Out of Time

There is now just eight days to go before the Ride. Time to assess if I am ready for it.

The stats from my Strava profile:

YEAR-TO-DATE
Distance	3,238.4km
Time	135hr 7m
Elev Gain	44,484m
Rides	65

In retrospect I could probably have gone a bit harder at the training. I started focusing on hills about a month later than I should have. Ideally I would like another two months.

On the positive side I can feel the acute difference in my fitness level. There were many days when I would not have gone out for a ride but for the fact that I felt the pressure to do so. Looking back at the earlier days when I dreaded riding up hills such as Selsley, I now feel very comfortable handling those climbs.

I should be able to complete the Etape, the bigger question is how much pain I will have to endure to do so.

I leave for France on Sunday. My friend Gary and I plan to ride around in the Pyrenees for five days before the rest of the crew join us. That should give me the opportunity to try out the Aubisque and Tourmalet before Saturday.

That might not be a good idea if I find them to be extremely tough.

Changing Gears

I had never really given much thought to the ratios of my gear  set up until the prospect of riding for an hour an a half continuously uphill started to loom ever closer.

I consulted with a few fellow riders to find out what gear ranges they used and it became apparent that I was putting in way more effort than I ought to be. Of course, that was to my advantage while I was in the training phase. No one that I spoke to was going to be attempting to ride the Etape with a front gear set up of 52/39 which is the standard. Everyone had moved to a compact front crank.

I scrambled to my laptop to scan ebay for a suitable replacement crank. After a week or so I finally landed a Shimano FC-R700 Compact Chainset with a 50/34 gearing.

I popped over to Noah's Ark  cycle workshop and had them fit the new crank before heading straight out to the hills to try it out.

It was a pleasant surprise to find that going up Frocester Hill was no longer an absolute grind. I could actually get a higher cadence going. It did not result in a massive gain in time but I was faster up the hill and expended slightly less effort.

The fact that I have a 25/11 range on the rear means that I don't have an "escape" gear that allows me to  completely relax but I have enough now to confidently get up the Tourmalet, albeit at a slow pace.

Once back from the Etape though I will switch back to the regular chainset to get the most out of my training. That is based on the assumption that I will still want to ride my bike afterwards.

Pembrokeshire hills

A family holiday out in Pembrokeshire provided the opportunity to try out the Preseli hills. None of the climbs are particularly steep but they are longer than the hills around the Stroud escarpment.

Trying to fit in a three hour ride and satisfy the demands of a "family" holiday can be a tricky balancing act. Luckily the appalling weather provided a convenient cover for my extra curricular activity. No one was in a rush to leave the holiday cottage while the wind outside was howling and the rain was coming down in sheets.

I set out at 6.15 am with my full winter gear on. Visibility from the outset was down to 30 metres and I was cursing myself for not bringing my lights. The route started out just north of Haverfordwest and headed northwest up to the start of the Preseli hills. From there is skirted the National Park up to the start of a long downward descent into Fishguard - a picturesque fishing village.

There is a sharp climb out of Fishguard and then a long undulating section on the busy A road to Newport. After Newport there are many different routes to choose to head up the Preseli hills for the real climbing. I chose the main B-4329 route that goes over the pass. The climb starts at Crosswell and, though not overly steep, proved to be a tough climb due to the heavy head wind and stinging horizontal rain. For the last 1 kilometer of the climb I was down to a derisory 5 or 6 kph bent over the handlebars trying to keep the bike upright. The conditions were very similar to Snowdon in a gale. This was perhaps the only time in my cycling career that I wished I was riding a steel frame bike with sandbags hanging off the handlebars. Several times I pondered flagging down passing cars to get a lift as it seemed like an extremely foolhardy thing to attempt to keep going. Visibility was now down to a few feet and I was extremely concerned about the ability of cars being able to see me before I was plastered over their front windscreen.

I finally made it to the summit and the descent proved to be just as tricky. The more speed I gained the less stable the bike became due to wind shear. I had to apply the brakes for most of the ride down and was most relieved to finally reach the relative protection of the hedge-lined roads at the bottom.

The rest of the ride was stress free apart from the occasional seat of the pants scare when large trucks passed me and gave me cause to grip the handlebars with maximum torque.

Foolishly I repeated a similar ride two days later in even more atrocious conditions. I would love to go back and ride those hills on a clear sunny day. I am sure it would be an amazing ride.

The Ladder

My new favourite hill is The Ladder.

It rises out of Nailsworth up to Minchinhampton Common. The road has been newly resurfaced and is super smooth. There are several switchbacks that give you the feeling of being out on the Alps and then it summits into an awesome view of the common. The total distance is not more than 1.5 kilometres and a rise of only 140m or so which means the pain is fairly well contained.

The great bonus though is that once you have climbed it you can turn around and come back down. The descent (http://app.strava.com/segments/720237) is probably the best on the Escarpment. The smooth tarmac allows speeds up to 80kph, although you have to brake hard for the sharp bends.

A word about Strava

I love Strava.

As a tech geek and a cyclist I have an appreciation for the sheer genius of it. There are plenty of imitators out here but Strava seem to have the lead on them all.

Usually the first thing I do after a ride is hook up my garmin to the mac, upload my ride and eagerly await for the results to process. Have I set a new PR on the Frocester Hill segment? What was my average speed on the Tetbury Road Sprint segment?

As a motivational tool it can't be beat. You get to measure your performance, not only against yourself, but also against thousands of others. Well, in some of the Californian rides it is thousands. Over here it is not so well known or used and even the most popular segments only involve a few dozen riders. I expect that will change as more riders sign up. But for now there is still a chance that you can be the King of the Mountain on a segment for a short while. That is until some cocky young pretender happens to breeze by your time when they discover a new unconquered segment to add to their tally.

The downside to all this competitiveness is that every ride becomes a time trial. Riders know where a segment starts and their heads go down and legs start thrashing automatically as they get into a Strava zone. There is no more leisurely rides through the dales. Every hill has been marked out so you definitely can't dawdle up those.

Then there are the times when you may not even know you are on a segment and stop to take some refreshments as precious seconds tick by. Only when you get home and plough through your results do you realise that you were fifteen minutes slower than everyone else on a segment but you have no way of telling everyone: "Hey!, I didn't know it was a Strava segment. I was taking a break".

Strava has joined all those other apps that we can't get away from that break down every minute detail of our lives for analysis. You can either choose to ignore it or immortalise yourself with a KOM on a hill that no one else will ever bother going near.

Disclaimer: At the time of writing I hold the KOM for Tanners Hill in Sherston (http://app.strava.com/segments/882653) a mighty 300 metre long climb that gains all of 17m of elevation. I'd like to see Bradley Wiggins beat that time!

The Castle 100

This was a chance to ride a longer distance with some of the guys that I would be on the Etape with.
There were five of us riding together. As we were late in assembling we all decided to do the shorter 70 mile route. I was hoping to test my body and bike out with a longer ride but it was more important to hang out with the rest of the guys I would begin the Pyrenees with.
My friend, Gary, is experienced in tuning bikes and made some adjustments to mine that were really helpful. The angle of my bars were raised and more importantly I ditched my Shimano cleats for Look Keo cleats and they were far superior.

It was the first time I had ridden for a long period of time in a peloton and it was a great experience. We were able to keep up a frenetic pace with minimal effort ( as long as you were not at the front!).

The route was mostly along winding country lanes through the heart of Hop country, very scenic. There were no major hills to tackle, they seemed to be reserved for the longer ride.

At about 80K I started to flag a little and found it increasingly difficult to stay up with the group, especially as the terrain was more hilly. Luckily for me Gary's gear cable snapped and he was stuck riding the last 30K in low gear. This meant that I had lots of time to recover waiting for him at the top of hills as he started to struggle to get up in what was now a fixed-gear bike.

We picked up the pace again for the last 5 miles and raced into the Castle grounds at Tonbridge to the finish line.
I was surprised when the results came in to find that we were the 14th and 15th fastest finishers in the 100K. I guess riding in a peleton makes a huge difference.

The training is starting to feel like it is having an effect as I felt comfortable for most of the ride and could have managed a further 30 miles quite easily.

Now for six weeks of hills......

Frocester Hill

With less than eight weeks to go before the ride I decided to switch gears and focus on hill climbing.
This entails driving out 12 miles to the Severn escarpment to Coaley Peak view. From the car park I have bounteous options of inflicting pain on my body with Selsley Hill, Frocester Hill and Uley all within a 3 mile radius.

I picked out a route that starts along Selsley Common and plunges down Selsley Hill over the cattle grates and turns sharply back up hill two thirds down Selsely Hill. So sharply in fact that I could not change gears in time and had the option of hitting the car waiting to turn or rolling over on my side with the cleats still engaged. I went for the latter more humiliating option.

The route winds down into King's Stanley and through Frocester before the winding route up the hill looms into view. Scary to think that this hill is only one tenth of the size of the Tormalet. It is a steeper gradient than the Tormalet though which is one tiny saving grace.

It was not as bad as I anticipated which means that perhaps this training is starting to pay off. At the top I paused for a drink before ploughing on to Uley.

There is a steep descent into Uley and then it is back to grinding away in the highest gear again up Lampern Hill. Parts of this hill reminded me of Tunitas Creek in the Bay Area - bloody steep! Gasping at the top there was no time to take in the scenery as I was in race position heading down to Nailsworth.

The route out of Nailsworth up to the wind turbine via Forest Green is short but steep: a recurring theme on this loop. Once the summit is reached there are about four miles of gentle uphill left before returning back to Coaley Peak.

The loop is about 30K and 800m of climbing. A great ride for the work week when time is limited. I managed some decent middle of the pack times according to strava so things don't look so bleak for July. This Sunday will provide a good marker when I tackle the Castle 100.