Eight of us out for this week’s early Saturday ride. Did the first section of the Falling Leaves route but came home via Ide and Brasted instead of Toys and Sundridge. As ever, I was one of the slowest up hills early on but moved up a few places as some began to suffer for trying to keep up with Harvey on the first few hills. I put in a extra 30km solo circuit when everybody headed back toward Crystal Palace.

Felt great throughout the ride and it appears that I’ve found a pacing strategy that could work well for long distances. I tried to stick to 80% on the flats, pushed up to 85% on long hills, 91% on steep hills and occasionally dipped into Z5 when needed. Now I just need to improve my speed at those levels. Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix are around 260km each and spending upwards of ten hours riding them would not be fun. Even at 30kph they will take around 8:40 to complete — still two very long days in the saddle.

Workout:

• Type: Cycle
• Date: 02/06/2010
• Time: 08:30:00
• Total Time: 5:10:00.00
• Calories: 4086
• Distance: 130 km
• Average Speed: 25.16 kmph
• Ascent: 1,700 m

Hell turned out to be very cold and icy. I rode to the start at Biggin Hill and met Dyanne and Mark. We got our numbers onto our bars, timing chips onto our skewers and got ready to start. Riders were sent off in groups of around 20 every five minutes. Harvey and Serge started with us at 9:50 and dashed off for faster times.

A decent amount of our start group were still together when we got over Toys Hill but then we settled into a fairly relaxed pace. Nobody wanted to put in any work so the three of us upped the tempo and worked our way down to the first feed station at Hartfield. A quick stop and then on towards the much hyped Kidds Hill and the first control. We were making good time and were placed 184th at this point.

The second control and feed stop were at the top of Ide Hill using the very icy Bayley’s Hill to get there. Dyanne also broke a spoke on the way so we lost a lot of time and slipped to 256th over that leg. The mechanic from Condor at the control trued Dyanne’s wheel somewhat and we made up a bit of time on the last leg finishing 227th in a time of 5:17. 514 riders finished the full route so it puts us in the top 44%.

The organisers chose not to use their “icy conditions” route despite several icy stretches this year. Hopefully there were no serious injuries. It was difficult to build up much momentum when every corner could hide an ice rink but obviously many managed quite well and recorded some great times. Fastest was Will Mangar from Team Larkfield Cycles in 3:49, a full 19 minutes quicker than the three second placed riders.

Workout:

• Type: Cycle
• Date: 01/31/2010
• Time: 09:50:00
• Total Time: 4:45:00.00
• Calories: 3756
• Distance: 110 km
• Average Speed: 23.16 kmph
• Ascent: 1,800 m

Ten of us out for today’s club ride. Weather wise, it was the first half-decent Saturday of the year and as Hell of the Ashdown is next weekend, everyone was keen for a good ride. Northerly tailwind meant we made great time out to Edenbridge. Shortly after the turnaround at Markbeech the punctures started. Four in total for the ride which made for a lot of standing around and cooling down. Home via Bayley’s and Star. My pacing strategy worked excellently and getting the recovery days right this week meant that despite two threshold interval sessions and commuting, I was still feeling energetic at the 100 km point. Everybody else headed back to Crystal Palace then but Pete and I put in an extra 30 km by adding an extra little circuit based on the regular 9am club route. Now to clean the bike.

Workout:

• Type: Cycle
• Date: 01/23/2010
• Time: 08:30:00
• Total Time: 5:50:00.00
• Calories: 4616
• Distance: 140 km
• Average Speed: 24 kmph
• Ascent: 1,800 m

Today’s nasty weather scared off all but one other rider for our regular early Saturday ride. I can’t say I blame the others. It was very cold, wet and windy out in the lanes but it did give me the opportunity to test my full foul weather winter kit.

Things I learned from today’s ride:

• When its cold and the rain turns heavy, don’t wait until I’m drenched before putting on my rain jacket, it takes too long to warm up again
• Windproof gloves are useless without liners once they’re soaked
• It’s almost impossible to put on merino wool glove liners with cold, wet hands
• My rain jacket’s zip gets caught easily so don’t rush zipping up
• It’s more difficult to change a tube with cold wet hands and the extra time spent on the side of the road coolled me down a lot

Workout:

• Type: Cycle
• Date: 01/16/2010
• Time: 08:30:00
• Total Time: 4:30:00.00
• Calories: 2846
• Distance: 100 km
• Average Speed: 22.22 kmph
• Ascent: 1,400 m

Snow and ice meant I was the only one at the cafe ahead of today’s ride. The lanes were mostly impassable on a road bike so I stuck to the more well travelled A and B roads and didn’t have any real problems. There were a few icy patches but they were usually quite slushy so the only real annoyance was the extra resistance from my ice packed mudguards.

The Hell of the Ashdown sportive is only three weeks away and I’m in desperate need of some longer rides so I got onto the trainer for an hour when I got home.

Workout:

• Type: Cycle
• Date: 01/09/2010
• Time: 08:30:00
• Total Time: 3:00:00.00
• Calories: 2369
• Distance: 75 km
• Average Speed: 25 kmph
• Ascent: 850 m

Five of us met at the cafe ahead of this morning’s ride despite the frosty weather. It was my first club ride in at least a month so was a little apprehensive when hearing how icy the roads had been recently.

Ken and Adam broke off at the top of Layhams Lane while Tim, James and I continued on to Woldingham and then along the ridge to Tatsfield and Knockholt. James called it a day there and headed back. Tim and I went down Star Hill and up Toys. At the top of Toys I turned back. My legs couldn’t come close to matching Tim on the hills so I’d been holding him up far too much for such a cold day.

Other than getting my first long ride of the year ticked off, there were two other positives to come out of today’s ride. Firstly, I finally finished the stash of random bars and gels I’d accumulated from various rides and promotions. Unfortunately the last gel was a Zipvit Natural Orange Flavour. Without doubt the worst tasting gel I’ve ever had. A bit like soil and dried orange peel ground down and mixed with set honey. Thanks for the sample Zipvit but I’ll stick to PowerBar’s gels for now.

The second positive was a good test of my hydration backpack. I knew today’s weather would cause bottles to freeze so I filled the bladder with the equivalent of two big bottles of energy drink and didn’t have a problem all morning. Drinking from near freezing bottles on a cold day will instantly lower your body temperature and it then takes extra energy to warm up again. Energy that could be better spent getting up hills!

Workout:

• Type: Cycle
• Date: 01/02/2010
• Time: 08:30:00
• Total Time: 4:00:00.00
• Calories: 3155
• Distance: 95 km
• Average Speed: 23.75 kmph
• Ascent: 1,200 m

A very uncomplicated session for building muscular endurance.

• 10 min warm up
• 20 min Zone 3
• 10 min warm down

Each week I’m going to increase the Zone 3 time by 10 minutes until I can do 90 minutes.

For more on this read Joe Friel’s The Cyclist’s Training Bible.

Workout:

• Type: Cycle
• Date: 12/21/2009
• Time: 18:30:00
• Total Time: 00:40:00.00
• Calories: 421
• Distance: 14.42 km
• Average Speed: 21.63 kmph

This is a fairly simple test for checking your aerobic fitness.

• 10 min warm up
• 30 min Zone 2
• 30 min Zone 2
• 10 min warm down

You want your heart rate and speed to remain steady for the duration of both Zone 2 efforts. Cardiac drift will be evident with a drop in speed or an increasing heart rate.

To put numbers to it, compare your speed to heart rate ratios for both Zone 2 efforts.

• #1 speed (23.22) ÷ average heart rate (135) = 0.172
• #2 speed (23.10) ÷ average heart rate (136) = 0.170
• #2 ratio ÷ #1 ratio = 0.988
• Drift = -1.2%

Aim for less that 5% drift over two hours (two 60 minute Zone 2 efforts). Mine was 1.2% today so next time I’ll increase the Zone 2 efforts to 35 minutes each plus also try to keep my heart rate towards the top of Zone 2 (around 80%).

For more on this read Joe Friel’s The Cyclist’s Training Bible.

Workout:

• Type: Cycle
• Date: 12/18/2009
• Time: 19:30:00
• Total Time: 1:20:00.00
• Calories: 841
• Distance: 29.15 km
• Average Speed: 21.86 kmph

This is a very straight forward test for seeing where your lactate or anaerobic threshold is.

• 10 min warm up
• 10 min hard
• 20 min harder
• 10 min warm down

Take your average heart rate over the 20 minute section and this is your lactate threshold.

For more on this read Jo Friel’s The Cyclist’s Training Bible.

Workout:

• Type: Cycle
• Date: 12/16/2009
• Time: 19:30:00
• Total Time: 00:50:00.00
• Calories: 657
• Distance: 20.63 km
• Average Speed: 24.76 kmph

Seven of us out for a steady spin out to Shoreham via Beddlestead. Greig struggled to keep up and dropped out at Star Hill. First club ride on the Pug and it was fabulous. Compact may be the way to go.

Workout:

• Type: Cycle
• Date: 12/04/2009
• Time: 08:30:00
• Total Time: 3:15:00.00
• Calories: 2562
• Distance: 75 km
• Average Speed: 23.08 kmph
• Ascent: 1,000 m