Chain Gang Video

Porkyboy

Hi

Couple of mates and I went out on a training ride this morning, a chain gang with just the three links in the chain. I made a short video clip of the fun and games part of which makes me laugh my head off. The main bit to watch is the "Expert Analysis" which comes at 7m 50s into the video so you can just skip to that.

Does contain some strong language so don't watch it if you are easily offended :-)

Click Here.

Enjoy!

Q

dawebbo

Nice quality footage - what are you recording on?

Porkyboy

dawebbo wrote:

Nice quality footage - what are you recording on?

Thanks, used a ContourHD for this. Normally better as the lens got a speck on it early in the ride which degraded it and also the sensor performs better when there is more light, yesterday was generally cloudy. Some of the other stuff I've done is rather better but yesterday's isn't bad. Hoping for some good clips when I ride the Raid Alpine in the summer, if the sun is out!

Q

golfergmc

Nice video, whats your average speed on it as you look to be fair motoring along.

Porkyboy

golfergmc wrote:

Nice video, whats your average speed on it as you look to be fair motoring along.

Hi and thank you. The entire ride was just over 70 miles which included a short warmup and cool down. The "chain gang" section, if you can call it that as there were just 3 of us, consisted of 2 laps of a 31.8 mile circuit so was 63.6 miles in total. We averaged 21.1mph for the first lap and 21.6mph for the second lap so an overall average of 21.35mph.

Combined age of the 3 riders = 138 :-(

Q

golfergmc

That is very impressive, most I can get is an average of 18-19mph and thats only on a 20 mile ride.

Porkyboy

golfergmc wrote:

That is very impressive, most I can get is an average of 18-19mph and thats only on a 20 mile ride.

Makes an immense difference riding with others, ideally I'd like to get a team of 9 or 10 together to go out and really have some fun. Even riding as a pair rather than 3 will boost speed by a huge margin. Nothing at all wrong with averaging 18-19mph on a solo ride.

Q

rjh299

Do you stay in 'formation' on the hills aswell?
Were they any?
Over 21mph for 60 odd mile is bloody good going btw!

joeyhalloran

I would love to do a 60 mile chaingang (if I could keep up) :P!

Porkyboy

rjh299 wrote:

Do you stay in 'formation' on the hills aswell?
Were they any?
Over 21mph for 60 odd mile is bloody good going btw!

Hi, and thanks. On the hills given that the speed obviously drops the value of draughting is essentially lost and the value of careful energy management rises. We try to avoid "burning matches" as much as possible so that the value of not being solo can be maximised as the speed rises (after the hills) and the benefits of draughting rise.

The key is to be riding aerobically as much as possible and not to fry your legs on hills with the inevitable implosion later in the ride. So, the hills are paced so that nobody is being pushed into the red for too long, any rider doing that will inevitably become useless later in the ride and the speed will fall. It's all about the constant re-evaluation of pace and effort to maximise everyone's contribution, individual strength is not what counts, it's the overall size of the energy pool of the group. A very "individualistic" (ie. willy-waving type) rider is about as much use as a chocolate fireguard on this type of ride, in fact they have a -ve impact on overall performance.

There were no really big hills on the course but it was far from flat and the roads are frequently poor and winding. I'd guess there was about 1500' of elevation gain spread over the course.

With a team of say 5, riding with brains as well as legs, on a flatter course I would expect to average around 22.5-23mph for 100 miles, given decent weather.

All that said everyone still needs to train hard to be able to ride at this kind of intensity for extended periods. The thing to remember is that if you are working harder for the first 5 miles of a 60 mile ride than you will be able to work in the last 5 miles your overall average speed will end up being lower, everything else being equal. We were pleased to have ridden the second 31.8 mile lap quicker than the first, which was one of our aims.

Q

Porkyboy

JoeyHalloran wrote:

I would love to do a 60 mile chaingang (if I could keep up) :P!

Where do you live, we are always looking for people to extend the chain but so far it's not proved to be a very popular activity for some reason However, it does get you fit! Our ride is pretty well drilled and disciplined

Q

Porkyboy

Seems a few folks are interested in this so here's a small collection of clips from some other recent rides if you fancy a browse:

Click to go to playlist.

Q

okgo

That the Epsom roundabouts?

Porkyboy

okgo wrote:

That the Epsom roundabouts?

Filmed in Northumberland.

Q

joeyhalloran

unfortunately I current split my time between York and Cambridge. There is a 40 mile chaingang in Cambs (but I can't keep up with , lol! ) apart from that its only 25 mile CG. I imagine 60 miles of CG is a brilliant workout!

Porkyboy

JoeyHalloran wrote:

unfortunately I current split my time between York and Cambridge. There is a 40 mile chaingang in Cambs (but I can't keep up with , lol! ) apart from that its only 25 mile CG. I imagine 60 miles of CG is a brilliant workout!

You certainly know you've been out on a bike when you've finished it! What kind of speeds does the Cambs one average that drops you?

Q

Cleat Eastwood

excellent footage, really smooth. Nice roads you seemed to have found too. There should be a sticky for vids like yours, I reckon seeing a group ride in action would answer a lot of questions that get asked on here about chain gangs.

Looking forward to watching the rest of the clips later on. Well done.....and I bet that guy at the end is popular when he takes his turn on the front.

Porkyboy

Cleat Eastwood wrote:

excellent footage, really smooth. Nice roads you seemed to have found too. There should be a sticky for vids like yours, I reckon seeing a group ride in action would answer a lot of questions that get asked on here about chain gangs.

Looking forward to watching the rest of the clips later on. Well done.....and I bet that guy at the end is popular when he takes his turn on the front.

Thanks for your kind words Cleat. No idea how something becomes a "sticky" post but maybe if someone does know and they think it's a worthy candidate it will get "stickied" I'll post a few more clips over time if there's interest.

Q

rjh299

Thanks for the excellent reply. I've never done a chain gang but do go out with my brother now and then. Think I might have to take on board your advice about pacing on the hills. We don't try and kill each other but just keep the pace as high as possible so the average doesn't drop but then go in the red which costs us later on as you said.
More vids from anyone would be good, keeps me 'busy' at work!

joeyhalloran

Looking back on my powertap records I get dropped on the longer ones averaging ~23 mph. The record is from a 25 mile rather than 40 with similar people (although 1 or 2 of the faster guys weren't there).

Porkyboy

JoeyHalloran wrote:

Looking back on my powertap records I get dropped on the longer ones averaging ~23 mph. The record is from a 25 mile rather than 40 with similar people (although 1 or 2 of the faster guys weren't there).

Yes, it's generally after around 2 hours when it starts to bite when the muscle glycogen stores are becoming depleted in the riders who are using a higher proportion of glycogen to power their efforts than those who are riding more physiologically more efficiently through training. Of course the other MASSIVE factor in terms of speed is the number of people in the group, I feel once there are 5 or more it becomes much much easier to maintain a higher average speed, 3 I find challenging

Q

nmcgann

JoeyHalloran wrote:

unfortunately I current split my time between York and Cambridge. There is a 40 mile chaingang in Cambs (but I can't keep up with , lol! ) apart from that its only 25 mile CG. I imagine 60 miles of CG is a brilliant workout!

I don't think the ccc chaingang is a chaingang like Quentin's - I was chatting to one of the ccc chaingang old lags a couple of weeks back and his take was that "unofficial road race" would be a much more accurate description.

Porkyboy

nmcgann wrote:

JoeyHalloran wrote:

unfortunately I current split my time between York and Cambridge. There is a 40 mile chaingang in Cambs (but I can't keep up with , lol! ) apart from that its only 25 mile CG. I imagine 60 miles of CG is a brilliant workout!

I don't think the ccc chaingang is a chaingang like Quentin's - I was chatting to one of the ccc chaingang old lags a couple of weeks back and his take was that "unofficial road race" would be a much more accurate description.

Lots of them about, even some club runs. The factor that differentiates them is the rider mindset. The mindset for the rides I do is "the objective is to work together to cover a lot of ground efficiently and enjoyably at a good speed". The mindset of some groups often seems to evolve into "I'l go as hard as I can and see who gets dropped first and try to be the last man standing"

All down to personal preference but I'm happy with the former as a training tool!

Q

cruiser33

Inspirational `vids`; very enjoyayable................I`m on holiday this week, so I`m out on the bike tomorrow after watching your rides: you`ve got some great roads up there.................... hope to see more : - >

fish156

Porkyboy wrote:

Lots of them about, even some club runs. The factor that differentiates them is the rider mindset.
.....
The mindset of some groups often seems to evolve into "I'l go as hard as I can and see who gets dropped first and try to be the last man standing"

Yep, that accurately describes our Saturday morning Club Run. Fortunately there's also a local mid-week structured CG to balance it out.

Porkyboy

cruiser33 wrote:

Inspirational `vids`; very enjoyayable................I`m on holiday this week, so I`m out on the bike tomorrow after watching your rides: you`ve got some great roads up there.................... hope to see more : - >

Cruiser33, thanks for the kind words. I quite often produce short clips from my rides so maybe I'll post some links here in due course. TBH I hadn't expected there to be the interest there seems to be!

The roads are actually pretty poor, the scenery is fab but the road surfaces are crap.

Q

Porkyboy

fish156 wrote:

Yep, that accurately describes our Saturday morning Club Run. Fortunately there's also a local mid-week structured CG to balance it out.

Strange isn't it, problem is in my experience that these "let's drop as many folks as we can" rides only seem to serve a very few riders and can deter many which is a shame.

Q

fish156

Porkyboy wrote:

fish156 wrote:

Yep, that accurately describes our Saturday morning Club Run. Fortunately there's also a local mid-week structured CG to balance it out.

Strange isn't it, problem is in my experience that these "let's drop as many folks as we can" rides only seem to serve a very few riders and can deter many which is a shame.

Q

Effective training is very often a selfish activity. Too inclusive a ride and the potential training benefit can be compromised.

The club does put on plenty of other rides on a Saturday morning. The perceived step up to the "full fat" ride can be daunting and put people off though.

Porkyboy

fish156 wrote:

Effective training is very often a selfish activity. Too inclusive a ride and the potential training benefit can be compromised.

I agree entirely, the ultimate expression of this could well be the use of the turbo trainer!

Q

gary.hounsome

nmcgann wrote:

JoeyHalloran wrote:

unfortunately I current split my time between York and Cambridge. There is a 40 mile chaingang in Cambs (but I can't keep up with , lol! ) apart from that its only 25 mile CG. I imagine 60 miles of CG is a brilliant workout!

I don't think the ccc chaingang is a chaingang like Quentin's - I was chatting to one of the ccc chaingang old lags a couple of weeks back and his take was that "unofficial road race" would be a much more accurate description.

Where in Cambridge are you from?

joeyhalloran

well, when I am there I live right in the city centre.