End Of Year Report
New Year's eve 2013, and time for a quick reflection on the passing year (while pedalling out more miles on the turbo trainer).
I've cycled over 5,000 kilometres, climbed nearly 50km, learnt how to fix most things on my bike, ascended one of the hardest climbs of the Tour de France and finished in the top half of the Etape du Tour. Not bad.
I've set myself some pretty tough targets for 2014, and it feels like a metaphorical as well as literal mountain to climb. Confidence is low, but there's still time to build it up. Some early season targets will help in the build up to the Cingles and the Marmotte. The first is to complete two 160km (100 mile) rides in preparation for the Burgess Hill Springtime Classic at the end of March (where the target will be a gold medal time)
Stats for December:
Time on bike: 10hrs 47 mins (1hr 56mins on the road)
Distance cycled: 335km (42km on the road)
Total climbing: 1,000m
Tuesday 31 December 2013
Monday 23 December 2013
Meet The Mountains
The recent stormy weather (and other commitments) means that training has been restricted to sessions on the turbo trainer since Wales, just to keep the legs ticking over through Christmas.
Seems like a good time to add a bit more detail as to what faces me come July in the Alps.
First: Col du Glandon:
Next: Col du Telegraphe:
And just when the legs can give no more: Alpe d'Huez:
Monday 2 December 2013
Mentality
Took the bike to Wales at the weekend with the intention of doing a long ride on saturday, then tailoring another ride to how the legs felt on Sunday.
The route I'd chosen for Saturday is a great ride I've done before, which criss-crosses the spine of the Brecon Beacons 4 times and incorporates 7 decent climbs (including the Devil's Elbow)
After finding myself poorly fuelled for the last couple of long rides I've done, I made sure that I was properly fed and hydrated before setting off. Even still, the legs felt weak and progress felt slow up the first climb of the day. This started to make me think, and I realised that the problems weren't so much physical as mental - I've 'bonked' on the last couple of long rides I've done, and now I think I am being subconciously cautious about pushing myself too early in a ride as I don't believe that I have the power/stamina to complete a long, hilly ride.
Once I'd got my head straight, I started to feel much better and dispatched the second climb of the day up Cerrig Duon with relative ease. The descent of this is great fun, as the road surface is half-decent, and visibility was really good:
After losing all that altitude, I immediately turned north onto the A4067 and the climb back up to the pass over the Beacons. Again, felt good on this and the super-fast descent over the other side past the Cray reservoir. Took the junction and the immediate rise taking me towards Heol Senni and a date with the Devil's Elbow, when *PING*, and my legs were spinning freely.
A glance down showed my chain was trailing behind the bike, and I just managed to unclip before coming to a complete standstill (lucky I wasn't going up anything steeper). A quick check revealed that a pin had broken, separating the chain. Wisdom says that this is likely to be caused by a defective pin, but I like to think that I was just putting too much power through the pedals.
So that was it, 50km into a planned 110km ride. All that was left was to call up the team car (Dad) and wait in the sunshine for him to arrive. At least there are worse places to break down:
Having fixed my chain, I decided to go out and have a double crack at Llangynidr mountain on Sunday morning, as the base of it is only 5km away. This is a really good climb, and mirrors a lot of alpine climbs with an average gradient of around 7-8%, with a few ramps of 11-12%, albeit over a much shorter distance. On the first ascent, I turned off before the summit for the descent to Crickhowell, which is really fun. Nudged 70km/h despite not being entirely confident in the integrity of the road surface. Back to Llangynidr and begun the ascent again, this time pedalling all the way to the summit, which is a solid 400m climb.
Felt really good to get all this climbing done, and stopped quickly on the descent for a quick snap, before heading home.
Stats for November:
Time on bike: 19hrs 56mins (16hrs 21mins on the road)
Distance cycled: 501km (382km on the road)
Total climbing: 4,595m
Took the bike to Wales at the weekend with the intention of doing a long ride on saturday, then tailoring another ride to how the legs felt on Sunday.
The route I'd chosen for Saturday is a great ride I've done before, which criss-crosses the spine of the Brecon Beacons 4 times and incorporates 7 decent climbs (including the Devil's Elbow)
After finding myself poorly fuelled for the last couple of long rides I've done, I made sure that I was properly fed and hydrated before setting off. Even still, the legs felt weak and progress felt slow up the first climb of the day. This started to make me think, and I realised that the problems weren't so much physical as mental - I've 'bonked' on the last couple of long rides I've done, and now I think I am being subconciously cautious about pushing myself too early in a ride as I don't believe that I have the power/stamina to complete a long, hilly ride.
Once I'd got my head straight, I started to feel much better and dispatched the second climb of the day up Cerrig Duon with relative ease. The descent of this is great fun, as the road surface is half-decent, and visibility was really good:
After losing all that altitude, I immediately turned north onto the A4067 and the climb back up to the pass over the Beacons. Again, felt good on this and the super-fast descent over the other side past the Cray reservoir. Took the junction and the immediate rise taking me towards Heol Senni and a date with the Devil's Elbow, when *PING*, and my legs were spinning freely.
A glance down showed my chain was trailing behind the bike, and I just managed to unclip before coming to a complete standstill (lucky I wasn't going up anything steeper). A quick check revealed that a pin had broken, separating the chain. Wisdom says that this is likely to be caused by a defective pin, but I like to think that I was just putting too much power through the pedals.
So that was it, 50km into a planned 110km ride. All that was left was to call up the team car (Dad) and wait in the sunshine for him to arrive. At least there are worse places to break down:
Having fixed my chain, I decided to go out and have a double crack at Llangynidr mountain on Sunday morning, as the base of it is only 5km away. This is a really good climb, and mirrors a lot of alpine climbs with an average gradient of around 7-8%, with a few ramps of 11-12%, albeit over a much shorter distance. On the first ascent, I turned off before the summit for the descent to Crickhowell, which is really fun. Nudged 70km/h despite not being entirely confident in the integrity of the road surface. Back to Llangynidr and begun the ascent again, this time pedalling all the way to the summit, which is a solid 400m climb.
 |
| Not sure how I got 61m below sea level in the Brecon Beacons, but hey.... |
Felt really good to get all this climbing done, and stopped quickly on the descent for a quick snap, before heading home.
Stats for November:
Time on bike: 19hrs 56mins (16hrs 21mins on the road)
Distance cycled: 501km (382km on the road)
Total climbing: 4,595m
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