The Road Most Travelled

Back down to Surrey this morning with Emily to spin the legs and get some climbing in. Did a route which included the climbs up Ranmore, Staples Lane, White Downs and Box.

Heroically managed to stay sur le plaque (on the big ring, for those that don't speak velominati) all the way up Ranmore, nearly brought back my café-stop cake in setting a time of 3:45 up White Downs, and managed a respectable 7:15 up Box Hill.

Top of Ranmore. Still on the big ring. Evidence. Sort of...

100km ridden. Cycling will be tailing off for a time whilst on holiday for the next 2 weeks though.

Pain Revisited

Found this video documenting the ascent of Semnoz during the Etape by someone who climbed at the same speed as me:



My thighs hurt just by watching this. My times for all the climbs on the Etape are included on the certificate below. Interesting that I climbed quicker than 811 riders that eventually finished ahead of me - need to brush up on the descending skills!

The Hour

Preparation wasn't ideal (dehydration from a weekend's camping and drinking) and the conditions weren't perfect with a headwind all the way up to Richmond Gate, but I whizzed off to Richmond Park yesterday evening to try and beat the 60 minute mark for the 3 lap time trial.

The first lap went well with a 19:41, but I encountered a fair bit of traffic on the second lap and recorded a 20:15, leaving me needing a sub-20:04 to beat the magic mark.

Felt dizzy going up the final climb at Kingston Gate, and gunned it as best I could to the finish but the best I could do was a 20:09 for a total time of 1 hr 5 secs.

Real feeling that I was losing time on the short, punchy climbs as riders that I had cruised by on the 'flat' would in turn effortlessly pass me again as soon as the road ramped up. Need to look at increasing my power for attacking climbing.

Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Missing 25 Watts

Having only had a minimal amount of rides on my new bike, I took the opportunity to play around with the set up today.

After dropping the stem to a more 'racy' position, I calculated my correct seat-post height, then made a few further minor adjustments to ensure it was comfortable. The upshot of this is that I found out that my saddle was 2cm too low.

A bit of research online suggests that this could have been costing me about 25 watts of power. You have no idea what I would've given for an extra 25 watts on Semnoz...