The Derby Mercury All Inclusive Poppy Ride

For those who have been following my posts you may well recall my report on the first Mercury All Inclusive Social Ride , an event which attracted well over 30 riders of all ages and abilities. You may also recall that the leader, Dave B managed to set a world record for attrition with only 8 survivors making it grovelling to the finish line.

For the Poppy Remembrance Ride, once again over 35 riders gathered at Broadway for the  event.  This time though, due to the mud and freezing temperatures, there were two echelons, the Off Roaders and the Overlanders with the Touring Secretary Nigel C leading the Muddy Ones and Ian S leading the Road Warriors. Meticulous planning by our famed duo had arranged for the groups to intersect at various points along the route before finally all meeting up at the Queen's Head in Little Eaton for food and refreshment.

Sadly I have to report that only 2 riders managed to complete the designated route and neither of them were the ride leaders.

Indeed it was only the Lanterne Rouge, ( Lorraine and myself ) who did actually complete the journey.

And so a new Attrition World Record was set. Step Forward Nigel and Ian !

This ride was different to the other Social Rides in that there was a time cut off of 11-00 to reach the War Memorial at Weston Underwood

 but a delayed start, punctures, and the hills, ( oh those hills! ), meant that the Overlanders were always struggling to meet the target time. Indeed Mugginton Mountain with its conveniently placed graveyard on its summit managed to decimate the peleton and only a few survivors made it the top .

Withe the blustery wind, and temperatures trying valiantly to get into positive territory, refreshment and a warm welcome was urgently needed.

However the conditions must have been so severe that the Off Roaders could stand the conditions no more and took refuge at a hostelry in Holbrook rather than go to the designated meeting point.

Meanwhile the main peleton continued to splinter and the excuses for leaving the plan were both varied and creative. Julie thought her dog might be missing her, Ian claimed to have lost a son, Gill thought her daughter was in danger of getting cold whilst others had just given up the will to live.


And so, this was a Social Ride WITHOUT a cake stop !

Though in conclusion, someone managed to heartily refuel

Review of the Year - 2016

This has been for me a good cycling year.

The annuity distance target was achieved with ease, and indeed, I managed to cycle further in a year than I have ever done previously.

                                      Total Distance   7147 km
                                       Total Ascent     57384 m

even though the total number of rides was down by 5% to 189 outings

Persuaded by a friend to try some Baby Audax ( 100km ) I entered Rutland and Beyond in  early February. The weather was bitter, the hills steep and my friend decided that only fools rode in tose conditions so stayed at home..I rode..and froze. But I did complete it.
This was soon to be followed by another event around  the Three Fields of Alfreton and indeed I had also entered Charnwood in the Spring but went down sick two days before and was forced to withdraw.

The standard Derby Mercury club runs are obviously too quick and too far for me but instead  I started to ride with a group of Derby Mercury Veterans. This group of past cyclists used to race and  tour decades ago before the introduction of these modern new  fangled carbon electronic gear changing things were ever thought about. It is great to listen to stories of races past and places seen.  They travel now more at my pace and every ride involves a cake stop .

Indeed it was with  this group that this year I cycled abroad for the first time when we went to France to watch the TdF and follow in the tyre tracks of Stage 1.

 The atmosphere was great, the food even better though the entire trip did expose my deep lack of linguistic skills .

Whilst I have mentioned that I am too old and slow to go on the normal Mercury rides I did join the 78th Anniversary Ride out to Denstone. This involved for me a 78 km trip alongside about 100 other cyclists from the Club covering the entire age range from 7- 70 years old. The pace was good, no-one got dropped and there was a marvellous BBQ prepared for our return.

I have also tried to integrate myself a little more into the Club by helping out at Time Trials and in particular the epic Everest Challenge undertaken by JK  and taking a few photos

All in all, I have had a good year
Next year I hit 70, and may lead a Social Ride in early March to celebrate the event..we will see

As for my new non-target driven approach, well the Annuity Chart says that 1000 miles ( 1610 km ) needs to be covered..better go and get my bike ready !

Review of the Year 2015 and a Tentative Look Forward

As far as cycling goals are concerned then I have to admit that this last year has been somewhat of a failure.  Perhaps it is that age is finally beginning to take its toll.

I was aiming to cycle around Harrogate, visit Betty's Tea Shop, and enjoy the Yorkshire Hills....and though a friend offered to ride with me I did not follow through. He is much younger than me and I have painfully discovered that a young man's SLOW is an OAPs VERY FAST and I was worried that I would nit keep up and spoil his ride.

I was also aiming to ride Derby - Skegness ( 100 miles ) in a day. I had loaded the route onto my Garmin and even tested it out over the first 30 km outbound. Again a younger man had offered to accompany me and act as domestique. I trained for this in that I was comfortably cycling 100 km but was feeling a little tired at the end and thought I would never manage a further 60 km.

So, I chickened out on both.

But there were some highlights and here are the bare statistices

               Total distance cycled             6736.1km
                Total Ascent climbed           51985m
              Total hours in the saddle        350 hours

My ' Annuity Goal ' was to cycle 1932 km ( or 1200 miles ) so I comfortably exceeded this, and indeed, managed to cycle further in the year than I have ever done before.

( Annuity Goal. When I retired the annuity people based my pension on my life expectancy, which they assumed to be 73yo.  So I was determined to beat this and bought a bike and took up cycling, never having really ridden before. So I set a lifetime target of 80yo and determined that I would ride 2000 miles in my 60th year and then decrease the target by 100 miles per year to account for aging, hence the target of 1200 miles in 2015 )

Also this last year I joined a cycling club, Derby Mercury though I felt somewhat of a fraud wearing the jersey as their cycling abilities are in a different league to my own.   However I have been made to feel very welcome and have enjoyed helping out with Marshaling at Races and taking some photos of various events and training sessions.

                                                      



                                               




                                                


                                                

     
                                               


So what for 2016?

A Cycling distance target of  1771 km

and perhaps, for the rest................ just to have fun

Review of the Year

I love numbers

As such I tend to set myself targets, create spreadsheets to monitor progress and scour articles about gear ratios, rotational mass, power to weight ratios and other arcane things.  Needless to say, none of this affects my personal performance and I potter along as before.As a result of all this my favourite essential cycling accessory is probably my Garmin 800 which provides loads of data to keep me out of mischief for hours.
Having taken up cycling only recently, about 5 years ago now, and being an old age pensioner, I do have to accept that my ability on a bike is only going to go one way...downwards.
The act of retiring, and the receipt of a pension,  gives one a crystal clear perception of one's own mortality. The annuity bean counters make an estimate of one's life expectancy and payout accordingly, in my case they placed their bets on my lasting until I was 73 years old, anything beyond that then I am winning! My son tells me to be more optimistic and so for the purpose of target setting I assumed I would live until I was 80 years old. So, being a cycling novice I decided, at 60,  upon a distance target of 2000 miles ( 3200 km ) a year with the aim of reducing this by 100 miles per year to allow for growing infirmity. This then acts as the main yearly goal and for this year that translates into a minimum distance of  2400 km or  1500 miles .
Having so far ridden 7030 km and climbed over 50000m  then this first target has been achieved.

My second aim was to explore more of our countryside on my bike. Here I count this as a partial success. I have been invited to join in with other cycling groups in Cheshire, Shifnall, Leicester and a lung busting ride in Derbyshire. At all the places I have made new friends and been  made exceedingly welcome despite them all having to travel at a much slower pace than they are used to in order to accommodate me. Thanks go to Mark, Andrew, David and Scott for letting me tag along on  their rides. I was hoping to do a short cycle tour but in this I failed, not wanting to cycle alone and being unable to find others who had the same desire.

One of the main reasons for being wary of cycle touring was my lack of ability as a bike mechanic and a fear of  breaking down in the middle of nowhere. During the year I have tried to address this deficiency and regular readers will have seen my efforts as a Novice Bike Mechanic.

Not having been a lifelong cyclist, I do not possess the fund of stories of the trials and tribulations of times past when all the hills were steeper, the wind was windier, the rain was  wetter and carbon was a thing confined to pencils. Indeed climatic and geographical change seems to have happened in the 40 years prior to my getting on a bike!  One of the things I did learn from these tales of yore was that "Steel is Forever "and that Mercians were the Prince of Cycles. And so the highlight of my year was in obtaining my own handmade, personally fitted Mercian Vincitore Special on my 65th birthday in March. This is an example of engineering beauty and excellence and draws spectators wherever I go.

As my interest in cycling has grown I have become aware of the competitive side to this sport. Whilst I am now too old to take part,  I have enjoyed watching the sleek riders on their aerodynamic machines as they compete in local Time Trials, probably the purest form of cycle racing. At the other end of the spectrum I have revelled in the mud spattered and bedraggled riders as they attempt the Cyclo Cross challenges that our  autumn and winter can throw at them. Muffled up against the driving wind and rain I am glad that I AM now too old to participate in this peculiar form of personal pain.

Perhaps my greatest achievement this year was to undertake Wiggy's Challenge. Wiggy was an excellent and enthusiastic cyclist who for a variety of reasons had fallen into the state of becoming a " Lapsed Cyclist ". His challenge was to resolve this problem by undertaking to ride every single day for a week and he asked others to join him on this venture and share their experiences. I wrote an article about this and as a result of the Challenge I have encouraged many others to get on their abandoned bikes and ride again. It mattered not how far, how fast or how often; the important thing was to cycle again and experience the joy and companionship such an activity can bring. So far I know of about two dozen people who have returned to cycling from me telling them this story.

Finally, this year I learnt something about the importance of nutrition to a cyclist. Whilst there are many tomes written about this and experts a plenty; at my level I have discovered it is all about CAKE. Being the generous sort of guy that I am, I wanted to share this knowledge with others and so have produced a little pdf booklet  entitled " Cycling Food on the Go  - Recipes for Success ". If you would like a copy you can get it from :-

http://thediaryofmybike.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/cycling-food-on-go_15.html

Mud, Sweat and Tears

Last weekend I saw in the newspaper that there was a cyclo cross race being held close to where I live.  I have never seen one of these but some of my friends tell me that they use it as part of their winter training regime. And so I decided to wander along and see what it was all about. The event was Round 5 of the Notts and Derby Cyclo Cross League and was held in Allestree Park in Derby. Whilst there had been some rain on the previous few days, the race day itself was fine with occasional glimpses of sun.
Cycling seems to be booming in Derbyshire and before the main event got underway, Cycle Derby  , an organization aimed at promoting cycling for all ages, ran some mini cyclo cross events for newcomers to the sport and attracted about 100 people.

The main event consisted of 4 events and first up was the Under-9 race.  I was amazed to see that the youngest rider was only 3 years old and he was pedalling! About 65 children took part in this and, though the hill was very minor it still seemed very steep for those with little legs

An abiding memory from the day was that Cyclo Cross is very much a family affair, and the announcer emphasized this fact with his many references to this or that clan, and reminiscences of the old timers whose progeny were there racing to-day.

The local clubs are obviously training their young stars well and there were many examples of teamwork with riders working to-gether to share the load between them

I keep off all this rough stuff, and as the races proceeded the rough stuff got rougher as the ground began to churn up and riders began to slip and slide and the bikes themselves started to get hammered under the strain. Not all could withstand this battering from the elements and so for some their race ended early.

n total there were about 180 riders in the main  junior events and I admire them all for both their enthusiasm and the efforts they put in.

The senior race consisted of around 220 riders with a women’s race of about 25 contestants embedded within the field. Seniors seemed to range in age from the exceedingly fit 20 year olds to those of much more mature years, though I did not spot any old age pensioners reinforcing my personal view that this was not an event for me! I was also amazed to see that many, if not all, the riders had two bikes, plus spare sets of wheels and the pit area was chocked  full of bike porn.
I had seen disc brakes on bikes before but have never been a fan, being worried that they may be too severe and catapult me over the bars; but as I watched the riders race around the course and saw how their bikes changed colour from, say, electric blue to muddy blackish brown I began to understand the advantages that discs could bring. The derailleur gears also seemed to get clogged up and battered, especially through the wooded sections where the attempts to highlight the roots with white paint soon proved to have been a futile effort

As the race proceeded and riders became progressively more tired, the strain began to show on their faces. The ruts got deeper, the mud more slimey but they all battled on

Well done to them all. For me a great day out and thanks to all the organizers for putting on such an event which attracted over 600 people riding during the day

But I am still going to stick to just watching :-)