your daily bicycle log

30 miles yesterday, 47 today. Glorious sunshine most of the way today, too.

I should ride today

Today was gorgeous. 500m or so of climbing, warm sunshine, feeling overdressed in 3/4 lengths, although felt the benefit sitting outside the offer shop.

offer - coffee

First race of the season for me today. It was a two-up 25-mile time trial. I was partnered by the strongest rider from my (not very strong) club, who I would expect to beat me by two or three minutes in a solo event. He's faster than me anyway, was riding on a faster (time trial) bike, and already has a few races under his belt this season, so it was an uneven partnership. He dropped me (without realising) on the first uphill section and by the time he realised I was already about 50-100 yards behind. This happened at least twice more during the race - if I didn't manage to get straight onto his wheel on the switchovers I found it extremely difficult to get back up to him. There's a technique to it that I hadn't quite mastered (never having done a two-up before) - when you drop off the front you've actually got to start accelerating *before* the other guy has come past you otherwise they'll just pull away and open up too much of a gap. Also, riding right on someone's wheel when you're both on tri-bars is a bit nervewracking as you can't brake and you're going flat out. We did it in 1:04:25 (about two minutes faster than I've ever managed on my own). I wasn't especially tired at the end but I couldn't have gone any faster.

Also, riding right on someone's wheel when you're both on tri-bars is a bit nervewracking as you can't brake and you're going flat out

ask away ed. what brings you down this way?

Nearly got dropped by someone thirty years my senior yesterday. Felt better when I found out he's been racing for forty years. Cool old dude wrwa.

― lukas, Saturday, March 10, 2012 5:53 PM (Yesterday) [IP: 166.137.141.224] Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol hunt3r be travelin

lol i'm neither that old nor that fast (unless lukas is 14)

joeks, bruv

So apparently I am really quite sunburnt.

haitch, my gf is moving down to Melbourne for work. If it goes well for her I might as well when I've reached a good point here. In any case I'll be visiting soon.

Trying to work out where she's going to live and that.

joeks, bruv

PLUR

lol I had to google that, u raver

bike maintenance for weekend: wash good bike in preparation for sale; wash commuter; try (and fail) to fit commuter with luggage rack; fix gearshifting problems on CX bike; wash and fix slippy rear axle on singlespeed to prep for sale; wash three sets of tyres.

actual riding for weekend: return trip up the street to buy beer, 2km.

i should do this thing you call "bike maintenance." as it is, the zip ties holding my commuter bike's shifter cable broke off, so i just routed the cable through my bottle cage #jankybikes

so yesterday i took my 8 and 6 y/os to the bmx "track" where all the dirtjumper kids go. the best move was the little girl's attempt to ride up one of the tabletops, stalling out, rolling backwards, somehow pivoting 180 on the back wheel and riding it out going the other direction. it was like ballet. i think the barbie princess bike with handlebar streamers and white tires really enhanced the aesthetic.

25-mile time trial this morning. It was cold, but no headwind/tailwind issues for a change so I managed a steady 22mph out and 22mph back. Next weekend I'm hoping to try my first bunch race of the season on the Hillingdon circuit (first return since the painful crash back at the end of last summer).

I had a brief ride on a Barcelona share bike, a Bicing, yesterday. This is inconsequential biking but straight bragging

needs to be some kind of website where you can log the cities in which you've sharebiked so you can #globalbrag

Presumably i could foursquare that kind of activity and be the pope of global sharebikery or whatever.

First road race (well, criterium) of the season, back at the Hillingdon circuit in west London for the first time since my painful crash back at the end of August here. Brilliant sunshine, more like June than March. I positioned myself at the front on the start line (not sure how many riders there were, but I was number 40 so there must have been quite a few), but had an epic fail at trying to clip into my new pedals and sank right back through the field as I spent about 300 metres hopelessly trying to get it the right way up. The eggbeaters which I'd used in the last three seasons didn't have a wrong way up, so I was always able to get away speedily before - this was embarrassing. Anyway, I felt nervous about riding in the middle of the pack, given how I was brought down before by people crashing in front of me, and there were a lot of newbies out there today so I was doubly concerned about the potential to be taken out by some fool. Consequently I tried to stick to one side to give myself an escape route which meant I was far less sheltered from the wind than I could have been. After four or five miles of lurking near the back of the bunch I decided to move up: I ended up going right to the front and towed everyone along for a couple of minutes - just long enough to get to the photographer before being swamped. I then went back to lurking near the back - I've got a bit of a psychological block now, physically I was fine but I just felt this constant terror that someone was going to swerve and bring me down so I just couldn't mix it up near the front. There *were* people switching erratically, and lots of lapped riders getting in the way, so this wasn't a completely groundless fear, but I've got to deal with it if I'm going to actually do anything. I rolled round at the back of the bunch rather than contesting the sprint, average speed 24.7mph.

40 miles of hills (3,000 feet of climbing) yesterday and morning, and 25 miles (1,500) this morning. The sunshine is gorgeous. Winter gloves and jacket to needed. Except maybe very first thing when my fingers got cold.

To = not.

The brief moment I led the bunch along:
http://aephotos.co.uk/hillingdon25mar12-cat4/e154bb232

nice.

rode the loop for the first time this year, 45.7 mi, got dismantled by nice bunch of racers including a woman who let me tag along for a while. strava suffer score: 171/extreme. it felt hard.

First long ride of the year, 40 miles to Reading. The leisurely 3 hour pace promised by my colleague didn't materialise, we did it in 2h 12 + a small handful of stops. A little too much exertion for my liking and current condition, I did a lot of wheel sucking (but also spent a reasonable amount of time pulling along the other guy who was struggling a little).

On strike today, brilliant sunshine and >20C (when it should be 10C at this time of year), drove out to the countryside, lovely 40-mile ride, it feels good to be alive

a photographer friend who has been visiting london this past week keeps posting pics of the clearest, bluest, brightest skies imaginable. i told him his photoshopping is implausible.

Actually a bit sunburnt today - it didn't really occur to me this was physcially possible in Britain in March

https://farm7.staticflickr.com/6115/7021760921_06bd4ac25b_c.jpg

this was monday

It has been properly blazing hot and beautiful here for a week at least - Armstrong is in a rejuvenated phase and we've done 250 miles in the last 5 days...

The heatwave finally ended yesterday. Did my second road race of the season, this time at Hog Hill. The hill was killing me - every lap I lost ground on the climb and had to desperately chase back on. Fortunately there are some tight bends where things often get bunched up so I managed to fly through the corners and sprint back on (repeatedly). It was an hour's race and from about 10 minutes in until about two laps to go I was convinced I was about to get permanently dropped, but somehow I managed to survive to the end. Absolutely nothing left for the final sprint up the hill so I came 23rd out of the 27 left in the bunch. Still, that's only the second time ever I've managed to finish in the bunch on that circuit.

3000 fixed-gear miles in 3 months was celebrated today in the midst of a 65-ish mile jaunt with my best cycling buddy - long may the great riding and monster miles continue as the year progresses!

Krakow, I can't even begin to imagine that.

Here's a short video of my race at Hog Hill. I can generally be seen huffing my way round at or very near the back of the pack, the exception being the second time up the hill when I'm near the front (but in reality had started the hill in first place then rapidly sunk backwards while someone shouted 'hold your position' at me - as if I was just choosing to go backwards for a laugh).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMWtvRrGvic&feature=relmfu

The weather's gone mad - last week of March felt like mid-June, first week of April and half the country got covered in snow. No snow down here, but it was sub-zero in London when I got up this morning. Fortunately it had warmed up a bit by the time I raced this afternoon. Back at Hog Hill again, this time against 3rd cats. I bit the bullet and flung myself back into the thick of it this week (instead of lurking near the back trying to avoid crashes), burying myself in the middle of the bunch, swooping round downhill bends at nearly 30mph just telling myself 'don't touch the brakes - trust everyone else'. I was enjoying it, instead of just being nervous. Annoyingly, about a third of the way through the race it got a bit strung out and somebody 7 or 8 riders ahead of me let a gap open. By the time I'd forced my way up the gap was unbridgeable. I ended riding round in a second group which swelled to about 11 or 12. I stopped with two laps left as the leaders were closing in on us (to lap us) - they caught my group on the final lap with about half a mile to go, which could have been messy.

whoa braggin i rode mt falcon mtb climb in the middle ring the whole way today (32/32), something ive not done probly in 10 yrs, and it didn't even feel hard. 6+ minutes slower than the old days, but still.

wheeee!
http://ukcyclesport.com/index.php?option=com_jphoto&view=image&id=127728:229&Itemid=31

nice guys

been sick and off the bike for a week, argh. going to take a v short spin this evening and see how it goes.

continuing to follow goal of one mtb ride/week. perfect, cool, 50 degree day for a long sloggy singletrack climb. i've had a hard time getting used to technical uphills on the dual sus- the bike is so damn tall, for one thing. otoh, the higher bb makes clearance and pedal strike issues much better.

<iframe height='405' width='590' frameborder='0' allowtransparency='true' scrolling='no' src='http://app.strava.com/runs/6728224/embed/ca61dbad234d5e0f4753abe990aca4fa3e282020'>;</iframe>

sorta regret not going 29er, with all the rock gardens around here i'm sure the bigger wheel would be better rolling.

(sorry i was pretty sure that wouldnt work but was curious)

oh man that sucks about having an ish with your DUAL SUSPENSION BIKE

LAWYERS

(can't wait to be the fattest doctor mantis, gonna bottleneck everyone while i wheeze on a g-d moots)

flossin my huffy 2012

ask me about todays strava kom

ima go get smashed on red wine and hope my household dont care

when mootsed, send pix doc

will do(c)

so about that KOM

It happened lol

picked up nu bike from shop and rode it home (30km) in blazing autumn sunshine

...then went to pub to watch football, haw

to stop the slightly knackered bracket for the light on the commuter loosening up over bumps, have applied 'shim' ...made from blu-tac. #subparmaintenanceskills

arnet u sposed to post a pic of nubike already and what is blutac?