New LEJOG cycling record – Michael Broadwith

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24 Hour Champion Michael Broadwith (Arctic Tacx RT) broke the Land’s End to John ‘O Groat’s cycling record in a time of 43 hours 25 minutes and 13 seconds on 16 June – 17 June 2018

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According to reports, Michael was well up on schedule – setting a new RRA 24 hour record of 507-511 miles in the process, but towards the end, heavy cold rain made the effort extremely testing – with unscheduled stops to change clothes and try to keep warm. (End to End 2018)

For the last few hours Michael’s neck gave way and he was using a neck brace – kindly lent by people in the vicinity who heard about ride. In an interview with Cycling Weekly, (pre-ride) he mentioned

“but if I don’t get this record, I doubt it will be my legs that let me down.” but fortunately, the cold, rain and non-working neck didn’t halt the record. Though, with the near Biblical weather, it sounds a good job, he built up a good buffer in the early part of the ride.
Towards the end of the ride, Michael was in great pain from his neck. But he managed to find a way to support neck and keep going.

“I managed to figure out some cock-eyed method where I was propping my head up with my arm on the aerobar rest like Rodin’s The Thinker. At least it meant I could descend under control and fairly fast.

“I had a stern talk to myself; ‘for God’s sake, chances like this come across once in a lifetime. If you don’t carry on you’ll think through this moment forever and wonder why you didn’t ride for another 20 minutes.’  Article at Cycling Time Trials – Frazer Snowden/Paul Jones

On the final long climb to Berridale, he was hopeful of breaking record

“Then I was actually doing it in the early hours of this morning and thinking ‘bloody hell, this is me, in this moment, and I’m climbing up Berridale and I’m going to nail this record, my friend Des running alongside. I have to remember it because it is a perfect moment in life where I’m actually living the moment that I wanted to live in incredible intensity.

M.Broadwith – photo by Tim Bayley.

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A good weekend for cycling

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It was a very good weekend for cycling – Tour de Yorkshire, Giro d’Italia and near-perfect weather. It was more than enough to want to get back on the bike.

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Stephane Rossetto – Cofidis

I never watch cycling live – only record and then fast forward through the boring bits. Using the modern miracle of fast-forward I watched the interesting bits of the first three Giro stages in a combined time of seven minutes.  My favourite bit of yesterday’s Giro stage was seeing the three breakaway riders as they were leaving the peloton. One rider looked back and the peloton had shut up shop – a line of defiance – absolutely no-one else was interested in joining the breakaway of futility. The rider laughed as he realised it would just be three riders for the inevitable 200km long breakaway before getting caught. I wonder if anyone listened to the whole commentary of five hours through the desert – with not even the odd vineyard and local vintage of wine to give Carlton Kirby something to work on.

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Anyway, the Tour de Yorkshire was a completely different. Beautiful scenary, massive crowds, great racing and yesterday an epic stage – I’d never heard of Stephane Rossetto (Cofidis) before, but that was quite a ride. The Giro should try start in Otley.

Photos (by Parents in Otley before the ascent of East Chevin.)

Dura Ace Di2 vs Ultegra Di2

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Not the most interesting post today, the technical details of Shimano Dura Ace Di2 vs Ultegra Di2.

One reason for a post like this, is that I can spend ages googling details of different products, and before you know it hours have passed. However, when you come back to it a few days later, you can never seem to find the useful pages that you had a few days ago. Even now, I can’t re-find some pages I had on Saturday. Putting it in a blog, hopefully serves as a useful reference.

Generally Google is very good, but if you’re searching something very specific like the weight of Dura Ace Di2 vs Ultegra Di2, you often don’t get what you are looking for, and many hours are wasted in a vain search.

My philosophy for writing blogs is to write something, that I’d like to read myself. Hopefully if it’s useful for me, it will be useful for others (although this one, will be limited to those if you’re contemplating electronic shifting)

(By the way, after writing this post, I got Dura Ace Di2 9070 and have been using it on my timetrial bike. See review here Dura Ace Di2 9070)

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Ultegra Di2 v Dura Ace Di2 price

Firstly, the difference in price seems huge:

  • Dura Ace 9700 Di2 is RRP £2,999.99 (discounted at Merlin cycles for £1,999). Mechanical Dura Ace 9000 is by comparison £999 (at Ribble)
  • Ultegra 6870 Di2 is RRP £1,999 (discounted at chain Reaction cycles £979). Mechanical Ultegra 6800 is RRP £999 (Chain reaction £538.99)

But, when I go to Trek Project One – bike builder to upgrade from Ultegra 9870 Di2  to  Dura Ace 9700 Di2, it is an extra £1,970. For some reason – through Project One, they have made Dura Ace Di2, an extra £2,000. The problem is that £2,000 seems an awful lot of money for a groupset which is fairly similar to Ultegra apart from 300g, slightly more sleek design and greater flexibility in terms of shifting positions.

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A good omen

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I was going out for one of my feeble one-hour rides at an easy pace. I was cycling out of Oxford up Barracks Lane. It’s a short steep hill. Steep enough for many commuters to get off their bike and push. At the bottom, there was a runner who looked like he was doing hill intervals. Out of curiosity, I rode alongside him at his running pace. I smiled and offered a little encouragement. Then he smiled and said:
“right let’s do this” and he shot off up the hill. It was clear he was inviting me to a race.

Now I’ve been a bit on the crocked side for the past 18 months, but the competitive spirit still lurks. And some of the old dormant speed remains. So like the red rag to the bull. I sprinted up the hill and left the runner far behind. I turned round at the top to give a valedictory wave and the runner – now in the distance – smiled, or perhaps he grimaced.

So that was probably the most exciting 30 seconds of cycling for 2018. After that, it was back to tootling around Oxfordshire before going back to do my yoga exercises and stretches.

Still, I will take it as a good omen. I can still cycle faster than a runner, and that has to count for something.

One thing I’ve always found puzzling – In the Tour de France why can big fat blokes in a mankini run uphill as fast as the lead professional cyclists?

Egoscue method for cycling

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egoscue_The latest thing I am trying is the Egoscue method – ‘Health through Motion.‘

If nothing else, I quite like the philosophy. In summary, it goes something like this.

  • The human body is beautifully engineered and designed to work in harmony.
  • The human body is designed for motion. The early hunter-gatherers didn’t spend several hours in a chair
  • Modern life has meant we spend a lot of time sitting down – hunched over a car wheel, desk, computer. This means that certain muscles become atrophied.
  • If some muscles become weak because they are not activated – then other muscles carry a greater burden. This can lead to dysfunction.
  • The body starts to lose symmetry – with problems such as everted feet, rolling hips and the back losing its natural arc.

With these dysfunctions, we start to get pain in different parts of the body. If our shoulders are weak, it can cause problems in our hips. If our hips are misaligned, it can cause problems in the knee e.t.c.

When we get knee pain, we seek to treat the pain – with painkillers, surgery and the like. But, this is only treating the symptoms and not tackling the cause which are the various dysfunctions in different parts of the body.

In philosophy, it is a continuation of physiotherapy which is seeking to strengthen certain muscles. However, Egoscue adds more exercises – which work on realigning parts of the body. One exercise is simply lying on the floor with legs on a chair at 90 degrees – the aim is to feel the hips and back sinking into the floor.

Another part of the philosophy is that the patient has to take responsibility for his health. It is doing the right exercises, looking after posture that you will get better long-term health. It is not just a matter of going to a doctor and waiting for the right pill and drug.

Does it work?

I only started a few days ago, but I get a good feeling and hope it will work. The good weather is certainly a strong motivating factor to try and get back on the bike. When it’s wet and cold in February, being off the bike didn’t seem so bad.

If nothing else, it is quite a thought-provoking read. We all spend hours sitting and can easily get into bad postures. Even as I write this in a cafe, I am getting up after 30 minutes to walk around.

Related

Non-economic Note – New Economic Book

Whilst I am making links to Amazon. I have a new economics book published.

  • What Would Keynes do? – with fascinating questions like “If you like drinking beer – what is the optimal quantity of beer to drink?”

 

Buying first road bike

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If you are considering getting your first road bike, ideally you would be able to spend a minimum of £400 – £500. This would be enough to get you a decent entry level bike and give you a few options. Many companies, start their ‘entry level’ road bike around this price of £500. For example, for around £400-£500 – you could buy a Specialized Allez C2, GT GTS2 bike, Boardman Sport and quite a few others.

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My first road bike from Ellis Briggs, Shipley. It cost £270 and was about three combined birthday / Christmas presents. It was a Raleigh 501 steel frame with now obsolete Shimano RX100. By the way, I wasn’t fat as a kid – I just shoved about 3 maps down my front and a jumper in the back. The king of the Mountains jersey was absolutely my favourite.

 

If you can spend £1,000 then you can get quite a significant improvement on these £500 entry level bikes. The range £500-£1,000 is very competitive these days, and you can start to get carbon frames and good groupsets.

Although, you can spend several thousands of pounds on a road bike, the difference between a £1,000 bike and £4,000 bike is not that significant for an amateur who is just doing some general riding / sportives. If you are a newcomer to the sport of cycle races, your results will not be significantly better for spending an extra £4,000 – at least in the beginning.

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Cycling comeback delayed

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I am still cycling after a fashion. Different physios and doctors have suggested riding through the mild pain and discomfort. It sounds good advice. The problem is after 18 months of doing this, it’s hard to muster up much enthusiasm. Especially in cold weather, I have to really force myself to go out once or twice a week to avoid complete physical stagnation. It feels a bit like taking medicine, you know it’s probably a good thing to do, but you really have to make yourself go out and do it.

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This weekend, some friends planned a trip to Broadway in the Cotswolds. In the days of long-distance cycling and 12-hour time trial training, cycling from Oxford to Broadway was a mere pre-breakfast warm-up. But, now it’s more of a car journey.

For a long time, I mentally decided that this weekend would be the start of the great come back. I could feel it in the bones, the past 18 months of difficulties were going to start melting away with the warming spring sunshine of the Cotswold. I envisaged cycling moderately fast up Dover’s Hill (venue of 2010 National Hill climb championship) and other similar climbs.

broadway

The weather was beautiful and packing the bike in the car, reminded me of old race days.

Alas, the great comeback stopped was brought to a halt as I got out of the car in Broadway. I felt a twinge in the left-hand side of the right knee just as I placed the foot on the floor. It seemed a perfect symmetry to long-running problems on the right-hand side of the right leg. So the bike stayed in the car for the weekend, and the comeback trail didn’t materialise.

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Cycling statistics in UK

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Some selected cycling statistics.

It would be interesting to go back further in time. Other includes cycling and walking.

Share of transport 2016

Source for many of graphs: 2016 National Travel Survey (released 27 July 2017)

An updated stat to show cycling accounts for just 2% of journeys in England.

Cycle rates by country

cycle-rates-countryBritain still lags behind countries with similar weather, population density and geography.

According to this EU survey (2013) 4% of UK respondants say they cycle at least once a day. This compares to

  • Netherland – 43%
  • Denmark – 30%
  • Finland 28%
  • Hungary 25%

Though UK is higher than the US where the figure is more like 1%

China still has the most bicycles of any country with annual sales of around 60 million units (Statista)

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How many rest days are needed in cycle training?

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When training, I used to frequently asking myself – how much do I need to rest before the next hard training session? The amount of rest is a key factor in determining the quality and efficiency of training. If you gave insufficient rest, training will become counter-productive. Take too much rest and you never stretch yourself satisfactorily.

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Pro Perspectives

Bradley Wiggins said that the best preparation for riding the Olympic Time trial (2012) was riding the three week Tour de France – finishing nine days before. The Tour de France has two ‘rest days’. But for Wiggins a rest day meant a three hour ride with an alpine climb – not my kind of rest day.

In the nine days between the Tour de France and the time trial, Wiggins was riding hard – including burying himself in the 250,m road race. Many less capable cyclists would have turned up to that time trial – not in a peak state of fitness, but complete exhaustion. During this particular racing period, Wiggins is taking very little rest.

Obree method

At the other end of the spectrum, in Graeme Obree’s training manual – he states that after a really hard training session, it could take him up to four days to fully recover before the next full-on training session. Obree’s philosophy was that to make progress, you have to train at a higher level than ever before. To transcend previous achievements you need to be fully recovered. If you train when already tired, you can’t make the same progress.

So with two very successful professional cyclists – you have two very different approaches to the amount of rest needed. For amateur cyclists aiming for maximum fitness with limited time, rest days take on more importance.

On the one hand, coaches often stress the importance of rest days to allow full recovery – but then the best cyclist are those who race 100 days a year and ride three-week tours.

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The responsibilities of a cyclist

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The thing about being a cyclist is that sometimes ‘non-cyclists’ take you as a representative of the cycling world. I remember when a close friend mentioned to me.

“I was walking on a path – and one of your lot nearly knocked me off.”

It took me a while to work out that ‘one of your lot’ meant a fellow human being on a bicycle. I couldn’t say I felt much responsibility for the act of random stranger, but there you have it. Sometimes you have to take it on the chin. (By the way, it doesn’t work the other way around saying to others. “One of your fellow motorists nearly knocked me unconscious.:)

Representing the cycling world also extends to the world of professional cycling. I haven’t been asked if I’m going to ride the Tour de France for quite a long time. But I do know at an upcoming Christmas Party, I will have several inquiries about the Chris Froome drug saga. If I was going to answer properly I would try to mention the relevant points from this excellent blog by Inner Ring.

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