The race of truth

The time trial is probably one of the purest tests of cycling ability and fitness. The rider and bike against the clock of a set distance racing relatively against the rest of the field and also racing absolutely against previous best times or targets.

For me time trialling has been my focus from a competitive perspective. The ease of being able to simply turn up at a club evening "ten", pay my quid and see how I did helped ease me in to what has become something I have become gradually more competent and experienced at. Looking back on those early performances there are a number of pointers that are worth sharing which have been garnered through a mix of trial and error, experience and also observing others and refining things that work and cutting out things that do not. There are many aspects which can be attended to such as bike position, aerodynamics, which kit to use etc but let's focus on one of the basics - what actually is the time trial testing and how do you set a good foundation for everything else to be built upon?

The time trial is a test to see what speed you can average over a set distance, i.e. how much effort you can SUSTAIN consistently.

Let's consider some of the shorter distance events, i.e. 10 and 25 miles. Broadly speaking these events are the shorter "standard" race distances and are by far the most commonly promoted. The way a 25 is tackled may be a bit more conservative than the 10 but both of these tests need to be approached so that at the end, as you scream your number as you pass the time keeper you are basically spent. A way of thinking about this is that you need to get a feel for what your lactate threshold is. This is generally the point where your legs begin to burn as your body can no longer effectively process carbohydrates as energy and where lactic acid starts to accumulate in the blood stream. If you go out to hard you'll hit this point and essentially burn out. If you go out too slowly, you'll put in a less than optimal time against the clock.

Getting a sense for the threshold you can ride at is pretty key, experience helps as would a maximal heart rate or V02 Max test. I had one done at Birmingham University some time ago and the lab condition analysis confirmed my "gut feel" based on the use of a Polar HR monitor that my max HR was around 183bpm and that I could probably handle a 172-173bpm for an hour. This is a little bit of reverse engineering on my part but it did tally as the faster (sub-hour 25s I'd achieved saw me average around 170-174 bpm). So understanding your own capability is key in this respect.

The next thing to consider is what is the optimal pace to begin the TT at? Ideally you should get a solid, progressive 20-25 minute warm up so that you can elevate your pulse to a point where you are touching race pace but not going too deeply in to race mode. A roller or turbo are the most effective mechanisms. Sometimes it's impossible to do this so doing a series of hill climbs or sprints over 100-200m can help. If you get to the start line "cold" your body and brain will be in rebellion and will wonder what you are doing to them.

If you can imagine you have ten matches and that each lasts for 30 minutes, if you light them all in one go you won't light the room up. George Hincapie used this metaphor to state that you need to burn your effort evenly so that the room can stay lit. With the TT you need to be able to SUSTAIN your effort. Whatever you think it may be, take a note of your pulse or time and set that as a baseline. With interval training you can increase your capacity and recovery rate. If you can take notes of times and distances and HR or power outage (as is the current vogue) you can see how you progress.

Using a trip function on a GPS or bike computer is good too. I set my auto-lap for 2.5 miles. I can see four split times on my computer as I ride (the last being the finish) or nine plus one splits for 25 miles. The latter tend to be even more useful given the need to be more even with the matches being burnt. Sometimes courses are hilly in places or not uniform so the splits may not be "identical" when related to one another. Once you have ridden a set route though you should be able to have some baseline times for each segment of the course by which you can begin to draw comparison and target an improvement. Strava segments are an example. In our case though, the segment in totality is 10 or 25 miles long. So there is no point being "Mark Cavendish" in one section and "Driving Miss Daisy" in the remainder.

To round this note off, I'd also add that you have to think your way around the circuit as well as ride your way around. Mental stamina will keep you focused as at some point early (or later at times) in your ride you will want to get off and pack up. This may last a nanosecond or several minutes. It's not a bad thing, it means you are working hard and the body and mind are reconciling themselves for the task at hand. Build on this and move on. Several riders I know use a mantra or little internal dialogue which includes counting to four repeatedly or repeating "I can do this", "I am flying" etc.A steady, repetitive chant can help steady the cadence and tempo. When warming up, some up tempo tunes which you find motivational or moving also help. I've been using Sabotage by the Beastie Boys. I associate the baseline and rhythm with speed and aggression and that works for me. Next season it may be another tune, the important thing is that it works for me at the moment a it helps frame what I am going to do and because I associate it with previous strong performances it reinforces what I am thinking - that "I am going to ride well".

Managing the course is my final comment. The distances are 10 and 25 mile. Not 11 and 26. If you ride in a straight line between points of the course you'll be riding the distance. Too many riders wobble and bobble around in their early efforts. Try and minimise the distance covered. You cannot always take bends on the apex due to the roads being open but you can get your head up and focus on a point 100-200m ahead and ride to it. These little things as well as riding on the smoothest part of the road surface (the vitrified bits where the cars have smoothed things over) also help. Keep your head up always and be wary of pot holes which can wreck you front wheel.

Measure what you do. Keep measuring and comparing. Always think that there is scope to take 1-2 seconds per mile off your times. These small improvements add up to 10-20 seconds or 25-50 seconds over 10 and 25 miles.

Up, up and away

The request for some pointers on climbing from Paul Dean popped up following my last post, so here goes. One of the common mistakes newcomers to cycling make is to confuse their new bicycle with an iron and by that I mean an iron which makes the landscape flat. Sadly, the chances are the roads and trails we all ride on a not flat. They may be flat in places but generally we will either be going up or going down.  Even roads which you think are flat won't be, there will be some form of gradient however shallow. Generally anywhere outside of Norfolk or bits of Suffolk is going to have an incline. Let's break things down in to some manageable chunks.

Read the road
By "read the road" I mean look at the way the road ahead is shaping itself. Look at the horizon and how the road (or trail - these principles are equally valid off road too) fits in to the landscape. Even if you cannot see the road itself you can often see hedge lines and where trees or woods are split. Taking note of these things should help you anticipate where you are going to be in the five to ten minutes.

So from having an eye on the road we can then begin to anticipate what's in store for the brain, bike and body.

Anticipation
Getting a feel for the incline, decline or flat should allow you to think about your gear choice and cadence (how fast you spin the pedals in revolutions per minute). Spinning a lower gear at higher cadence will usually be more efficient than cranking a big gear at a slower rate although

Peddling more advice

When we learn to ride a bike, we don't. We learn how to not fall off. Because it hurts when you do. This is akin to hitting a dog everytime it barks in an attempt to cause an effect (silence in that case). Bark = Pain. Fall off bike = pain.

Although the ability to stay upright is not to be scoffed at, nobody *really* learns (emphasis) to ride their bike. It's something which we all tend to bimble along at. For those of us who grew up in an age where there were fewer TV channels, or indeed no TV channels, we used to go off and muck about on our Raleigh Grifters and the like and make up our own BMX tracks, jumps and berms and basically while away the hours larking around.

Having coached quite a number of Go-Ride sessions now I've noticed something. Adults are not very good at pedalling. I've noticed this during club runs and also observing people on the roads who are evidently coming in to the sport on the back of the Olympics and Britpack Tour de France victories which we are now becoming almost blase about.

The Go-Ride syllabus has several sessions which focus on the techniques relating to efficient and effective pedalling. I was given a "pedalling" session as part of my practical coaching assessment and I was really cheesed off at the time to get something so dull. Why not group riding in contact or high speed cornering? To dismiss pedalling technique as a trivial activity or something unglamarous is to be done so at your peril.  Getting a group of kids to race against one another with half in their lowest gear and pedalling smoothly and at high cadence and the others using the biggest chainring and smallest sprocket, guess who wins every time? The spinners do every time.

Combine pedalling with correct gear choice and anticipation of terrain and you are going to be going faster sooner. Get these elements wrong and not only will you be going backwards in the bunch, you'll damage your knees and you'll also wear your kit and body down.

Good pedalling techniques involves good alignment of the ball of the foot in the centre of the pedal. This means keeping your knees in alignment with your feet, and your feet point forward. Have a look at your own feet, are the turning in or too close to the cranks? Tell tail scuff marks on a second hand Dura-Ace crankset I acquired tell me that the rider "didn't get on with them" because their heel was striking the crank and therefore their leg was point out. The pedal stroke should be even and fluid. Mashing the gear by pumping the lower leg up and down like a steam piston  is not only ungainly, it's not effective. As one leg flows down, the other should be pulling up on the opposite side of the bike to counter balance things and convert potential energy in to kinetic energy on that next stroke. With some of the body's biggest muscles hanging off the backside and thighs it makes sense that these muscle groups need to be put to good effect so try and imagine a beautiful flowing cyclic action which has its basis at the pelvis and sees the knee form the centre of an arc with the ankle forming the lower point.

The final thing to consider is saddle height, a bit like Goldilocks and the bear's porridge the height needs to be just right. Too high and the leg will stretch and you will be in pain due to overextending the muscles and tendons in the knee and quads. Too low and you'll see your knees smash in to your elbows as well as look like a numpty. With the cycling shoe heel resting on the flat of one of the pedals at its lowest point (the 6 o'Clock position) your leg should be just shy of being fully extended. You may find that one leg is longer than the other in which case you'll need to make some small adjustments but the principle still holds. You may want to get the tape measure out to record the centre (of pedal) to a directly extended line at the crest of your saddle. Scribble that down and keep a record as it'll help if you need to take a seatpost out or if you swap a saddle at a later date.

There's more to pedalling than you may think. Ask yourself how much of the above you have taken for granted and then ask yourself how smootly you are pedalling. On a turbo trainer, try clipping in with one leg and restrict yourself to a few minutes pedalling with just your right then just your left leg. That'll give you the answer you are looking for.

Happy pedalling.

plus ça change

It was over nine years ago when I last rode a time trial on the F1/25 course which is based around Tempsford. Today I broke my duck as I competed with fellow Nomads, James Gomm and Nick Hickman in the Verulam CC 25 mile time trial. Some things have changed for the better but some aspects of time trialling on this particular course and this particular HQ are unspoilt by progress. In some ways it felt like a lycra-clad version of Life on Mars as I time travelled back a decade, some of the same faces filled the Stuart Memorial Hall in almost exactly the same spot they'd been left in 2004 (or prior) and some of the same features have persisted.

In no particualr order these include:

- The Max Wall lookalike from the [Name of Club witheld] Road Club rolling around on the floor as though he was the focus of some form of slow motion exorcism. It wasn't a pretty sight. I'm sure Chris Froome doesn't have to dodge the slowly flayling limbs of humanity's least congruous cyclists.

- The aroma of the early start, which Nigel Tooke oft recites as a "melange of faeces and embrocation". He's not wrong, that's exactly what it is.

- The pensive gaze of the organiser as riders breach the "no cleats" on the floor rule.

-  The inordinately long queue for the single lavatory, made worse by the steel wool which is provided by the Hall owners to remove any collateral damage from the  post-colonic evacuation which is inevitable given the mass arrival of 100 blokes who have driven quite some distance at five in the morning.

- The demand for hot water and tea outstripping the supply capabilities of the single water heater.

Experience is a good teacher though and as a responsible and caring Club Captain I had informed my teammates of what to expect.

We could not really legislate for the cathartic Yoga experience but we could at least walk around it. The way to deal with the olfactory assault was to avoid being in the HQ other than to sign on and retrieve a racing number. Being armed with a roll of Andrex Aloe Vera soft toilet roll was also a boon. I'd like to see Cyclist Magazine or Urban Cyclist do a review of "Which Bog Roll?". No doubt a Rapha Loganberry infused Tartan Ar5ewipe would win the "shoot out". And "shoot out" was a good description of my own private battle with the ladies' loo as my pre-travel coffee worked its magic. That's right, the ladies' loo is the "in place" if you want to avoid a queue. It's also pink which is easier on the eye and it doesn't have an open guttered urinal. Fortunately there are few women time triallists so it's fair to say that I was simply using the resources available so as to prevent the flush handle in the gents' from being over-used. And yes, I did leave it in a clean state. Well, clean for a bloke.

The HQ does have some new cupboard doors but other than that, it has hardly changed at all. And it's probably not changed since 1953 let alone 2003.

The racing is merely the filling in the sandwich, three of us PB'd but the post-ride car park was full of the usual cliches and excuses about the "wrong tyre", "doing a road ride last week too hard", "the wind being Nordic and not Baltic", "one's biorhythms not being aligned to the phase of the moon" and so on. Similarly the range of post-exercise recovery nutrition still features Nescafe Gold Blend instant and Tesco Value Victoria Sponge (50p per slice). A see of middle-aged/ elderly and portly men with clipboards and startsheets waving betting shop pens as though they were at the press conference at the end of the Tour De France also adds to the atmosphere. The amount of squinting at the results board signals that the riders and results junkies are getting older and more longsighted (I'm sure the writing is much smaller).

I found the experience to be wholly rewarding. Given that both Nick and James are relative newcomers to the whole "Tempsford experience" I felt like I'd taken them to visit an elderly, scarcely sane relative just to show them that indeed Aunt Agatha is as mad as a box of frogs. Plus they got to use the team loo roll.

Here's to revisitng Tempsford in 2023.

Look what he did

Lewis Hamilton has won the British Grand Prix after competing in 14 other Grand Prix in the previous fortnight. The press were keen to express that this was an impossibility and his tyres must have been pumped up with some magical air which transcends the laws of physics. Driving round in circles and then having to then hump one of the Pussy Cat Dolls or The Saturdays or someone else equally vapid must be tough though, so don't think driving in circles isn't tricky.

Andy Murray has also hit some balls over a net and this is deemed a gargantuan achievement, especially as in one game the ball boy didn't give him his Wimbledon branded towel to mop his mono-brow between points. To be fair, it is a tough game that Tennis. Some of the games last a couple of hours and involve some really high intensity grunting and on one occasion the Robinson's Barley water was a bit tart to say the least.

So Froome wins on the Ventoux, one of the starkest, toughest climbs in professional cycling after defending the yellow jersey for several days and the accusation is "he must have been on the juice." On a day which sees two of athletics' top sprinters test positive, the innuendo gathers pace. Sadly he is paying for the sins of his fathers and lazy journalism.

"It's sad that we're sitting here the day after the biggest victory of my life talking about doping." Chris Froome.

A cyclist rides up a hill....  Froome sticks it to the peloton.

The strength in depth of British cycling is embarrassingly good. But somehow we just can't accept that at last Britain is good at something. Not just good but really good. And for once the "something" is something other than getting on a plane from Luton to Marbella and then demanding "I waaaaaaant Hammo, Eggo and Chippos you [insert racist insult]! I came here on a plane you bast@rd." Although this is something that we excel at as a nation (plus the added bonus of getting sunburned within two minutes of any sighting of solaris. It's not something we should be particularly proud of (except in Essex some parts of the UK (n.b. Phin Wenlock complained about this bit but he is from Dorset or somewhere anyway but I like him and have recanted), where this is actually viewed as a rite of passage akin to a Victorian "Grand Tour").

The national dish.

To prove the point about the depth of GB talent, Cavendish has hit 25 TdeF stage wins, Pete Kennaugh has achieved super-domestique status in his first TdeF and Geraint Thomas and Ian Stannard have kept pushing on despite injuries which would even make Ray Wilkins sober up rapidly.

Is the reason Froome isn't getting the plaudits a question of timing? Some people have stood around in a field in Nottinghamshire having their Cricket game littered with a series of cucumber sandwiches, tea and occasional sunbathing getting more column inches? Is it because Cesc Fabregas may join Everton United this week? Who knows...

All I know is that Chris Froome won a stage of the world's hardest race, on Bastille Day, in France, in the Centenary edition being chased down by two former winners (the disgraced Alberto Contador and the spent  2011 winner Cadel Evans). This is the equivalent of a Frenchman flying a Spitfire over Trafalgar Square after having created the fuel biologically by drinking Kentish ale and urinating in out in to the FA Cup, decanting it in to the fuel tank whilst singing Jerusalem and wearing a Union Jack waistcoat.

Would that go down well in the Olde Bulldog on the Benidorm Strip? I think not.

Maybe "Froomo" should grow some sideburns and profess a knowledge of The Jam's back catalogue? That's not a jibe at Wiggins but it is a tily at lazy reporting and the tendency to report on matters of style and not substance. It merited 100 words in the Metro, no doubt Froomo will not win BBC's Sport's Personality of the Year as Virginia Wade Andy Murray has finally won a UK "slam". At least Froome has a personality. Having said that Lendl will be coach of the year no doubt based on his charismatic and engaging media campaign this year... oh no hang on a second.

Maybe Froome should simply "stick it" to the rest of the field in the last week of the Tour and make the race his own. No one is going to touch him for several years if he maintains this form and approach. Indurain, Merkcx, Fignon, Hinault, Froome - a good club to be in.

He's back! And this time he's really got a spleen to vent - Urban Toss

Over the last year I have spent a lot of time working on the Hitchin Nomads CC blog. And jolly good fun that has been. So far I think we are pushing somewhere between 45,958 unique page views, which for little ole Hitchin Nomads is great. Of the local cycling clubs, the Noddies' site is probably the most frequently updated, down with the kids and generally informative. Well, that's what people say.*

*That's what Nigel Wilson says and he's the authority on these things as far as we need be concerned.

Having suckered roped new Nomad, Steve Austin (he of splendid Mud, Sweat and Tyres blog fame) in to helping with the Nomads' site, I have a spare nanosecond to proffer my own musings.

To open my 2013 account I'll start with my initial observations on "new" cycling magazines. And one in particular. To a degree, anything which promotes cycling to the reading public is a good thing. But sometimes the narrative is onanistic to say the least. Typical articles include but are not confined to:

• Which carbon fibre inner tube cap is best?
• Get that courier look! (exclamation mark essential)
• Riding to Ulan Bator on a custom built steel tourer! (goatee beards and exclamation marks essential)
• Super bike review (lowest price similar to national debt of Cyprus)

In plain English these articles can be translated in turn to:

• You are a nob.
• You don't know you are a nob but will become a giant one by aspiring to ride a bike with coloured wheel rims and curating a fetid body odour.
• You are a nob but at least you might leave the country for a while as a result of being inspired by some hippy. You will hopefully be abducted on the Silk Road and sold to the local tribesmen as raw ingredients for a nice broth. Plus you will have a steel bike that has been made by a man in a shed in Bristol with his redundancy money from Aldi. Undoubtedly it will be called Trevcycle or Bazwerks.
• You can't ride a bike quickly but are confident your ability will increase simply by racking up a huge credit card bill/ divorce or both. Typically you will be a 4th Cat rider who gets dropped on every race on the first lap.

Or, in summary, you think Rapha clothing really is the bee's knees and that Nespresso is similarly great.

My good friend and fellow pedant/ ubercynic, Paul Riley, has just invested wasted a whole six English Euros Dollars on a copy of Urban Cyclist. He could have spent the money on Jaffa Cakes for his excellent water emporium. But no. He was drawn in like a sailor to the Sirens on the rocks by the promise of new knowledge and insight. Was this wonga well spent? Let's see shall we?

The following feature header, "Smashing Good Show" which as it indicates is:

"...a joyful celebration of a bygone age, inviting cyclists to dress up and enjoy city cycling as it once was..."

Promises to deliver the gen. But does it?

So what could that mean? I expect the author and also the editor thought that this would be akin to a Jules Verne epic which would incite the cycling nation to run to Hackett's, purchase a Berwick Tweed, batter a blind person andthen nab their golden retriever (or black labrador if possible) and then attempt to shoot some local peasantry.

Over the past 20-50 years many manufacturers have been at pains to create clothes and kit that isn't tweed. Because it is not a good idea to ride a bike in the equivalent of a National Service army blanket.

So what next in the Urban Cyclist agenda? Up the Alps in Hessian sacks a la mode of the  leper colony of ancien Guadaloupe? Which doublet should I wear whilst fitting carrying my sackbut and hedrygurdy on a club run? Can I still joust and tilt a lance whilst cycling a Raleigh Grifter?

So as you can see, this is an idea based in a universe where city cycling was once deemed to be both idyllic and fun.

But which city could that be? Which famed civitae and cyclotropolis? Was this a city where the streets were paved with gold wherein Dick Whittington would give you a rub down at the end of a heady commute to the flange-nut factory? No. 

Was this a city where there were no horses or associated droppings/ trams/ urchins/ horse drawn carriages/ horseless carriages/ hover cars like in the Jetsons/ white vans etc. No.

Is this a city which exists within a 300 metre radius of West Hampstead? Yes.
Is this a city in which everyone is called Giles, Rupert or Betina where a Trust Fund is de riguer? Yes.
Is this a city which is conveniently linked to the "country" by the use of a Bentley and driver? Yes.
Is this a city where I want to live? No.

It would probably be called Tw@tville cum Spanner.

So in the alternative universe of "Bikie Cyclist" the basis of the article would be as thus:

Smashing Good Show - some fools with too much money sit outside a bandstand drinking Pimms gazing in to the middle distance as the staff photographer takes close-up shots of their over engineered frame lugs (whilst wishing he'd studied harder and got a job on Nuts magazine or at least Which Hi-Fi).

At this point Paul Riley is brought in to inform the participants that this shoot is to be re-themed along the lines of the Hunger Games and is actually now a fight to the death on Primrose Hill. 

Several of the participants are subsequently impaled on or gaffer-taped to Bromptons which are then folded up and thrown in to the Regent's Park Canal (victims preferably still alive). Other "survivors" are similarly skewered on Rapha Condor seatposts and the like and made to lick jam of the tire sidewalls of Boris Bikes.

The "winner" is then forced to have a presta valve fitted to the side of his/ her head which is then pumped up to circa140 PSI using a Victorian fire engine pump.

At some point the ""winner's" head eventually explodes but not before the opportunity to fit in a consumer test of "cycling helmets of the 1960s" is performed by smashing them in situ (on the "winner's" noggin) with a mattock.

Two for the price of one.

Now that is a "Smashing Good Show" I would pay £6 to read about.