Always learning

I must have lost at least 20 minutes with the badly pinned number.

Last Sunday I took part in my first 100 mile time trial. I had meant to do one in the last season or two but I never seemed to get around to it, but with the 12 hour tt a few weeks away it seemed like the perfect opportunity to break this particular duck. Despite many 100 mile rides under my belt, this was a new kettle of fish, having never raced a tt this far before. I had an added complication that I only had 3 hours' sleep the night before owing to a friend's wedding. I was designated driver for the evening but it was still hardly perfect race preparation. I also found myself quite nervous about it. It's funny, but the older I get, the more conservative and cautious I am becoming. I wish I could be a bit more 'gung-ho' but I am actually turning into a bit of a worrier. Worrying!

Anyway, it went pretty well. The plan was to ride conservatively and practice my feeding and pacing for the 12. We had a few helpers from KPRC who were able to hand up bottles and food and this went really well. I ended up drinking approximately 2 litres of SIS during the ride and had 2 and a half snickers bars. All this stayed down and I was able to digest it without any major stomach issues.

The first half went very smoothly, but after halfway the weather deteriorated very badly and the riders had an hour and a half of torrential rain followed by increasing winds and steady drizzle for the remainder of it. This made using a deep section front wheel very interesting and I had to come off the drops a few times in order to make sure that I was not blown into a ditch. My pace didn't drop significantly despite this and I finished with plenty in the tank in a time of 4:37. I was hoping to get under 4:30 but with the weather conditions and it being my first attempt, I'm pretty pleased with that.

On Monday night I was back out on the river in a laance for an hour or so. A relative of Adam's is attempting next year's DW with a friend and they have been having a few issues getting going. They had bought a K2 but had so far been unable to stay the right way up in it. It looks like they have bought a Stilletto, which as it's name suggests, is hardly the most stable kayak in the world. Allied to this, at least one of the footrests is missing in their boat so they were always going to be fighting an uphill battle with their stability.  Anyway, I got them to paddle the laance and showed them some basics about setting up the boat, body position and working on getting their catch right. Pleased to report no swims and a couple of smiles on their faces with the realisation that, in the right boat, paddling's not so bad.

A tale of three rides

Worthing's a long way to go for a pastie and a latte

Last week I took part in a 50 mile time trial, my first event over this distance in three years and my first time riding the Argon this far in a TT. After my operation I only had a handful of short rides so I was not sure how this was going to go. As it turned out; badly.

The first 20 or so miles were so-so. I was ticking off the miles and went through the halfway point in 1:04:xx, so pretty much what I would expect but it didn't feel particularly comfortable with my heart rate up, but within the next 5 miles I just absolutely blew to pieces. I mean, properly blew up. It just so happened that Simon was my minute man and around the various turn points I was timing myself when I saw him and we were only 40 seconds apart. Just after halfway I saw him ahead of me and I was no more than 30 seconds behind him. In the next 25 miles he stayed on the same pace while I ended up losing almost 10 minutes! I got more and more tense in my upper body and was spending less and less time on the tribars. My legs had completely run out of energy and I was also getting a very upset stomach even though I only had water in my bottle. Something I have never suffered from before.

While I had not had a lot of training this spectacular disintegration had, I believe, other causes.

A month before I had lowered my bars in the hope for better aerodynamics and speed and while this had been ok for the 10 and 25 mile time trials, at this longer distance it just wasn't comfortable or sustainable. The extra one inch drop was just too much for the flexibility in my back and upper body and the closing up of my hip angle also meant my stomach was not digesting and absorbing what was in it. If it couldn't cope with water, then it would never handle carbs in solid or liquid form.

I felt properly awful when I crossed the line and extremely hacked off and worried, with a 100 mile tt only a month off and then the 12 hour a couple of weeks after that. In hindsight, it made me re-evaluate my entire position on the bike.

So yesterday I was out on the Van Nic with the purpose of getting some easy miles under my belt. I cycled out on the A24 towards the coast and turned off towards Ditchling Beacon. At the 2 hour mark I turned around and came home. I didn't get to Ditchling but it was a solid 70 miles which was my longest ride in a very long time.

This morning I was back out on the time trial bike but this time with a new position. I raised the bars back up by one spacer and also put a slight upward angle on my tribars which I hoped would have a few benefits. The most important one would be to give my stomach more room and the upward slope would keep my wrists a bit straighter which had been getting very achy. My neck and shoulders were very sore last week so I moved the bars apart by 20 millimetres to relieve this. Obviously all this would have a negative effect aerodynamically but if it means I can maintain an aero position for longer then it will be a net gain.



Homemade aerobottle; worked like a charm

The slightly upward slope on the tribars would also help with my home modification for an aerobottle on the front bars which I had seen done at a few events. A speedfill bottle holder to do this is about £40. I was able to make my own by drilling a hole in an old standard bottle holder an 4 cable ties at the bottom of my tool box. So today was a long ride down to Worthing with Simon; a 90 mile round trip. It went brilliantly. Despite having the 70 miles in my legs from yesterday I felt pretty good. I was able to drink my carb drink all ride and even digested my Cornish pasties from our halfway stop.


 No aches or pains at all. Bloomin' brilliant and 160 miles ridden in the weekend.  I feel so much more confident about the long rides coming up because of this. I've put my training wheels on the Argon and the plan is to use this bike exclusively for the next few weeks and really get my position on it nailed. After all, I'm going to be spending 12 hours on it next month.