Category: Road Cycling

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London Hire Bikes

I am expecting a few more London trips in the coming months as my employer, Pozzoni, expands it’s London Office. So, Ive been organised and got my self a TFL Barclays hire bike account and electronic key.

Once you are registered, a key comes through the post which you then activate. You then just use the bikes when you want to, £1 per 24 hour period I think, and it gets debited from your bank account. I’ll use it next Wednesday for the first time, now I just need to fashion a quick release mapboard for them!

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Crapato Bicyclo !

I needed to keep the training up on my weeks family holiday in Brittany unlike last year when I was on my post season break. I tried to add a bike to our Flybe flights from Southampton but after 15 mins waiting on a 25ppm phone line and getting no answer I decided to try and hire one (with Flybe you can’t add a bike at the time of booking it seems). Given that France is a nation of cyclists and this region famous for its cycle touring, this proved more difficult than I thought. Many emails before I arrived eventually got me a general holiday equipment ‘location’ in Morgat to try but no email address.

I was disappointed to find on the day of our arrival Camaret Sur Mer that the tourist info office had not told me about a 50km MTB or ‘VTT’ race starting at the local SuperU that day. I jealously watched the riders come in past our gite on the way into the finish feeling frustrated I had not known that the French use the term VTT when I had been googling MTB!

The next day I took the car to Morgat and a very helpful hire shop owner kitted me out with the best town bike he had, though explaining it was the end of the season and it needed a bit of a service. He changed the seat for something slightly more sporty (a decision I was later to regret) and gave it the once over as I watched from a cafe on the other side of the square.

 

Over the next 5 days the bike and I enjoyed many kilometres of cliff top rides together as I discovered that this budget town model was in fact loaded with many high end features. The bottom bracket has a very advanced built in power meter, which gives a series of warning creaks on each down stroke as you reach maximum power. It also has a speed sensor built in that gives you feed back via a wobble if you reach speeds in excess of 40 km per hour. Good for me too was the way that it turns left much better than right, perfectly balanced for negotiating French roundabouts and the way the seat was designed in such a way that it became slowly more uncomfortable after 40 mins of riding enabling me not to need a watch to know when it was time to head for home.

Crapato Bicyclo – the name of the hire shop, priceless!

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WATT Bike League 2009

It’s that time of year when the dark nights force us all to look for indoors activity rather than braving the wet mucky roads. I missed the first two WATT Bike league events this year recovering from niggly injuries but Friday night saw me at Lichfield Leisure Centre to compete. For more info on the league see this post from last year.
As it was my first appearance this year I was placed in division 2, and showed this was probably a good decision by coming last in the first race – a 500m sprint, my foot coming out of the pedal. There then followed a course de primes where consecutive 300 sprints are raced for points plus a final 400m sprint to the line. A team sprint was next where my team crashed and burned but next was my ‘favourite’ event the distance scratch race.
Being in div 2 this was run over 3000m. I decided to keep at 115 rpm and stay in touch with the leader. With 800m to go I was just in the lead so let rip up to 125rpm and pulled ahead. In hindsight although I won by 5 secs or so I think it was probably a bit early to sprint for the line and I did feel a bit wobbly walking back to my seat, my heart rate showing the highest since a Watt Bike race last year. My time of 4:01.6 isnt bad though and I can definitely go quicker if I use a higher gear. We finished off with a 500m handicapped sprint and although I hung on to 2nd I need to re-evaluate trying to spin 150rpm for 30 odd seconds and try a high gear.
Full details of the league are here.

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Slow, Explosives !!!

We were lucky enough to spend the weekend being pampered at Loch Lomond Golf Club (very exclusive) at the Wedding of two friends, Simon and Steph. I took in the opportunity to get some road riding in on the hills surrounding this most gorgeous location.
After a pootle along the shore line under the flanks on Ben Lomond (where Cath was walking with another friend, Mark) with Holly on her Isla Bike I had a good ride round to the golf club following the rolling roads surrounding the lake shores. I had a few issues getting though the tight security at the club. The main gate seemed to know I was coming in on a bike but I got stopped close to the club house with a shout of ‘do you know you are on private property !’. Im sure they don’t have too many people arriving by bike, its mainly Jags BMWs and Mercedes they are used too. I think one chap was about to offer to valet park my bike once i’d convinced them I was staying for the weekend !
I had two other fantastic rides that weekend. On Saturday before the service Mark H and myself braved the security again and left the club heading over the mountains to the Clyde, intending to do a circular route of a couple of hours. The roads were quiet and the views spectacular as we climbed. Descending into Garelochhead at high speed the first surprise of the day was to see a soldier sprint out in front of us, rifle in hand with another covering him from the bushes at the side of the road. Perhaps they need to brush up on their observation skills !
Proceeding up the next valley past all the submarine bases and interesting looking mounds behind high razor wire topped fences we were both stopped in our tracks laughing. A traingular warning sign on the side of the road read
Slow, Explosives – not sure if they meant the mushroom cloud variety.
The climb back over to Loch Lomond was very steep, with Mark off and pushing due to only having a double chainring and me spinning on the muddy surface. The roll back down the valley to the golf club was beautiful, with no hint that so close by was the touristy southern Loch shore.
Sunday brought another ride, after a few shots off the driving range, this time on my own to meet the family near to Glasgow on our return trip home, again more great scenery and big hills, and a great way to drive away the previous evenings excess’s.
A fantastic weekend of great food, fine wine and hard riding.

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A Crash Course on Sportident for COBOC…..

UK orienteering clubs use 2 types of electronic punching and timing systems, Sportident and Emit, with Sportident holding the major share. I have been involved with Sportident systems and kit since 2000 when it was first introduced into the UK. Originally my involvement was just with Chasers, but I have also worked for Sportident UK as an event consultant for several years.

Since 2006 several of the smaller West Midlands Orienteering clubs have taken the plunge and invested in their own kit, rather than hiring as they did before. I have therefore been helping Wrekin Orienteers, Potteries Orienteering Club and now City of Birmingham Orienteering Club to get their skills up to scratch to enable them to run events on their own.

So Saturday morning saw me knocking on the Stamp family door at 8.30am (waking them up) trying to retrieve my mobile phone which had the details of where I was supposed to be that morning, having left it at the club dinner the night before (sorry Iain!). I had decided to combine the trip down to Sutton Coldfield with a training ride, so off I went. It was a fairly pleasant ride…until I had a coming together with a car which came straight over a crossroads into my path with no time to take avoiding action.

My GPS plot afterwards showed I was doing 25kph at the time, and the car was accelerating across the main road along which I was travelling. I managed to turn slightly and crashed into her wing mirror and passenger door managing to lean onto her mirror as she slowed and took me round the corner into the side road, before I fell off onto the pavement. I was a little shaken but there was no damage to myself or the bike. A couple of other motorists stopped and ran to help, which was extremely kind, as were their offers to drive me home. The lady was very apologetic, almost in tears, saying she just had not seen me. I didn’t get stroppy or anything, there is just no point, she will be more careful next time so we all went our separate ways. I have posted a little diagram for those that need the full facts 😉

So a little late I arrived at Sutton Parks Outdoor Ed Centre and spent the day bringing a good turnout of COBOC members up to speed with the Sportident hardware and then Autodownload, the event software. After a lengthy explanation of the various components and some classroom practice they put out a small course and ran round deliberately making mistakes so we could practice using all aspects of the software, whilst I stayed in the warm drinking tea and trying to resist the enormous box of biscuits. Back from their run around we downloaded all the Si Cards and practiced the safety checks, query resolution and getting results out ready for the Internet. Job done it was time to get back into smelly cycle gear and ride home without sitting on the floor again.

Mark Stodgell ( stodge )
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A Week of Contrasts

My week started with great news, my first sponsor, Eat Natural have given me lots and lots of bars ( I do tend to go through them), so thanks to the Eat Natural Marketing people. Please follow the link on the right to their website for more info on their tasty bars.

Anyway back to racing and training, Wednesday evening ride was great with fireworks going off everywhere, some bangs a little too close for comfort and a little scary to be honest though.

Fridays ride brought sunshine and a fantastic display of Autumn colours so I put the camera in my bag and stopped a few times to get some piccys. At the top of my first climb there were at least 20 deer wandering about, but it was too dark in the forest to get any decent pics. I then followed a circular route of the chase going down as far as Gentleshaw. The thought the best leafy displays were in Birches Valley and on the road from Longdon up to the Wandon cross roads, with the Beech orange’s almost glowing in the sunshine.

I had been looking forward to doing another Cyclo Cross race, and Sunday gave me the opportunity in Bromsgrove. Cath and Holly were off at the Yvette Baker Trophy Qualifier near Tamworth so I had a relaxing morning templating the new kitchen worktops and a quick blast down the motorway in time to see the Vets / Women’s race at 12.30 in which fellow Walton Chasers Neil Lawford and Beth Clayton were competing. It was getting very muddy and the rain came just before the end. At 2pm when we started it hadn’t got any better and there was a cold wind blowing from the SW. I had decided to keep my bike clean and didnt ride a recce lap, just walked parts of it. Even on the first lap it was very muddy, with parts of the course becoming unrideable. I had a good start and then started picking my way up through the field. The bike was becoming harder and harder to ride with the mud balling up round the gears and brakes. Then came a very painful hailstorm (well it is for me being bald as a coot!) whilst I was out on the most exposed part of the course. It only lasted a few minutes and then turned back into heavy rain. The great thing was that it seemed to clear the muck off the bike and from then on, although the going was harder and it became very slippery, the mud didnt ball up on the bike and the gears worked well again. I was very pleased with the 24th place but my legs started to tire on the last lap and my heart rate trace for this time was noticeably lower which reflects this. Getting changed in the car afterwards was a challenge with filthy clothes and I didn’t notice the state of my my face until after I had called into a petrol station for a choccy stop, no wonder the chap behind the till was giggling ! – Thanks to Neil for the X-photos
Mark Stodgell

      Mud  

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More Snow and a visit to the World Cup Races

The day started with a much more successful ride up over the same col as Wednesday, still lots of snow around but amazing views and sunshine. I returned via the Moel Authur pass (granny ring and out of the saddle most of the way) and then ended up being a bit late back as I got stuck behind a huge herd of misbehaving cows which were being driven up the road to Cilcain. Lots of poo all over the road means the bike will have a good clean tomorrow.
After lunch Holly and I drove to the Velodrome in Manchester for the UCI World Cup. (Cath and her parents followed later) Its the first time ive been and I was amazed to see quite how steep the banked section was. We had a great time watching the keirin, the sprints, points and scratch races, and Holly got to see a podium ceremony with Vicky Penddleton on gold. There was also a demo of the new British Cycling endorsed WattBike. I had a go and it is very very good, and a bargain at £1650. I was quite pleased with my 1107 Watts max power output, but I’m a little short of Chris Hoys 2200 Watts, mind you bet I could beat him at an MTBO 😉

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Commitment or Madness

Wednesday night and we are over at Caths Parents in Mold as it is half term week and the comute to work from here is about the same as from home. After a rest day yesterday I thought it important not to wimp out of training tonight just because it was a bit cold and wet.
I put Holly to bed and then went out planning to stay on the main roads and intending to do the climb to the pass that goes over to Ruthin next to Moel Famau. It was very cold – 3 degrees and raining and very dark. I was OK going up, keeping warm but was having second thoughts when it started snowing. I was near the top so carried on, crested the col and looked down over the Ruthin lights shining out below through the driving snow. It looked quite enchanting. Turning for home I then realised that the reason it wasn’t too bad coming up was because the wind was behind me all the way.
I ended up with the brakes on pedaling down hill trying to keep warm and not being able to see much at all in the driving snow and rain, particularly when oncoming drivers do not dip their lights. Grrrrrrrrrr……..
I got back and undressed straight into the washing machine, poured water out of my Gortex winter boots and dived straight in the shower to warm up.

why why why did I not bring my Turbo Trainer with me !!!!!!!