It Depends How You Look At It…

Having missed out on my scheduled Tuesday ride this week I was back on schedule with a ride today.  The old favourite Ouse Valley ride but this time the other way around.  It wasn’t the ideal way round so far as the wind was concerned but it was good to get a different perspective on the ride.  I think its a bit tougher this way around as most of the climbs, such as they are, are in the first half.

Click on map for detailed ride info..

The ‘other riders on the road’ count today was three which is a slight increase over recent rides.  After missing last Saturdays ride and also Tuesdays, not to mention quite a few more during the month there was no way I was going to achieve my 400 mile target for the month.  March starts tomorrow and hopefully after the signs today Spring just might be on its way and I can make the target this time..

Today also marked a slight reduction in winter clothing worn.  I didn’t wear my full winter overshoes today.  Instead I just wore some toe covers.  These just cover the ventilation part at the front of the shoes.  They were very effective but then it was a lot warmer today.. a ‘scorching’ 7c average.

One thing I did notice whilst pedalling was that I had them on the wrong feet (see photo) to how they were probably designed to be worn.  Not from any effectiveness point of view but probably from the view of Mr Castelli.

I expect ‘He’ and his directors and shareholders would have preferred the writing to have been on the outside of my feet and on display more.  To be more easily visible to spectators along the route !!!

Should they complain my answer to them would be that I paid for them, they were not a gift from them and by wearing them I was actually advertising their product at my expense.  However this is the case with a lot products, not only cycling.  We the buyers become advertising boards for the makers.  Its long been my theory that if you buy something with a makers name on it you should actually get it cheaper.  Not as seems to be the case that you actually pay more for something with a brand name prominently displayed on it.

OK…. ride, report and rant over..

Putting On The Pain

This morning was my first hard ride this year on my usual thirty mile route up and down ‘my’ part of the Ouse valley.  After a few rides getting some basic miles I decided I would put some pressure on myself this morning.  I did the lap six minutes faster than my best time this year and eleven minutes faster than Mondays ride with gale force winds.  Not the fastest I have done it ever but given the staccato start to this years riding not bad I thought.

It was a good day for it, sunshine and only about a 10mph wind.  Cold enough, about 4c, to want to ride hard to keep warm.  I am getting the habit of the photo taking too.

This is Tyringham House with its deer park near to Newport Pagnell.  I couldn’t see any deer today though, maybe they are on holiday or at the butchers ??

I also managed to get the photo of the damaged dry stone wall that I couldn’t take the other day due to a flat battery on my iPhone.

This could be of use to anybody interested in dry stone wall construction? I am not sure how many cycling dry stone wallers there might be out there but you just never know!

Hard Riding

It was the first dry day since last Saturdays ride and quite a bit warmer too, but still not warm at all if you know what I mean?  I took myself out on what I knew would be a hard ride as I selected a hilly route.  Although its not that hilly around here it was about as many hills as I could fit in on one thirty mile plus ride., almost 33 actually.  The strong south west wind of 20mph plus also added to the toughness and there seemed to be more headwind than tailwind or was that just my imagination??

Click Map For Detailed Ride Stats

I ventured just over the county border and into Northamptonshire for the bulk of the ride.  That might sound like a long way but its not really.  Olney, my home town is right in the top right hand corner of Buckinghamshire and just a couple of miles up the road at a place called ‘Three Shires Wood’ is the border of Buckinghamshire, Northamptonshire and Bedfordshire, hence the three shires in the title.

Castle Ashby House (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

I rode out via Castle Ashby to Cogenhoe, then across to Great Houghton and Preston Deanery to Hartwell.  From there I went to Ashton and returned home via Hanslope, Gayhurst and Ravenstone.

All in all a good workout.  It has remained pretty much a dry day apart from a very brief shower, the forecast rain didn’t materialise this afternoon.  Hopefully I will get another ride in before Saturdays Team MK ride, weather permitting.

Back To Routine, Whatever That Is ??

Now the French odyssey’s are over, mine, Bradley Wiggins and Team Sky too its back to normal, for a while at least.  I have to say that Brads trip was considerably tougher than mine but we did cover about the same kind of mileage, about 2500 miles although 90% of mine was in a car and my trip was a week longer than his too.

So much back to normal that this Saturday I partook of my first Team MK training ride for about two months.  It was to Jenny Wrens cafe in Winslow, Buckinghamshire.  One of my favourites.  It’s always a circuitous route to get there, around 35 miles and then just a 10 mile trip from the cafe to Stony Stratford.  It also happened to be the first sunny and rain free day in what seems like half a lifetime.  Still not hot but good for cycling

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It was good to be riding in a group again, I always enjoy it.  It makes a nice change to have company on a ride.  My solo rides are OK but I tend to spend a lot of time having conversations with myself in my head,  I also seem to always come up with ideas and sometimes solve problems  when riding solo.  I guess it’s because there is nothing else to do and my mind just wanders where it will.

When we eventually arrived at the cafe it seemed crammed full of cyclists.  Obviously not only one of my favourites.  I know one of the groups was the ‘A Group’ from Team MK but there seemed to be much more than that.   It was difficult to find a seat even but I did, perched on the window sill.  I could see it was going to take a while to get served and then to eat and drink so given the short distance back I opted to forego the nourishment and ride back solo as I wanted to get back in time to take my seat in front of the TV for the penultimate stage of the Tour de France, a time trial.  This was duly won’t by Brad Wiggins and the final seal on his yellow jersey into Paris

Just as I was leaving the ‘A Group’ where also preparing to leave but I was away before them and was expecting to hear the whirring of tyres at any time as I made my lonesome way back.  I am not sure if they even came back the same way as me but it was not until I was entering Stony Stratford that they came past me.  Very fast too but I realised they were sprinting for the Stony Stratford sign at the time.  It always used to be the thing to do to ‘sprint for the sign’ when reaching the town of your destination as though it is the finish line of a race.  It still seems to be the case.  There is always one standing out like a great big banner by the road side as you enter every town and village here.

I do remember one occasion when we were sprinting for the sign in my younger, more energetic days and I was passed by someone coming past me like a rocket, Mark Cavendish style, with his head down and his chin almost touching the front tyre.  He came past so fast in fact that I just sat up when he passed me head down and going full steam and I could just watch helplessly as he rode full speed straight into the back of a parked car!!  He wrote off his bike and lost several from teeth in the process.  A good lesson learned I think!  Always sprint looking forward as Mark Cavendish does, not head down.

A Spot Of Off Road Riding…

For some reason or another I couldn’t get my head around a road ride again today.. I think it stems from my recent trip to France and the wonderful scenery, climbs and empty but very wide and smooth roads.  It seems so second rate here after that with the poor surfaces and volume of traffic that we have.  I have been spoiled.

Anyway I saw my Kona Kula mountain bike languishing in the garage and thought I would take it out for a trip.  There is quite a good route I can do from my home over tracks and trails with very little road riding involved.  I follow the route of the Three Shires Way from Olney and as far as Three Shires Wood just the other side of Lavendon.

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The ‘Three Shires’ refer to the three counties of Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire which the rout runs through.  Starting from Tathall End just north of Milton Keynes and running for 37 miles to Graffham Water in Cambridgeshire, pretty much all of it off road but not made up tracks it follows old bridle paths which were originally for horse traffic and they are the main users of the trail now.  They make it pretty rough and bumpy too.  When its wet and muddy they leave great big hoof marks in the ground that take forever to disappear and give you a good shaking up on the bike.

Typical Three Shires Way Terrain

Once I left the Three Shires Way after passing through Three Shires wood I was still on similar terrain but just an ordinary bridle path typical of those that criss-cross our countryside.

I made my way down towards Harrold and there I joined a road for about a mile and half then off road again for a couple of miles to Cold Brayfield, crossed the main Northampton to Bedford road there and across country again via  a river crossing  to Newton Blossomville, a bit more road and then cross country all the way back towards Olney.  At one stage following the route of the old Bedford to Northampton railway line to Clifton Reynes and dropping down the hill and over the River Ouse and across the meadows and into Olney.

It was about 15 miles of pleasant riding and I didnt see a soul except when I was on the road bits.  It made a nice change and just fitted the bill for today.

PS: If you read the Garmin data ignore the temperatures.. it wasn’t that hot I just had the Garmin my pocket..

Back To Long Rides Again, Monday 11th July

After yesterdays sprint this was to be a far different ride.  Yesterday afternoon I swapped around my tyres, removing the Continental Grand Prix 4000 tyres that I had been using in France and refitted the Schwalbe Stelvio tyres.   In my opinion they are just as good but half the price.  They come from the former Eastern Germany whereas the Continentals have a great and long reputation and are from the Western part of Germany.  Both tyres seem equally puncture resistant.  I also have Schwalbe Lugano tyres on the Specialized bike.

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I wanted to do a ride of 100km plus today.  I had all day ‘free’ because it was a rest day in the Tour de France so no need to take my place on the sofa right after lunch.   I sat down to the ‘Map My Ride’ website and planned my route and got it pretty much right first time at 105km.

I headed west from home and briefly into Northamptonshire but was soon back into Buckinghamshire and there I stayed.   My route took me all the way round the ‘back’ of the town of Buckingham, down through Winslow and then around the southern perimeter of Milton Keynes.  Lots of the route was new to me as I wasnt too bothered when planning the route where I went I just wanted the distance.

I ended up riding through some interesting little lanes and a couple of ‘hamlets’ I had never heard of before, let alone visited.  There was even grass growing up the middle of some roads they had so little use.   One part was intentional and that was the ride up from the ‘Three Locks’ pub on the Grand Union canal and up to ‘The Brickhills’.    It’s quite a testing climb and I wanted to see how I fared after my recent climbing exploits in France.  It did seem much easier and considerably shorter than it appeared before I went away.  I didn’t have to use my French Alpine climbing techniques I just kept a good rhythm going and changed down accordingly when needed but I never got as low was when I was doing my alpine exploits.  I didn’t have such low gears available today as I did then, having changed the rear cassette last week but I still never reached the lowest gear.

Towards the end of the ride my legs where getting to ache somewhat, which is how it should be I guess but I pressed on keeping the cadence around 80 rpm as much as possible and when it dropped to below 70 on a climb I would change down to raise the tempo but lower the speed.  It seemed to work well and I was still pushing quite hard right up to and over the last climb.

Saturday 19/3 Team MK Club Ride

I have a bit of catching up to do in terms of ride reports.  (Further delayed by a problem at Worldpress.com just as I was about to post this last night !).  Last Saturday was my first club ride since last November.  The weather brought about lots of missed rides and then after Christmas it was a question of regaining enough fitness to survive a Group C training ride.

I decided it was time to take the plunge again and happy that I did.  I enjoyed the ride very much and coped pretty well with the pace and distance.  I spent what I think was more than my fair share on the front of a group of about 18 riders.  Not complaining mind you I was happy that I could do that to be honest and it adds a bit more benefit from the ride.

It was long loop out past the edges of Towcester and Silverstone to Turweston Aerodrome to the ‘Flying Pig Cafe’ that is obviously popular with cyclists as three of the Team MK groups finished up there for a mid ride ‘cuppa’ and also another club, from Bicester I think?  It was a former World War 2 Bomber training facility apparently.  I would think the access road probably hasn’t been repaired since that time, and might even have been used for target practice !!  It was quite a technical riding task to avoid the potholes and cracks in the road.

The ride back to Stony Stratford was shorter than the outward journey and considerably faster.  The overall average was around 16+ mph but the return leg was around 18+mph average.

Now I am looking forward to some more regular riding with the club as its much better riding in a group and good practice for wheel following at speed in a bunch of riders.  maybe I will venture into the ‘B’ group for a ride before I start my racing programme.

New Training Circuit..

 

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This is the ‘new’ training circuit I discovered right on my doorstep.  Its a bit over 11 miles per lap and quite a tough little circuit.  Very quiet roads, some narrow lanes and the more major roads are pretty quiet and no traffic problems, a very rural route.

Todays ride, in which I managed 3 laps was pretty tough with a 20 mph head wind into my face over the hilliest part of the circuit from Olney to Stoke Goldington.  It got much easier after that.  Its pretty much up and down all the way, only the run in back to Olney is easy with a long downhill sweep back into town.

After two laps it would have been very easy to stop but persuaded myself I should force another lap out of me.  More of a slowing down lap.  I think I will knock a bit of time off of these lap times once the wind drops down and i start to get fitter.  I started a ride on this circuit yesterday, also into a headwind but even stronger than todays but after a lap and half I got a puncture so I turned around headed for home to fix it.

The beauty of this ride is that I am never more than about 6 miles from home at any time, so in the event of problems its quick and easy to get back.  I hit on the idea of doing circuits after my visit to the The Bowl on Tuesday night.  Once I start my racing I will be doing laps either on the roads or circuit races so really its ideal preparation and the terrain is pretty typical road race topography.  Some short sharp hills, a couple of longer ones and some tricky high speed bends to negotiate.  Also because of the lack of traffic there is no letting up in the effort.

I will still do some longer rides but I can make those more leisurely.  Maybe a couple of sets of laps on this circuit a week plus a weekly visit to The Bowl should get me into shape pretty quickly.  Much better than just plodding out the miles on a long circular ride, although they are good for just getting miles into your legs. It was getting difficult to find new routes with enough challenging terrain and this suits me well to just get ready when I have a couple of hours to spare and put in some laps.   When I have the time the time I can take myself off on a longer ride if I wish.  But most of my races will only be between 40 and 50 miles from what I can make out so if I eventually push myself to 4 laps that should do just fine.