The Mercian goes to France

Being a very late convert to cycling, my experience of touring is limited, and when it comes to cycling abroad, then non-existent.  So, when I received an invite to join a party of Derby Mercury Veterans and Friends on a trip to Normandy I was delighted.

Eighteen of us met up in Derby and York Bike Liners who had made all the travel and accommodation arrangements soon had all our kit loaded onto the coach and trailer

Our trip coincided with the start of the Tour de France and it was our aim to try and watch the Monday Stage which went through Villedieu les Poles, the town where we had our base. But first it was onto Portsnouth and the overnight ferry to Roscoff

before racing down to Hilaire to watch the peleton flash past as can be seen in this short video

The enthusiasm of the local people was a joy to behold and one thing that really struck me was how much more  Cycling Friendly all the drivers were.

To celebrate the visit of Le Tour, Villedieu had put on a street party in the evening

We were there for a week and the group split up into different sections each day as riders were of different abilities and energy levels, but one common theme throughout all the rides was the necessity to try out the local Boulanger and Patisseries

In passing I noticed that the French Letter Boxes were of a similar design to our own with a similar reference system, though they chose a different colour

Stage 1 of Le Tour had started from Mont St Michel and was referred to as a ' flat stage '

Though that would not have been my definition and as I sped along in their tyre tracks it was nice to dream I was actually taking part

The weather was great and for those interested in seeing the scenery then there are a couple of videos

A Trip to Granville and the experience of cycling on cobbles

A Group trip to the Abbe d'Harbye


Being a load of Old Age Pensioners, then all the bikes were traditional with no carbon in sight

But Steel Rules through our Mercians !!

Now for next year..and let us hope that my language skills may improve

Bonsoir!!

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

Feeling the Pressure

I am beginning to feel the pressure.

The countdown clock has just ticked under the 100 days to go and 100 miles ( 162 km ) still feels to be an awfully long way.

The raw statistics show that I am putting in the base rides and the average pace is beginning to creep up.

So far this year

Total distance cycled = 2409 km

Total ascent climbed = 18099 m

and used 55584 C in accomplishing that.

The longest distance has been increased to 126 km which is 78% of the target distance.

My cross training, in the form of swimming, has covered 36.5 Km

On the positive side I am now regularly doing 70 km rides without stopping and my plan for London100 is to aim for 2 * 10 minute rest breaks after 50km and 100 km. All the statistics from my Garmin and Strava files show that my average cadence has increased to 80+ rpm ( from 69 rpm last year ) whilst my heart rate is staying well in control in Zone 2 with just the occasional burst into Zone 3 when climbing.

My aim in this Challenge is just to survive, I am not looking for fast times, and to get round in a total elapsed time of 8 hours will count as a huge success for me. 

So why am I worried? Probably a fear of the unknown and the need to push an aging body to extremes of effort that it has never before experienced, and in taking up cycling at the age of 60 I do not possess a reservoir of endurance to call upon.

But then I look at others.

Earlier this week I went to watch a TT held by Derby Mercury, one of our local cycling clubs.

Some people just crumple in the face of adversity when illness strikes. Others fight back, conquor it and go on to inspire others. 

This lady is an inspiration to us all. Having suffered liver failure she was fortunate to get a transplant and has since done great work in promoting the cause of Organ Donation. She has also become a key member of the GB Transplant Cycling Team representing our country around the world.

I need to show some of the guts and tenacity that she has demonstrated and just get on with it.

I am doing this ride on behalf of Mind, and whilst I need your moral support to drive me on, they need your support to continue the work they do in helping those who suffer from mental health issues

If you feel able to sponsor me then I would be very grateful and for every donation, as a small thank you, I will send you a copy of a recipe booklet entitled Cycling Food on the Go - Recipes for Success.

The recipes in this booklet have been provided by cyclists from around the world and each one comes with its own personal story. 

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

Marginal Gains

First of all a few numbers.

Total distance cycled = 1564 km
Longest Ride = 110 km
Total distance climbed = 11285 m

Total distance swam = 28.4 km

Whilst the furthest distance cycled has not increased, this has been intentional as I have been doing some regular 75 km rides together with a range of other rides as determined by the plan. My intention is not to exceed the 110 km distance for a while yet ( it is 68% of total challenge distance ) but to work on building up other aspects of my cycling fitness.

This brings me on to my attempts to improve by aggregating some Marginal Gains.
Weight kills on a bike, especially when you are having to lug all those extra kilograms up hills and Box Hill lies in wait for me like a tiger stalking its lunch.
I currently weigh in at 73.5 kg but  the total whole system weight includes not only me but also my bike, tools, spare bits and provisions. So something needs to be done.

Step 1. Lose weight and I have made a start by having my hair cut. This seemed to me to be a cost effective way to proceed but in the event the improvement in performance has been very marginal indeed :-() It would appear therefore that personal weight loss will be insufficient.  Other things  need to be addressed!

Step 2 The Brooks 17 saddle and I have a love-hate relationship.  It loves tormenting my butt whilst I hate the pain that can ensue. It also tips the scales at 574 gms. So, riding to the rescue has come a Fizik Arione which not only looks smart and sleek but also comes in at 225 gms, a huge saving and must be worth loads of haircuts .An Italian saddle to go with my Italian Nitto stem, a perfect match and as I explained to my non-cycling wife, things have to be coordinated don't they ?  In addition I acquired it at a bargain price :-)

Step 3  Having successfully explained to my wife the need for full coordination, I thought it  would be worthwhile explaining to her the principles of Rotational Mass and the benefits to be had from steel spokes with aerodynamic shape and aluminium nipples using a  laced pattern with 20 radial spokes on the front wheel and 24 spokes on the rear,  16 being  double crossed at the drive side with 8 radial on the left side.

This Campagnola Neutron wheel set, and being Italian obviously complements the saddle and the seat post. Naturally, they are only to be used in summer so I still need my hand made Mavic wheels with Miche RC2  racing hubs
Of course rotational mass is all about something

 called the moment of inertia and is

I = 0.5 m r2

ω is the rate of rotation, expressed is radians/second:

ω = 2 π rev/sec
rev/sec = v / circumference = v / (2 π r)
ω = 2 π (v / (2 π r)) = v / r

so

Erotating = 0.5 (0.5 m r2) (v2/r2)
= 0.25 m v2

That is, the rotating energy is 1/2 the linear (translational) energy.

I looked up at this point to see if wife thought a diagram might assist but she had fallen asleep!  Can you believe it!

When fitted my Mercian Vincitore Special looks like this :

Well, I think it will give me a load of marginal gains, and is far easier than actually dieting.
I am sure wife will agree when she wakes up :-)

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

Cycling for the Purist

I suppose that I am somewhat typical of the average cyclist.  Start out doing a little cycling, meet some friends who light my enthusiasm, become a bit more proficient and start to desire better kit,. With some people, and this includes me,  this then leads on to a growing appreciation of the history of the sport and the classic engineering which distinguishes the celebrated marques from the mass produced items.  An even smaller subset of these people are keen enough that they enter the realm of the competitive cyclist, and it is at this point that our ways part as I arrived too late and too unfit to ever contemplate racing.
The purest form of cycle racing is the Time Trial. From watching on TV and following threads on the web I was aware of both the Individual Time Trial and the Team Time Trial. The distances chosen for these events vary between short, medium and long, but even within these categories there is much variation as the nature of the local topography and road structure makes each course unique and so times for even the same distance cannot really be safely compared.

Talking to some local cyclists I discovered that Derby Mercury is a local club which holds Time Trials close to where I live and so I determined to go along and watch. When I retired I bought both a bike and a camera, never having been involved in either cycling or photography before, so this presented an opportunity to combine both my newly acquired interests.

Last Tuesday’s event was billed as a 2UP TT over 12.5miles with an elevation gain of 711ft. Whilst not a formal Open Event, there were a number of guest riders and in total over 50 cyclists took part.

The pairs of riders were set on their way at 2 minute intervals and I gathered that the aim was to keep swapping the lead in order to share the pain of the headwind and enable the rear rider of the pair to be towed along in the slp stream for an easier ride.

Having witnessed the initial gathering and start of the first few pairs, I moved position to place myself at the top of Long lane Hill where I hoped to capture a few pained faces as the riders climbed the first hill

As I understood it, the tactics were to remain in close formation to maximize the benefit of the wind shield but despite the hill being fairly close to the start it was severe enough to break up some formations and leave the leader looking behind desperately for his partner.

The race itself was open to both men and women, young and old, using a wide range of kit though the majority of the frames were carbon and I did not spot a Mercian all evening. The most noticeable difference amongst the bikes was in the choice of wheels ranging from “ordinary “ wheels to deep rims to full blown disc wheels. The noise coming from these machines as they sped past was like a music symphony.

As the light faded I hurried back to the finishing area to see some of the competitors arrive back. Many of the pairs were by now in ragged formations but to my eyes all still seemed to be going strong.  The finishing times ranged from 27 minutes to 43 minutes and to put this into comparison it would take me about 60 minutes; the difference between a racer and a pedal pusher!

I really enjoyed my evening out and thank yo to both Derby Mercury and all the riders for letting me stand around, ask stupid questions and capture both their pain and glory.

( If you click on any image then you will see it in a larger version and can easily navigate between the various pictures )