Today was good weather in the Yorkshire Dales so I drove out to Kettlewell and headed off for some of the big Yorkshire climbs.
I could have cycled from Menston, but driving to Kettlewell saved 50 rolling miles and it got me closer to the big hills. The surprising thing is that it’s not actually that much quicker driving to Kettlewell than it is cycling. 1 hour in the car. Cycling – 1 hour 20 minutes. Still I got to the first climb of Fleet Moss nice and fresh.
Thwaites Brow – cobbled
It’s the time of the year to start thinking about hill climb training. Whenever I start to do hill climbs in summer, there’s always part of me that thinks – why do I do this? Perhaps this will be my last year… But, after a few weeks, these thoughts fall away.
August is a gentle introduction to hill climb training, not 100% all out efforts, just a few unstructured rides – up and down different hills. If possible a chance to get into some different terrain before the more specific intervals up the same local hill.
After the end of TT season, it’s time to get used to the road bike and climbing up steep hills, with lower cadence, and using the whole body to drag you up the climb. It’s all very different to getting into an aero tuck and maintaining a metronomic cadence for 1-4 hours.
My parents live in Menston, which is perfectly situated for hill climb training. You can go anywhere in a 360 degree radius and find innumerable steep climbs to test your legs. Today, I threw a dice on the map and headed off south towards Keighley.
I said August is a gentler introduction to hill climb training, but for some reason, my first hill interval of the day – I chose Thwaites Brow a steep cobbled climb from the outskirts of Keighley, which could never be considered a gentle introduction – even with new a Emonda, tailwind and nice bit of sun.
Veloviewer
Strava
To be honest, I had forgotten how ridiculous this hill is. This is not a neatly maintained cobbled climb like you might find in the Tour of Flanders. This is a cobbled climb which looks like it was built by a few blokes in a rush to get back to the pub – throwing a few rocks randomly on to the 15% gradient. OK, I might exaggerate a little, but the gaps between the cobbles have to be seen to be believed. When there is this much gap, it seems about 30% of your pedal revolution involves pedalling on air. It’s hard to get the power down.
The other thing about the steep cobbled climbs is that the climb seems to have a mind of its own. It’s not a question of picking the right line. The climb throws you off-camber and all you can do is hang on. When you’re not eating your own handlebars to keep the cadence going, you might get ca hance to look up in the forlorn hope of picking a better line. But, even if you can see a slightly milder set of cobbles, you’re never guaranteed to actually make it. In places, there is a little bit of patchwork tarmac, but I often ended up missing these anyway.
If it wasn’t cobbled, it would be a tough test in its own right, but throw in the mix of random cobbles, and it’s really hard. It’s kind of a relief to get to the top – though, I can’t say I’ll be in a rush to go back.
They say heavier riders do better on cobbles. So how does it work for cobbled climbs?
Nearby Climbs
Stocks Hill
At the top of Thwaites Brow I followed my nose – which means that I took random directions and got mostly lost. I headed up Oxenhope Moor and then hoped for the best. An unexpected bonus of getting lost is that purely by chance I happened upon a new climb – Stocks Lane.
Thanks to comments on this post Hill Climb Courses is that I found course V9919 is actually Stocks Lane. Halifax Imperial Wheelers have a hill climb on this lane on 26/09. – 900 yards of it average grade 10%. It’s a great little climb from the village of Luddenden. It’s a less intense climb than the neighbouring Halifax Lane/Luddenden But, it’s a nice steady 10% gradient with a double switchback.
Related
Cycling Climbs of South East England is the first of the regional guides to road cycling hill climbs in England. It follows the same format as the best-selling 100 climbs. In fact the regional guide includes 50% of the hills in the first two volumes. It means for owners of the original books, there is repetition, but also all the climbs in one place with quite a few new ones too.
The South East includes Oxfordshire and some of the Chiltern hills I know and ride so often – climbs like Chinnor Hill, Muswell Hill and Whiteleaf. The South East also includes the south coast of Sussex and Kent – somewhere I very rarely cycle. Probably the last time I rode near the south coast was the Brighton Mitre hill climb on Steyning Bostal in 2006.
The regional guide didn’t give the same thrill as the first 100 climb book. Because many of the climbs are now well known. But, there are still a few new climbs, I’d not done before. Last week, I checked out Whitchurch Hill- from Pangbourne I’d never ridden around there before, despite being a mere 25 miles south of Oxford. I nice little 3 minute climb with good road surface. Oxford is certainly spoilt for climbs. I will probably end up buying the South West, because Oxford is as close to the Cotswolds as the Chilterns.
The South East doesn’t have all the big climbs of Yorkshire or Wales, but there’s certainly enough interesting climbs to make a good edition out of. It also features many climbs which feature in the London Olympics and Surrey classic (e.g. Box Hill, Leith Hill) And if you watch the Prudential Ride London classic, it shows you don’t need a col du Tourmalet to make an exciting race.
I spent a lot of time trying to find a light that would fit around an aero seat post. The most popular option seems to be to put a light under the saddle. But, I didn’t want that because I often have a saddle bag there or possibly a rear bottle.
Exposure rear flare
One of the few which seemed to fit was this exposure rear flare. It is a fairly bright light with 75 lumen red beam. It can be seen from quite a distance. It is quite popular amongst time trialists because it is quite small and aero, but gives off a reasonable light that can be seen from quite a distance.
The TT season is spluttering to an end. Last week, was a 10 mile TT on the A3. It was cancelled because of unexpected rain. After driving all the way, I thought I would go out for a little spin, it you can’t get a pb, you can always try steal a local KOM, it doesn’t make it worth while, but better than just sitting in your car. To be honest, my heart wasn’t in it, and going up the first hill my chain came off. I made the mistake of trying to put the chain on without getting my hands dirty. I tried to use some random leaves as improbably gloves. The problem is that I failed miserably and also, in the process, managed to knock off the Quark magnet from near the chain stay. Note to self – when putting chain back on – it’s always easier just to get your hands dirty with oil.
After wiping fingers clean, and generally messing around, I’d lost where magnet fell off, so the next 20 minutes was scrabbling around in the dark undergrowth to look for a small magnet. Why is it so hard to find small things when they fall off bikes? I took that as more than a hint to call it a day and head home. That was the last 10 mile TT of the season.
It was a great Tour de France. Nearly every stage was interesting, with full on racing the whole way through. I seem to remember years when half the Tour de France was predictable, flat sprint stages, which only came to life in the last 10km. The sprinters union may complain the tour has been ridiculously hilly, with relatively meagre pickings for the likes of Cavendish and Griepel, but for the viewer – classic style one-day races (cobbles, side winds and short sharp climbs) do make for intriguing and interesting racing.
It’s hard to imagine that in the 90s and early 00s, the Tour would put on massive long flat time trials. Amidst the near hysteria of Froome taking 60 secs from his nearest challenger in the Pyranees (60 secs he later lost in the Alps), who can forget the days of Indurain putting in six minutes to his nearest challenger in long time trials? Those years of Indurain and Armstrong domination were pretty much like watching paint dry. This year’s tour was not quite as finely balanced as we might have liked, but another mountain top finish in the Alps and the tour would have been on a knife edge.
If power meters had never been invented I would be quite happy. They cost a lot of money and in the past two years I’ve had more technical problems with power meters than I have had with any other cycling equipment.
On the other hand, it’s hard to push back technological advances, as the Luddites found out all those years ago. Yes, it would perhaps be nice if we all rode single speed steel frames with nothing more than the wind in our face to evaluate how hard we’re trying. But I can’t deny I’d rather have a 6kg Emonda for climbing in the Lake District, and now you can have a power file to look at and muse after. Whether you get as much joy inspecting a power file as you do climbing Hardknott pass, who can say?
My power meters
Quark Elsa
The Quark Elsa is a pain to fit (at least for me – of low technical capacity) and it frequently broke down in the first six months. To be fair, it’s been quite reliable this year and the power figure seems reasonably reliable. However, a dropped chain on Monday did knock off a precariously balanced magnet, showing it’s just another thing that go wrong.
Stages
I bought a Stages power meter crank this April because I wanted one for the road bike, and it was too difficult to swap the Quark cranks / bottom brackets e.t.c. Stages is half the price of Quark and at £700 is moving into the area of reasonably affordable (by cycling standards anyway)
It is relatively easy to fit, you just need a bit of finesse with a torque wrench (something I lacked, rounded a bolt and had to buy a new bolton ebay) Since using in May, the Stages has been reliable and consistent so far.
The main thing about the Stages is that it gives a reading of 30-40 watts more than the Quark. I was really excited to suddenly be getting an extra 40 watts on training rides. Though alas, I still had very similar times to last year’s efforts at 40 watts less. An extra 40 watts means nothing, if you don’t go any faster. That’s the thing with power meters, it still is the time which counts in races (at least for now…)
I’ve tried resetting Stages, but it gives the same high power reading, which is a bit of a pain for comparing power meter outputs between the different bikes, I’m not sure which is right. For a five minute hill, it’s the difference between a watt per kg ratio of around 7.3 or 6.8.
I think there is a way of testing the reliability of power meters and properly recalibrating, but I don’t really have time.
Pacing. Perhaps the most obvious benefit of a power meter is that it will give very useful indicators about good and bad pacing. For anyone doing a time trial, it is really useful information. I started using a power meter after 8 years of racing. I thought I knew how to pace a good time trial. But, a power meter suggested my pacing wasn’t as good as I thought it was. In some cases, it was a real eye opener.
You don’t have to be a timetriallist to benefit from the pacing benefits. Even a sportive rider may benefit from a look at power. If you’re doing over your threshold after the first half an hour, it’s going to be a long six hours in the saddle.
Speed and power. Without a power meter, it is interesting how much importance you can give to speed or average speed. With a power meter, you can have much more confidence in holding back on a tailwind and increasing effort into head wind.
Peaking. The first year I used a power meter was 2014, during the hill climb season. It was very useful for seeing the 3-5 minute power achieved during a race / training session. It enabled me to spot patterns about the consequences of training and racing very hard, with little rest, and then the contrast with racing after a few days rest.
A list of hill climb events for 2015 from CTT.
I usually spend a lot of time trying to work out what kind of hill all the course codes are so this is a page with some of the info I have, but bear in mind it is incomplete, and possibly inaccurate.
I get quite a few emails asking about how to enter a hill climb. This is a short guide.
1. For a Cycling Time Trials (CTT) open event you need to be a member of a club. You can see a list of clubs here
2. Go to events on CTT website. On the left hand side, you can narrow selection by distance – Hill Climb.
Also, have a look at my list of hill climbs for 2015
The Shaftesbury CC 50 mile TT has been held since 1906. The first winner being S.Smith in a time of 2.27.52 – not bad for single speed, no traffic roads and probably less than skin tight alpaca wool tights. It’s a pretty impressive history for a cycle race. (Starting only 3 years after the first edition of Tour de France).
Today’s Shaftesbury CC event was held on the E2/50c – a fast bit of road using the A11 and A14. Michael Hutchinson once broke competition record for 50 miles in this event, with a 1.35. I did the ECCA 100 on this course a few weeks ago. With windy conditions, and still awaiting some go faster aero equipment, I was more interested on what power I could manage – rather than setting a time.
But, the plan to ride to power, didn’t go to plan as the Garmin somehow got mislaid in the car. I found it after the race. But, without Garmin, it was back to, ‘old school’ riding on feel, with not even a clock to give an idea of how long it was taking.
The first leg was mostly tailwind, and it was pretty fast with quite a bit of time spent in biggest gear of 56*12. I’m been having problems getting the gear into the 11 sprocket, so before the race dutifully put bike in workstand and checked gears were working properly In the workstand, the gear slipped into the 11 sprocket as seamless as possible; there seemed nothing to adjust. Yet, as soon as got on road in Cambridgeshire, it wasn’t budging and I couldn’t get in the 11 for love nor money. I bet if I put it back in workstand it will work again. I would love to understand the science of this or maybe there is no science it is just the amateur bike mechanic gremlins at work.
Still, I can pedal a high cadence and it was great fun going along with tailwind up the straight road. The A11 is about as far removed from hill climb territory as you can imagine. Still even hill climbers like trundling along at high speeds. With such a good speed, uou’re almost tempted to give the turn a miss and just keep going to do an out and out 50 mile and get the train back. But, at Red Lodge, I came off the A road for a short bit of quiet B-road. I later found out I went through 25 miles in about 48.17. which would be a massive 25 mile pb. But, that was before the return leg. It was quite windy on the way home, though I felt pretty good and felt a lot more power than BDCA 50. But, perhaps if I had a power meter it would be telling me something different. That’s the rub with a power meter, is it good to be told you’re not trying hard enough?
Anyway I finished. A little bit thirsty. It was quite warm today.
I did a 1.42.18 – perhaps 3rd place. Behind Adam Topham 1.39.30 and Jon Wynn 1.42.14 There were quite a few times around 1.42, though I kept getting confused mixing up handicap and actual times. My brain wasn’t working so well after than effort. First women was A. Lethbridge 1.54, just ahead of J.Muller 1.55.
I enjoyed the race. Less windy would be good, but you can’t have everything. But, not many timetrials left now, just the odd 10 mile and 25 mile TT. I’m sure when I finish TT season at Nat 25, my new aero-equipment will turn up the day after. Just as reliably as my 11 sprocket will work as soon as my bike goes back in the stand.
Big thanks to Shaftesbury CC and all the marshalls who stood by the side of a busy road for a couple of hours.
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