Another Splendid Week of Cycling

This week's blog is a little late due to a splendid work social barbecue/braii/outdoor grill. There's so much to share though. I've had another great week on the bike, SuperSam also features strongly and we really do need to discuss events in France. No not that disappointing international soccer tournament, the Tour de France, the greatest sporting event on the planet.


My first ride of the week and my ride name was dedicated to the late Caroline Aherne. We've lost too many good people this year. As we're big fans of the Fast Show at C&DCycles CC there really was only one show to quote her from! A very funny lady and a great loss.

As for the ride. It was my standard training loop. I was happy with the pace and my improving fitness.

On Wednesday I woke up with the plan to do some hill work. Then I devised the madcap plan of doing my route via Rockingham hill. Anyone whose never ridden Rocky needs to know it's seen as one if not 'the' toughest hill in Northants. Situated just outside Corby and with Rockingham castle plonked on top, this steep slope has featured in the Women's tour, when those superb specimens made it look easy! On route to Rocky there's also the significant lump through Middleton and Cottingham just to pre-fatigue the legs! Half way up Rocky I was considering the only downfall of the hill which is you have to ride on busy roads out of Corby at the top. I also considered the fact I have never ridden down Rocky. Both issues were solved by my slingshot around the roundabout at Rockingham triangle and straight back down hill. My goodness that's a great descent. That also meant I could take the hill back into Cottingham just to really finish my legs and lungs off. A great training route!

The view over the Welland Valley

On Wednesday evening SuperSam took part in another Go Ride event at Rockingham Motor Speedway with KCC Cyclones. He has really improved since the last time, with training obviously paying off. He also had a quick go on a drop handle bar bike to see if he liked it. More on that later.

Good pace on his heavy MTB

Yes I know he isn't wearing his helmet, I stopped him when I realised!

My last before work ride of the week was my 'fast' loop. This features the 8km Strava segment I created called: "Keep your Alan's on!" If you're wondering 'Alan's' are knickers as in the rhyming slang 'Alan Whickers,' and the phrase is similar to 'keep your hair on!' Its a predominantly flat loop with that fast slight downhill into Loddington. My training plan is up Orton Hill to wake the legs up, one lap steady pace, really go for it for one lap and then just as fast as I've got left for a final lap, back down the hill and home. Other people ride this much faster than me but as progress goes I'd say mine is steady.

An average over 17mph is always a good result for me

On Saturday SuperSam had Sailing club and as usual I did laps of Pitsford on my 29r. The kids looked to be going well on the water. I wasn't quite as zippy as last week largely due to huge clouds of annoying flies and it was also a bit soggy but hey a bit of rain is never a big deal. The res was a bit less busy than usual but there was still a good showing of walkers, wobbly kids and bouncy joggers. I was getting strange looks back at the Sailing Club after my four laps. I discovered why when I looked in the car window, my head was black with hundreds of squashed flies!

To the main event of the week and my chance to ride with the splendid DIY experts of C&DCycles CC. A good gathering at the shop saw around ten of us set off on one of Big Steve's magical mystery tours. A big shout goes to Jonesy, joining us on a Sunday for the first time in a long time. I hope we see more and more of him in the coming weeks. Missing in action was the large presence of Mark Baird, we're all looking forward to seeing him sometime soon. I wasn't as good at keeping up this week but looking at my Strava later I had a lot of PR's so I'm getting quicker, the others are just quicker than that! The route through Castle Ashby was fantastic. Some lovely roads. As a group we really found our legs coming into Harrowden with Kev getting a KOM on the sprint section. We really do need to sort our organisation out though. If we learned to chain gang properly rather than going the hard way and passing on the right we'd be even quicker. 

Our very own 'Fast Monkey'

Of great concern to Chris on our way around was Andy's cadence sensor. He felt it was positioned wrong, sitting on the outside of his crank. It was getting to the point when I thought I was going to have to administer some emergency Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. Then common sense prevailed and the sensor was re-positioned. Fellow Lycra road warriors inquired if we were okay at this point, the answer is probably: "No but we're learning to live with it!"

We saw a lot of other cyclists out. A special mention to Alan and Jamie who we saw near Santa Pod and James who I saw on the way home. Those lads dragged me around my first ever 100 miler. If I knew then what I know now I may have just stuck to fishing...nah don't be daft I love cycling. It just feels weird that I don't really consider 100 miles to be a challenge now. Also out were the smattering of horse riders and the athletes who can't ride. Andy's 'Jogger of the Day,' award, brought to you in conjunction with Pendred's Hard Wood Joinery, was awarded in Earls Barton.

C&D OCD club

Having successfully snuck a snake into Steve's pocket (no euphemism intended,) I set myself a bigger task this week. My favourite pants 'oddballs' come in a health promotion packet describing testicualr self examination. Now this is a serious subject for us chaps who cycle but I failed to secretly sneak it in after ten miles of Frank running distraction. Steve however did see the funny side and read the advice out. That's my bit done for health promotion!!! I also forgot I had a secondary plan of putting a lego man in his pocket. So I tried and failed to sneak that into Neil's jolly nice jersey. He liked it so much that he pretended it was going to be donated to his son...don't worry Neil we all like to play Lego still!

The last thing of note was the procession of tractors and the splendid Morris police car near Finedon. They were raising money for the Air Ambulance which really is to be applauded.

I was delighted on arrival back at the shop to discover the Queen of Cakes and SuperSam. My budding cyclist was getting his KCC Cyclones loan bike. It's a marvelous initiative where the club loan kids a bike for racing so they can compete on a even field with kids who already have all the kit. When Sam outgrows this bike he gives it back and another young rider gets the beenfit. It's a nice CUDA cyclocross bike, V brakes so it doesn't fall foul of the disc brake ban and supplied with road and off road tyres. There's standard and SPD pedals and lights supplied too! So it's a massive thanks to KCC and C&D Cycles for collaborating to the benefit of the cyclists of the future. Sam is absolutely made up with this and can't wait to put the bike to use.

Already training on the Col du Avenue!

Finally lets talk Tour. What a week for British cyclists. Froome with a stage win and in yellow following his 'aeronuts,' attack! Cav in Green after winning three stages already and having held the yellow jersey for the first time in his career. Yates in white. Perhaps the biggest result of the lot was Cummings astonishing solo breakaway victory. When the Brits weren't winning it was great to see a Sagan victory, the man is a god on a bike and can do things that even most pro's can't copy. I also really enjoyed the stage win from Van Avermaet which put the classics rider into yellow for a couple of days. Which then makes my feelings about this Year's tour a little confused. I think it's about to get boring! Froome has Yellow, Team Sky have all the advantages of their super domestiques. It feels like we're already on the procession to Paris. Contador is gone, Nibali doesn't appear to be going well and Quintana is being heavily marked. So much as I want Froome to win and Team Sky to dominate, I'd also like the other teams to just "do something!"

OK that's it.

Happy Pedaling!

Five go mad in Northants

Wow, wow, wow, what a ride. What a laugh. What a day! After all those solo rides I'd been really looking forward to a group ride with some of my club-mates. On a beautiful day I arrived at C&D Cycles to find Steve, Andy P, Nat and Frank. Uh-oh I thought...I'm in trouble here. Oh well, just try to keep up for as long as possible. Well without too much blowing of my own trumpet I think I did a bit better than that.

Heading East on a day with little wind probably helped a lot as it's much flatter than any other direction out of Kettering. We flew along for the first hour and had covered 20 miles in just an hour and five minutes. At 40 miles my average was still 17.8 mph. That's typical for the company I was keeping but for me it's absolutely unheard of. I also got 46 Strava trophies. Yeah I know, I'm a bit too pleased with myself today.

The banter was flowing from the off and the above pic isn't Steve falling off his bike. It's Steve reenacting Mark Baird falling off his bike. Poor Mark his ears should have burning really because his inability to contain his excitement about new Campagnola parts is part of C&D Cycles CC folklore and was the topic of conversation for much of the ride! We all like a bit of shiny though. I now have American Classics Aero 420 wheels calling to me...Richard...Richard...we'd look great on your Propel!

I was a bit concerned as the route progressed as it felt similar to the way to Thorney and the closed chip shop. However Steve wasn't making navigation errors today so we didn't go there after-all. There were loads of people out and about today. We saw many other groups of lycra loonies, joggers and even found ourselves on a race route at one point.

There's a club rule second only to Rule #1. Rule #2 is: If you ride past Hammerton Zoo, you have to get a picture at the sign. Nat took this so any semblance of glamour is missing from our mottley crew. I was told to eat the banana suggestively, luckily for everyone that wasn't caught on camera!

There look I wasn't telling fibs. Very quick for me! The truth about my whizziness today does however lie in the company I was keeping. Sitting on a strong wheel really really helped.

At Titchmarsh Andy proudly showed us a sign he made whilst Steve wooed the shop keeper with his obvious charms. Unlike the Thrapston sign he also did, there appears to be a lot going on in Titchmarsh!

Rules of the ride forbid me from telling you what we were discussing at this point. Let's just say we were in absolute fits of giggles. It was also at this point that I put a snake in Steve's jersey pocket. Obviously it was plastic. It's been in my tool bag since a colleague put it there, I just thought it was time to pass it on. 

It wasn't far from Titchmarsh, back through Thrapston and onto Twywell via two hills I've never liked. Then something unheard of happened. Steve got cramp! I've never seen this before and I'd feel sorry for him but it did give the rest of us a chance. Usually I get dropped from Twywell back to Warkton but today I just stuck to Andy P's wheel. Even after riding hard I was able to explode up the hill to Stamford Road. I have no idea what's happened. It must be all those morning rides. I hope this continues!

To end the ride we returned to C&D Cycles where as ever Andy F was a good host. Coffee and cake was required and it was there in abundance. Those wheels I mentioned were sitting there taunting me and as usual we lusted after all manner of things. I promised Andy I'd pop in during the week to make purchases. Number one of my list of needs is new cleats. Once again I've wrecked the ones on my shoes. I think they're at least a year old though so that's a few thousand miles!

There they are hanging up on my purpose fitted shoe hooks. The other thing that needs to happen is I need to steam clean my sweaty helmet. It really is quite minging. If I squeeze the felt inside the helmet it drips!

OK I can't finish this without a mention to the epic first two stages of the Tour de France. Cav's win yesterday was just brilliant. He did Kittel over like a kipper and proves once again he should never be written off. Today's stage was just as good with the World Champion Peter Sagan showing that he's pure class. It's too early to really talk GC but Froome is well placed and Contador has suffered after crashing on both days.

That's it.

Happy Pedaling!

Let's have a great big catch up!

I haven't written a blog since the Women's tour finished so I thought it was high time that all things in my cycling world were recorded for posterity. First and foremost, I've been out and about on my bike and it's been great. Even better SuperSam is really enjoying his cycling too and has joined KCC Cyclones. More on that later!

Some people will be wondering where my ride names have come recently and others will just 'get it!' For those in the dark, I'm a massive Game of Thrones fan and the ride names are either quotes from the show or names of episodes. If it's not your bag then sorry for that. It is mine though and I love it. Worse still season 6 has just finished so the long wait starts all over again.

Other people will be wondering why everything I post is now in km not miles. I've always been a breaker of Velominati rule #24 so it has nothing to do with the following.

1. Rule #24//
   

   Speeds and distances shall be referred to and measured in kilometers.
   This includes while discussing cycling in the workplace with your non-cycling coworkers, serving to further mystify our sport in the web of their Neanderthalic cognitive capabilities. As the confused expression spreads across their unibrowed faces, casually mention your shaved legs. All of cycling’s monuments are measured in the metric system and as such the English system is forbidden.

   

The real reason is that I'm taking part in an at work challenge: "The Race to Rio." This is a national competition where you record your exercise and it gives you km to virtually travel around the globe hoping to end up in Rio by August. So I've set Strava to km for uploading purposes! Currently I'm in third place for my trust on around 1300km, another keen cyclist sits above me on around 1500km but I know he's away in July so I'm ready to pounce! At the top of our Trust leaderboard and at least 1000km in front is a young lady who we just won't catch. This challenge allows you to accumulate your km in any which way. Her's are from her fitbit data. She's a nursery nurse covering at least 10km a day working and then she does 12 high intensity fitness classes a week. I was hoping she was cheating or just really bad at data entry but no such luck! I console myself with the thought that working out in sweaty rooms is pants compared cycling around our beautiful countryside. To try and close the gap I've installed a pedometer app on my phone. The Queen of Cakes is highly amused at me pacing around the house trying to get to 10000 steps a day but she's also helping by having a little dance with me to make my step quest more fun! Marvelous lady my wife!!!

The weather has been a bit typical for an English summer. Whilst the Mail and the Express have lied to us once again about a 'Barbecue Summer,' there's been a lot of the wet stuff falling from the sky. Bizarrely though not in the mornings! My work can be flexible at times and with these light mornings I can get out really early so I'm able to do rides of up to 30 miles before work. This little jaunt around the Naesby battlefield is always a very nice ride.

Fairfax's View

Another longer ride before work and yet more spectacular Northamptonshire scenery. Lots of hills again and some good fast bits too. Being out and about really does put a smile on my face and this is without doubt the best time of day to ride.

Red Phone and post box in sleepy Scaldwell

Just the normal amount of time before work for this one and as the day after the night before it was lovely to see the sun come up just as it does every day. This is a variation on my standard 17 miler. I miss out on the glorious Desborough Road Drop but in consolation I get to ride up the Church Lane hill into Harrington.

The sun has got his hat on...

This is probably my most ridden route for a morning ride. It's good to have a regular route because you can see progress. Look at the sunshine again! Its a bit weird though because the roads are still a little damp. This has led to my bike getting progressively grubbier over the week. Grubbier is a highly accurate description because the Propel is a real slug catcher. Those aero brakes may perform well in a wind tunnel and look as sexy as a brake can look. However the cable closely crossing the tyres just means anything thrown up by the tyre gets trapped there. As I said mostly slugs!

Daily landscape vista

Living where I do means the options in any direction are endless. This morning ride was a variation on a theme including two of the roads I'd put in my top ten places to ride in Northamptonshire. Maidwell to Lamport via Draughton is spectacular slog across the Brampton Valley Way. It's descent, climb, descent, climb, descent, climb, descent climb! I often take a picture on this bit because the view is just lovely. Later in the route is Mill Lane out of Old. Far more gentle, just a lovely quiet road.

Clouds are awesome

I finished my workday morning rides with another spin around the regular route. Yet another stunning morning and lovely to be out. I was feeling good going up Rushton Hill and felt I was pretty quick...then a bloke on a mountain bike came past me like I was standing still. I suspect EPO and hidden motors...still wouldn't have helped me!

Sun and the wind turbines at Rushton

Nice chair for Nat to ring her taxi from

So let's talk SuperSam. He's decided not to go to Scouts anymore. In many respects this is a shame. However he's been disappointed ever since the Kettering Cycling Club Cyclones were changed from Tuesday to Monday almost exactly on the day he moved from Tuesday Cubs to Monday Scouts. I took him along to the Go-Ride event at Rockingham and he was made welcome straight away. Most of the kids have been going for over a year and have drop handlebar bikes. Sam who occasionally goes for a ride was just left in their dust. He wasn't put off though. The next week we had a skills session at Desborough leisure centre around some of the terrain used for the cyclocross they held here. Again Sam wasn't able to keep up with the other kids but he did give it a really good go. Not put off in the slightest Sam has devised his own training plan in a determined effort to improve. His plan involves hill repeats in our street. He started with 5 and is increasing by 1 every day. Those legs will be super strong in no time. I've been really impressed so far with the Cyclones. They are coached well, everyone is friendly and its great seeing so many kids get into our wonderful sport.

Riding everyday is just a recipe for burnout so I decided to have a rest day today. Any normal person would stay in bed a bit longer. Oh no not me. I got up and cleaned the bike! To do this I made use of the amazing bundle of Muc-Off products that came with the British Cycling special offer. It must have been at least 50% off. Normally I wouldn't make this kind of purchase as I do believe in supporting my LBS and also I'm usually a bit sceptical that all these specialist products are really necessary. However the Muc-Off smells great and does work well so maybe it is worth it.

So tomorrow is another day and more cycling is planned. I'd love to go on the C&D Cycles CC Saturday ride. I've been on so few this year it's ridiculous. However family comes first and I'll be taking Sam to sailing and doing laps of Pitsford reservoir. I'm hoping there will be some Sunday action to make up for this.

Talking of the club...there are some epic adventures taking place right now. Andy P is in Holland and Kev is doing the polar opposite in the Alps. Lots of other big rides going too. Guest blogs ahoy!

In wider news Guy Martin is at it again! This time he's completed a mammoth Mountain bike event called The Tour Divide. Check this out: http://singletrackworld.com/2016/07/tour-divide-guy-martin-finishes-greg-may-nearly-there/

Finally enough of this soccer and tennis nonsense. It's time for the Tour de France! Can Froome do it again? Will the mountainous route favour Contador? What about Quintana or Nibali? Will there be a surprise contender? For those of us who like the quick lads the sprints will always be where it's at. Can Cav add to his Tour tally or will Kittel and Greipel take the lot. And of course lets not forget Sagan!

Happy Pedaling

Women's Tour Stage 5 - A grand day out!

I don't think you can have a better day cycling than the one we just had. The plan was to do a reasonably long ride and take in as much of the final stage of the Women's tour. First and foremost I have to say what a privilege it is to have such a prestigious sporting event in Northamptonshire.  The it's always good to ride with friends and to top the lot I ended the day riding with SuperSam. Perfect.

Peleton

A group of us met at C&D Cycles at 8:30 to follow Justin's plan. We needed to be about thirty miles away in Milton Malsor by 11 to see the early stages of the race. The official start was in Northampton but the riders were prevented from racing just before this point. So we got to see the whole field in one bunch which was nice!

Very close to the peleton

Team Car

Our next aim was to make it in time to see the riders come through Rushton. We had to go through the centre of Northampton and then headed towards home. On an odd statement for me because Northampton will always be home but you know what I mean, we headed towards the Kettering end of the county. Because we were making excellent time the plan changed and we decided to watch the tour come through Rothwell. We were at least half an hour early so it was back to mine for a quick cuppa. At was at this stage we worked out that there would be time for SuperSam to get to the finish in Kettering after the riders had gone through Rothwell. He couldn't get his cycling gear on quick enough!

SuperSam

Sam gets a great vantage point

The breakaway

The peleton

The yellow jersey!

Making light work of the hill into Rothwell

The others quickly left Sam and I behind because he cant quite get up Bunker Hill yet. Once we were over the top he pedaled like an expert and we span along at a very respectable 15mph. As predicted Kettering was packed by the time we got there but I managed to get Sam a vantage point to see the finish. I saw a flashing glimpse but in reality had no idea who won the race or what that meant to the GC result. We saw Andy the C&D Cycles manager and a few other faces from the club but had no idea where the people we had ridden with were at that stage. It was all a bit rushed but if we'd been there earlier we would have missed the riders coming through Rothwell.

After that we tried to get near the podium for the presentations. Sam and some other kids managed to get up on a concrete plinth. He had a great view and took some good photos. I saw nothing but at least could hear. I didn't mind though, it was more important for me that the kids could see. Which is why I was particularly annoyed by some selfish adults around us who were trying tried get the kids to move. One lady in particular, who frankly looked quite a stranger to a bike, expressed her displeasure. Miserable old bat! I have to say though, that there must be a better place to have a presentation. It's odd really when you consider how well the rest of the Tour has been organised.

Waiting for the presentation

Lizzie Armistead wins the 2016 Women's Tour

Marianne Vos gets stuck in with the champers

All the winners

Kettering once again did the Women's Tour proud. After the presentation we made our way back through the trade stands. There was naturally a congregation around the C&D Cycles stand. It was there we learnt that the C&D brothers and sisters had once again been hob nobbing. This time they'd been in the Kino Lounge with Lizzie Armistead's Nan!

We moved onto the KCC stand because Sam wants to join the Cyclones, their junior cycling club. He did his best on the Watt bike but that despicable cheat James Cook put him in too hard a gear to post a winning time...actually Mr Cook was very good with Sam and I know he enjoyed the watt bike challenge.

Sam did well riding home and is looking forward to more cycling on Thursday. He's going to work on his ability on hills, maybe I should do that too!

OK then this evening's recovery will be at the Thai Garden in Rothwell. If you didn't know 'crispy duck,' is perfect recovery food and Singha is an isotonic beer!

Happy Peadaling

Group ride, solo ride, fun, sun and a fondo!

This has been an extraordinary week for me on the bike in terms of distance, off the cuff routes, cold, sun and friendships. So it was no real surprise to me that today I decided to keep going beyond my initial intentions.

I arrived a few minutes late for the C&D Cycles Sunday group ride. This ride has always been a bit more of a challenge that a Saturday ride with longer distances and usually only the stronger riders (with the exception of me!) A small group of five consisted of Steve M, Neil Hi, Kev M, Mark B and myself. Mark expressed his relief that I'd arrived because the others were looking like mean, lean, beastly bicycling machines. (That's my tribute to the late great Muhammad Ali)

Everyone was still confused about the weather. When we set out it was still foggy and the sun didn't really break through for a couple of hours. All manner of arm warmers, baselayers, gillets, 3/4 tights etc were on show. Kev and I had the right idea though; bib shorts and summer jerseys. Neil wins jersey of the day with his athletic fit castelli, an online purchase that he confessed to Chris when we got back to C&D Cycles.

It wasn't long before I was huffing and puffing at the back but the others patiently waited for me at appropriate times. I was actually having a good ride for me, as evidenced by the PR's I picked up on Strava, it's just the others are faster. I'm also playing catch up for not riding enough this winter and for riding a lot this half term (230 miles Monday to Sunday this week, more than any months this year to date!) A bit like Ali, I've realised I need to suffer now to succeed later.

As per usual there was a lot of banter on the ride. For your own protection I can't tell you what the Prince of Profanity and the South African cultural attache to Kettering are discussing. It was just very funny and very naughty. Oh and of course we mentioned Nat's taxi ride at least once every five minutes...

Predictably we didn't follow Steve's planned route. Not a navigational error this time, there was a road closed near Wellingborough. This allowed us to sample the exotic delights of Raunds. Let's face its not a proper C&D ride without a trip to Raunds. We also saw other club members out and about in Andrew C and Neil Ho. One complimented us on our pace and the other as typically cheeky about it. Neil Ho is responsible for the funniest ever comment on an unclipping fail fall. So I will excuse his cheek for now.

Looking at my Strava feed today it's stuffed full of friends doing sportives. The closed road Tour of Cambridge is possibly the most popular. We also got caught up in some Sportive action at times. It's funny when you're on your own ride and on a Sportive route because it confuses marshals and the feed station people! Neil and I discussed the relative merits of Sportives. They are good due to organised routes, so you don't have to do your own navigating. Feed stations and start finish areas are also organised to make life easier. However at £30-40 they'e not cheap. Some of the club are into Audax riding which is apparently like a Sportive except they're way cheaper and you need to do your own navigating. Most Audax people will tell you that they're nicer people than Sportive riders. They also do longer rides. Which brings me to the last option. Organise your own ride! This week I've done two Sportive length rides, it does require you to be more self sufficient but also shows you don't have to part with hard earned cash to enjoy a good long ride. So is there any point doing a Sportive? Well yes, I think so. For starters they can be the focal point of your riding year. Having a goal gets most people in the saddle. They're also an opportunity to ride unknown roads without the worry of getting lost and needing to call a taxi. Finally some of the Sportives are so iconic they're part of a bucket list: Ride London, Etape Caledonia, Dragon Ride etc.

My target for the day was 100km because I'm trying to move up the league table in our work based 'Road to Rio,' challenge. After a quick coffee at C&D Cycles with the good hospitality of owner, Chris, I headed towards home with Mark. I was undecided if I wanted to top up to 60 miles (my brain switches between units of measurement,) because those quick lads had worn me right out. Mark also helpfully pointed out that this Month the Fondo challenge on Strava was 115km (70 miles.) I looked down at my cycle computer and saw 50 miles. Oh flip it I thought...why not. A quick text to the Queen of Cakes and she gave her blessing to me staying out a bit longer and I was wracking my brain to squeeze out another 20 miles. It took some jiggery pokery but I managed to get home almost exactly on 115km. Thankfully Strava behaved itself and agreed to distance and boom June Grand Fondo complete!

Okay. Not only have I been allowed another great day in the saddle but Mrs Lindsley is currently preparing that most English of delicacies, Toad in the Hole. It's nearly there so I should finish up quickly. I really am a very lucky man!

Happy Pedaling