handles well than something with slab sides and a flexy front end or BB in my book, but it really doesn't matter so long as you're comfortable.

As a general rule, if it's a cheap or obscure bike, you needn't be embarrassed about it. There are plenty of sporty Allez' racing, and a good few CX bikes with road wheels swapped in. Nobody will pay any notice.

On the other hand, if you have a flash bike, expect to need to hold your own. It's the (second) price you pay...

The range of bike will probably be a bit higher than on most of the local club runs, but will probably stop short of superbike territory. Last year, the field was probably about 3/4 carbon fibre, but the type of bike made no difference whatsoever to appearance or finishing position. Cheaper bikes tended to be ridden by less experienced or fit riders, but with a great many exceptions.

Wheels

Wheels make a difference. Aerodynamics are probably slightly more important than weight in most races, but try to get a pair that suits you. I prefer lighter, shallower wheels with more "snap" if the option is between that and a deep but slow to wind up aerodynamic pair. You can get away with stock wheels, but don't expect to see too many in the field, and if you've ever tried a better pair, you may have a sizable chip to carry on your shoulder.

Groupset

I have never seen Sora or Microshift raced, and I would not suggest you be the first to try. I run a Sora/Tiagra mix on my training bike, and would never take it to a race. You have to be prepared for a sprint finish, and the low-end groups are not suited for those stresses at all. The Sora upshifters are far too awkward to reach in a race situation and even when new both the front and the rear mech are far too reluctant to push the chain over.

The most popular racing gruppo seem to be various marques of Ultegra followed by 105, then Red, Dura-Ace and Force. There are a few riders on Campy, but it would be best to stick to a 10-speed system since it'll be virtually impossible to get a replacement wheel in case of a rear puncture otherwise.

I have yet to see an electronic group on a race bike yet, but with Ultegra Di2 coming out last year I expect 2013 will show 1 or 2. I don't think anyone's daft enough to take DuraAce Di2 to a C4 race - shifters and rear derailleurs are the most easily damaged components in any crash.

Clothing

Firstly - shoes. Mountain bike shoes are ok, but most riders will be in race shoes. Toe clips and flats are non-existent.

Everything else - take everything. If you're racing in Britain, you'll probably need it. Though there are rules regarding leg covering, I've never seen them enforced, so leg and arm warmers are usually a good idea even if just for the warm-up. A gilet is possibly the most useful bit of kit after the standard shoes, helmet, shorts and jersey. If it's raining, you'll be able to pin your race number to the gilet and put it over your coat to save you having to worry about number visibility if you change your mind about the jacket, and it'll help immensely with both aerodynamics and warmth. Do not underestimate how cold you might get if you are idling in an unmotivated group. On a similar note - shoe covers are very useful.

If it's wet, have a strategy for glasses. They will get covered with spray even if it's not currently raining - another good reason to have a gilet handy. I personally cannot deal with rain on my glasses, so leave them at the start if I think there's any danger of the lenses becoming obscured.

As for your own appearance - try to look dapper. A bike race is a beautiful thing, after all. If you're worried about shaving your legs - don't worry, and do it. If you aren't worried but just don't want to - don't. There will be other hairy-legged riders, many of whom probably faster than you.

Food and drink

Most C4 races are about long enough to need one 750ml bidon during the race, and an optional gel or two which are most conveniently located under the leg grippers of your shorts.

That concludes the first part of my anecdotal blatherings. Next time - questions about You!