Epic

After a couple of days of solid training, including a lot of tempo work riding solo, I decided yesterday evening that I was going to take it easy on the sofa. I’d managed to see about 40 minutes of the England-Slovenia match at the office in the afternoon and thought I’d watch either the Germany-Ghana match or try and catch up on a bit of Wimbledon. Wimbledon won – we live literally a stone’s throw from the AELTC and can hear the applause and cheering very clearly if we sit with our windows open. There are also quite a few high-profile players wandering up and down our road, so we feel very much part of the occasion.


I turned on the TV and saw that Court 18 was hosting a match that had, incredibly, already gone to 20 games all in the final set. Mahut and Isner slugged it out in the heat for another few games whilst I thought “actually this is more interesting that the football”. I took a break at about 30-all to get the kids washed and into bed, then my wife and I settled down to catch what must, surely, be the end of the match. “We’ll get some supper at the end of the game” I said. Little did I know!

What an incredible event – I’ve never seen a player look more physically and mentally fatigued than John Isner. I was rooting for him to win, not because he was the underdog in terms of skill, but because he never lay down. Each time I thought “that’s it, he’s crumbled” he would respond with a vicious forehand or a thundering serve to stay in the game. Nicolas Mahut was fantastic as well – to remain so energetic for so long was a real achievement in itself. These guys were performing at their absolute peak, on court all alone, for over seven hours! The pressure must have been immense and it told in their vacant thousand-yard stares and sagging limbs by the end.

Talking of vacant stares and sagging limbs, here’s a recent picture of me climbing the Col des Aravis (at least I think that's where I am, ascending from the western side for the second time that day) on the Time-Megeve sportive. The trick for giving the impression of speed is to unzip the jersey fully so you resemble a Tour rider flying uphill at about 25kph. In reality I was moving at about 10kph!

LBL 2010

Not Liège-Bastogne-Liège, but London to Brighton and back. It’s a fairly regular Dynamo event – each year a group meet up in the Wandsworth Common area and have a blast down to Brighton for breakfast, followed by a more leisurely ride back to London. Setting off at 6am means that we quickly get through the worst of the London road junctions and the front groups from the official L2B BHF ride and enjoy the clear roads for a good pacey ride. This year was no different, although with the brisk Northerly breeze we did manage a slightly improved time – I made our journey down 2hrs 24 minutes, including a 5min puncture stop and an irritating sequence of red lights for the last couple of miles.

Breakfast was at Katz café on the seafront where, as usual, they coped really well with a sudden influx of very hungry cyclists. Over the past four years they have regularly served us quality full English - they’re stars! It is definitely the highlight of the ride and makes the return journey almost bearable.

A slightly more relaxed (although hardly slow) ride back saw us enter the familiar grey suburbs of the southwest of London in good time, allowing me to be back home for lunch at 1pm – perfect. Ten minutes later (after a shower and a quick online donation to the BHF) I was tucking into a great buffet spread with the family.

It’s turning into a good traditional activity for the club and I hope we are not viewed in a poor light for taking advantage of the mainly closed roads. I think we ride really well, we’re very careful passing other riders in the early stages, and anyone who wants to tag on for a while to take advantage of a bit of a draft is welcomed, even if the pace might sometimes sneakily creep up to see how long they can hold on! Each year we make a conscious effort to encourage all the riders to donate to the BHF as some sort of ‘compensation’ and, from what I can tell from chatting on the way down, BHF do pretty well out of us.

A total of just over 110 miles with a large chunk done near threshold - good training for La Marmotte in a couple of weeks.

RPTT 2010

I did my first ever time trial this weekend and a very relaxed affair it was too (aside from the early start). The Richmond Park TTs that the club organised as pilot events last year are taking place again for three Sunday mornings. Yesterday’s was the first of the year and probably one of my more pleasant park rides – the almost complete lack of traffic makes the park seem very chilled early in the morning. Last year I marshalled one of the events and took quite a few pictures. This year I had limited opportunities for looking around because I was in head down, legs burning and heavy breathing mode!

I completed the fairly tough out-and-back course (10.4miles) in 27.09, a bit over the 27mins I was aiming for. The highlight was passing my minute and two minute riders before the halfway point. The low was realising that I’d gone off a bit too fast and mucked up my pacing a bit. Some of the times were spectacular, especially in the RR category (best time by IanP was 24.14). I reckon a 26.30 or so might be possible with better pacing.

The RP TTs are great events for those new to TTs - you don’t need to be affiliated to any club, you don't need a TT bike, and the park will be resurfaced very soon so subsequent times might be even faster. If you haven’t already, check out CTT RP TT for an entry form for the July 18th or August 8th events.

So immediately after burning my legs and lungs early in the morning I opted (perhaps unwisely) to go on the club Surrey Hills ride. I didn’t last too long with the group with my heavy legs, but thankfully Mark dropped back with me and nursed me round the hills. We ended up doing the full ride at a decent enough pace, even though my legs felt absolutely dead by the time I made it back to Wimbledon. I found that I’d developed a raging appetite too – can’t think why!

Gotta love the mountains…

I’ve just got back from our annual club sportive trip, which this year visited the Time-Megeve Mont Blanc. What a great few days – lovely weather, stunning scenery and great climbs, good company and excellent organisation. There was only one major negative which I’ll mention at the end of this piece.

As with any club do, it’s as much about who’s out there as what routes you end up riding, and Dynamo events never disappoint with regards to the company. There were several groups of abilities/stamina levels around which meant most people could take things as easy or as hard as they wanted on each day. I’d decided that I wanted to do a good solid 90-100km per day, with at least one climb per day.

Mission (almost) accomplished. Day 1 saw approx. 90km including ascents of the Col de Romme and the climb back up to Megeve from the valley floor (via the ‘easy’ route). Day 2 was 98km including ascents of the Col des Aravis, the Colombiere (‘easy’ side) and the Megeve climb again, but this time via the difficult (the ‘Bernard Hinault’) route. Day 3 was the sportive during which I opted to do the Medium route (115km, not that there was an option to do the longer route) and ascended the Aravis (again), the Col de la Croix Fry, the small climb back up the Aravis from the other side and then the Col des Saisies (very tough). I didn’t do a great time and felt that my legs were getting pretty wobbly by the four hour mark. Day 4 was an easy day, so we just rode up the Saisies from the other direction and then descended back into Megeve – a total of approx. 55km. Not quite the 90-100km, but to be honest I really didn’t have the legs for another climb by this stage in the trip.

So what was the negative? Well, it was the reason that the long version of the sportive was shut off, and the reason why the finish was a slightly muted affair. A rider in the event died during the ride – initial reports seem to indicate that he was a Swiss rider who, for whatever reason, misjudged his speed on the descent past Saint-Nicolas-la-Chapelle and crashed over the edge. A tragic lesson to us all to take care in the mountains and maintain concentration at all times.

Nearly Time...

First things first...Eelmore again. There's been no chance of any Palace action for the past two weeks due to the installation and subsequent removal of safety barriers for the motor racing. Apparently the safety barriers have raised health and safety issues!

So I made the effort to get out to Eelmore with a different aim in mind - I just wanted a good workout prior to a few days of solid riding (more of that later) so decided to stay at the back of the bunch and do sprint intervals. Eelmore at the back of the bunch as a workout is pretty good - a 10 second sprint every minute or so, repeat x 50. JamesD (fellow 'Mo) did well and bagged around 5th in the sprint. There was some very dodgy handling, a young WindyMilla guy lost it on the top corner and crashed, and another guy nearly lost it at the same point on the final lap. The average pace was 24.5mph for the hour, but average speed at a crit never tells the whole story.

I was glad to finish the race unscathed as I'm off to Megeve with the club for four days of riding, including the Time-Megeve sportive. We've got a few different routes planned for the off days, dependent upon time and legs, so hope to bag quite a few cols and rack up the miles.

If I remember to take some pictures I'll post them here with a ride report in a week or so.