W-I-N-T-E-R

I've dug the winter training bikes out of the back of the garage and over the last 2 weeks I've done a ride on my old Claud Butler fixed trainer and another on my Geoffrey Butler geared bike. The Claud is a 56cm frame and is a tad too big while the Geoffrey is a 53 and an even smaller tad too small. However, the saddle is stuck in the frame on the GB and it's got a liberal coating of rust in all sorts of nooks and crannies, so it's time for a new training frame and swap the parts over. A quick browse round the web and the Dolan Preffisio looked about right and a 54cm (you only get 2cm increments) was duly ordered and has now arrived.

Slip the headset in, add the saddle and pin, put in the bottom bracket and its time to measure up for the stem length and height. I've done this hundreds of times to the point I know my measurements without reference. The top and seat tubes measure pretty much to my fit and the amount of seat post showing looks about right but It's taken me nearly an hour to work out why I suddenly have 40mm of spacers under the handlebar stem. Of course - INTEGRATED HEAD SET - no stack height over the top of the top tube so the stem height looks out of proportion. This is hardly the first bike with an integrated HS I've built up, but its the first that's come out like this. Having said that my other road bikes with integrated headsets are all 55cm C to C (and I now note have larger diameter top tubes) and I sure as hell don't want a 56. Theoretically it will all fit but at this stage I need convincing.

The last post

Well, the bikes are packed, suitcases too. Flights confirmed and final ride done. 42 lumpy miles in 3 hours including stops means I should be able to fit into a group in Majorca without getting too dropped, but we'll see. Even climbing is getting a bit easier, if not faster. A couple of runs during the week should do the trick though.

Surprisingly, I've started to lose a bit of weight too, 4lb in as many weeks, only 1 1/2 stone to go so perhaps a better season is on the cards this year. Lets go to Majorca!

Flying in spring, dying in summer

Things are getting tight. I've started to get the miles in but although I'm still relying on the granny ring too much the fitness is begining to come along. I read on le-grimpeur.net that it can take 3 weeks to regain the fitness lost after one week off the bike so I shouldn't hope for too much too soon.
This weekend saw 102 miles under the wheels as I rode a 106km Audax on Saturday (10256ft of climbing) in the drizzle and a howling gale and our own clubs 40 km reliability trial with Mrs. Kipper on Sunday.... Well, it should have been 40 km, but we took a little detour and it turned into nearly 58km. On her 2nd ride since a quite intrusive operation and on a very pretty and brand new machine, Mrs. Kipper was less than impressed as we struggled back to the HQ against another raging headwind.
Another Reliability Trial and a 40 miles ride home afterwards next weekend and it will be time to pack the bikes and a suitcase for a week in Majorca for our first ever road training camp. I've done track camps before, which can get pretty intensive, but a road camp is a first for both of us. I just hope we survive with legs and lungs intact because March sees two hilly time trials, one with a new course this year which means twice up a serious (for Essex) hill. I don't think I'll bother with the TT bike and disc wheel just yet.

Gloop & rain

I don't normally blog about training rides, but this weekend has seen some strange weather across the whole of the UK and I feel like I've been out in most of it.

Saturday was dry, sunny and windy so I went out on the cross bike for about 24 miles. There was a huge black cloud hanging over North Kent & SE London, but prevailing winds kept it off Essex until after I'd reached home. I was surprised the trails were so dry although there were some gloopy puddles with lovely sticky mud over the wheel rims.
Almost home and I got attacked by a dog! Normally they just want to run and bark a bit or even play but this one came straight at me, teeth bared and hate in its eyes. I managed to fend it off with a fist across its nose a few time but it did manage to take a lump out of my shoe. Unbelievably its "owner" seemed to think that it was my fault and seemed to have a problem with the idea of keeping her dog under control. Its a shame that when adrenaline takes over logic goes out of the window or I'd have reported the incident at the time and hopefully had little fang put down - Its a good job I'm not a 10 year old little girl faced with that animal.

Today, it started out the same so I went for a spin on fixed. After an hour and just when I was at my furthest point the heavens opened. And I mean opened! You could hardly see across the road so I cut things short and rode home soaked and freezing but not unhappy at 15 miles out of the total of 30 against a million miles an hour block headwind. Proper Belgie today. I love Autumn.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger

100 miles.
5 hours 26 minutes
6903 feet of ascent
8500 calories

Well, measuring 10 mile splits for evens plus a bit in hand was the plan. If I'd managed to stay on schedule I'd have come in at 4:55 and been happy with that. For the first 50 miles I was slightly up on schedule and although my back and knees were aching I was thinking all was looking good.
But.
At about 60 miles I had a visit from the man with the hammer. He didn't F*** off for the next 40 miles and by the time the century was up I was crawling around in the 42 ring battling an unbelievable headwind on the second, southern half of the course losing 30 minutes in 40 miles and not even able to stay on the tri bars and put any power down. Things are not looking good for the 12 hour and I'm worried that riding fixed all these years is doing my knees in. suggestions for exercises anyone?

Bless the weather

This has not been a typical Easter as far as the weather goes, although one could be forgiven for thinking it has been.
On (Good) Friday at Herne Hill we had Paris Roubaix rain. Well cold drizzle really. The programme was abandoned about 1/3 of the way through which is a first for recent years. I can remember coming home with sunburn and a dose of panda-eyes on a couple of occasions in the last 4 or 5 years or so and I can't remember the last time this meeting was abandoned. Not good.
Sunday, today, for Paris Roubaix the weather was perfect for an outdoor track meeting and far from classic Roubaix rain, mud, s**t and bullets, but even so has produced one of the most dramatic issues of the biggest day of the year in recent memory. Tomorrow is our club "Easter Egg" 10 season opener. I'm praying for sun and no wind. We'll see, but in these perverted days I'm not holding my breath.
All those doing their gardening or indulging in Holy Carmunion probably think its been a good day weather wise but we know better, don't we?

The Rack

I’ve decided enough is enough. We’ve had 2 weeks of snow and ice, rain, floods and tempest. It feels like we only need a touch of Pestilence or a dose of Bubonic Plague to complete the set. After a good start, this winter has delivered the curse of the optimist in big style and decreed that riding out on the road is the most reliable way to end a season before it’s even started.

Last weekend our club’s reliability ride (sorry “Sportive”) was cancelled because of icy back roads and apart from ‘cross and a bit of off road riding there’s not been much chance to get out at all lately. So I’ve decided something must be done and resigned myself to sessions on the rack in a desperate bid to get just a little zip into the legs and a lot of fat off the belly before racing starts.

The question is, what to put on the mp3 to relieve the intense boredom? In previous years I’ve made up a mix of clubland “bangin toons” but they’ve started to get stale so a search for replacements has been going on.

I’ve tried Manu Chao but the beat’s wrong, I’ve had a go at Mr. Scruff, but that’s real mood music. Blowzabella worked for a while, but you really need to concentrate on that and the turbo is not a good place to concentrate. No, I need something to erase all conscious thought…especially thoughts of getting off early because the legs hurt and I’m out of breath.

Hmm…Nick Cave? Too Dark. Phillip Glass?....interesting, but ultimately too much thought involved. I’ve even tried Tangerine Dream but I need something to pedal to at a steady 100 – 120 bps. Klaus Schultz might fit the bill perhaps?

For the moment I’ve settled on Royksop’s The Understanding. Melody A.M. is too variable in both tone and tempo, but The Understanding has just the right pace plus the bass is compressed almost to flatness and there’s enough reverb on the top to make it a good listen. Not Spector-ish but with space. There’s a couple of tracks with an irritating amount of hi hat, but apart from that it’s now just a question of how long it is before I get tired of it.

Any suggestions or alternatives anyone?

A very gloopy day

It rained cats and dogs all Saturday night. Watery Lane was flooded (No! Really!) but we still rode 'cross yesterday. The pics don't show it but we had more than 20 riders for a few quick laps round Eric's brand new swimming pool. Once I'd got home, stripped off and been hosed down the kitchen floor was coated in a tick layer of gloopy mud. Bloody good fun though.

Why do we have winter?

During the snow and ice of the last week at least 2 of the Southend Wheelers have tasted tarmac and I have no intention of joining them in casualty so tomorrow its load the car and DRIVE to the Maldon club 'cross meeting. It's only 12 miles away and I've never considered not riding out and back. Even after headbutting a tree during a race a couple of years ago and getting a funny head I rode home afterwards. But having almost gone base over apex a couple of times just walking poochie through the woods this afternoon, my normal invincibility has taken a back seat and so we're driving it. If it doesn't warm up a bit I can see me riding with BKW and roubaix tights and generally wrapped up so warm that the dismounts will be followed by a short waddle and several attempts to remount the bike. It looks like the comedy quotient will be extremely high so anyone wanting a laugh at my expense is welcome.
This weather had better mean we're in for a good summer. The race calendars are out and despite there not being many local audaxes this year I'm hoping for a couple of 100 mile TTs and a crack at the club 12 hour record of 224 miles. I managed 214 and threequarter at my first attempt in 07 which brings me back to a bloody good reason to stay of the bike until until the Good Lord sees fit to turn the global warming on again 'cos its going to be a long season. The pic shows me avoiding that tree last year while holding off a load of riders queueing up to pass me.

Cabin Fever

Its four o’clock on a Saturday afternoon less than 3 weeks before Christmas. Its been raining all day. Its been blowing about F7 all day and its freezing out and only a professional cyclist or a moron would go near their bike in this weather. What to do? There are a million and one things I should be doing, fixing a leaking radiator joint, tidying up, wrapping presents, even buying presents, painting the house or washing the car, not to mention all those bike repair jobs I’ve been putting off for weeks since the season has ended.

But what am I doing? Writing a blog entry, that’s what. Nutty daughter is upstairs wrapping presents for Mrs. Kipper and self using paper, tape, scissors and labels provided on the house before buggering off to paint the town with Swiss Dave, whose just spent the last fifteen hours installing Firefox, RSS and some other whatnot onto my computer so it does what I want as opposed to what it wants when I turn it on. No don’t ask me, I have no idea, but it does stuff it didn’t before and I’ve finally lost all of those irritating adverts.

I’ve got cabin fever. I’m bored with my new computer setup, even though it works better than ever before and I’ve loads of new toys on it. I’m bored listening to Gillian Welch. I’m even bored with Google Earth and the Astana team website. Quite how one can be bored web surfing is beyong me, but I seem to have managed it. After all there’s even a www.iamboredr.com website among many others! I’m too bored to pick up my guitar. Even the dog looks bored and the turbo is glaring menacingly from the conservatory. Perhaps I should dig out a razor blade and some old Leonard Cohen records and make a proper job of it.

Oh. Sod it. I’m gonna go and make a pizza.

Baby, its cold outside…

The training day everyone fears arrived on the back of a North wind overnight. Coming home from a night out with family at the dogs somewhat after midnight the cold ripped through your average overcoat rather like a knife through, well… butter, but it was at least dry. At 7:30 this morning, however, there was a sugar coating of snow over the fields and roofs and it was still coming down although as I watched it turned to freezing rain. A day for making a pot of tea and going back to bed. Winter training, Pah! Not for softies like me.

Mid afternoon and the guilt of inaction finally gets to me so it’s on with the running kit, out with the dog and 50 minutes slogging around the fields and through the woods at the back of our home with poochie in tow. Mrs. Kipper, meanwhile, wisely decides to drop into the local Somerfield for veggie stew makings, rushing back to a warm house in record time.
By the time I got back home the sweat was dripping through 4 layers of Decathlon’s own brand finest and the thermometer had risen to an alleged 19 degrees from this morning’s measly one degree. All of my clothing (Apparel to those of you who can afford Hincapie stuff) went straight into the washing machine along with a major part of the contents of the fields I so delicately tromped about in. The shoes will have to wait for another day but I feel that preparations for Manchester have only suffered a minor setback.