Personal Bests and Worsts.

It was one of those weekends. I raced the Ribble Valley CRC Open 25mile Time Trial on Saturday and the Kent Valley Circuit of Wild Boar Fell on Sunday. I PB'd in one and PW'd in the other.

It was the first double weekend of the year for me (and actually thinking about it, the first time I've ever done two 'proper' races back to back), timed rather nicely just before coming back to University. I'd only done one '25' previously (last July on what was I believe the third outing of the then newly constructed ProjectAero) and got round in 58:07. I was pretty pleased with that at the time, the course had loads of roundabouts and stuff, I paced it conservatively and I had the nose of the saddle attempting to enter me the whole way round. The riding position was a 'work in progress', let's leave it at that.

So I was looking forward to having a proper go at another one, especially coming off the back of 2nd in the 28m Circuit of Pendle and 14th in the 50m Circuit of the Dales. I nailed the 28miler, and spent the first 20miles of the COTD yo-yo-ing between 'oh crap, too quick...going to blow' to 'oh crap, too slow...never going to finish at this rate'. All experience! Saturday's event round Cockerham on the Fylde in Lancashire was a 'SpoCo', as in part of a 'Sporting Course' series of events that are designed to offer 'interesting' and 'challenging' events for those that are not content just battering up and down motor-sorry, dual carriageways. It was 2 laps of a rolling, twisty exposed circuit with a couple of 'lumps' (if I say 'hills' or anything more I'd get properly laughed at by my mates down here in Wales...but to us North Westerners they would be classed as hills ;)) And it was windy. No other way of putting it. One exposed stretch (bearing in mind this is near the coast, where exposed=Exposed) had me riding along at a comfortable, if jaunty, 45 degree bank according to my Photographer/Mechanic/DS a.k.a Dad. 

That basically meant a roughly four sided circuit went something along the lines of: horrendous crosswind, horrendous headwind, reeeeeeaaaaaaly fast tailwind, confusing muddlewind. I got the pacing bob on, surfed my red line rather perfectly and finished in 57 minutes and 46 seconds (I think, results still aren't up) as can be viewed here: http://app.strava.com/activities/48616974. Job done, I was pretty chuffed until I saw a few people clocking 55s and 56s. That is really really fast. I mean, that's fast on a 'normal' course, but a Sporting Course?! I think I got 5th or 6th, which is nothing special but probably means prize money :D

Coming off the back of a PB I was confident (ish) of doing well on Sunday: 28.something Yorkshire miles roughly climbing up to Garsdale Head from Sedbergh, dropping down Mallerstang, then climbing back up and descending once again to Sedbergh for the final third or so. I hadn't factored in the weather though. Oh boy. It started raining as I was finishing my warm up and didn't really improve from then on! Looking at the wind speed data from Shap (not that far away), at 11am there was a steady wind speed of 34mph and gusts of 53mph. I can believe that. I'd chosen my shallow section Alu front wheel but opted to keep the disc in. One of those decisions was a good one...picture a 70kg rider (67 when I'm off the cake) riding with a disc wheel on a course reaching over 1000ft at the most exposed bits. I'm a 2nd Cat road rider primarily and like to think I'm more towards the Fabian end of the Bike Handling Spectrum than the Pissed-Man-On-Wobbly-Way-Home-From-Pub end (in my head at least), but you would have been forgiven for thinking it was my first time on a bike.

'What's that guy with the funny hat doing up here on a day like this? Why does he keep swearing loudly and weaving from one side of the road to the other? Why's he tilting his head right back? Oh look, he's swearing even louder now...'

That was the other slight problem. I have a visor on my helmet. Much, much, much rain on the outside and inside plus steam from sweary shouting didn't do much for visibility. Luckily at times the crosswind was so strong it actually wiped the rain droplets off both sides, which was nice! I can't really say much more about Sunday. It was truly and utterly horrendous (and trust me, I winter in Wales so know bad weather). I genuinely feared for my safety on numerous occasions, it really is the worst feeling thinking you have control of a bike doing 40+mph downhill only to hear and then feel a massive gust of wind and realising it will do with you what it wishes...

There was a great sense of camaraderie though, there were about 5 or 6 of us bunched up for the last third or so of the course...I remember thinking 'Well at least now if I blow away somebody will notice.' But seriously, back at the HQ warming up with tea and cake I think we all shared an immense feeling of, well, survival. We pitted ourselves against the elements, and in a way we all won. Actually, Ian Stott won. But he's just a Monster. He finished soon after me, and we were comparing chamois pads for levels of brownness...or in other words discussing how 'fun' riding with discs had been. He agreed that he too had just 'cruised' most of it and tried to stay upright. Still put 8 minutes or whatever into me though the fiend. Strava stalk my ride and then look at him taking the KOMs: http://app.strava.com/activities/48767061

Everyone finished, nobody got hurt. I learned a lot. An AWFUL lot. Luckily the BUCS Student 10mile TT champs on Saturday is just going to be a case of 'here's a dual carriageway, ride fast'...phew.

Some Pics.

(I rode it last Wednesday in the Sun as well as on Sunday in the Apocalypse)

Not Epic. Composed.

Epic. Cursing the Weather Gods.

Not Epic. Lovely in fact.

Epic. Shit Scary in fact.

That is my 'What the hell did I just do' and 'How the hell did I survive' face.

Just to prove I didn't just go and get wet on my own. 

I've just realised the photos really don't do it justice. So you'll have to trust my account. People believe Apple are giving away thousands of iPhone 5s on Facebook FOR FREE because they are 'unsealed'; so this is looking rather credible by all accounts....

Lancegate.

I have styled this as a cycling orientated blog (when I actually post things...), and I have been trying to collate my thoughts on Lancegate and Doprah for some days now with a view to posting; it is such a complex case I am wary of adding more noise to it all by putting some half baked opinion out there-but will do my best to be cogent.

This is far more than just the 'usual' case of someone breaking the sporting code of ethics, and for that reason will require much more than just the 'usual' crocodile tears apology. It is not just some domestique feeling it was necessary to take drugs to try and secure his future career (think recent case of Steve Hounard, AG2R); nor is it a case of a 'nearly man' being led into temptation by the promise of success and all it's trappings (think Bjarne Riis). No. This transcends all, and as such requires a completely different course of action on the part of Lance if he wishes redemption. What I feel he doesn't realise is that before the USADA report that signalled the beginning of the end, many were already convinced he was not what he claimed. There were enough reputable, informed voices out there and even more reasoned opinion to be found-if you knew where to look; and as such this is hardly the 'Revelation' many are claiming.

If the stories from Tyler Hamilton's book and other accounts are to be believed, this man was a bully; ruthless and narcissistic and driven to do 'whatever it took' to satisfy his 'win at all costs' mentality. This led him to potentially risk his life by taking a cocktail of drugs that could make him go further, faster and stronger-which admittedly is nothing new in sport. We now know many other riders in the late '90s and early '00s were doing just that; however this man had been to the edge with cancer and survived. Who would risk all that again just to 'win at all costs'? I struggle to imagine just how driven you would have to be to take the ultimate risk just to win some bike races (I am of course simplifying this down for effect, but at the end of the day the Tour de France is after all just a bike race).

It wasn't just other sporting careers he probably prevented from flourishing through this false dominance, Lance and his gang demonised, sued and defamed almost anyone who dared raise a question about him. Cases of Betsy Andreu, Greg Lemond, Emma O'Reilly, David Walsh, Paul Kimmage, Floyd Landis, Tyler Hamilton...the list goes on. The funny thing is though, which camp is now going to be remembered and revered the most? 

I leave you with a clip from an interview with one of the aforementioned who suffered at the hands of this man she once counted as a friend for years just because she refused to stay quiet:

I don't think he's changed. It seems to me we just have the same old Lance. And until he stops dithering around with how sorry he is for cheating (and would you bet against him doing it all over again given the chance?)  and actually starts trying to make amends for hurt he has caused, nothing will have changed.

Hill Climbs 2K12 Part 1

A major goal of mine this racing season was to do well in Hill Climbs. I fancy myself as a bit of a climber and seemed to do ok in them last year without much time/motivation/preparation so really spent the whole season waiting for them to come around again. In some ways that helped as it meant I had a large bottle of motivation stored up and hidden away, but perhaps also meant I didn't put as much effort in during the normal racing season as I perhaps could/should have. Oh well, you live and learn.

My 'second season' started way back in September with the Border City Wheelers open event up Hartside in Melmerby, Cumbria. I came away with a strong 3rd place behind Alistair Robinson and (as of last week newly crowned Junior National HC champ) James Knox. A pleasing result, a good 45s down on James over an 18min effort and god knows how many down on 1st. As you can see from the data: http://app.strava.com/rides/21384168#382511926 I wasn't holding anything back! There was then the small matter of starting my second year at University. Chaos, in a word; but in between moving into the new house and getting sorted etc I did the Welsh Championship event up Black Mountain, again placing 3rd. I was once again, some way off second place Jon Schubert and the rampant winning machine Dan Evans on another long climb, this time around 15min. Having been seeded relatively early I ended up catching (if I remember correctly) my 1 minute, 2minute, 3minute, 4minute, 5minute and nearly 6minute people; which is always nice. I took a few notable scalps in this event, which was also nice. I then tried and failed to peak for the Horseshoe Pass HC the Sunday after. I won't go into the details, but let's just say if you're going to try and peak make sure you plan how you're going to do it better than me!

I got 3rd on the Horseshoe last year in what I now realise was a pretty good time of 9:39 and spent the whole year thinking 'I can win on that hill'. Unfortunately that meant I ended up trying too hard to make sure everything was perfect this year; as I said I tried to peak but didn't quite get it right and then did far too hard a warm up on the day. I should have just treated it as just another event and taken it in that stride, but tried too hard to make it special and it backfired. Like I said earlier, you live and learn. I still placed 3rd again (in fact this year ahead of a bigger entry of over 100 riders) but was significantly down on last year's performance coming in at 10:12. Admittedly everyone was slower than normal due to it being REALLY COLD but I worked out the percentages that a few other people who did it last year as well were down by and mine was by far the biggest; which left me thinking that if I had just carried on training that week as normal and done a shorter more panicked warmup like normal, I probably would have gone significantly quicker. Hey ho, that's racing and it could have been much worse! I then had a week off (or should I say my poor Mum and Dad had a week off from running me up and down the country-they are the truly the real stars of this) which coincided with me having a Metric F*ck ton of Uni work to do. Which was nice.

I'd sort of planned the season to represent a isosceles triangle in that as the weeks progressed, so the length of events I did decreased. The idea being that with the National Championships being on the Infamous Rake in Ramsbottom (a 2:30 climb for the really fast guys) I would effectively taper my racing in the preceding weeks. I'm fairly certain there will be some science backing that up, but if I'm being completely honest the events just happened to be ones that fitted in. So as pre-Nationals prep I travelled back home to tackle a pair of climbs I did last year. 

The first was up L822. It's a relatively new event, so the hill doesn't really have a name yet other than 'Barley Lane', but at around 4mins it was a good one to do the week before the Big One. I improved on my time of last year by a modest margin but improved on my placing by coming...you guessed it, 3rd. Tejvan Pettinger was about 30s ahead of the second placed rider (who, interestingly, was not wearing a helmet despite it being flagged up as a Hard Shell Compulsory Event, not being a sore loser-just an observation, rules should be rules) who was 3.7s up on me. Sunday saw us return to the other side of Pendle Hill for the Nick O'Pendle event. The Nick is a famous climb and one of the Standards if you will, having hosted the Nationals in the past and had riders attempt to better Chris Boardman's record for a good few years! I knew it would be difficult to maintain my run of podiums in this one purely due to the class field. Mr Knox was riding again, as was Pettinger and Matt Pilkington. All had beaten me by significant margins in the past so even with a magic form day it would be tricky to beat any of them. As it happens, I didn't beat any of them and in fact ended up in 5th place, but in a faster time than last year-nothing to complain about! A solid weekend's racing and fooding complete (no matter how good I become at cooking nothing beat's Mothermade food) and I was ready to chill out ahead of the BUCS Uni champs and Nationals the next week.

More on that story another time...

Did You Miss Me?

October already?

Many, many things have happened since my last post. In no particular order: I've aged significantly, moved house, had a haircut, built a time trial bike, legally changed my Twittername, officially become a better racer, stopped eating cake (well, almost), perfected the art of cooking risotto, had a bizarre string of Open Hill Climb placings, nearly been murdered by a horse, cracked a bike frame, probed the scarily deep depths of discomfort a human can actually endure, learnt a completely useless French tense, made a pretty good byriani, discovered that by just eating less it is possible to lose weight, started wearing a tw*t hat, made many more additions to the GurnFolder, actually had veins appear visible on my legs, stumbled upon a far tastier and healthier ride snack, won a few trophies, started eating cake again in style, and most recently made myself feel a bit queasy eating a whole bag of cookies in about ten minutes. True story.

That's a pretty random collection of things that have happened, and I'm sure you would just love to hear about each and every one in detail (after all, what else is a blog for if not a medium through which to babble on about oneself?) but unfortunately I have neither time, patience nor desire to enthrall/bore/make you unfollow me on twitter with about 20,000 words on my life since my last post. I will however just pretend I didn't forget to blog at all over summer and pick up where I supposedly left off, which was about a month ago. 

Can you blame me for 'forgetting' to blog over summer? It's odd when I think about it, I have lots and lots of work to be doing now-I had nothing at all to do over summer-and yet I'm writing this...stay tuned for my next post where I actually talk about stuff! Honest.

The Hill Climb

Hill Climb's are a weird branch of the sport. I've just started planning for this year's events (even though they are a few months off) and have realised just how interesting they are. Take this year's National Championship hill for example, Ramsbottom Rake, 875m of lactic fun topping out at 25% and compare it to last year's course, Long Hill, at 4.44 miles at an average gradient of 3.2%.  Those are two extremes but hopefully give you some idea of the variety in this peculiarly British area of cycling. 


Hill Climbs are effectively time trials (fastest person from bottom to top wins) but with the exception of courses like Long Hill they hardly ever represent anything close to normal time trials. I suppose. It's tricky. Whenever I try and classify them as events I always get muddled up and confused. 


'Imagine a sprint right, except it's not a sprint 'cos you have to pace yourself. But you're effectively pacing yourself whilst flat out. Except you have to maintain that for anything between 2-10 mins. And you can't go too hard anywhere in case you pop. But you can't take it too easy anywhere 'cos otherwise your pain face won't look good enough in event photos. Imagine letting off a fire extinguisher-bear with me on this-you have to judge your effort correctly/depress the handle with enough force to cross the finish line completely 100% sans doute spent/run out of foam just as the fire goes out. Too much effort/handle depression too early and you'll blow/die and too little and you won't go as fast as you could have done/be left with a useless half full fire extinguisher.'


Not sure if that worked. But hopefully you get the idea. Both about HCs if you didn't already know, and how difficult they are to talk about eloquently. 


 One aspect that sets them apart is the fact that thankfully pointy helmets and funny socks tend to not make experiences in 'proper' HCs (ooooo) with the emphasis being more on 'If I remove this spoke, the wheel *may* collapse...but hopefully I'll have gone up the hill fast enough to be at the top when it does.' and 'you drilled holes in your frame? But why?!'. Followed by 'Is that carbon?' *CRACK* But seriously, the possibilities for gravity defiance are in my eyes sooooo much more interesting than wind-cheating. Plus you don't risk looking like this: 

Or this:

Although to be honest, digs at testers and Triantelopes aside, I imagine some people could ride for a Pro Team and still manage to look like they'd gone to a blind antelope for clothing advice.


I digress. Apologies to Testers/Triantelopes taking offence at the above.. I've got this whole inter-cycling 'hate' thing sorted: Mountain Bikers take the piss out of roadies in general, racers take the piss out of testers/Triantelopes and err...testers take the piss out of Triantelopes as well. I would imagine Triantelopes take the piss out of their non-tri running buds.  'Haha look at him, he hasn't discovered mechanical advantage yet...zoooom.' Or should that be 'zoooom....crash'? Sorry! 


Where was I? No seriously. I fear people reading this may be slightly disappointed as it seems to be turning into more of a 'let's take the piss out of <insert breed of cyclist here>'. 


So I suppose to sum not very much up, ride hill climbs. It's better than running and you won't end up looking silly.**








**Shifting Gear cannot take any responsibility for embarassment caused by actually looking silly as a direct or indirect result of reading this post. 

'Sagan: I am Robot'

It has emerged today that Liquigas-Cannondale wunderkind Peter Sagan is in fact a robot. Suspicions were aroused during the finale of yesterday's stage of the Amgen Tour of California where, despite puncturing with about 6km to go, he won the stage in thrilling style. 

Sagan was busted during dope control when the testers noticed he actually did have legs of steel. UCI Rule #029290832 Paragraph 756 Sub section FU says: "competitors shall not have actual legs of steel, only rumours of legs of steel will be allowed to circulate." UCI President P.McQuaid: "I'm glad we've finally uncovered one of these RobotRiders, we've been convinced for a few years now that approximately 68% of the Peloton is in fact metal. I would like to take this opportunity to send out a strong message : The UCI will not tolerate Cyborg-Doping. Or any form of doping. But especially Cyborg-Doping as that is one we can actually easily uncover with a hammer, no need for expensive lab tests." 

P.Sagan was not available for comment. Possibly as he has already been melted down and incorporated into Ivan Basso in a desperate attempt by Liquigas to get him to win something.

This raises other questions; for example maybe the UCI were looking in the wrong place when they scanned Fabian Cancellara's bike looking for motors-maybe they should have been scanning his legs. He said himself when questioned, 'Yeah I have two motors, one here and one here (gesturing to legs)'. And perhaps there should be mandatory searches of team cars now before stages, as one moto-photographer claims to have seen a comedy sized remote control in the hands of the Liquigas Directeur Sportif in the closing stages of the AToC stage with a big red button marked 'WIN'. These are, of course, just rumours. 

Shifting Gear would like to see the UCI encourage rehabilitation of Riderborgs post ban, and encourage their participation in much the same way that they encourage Women's Professional Cycling. With their current track record, that's probably the best way to get rid of it.






***N.B: Peter Sagan is not actually a robot, don't worry (although it made you think eh? ;D) And none of the above is true, factually correct, or even remotely serious. Well maybe the last bit.***

The Interval Game

This has probably already been done before, so I'm not claiming ownership or anything. I am however claiming all rights to resulting Fun . Preferred Royalties format is cake, but is negotiable.


So this is the Musical Intervals game. Essentially, you take two enjoyable past times (interval training and listening to music) and mash em together. Genius format or what. The basic concept is:

1. Get turbo trainer.
2. Set music playing device to shuffle.
3. 'Work' for one song, 'rest' for next song and repeat.

Simple enough? I have come up with some ways to spice it up a little....

1. Choose a Heavy Metal playlist and on the 'on' song try and match your cadence to the beat. Top gear maximum resistance mandatory.
2. Choose a 70's Prog Rock playlist...and, well, all I can say to that is good luck.
3. Choose a more modern Pop playlist and sprint for 30 seconds every time you hear the word 'baby'.
4. Choose a Death Metal playlist and sprint for 45 seconds every time you can't understand what they're saying. 
5. Choose an S Club 7 playlist and sprint for 1000000 seconds every time you feel the need to vomit.

See, it's like a drinking game for cyclists!

Couple of other points; 

• You start with 3 'skips'. Use them wisely, once you use one you have to them wait another 3 on/off cycles before you can use your next 'skip'. Penalties for overusage of skips include, but are not limited to; 5 minute power sprints, saddle removal for remainder of session and the ultimate sanction-switching from music to a full 200Km Tour de France stage with commentary by Phil L and Paul S (1 minute power sprint every time you hear 'sport of professional cycling' or reference to Lance)
• If you are unlucky enough to get a song longer than 7 minutes for your 'on' interval, then you may-at your own discretion-choose to do the next 'on' interval in the small ring. If you're chicken that is.
• If 'We Are The Champions' comes up, it is mandatory to practice victory celebrations for the duration no matter whether you are in the gym, at home, or on the road...or how ridiculous you look.
• If a ballad comes up....just stop. Do you think Jens listens to ballads? ' I even had a black shirt with a Metallica print and ripped off arms, total hardcore fan, but my kids told me not to wear it anymore...' exactly.

I'm fairly sure we (yes we) could come up with a scoring system for 'The Interval Game' based loosely on badassery of songs and interval length....contributions welcome.

There would have to be serious penalties for Michael Bublé. Just saying.