Drum Roll, Boris said...............

drlodge

Oh and they won't be removing the speed humps from the Zig Zag I would think, you hardly notice they're there these days. The descent from Leith Hill is going to be interesting as it can be a bit narrow in places, but the surface has been seen to fairly recently.

Will be doing this loop (A246/A25 junction to Esher) on Saturday.

chrisaonabike

diy wrote:

Chrisonabike - walking might indeed be faster for you.

:oops:
Even though it took me 11 mins to get up there, I wasn't the slowest

I think if I'm going to enjoy the 100, I have some serious work to do between now and August. Box Hill holds no fears for me now - I'll be slow but I won't need to walk, hopefully, although it will be late into the ride. But having looked at the vid, Leith Hill does seem a different animal.

'Not having to walk' is my backstop with any hill really. If I have to walk, it will be a defeat. I'm planning to give it a go this weekend, so if I can't get up it, I will be switching my 12-28 for a 12-30 at the very least!
______
Edit: I've just noticed that my intended route to Leith Hill is south along Whitedown lane. :shock: Is that a bit foolish, or is it only really steep heading north?

Anonymous

Good luck with that Chris. Let us know how you get on ;-)
Loads of training time left so no worries if its a tuffy.
I need to drop at least a stone, but I cannot think of a better goal.

AchillesLeftKnee

ChrisAOnABike wrote:

Edit: I've just noticed that my intended route to Leith Hill is south along Whitedown lane. :shock: Is that a bit foolish, or is it only really steep heading north?

Northbound is the nastier direction by far.

Anonymous

What generally happens re. drinking on a 100 mile ride?
I have only gone 60 miles without stopping before.
Do people stop or just ride straight through?

paul2718

Re drinking, in general you stop at feed stations and replenish your supplies.

Last season I did three '100 mile' sportives, recording distances/ascents of,

212km, 3377m (Dragon Ride)
208km, 907m (Tour-ride East Anglia)
187km, 2054m ( Zappis Sportive)

I think that at an estimated 166km/1015m the Ride London 100 is very much at the easier end, in terms of the climbing effort needed just to get around. IMO the concern is the riding 100 miles. If you can do that then the climbing shouldn't trouble you.

I'm looking forward to the event because it will be flat and fast with (hopefully) big groups of riders...

Paul

Anonymous

Thanks Paul. I guess I just wanted to hear someone say it.
Was it hot on the East Anglia ride? How many times did you stop? How many bottles would you start with?

diy

ChrisAOnABike wrote:

'Not having to walk' is my backstop with any hill really. If I have to walk, it will be a defeat. I'm planning to give it a go this weekend, so if I can't get up it, I will be switching my 12-28 for a 12-30 at the very least!

That might not be the answer - depends what you have on the front. btw - I didn't mean to be rude about walking, endurance riding is my thing, so its easy for me say something is "easy".

Looking at my gps data, I tend to go up in 3rd or 4th, (4th on the first 2-3 laps and 3rd after) which is 21T or 19T and 34 on the front (I run a compact). So I would suggest you might just want to train for the hill with your current set up. Concentrate on cadence, stroke and breathing. Also check your seat and bike set up. Having your seat 1cm too low can easily kill your performance by 10-20%.

paul2718

Carbonator wrote:

Thanks Paul. I guess I just wanted to hear someone say it.
Was it hot on the East Anglia ride? How many times did you stop? How many bottles would you start with?

It was warm but not super hot. I stopped at all three stations, mostly for the free gels, and took on at least one bottle each time. Some people like to stop and chat, others like to keep going. I prefer to keep going but in East Anglia I had a puncture that lead to ramifications so I needed to wait for the service chap at the first stop and a foot issue that needed a bit of a massage at the third stop. I've better shoes now...

There are no rules, you will have to experiment, and there's plenty of time.

Paul

chrisaonabike

diy wrote:

ChrisAOnABike wrote:

'Not having to walk' is my backstop with any hill really. If I have to walk, it will be a defeat. I'm planning to give it a go this weekend, so if I can't get up it, I will be switching my 12-28 for a 12-30 at the very least!

That might not be the answer - depends what you have on the front. btw - I didn't mean to be rude about walking, endurance riding is my thing, so its easy for me say something is "easy".

Ha, don't worry, I wasn't in the least bit offended. I know where I am on the performance leaderboard, no illusions there

I've got 50/34 on the front - I don't particularly want to switch to a triple, only because of the expense - but from 28 to 30 on the back is still a useful 7% lower gear.

Anyway, I'll see how I get on tomorrow - if I get down to Leith Hill. I haven't done much in the way of long rides for a few weeks, so I might do a flat 50 instead depending on how strong I feel.

So I would suggest you might just want to train for the hill with your current set up. Concentrate on cadence, stroke and breathing.

Yes, I use Broomfield Hill in Richmond Park for local hill training. I've started doing three repeats of that each trip out, and I can get up that in a higher gear (34/21) than a few weeks ago (34/28). So I'm hopeful that I'll improve enough over the forthcoming months. But the Leith Hill climb is a lot longer than I'm used to, so given that it's about 60 miles into the ride, I'm thinking that bigger sprocket might be enough insurance without actually having to resort to a triple.

Also check your seat and bike set up. Having your seat 1cm too low can easily kill your performance by 10-20%.

Good point, I'll certainly do that. Ta

Stedman

ChrisAOnABike wrote:

diy wrote:

ChrisAOnABike wrote:

'Not having to walk' is my backstop with any hill really. If I have to walk, it will be a defeat. I'm planning to give it a go this weekend, so if I can't get up it, I will be switching my 12-28 for a 12-30 at the very least!

That might not be the answer - depends what you have on the front. btw - I didn't mean to be rude about walking, endurance riding is my thing, so its easy for me say something is "easy".

Ha, don't worry, I wasn't in the least bit offended. I know where I am on the performance leaderboard, no illusions there

I've got 50/34 on the front - I don't particularly want to switch to a triple, only because of the expense - but from 28 to 30 on the back is still a useful 7% lower gear.

Anyway, I'll see how I get on tomorrow - if I get down to Leith Hill. I haven't done much in the way of long rides for a few weeks, so I might do a flat 50 instead depending on how strong I feel.

So I would suggest you might just want to train for the hill with your current set up. Concentrate on cadence, stroke and breathing.

Yes, I use Broomfield Hill in Richmond Park for local hill training. I've started doing three repeats of that each trip out, and I can get up that in a higher gear (34/21) than a few weeks ago (34/28). So I'm hopeful that I'll improve enough over the forthcoming months. But the Leith Hill climb is a lot longer than I'm used to, so given that it's about 60 miles into the ride, I'm thinking that bigger sprocket might be enough insurance without actually having to resort to a triple.

Also check your seat and bike set up. Having your seat 1cm too low can easily kill your performance by 10-20%.

Good point, I'll certainly do that. Ta

Rightly or wrongly I am assuming that if I can make it up the Schiehallion climb with a 38 x 23 ratio on the Etape Caledonian, Leith Hill is similar type of climb.

Am I correct or would I need my 29 tooth cassette?

AchillesLeftKnee

ChrisAOnABike wrote:

...if I get down to Leith Hill.

Given that you're not all that far away, might be worth hopping in the car for a brief recce and maybe bringing the bike if you fancy having a pop at the loop.

diy

depends on your preferred cadence and speed.

60rpm = 7.7mph
65rpm = 8.4mph
70rpm = 9mph

TakeTurns

Gonna have a bash at the course next week, thanks for he upload drlodge. I don't think Leith Hill is that bad. The gradient doesn't fluctuate much, so as long as you get yourself into a good rhythm, you should be able to get it done fairly well.

chrisaonabike

AchillesLeftKnee wrote:

ChrisAOnABike wrote:

...if I get down to Leith Hill.

Given that you're not all that far away, might be worth hopping in the car for a brief recce and maybe bringing the bike if you fancy having a pop at the loop.

Yes, that had occurred to me too. I thought I might park somewhere towards the top of White Down Lane, ride down it, round the loop, and then if I can still detect a pulse, see if I can get back up White Down Lane.

Though it does seem a bit wussy to drive there. The idea offends me somehow

chrisaonabike

ChrisAOnABike wrote:

AchillesLeftKnee wrote:

ChrisAOnABike wrote:

...if I get down to Leith Hill.

Given that you're not all that far away, might be worth hopping in the car for a brief recce and maybe bringing the bike if you fancy having a pop at the loop.

Yes, that had occurred to me too. I thought I might park somewhere towards the top of White Down Lane, ride down it, round the loop, and then if I can still detect a pulse, see if I can get back up White Down Lane.

Though it does seem a bit wussy to drive there. The idea offends me somehow

Well, wussy it may be, but I thought discretion would be the better part of valour today.

So I parked in Effingham, rode down White Down Lane (thinking, 'gawd I'll never get back up this'), and then rode the Leith Hill loop - B2126 at Abinger Hammer, south via Holmbury St Mary and up Leith Hill Road.

It was by far the hardest climb I'd done - much harder than Box Hill as people have said - so when I turned back up White Down Lane, I wasn't expecting to make it.

It was even harder, but I did it! I was slowwwwwww, puffing my lungs out, but I didn't have to get out of the saddle, and I didn't have to stop. Here's the Strava track.. the GPS track is a bit wrong up Leith Hill Road, but I did do it fair and square! I think the max speed it says of 48mph is completely wrong too, so I'm not sure what happened there - it didn't feel like I went faster than about 35 at any time.

So I'm quite chuffed. I reckon if I can keep putting the miles in, I'll be able to do that even 60 miles into the RL100.

Anonymous

Well done Great that you know the hill now.
I will have to try to find a similar hill near me.
Am looking forward to getting out of the hills and racing back to London

AchillesLeftKnee

Top going Chris!

chrisaonabike

Thanks, guys. 1558th out of 2023 up White Down, so room for improvement!!

diy

Strava is very addictive - I was out yesterday trying to improve some rankings, will be doing the same today on the zig-zag. Only been signed up a few days.

Anonymous

diy wrote:

Strava is very addictive - I was out yesterday trying to improve some rankings, will be doing the same today on the zig-zag. Only been signed up a few days.

Good to hear it
Signed up yesterday but not set up new Garmin yet.
Looking forward to Straving! Was hoping it would be a good motivator.

diy

One of the reasons I signed up was because my usb connect has failed and training center only allows 1 file at a time to be imported. With Strava I can upload 25 files at a time.

Annoyingly most of my big rides are missing, because I have problems with the battery, which can lead to corrupted files.

but the really good bit is you can compare your performance to those a couple of seconds faster and see what they are doing differently.

One segment near me I upped my rank to 34th, and I can see a way to get in to the top 16 with just minor changes.

I'm generally happy being in the top 25% though. Funny though, because I put in what felt like a fast zig-zag time and it was only my 3rd fastest. its amazing how much faster you can go when you are chasing a faster rider.

malc101

Hi All. I failed in getting my place but I did accidentally select the donate and get a jersey option.

So I have a jersey i do not want as I am not on the ride. The jersey is black with blue/white logo details. It is a Medium in size, which is 39-41" Chest. If anybody is interested I can upload some photos etc.

Cheers

Mal

Anonymous

You should stick it on ebay. They go for about £20-25

As the thread has been bumped, I hope everyone is doing well with their training (and fundraising if applicable)

malc101

Cheers mate, will do. Just thought I would see if anybody on here wants it.

Good luck with the ride, I wish I was joining you wearing the jersey but got a few other rides booked instead.

Anonymous

Thanks ;-)
I did not get in either but went down the charity route (I'll auction it for charity if you like ;-))
Enjoy your rides :-)

Gazspurs

So please tell me how it is 'fair' that someone who has lived, breathed, watches cycling on the TV, been a member of a club for 15+ years misses out on a dream opportunity of cycling the Olympic route on closed roads that they actually went to watch doesn't get a place over Dave who started supporting Chelsea in 2003 & has now got into that trendy new sport cycling! Got myself one of those Wiggins bikes & grown some side burns gets a place!

I applaud all your individual stories with fund raising, personal fitness etc but I feel like the bandwagon brigade have won again!

As I've said in the past I'll be most disappointed if I'm sat watching on TV & I see people being swept up or stopping in there Team Sky gear because they can't complete the course & the genuine cyclist such as myself & many others in our club have missed out over them

mbthegreat

There's always next year ay......

Anonymous

Gazspurs wrote:

As I've said in the past I'll be most disappointed if I'm sat watching on TV & I see people being swept up or stopping in there Team Sky gear because they can't complete the course & the genuine cyclist such as myself & many others in our club have missed out over them

I think you should be happy if you see that as it will prove you right ;-)

I do not think they will show that on TV but I will report back on what I see and hope the figures are available when the dust settles.

I have given up being angry about it. I just hope I do not have to do any walking! I am going to take off any time I am held up for (if I am) and enjoy the day. The muppets will just add to my enjoyment (unless one crashes into my bike!)

Anonymous

mbthegreat wrote:

There's always next year ay......

There's only one first year though :P

And then there is still always next year