Monday 30 December 2013

2013

So it's the end of the year. Time to look back at what could have been, nearly was and what was  actually achieved. I have just logged onto my Training Peaks account to find out some numbers for this year.

 I have cycled over 2500 miles this year not including turbo sessions. I have spent 165 hours on a bike. This totalled 70% of my training time.  Baring in mind that I didn't really get onto a bike properly until around May I'm quite pleased with the bike numbers and I've enjoyed the training and tting that I have done. I knocked almost a minute off my 10 mile tt time this year so I must be doing something right. Next year I will be working hard to get my tt times down. In particular I would like to go under the hour for a 25 tt. That's quite a big target but I should get there or thereabouts. I am very confident of new pbs in all tt distances with me being on board a new set of wheels and with a very solid base of bike miles now in my legs. I won a few club events which was nice, but ultimately I have really enjoyed my time on the bike this year. It's been a real highlight of all the things that I have done.

I have run for 385 miles which has taken me 47 hours. This was 20% of my training time
The year started well with a comeback pb over a half marathon (1:27:50) but after that running has been very frustrating. Yes, I got round the London Marathon but it wasn't very pretty and I am still nowhere near achieving a sub 3 hour time. The vast majority of my running has been zone 2 steady running, which is ok, but I enjoy the faster stuff a lot more and my body responds well to it; well, the aerobic part of me. To be honest, I'm just not sure my muscles, tendons and ligaments have got it in it to cope with the training required to do this and gradually I am starting to see that this is a bit unrealistic at the moment. I think that I can cope with 3 gentle plods per week and at the moment that is going to have to suffice. That said, to do a much quicker Ironman race than my current best effort does not actually require a fast run off the bike, I just need to be able to run off the bike, slowly, and I'll get a pb.  My running fitness is going to have to be earned on the bike.

I swum 27,000 metres which took me 13.5 hours. This was 5.5% of my training time
I need to swim more.

In total I have averaged 4.5 hours exercise per week.
This doesn't sound very much and lower than I thought but there was quite a lot of inactivity between late February and April when my back injury flared up as I ramped up the mileage towards the London Marathon. This only works out at about 35 minutes per day, but it's been enough to see me keep my weight under control and stay relatively fit and healthy. I'll take that. The percentages I have quoted above are in the right ball park but skewed by the fact the first 3 months were run heavy and the last 6 months have been bike heavy. If I can get that more balanced throughtout the year then that will be a really good start.

Have I enjoyed it? Thankfully, yes. Despite not doing enough racing I have really enjoyed most of my training. It would be nice if I could start a training schedule and stick with it before injury strikes.

I am targeting going long again next year. It maybe that I have to be realistic and enter a half or two rather than the full IM distance. There are a couple of races that are grabbing my attention but at the moment nothing is entered. The Anglian or Cotswold 226 long course races looks like fun. To be honest, I'm still dreaming about Enbrunman but that looks like it's still on the back burner and will have to wait another year.


These were my targets for the year that I wrote at the beginning of 2013.

1. Marathon PB. Currently 3.18. Realistically, sub 3.10 should be doable, sub 3 on a stellar day, sub 3.15 for a London marathon 'good for age' time as a minimum.

Nope, not even close. But did run another marathon which is never a bad thing.

 2. Olympic tri; sub 2.20. Qualifying for the World's is very unlikely but sub 2.20 may well be within my grasp if I can....

Nope, not close to this one either. I didn't actually do a triathlon this year. My early season injuries just didn't give me the confidence or hope to try.

 3. PB my 10 and 25 mile tt times. Ideally 23.30 for a 10. I'll probably need to invest in some aero help to achieve that, but you can never own enough bikes.

Well, one out of three isn't too bad.  ;-) 

So, targets for 2014.

Go long again. No time to aim for, Just get to the start line. At the moment that will be enough.
Sub 1hr for 25m time trial.

Thanks for reading. Have a great new year.

Saturday 14 December 2013

Not quite going to plan

Following a solid month of cycling and commuting I have spent the whole of this week resting. I just ended up finding myself being really tired and no amount of sleep was helping to relieve how I was feeling. I knew that trying to train through it all would have been counter-productive so I decided to kick back and relax as we head into Christmas. I started to get back into it this morning with a very relaxed 30 minute run and tomorrow I will have another bimble around Surrey on the bike.

So next season. Well, it's all changed already. I was hoping to enter Embrunman for 2014 but it's not happening now. Unfortunately the date just doesn't fit with some other things that we have planned as a family so my European IM debut will have to wait for another season. As a result I've decided to not use Coach Cox for my training plans anymore. His plans were great but as I only had the one goal in mind, the ascent of the Col D' Izoard and then to run a marathon afterwards I decided to call time. It's a big shame but there's a few other things for me to focus on.

Firstly, the Thunder Run. A group of us are going to enter this 24 hour running event as a team of 8. I heard about it via the Marathon Talk podcast and it just seemed like a really good fun event. Hopefully we will all run the equivalent of around 30km over the day and night while camping in the Derbyshire Dales. What's not to like? In order to help get the ball rolling I am going to be taking part in Jantastic again this year, but I am reining it in a bit. Instead of 5 runs per week which has seen me crocking myself for the past two years I will be capping it at 3 in order that I can get to the start line uninjured.

Secondly, I have become the TT Secretary of the Kingston Phoenix which will mean I am responsible for organising our evening 10s and promoting time trialling within the club. With that in mind there is a group of us looking at doing the National 24hr TT in June which should be quite a laugh and is the focus I need at the moment. So, some new things and some disappointments, but hey, it's only a hobby.

Sunday 8 December 2013

Argon 18 E-80

So rather than my usual whinging and whining I thought I would try to put together a useful post about my thoughts on the Argon 18 E-80, my reasons for purchasing it and my first thoughts on riding it.

Why buy a specific time trial bike?

Well, this was a bit of a no-brainer. I have owned a road bike for the last 7 years, first my entry level Trek 1000s which was then replaced by my Van Nicholas Euros. In that time I have done everything on this bike and it's great for most things, but particularly what it's been designed for, that being all day comfortable riding. I always think of this bike as the equivalent of a GT car; long legged comfort for all day cruising but ultimately it's not designed for aero-efficiency. It has fat tubes, cables sticking out everywhere and a very relaxed seat tube angle which makes it great for hill climbing but it's all but impossible to get into the most optimally powerful and aerodynamic position. I was able to put on clip-on tri bars to improve my body position but ultimately my hips were still a long way back, I was very stretched out and my clip-ons had to be quite wide apart owing to the design of my drop bars which meant my elbows were acting as parachutes in the airflow. Most definitely, sub-optimal.

 This is where a tt bike comes in and with my increased involvement in time trial riding with the Kingston Phoenix I knew that I basically had a considerable handicap over the other riders who were on full time trial rigs when I was riding the 10, 25 and 50 mile tts. It seemed to me that a tt bike would be a worthwhile investment. Not free speed, but definitely extra speed.

So I have ended up buying an Argon 18 E-80. How did I come to that choice?

I guess I was looking for the 'most bang for my buck'. I was always going to have a fairly limited budget by tt bike standards, absolutely no more than £1300, but around that price point there are an awful lot of tt bikes to choose from, mostly frames with fairly basic wheels and running gear, so I was looking at the best frame that would fit me and allow the potential to upgrade over the years as funds become available. The usual advice is to ensure that you get a bike that fits. I am lucky in that I am 'Mr Average' and my anthropometrics are not particularly unusual. I'm slightly long in the leg but no excessively so and at 5' 10" tall, most medium frames would fit somehow. The one other useful piece of advice I got was to pick a bike that would allow the most amount of adjustability so that the bike position could be tinkered with as much as possible.

So, aero benefits, budget, fit and adjustability. The last thing I wanted was a certain degree of exclusiveness. I wanted a bike that was at least a little bit unusual; a bit of a head turner. You can imagine then that that pretty much ruled out every Trek, Giant, Scott bike. I ended up narrowing it down to three bikes.

Nice, but not nice enough.
Planet X Stealth. There's no doubt that this bike cannot be considered unusual or exclusive. Every TT start sheet and triathlon transition area is littered with them. They are amazing value and Planet X have become a leader at selling road and TT bikes where it does not seem possible for them to be able to sell them at the price that they do. A couple of months ago they were doing their Stealth, complete with a set of Planet X deep section wheels for £1100. I very, very nearly signed up on the dotted line. There were two reasons that I didn't. Firstly, the carbon frame. I would be absolutely paranoid about dinging, dropping, scratching or otherwise ruining it. I am quite haphazard and accident prone and I like to ride my bikes in all weathers and I don't want to be prissy about ruining it through my clumsiness. The main reason was though, that it just didn't excite me looking at it. Yes, it would be a great tt bike but I wouldn't feel great on it. So, that was the Stealth out of the running.

Yummy
Cube Aerium Race. I looked at this bike for a long time too. Aluminium framed, so tougher if dropped. The paint scheme looked fabulous and the build quality and components looked great but the thing that put doubts in my mind was the geometry of the frame. The seat post angle was 76 degrees and while this is not unusual for some tt frames, many others were 78 and I wanted to be able to achieve a more aggressive fit. I saw this almost as a fast aero road bike rather than an all out time trial frame.

Lush bike. Stupidly long extensions. Lawn needs raking.
Argon E-80. I had seen a few Argon frames at various tts, usually the carbon framed 112 or 114 and they were stunning bikes but well out of my budget, but when I did a bit of research I found out about their bottom of the range aluminium framed model, the E-80. Firstly the geometry was right, being the same as the 112 and having a reversible seat post  that could give either a 78 or 76 degree seat tube angle.

2 way seat post gives 76 or 78 degrees. A nice touch.







This would give me the adjustability I need to get a really good position on the bike. The other  factor that sold me on this frame was the small aero touches that had been designed in; the hidden front and rear brakes and the internal cable routing. Small things that actually probably make little difference aerodynamically on their own but add to the package and make it look faster and sets the frame apart from the other two I was considering.

Except for one area, the frame is beautifully made with welds that have been ground flat and aero tubing throughout and a fully aero-tubed seat post. You would be hard pressed to recognise it as an aluminium frame and it could easily be mistaken for a carbon one. It just looks like it's really been thought about and the design of the frame has not been skimped on.  The tubing of the seat stays and forks have a very flat profile which with the predominantly black paintwork looks quite 'skunk works stealthy'. I like. :-)   The bit that's not so good? The welding around the bottom bracket which looks like it's been done by an out of control chimpanzee with a welding fetish. The bb is where most of the stresses in the frame get concentrated so the welding has to be integrally perfect and with so many tubes congregating at one point it's pretty hard to smooth the welds out there, but still, it's the one eye sore on an otherwise beautifully made frame.



The hidden front brake.  A nice touch. The rear brake sits under the bb too.


Having said all that, most of the deals on a build with this frame were still too expensive (around £1500-1600), but then a few months ago it started to come down in price, first to £1299 and then all of a sudden TriUK brought it down to £999 and therefore I'd be able to purchase it on the cycle to work scheme and achieve a tax saving too. A double win. The reason for the price reduction was the fact that they still had stock of the 2012 frames and the 2014 frame was about to hit the shelves. Exactly the same frame but with a slightly different paint scheme. My order for one of the final 2012 frames went in the following day. It just goes to show that it pays to be patient and wait for winter and see what the sales bring.


The TriUK build featured fairly basic running gear. Shimano 105 crankset, front and rear mechs with dura ace shifters and fulcrum 7 wheels. I have the fulcrum 5 wheels on my Euros and while basic they are absolutely bombproof and have coped with the worst conditions that the roads of Surrey have dished out over the years. While not particularly aero they would be a great set of training wheels for the rest of the winter. The bars and seat are standard components at this price and the bars in particular could be something else to upgrade in the future with its round tubing to a set of wing base bars would look really nice on here.

The bike arrived fully assembled and I have to say very well made. I checked it over and all was good with the build. I should also point out that with Tri UK being based in Yeovil I was not able to get down for a fitting but they were very helpful and helped sort out an appropriate stem and crank lengths. Pretty good service I thought. There's plenty of stack height left so I am able to tinker around with the spacers and bar height before getting it cut to length. The same with the bar extensions which are stupidly long and will need cutting down so that I can shift gear without having to move my arms.

First Ride

So I have had my first couple of rides this week as up until now it's been bolted to the turbo. I spent the first 10 minutes on the bull horns, spinning gently and it felt very comfortable and stable. The most noticeable thing, coming from a road bike, was that my nose was almost directly over the front axle, a long way further forward that on the Euros, but even so it felt very stable. I have it set up at the steeper of the two seat tube angles but again, while it felt very different it didn't feel weird and was very comfortable. Once I got onto a more open piece of road I got down onto the bar extensions and this is when things really began to perk up. My knees are much further up behind my elbows and my back is a lot flatter than I could ever achieve on the Euros and it feels a lot more compact. The only time that this becomes a problem is when I am stopped and my knees are very close to the bars; I just have to be careful I don't clunk them as I move off.

I didn't push it particularly hard but when up to speed I was able to push quite comfortably and it felt like it was cutting through the air with a lot less effort. The factor I am going to have to adjust to is the gearing. The bike comes with a standard double gearing which is quite different from the compact gearing I am used to with slightly wider ratios. It will require a bit of getting used to in order to keep in the sweet spot but once the bars are cut down and I can shift while remaining aero I am sure it won't be too much of a problem.

I have ridden on it for a couple of hours now and I'm glad to say that I have not had any reactions from my back or joints(blimey, I sound old) and there's still a lot of adjustability left in order for me to find my best position.

So in short, I am really pleased with it and I feel that I have bought the right bike for me with plenty of scope for improvement. I am really excited about next season.