A Final Hurrah...

The main cycling objective for this year was to ride the Reivers Route and go Coast to Coast, and this was completed in the height of summer.  However as the weather has been so dry and mild, I thought I might attempt to repeat a challenge that I set myself in the autumn of 2012 when I was in training for the inaugral Ride  London 100 ( earlier blog posts describe my trials and endeavours of this event ). The challenge was to complete a 100km audax. This is run by CTC Derby and is titled ' Over and Over the Trent ' . In actual fact it is not 100km, but rather 109km and those extra metres can make a huge difference to a doddery Old Age Pensioner.
I have been having a few problems with my right knee of late but I thought if I strapped it up, took a couple of ibuprofen and took it steady, making sure I used all the gears and not be tempted to go with the proper cyclists then I might survive.
Last time I did this event the weather was boiling hot and the biggest danger was sunstroke; not this time.
As about 75 of us gathered at Darley Abbey for the start, the rain, which has been absent for the last  eight weeks began to fall and it fell in bucket loads. To add frisson to the ride, the autumn leaves had already fallen and lay strewn across the lanes and the combination of fallen leaves and pouring rain made descending quickly a very dangerous pastime.
In terms of hardship, the first half of this course is the most testing and the combination of strong winds, driving rain, poor visibility and the hill climb route of Pistern Hill meant that I was really pleased to see the half way stop at Moira and looked forward to a break from the elements. Unfortunately a group of walkers had decided that the weather was too bad for walking and so had decided to invade the tea shop for cake and chat instead, making room for bedraggled cyclists a premium.
Eventually however, I got a seat and tried out the restorative powers of beans on toast. I am not sure if it had any real effect on my energy levels but it certainly made an improvement on the weather as the rain stopped, the sun made a fleeting appearance but the wind remained a constant menace.
My endurance levels are not perhaps as good as they were even over a couple of years ago and on reaching Rolleston-on-Dove I could feel my energy levels beginning to fade

As I passed over the River Dove I felt that these swans, swimming against the flow, were kindred spirits as I rode into the wind.

The last 20km was proving hard work and the route was what cyclists would describe as  undulating but what I thought was proving mountainous.  Eventually though I made it back to Darley Abbey and was greeted by the site of a sumptious tea. I felt that I had well earnt the sandwiches and cake on offer and a heart felt thanks to all the organizers, both admin and bakers, which had made it once again a memorable day.

What did surprise me though was that when I compared my time to that which I achieved last time, I found that I had completed the distance 43 mins quicker.!  Perhaps I am not THAT doddery after all

For those who like stats, then my effort is chronicled here.

Review of the Year - 2013

My 2012 Mercian Vincitore Special

First of all, a few basic statistics  because as anyone who reads my posts will know,  I love numbers

Total distance cycled = 6541 km

Total ascent climbed = 48006 m

Total energy burnt    = 144125 Calories

Total time in the saddle = 331 hours

which is pretty much the same as last year, though much of this year's cycling was done at a greatly increased intensity and pace; with the result that I have visited far, far less coffee shops.

But the statistics tell only part of the story, and perhaps a boring part at that.

The cycling year was centred around my challenge to ride with my son, as Team Roberts, in the inaugural Ride London 100 Mile Challenge. Given that I had never completed such a distance before and that it had to be completed in a set time to avoid being pulled from the event, this was all a very daunting challenge for me.

Despite some awful weather for the first 4 months of the year I kept to my training schedule and gradually got stronger and faster so that in the event I managed to complete the course in around 7 hours. This could not have been achieved without the great support I received from my friends, both new and old, in the cycling community. We used the event to promote and support the mental health charity Mind and raised almost £3000 for their cause. Much of this came from offering a Cycling Food on the Go Recipe booklet which contain favourite recipes complete with stories as to why they were special. These were freely given by a peloton of lady cyclists from across the world.  A big thanks to you all.

Each year I attempt to visit a new part of the country and explore it by bike. This year a new friend invited me to Rutland to explore its beauty. It was a boiling hot day and I ran out of both food and liquid after about 30 km of a 100 km ride. I will be eternally grateful to Kevin for looking after me, towing me along and even volunteering to park me whist he got a broom wagon to take me to the finish. I refused that offer and suffered but I learnt never to go out without sufficient supplies again.

My other aim this year was to take a series of  mono photographs to try and capture the essence of my cycling year and to act as a reminder in years to come. I have taken many images, but the aim was to distil it down to a panel of six, and here they are :-

The whole cycling year has been aimed at completing the challenge of riding the inaugraul London 100 with my son

The year got off to a very cold and snowy start. This is a picture of Cycle Route N68,  a track close to my home and at the beginning of my winter rides

With the weather continuing to remain foul and my fitness still at a low ebb for such an arduous challenge, I soon started to feel the pressure.

When the weather did at last begin to relent it was time to bring out the Mercian Vincitore and treat it to a set of Go-Faster wheels, marginal gains and all that.

During the months of Spring and early Summer, my distances and continuous time in the saddle increased, but occasionally I succumbed to that temptation of all OAP Cyclists, the Tea Shop.

And this shows that I did eventually make it.  In the event it was 164 km and I managed to get round in 7 hours.

And that is it for 2013.

The next post will lay out my hopes and ambitions for 2014

Mercian, The Prince of Bikes, #61416

The weather has been arctic and my cycling non-existent for the last 10 days. So, I thought I would publish a post about my vintage Mercian Audax no 61416, the first 2 digits signifying the year of frame build, 1961

I am at least the fifth owner of this bike and during the past 52 years it has seen many places and wonderful stories must be embedded within its frame.

This is how the bike looked when I became its latest owner in June, 2009 after espying it hung up on a garage wall looking magnificent. I asked the seller to give me some of its history and this is its, and his, story.

" I purchased it for my son in 1983.It had formerly been used a s a commuter bike for some years, and now stood, covered in dust, sad and neglected in a garage. A sight to tug the heartstrings of any enthusiast. With worn and flat tyres, worn out rusty  chain and brakes, it had not been cared for or appreciated for a number of years. I think the man said it had belonged to his son originally before he had began using it as a commuter bike to the local Rolls -Royce  factories in Derby. But under the dust, the purple frame was as good as ever, a testimony to Reynolds 521 steel. I think I paid £48 for it, more to save the bike than to please the old owner. After a spruce up with new tyres, tubes, chain and brakes it was presented to my own son who rode it for a few yers until he went off to university.
The bike was then not used greatly unless he was at home during the vacations. After he left university the bike remained with me and I decided to sort out the whole bike from the frame up. Many things had now worn further including the headset which was very badly worn; so much so that I had to have the tubes interior rebuilt up by welding and then re-bored to take a new headset.
To replace it I chose a taper roller headset normally used on cross country bikes. It should not need to be ever adjusted again. The frame was stripped of the old paint, trued up and resprayed and then a chrome finish was added to the wheel drop outs and the frame above for about 18 inches. The original frame had this chrome finish too. I splashed out on two new 27 inch wheels hand built by Mercian. A new Campagnola seat tube plus new bars and head tube completed the rebuild.  The bike was then used for summer rides, I could not bear to take it out in the winter salt! Most of the rides were around 60km or with the local CTC group.
At some point, about 10 years ago, I was knocked off the bike by a motorist who ignored the stop sign at a set of  crossroads. He collided with the back wheel and sent me flying - result - a buckled back wheel and a return trip to Mercians to get the frame checked. No problems on the frame and with the wheel rebuilt onto the same hub all was well. However, as I now owned 5 bikes the Mercian got very little use., and, as I recognized a growing fanaticism in a friend, ( ME !!! ) I sold it to him to fan the flames. Little did I know the roaring fire that it would produce!!  "

And how right he was!

The group set has gone through many variations, from a compact 48/36 Stronglight when my friend acquired it, to a Campagnola 52/42/30 during his period of ownership to its current evolution with a Stronglight 46/36/26 triple as I prepare for the advancing years and try to learn some bike maintenance skills. I originally intended to try and restore it to the condition when it was first built, but a lack of knowledge, coupled with the fact it was probably a high geared racing machine, deterred me. There have been other changes which might form the topic of a further post but now it is back in regular use as a winter bike with 63*32 Schwalbe Marathon tyres ( the only tyres I can get to fit these wheels ). My new Mercian Vincitore Special has become my summer bike and it too has already started to evolve.

Steel is forever, and I have given my daughters-in-law strict instructions on how I want their sons to develop so that, one day, they will be able to inherit and fit perfectly  my beautiful racing machines of engineering excellence

Defeated

I think it was Greg Henderson who said that climbing hills was like fighting with a gorilla. You don't give up when you are tired, you give up when the gorilla is tired. Well to-day. i was beaten by the gorilla :-(

It seems it is customary with my local CTC group to make the first ride of the year a hilly one, to test fitness, give an opportunity to regret the one (?) mince pie too many, and remind everyone that some serious work needs to be done.

The ride was not that long at about 55 km and the total ascent was around 750 m, but the hills just kept on coming, each one sapping a little more from my legs and lungs. And then we came to the bottom of Nob Inn Lane. I had never ridden around this particular area before and it took me completely by surprise such that I was in the Big Ring when,  going round a corner I was suddenly confronted by a sharp rise at 25% gradient for short distance before flattening out to around 12% for the next kilometre. I just could not turn the pedals fast enough to allow me to change down and so I ground to a stop...and walked.

 Defeated by the gorilla.

All the others had got off to but that is no consolation. I would be kidding myself if I believed that reducing gear would have conquored the beast, the truth is that I was too weak.

That 100 mile ride in Ride London100 suddenly seems so much harder and there I have Box Hill to contend with, more unknown territory.

On other fronts I have started swimming on my non-cycling days. I am not a proper swimmer and my son would be aghast at my style. But the aim is to swim 25 km this year and I am hoping it will help to build up some lung capacity and improve my breathing as I have noticed that on the bike I only ever use the top part of my lungs. When swimming I have to use the lot.

So, not an auspicious start to my training plan

GS Gazzetta goes into Space

My last posting told of a potential battle of MIND over Body, in particular my mind and my body, as I contemplated the challenges which lie ahead for attempting LondonRide100 next summer. While I am a firm believer in the power of the mind, I do recognize that it may need a little help in getting my body to a condition where it can survive this challenge. And so I have devised a training plan, or rather a rough mental idea of some of the things that need to be accomplished. The goal is to be able to ride faster, further and for longer than I have ever previously managed. To achieve this I will also need to pay attention to my dietary requirements both on and off the bike.
So this week I have been on 2 training rides, the first of which was with Mark, a friend from GS Gazzetta, who can always be relied upon to travel fast and push me to my limits and beyond.   The bare statistics of the ride can be found at http://app.strava.com/rides/19151008#comments

My instructions to Mark were quite clear before we started; a flat route and an average speed of ~21kph, my target speed for the London100. To a mountain goat however, flat is a very relative matter and I also discovered that he cannot count despite working at a school. I pity the children!!  Thankfully Mark just pointed out Mow Cop to me as we sped along as it was not on to-day’s route , though he promised me that we could work on my climbing legs next time I visited ( Thanks Mark! ).  The weather was dry and warm and quite a few cyclists had ventured out which seemed to spur some hidden racing instinct into my companion as we were forced to chase down any cyclist ahead of us, especially if they were female, blonde and had a pony tail! I was too exhausted to be distracted. We managed a quick circuit of Jodrell Bank and were travelling at such a speed that I thought the dish was going to track us as we hurtled off into space, or in this case a tea shop which I INSISTED was a mandatory requirement of any ride, a concept alien to Mark ( I wonder if this flaw is common to all GS Gazzetta riders? ) The ride was good and exhilarating and at an average pace of 26kph for 60km it was a good workout, as the average heart rate of 140bpm, which is race pace for me, demonstrated. Thanks Mark.
As an aside, shortly after the ride had finished and we were sitting In Mark’s house, my left calf cramped up solid as a rock. I obviously must pay much closer attention to on-bike nutrition.

Increasing average speed will not by itself be sufficient, endurance is also required. And so my second training ride of the week looked at this aspect. For the past two weeks my regular ride with the Derby CTC Grand Veterans has ventured into the Peak District where the climbing seems relentless. So this week I was expecting a much more gradual affair in the flatter lands of South Derbyshire. It did not turn out quite as planned and the route details can be found at  http://app.strava.com/rides/19485842

Rather than meander alongside the River Derwent and remain in the valley we turned towards the hills around Bretby and encompassed the 3 counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Staffordshire. Our leader had discovered a ‘short cut ‘ at one point which seemed to entail riding along bridleways and across some fields. I am not fond of this type of cycling. especially on my new Mercian Vincitore which is built for roads, and got dropped. However a combination of phone and Garmin 800 ( I KNEW that it wasn’t just a toy :-) ) meant that we became reunited again. I can now manage 80km rides fairly comfortably but need to increase this range quite dramatically and so as we neared ride’s end I left my companions and put in an extra 25km loop at a fairly quick pace to take me over the metric century.
A good week with a mixture of speed and endurance.

Next week I have entered, I must confess with a lot of trepidation,  a SKY Ride in Leicester. It is the Market Town Ride - Strong Plus which covers 50km but it says at a fast pace, much faster than my normal average. Entering at this level for my first ever GoSKYRide is perhaps being overly optimistic. However I hope it will once again introduce me to some new roads, new people and be another small step on my journey to fitness.

I met a traveller from an antique land..

When I retired four years ago and bought a bike I remember going on my first ever ride; a round trip of 10km which included a tea shop stop. I was cream crackered. This was an epic journey for me.
Since those days, my strength and stamina have increased a little, my original second hand, old and very heavy steel bike has been replaced by my Mercian stable, and now I am able to venture farther afield. Joining my local CTC ( Cyclists Touring Club ) has been a major encouragement.I now am a regular participant on the Thursday Ride and along with a bunch of mainly Old Age Pensioners we tour around Derbyshire with occasional invasions into the surrounding counties of Staffordshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire. I christen these journeys the tea shop tours. Typical distances vary between 80-120km which for the majority of our peleton is well within their compass. For me it is pishing on my limits of endurance.
The definition of what constitutes a long distance ride is a very subjective judgement. Four years ago for me it would have been 10km, now it is more like 100km. But for others 100km is just a warm up.
I met such a traveler the other day. Paul comes from the  ancient land of Peterborough, had travelled by train to Derby and was then aiming to follow the National Cycle Network route 68 to Berwick-on-Tweed. This is a journey of around 570km and courses through some of the most picturesque, and hilly, land in England. Unfortunately Paul’s journey had not had the most auspicious of starts as he had got lost coming out of Derby Railway Station, going south instead of north and this had resulted in a 20km detour before he had got on to the right track. There is something to be said for a Garmin 800!! It was no wonder that Paul had felt the need for a cake stop at the Tara Centre in Etwall which is where we met last Saturday afternoon. Given his travails to date I offered to ride with him on the rode to Ashbourne, the next stage of his journey. He was headed for Buxton as his overnight stop and with a fully loaded bike powered by a 53/34 compact chain ring and a cassette with a maximum gear of 25 teeth, I did not envy him as he tackled the Derbyshire Peaks. Mind you, he was much younger than me.

The CTC is a friendly lot and Paul is a member of the Peterborough Branch and had aranged to join the Berwick Branch on their Sunday ride before catching the train back from Berwick to Peterborough on Sunday afternoon.  
I wonder if he made it?
He truly was a long distance traveller from an antique land.