Winter Training Continued

The Christmas holidays are here which means that I'm being more flexible with my training schedule this week. After completing the Christmas food shop I had a two hour window to get a ride in. It was pouring down outside so I opted to wear my waterproof jacket for the first tm in a long time. I headed off into the head wind to find some quiet roads to get some uninterrupted training in. The photo below shows what I look like after an hour of riding into a 15mph head wind with driving heavy rain, it adds a few years.

You can't beat the open road for a chance to recharge your mental batteries. The photo below is a favourite road of mine near Shipston-on-Stour on the way to Tysoe for peace and quiet.

Museum trips and panto are the order of the day for the next couple of days so I might be limited to turbo time in the garage which has it's own attractions - it's the only time I train with music, although I do struggle to stick to the endurance training when the Prodigy kicks in.

Oag blog

The training is going well on my side. I've built up towards 6hrs endurance zone pedal time a week, which is way more than I have ever done at this time of year before. My only grip is that it is all indoors. I invested in some mudguards, but the thought of lugging a grubby bike in and out of the house for the turbo trainer is not appealing and neither is thought of the guards rubbing into my 'blue steel' paintwork! So I need to pull my finger out and get a winter hack. I've been looking at some Genesis models and need to track one down at the right price.

Other news: riding position adjustments are much easier to do with a fellow cyclist on hand. Some of the team lowroader's got together last night for a lesson in cycling geometry from Steve. I thought I had got it nailed, but have been a bit eager in jacking up the seat post. All is well now, so my torso/arm and inner leg angles are all sorted. Big thanks to Steve.

I have entered the Mad March Hare and Cheshire Cat sportives, which gives me something to look forward to - hopefully I get lucky in the Dragon Ride lottery. I've joined Epic Cycles cycle team and will be having a crack at some racing in 2012. No racing targets will be set, I just want to see how I get on.

That's all for now, I'll add some more photo's in my next post.

Bike Fitting, Dragons and Check Up.

Busy week this week, or rather a busy two days.

As part of our team training plan we had decided to enter a number of UK based Sportives to hone our skills and test the legs. The first event we all entered is the Mad March Hare, which is based in the Midlands, unsurprisingly in March. This is a relatively straight forward route, being mainly flat with a couple of Cotswold climbs in the middle. The second event is the Cheshire Cat, which I have decided not to enter, as this is at the end of March and involves a lot more climbing, but my training will not have progressed far enough at this point. The final sportive we had intended to enter as a team was the Dragon Ride at the beginning of June. Entries for this opened at 9am on Wednesday morning and were sold out in 2 hours. Unfortunately, due to various reasons (which we won't mention), only Steve, Nick and myself currently have confirmed entries. Hopefully Gav and Simon will be successful in the ballot process.

Thursday was spent at Birmingham Children's Hospital having Kirsten's 3 month Post Op check. The upshot of which is that she will have to have another less serious operation in March to correct a restriction in the artery to her right lung, which is causing back flow of blood in her heart. We had been aware that there was a slight restriction after her operation, but, there had never been any mention that there may have been a need to correct this. So all in all we had a pretty rough afternoon coming to terms with this.

Thursday evening we had a team bike fitting session at the Jefferies Cycle Shop (aka Steve's garage), where I have to say customer service is king. So, hopefully we are all, now, seated correctly. We had to resort to the low tech solution (protractor and plumb line), as, unfortunately there wasn't enough light for the slow motion video. We can keep that for next time.

We are trying to plan a team social ride, but, it is proving difficult to find a time that fits around family, work and social commitments for everyone, so, we may have to resort to more than one ride.

It's Blog Time.....

Well it’s been a little while since my last post so here goes.....

One thing I need to admit to first is......well......I’m afraid I have.....it’s a little embarrassing I know but I am the proud owner of a white pair of shoes. They say with white shoes comes great responsibility & the wearer of these shoes must shoe extreme power at all times.......!!!

Well leaving the bling for the moment, I have been a little on & off with my training lately. My legs were showing some signs of a little fatigue so I decided to take a few extra rest days in between my schedule. Over the last couple of weeks my legs have recuperated nicely & I feel much better for it too, so today was a big day for me (even though I messed up with my Garmin & may need to do another visit to get more timings). I woke up this morning planning on a long ride today, opened up my facebook page to see an invite from the Master & The Dr to attempt 'Edge Hill' (x2 loops) now for those in the know Edge Hill is not for the faint hearted novice like myself...... but I took up the challenge & road into work to meet the guys guy's for our unstructured ride. We set off & started our first loop as we got closer I suddenly had a vision back to 2005 from when I last attempted Edge Hill (which was on a mountain bike & failed miserably), any we started to climb the base element & stayed with the guys until the gradient started to ascend & I could feel my heart starting to race higher & higher & my speed get slower & slower...!! The guys went on further into the distance but I was determined to do this, gritted my teeth & persevered. My lungs felt on fire & I was out of the saddle pushing forward, then back in the saddle this was the way it was going to be all the way up the ascent..... Finally at the top I had conquered my challenge, but turned to Steve & said that I wouldn't be doing a second loop as I was so tired, he assured me that by the time we got to the base again I would be in great shape to make a second go of it. I was starting to recover & decided to take on the demon hill again, (with much surprise to myself) found by the time I was at the top found the second run a little easier.

So not only did I conquer my demon of 'Edge Hill' but I climbed whipped its backside into the distant past..... Also twice in the same day plus in a short period of time too. Happy you bet I am :D

So it looks like my training is getting better & that I will be able to wear my white shoes with honour......

Overall my endurance training is paying off, I may be a little slower overall but can do much longer distance. I will incorporate some threshold phases back into my schedule now to inprove my top end limits again so I'll keep you posted.

That's me done for another blog see everyone here again soon :D

Winter Training

Riding in the winter provides some interesting challenges, one of which is working out which clothes will provide the optimum balance of temperature control, starting the ride a bit cold should mean that you won't be a big sweaty mess at the end. Although that doesn't apply to threshold training (less clothing is required), which is now being conducted in daylight for safety reasons (road conditions).
To keep the training interesting I've been exploring some new routes, there's some great roads around Oxhill, Whatcote, Tysoe and Sibford Gower. This exploring has also resulted in the creation of a 50 mile Hilly route which goes up and down the Edgehill escarpment several times, this will be making a more regular appearance when the Spring arrives! A change of tyres was required after traction was proving a real issue on greasy roads, a swap to GP 4 season tyres has transformed the winter bike and made the runs with Nick a little less painful.
I'm not short of motivation to go out when the weather is cold and wet, I take my inspiration from the hard men of the Northern Classics (Paris-Roubaix, Tour of Flanders, and Liege-Bastogne-Liege to name a few). Also, this years winter has been almost tropical in comparison to last year. To keep things bubbling over during Christmas I will be attempting to complete the Rapha 500 challenge between the 23rd and 31st of December (covering a total of 500km by bike, stationary training doesn't count).

I'm back again

Hello again blogging buddies.

After a brief period away I am back for a cheeky little update; regardless of the fact little has changed.

So, firstly a summary of progress:

- Most importantly, I have invested in some new white shoes. The buckle on my dhb ones has started to grumble so Wiggle will refund me. Any excuse for a sneaky upgrade!

- Cycling summary - I am sitting around the 800 miles a month mark (all on road) and averaging between 19-20mph (courtesy of my good old friend 'endurance'). Still not really noticing a benefit so maybe it's time to throw a 60+ miler into the equation. I've put in some rides I am pleased with recently, but unfortunately these did not involve riding endurance. 50mins constantly in threshold = "shut up legs!" Great!

- 'Strava.com' has rudely bludgeoned it's way into my life in an effort to jeopardise my training schedule. If you're unfamiliar with the website then have yourself a little peruse, you have been warned! (I know this is probably a superfluous statement based on the fact only JLR Lowroad are reading our blog so far) So, Strava, not a bad thing unless you are super-competitive and don't like riding endurance. I am doing an 'ok' job of resisting getting "on the rivet" around every segment in the local area. I still have a few in my sights though.

- Punctures! Winter appears to have brought with it some spiky road shrapnel. My poor Schwalbe Ultremo can't hack the combination of tyre shredding power and tyre shredding road seasoning. A new Schwalbe Durano (matching the front tyre) now resides on my back wheel. I am hoping for a marked improvement in puncture resistance; at least for Steve's sake, he seems to volunteer as my roadside mechanic in any state of emergency. I think the last tube change took him less than 8 mins all-in. Impressive!

- 6 weeks out of the country planned in the next few months so I am a little worried about keeping up my training (no chance of 800 miles a month). I will always find a way to do some exercise but I may struggle to make it cycling-specific. Watch this space and we shall see.

Don't worry, I think that's enough of my ramblings for now.

Oooh, sorry, not quite. I have entered three races for next year so far. [Victoria Park Crits - 2nd one] - [Halesowen RR] - [Banbury Star RR]. Hopefully points will make prizes, in the form of Cat3. Maybe I am being a little optimistic for my first season but I should begin with a target in mind.

Have fun and keep on spinning,

Fab Rivet

                                                       - With power will come victory -

It's Been a While

It's been a while since I've posted on here, so, here goes.

I have now been following Dr. Garry Palmer's training plan for seven weeks. I've generally achieved the required amount of time on the bike in those weeks, so, I feel pretty good about that and I've managed to achieve my target weight (79.9Kgs) without changing my diet very much. Since that first target is now out of the way I'll need to carry on with the interim training schedule and then have another consultation with Garry in January. In the meantime I am trying to ride with my heart rate in the top half of my zone (139-144 BPM) and I have to add a threshold training session to my plan as well as increasing the duration of my endurance rides. Currently the biggest problem I am having with long rides on the turbo trainer is that my backside is going to sleep after about fifty minutes. Thanks to a bit of advice from Gav, I have found that standing up and turning a big gear for a couple of minutes relieves the pressure and gets the blood flowing again, allowing me to do a bit more.

Thanks to the speed and cadence sensor Steve loaned me, I can now log how fast I am riding. At the moment I am achieving 22kph. The quick test I did riding in the gear I was initially using on the turbo trainer shows I was only doing 15kph, so I've made a significant improvement. Whether this magnitude of improvement will transfer to the road or not remains to be seen. An unstructured ride on the road in the near future is in order.