VTTA 25

This little gem in the calendar is fast turning into my favourite time trial course. The A25/.34 is where I broke the hour with a 55.21 last September and had a decent ride on the old trike previously. Whilst not flat, with a nice easterly or south easterly wind, it is truly the fastest TT track other than the V718.

Today, however, saw a northerly wind, which meant a total wind reverse to my previous experiences!

It didn't start too great, as although I thought I had plenty of time to get to the start, I in fact didn't and missed my slot by over a minute - this also meant that I received a 25 second penalty - which was very lenient in from my perspective so I took it politely as you should.

I went off at no.103 instead of 84, not that it matters, and enjoyed a good first section down to the turn at 10.4 miles averaging 27.1mph which I don't usually see on this course - I had also climbed Bingham Hill on the way at an average of 311W which is well above my usual race wattage.

At the turn though and usually I would have enjoyed some backwind, but not today, it was headwind and some long drags. On the flats I was riding well though and took advantage of the downhills - this saw an average for this section of 24.4mph - pleasing as I'd expected to lose more given the drags and the headwind. I hit the Newark roundabout turn at 25.5mph and thought I had enough in the tank for a final push, but I'm still not quite that fit and had to settle for maintaining the status quo.

58.51 - it was alright, but it's more the course than me - I had a couple of really good sections today that give me hope for the rest of the year !

NP 274w
AP 269w
Temp : 12c
Wind : 12mph N
Course A25/34
Pos 50/97

Lincoln 10k 2016

Eight consecutive years of running this race almost came unglued when I entered the Southwell Tri which was also scheduled for this morning - luckily my complete apathy for swimming as not abated and I entered this event about three weeks ago when I realised I had no chance of getting to the pool!

Last year I set a PB of 42.39, but I knew that I wasn't that quick this year, as to be honest, I'm a bit of a lardy f+cker at the moment having come back from last weeks drinking and cycling trip at 83kgs - when I ran last year I was just about sub 80kgs, so a sub 45 was the target of the day.

I climber over the rope at the start of the sub 45 box and filtered myself toward the rear of it - perfect placement if I do say so myself. The sun was out and it was a bit warm - typical 10k weather as it is always nice for the Lincoln 10k.

11am and we're off. and its all a bit jostly and slow down to the first roundabout and doesn't really unwind until a third of the way down Longdales Road as the super giddies blow up a little and the slower runners have pulled to the side to let the main flow through.

First 3 miles go really really well, posting splits of 6.54,7.01 & 6.57 - maybe I'm not so bad I thought. Next couple of miles ticked by in 7.01 and when I got to the 8km mark or so, I was beginning to really struggle.  I made a decision to get to the 9km flag and then just go for an incredible last kilometre - well, that worked out badly as the tank was well and truly empty by that point.

That last kilometer was a killer and I seemed to be going backwards with every step, suffering in the sun and wilting accordingly. A 2nd fastest ever finish of 43.27 has cheered me up though and given me the impetus to enter my next 10k race.

Paris Roubaix Challenge 2016

It's not very often at all that you can sit and type a blog post watching a pro cycling classic race and know that just the day before you rode the same route, the same cobbles, faced the same challenges and had the time of your life - I can say that it is definately a strange experience.

Lincoln Wheelers got a small group of enthusiastic members together and took a ferry across to ride the 'Hell Of The North' - the famous cobbles of the Paris Roubaix. Different distances were on offer and I chose the group that elected the medium route of 145km - that meant that my first ever taste of riding a stretch of cobbles would be the Arenberg Trench - and I can tell you that I was not looking forward to that !

Logistically, it was pretty easy - Hull/Zeebrugge ferry on the Thursday night, a nice ride to Koksijde on the Friday as a warm up. Hotel was the Ibis in Tocouring which was just a 4/5 mile ride to the Roubaix Velodrome for registration - not bad at all, and we had our Racing Sec who tied all that together to make it seem easy.

Our start time could be anything from 7-10am, so we chose to leave the hotel at about eightish and ride across town to the new Velodrome to start the event. We had numbers on our bikes and a timing chip attched to the back of it - as soon as we passed over the start timing mat our day of adventure would begin - 5000 riders taking on the days challenge.

For the first 30 miles, it was just like a regular sportive - busy roads, not closed, big groups (of which we found we were doing lots of work), really nice experience as we rode town to town and enjoyed the first feed stop. What was the fuss, this is not hard ???

..... and then at just over 30 miles, we turned into the Arenberg Trench and oh my f'in god that was a couple of kilometres of horrible, jagged, knobbly, blocky, muddy, lethal cobbles. I really struggled early on and had to have a little walk for a couple of minutes to get my head straight. Once back on the bike I stayed in the muddy trench to the left and negotiated it that way - eventually going on to ride the crown to the finish - tougher than any cross race that I'd ever completed. That was the worst of it I am happy to report - the 18 other cobbled sections were really tough and smacked your arms and wrists about like you wouldn't believe - but my philosophy was to attack the cobbles and ride as hard as possible, and not looking to defensively at the line I was taking and most importantly taking no late decisions with erratic line changes - this seemed to work a treat and gave me some good strava sections on the majority of the later cobbled sections.

Feed stations were ace, and I must have eaten my own body weight in waffles and jelly jam sweets. I was feeding for the bruising I was taking for sure.

After 145km the finish is in the old Velodrome in Roubaix which is the first time that I had ridden on a track, certainly something special to wrap up a brilliant day in the saddle.

TA East 25m TT

It's not often I take the road down to Norfolk and don't meet any lorries at all en route. A pleasant start to the day all round as the trip to Bressingham just outside of Diss took only just over two hours.

A first trike event of the year awaited me with a filed of just eight riders making up the starter for an event that had a middle gear event as the main course and a sprinkling of 2ups as a dessert. As we were the cumbersome lot, we were set off first at 9.01 to 9.08 and as seeded rider of the day I got to go off last as appears to be tradition at TA events.

With a new cockpit, larger chainring and slightly longer cranks (all to replicate the TT bike) this was a first opportunity to put the new look pink rocket through its paces. The course was a straight out and back, east to west to east job, on a slightly undulating course - not hilly by any means, but not entirely flat - and the road had some deceptive cambers to keep you on your toes as well. 

9.08 I was off, and aware that I was going like it was a 10, but loving the new trike set up, which with a bit of practice should reap some rewards this year. I liked the course, but did have to ride in the middle of the road as I had a mahoosive wobble with one of those deceptive cambers and didn't like it - the middle ground was definately the wisest choice !

At the turn then with an average of just under 22mph and I thought I'd get a push on the way back, but it appeared to be one of those unhelpful crosswind days and the push never came. Toward the end of the home leg I started to naturally tire, but still had one more carrot left to chase down which happened at mile 23. First over the line for all the events and a decent time for a single carriageway outing. 

A win and a nice dinner with the folks at the TA - a nice days work ! 

AP 262w (Strava)

Temp : 10c
Wind : 9mph ESE
Course B25/17
Pos 1/8