Felt Unlocked And Unleashed…

Today the Felt bike emerged from its winter hibernation as we are now on ‘British Summer Time’, well, we are so far as the clocks are concerned but there was still evidence of snow laying around on my ride this afternoon.  Summer still seems a long way off yet, its just been too cold for the last of the snow to melt.

Before I could ride though there were chores to be attended to this morning and this entailed an exciting shopping trip to buy a new float valve for the bathroom toilet.  This was combined somehow with a visit to a supermarket to restock after the weekend and the obligatory trip to a garden centre for Mrs G.

The new float valve was fairly soon fitted with no complications which was a bonus.  After this I went to unlock the Felt from its secure storage point in the garage and show it some daylight while I carried out some preparatory work. The Continental 4000S tyres were inflated to 110psi, chain and derailleur gears were given a spray of lube and I left that to soak in while I had some lunch.  After lunch the Sky Plus box was set to record todays stage of the Tour of the Basque country and I got myself ready to go.

Felt, poised and ready to be unleashed !

I set off on my 25 mile version of the ride around the local stretch of the Ouse Valley, the hillier version.  It did feel good to be back on the Felt, It felt so light and responsive.  So light in fact that a couple of times a cross wind caught me a bit unexpectedly, but nothing major, just different.  As I said earlier, there was still quite a bit of snow laying around in shady parts.  Also the wind was a lot stronger than I had anticipated on the west to east stretches.

Its been about 12 days since my last last ride which I was quite surprised to discover, I didn’t think it had been that long.  So that would explain the ache in my legs as I sit here typing.  Hopefully rides will become more frequent again now.  That a phrase I seem to have used a lot lately!

Remnants Of Snow Melting

After the ride it was time to relax and watch others suffer in the bike race while I cooled down.  The advantage of recording races is that I can fast forward through the adverts and some of the less interesting parts of the racing and I don’t have to listen to the commenters waffling to fill time while there is nothing to say.  I would rather they just kept quiet and just enjoy the scenery as the Basque country between France and Spain has some very nice scenery to offer.  Not high mountains like the Alps but some decent climbs none the less.  Unfortunately it can also be quite wet there and it has a bit of a reputation for rain at this time of year, but thats what makes the greenery so green.  A bit like Ireland I guess its all the rain that puts the emerald in the ‘Emerald Isle’.

Back To Business

I know its been an age since I last posted here but I have been away for a month on an annual pilgrimage to France. There is an account of one of the more memorable rides in the previous post to this.

Rather than bore you with all the details of my ride which were not too memorable I will just put links to the Garmin details of the rides and a few photos where appropriate.

The first ride of the holiday was my usual first ride of a trip down the Annecy Cycle Path. I have written often enough about this feature and still can’t praise it highly enough so I won’t repeat all that either. It is a good ride for getting your legs working again after a few days travelling.

Heading south down the Annecy cycle path

Click Image For Detailed Stats

The next ride was circuit of the lake another solo ‘warm up’ ride that I usually do on arrival before tackling the bigger climbs to get my legs turning again.

Annecy cycle path , near to the town

Click Image For Detailed Stats

After the ‘warm up’ rides the next ride was with a couple of new friends I made soon after I arrived. I discovered they were cyclists as well so a conversation was started. Dave and Dennis had travelled down together with respective wives in convoy with their caravans. They had got into the habit of taking early morning rides around the lake at Annecy before the rest of the world woke up and had a good ride around the lake missing a lot of the congestion around Annecy town and home in time for breakfast.

They invited me to join them on their next ride and graciously delayed their departure on this day to accommodate me as I am not such an early riser when on holiday and I joined them for the 23 mile circuit of the lake. So it was before lunch and not before breakfast ! We managed an average of 17mph on this occasion riding as a threesome.

The following ride was also with Dave and Dennis and was up to Semnoz, along the ridge and on to Cret du Chatillon. This was a ride I did last year and this years ride is documented in the previous post to this. It was definitely a memorable ride for so many reasons, weather and misadventures not being the least. At the same time, for all that there was a real sense of achievement afterwards given the circumstances and also the usual feeling of well being after a bike ride. Anyway, here are the ride details in all their glory.

Setting out in sunshine..

Dave , Me and Dennis returning after a thorough soaking.. but still smiling.. !

Click Image For Detailed Stats

Next was another solo ride around Lake Annecy, I haven’t posted the ride data for this for fear of boring my reader too much! However I foolishly decide to do it late on a Sunday afternoon and the section of path around Annecy was very busy, not only with cyclists but roller bladers, pedestrians and dog walkers. Not a wise move on my behalf and having got through that I was then confronted with negotiating traffic jams through a couple of small towns on the way round caused by the day trippers leaving Annecy in their cars in droves after their day by the lake. Getting past where I could and also at one point after clearing the towns, there was another hold up caused by a an accident between two cars who had obviously met face to face in an overtaking accident, no doubt caused by impatience after the aforesaid hold ups.

Heading into Annecy on the cycle path, not a busy part!

The next ride was just Dave and I as Dennis had left for home by then. It was a new ride for both of us, along the cycle path towards Annecy to Sevrier where we turned off the path and up the steady climb to the Col de Leschaux. We decided to do this as a late afternoon ride. The Col de Leschaux is about halfway down the the the descent we did a few days earlier coming down from the Cret de Chatillon but this time the sun was shining and it was considerably warmer and drier and we were able to enjoy the descent from Leschaux to Saint Jorioz much more.

Dave at the summit

Click Image For Detailed Stats

Dave and I next repeated a ride I did a couple of years ago taking in the the Col des Aravis with its summit at 1487 metres. Its a Tour de France mountain and has been included in ‘The Tour’ quite a few times, the last time being last year. Its quite a long ride but not too difficult as mountains go in this area. Its a 58 mile ride in total from Annecy in a big loop through Thonesw and up to the ski resort at Clusaz and then up the Aravis. Its all good riding and wonderful scenery.  It was a hot day for our ride but we were refreshed by a couple of strong black coffees at the top in preparation for the thrilling descent of about 16 miles, a long way without pedalling apart from a couple of hundred yards to climb off the plateau about half way down. After that we had only about 15 miles to ride back up the cycle path to ‘home’. This was the last ride for Dave and I together as the next day Dave departed for home. The last ride together for this year anyway.. !!

Summit achieved

Dave did it too !!

Click Image for Detailed Stats

My next expedition was again a solo circuit of Lake Annecy. It wasn’t my initial intention to try and beat the ‘record’ average speed of 17.3mph Dave and Dennis had achieved on one of their early morning rides. However, as things progressed and I was feeling good I decided about half way round to press on and see what I could do. I eventually managed to do it at an average speed of 17.5mph and set a target for them to beat when they return next year! And I should add that it wasn’t an early morning ride for me either, I like to do my rides after breakfast.  (I am just posting the details here for Dave’s benefit as proof..  )

Click Image For Detailed Stats

My final ride at Annecy was great to finish off with. Being bored by now with the ride up and down the cycle path, nice as it is I decided on a variation and explored the ride possibilities of a drive we had done in the car the day before to see the L’Abbaye de Tamie.  I set opff south along the cycle path and turned off the path at Faverges. I had thought it looked like a nice ride and wanted to see how it was for future reference.  The first part out of town was the toughest but not too severe and the rest was just a great ride, although uphill. There was very little traffic, a smooth road rising up through rolling countryside, in and out of the shade and towards the top a river tumbling down beside the road making its way steadily towards Lake Annecy no doubt.  I soon decided to press on to the top as when we came up the day before in the car I wasn’t sure we had actually reached the top before turning round and dropping down a little to the Abbey.

I made it easily to the top and found that we had reached the summit the day before more or less as I just rode on a few metres more and came across the Col de Tamie sign and duly photographed it..

The drop down was brilliant, all the way back to Faverges and the cycle path. The ride had been no further than going down to the end of the cycle path and back and I avoided the long trudge back up the path from Ugine. Although not much of an incline coming back, maybe 2% at most in places I also avoided the seemingly permanent headwind that blows down the valley from Annecy

Late afternoon sunshine at the top of Col de Tamie

Click Image For Detailed Stats

The next day we left Annecy and headed for Vermenton in the Burgundy area to site recommend by Dave and his wife Jan. It was a lovely quiet site with lots of sightseeing to do in the area. Hence as we were only there for 3 or 4 days cycling opportunities were limited but I did manage a ride across to the town of Chablis in the middle of the Chablis grape growing countryside.  It was a simple enough ride all along one road. A steady climb up onto a kind of plateau with a few ups and downs on it before it finally opened up into a spectacular view of the Chablis area and the hillsides as far as the eye could see covered in vineyards. I then dropped down into the town of Chablis and had a brief look around before returning back up the hillside I had just ridden down and back to Vermenton on the same route.

Click For Detailed Stats

Well thats it for now my friends, I hope you managed to find something of interest and not too boring a list of stats.

I return to Annecy at the end of August with my almost lifelong friend and cycling buddy Cyril for a more concentrated cycling visit to the Alps but this time travelling light and camping for 9 days altogether, and about 6 days  the Alps around Annecy

Catch Up Time..

Well, first of all apologies for my absence on these pages. I haven’t stopped riding although it is still at a reduced level, the weather has taken a step back towards winter so that has slowed things down a bit. I don’t feel sufficiently motivated to drag myself out when its freezing cold.

Most of my rides have been local and in 30 – 40 mile range and so far this month I have amassed about 200 miles. I just haven’t written about them because frankly there has been nothing new to say as they are all on local, familiar routes.

Last week was also a good week for cycling on TV as the new season gets under way. I watched Bradley Wiggins win the 7 day Paris – Nice with Sky race and also another Sky team, including Mark Cavendish in the Tirreno – Adriatico week long race. So because of the races i only had mornings available to get any chores done, including riding.

Last weekend was my turn to lead the Team MK club ride which went OK. It was to one of my favourite tea/coffee stops at Carlton. I had asked for a piece of coffee and walnut cake and a coffee. When the cake arrived it was enormous, so big in fact that I could not eat it all. It was very rich. A layer of coffee and walnut sponge and then some coffee flavoured creamy filling then another layer of sponge and more creamy stuff on top covered with pieces of walnut. As I am typing this I am thinking “Why didn’t I take a picture ? “. The answer being that I just didn’t think of it at the time, as usual !

Today I made a start on preparing the Felt for coming out of hibernation on clock change day, which here in Europe doesn’t happen until the last weekend in March. I checked the cables and brakes and also swapped some tyres around. I put some ‘Continental Grand Prix’ 22mm wide tyres on and inflated to Continentals recommended 110 psi (7.5 bar). Up from my usual 100 psi. While I was at it I put a pair of ‘Continental Grand Prix 4000′s’ on the Specialized to see out the next couple of weeks until it goes into summer hibernation. On close inspection the Schwalbe tyres I took off had a couple of little splits in them, obviously where some pointed object had penetrated the outer but had not caused a puncture. This is I guess is another recommendation for Schwalbe. I don’t like the idea of knowingly riding around on suspect tyres, it’s not good for peace of mind. I also binned one of the tyres I took off the Felt, also Schwalbe, for the same reason. The tyres I removed have all been around for over a year but have not necessarily been in continuous use as, like today, I tend to move things around just when I feel like it.

Today I ordered a pair of Continental Grand Prix tyres in the 20mm wide version, some real slim beasties and only weighing 180g each ! The 23mm Grand Prix’s I have weigh in at 205 gms.

So I will keep plugging away at the riding and endeavour to keep you posted here. I might even include some pictures, you never know !! Also if I go somewhere new I will post the Garmin map and data. In a couple of weeks time I am marshalling at a Team MK race day at the MK Bowl so I hope for some photo opportunities there.

My Favoured Tyres.. Schwalbe

I have had a recent spate of punctures again after swapping to Michelin tyres for some winter riding.  The previous time I used Michelin’s was last year in France and I had big problems with punctures there.

My favoured tyre for the last few years has always been Schwalbe tyres and the two swaps to Michelin’s and subsequent punctures has reinforced my liking for Schwalbe tyres in various styles for their puncture resistance.   They are a good quality tyre at a reasonable price I think.  I have had quite few punctures on other makes, namely the Michelin’s but the only time my Schwalbe tyres let me down was a ‘pinch’ puncture when I rode into a pothole in the road so not really their fault.

I have used the Lugano model mainly for everyday road riding and training and I have a pair of Stelvio’s for racing although these are no longer made and have been replaced by the Durano.  There is also an Ultremo road race tyre but I have no experience of these yet.  In addition I have the ‘Marathon’ tyres on my touring bike.

Somehow they do seem extremely puncture proof due to a puncture resistant belt under the tread.  Anyway I have learned my lesson and I pass this information on for anybody that is interested and is maybe plagued with puncture problems, its worth a try.  After yesterday second puncture in less than a week I reverted back to my faithful Schwalbe tyres before todays ride and there I will stay !  A high performing tyre at a reasonable price.

Still Freezing…

This cold spell seems to be going on for a while yet and I think I might have to bite the bullet and get out on bike again pretty soon.

It looks like it’s not going to get any warmer for at least a week.  The temperature hasn’t been above freezing for the last couple of days.  its been around -1 or -2C in the daytime and at first light around -6 or -4C.  I can’t afford to be off the bike for that long or I will soon lose any fitness I have achieved over the last few months.

Thats another of the downsides of getting older, you don’t retain any fitness for more than a week or two.   Apart from the extra clothing needed to keep warm there is the care needed on the frozen back roads.  I was looking to see if I have any grippy tyres today.  Just one pair of Schwalbe Lugano tyres that are only partly worn and still have a fair amount of dimpling on them.  The same tyres I have on now but the ‘tread’ has mostly worn away on the top surface. So, tomorrows job will be tyre changing I think in that cold cold garage..