The Program....

or my version of it, minus the use of EPO of course.

Last weekend, I atoned, slightly, for my complete and utter failure at the Bec Hill Climb by taking part in the Redmon CC 'Grand Prix des Gentlemen' 2 up TT. Simon and I rode it a couple of years ago but this time I was paced by David. It was a bit of a shootout between David and I, and Dale who was pacing Simon. The event works as a 2 up, but the oldest rider, a vet over 40 has to stay behind the younger rider for the entire event except for the last 200 metres. This meant Dave turned himself inside out for 15 miles while I just had to sit on his wheel barely breaking a sweat. Dave did really well, but made the easy mistake of going off a bit too hard and then suffering for it over the last couple of miles. There's quite a bit of psychological pressure on the front man knowing that the guy behind you is inches away and spinning happily while you are having to work insanely hard. Its not a good feeling.

Anyway, that all but sees out the close of the season. There's one last hill climb on Ditchling Beacon at the weekend, but then after that, it's time to get down to some winter training. This has always been the point where I have ended up letting myself go too much and not getting the base miles in that are needed for the next season. In terms of looking at this season it has been a full-on time trialling one and therefore next year will be more of the same. It's been an odd year for me really. A pb over 10 miles (not by much, but a pb nonetheless) and my first time trials over 100 miles and 12 hours, which went very well considering a fairly patchy season training wise. So some good stuff, but to be honest I'm still a little bit 'meh' about the whole season. Not wasted as such, but not exactly satisfying either.

So I've had a good think about how I am going to train over the next four months and part of the answer is that I have invested in a brand new turbo, a Kurt Kinetic Road Machine Smart. I have spent the last three weeks or so investigating different turbos and it came down to the Road Machine and the Tacx Vortex. The thing that I most wanted was power, or at least the ability to be able to measure it. I want a way to be able to record and log power as this is arguably the most important metric for a cyclist to know in order that power based training can then be targeted using different power zones, rather than just guessing or in my case, not knowing at all. There are now dozens of different types of power meters available, and most of them are out of my price league by a long way. This seemed to be the most cost effective way for me to do power based sessions. It will also mean that I can do more training at home without having to go off for a ride which should be more conducive to family harmony and aloew me to make more use of the limited training time that I have available.


After reading dozens of articles and reviews, most notably on the excellent website of DCRainmaker (if you are buying anything tech for swim/bike/run, look here first; his reviews are extremely in-depth and informative) I opted for the Kurt Kinetic Road Machine - Smart, which comes pre-installed with a Bluetooth speed sensor. My reason for this choice over the Vortex was that the KKRM has a calibration feature which allows very accurate power readings to be taken; DCRainmaker had them within +- 1% of a powertap, which is more than accurate enough for my needs. The KK InRide app is used to record the workouts and it comes with a few pre-installed sessions, most notably a Fuctional Threshold Power (FTP) session (more on this later).

I am also going to invest in a Trainerroad subscription. This is a website with over 800 different turbo sessions as well as access to various other videos and media which should make turbo sessions more fun and interactive. I have had a few problems with this because although my laptop has Bluetooth it is not able to record the output from the Kinetic Smart unit without another Bluetooth dongle, purchased seperately. It had me really confused last night before I found out the answer. The guys at Trainerroad were great, with very prompt help and even refunding my subscription until I got it sorted out. Hopefully by the end of the week I will be able to access all the trainerroad sessions and training plans and start getting some serious training under my belt.

So this morning I had my first proper session on the KKRM and it was a million miles from my old trainer, bought for £30, eight years ago off ebay. It's important to understand that it's still not riding on the road and never will be, but if has a lot more 'road feel' with the flywheel giving the unit more inertia. It's a fluid trainer and it's very quiet with the only real noise coming from my chain and sprockets. Another plus feature. My first session was a FTP test. Your FTP is the average power output you can maintain for 1 hour. Basically, anything over FTP is anaerobic and anything below it is aerobic. Knowing this means that the rider can then adapt their sessions and training as a function of FTP by using various zones. Thankfully, one doesn't have to ride hard for an hour to calculate this, instead a 20 minute effort can be ridden instead and then multiplied by 0.95 so that you find an equivalent FTP for a whole hour. That said, the 20 minute test is very hard too.

This image shows the InRide app during the session. The blue line is duration of each effort and the app gives you a percentage of FTP for each one. The default is 200W, so for this first session, while I was determining FTP, it was pretty accurate. The yellow line is my power trace during each effort. It is a handy visual guide to ensure I am in the ballpark for each one. This is nearing the end of the warm up before I am about to start the 20 minute maximum effort which determines my ftp (the longer blue line).

 So the results are in. My FTP currently stands at 205 watts. I don't think that's great but the good news is, I can mow actually do something about it and start to work on increasing it. To what, I don't know. I don't think it's about attaining a particular number that will get me a 58 minute 25TT, but training the various systems to increase it to its optimum level. A couple of years ago I took part in #Turbovember and it seems opportune to do this again and basically cycle/turbo everyday in order to start laying a solid foundation for the rest of the winter. I will test my FTP on December 1st and see where I have got myself to.

Ultimately, all this tells me where I am. It's up to me to figure out what I need to do in order to get to the performance level that I want to achieve next season. Devising the program; now that's going to be the hard part.

Too much ego

Top Gun; Best. Film. Ever. One of the classic lines from the film is 'Son, your ego's writing cheques your body can't cash.' It took me years to understand what that actually meant, but now I know. On my bike I have definitely been letting my ego get the better of me when out and about. Too often a steady ride has ended with me going too fast with someone on my back wheel or me chasing someone down when there's really no need. All ego on my part and completely uneccesary when I need to start just putting in long, slow steady miles.

However, my ego took a massive dent last weekend. As TT Secretary for the mighty Kingston Phoenix, I came up with the idea of including the Bec Hill Climb as the last event in our Club Championships. This classic event has been on the calendar for 60 years and while various KPRC members have ridden it (and won it) in the past, it seemed like a good idea to hget a few of us over for the end of season blowout. The climb is short, only about 700 metres long and compared to hills like Whitedown and Winterfold, it's not particularly steep, but it is steep enough. The top riders are climbing it in well under 2 minutes, while mortals like me are looking around 2:30-45. I should caveat the rest of this post with the fact that I spent the preceeding day giving the Van Nic a thorough service and tune up so that it would be all good for the climb.

So I drove over with Wheezy Junior and we went for a gentle 5 mile ride to warm up before I left him at the top and went to the start. It was there I found out that my 'minute man' was in fact a 'minute boy'. A 10 year old who had also taken part in the Catford HC in the morning. My ego was twitching. Please Dear Lord, don't let him beat me. Don't let me be beaten by a 10 year old. So I clipped in and got pushed off and within  a few seconds I could hear something rubbing. That's odd, I thought. I had deliberately opened up the brake calipers for the climb to make sure that that wouldn't happen, so how are my brakes rubbing? Nay bother, just keep pedalling away, it'll be fine. Within another 50 metres my quads were literally about to explode and my heart rate was through the roof, but even though the rubbing had seemed to stop it seemed harder than ever. So a quick look down and I could see that my wheel was rubbing on the rear stay which meant only one thing, dismount. I assumed that I hadn't put the wheel in the dropout correctly so pulled it back and locked up the quick release. I had lost about 20 seconds but thought that was not the end of the world. I got going again and within 30 metres the rubbing came back! By now I was seriously hacked off and pretty confused, but this also meant I had to dismount on one of the steeper sections. I spent a lot longer trying to sort it, but with my heart rate through the roof and with adrenalin filling my bloodstream I just wasn't thinking straight at all. A spectator gave me a hand and pushed me back on my way but it happened AGAIN. It was actually very simple in that my QR skewer was not tight enough. It was ok for riding on the flat but when putting the power down to get going on a steep hill it was pulling my wheel out of line. The coup de gras came when I eventually got going for the third time when I couldn't get my bottom 3 gears. The movement of the wheel coming out of line had unbeknown to me, caused one of my outer gear cables to come unseated, truly stuffing up my shifting. If Id have had the energy I would have cried.

As you can imagine, the 10 year old had passed me, warmed down, had coke and cake and was on his way home by the time I ground my way over the line at approximately 25 rpm. Along with, it has to be said, another 4 other riders. Not bad going for a 2 minute event. And yes, I came last. Dead, stone cold, last. While I'm used to MOP, sometimes BOP in events, I've never actually come last. I almost get a mention in Cycling weekly, with this quote, '...as the riders tackle the steep ascent in times ranging from under two minutes to upwards of six.' I am the 'upwards of six.'  In fact, I think I might have the slowest ever time on this course in its 60 year history. Now if that's not an ego-denting fact, then I don't know what is.