The Mid-life Crisis and the Stiff Neck

Looking through various websites at bikes weighing about 7 kilos has taught me two things:
1) ultra-light bikes are cheaper than I thought - £1500 ($2100, €2000) gets one a decent bike if one shops around and picks one up on a discount.
2) beware of the mid-life crisis.

Taking a step back, I was out last Sunday, training for a sportive that is in 13 weeks time. It was my first "century" of the year (OK, so it was a "metric century", but in pro-cycling, everything gets measured in km, rather than miles, due to a mix of tradition and it just sounding more impressive).
Anyway, about 3/4 of the way through the ride I came upon a conveniently placed bench just outside Oving. So I sat down and admired the view over the valley.

And that is my sort of cycling.
Pootling about on country roads, and enjoying the view.
Not tearing around with my chin on the handlebars with a permanently stiff neck.
I like a luggage rack on the back of a bike, because I can hang a pannier on it, with a flask of tea and a box of sandwiches being transported to the various benches of Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire where I can enjoy the view. (There is a nice bench up near the reservoir between Cuddington and Quainton, too).

Yes, I like one or two sportives a year, but apart from that, a lightweight bike would just sit in the garage gathering dust, while my existing bike does all the commuting and shopping (yep, sometimes I get the groceries on my bike - the rest of the time my wife gets them on her bike).

Winter training?
Surely a robust, heavy, bike would be ideal.
Nothing like a cheap bike to take the salt from the roads, and the weight helps to toughen you up, too.

But I still do the odd sportive.
And a bit of audax/randonneuring.

So ... I'll not be getting a new, fancy, bike BUT I will be making some changes to Mermaid.
1) one of those adjustable, pivoting, stems, so the height of the bars can be easily altered. I have one that does a +50 to -10 degree angle. Bars high for commuting, shopping, and touring. Bars mid-level for audax/randonneuring. Bars low for sportives.
2) lightweight tyres. Keep the Marathon Plus for commuting, shopping, training and touring, with a set of MUCH lighter tyres (like Schwalbe Ones) for audax/randonneuring and sportive. The weight saving will be substantial - about 1300g just for a switch from my 37-622 M+ to a pair of 28-622 Ones! Substantially lower rolling resistance as well.
3) lightweight wheels. Keep the M+ tyres on my existing Mach 240 rims, and mount the lightweight tyres on the lightweight wheels. Heavy wheels for commuting, shopping, training and pootling about in the countryside, lightweight wheels for audax/randonneuring and sportives.
Again, it is not hard to find a modestly priced wheelset that saves about 500g on my existing behemoths.
4) water bottle cages are going to start sprouting all over Mermaid. The bike currently doesn't even have a bottle cage, although there are fitting for one. The others will be attached with some of those universal adapter kits one sees advertised.
5) For sportives, Mermaid will be losing the mudguards (fenders). Not sure how heavy they are, but they are steel (oh!), and certainly not minimalist racing jobs. 500 to 1000g sounds like a likely range.
6) Mermaid might be going 9-speed, but I haven't decided on that yet. I have a BNIB 9-speed derailleur I picked up very cheap a couple of years ago, so it wouldn't cost much. My existing 8-speed set up has an 11-32 rear cassette, but the lowest gears are spread 21 26 32 which are quite large gaps. The equivalent 9-speed cassette runs 21 24 28 32 which is nicer. I'll have to see if I can pick up a cheap shifter.

So I reckon I can get more out of Mermaid yet.
And the mid-life crisis can wait another year ;-)

Update: I did, in the end, buy a new bike.
Mermaid needed quite a bit spent to replace worn out parts.

I bought Hoppy, and the fancy wheels will have to wait :-)

First metric century of 2016, and training tips

First "century" of 2016 - the TdV route, with the end clipped off.

Earlier today, I rode my first 100km ride of 2016.

A few weeks ago, I rode to Oxford and back, but "bit off more than I could chew", and my knees were packing up after just 60 km. I cycled slower and slower to finish the ride, getting home with 90km under my wheels.
This time, my knees held out beyond 80km, although I was a bit flaky for the last 20 km.
Just as importantly, I rode today's 100km in no more time than it took to do the 90 km to Oxford, and it was just as hilly!

As always, I start off thinking I could move my gearing up a bit, as I don't really need the lowest one or two gears.
And, as always, on the later part of a ride I remember why I fitted an extra-low first gear :-)
My lowest gear is REALLY low. I have a 26t chainring driving a 32t rear sprocket.
It is so low that I couldn't really go any slower without falling off sideways ...

Pausing for a banana near the cafe in Wendover Woods.
It is a decent climb to get up here - the first part of the slope is 13%,
but it eases off at a bit. This is very close to the highest point of the Chilterns
(it is in the woods just behind the cafe), and getting up here is one
of the toughest hills in our area.
I have only covered about 18km ( 11 miles) by this point,
but that is the toughest hill done!

I find my basket mount (sans basket) to be a very convenient place to mount my Garmin watch.

There is quite a bit of signposted "cycle route" round here. Most of it is on minor roads, like this bit.
I'm about 38 (24 miles) km into the ride here, and this is where I took the pic of the Garmin watch (above).

Ivinghoe Beacon. Quite a few folks (wrongly) think this is the highest point of the Chilterns.
I really don't think there is much in it. A decent climb to get up here, too!
The road down has a T-junction onto a main road just down the slope. then it is up (again) a short distance, then left down, down, down the hill through Aston Abbotts.
Even a weak old man on a heavy bike (like me) can easily exceed the 30 mph (48 kph) speed limit that applies as one enters Aston Abbotts (let's not get ont the legality of bicycles and speed limits, I'm just saying, that's all).
Everything is all downhere from here! (well, not entirely, but the three hardest climbs of the ride are out of the way by now!)
About 54 km covered so far (33 miles)

A civilised place for a quick sit down.
This lichen-covered bench is just outside Oving, about 80km (50 miles into the ride).

The view from the bench - the Vale of Aylesbury.
Towards the left the wind turbine is visible.
It is the biggest on-shore turbine in the country.
and, more importantly, it is downhill from the bench at Oving!

A "crop" from the picture above showing the turbine.
To get an idea of the "bigness" of thie turbine, think Empire State Building, and you are in the right ballpark.
It is clearer with the naked eye than in the pic (my 5yr-old smartphone has only a 3 megapixel camera!)

The turbine from the Berryfields part of Aylesbury, 90-odd km into the ride (56 miles)
It looks quite big compared to the houses, but the turbine is a LONG way behind them, so it is even bigger than it looks.

Reading posts on the forums and from acquaintances reminds me that some folks train with poor techniques.
They seem to set a target, then ride it by pure force of will, injuring themselves in the process.
Don't get me wrong - if there was an Olympic medal to be had, most folks wouldn't care if they couldn't walk for a month afterwards. Me included.
But injuring yourself on an early-season training ride just seems daft.

My routes tend to be loops, so I can "bail out" if required, and limp home using that extra-low gear and a LOT of freewheeling. When my knees start to hurt, I take notice - when they develop a burning sensation, I stop and let them recover - even if I am halfway up a climb at the time.

This is the principle of training:
Progressive overload + recovery = greater the next time.
Excessive overload + injury = lost training time in the future.

Progressive overload.

That means working up from what your body can handle, so that your body can handle more.
It isn't about Strava "games" trying to complete a "epic" ride.
If your knees can only handle 30 km, then just do 30 km. Then do 20 the next weekend. Try and ride a few 10s in the week. On the third weekend you will be good for 40 or 50 km, then do 25 to 35 the weekend after, with a couple of tens in the week, again. By the fifth weekend you should be good for 60km.

But if it isn't working out, and you know you are risking an injury, then pace it over a longer period for building up the mileage.
Don't lose weeks, or months, of training time by injuring yourself early on.

Me, I'm at 100km this year.

In just over a week's time I'll be doing some trail riding on one of those "rails to trails" routes that used to be a railway line. This one is the Camel Trail, running from Devon into Cornwall.
A nice bit of riding on a rough surface with fairly soft tyres will help to build up my legs and knees a bit more.
Be doing some beach and hill running, too.
Get my heart and lungs into tip-top condition, and give my knees a rest sometimes!

I have a set of sports anatomy books with exercise for strengthening various muscles, so I'll be working on that, too, while I am away.
Guess I am really lucky, having a week off coming up just to ride trails and run and train!

Another tip - don't just worry about "long" training sessions.
It is all too easy to miss a session because you don't have an hour, then miss another etc. etc.
If you have half-an-hour, but not an hour, do a half-hour training session instead!
What you actually do counts for more than what you hoped to do but didn't!

Anyway, the take away points are:
1) pace your training with PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD
2) don't overdo it and injure yourself early in the season (EXCESSIVE OVERLOAD)
3) start your training program well before any events you intend to enter (again, PACE YOURSELF)
4) It is better to stop a training session partway through, than it is to complete it, if that completion results in an injury (again, PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD, not EXCESSIVE OVERLOAD!)

A year of weight loss

That's one year done.
On January 1st 2015, I weighed in at 96.6 kg (212.5 lbs)
On December 31st 2015, I weighed in at 82.6 kg (181.7lbs)

That's exactly 14 kilos (30.8 lbs) lighter.

I'll do a fancy chart and put that up when I have time, but already I have noticed the benefits of losing 14.5 % of my bodyweight.

My running (as I said in a recent post) is faster, with my feet getting less tired. I got a personal best on my 5k time earlier in the year, and even that was kind of accidental. I just went out on a run at a decent pace, and halfway round the 5k, I realised I was going faster than I had in the previous Spring (I gave up running over the Summer to concentrate on my cycling, and for much of the Autumn, I was "social" running with my wife, rather than training). So I only really paced myself for the second half of that 5k. I have run better times even than that on a couple of recent occasions.
Strava informs me I have run my fastest 2 miles, 1 mile, and 1 km times, too.
On the 10k front, I have also beaten my previous times. I have high hopes for the Spring.

My hill-climbing on the bike has improved remarkably, too - on the nearby Cat 3 hill, my target used to be just getting up it (!), but already I have managed 3 reps of the hill, despite losing a lot of my cycling fitness over the Autumn. And I only stopped because I promised my wife I would only be out for a couple of hours, rather than being unable to complete more.

The best bit of all, though, is that I am down to the sort of weight I was about 20 years ago. Never thought I'd be saying that!

New bike for the new season?

I've been doing my winter dreaming again.
I found a carbon road bike that weighs under 8 kilos, kitted out with Campagnolo Chorus, on clearance, advertised at about £1150 (c. $1600, €1400).
Wow, just wow !!!!
(Not many things in life are worth FOUR exclamation marks!)
Just price up a Chorus groupset to see how great that price is. Worth buying for the parts alone!

But then I thought about it.
For a couple of days.
It's a one trick pony.

Think of all the things I like to do that a fancy carbon-framed road bike is rubbish at.
Getting the groceries with my wife, for example.
Mermaid is a great "errands" bike.
Leaving in an outdoor bike rack at work is another example.
Mermaid is cheap and unattractive to most thieves.

So what would a sub-8 kilo road bike get me?
Well, more than 10 kilos of weight less than Mermaid for a start!
But I reckon I could knock about 3 kilos off Mermaid's weight by:
1) just fitting racing tyres - 28mm tyres will fit on my existing rims, 50 quid, ($70, €60) or so a pair, and would save about 1300g
2) removing the mudguards, which are steel - Velo Orange stainless steel mudguards are listed at 700g, so I guess Mermaid's will be in the same ballpark
3) removing unused/unnecessary accessories. Mermiad has a side stand and one front pannier rack. Plus I keep two locks and 4 lights on the bike, too.
So that is 3 kilos of the weight savings I could make for only a modest expenditure.
The other 7+ kilos I should aim to at least partly take off my bodyweight. With a BMI of about 23, I still have plenty of spare long-range fuel (i.e. "fat") onboard.

The three things that I need to improve (in order of importance) are aero, rolling resistance (Marathon P!us are not the worst tyres in the World, but they don't roll like "race" tyre), and weight.

Weight I've covered.
Rolling resistance would be vastly improved with just a new set of tyres (e.g. 28mm Schwalbe One tyres have a coefficient of rolling resistance just over half that of the 35mm Schwalbe Marathon Plus tyres that are my commuting "staples")

Aero is harder.
At the end of the day, Mermaid has a frame about three sizes too small for me - Mermaid is a "fill-in" built from my wife's old bike, and my wife is 8 or 9 inches (20 to 22cm) shorter than me, so the frame is a "ladies" small/medium, whereas I would take a "men's" large.
If I achieved a nice aero position, my butt would be VERY far back, and my chin would be VERY far forwards.
With a fairly upright riding position, I can wing it with a MUCH longer seatpost, and strange handlebars.
But for aero, I need a bigger frame.
No getting round it.
If I went for a "bike fit", I'd be paying them for the blatantly obvious.
I need a bigger frame.
Then I need drops.
So I'd need new brake/gear controls, too.

But do I need a fancy carbon bike?
No, not really.

A look around reveals that Decathlon, the French sporting goods superstore chain, have their Triban 500se model at £300 ($420, €390). Weighs about 10.5 kilos. 8 speed. Handy, because I have some 8-9 speed parts. Triple on the front. Looks like square taper BB (Mermaid has a triple, with a square taper BB).
Drops, too.
Mixed groupset, with Microsoft levers/derailleur. But hey, I have a Shimano long cage 8 speed and a Shimano long cage 9 speed already (the "8" is on Mermaid at the moment).

This is a slightly lower spec "flat-bar" Triban 500. The frame etc is the same as the 500SE.

Yes, it won't change as well as a Chorus groupset.
But the entire bike costs less than a Chorus cassette and derailleur.
Oh, and as a bonus, the Triban has mudguard mounts and rear rack mounts, too.

So watch this space.
I might just get that Triban, then start to strip Mermaid for parts.
Or keep Mermaid as a commuter, with the Triban for pleasure and Audax.

But I'll think a little longer about it first.
Think twice, buy once.

In the end I went for the £230 ($345, €299) Hoprider 300, and then changed a few parts.
(the bars are from Mermaid, the saddle is from Lidl).
You can read the changes I made to get the new bike down in weight a bit here.
The Hoprider takes thicker tyres, and comes with a hub dynamo, both of which will be useful for the primary task I undertake by bike, which is commuting to work. There is still some scope to strip a few bits off, though, and if I made the spec similar to the Triban models, the Hoprider would only weigh about an extra pound (half-kilo) or so. And with a 25kg-rated rear carrier, the Hoprider will be better for shopping, too. The wider tyres will be handy on canal paths, one of the places where I like to ride sometimes.
OK, so not quite as light as a Triban, but get some lighter wheels and some fancy "race" tyres on there, and the Hoprider will manage well enough for my needs.

Catching Up - New Year's Day Ride

Yes, I know it is now March.
I've been enjoying myself rather a lot and not posting enough :-(
So here is the post that should have gone out in early January ...

New Year's Day Ride - up and down Martin Dalby Way 6 times each way ...
you can see where I am by the wind turbine just visible in the top right of the picture.

It was cold, but dry.
So I dressed up warm

My Garmin 310xt buckles nicely
over my basket mount

Kitted up for the cold - hat and all

Winter cycle trousers (brushed/fleecey inside) and over shoes (also brushed/fleecey inside)

Overshoes and winter cycling trousers

Sandals and thick socks under the undershoes.
And what's that under the cycling trousers?

Merino undertrousers.

The gear all laid out: sandals, thick socks, overshoes, merino undertrousers, winter-weight cycling trousers (with seat pad)

Even more clothing for the ride. Long sleeved winter-weight cycling top, and cycling jacket.
Helmet and helmet liner (covers the ears, as you can see in one of the pics above)

Gotta take some kit, too.
Small water bottle, tyre foam,
cloth handerchief, and
mobile phone

The bottle is 300ml and has a curve so it will fit in the back
of a cycle jersey.

And, of course, winterweight cycling gloves.

And the ride itself?
It went well.
Last year I did an "adventure" ride, but this year it was a "training" ride.
So it was a warm up as I cycled out to a good piece of road, then it was up and down again and again
(6 repeats), then a cooldown as I cycled back home again.
It was about 4 degrees (38F), so it was cold, but not that cold.

Each year I like to go for a ride on January 1st.
It kind of sets the year off to a good start.
It is a habit I intend to follow for a couple of years yet!