Old School Cycling

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Last week I was singing the praises of cycling indoors on the rollers. ‘Falling in love with the turbo‘ and all that kind of nonsense. My old man would give me a clip round the ear hole and tell me stop being a big southern softie – ‘stop dodging the showers and go outside for some proper cycling.‘ Roger De Vlaeminck didn’t win Paris Roubaix three times by listening to his iPod shuffle whilst doing level III on his indoor rollers.

So this weekend, it was time to ditch the conservatory and heated saddle for a bit of proper ‘old school’ cycling – cycling through the mud, wind and sleet and snow.  It was time for a bit of winter grit, and getting in the miles without complaining.

Time for a bit of winter grit
Winter grit

It was also time to invoke the spirit of Sean Kelly and Bernard Hinault and other legendary figures from the past. One thing everyone agrees on, the modern generation is soft. Just look at the early editions of the Tour de France 400km stages over unmade roads on fixed gear bikes; and if you’re bike breaks down, no mechanic to give you a spare wheel. As for riding in the rain Sean Kelly would just say ‘I would go out whatever the weather, and only when I got back would I decide if the weather was too bad.’ Old school cycling has no time for marginal gains, power zones or heart rate monitors – Just pedalare…

 

Saturday was a lonesome 2 hours around the flat bleak farmland, north of Wantage. Dodging the A420, and sticking to small lanes, it was a matter of getting some slow miles in. 2 hours 20, for 38 miles. It felt handwork, especially the long relentless plod into the wind. There is an old school training theory of keeping it on the little ring until April. I’m not devoted to old school training methods. But, I was on the little ring all the way – more by necessity rather than choice.

Sunday, was another kettle of fish. This time I was joined by rising Buxton CC star, Chris Baines. A national junior hill climb champion (2012), and a northern cyclist raised in the hills of the Peak District.

bledlow-ridge-snow

Chris is new to the area so I was able to take him around some hills of the Chilterns towards Watlington and Henley. Hughenden Valley towards High Wycombe was looking beautiful. Don’t tell the old school guys, but there was no sleet or hail, just glorious February sunshine. If you had to pick a day to do a four hour ride in February, it would be hard to choose a better one. Though I feel compelled to add a random old school cycling quote:

“A Paris–Roubaix without rain is not a true Paris–Roubaix. Throw in a little snow as well, it’s not serious.”

– Sean Kelly

The muddy roads were flooded, and I got a good splattering from hanging on to Chris’s back wheel. He had a nice pair of mudguards on, but it wasn’t enough to stop getting splattered with mud from the incessant puddles. But, if you’re trying to emulate the old school warriors – a bit of splattered mud, is infinitely preferable to actually cycling five hours through the snow. [1]

tricycle-puddle

In a rush of blood, I’ve already entered my first race of the season, a 14 mile time trial by Kingston Wheelers next Sun. A few hours of sweet spot on the rollers and I felt like I was flying already. But, rollers can be deceptive, get on the real roads with a fierce wind, and you soon notice those 3 weeks off the bike.

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Falling in love with the turbo

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When I began my season of proper racing back in 2005, I bought a turbo trainer. It was a bit like a rite of passage, akin to shaving the legs. Only proper cyclists would buy a turbo trainer, you have to be pretty serious to spend a lot of money on something which involves getting very sweaty cycling to nowhere – driving you as crazy as the proverbial hamster on a hamster wheel.

The road to nowhere
The road to nowhere

I felt like I’d done the right thing to spend £100  on a turbo trainer. The only problem is I could never bring myself to ride it. Of course, after buying, I did try 30 minutes on the turbo, but I then did one of those turbo interval sessions, where the interval of rest is about 12 months. If the weather was bad, I simply didn’t ride or I’d prefer to go out and get wet. The great Emil Zatopek said training in the rain is good character building. I took this as a noble excuse to avoid the turbo. It’s probably character building to spend 2 hours on a turbo, but I didn’t particularly want that character.

Even when warming up for races, I never bothered taking a turbo. I’d rather risk puncturing before a start of a race rather than get ridiculously sweaty and bored 5 minutes before the race started.

The thing with a turbo is that as soon as you get on it, time seems to exist in a different dimension. 5 minutes becomes an hour, and one hour becomes a life sentence. You start clock watching as the seconds tick interminably slowly. Over the years, I did make the odd perfunctory attempt to master the art of the turbo. I’d make bold intentions of a good one hour session, but invariably, after 20 minutes, I’d reduce it to just half an hour, and that would be my turbo session done for the month.

Last year I threw away my turbo session. Not because it had worn away from overuse. I threw it away because it was hopelessly rusty. It was an embarrassment and a reminder of how little my £100 had been used. In fact when I calculate the cost per hour of that turbo – it wasn’t just incredibly boring, but also very expensive for those minutes of torture.

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Cyclists in the First world war – and don’t forget your helmet

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I was looking through some photos from World War One. There were quite a few showing soldiers using bicycles. The British army even had a specific bicycle corps.

cyclists-through-mud
And I thought Oxford roads were bad at the moment..

Soldiers were given bicycles to help faster troop movement, but it looks this roads was too muddy to cycle on.

cyclists-shells

These cyclists don’t even seem to be wearing a cycle helmet. Talks about socially irresponsibility! I don’t see many hi viz jersey amongst the platoon either. I don’t know how they managed to avoid being run over by tanks!

And don’t get me on to their position in the middle of the road.

Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but it was too depressing to say anything serious about this cycling ad, which got banned for being socially irresponsible.

Cycling_ad-banned

Funny or not, around 50% of Premiership sides are sponsored by gambling companies.

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Clip on SKS Mudguards review

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For the past four years, I’ve been using different types of SKS mudguards on my winter training bikes. Overall, I’m very pleased with the product. They do the main job of keeping the worst spray off your clothes. They are also quite easy to fit and adjust. They have also proved satisfactorily resilient.

Original SKS race blades.

I bought these original SKS race blades about four or five years ago. I can’t remember how many years, but they are still going strong.

After a few years, I once had a problem with the black supports coming away from the metal mudguard, but a bit of super-glue did the trick and they are still working on this Ribble.

mudguards-winter-training-bike

SKS Race blade mudguard

This came out about two years ago. I was sent a free review copy. I was pleased to get a free review copy because I probably would have been willing to buy. They are an improved version of the original race blades. They have better adjust ability and a bit longer protection at the end, with those clip on flaps. They look pretty elegant with a smart carbon finish.

sks-race-blade-black

Advantages of SKS race blades

  • They are quick to fit on. No tools are needed. Just adjust with your hands. If they do rub, it is usually easy to fix by moving the different parts of the adjustable mudguards.
  • You don’t have to take off brakes to fit.
  • They are good for road bikes with narrow clearance between wheel and frame/brake
  • They are light only 250 grams, and are quite unobtrusive on the bike.
  • They are quiet with no rattle, like I used to get on the old fashioned mudguards.
  • They are like quick release wheels. It’s less than 30 seconds  to take off, and perhaps a minute or two to fit on. Excellent if packing a bike up.
  • They have proved quite robust.
  • You can choose the wide road version or narrow road version depending on size of road tyres. The narrow are for 25″ and less.sks-race-blade-front
  • With a bit of fiddling, they fitted my unusually shaped forks on this Ribble. There is also quite a narrow clearance between wheel and frame on this bike. Though whether they fit all bikes, I’m not sure.

Disadvantages

  • Unlike traditional mudguards they don’t offer all round wheel protection. You get even more water and mud flying out by the rear brake, so it needs a bit of cleaning.
  • They are not quite as solid as the more traditional muguards. If you lean your bike against wall with mudguards, they may get put out of shape, requiring adjustment.

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Links and videos on Nat hill climb

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Back in November, Cycling Weekly did a feature about my background on cycling. They kindly agreed to making it available as a pdf.

bhima-photo

Also, another interview I did in November, was with Richard Lofthouse from Oxford Today – the magazine of Oxford University.

I enjoyed that interview, Richard is a keen cyclist himself. It reminded me of my time riding with Oxford University Cycling Club. I only did one or two races in those days, though I was once club secretary and knew Jim Henderson who was winning hill climb titles even as a member of OUCC.

One thing about Oxford University is that after finishing finals, my first job was working as a gardener at my own college. I later became a part time economics teacher. I think if I’d got a better paid job in the city, I would never have made a successful amateur cyclist. My friends had very long hours, which leave precious little time for training.

Also, the RTTC made a video of the 2013 championship.

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Overtaking other cyclists

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misty-rain

Yesterday, I went out for a steady 45 mile ride around Brill and Oakley. I’d just had a hard session on the rollers on Friday, so I said to myself I should take it nice and steady. Level 2 endurance, none of this interval malarkey. After all – it’s early in the season and I’m recovering from injury. Steady miles is what the doctor ordered.

misty-rain

Approaching Brill hill, I see a peleton of riders, quite a few wearing Team Milton Keynes jerseys. Instinctively, you want to try and catch up with a group of cyclists on the road, so I lifted the pace a little. As I was going up the lower slopes of Brill hill, a jogger running down the other way shouts out to me ‘Go on you can catch them!’ – Well, talk about red rag to a bull….

Cycling up a hill with cyclists in the distance seems to create an instinctive response to try and catch up with them; it feels anti-social not to try.  Pretty soon your level 2 soon goes out of the window. The group of riders were splintering on the fairly steep climb up to Brill, so I start overtaking the riders one by one. It wasn’t really wanting to show off, though I’m sure there was some ego lurking around. It’s just that it was a hill and it seemed rude just to lurk on the back of the group.

One confession I have to make is that when overtaking other cyclists, I nearly always feel compelled to take a deep breath and say ‘good morning’ – trying to sound as though I’m not out of breath at all. When you’re safely past, you take a big gulp of air trying to hide the fact you’re suffering much more than you’re letting on.

It sounds a bit sad, but I’m sure I’m not the only cyclist to have pretended to be doing level 2 up a 16% hill. Near the top I can’t decide whether to really go in the red and beat the leading two cyclists in the distance. It’s already much harder work than I had planned. But, fortunately a car overtakes and  places itself between me and the leaders – making the decision for me. I’m kind of grateful to be saved from myself, and I happily crest the hill in second place. I thank the riders at the top and tell myself it’s great meeting other cyclists on the road, it really gives you that extra inspiration to go hard and cycle fast (conveniently forgetting all those resolutions to stick to level two). But, where’s the fun in sticking to power and heart rate zones? There’s much more fun in catching up with other riders and trying to overtake them.

On the way back from Ambrosden, there’s a nice 7 mile stretch of flat road. For Oxfordshire, it’s a reasonably good road surface. I was plodding along at 16mph into a headwind, when a guy on a time trial bike comes swooshing past at 23mph. Despite his speed of overtaking, I see he’s riding an immaculate, clean looking Cervelo P5. (If you don’t know much about TT bikes, a P5 stands for Pay at least £5,000.) Again I’m faced with that dilemma – do I stick to my own training schedule or do I bust a gut and get on his back wheel?

Well, before you can say Level 2 training ride, I’m straining to get on his back wheel. So many different motivations:

  • I want to check there is someone really riding an immaculate Cervelo P5 on the wettest muddiest January on record.
  • It’s a headwind and I can do with some shelter.
  • And of course, the old cyclist ego thing – I’m not going to be overtaken by anyone – especially not some triathlete on a Cervelo P5.

I got on his wheel and enjoyed a nice 23 mph ride.

There’s probably some etiquette about wheel sucking a stranger’s wheel. But, if you see someone on a P5 travelling at 23mph in January, I think it’s fair game. I wasn’t too close because he hadn’t fitted his immaculate Cevelo P5 with mudguards. Fortunately or unfortunately, the wheel sucking didn’t last for too long. I turned left into a flooded road near Islip. He went straight on. This muddy puddle was pretty grim, but, at least I wasn’t riding a £5,000 time trial bike….

2-abreast

Recently, I was injured and was cycling very slowly into town. It was a good discipline to be (nearly) the slowest cyclist on the roads. I’m sure it’s very good for my ego to be overtaken by old men and ladies on sit up and beg bikes. At least for a few rides, I could let people fly by without trying to justify the need to save energy by wheel sucking into town.

But, no matter who you, are there’s always someone better than you. Two experiences of being overtaken always stick with me.

  • British time trial championship 2010. I was doing 33 mph on the flat, feeling pretty pleased with myself, when Chris Froome flew past like a train; he must have been doing 37/38mph.
  • National 100 championship. I’d blown up at around the 80 mile mark, and Michael Hutchinson caught me for about 15 minutes, flying past like a train.

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A week in training – on the rollers

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This is my first week back in training since accident in Portugal. At the time it felt fairly dramatic because I couldn’t walk for two days, but it seems to have gotten better quite quickly. Last week, I did a few light turbo sessions and commutes into town and this week felt like getting back on the training bike.

There was some residual discomfort – mostly when trying to get on my bike. But, once on the bike, there was hardly anything. Anyway I’ve been injured enough to do know that when coming back from injury, it’s advisable to take it easy and not go overboard. The watchword this week has been short training sessions. No six hour rides just yet. The good news is, that for the races I do, you don’t actually need to do a lot of hours (apart from 12 hour TT, I suppose). I just like cycling a lot. But, for a few weeks, I’ll be just testing the waters to see how leg responds. Not so much because of the recent injury, I’m more concerned about left-right leg imbalance and consequent knee problems I’m susceptible to at this time of the year.

yorkshire-flood

Training this week.

Mon – 33 miles – 2 hours. Steady. Menston to Burnsall

Tues – 25 miles – 1 hour 45 mins. Steady Menston to Bolton Abbey. I was going to go further but leg was mild discomfort so I turned back

Wed – 29 miles – 1 hour 30 mins. on Time trial bike Oxford to Thame. This was at level 2/3. My TT bike has a power meter (finally fixed!) so I kept in the region of 230-270 watts. It’s hard to keep constant power on the road. It was quite fast on TT bike and it’s always a buzz after slow winter rides. This effort level felt like real training rather than just the steady pottering of earlier rides.

Thurs – just commute

Friday Rollers – 1 hour 20 mins.  I went on TT bike again. This time on the rollers (because it was raining.) I thought I’d try and keep power at 265 watts for an hour to see what it was like. I don’t know why I choose 265, but it seemed a manageable figure.

  • To start off with 265 watts felt like high level 2.
  • After 30 minutes, it felt like level 3
  • The last 5 minutes were hard work.

It was an interesting lesson in pacing. It felt like training in that ‘sweet spot’ level I talked about in recent post on cycling and mood.

On the rollers, it’s quite easy to keep to a target wattage. I was just riding a big 56*14 gear at a constant high cadence.

I really enjoyed the ride, which surprised me. Usually turbo work is boring. But, somehow having a power output to aim for made it vaguely interesting. Also, being on a TT bike on the rollers is quite hard work. I was spending 5 minutes on Tribars, 5 minutes sitting up. The hour passed  relatively quickly, though by the last 5 minutes, it was hard work.

When I got off rollers, I was sore. Not because of old injuries, but because it’s always painful going on the TT bike on the rollers. I must remember to stand up more often.

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Cycling, mood and happiness

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It’s not often I get too excited about 20 minutes on the turbo. But, after a few weeks off the bike any kind of exercise is welcome.

One of the attractions of cycling is the benefit to general mood. After a day spent working at the desk, going out for a bike ride can blow a lot of the mental and physical cobwebs out of the system.

There is the basic chemical benefit of exercise, the slow release of serotonin – the natural ‘high’. Nature’s reward for overcoming lethargy and the hard work of exercise. Given that exercise can significantly improve health, it is perhaps unsurprising evolution has given some reward to those who partake exercise.

50mph-speed-limit

Cycling in the sweet spot

One of the best types of rides is a constant couple of hours, at an intensity which may be loosely be described as the ‘sweat spot’. It’s an effort level below lactic threshold and close to aerobic capacity. This intensity of exercise is not excessively painful nor does it do any real damage to muscles. You are not overly stressing the body, but giving it a very good work out. It’s a good training session because it can give high training returns, but doesn’t require extensive recovery.

This kind of session requires concentration to keep the pace high. If you don’t have concentration, you can slip off the target intensity and end up a level 1. But, when you can get in the groove and spend two hours of cycling at this intensity, there is a real buzz. Especially, if the weather is good, the road smooth and you’re in good shape, you can do an impressive average speed without killing yourself. This session gives everything, the feeling of speed, movement and all the chemical and mental benefits of exercise.

In terms of legal, natural mood enhancements, there aren’t many better suggestions that cycling for 1-2 hours in that ‘sweet spot’

Racing

Many people would be happy to cycle at a steady pace, rarely doing anything more than training at their aerobic capacity. But, others are drawn to the extreme of racing and training at the maximum intensity. The whole point of racing is to see how far you can test yourself. By nature it is physically painful because you are trying to push past the bodies warning signals of what is comfortable. Dealing with this pain and discomfort can be mentally challenging. But, at the same time, there is a underlying sense of satisfaction and a different kind of happiness. Some people say that when racing, it really feels like you’re living on the edge, there is a heightened sense of awareness and living. It may be torture when you’re doing it, but there is usually a welcome afterglow of achievement.

The mind and the mood

Not all cycle rides are the same. Sometimes you go out and everything slips into place. It is one of those proverbial float days, where the cycling is exhilarating and you get a tremendous benefit. Other times, the ride can feel hard work, and rather than improving your mood, it feels a struggle to get round and you begin to wonder what you are doing.

To a large extent, we can just get on the bike and cycle, but there is also a need to be aware of the train of thoughts we allow into our mind. If we become absorbed in a negative train of thought, like ‘this is a useless ride’ ‘why am I so slow?’ ‘Why can’t I beat X?’ – the joy of cycling evaporates. There have been the odd times when I’ve stopped by the side of the road to restart my mind and get ride of a certain train of thought. I often used to be out cycling, and I’d get worked up by Lance Armstrong getting away with taking drugs or something. It used to really eat into me. I had to make a conscious effort to get away from that and not even start to think of that topic. Otherwise when you’re cycling on you’re own you can start thinking in circles and the ideas get stronger.

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Cycling in Huddersfield

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Apart from cycling my other hobby is visiting towns by trains to take photos of cyclists and the cycling infrastructure in that town.

huddersfield-train-station-outside

Recently, I went to Huddersfield by train. It’s quite an impressive train station, and in recent years it has seen a big increase in passengers using rail services across the Pennines. Huddersfield train station was also worth visiting for a bit of rugby league history. It was at the nearby George Hotel, where several northern rugby clubs, back in 1895, broke away from the ‘toffs’ who dominated the amateur rugby game. They formed the Rugby League, allowing professionalism and introducing new rules. For many years, I followed Leeds RLFC. Unfortunately, the George Hotel went into receivership in 2013 and is now covered in scaffolding, but ‘Welcome to Hudddersfield‘ I guess.

Anyway, I’m digressing from the main theme of this blog, which is usually cycling.

huddersfield-2
Where are the cyclists?

The problem is that during my two hours in Huddersfield, I didn’t actually see anyone cycling. This is a bit of a stark contrast to a ‘cycling city’ like Oxford, where a cyclist is always visible whatever the time of the day.

huddersfield-congestion
Lots of congestion, but no cyclists

I walked around the town centre, camera at the ready, but I didn’t even see so much as a parked bicycle to take a photo of Admittedly, I didn’t wait forever – somehow standing outside the ranks of betting shops and pawnbrokers, waiting for an elusive Huddersfield cyclist to pass by wasn’t the most enticing way to spend a cold January morning.

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Tapering for cycling

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Tapering is the art / science of trying to peak for a particular event. This can be a major taper, where you try to gain maximum performance  for a major race (usually once or twice a year) There are also minor tapers, where you try a shorter taper for races of medium importance throughout the year.

The basic principle of tapering is that there are two main aspects of training:

  • Stress – where you do the training and stress the muscles and body. This leaves fatigue and possible muscle damage, but the stress causes the body to adapt to higher levels of fitness. Without this stress, the body never tries to adapt to greater fitness.
  • Recovery – where you rest and give time for muscles to recover and adapt to higher levels of fitness.

Super-compensation

The idea of a taper is to gain the optimal amount of fitness, plus freshness. If you train too hard, you will enter the final competition too fatigued and unrecovered. If you rest too much, then you start to lose the fitness gains. The peak taper is to get best combination of fitness, plus freshness.

Generally tapering involves reducing the volume of training, but maintaining a similar number of sessions of the same high intensity. This reduction in training volume can be anything between 5-21 days.

Some people racing every week may do a mini weekly taper of reducing training towards the end of the week. But, I wouldn’t really call this a proper taper.

Out of interest, in 1954 Roger Banister,  took 6 days off before his successful attempt to be first man to run the mile under 4 minutes (3 min 59.4 sec) (link)

Benefits of Tapers

Different studies, suggest that a taper which reduces fatigue from an endurance athlete can boost performance by between 3-11%.

  • VO2 max capacity is largely unaffected by taper.
  • Hemoglobin blood values have been shown to increase by up to 14%
  • Hematocrit values have been shown to increase by up to 2.6% (Correspondingly at the end of a long tour, blood values are expected to fall. Hence athletes which show rising Hemotcrit levels at the end of a three week tour, is a strong indication of blood doping)
  • One of the biggest increases in capacity after a taper is in sport specific muscles. Increases in swimming-specific power,  of 16–25% have been reported in both men and women (9, 53)

How to develop a taper

A taper will depend on several factors. Firstly, it depends on how much you are training. If you are training less than four hours per week, a taper is unlikely to have any benefit, because at the level of training, fatigue is unlikely to be an issue. The greater the training volume, the greater the accumulated fatigue and the greater potential benefit of a taper.

One suggested rule of thumb:

  • 6-10 hours training – major taper – 7 days
  • 10-15 hours training – 14 days
  • 15+ hours – 21-30 days

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