Silly commuting racing

cjcp

jashburnham wrote:

cjcp wrote:

Jash - nice one. But you truly are a poser. WOOL caps?! Btw, aside from the Dragon, how much training did you do for the Etape? Did you do a long ride every weekend for a certain number of months ahead on top of your commute? I've my eye on the Marmotte and, maybe, the Cinglés du Mont-Ventoux, perhaps all in the same week to cut down on the cost of flights. I've been given a provisional green light from the boss, but long rides more than twice a month ain't gonna go down so well. I thought about tagging on a couple of laps in the Park at the end of two commutes a week to increase the, wait for it, "base fitness", but reckon I could get away with one long ride a month in the Surrey Hills doing reps of Leith Hill and Whitedown (I'm not sure the latter is humanly possible mind)?

I don't like the wool ones, just the plain with striped jobbies!

The Marmotte - brave man, supposed to be about the hardest sportive there is! Might be better to try the Etape first though. I didn't train enough is the short answer, was going great guns in Dec, Jan, then got dumped badly and lost all motivation for a few months... that hurt me in the long run but I finished ok despite quite a nasty crash.

Of course it all depends on how fit you are to start with. I'm 28 and in reasonable shape, but tagging a few laps of the park and doing 1 long ride a month probably ain't gonna cut it. Make sure you get the base miles in over winter, I used rollers weeknights and then got out at the weekend. Start building the miles up in early spring. As soon as it's light then I was doing 2x20 miles rides during the week (early morning pre commute )with a 50, 75 or 100 miler every weekend. Before the actual event you want to have done at least 2 - 4 100 mile rides if not more. To give you an idea, we did London-Brighton London, the Dragon, weekends in the Black Mountains, Wales and lng trips round the Surrey hills. I'm not convinced that hill repeats in Surrey will help much, the hills there are nothing like the alps/pyrenees. A good tip I was given is to train on the flat but just push as hard as you can, that gets closer to replicating the type of endurance Euro sportives demand. Short sharp English hills require a different type of effort, the Alps require sustained endurance. We trained a bit in Wales and obvio did the Dragon, but even the Bwlch is nothing compared for the Tourmalet. Remember the longest hills in Surrey will see you climb for maybe 10 mins or so, climbing in the mountains you'll be grinding it out for an hour or more and it's going to hurt. If you can afford it then get out to Europe - I wish I had because nothing in the UK can prepare you for proper mountains, they are relentless and if you haven't trained hard enough then you won't finish. It's an old cliché but there is nowhere to hide once the gradient kicks up.

Whatever happens you have plenty of time to get training. The training board on here is also a good place to seek advice, some pro-coaches lurk on these boards!

Good luck and maybe see you at the Marmotte!!

Cheers, Jash. I'm reasonably fit. Done a couple of long distance events in recent years, but, as you say, the key is the training, and getting the right amount in is the things whcih concerns me.

(I've heard the Maratona in the Dolomites is as hard as the Marmotte. I think it's in August.)

Bassjunkieuk

I'd agree LiT, all this talk of etape's has got me hankering for a longer ride. I'm already signed up for the (relatively short by these standards) capital to coast next year which clocks in at 58 miles I'm still on the lookout for a better challenge!

I think for next year I might try to do the whole thing in one go without the rest in the middle.
My only real trainging (as such) for that was just my commute's tho and I hadn't ever done more then 50 miles in one day before that to give you some idea of my cycling past :-D

Thoroughly enjoyed it tho and I look forward to getting my first 75 mile and century ride's in over the next few years - but with family commitments it can be difficult finding funds and time to train properly!

Also on this evening, does anyone have any idea's how long/what time you are planning to be at Millbank Spice for? As I'm not due out of work until 21:30 I wouldn't be down at the restaurant much before 21:45 I should imagine!

itboffin

Clever Pun wrote:

Littigator wrote:

http://www.holymoly.co.uk/news/news/wil ... -4104.html

nice

Hey one of those arms looked like yours....

jedster

LiT,

as far as gloves are concerned I've only bashed my hands up badly in one fall but I can tell you, when it happens it is not nice. I sort of slid down the road on the back of one hand. I was wearing gloves and I still shredded my knuckles. Without gloves I seriously think I'd have been seeing bone (shudders). As it was it looked like I'd been punching walls.

Lots of nerve endings in your hands. And they are pretty useful.

J

il_principe

Gotta say I'd never ride without gloves. For long rides I always wear an undervest now as well. Wore one on the Etape and it saved me a lot of pain - acting as secondary barrier between the road and my skin, jersey was badly ripped but only the points where I had just one layer resulted in skin abrasions - so shoulder, hip but not my side and stomach. Never leave home without it now.

biondino

bjuk, I will be currying but not staying vastly long as I've just found out my gf has just got back from holiday a day early and I'll be heading to Chiswick sometime after the meal - obv can't speak for anyone else!

lost_in_thought

I suppose I can understand that gloves are a good plan safety-wise if you fall, but as I don't wear a helmet or any other safety gear i can't really explain them to myself!

Right, over and out, will see those attending at 6pm at the Morpeth Arms, I'll probably be there a tad earlier.

cjcp

Not sure what time I'll be there now. Something just came in.

knight2k

I don't wear gloves as a rule. I have the fear they'll spoil my tan by giving me white hands.

I am that vain, though I will wear full finger thinsulate gloves in the winter.

Clever Pun

itboffin wrote:

Clever Pun wrote:

Littigator wrote:

http://www.holymoly.co.uk/news/news/wil ... -4104.html

nice

Hey one of those arms looked like yours....

*whistles*

Bassjunkieuk

knight2k wrote:

I don't wear gloves as a rule. I have the fear they'll spoil my tan by giving me white hands.

I am that vain, though I will wear full finger thinsulate gloves in the winter.

That is one problem with gloves! Was quite evident after I finished my capital to coast ride and the sweat only added to make the difference between my golden brown arms and white hands all that more obvious :-D

il_principe

Silly tan marks are the hallmark of all proper cyclists! Ladies and Gentlemen - I give you:

Michael Rasmussen:

Dunston_checks_in

Bizarrely, all the gloves I have ever tried to ride in give me crippling cramp in my thumbs. Something about riding on the hoods I think. This leaves me no choice but to man up and take the pain, even on the coldest winter mornings. Not much fun to be honest though...

cjcp

There's a bit in the book, Tour de Force by Daniel Coyle (very good, btw) where he report a wife of a pro cyclist remarking that she knows when the TdF is coming up as she can see her husband's organs. Makes sense when you see you this picture. If this picture were black and white, you'd wonder if he was a POW (no humour intended).

dafruk

Jash, you can't fool me, there is no way that skin and bone is the 2 times king of the mountains, he surely can't have the lung capacity to get out of bed let alone round the tdf. Or is EPO really that good!

il_principe

Just shows eh! That's what I call PRO weight loss.

But yeah, the EPO's gotta help.

Bassjunkieuk

guess it's about time for it all to fall quiet as everyone is now probably racing towards millbank.....should hopefully see ya in about 4 1/2 hours :-D

cjcp

Bassjunkieuk wrote:

guess it's about time for it all to fall quiet as everyone is now probably racing towards millbank.....should hopefully see ya in about 4 1/2 hours :-D

Litts is probably tearing down Embankment like Dash from The Incredibles as I write.

Bassjunkieuk

cjcp wrote:

Bassjunkieuk wrote:

guess it's about time for it all to fall quiet as everyone is now probably racing towards millbank.....should hopefully see ya in about 4 1/2 hours :-D

Litts is probably tearing down Embankment like Dash from The Incredibles as I write.

I can just picture it now, while LiT glides gracefully in on her slightly-less-then-it-used-to-be-geared covering the embankment in one crank turn!

Bassjunkieuk

Well I can now confirm I have my bike back proper :-) From the receipt it looks like I now have a new bottom bracket, cassette, brake blocks and a couple of new brake cables.

I've also spotted 1 new spoke on the rear wheel, but I don't think they charged me for that :-D

Had a brief ride back to the car and it feels like new again! The brakes in particular are now very effective, I'm gonna need to be very careful with it for the first few days to avoid locking up the wheels! I also think I have lost a tooth on my lowest gear as I now have a 8sp 12-25 cassette, whereas I had a 12-26 with the original one. Gonna have a look online and find out exactly what size cogs I have on this one compared to the old one and run it through on Sheldon's site to get my GI's!

STEFANOS4784

lost_in_thought wrote:

Clever Pun wrote:

Littigator wrote:

http://www.holymoly.co.uk/news/news/wil ... -4104.html

nice

Bah! My work have blocked it...

Category "tasteless" is filtered

snooks

32 pages (or 33 if you include BJK twitchy finger)

So what have I learnt?

Shock news, Greg T is MIA or AWOL, maybe due to the arrival of a little Greg T

Monks have sex, maybe with each other

Guinness should make a new advert

LiT doesn't wear gloves.....well 'ard!

ITB, sorry to hear yer sans job, but fate can be a good thing

GB155, Welcome! and con grats on the weight loss...this does have two side effects, 1/ you'll have less money cos you'll spend it on yer bike and 2/ you'll have even less money cos you'll need to buy yerself new clothes!!! If you want to scare yourself, get a load of books and stand on the scales....see if you can hold the equivalent of the weight you lost!

Biondino, who may or may not have a beard, has given up on the girlies and has moved onto stalking CPCJ

There was a binary diversion

Fonz has found us and met his match...in a girly!!

32 pages of this takes longer to read than I thought

and I missed the beers again

Anyway I'm back from holiday and back on the road, until the end of the week when I'm off to the sunny delights of Southampton for the boat show

See you on the Embankment

Bassjunkieuk

Well back Snooks! As you might have gathered despite the adscense of some of our biggest poster's over the last week we have managed to attract a load of new people and still managed to contribute a sh1t ton of posts!

Well I've just completed the first commute on the newly refurbed bike and it feels great :-) Was pretty damn quiet from home to Brixton with a lone scooter that fell of the back of the pack of 3 being my only scalp (on a hill but still managed to hit just shy of 38mph to pass him!)

The ride from Brixton to Victoria proved more fruitful with several roadies having their scalps removed, but I do have to admit to being done by a slicked up MTB on Vauxhall Bridge Road. Having given it some welly to get off the lights ahead of the other roadies there I misjudged a traffic light and lost my momentum a bit further up :-(

victor ludorum

Mornin' folks, VL back with all the latest top tunes and news, taking you from breakfast to ride time every week day from 5. VL FM, all the hits (well five of them...) all the time. (It works for Heart FM...)

I've just gotten back from Germany, and let me tell you British non-cyclists have nothing to complain about. British cyclists are pavement shy paragons of considerate road usage compared to the cyclists of Bonn who zip about over every spare patch of mud or tarmac that they can fit a bike on whether a pedestrian is on it or not.

Madness...

lost_in_thought

Compared to our continental cousins we really are virtuous cyclists here in the UK, nay, almost saintly!

As I was telling some of the people who attended beers/curry, which by the way was much fun, I was chatting to a french policeman whilst in Paris who seemed shocked at our attitude to pavement riders - he told me that they encourage it in Paris, as people are always cycling on mobiles and the like the cycle lanes are considered dangerous, but if people are found going too quickly they will be asked to slow down or use the road.

Interesting, eh? Indicative of the difference between France and the UK in attitude - we're a lot more legislative and nanny-state than they are...

Anyhow, commute was uneventful today, until I was waiting politely behind a slow-moving hybrid as the lights went green in Shebu, and a roadie looking very sharp on a campagnolo blue and yellow road bike shot past pursued by a dude on a langster. I overtook my hybrid buddy and took off in hot pursuit. I had caught up pretty quickly, alas the real game which could have ensued was ruined by the lights and heavy traffic around the shebu roundabout. Didn't stop all 3 of us trying though!

UnworthyPapaLazaru

Didnt get on the bike all weekend, and it was a bit of a chore today after being at a gig last night. Must motivate for going home today.....the long way.

biondino

I managed a 61 mile ride on Saturday after 6 beers on Friday night which I consider a small triumph! Lovely to meet you all.

cjcp

Welcome back, VL. This is good news; it will bring some order to the thread. The flock has needed a collie to control it of late.

A tip for those with SPDs: before screwing new cleats in, apply some lube. This will stop the screw seizing up inside your thread, which, on a Sunday morning when you're kids have woken up before 6am and there's no coffee in the house and you decide that you might as well get the cleats changed over on both shoes, can be a tad annoying.

A*se. I am now only able to unclip the right foot so in order to minimise the wear on the left cleat. When that goes, it's time for new shoes.

Anyway, back to the thread. Lot of traffic on Embankment cause dby those lights being down. Was dawdling as a result when I was passed by a roadie with HUGE thighs. Easily 120 inches, maybe up to 160 at the widest point. He was about 9 foot tall as well. I gave chase, but without any sort of enthusiasm. Then he RLJ'd. I felt compelled to up the effort. I chided myself for being lazy (yet again). I didn't pass him (he was mighty quick), but reeled him in and kept him close, but the effort told on the HRM. It reached 180.

biondino

Also I am going to see the beautiful white fixie sometime this week...

Bassjunkieuk

Forgot to mentio earlier, I meeet a lovely chap on a Condor today in the Brixton 1-way system just up from the Academy.

Light's had just gone red as I arrived, so I came to a stop. There was a police car in the next lane waiting to follow round. This guy comes out of the side ride and pulls up alongside me and says "I wasn't going to stop but saw the police"
For some reason I just smiled instead of responding with "strange I always stop for reds"
He then proceeded to jump all the red lights from there to Stockwell (including the one by the station, very dangerous!)

Guess there really is no helping some people....