The Plan Today

Fitness and Confidence

Whilst I am not going into this for competitive behaviour, I am doing it for fitness. 

Just got back from an epically disappointing ride and things just aren’t good, got a puncture and unfortunately had to ride back home. I had planned to be out for 2hrs and tomorrow is a 40 mile ride, hope the tyre holds till I can fix it, it is tubular, not easy to sort actually, got to take it off, strip it down and use it as a spare after buying a new one, know it was going to happen at some point but Tufo S3 are awesome for not getting these problems.

Really unlucky I am now sitting at home, having completed only 2 miles today, not happy wanted to be sitting at home today anyway (tired needed to sleep) 6hrs only having done 25 yesterday, dragged my back side out having not slept when I needed to, I have eaten well though.

Still up for a 40 mile ride tomorrow, I am fuming, do not know how I am going to do, never mind hey, things happen, it's unlikely to slow me down too much with progress, just a little ticked off that I am not out enjoying the rain at 19:30 till 21:30.

The Second Ride

 Amazing

I have done a second ride today. This is amazing I haven't ridden in years properly, I feel much better and I could not be happier.

17.5 miles at a slow speed but things are going to get better within the next 2-3 weeks love it, cannot wait. Do not know whether I am training tomorrow or not, this I will have to play by ear.

I reckon I will be doing some awesome things in a couple of weeks, this is going to be good, good for me and everything I am working for.

Return Back To Cycling

Boredom and Unfortunate Journeys

I have had some downfalls lately, that in this blog I do not want to talk about, it is in some other blogs, but in my recovery period, I am using the bike as a from of fitness.

I have done a fitness ride today to gauge where I am at with it, it was only about 30 minutes and things are getting to be much better actually than I originally thought they would be. Need to do a second ride to improve for the day, also need to remember my heart rate monitor and try and make the ride last for 1 hr.

This time is 15:46, so I do not have much time to rest before it gets dark. I may write something after the ride, things used to be this way.

Looks like my last post jinxed the weather :(

Really down about the weather here in the UK at the minute, it has been raining really badly and the wind is so intense I cannot ride without the risk of getting blown off the bike and risking injury thus loosing training time :(

What is even worse is I do not have my turbo trainer here at the place I am staying so training has come to a complete halt. Work is also killing my training time because I don't have the time to eat properly and thus suffer from lack of energy almost every time I get on the bike.

I am getting up at 6:00am tomorrow and eating lots of food, then I am going to train at 8:30 - 9:00 ish through till 10:30 to try get some time on the bike but at 11 I have to be at work but there is another space I can get training in at 3pm - 4:30 is where I have a break from work... If work hasn't killed me then I may try and get another 1.5hr on the bike when I have finished but I expect to have died by then...


I will post tomorrow and let you know how the plan goes but there is no telling what will happen :(

Wow it has been a while

Ok so whats going on?

Well I have moved. Basically I have gone from cycling on my own every day to riding with my old club again :D

Before I started writing this blog I was racing for a club in the West Midlands - Stratford CC. Stratford CC is an awesome club with many friendly members. Unfortunately towards the end of 2011 summer  lost my job and by the time Christmas had arrived I had totally run out of money and had to move back home with my parents...

Recently after many painful applications and rejections a friend came through for me and got me a trial day as a chef... Unfortunately I did not perform to the head chefs standards (I was a bit slow, and they were lightning fast), so back to the drawing board it was. After only a couple more applications the same friend rings me and says "Mike we have someone who's leaving on the bar, do you want the position?" I presented this to my parents, I can't say too much because I promised I wouldn't but to cut a story short I am now in Stratford.

There is such a difference when you train with people...

1. Motivation goes through the roof!
2. Boredom factor drops through the floor!
3. The number of missed training days is not worth counting (seriously low)

It is finally sunny in England too! But shhhhhh! You might scare it away...

So life is great, the Giants repairs have not been attempted yet because I have been too busy riding and working  but they will get done soon ... eh-hum hopefully :D


That's all for now but I will send photos soon of the new roads and scenery I now train along, soon :D

General thought about how my cycling is going so far

Rubbish, < this word pretty much sums up the season I have been having so far. Excellent will be the word that sums up last quarter of the season, I hope to win at least one race this season, I have picked a road race called GT Ellingworth. The race consists of a 48mile course with rolling hills and a couple of tight sections. The race information can be viewed here in more detail.

I have picked this race because I will have entered a fair few races by this point and become more experienced and hopefully my training will have had chance to shine by this point as well. As for the races I will be entering in between now and then well I will just be entering random races as my living situation is not totally stable at this point in time. I am moving around a fair bit (this also affects training) and if I haven't made a solid living base within the next couple of weeks things are only likely to become more unstable.

I have the problem of sorting the Giant as well which looks like the only reasonable solution is to replace the frame. There's one extremely good reason for this which is, the insurance for the bike only gives fair payouts on broken bikes that are new-ish. Putting a new frame on the Giant means money lost in a crash will be significantly reduced. For now though I am going to repair the frame my self as it is relatively easy to do and I have a thing about other people doing mechanical repairs for me. I guess I just like to know the job is done right, if I do it I only have my self to blame.

I am going to do some re-con on the race this week and see what I am getting my self into. I have been on most if not all the roads before but it would be good to see where the danger spots are and where the breaks will happen so a couple of laps on the actual course would be an advantage.

This is all I have for now... One of my future posts will be possible Giant frame replacements...

My First Race Day this Year

My first race this year was a criterium race held at Barkstone Heath R.A.F air strip by Spalding CC. My dad even came along to show support and take photos for this post - Thanks Dad :D

So the race consisted of 2/3/4th Cat riders which meant this race would be pretty similar to a lot of the races I did last year and boy did it turn out that way. For the first couple of laps I felt really good, I was following wheels well and riding more comfortably than expected, considering the amount of training I had done leading upto this event. This was only a minor race for me so I didn't allow my self much recovery before the race.

There was two hairpin bends on the course and by the 3rd lap I could feel the lactic acid burning every time I accelerated out of those corners which took me by surprise because I was accelerating a whole lot quicker than everyone else and I wasn't even trying. My main thought at this point was to hang on and go for a sprint at the end, unfortunately on the 4th lap people started falling off the back of the pack. I had my work cut out for me because I had been sat at the back most of the time trying to dodge any trouble that may happen in the 1st lap.

Gaps kept opening as people were blowing up and getting shelled out the back, I knew I had made a dumb move sitting at the back. I had to keep bridging gaps and sprinting to catch up with the pack, finally I managed to get back on, it was no use though I had spent all my energy closing gaps and chasing the pack down. So on the 5th lap it was my turn to get shelled :(

I was gutted but I kept riding round as I knew at some point towards the end we would get lapped and I might be able to gain some more pack riding experience for my big race next weekend. There were four riders behind me now who had all been beaten up by the brutal speed of the main group so I decided to sit up and join them in the hope we might recover and possibly even get back on to the main group again. Some other guy dressed in red (I didn't see any writing on his kit) and me gave a few big efforts to catch back on but we got spent pretty quickly and the 3 other guys didn't look like they had left much in them. So we all worked a little to  keep us moving until we got lapped 3 laps before the end (about 8-9 minutes from the end of the race).

We were now back with the pack again and trying desperately to hang on, we all made the mistake of staying at the back once again and the 2 slower guys got spat out really quickly I am not sure what happened to the 3rd guy but he wasn't with us when we joined the pack.

On this course there was 2 hairpin bends at opposite ends of the course and a 90 degree bend that set you up to shoot up a hill and into a really wide 20ft  corner marked off by a cone and then into a long straight for the finish.

After only one lap with the pack I found my self getting pinned in on the really wide 20ft bend marked off by a cone at the back of the pack. I took the inside line on a corner and some idiot who was sitting almost shoulder to shoulder with me accelerated and came across my front wheel. There was almost no time for me to react and I was down before I knew what the hell had just happened. I rolled to a stop, realised that I had just crashed and the disappointment set in instantly. I wasn't hurt, but I looked at my lovely TCR and my brand new Ultegra levers and saw it had taken a battering, my carbon wheels looked ok however. After lying on the grass for a few minutes my dad had wandered over from his photo spot and asked me if I was ok.

When I got up to wander back to the car I noticed a nice new crack in my top tube from where the handle bars had spun round and smashed the pretty carbon frame :(

I am really disappointed with the outcome of the race but I have to say that I had a lot of fun bombing round that track and I wouldn't hesitate to go back and try again with more rest.

As for the the TCR, well I shall have my attempt at repairing her and see how it goes... I WILL NOT GIVE IN! :D