Please tell me how impressed you are!!

rolf_f
rolf_f Posts: 16,015
edited June 2009 in Commuting chat
I finally beat my big commute target!

I started commuting by bike in around Feb and first time, the 15 miles or so round trip along the canal into Leeds and back took just under 1 hour 20 minutes. After a couple of months of 2-3 times a week I was chuffed to beat 1:10 and then 1:05 but the real target was, obviously (!) 1 hour. I got down to about 1:01 and then changed to a road route. Slightly shorter at about 13.5 miles but an extra hill (see Bikely gradient profile - the hill in the middle (obviously!) is missing from the canal route.

That got me straight to the mid 50s so I missed out on really beating the hour properly so the next hard target was 50 minutes and really replaced the 1 hour target I'd been chasing for months. Unfortunately, in the 3 weeks or so since I've been on the road route, it has been windy almost every day so I've not really had a proper representative time. But today, the head winds seemed slower than me. Coming down the first hill, on the way back, I could see I was a good half minute at least ahead of where I had been before (that was a 50 minutes, 54 seconds) so, I kept it going and worked the final hill (which is, ever so slowly, getting flatter and less noticeable!) - and I got in in 49 minutes and 29 seconds!!

I felt so good about it I snouted a large bar of chocolate almost in one go! Funnily enough, I never managed that sort of elation commuting by bus or car........

Machine is a knobbly tyred Orange P7 so now the push is on to sort a 1980s racer to take over - any ideas how much quicker I should be on a proper road bike? I've been cruising on the flat about 20 and averaging 16 or so overall (if I calibrated the computer properly - don't think it is far out) The next target must be 45 minutes but I'll really have to improve the climbing to get that unless I do find a road bike. But if I do get a road bike, surely the target for that should be 40 minutes.......

Commuteelevationprofile.jpg
Faster than a tent.......

Comments

  • laughingboy
    laughingboy Posts: 248
    Rolf F wrote:
    I finally beat my big commute target!....
    I felt so good about it I snouted a large bar of chocolate almost in one go!
    You are clearly very pleased. That obviously feels good. Well done. :D

    On the other hand, tell me more about eating a chocolate bar through your nose :wink:
  • neiltb
    neiltb Posts: 332
    my obvious next step would be some skinny road tyre for the P7 and marvel at how much easier it is right away.

    edit

    oh, and well done
    FCN 12
  • Cafewanda
    Cafewanda Posts: 2,788
    Very well done. I'm suitably impressed :lol:


    Also waiting to hear about the chocolate
  • Aidy
    Aidy Posts: 2,015
    Well done :)

    I've been gunning for sub 50 minutes on my 16 mile (each way) trip, in order to be clearly faster than the train.

    Best time so far is 53 minutes, I've increasingly been considering cheating and heading in at 5am or something silly, to avoid all the traffic. One day!
  • Capo
    Capo Posts: 439
    Yaay! Well done! Nice to set targets and beat them.

    Looking at your ride profile, you seem to have a LOT of downhill there, so I imagine it's that big climb a mile or so that is eating up a HUGE chunk of your time.

    I've found that now once I got my hybrid (Giant FCR3) I was going uphill much more easily than I had done in the past on my old ATB (despite that being fitted with slicks), and since I've progressed from the hybrid to a proper drop-bar road bike I'm finding it easier still. Plus, you go faster on the flatter bits, too.

    So you definitely have scope to eat into that time further given the right machine!
    Can\'t drive, won\'t drive
  • rolf_f
    rolf_f Posts: 16,015
    neiltb wrote:
    my obvious next step would be some skinny road tyre for the P7 and marvel at how much easier it is right away.
    oh, and well done

    No way is my P7 going to be insulted by road tyres! The current ones are on their way out so some better spec Speedkings or Mountain Kings are going on and the P7 will be kept for wet days and its intended purpose (Mountains!). I have my eye on one or two possibilities for something better but need to sort it before the current P7 tyres wear out.
    Capo wrote:
    Looking at your ride profile, you seem to have a LOT of downhill there, so I imagine it's that big climb a mile or so that is eating up a HUGE chunk of your time.

    The 50 minutes is the round trip so I have a LOT of uphill too!!
    Cafewanda wrote:


    Also waiting to hear about the chocolate

    Girls are always waiting to hear about the chocolate :lol:
    OK, I hyped that a bit - I didn't really snort dairy milk today :oops:

    And thanks for the requested impressedness :lol:
    Faster than a tent.......
  • Capo
    Capo Posts: 439
    The 50 minutes is the round trip so I have a LOT of uphill too!!

    Silly me. But that means you'd save even more time with a lighter bike! :wink:
    Can\'t drive, won\'t drive
  • JonS123
    JonS123 Posts: 171
    Get some slick tyres :P I can hit 40 on both sides of Rodley Hill (up Rodley town street/down leeds bradford - if it is called Rodley hill)

    Know what you mean about the wind, it seams to change direction to make it harder going to work and coming back...
  • roger_merriman
    roger_merriman Posts: 6,165
    JonS123 wrote:
    Get some slick tyres :P I can hit 40 on both sides of Rodley Hill (up Rodley town street/down leeds bradford - if it is called Rodley hill)

    Know what you mean about the wind, it seams to change direction to make it harder going to work and coming back...

    wind is about the only time i use the drop part of the drops, I really do find wind a anoying hills i don't mind wind i do.
  • Show off! :-)
    Nicely done.
    If you see the candle as flame, the meal is already cooked.
    Photography, Google Earth, Route 30
  • prawny
    prawny Posts: 5,439
    I was really impressed then I read that 50 mins was for the round trip and I was really really impressed, then I re read the op and realised it was a 15 mile round trip, then I was just impressed.

    Silly me :oops:

    Get a road bike, you know you want one, you'll fly then.

    My 20 mile commute took 1hr 30ish mins by MTB in the morning 1hr 40odd home

    By road bike it takes 1hr 10 in 1hr 15 home net gain 45mins per day :D Bonzer!
    Saracen Tenet 3 - 2015 - Dead - Replaced with a Hack Frame
    Voodoo Bizango - 2014 - Dead - Hit by a car
    Vitus Sentier VRS - 2017
  • nasahapley
    nasahapley Posts: 717
    Well done Rolf,

    Funnily enough I also ride into Leeds, am also getting a bit obsessive about the time it takes, and the target I aim for is also 50 minutes (though that's each way). Until fairly recently I found I could get under 50 mins on the way in fairly regularly, but getting under 50 on the way home is much harder (even though that route's a mile shorter), and I'd never done sub-50 both ways on the same day. However, last week I started using only the big ring for the commute, and I've done sub-50 both ways two times out of the last three - which I'm rather pleased with!