vimeo.com - Rollapaluza Urban Hill Climb 2010

CDJ800MkII + cheap and nasty Gemini PS-626 + CDJ1000MkIII

The scene that greeted us on return from the 100. (c) fastandwithpropercyclingshoeseddy

Completed the Southern Counties Cycling Union 100 mile TT today. My first 100.

I was aiming for a time of sub 4:20. I finished with a crappy time of 4:52 but let me explain..

Whilst packing the car at 5am this morning I mentioned to fasteddy how I leave stuff in the doorway so I don't forget it. He was telling me not to forget my shoes and I went on to tell him about how Wayne had taken the wrong shoes to Paris Roubaix and blah blah..

We arrive at the HQ and I attempt to put my shoes on.. my.. shoes.. on.. my.. where the fscking hell.. what the fsck?! Where are my SHOES?!
You flippin' idiot! All the talk of not forgetting shoes and I'd forgotten my shoes! fasteddy asks around and no one has spare shoes. We also don't have any toe straps.
Eddy has picked me up from the station, let me stay at his place, cooked dinner for me and driven me to the start so I'm feeling pretty damn obliged to at least start this TT.

"No worries. I'll do it in my trainers."

So, kit up and rock up to the start line with a full carbon bike, deep section carbon front wheel, aerodynamic helmet, Powertap wearing a pair of skate shoes on top of SPD-SL pedals.

With Scherrit and Corinne's help I've got pacing and fuelling advice and the ability to easily read my Powertap. The course is quite nice and quite varied. There's some A24 and some smaller, quieter A roads, some flat, some long up and long down and some rolling bumps. Having failed my feet, I resign myself to just getting around and do quite well for the first hour. I'd had a caffeine gel right before the start and have another gel now. There's a brief light rain shower. I'm waving at all the marshalls having vented as much as I could about the shoes already and enjoying myself. I think because it's a 100, the pace is easier and it didn't feel all out like the 50 did. I'm also more comfortable thanks to some adjustments to the aerobars (thanks to Bike Whisperer Scherrit again).

Further into the ride after some more light showers and I'm starting to notice my existing tendonitis issue appear and I'm getting hotspots on my feet thanks to my shoes only having a very flexible rubber sole that curved around the pedals. Drop some more gels. I get to a roundabout and following their signal carry on up the road.. "hmm this is weird.. bit of a back road this.. doesn't look very TT course like" and sure enough after a while I pop back out onto the A24.. with a rider coming towards me from the left! "Ahh craaaaaap!!". I realise I've taken a wrong turn and so swing around and head the way the other bloke is going, ie. back to the marshalled roundabout. Sure enough, this time I notice the big red sign that indicates it is a U-turn at 26 mile and straight over at 50-something. I slow right down and tell the marshalls that I screwed up and to treat this as my first time around. In the end, that mistake added 10k (6 mile) to my ride. 100 miles isn't enough..

Around this top loop again and then straight down the A24 and then it was two loops of some rolling, quiet, back roads near Washington. I enjoyed this section of the course and really hammered around the first loop without thinking about my pacing. Mistake. As soon as I was back on the A24 (this was around 3 hours ride time) I was toast. I was also in a lot of pain from ankle and knee tendinitis, exacerbated no doubt by the stupid shoes. I sat up and dawdled along, taking in the scenery or swearing at myself or complaining at the idiocy of TTs or something. I was a little more restrained during the second loop (read: totally knackered) and when I finally got to the 3rd time around and into the finish lane I threw my feet off in the hope a photographer would catch my sneakers. No luck. I rode up and down a few times, called Eddy who was at the HQ, got some instructions on how to get back to the HQ, rode back to the HQ and ate some cake, explaining why Eddy never passed me - "because I wasn't on the course at the time! Ha!".

fasteddy came in 10th with a PB of 4:11 and Willesden's Peter Dixon rode the course as well setting a time of 4:15, I think?

So, take out 15-20 minutes for the extra 10k I did and I'm say 30min down on FE when riding in trainers.. and he is 'fast'eddy.. not bad. :)

The funniest thing was arriving back at fasteddy's place to find my cycling shoes laying where they were left, smack bang in the middle of his drive! (mate, have you got the photo?)

I didn't come last, I didn't DNF and technically it's a PB. It should be very easy to beat but it's a PB still. Even with the epic shoe fail, I really enjoyed today's ride. I won't be able to walk for a week but it was good fun. I was much more comfortable on the adjusted bars and with the Assos knicks instead of the skinsuit. The saddle might get swapped though.

Thanks to all the marshalls, the organisers, the kitchen staff, Bike Whisperer and massive thanks to fasteddy for putting me up and putting up with me.


from: www.redhillcc.co.uk

Last Thursday I gave up free food and booze to smash it up Swain's Lane in north London. WTF?! I've clearly lost the plot whilst living in London.

I did ok considering my weight (~91kg at the moment) and the huge amount of wheelspin I was getting through the steep part (20mm tyres, wet road, too much power out of the saddle).

I finished just better than mid-field with 1:58.6.

Full Urban Hill Climb 2010 results and report can be found here.

This time raised £60 for LCEF and another £20 came in from The Bike Whisperer.

Andy Waterman's Photos
Big Steev's Photos
London Cycle Sport Photos
Road.cc Photos

Great Event! Thanks guys. Hopefully it gets run next year.

www.rapha.cc

Rapha TTT video on vimeo.com

Rapha Gentlemen’s Time Trial 2010, final standings and times:
1. Rapha (staff team): 6hrs 47min
2. Rapha Condor Club: (the Pre-Raphaelites): 6hrs 56min
3. Grey Shadows/ Mosquito: 7hrs 24min
4. Armchair Anarchists (LFGSS, geared): 7hrs 31min
5. Condor: 7hrs 37min
6. Bespoke Cycling: 7hrs 55min
7. Rollapalooza: 8hrs 17min
8. Buns & Poses (LFGSS, fixed): 8hrs 25min
9. Brompton: 10hrs 11min
10. Look Mum No Hands: 10hrs 20min
11. Tweed Run DNF (Honorary placing due to crash)

My first 50 mile (80k) TT done and what an utterly horrible experience it was!

Westerley CC did a great job of marshalling this course which was basically 2 x HCC114 25mi with a slightly different start. There were only 42 riders entered and I was off at 7.47 (so yeah, another 5am wake-up to cycle to the HQ on time). I'd fixed my HR strap the night before after fasteddy telling me he paced TTs off heart rate I thought I'd go back and check what my HR does on the TT bike. I remember riding at around 175-180bpm so was surprised to find my HR at 160 for a lot of this ride. I really wasn't sure how to pace this and in the end it didn't really matter too much since I was in so much pain elsewhere my legs were fine. The first time I looked at the distance done showed 45k so I was over half way which was nice but everything was going wrong. My saddle and/or skinsuit combo were cutting into bits they definitely shouldn't be (if anyone finds some male genitalia on the A413, please contact me). So I was continually fighting for a comfortable saddle position or standing up on the bullhorns to relieve the pressure. The other thing that I had to keep messing about with was my hand position - my wrists were killing me. Since I never train on the TT bike (yeah, duh!) I'm just not used to holding my hands on the aerobars for that long. Training would help eh? It all resulted in a very angry me. I'd gone by my minute man earlier and now, on the last north-bound leg while I freewheeled to sort myself out, he passed me. Not good. Right that's it.. I'm far better at chasing people down than riding TT's so that's what I did. I was struggling on the hills compared to Russell but on the flats and downhills I had the edge and got him back at Wendover Bypass (where a car had crashed during the race, by the way!) before the final turn-around. At the turn (marshalled by the ever-present Purdys) I knew Lance (another Willesden rider, not that Armstrong fraud) was perhaps a kilometre up the road. My pace was already high since I didn't want to be re-taken by Russell so, sorry Lance, you're the new bunny in my sights. It was at this stage I found out I actually did have legs and yes, I could make them hurt more than anything else my body cared to report. Fighting off possible cramp and knowing I'm pulling muscles I managed to pass him just before the finish line setting a finish time of 2:07:33 a 50mi PB no matter what :)

Rapha London-Bright-London Gentlemen's TTT Photos

www.pedalbiker.blogspot.com

I met Quentin at the Tour of Ireland last year. Unlike some of us *cough* he actually trains and knows what he's talking about since he's a qualified coach (with an unhealthy interest in watts and CTL and TSS and other acronyms I still choose to ignore).

He's training to ride the whole Tour de France this year, 3 days before the pros do the same. I'm going to be following his progress through his blog and twitter feed and perhaps use his ride as inspiration to do the same thing. Good luck Quentin!

Friday, carried the stripped down Kinesis in the Bike Whisperer's Heaviest Bike Box On Earth™ to Victoria on the District Line and waited for the Baxter Sports Tours International bus. And waited.. and waited. Jonathan had called Ricky and let him know there'd been an incident with one of the driver's wives and they couldn't find a replacement driver so they'd be a bit late. Nevermind, I'd rather them be late than me. On the road eventually, with the bus full of fit-looking cyclists (and us) we made a later 4pm ferry (Shepherd Neame's Master Brew is nice) and took perhaps 4 hours to drive to Compiègne, outside Paris. The hotel fed us some stodge and then closed up on us - I guess they don't get too many booze cruises out this way? Jonathon scored us some French Pelforth beer to keep us happy.

Setting up my bike Saturday morning I was lucky(?) to notice a loose brake block - the tiny retaining screw was missing! Never had that happen before. Shimano brake shoes use a thread locker compound on the screw but these were cheap Aztec brand. This is the second time I've had issues with them. Buy cheap, buy twice. So, Wayne and I headed into the local bike shop with Jonathon. Instead of paying 26EU for two BBB replacement blocks I got the shop owner to find an allen bolt - sorted. Also picked up some panic buys for James who'd flown in late from some secret government mission and Ricky, who just loves buying new things :P
Got back and were going to recce the ride to the start line when Big Daddy Wayne finally acknowledges that no matter how hard you push, SPD shoes are never going to clip onto Speedplay pedals. Yes, he'd brought the wrong shoes. Whoops. We rode back to the bike store but found this closed for lunch so continued with our mission to ride to the start line in Cambronnes les Ribecourt. It was about 15-20k away from the hotel depending on which dodgy Garmin route you used. We had a beer there and headed back to make sure we bought Wayne's replacement SPD pedals in time. The way back we used an N road which proved to be straighter and much quicker - this would be our route to the start on the day, in order to avoid rebuilding the bikes at 5am.
Sorted out the bikes, showered and hopped into the bus to head back to Cambronnes les Ribecourt to grab our bike numbers, then back to the hotel for another slightly sad dinner. Everyone went to bed (explains why they were all skinny.. and pissweak :P) whilst we drank until they closed the bar - Grupetto style!

Tom's and my own alarm sounded at 4.30am. Dressed, filled bottles, filled jersey pockets, applied chamois creme (solo activity this one) and headed into the feeding frenzy that was the 5am breakfast. We arrived just in time and managed to get some food before the masses tore the place apart, frightened staff running to the kitchen, searching for reinforcements.
We waited for a bunch of South Africans (they were all in some kind of team kit like us but I forget what) to get ready and then left the hotel, just before the bus (carry Wayne, Ricky and James to the 180k as well as most of the others). We rode the 15 or so kilometres to the start and got there just as the bus was unloading riders - a small head start for us.
The actual start was up near the cafe so we wasted some time heading into the registration building. I think we took a 'before' photo here and then rolled off down the road.

The first checkpoint was at the 82k mark and I noticed quickly that this was not as flat as everyone says it is. Okay, so when you're 95kg you notice the bumps more but still, it wasn't 'Mildura flat' by any stretch of the imagination. We were in an ever-growing bunch that just got bigger and bigger as it swallowed the riders who'd left earlier. There was a crash up the road at some point but everyone appeared to be up by the time I rode by.
We were doing over 30kph over evreything (not stupid fast but this was a 260k day!) and at one point I managed to lose contact with the bunch. I chased down and rested behind a couple of vans before pushing hard to get back onto the group. Phew.
At the first checkpoint (9am) we all got our cards stamped and agreed that the pace (averaged 32kph for the 100k) was a little hot for the length of event. We'd go at our own pace from now on.

The first cobbles came ~20k after the first checkpoint. They were brutal, just as I expected. I tried to remember Tour of Flanders and what I'd done back then to help ride them. Big gear, hands loosely on the tops, ride hard. Ok, done. Hmm.. where's my bottle gone. Balls! One bottle down and the Powertap hanging off the side of the bars and it was only the first section of pave! As I adjusted to the cobbles I found myself riding them more comfortably on the drops. I'm using a new Kinesis Racelight T2 winter road frame rather than the Ribble Audax I had at Flanders and I had FSA Compact bars fitted. Even with the single layer of bar tape and no bar gel I found them more comfortable on the drops and rode most of the day this way. I did the same trick as Flanders and left far too much pressure in my tyres (>100psi) but dropped this whilst waiting for the guys after another pave section. I also put on a second pair of gloves - my secret weapon! Because of the thin bar tape I had gone out and bought some Specialized Gel gloves. These fit under my old Gore gloves - nice.

After riding along the side of the cobbles through a pave section I thought my tyre was going down and checked it whilst stopped a couple of times. "Nope, must be my mind" I said to Dave. As soon as Tom and Rob were up and we set off again the damn thing went down! So, I dive into the grass and start to swap the tube just as the thunderstorm kicks off and starts pouring down. I pull out a thorn or piece of flint and rush to inflate the tyre and we are on our way - me grinning like an idiot, Dave complaining about a wet bum.

It really bucketed down and I was now cold and regretting my decision to leave all my extra clothing in the bus. The rain eliminated any 'easy' routes along the sides of the pave. It also made the cobbles themselves VERY sketchy as Rob found out when he hit a patch of mud, went down and had a Frenchman ride over him. He's lucky I rode around him because I reckon I was a fair bit heavier than that French bloke! We stopped to check on him and he was a bit shook up but ok to carry on. The cobbles were now beating the crap out of us AND quite dangerous thanks to being wet and muddy. Wheels would go all over the place if you weren't careful. The blokes from Brixton Cycles were not having fun out there - "Man, I had no brakes and couldn't steer at all down that hill, I was just hoping to make it to the road bit at the end!". That was the only cobbled hill I can think of though.

My fingers were starting to ache now and Continental Dave gave me a great tip: Squeeze your fingers together. ie. imagine you were doing a karate chop. So, my fingers were together and the handlebars just bounced in between my four fingers and thumbs. It really made a big difference to hand comfort. I don't think anyone was passing me over the cobbles now, in fact it was all traffic, slow riders (Italians and mountain bikers - wtf?) blocking the good lines. It would sometimes take quite some time before getting a passing opportunity - sometimes not at all until the pave ended.

Another problem was cramp. I was very dehydrated. I don't drink enough normally and not having one of my bottles didn't help. I made an effort to drink more and eat lots of banana and magnesium-rich dark chocolate (they had chocolate as well as fruit, cakes, biscuits and waffles as well as energy drink and water at the feeds). It worked and I staved off the cramp bug.

At 1pm we were at the Arenberg feed and I'd tweeted "Arenberg feed. Thunderstorm. Tired. Cobbles are fun when wet.."

The Arenberg Forest cobbles are frickin' mental. I thought I'd pinch flatted a bunch of times and the bike sounded horrible smashing its way over the jagged pave. I'm so glad I'm a sponsored rider and don't have to buy my own equipment.. oh wait a minute..


Tranchée d'Arenberg

Having been on the bike, being battered, hot/cold cycled for 7hrs+ now I was rapidly losing my cool. I grumbled words to this effect but really I just wanted the bloody ride to be over. Writing this now I'm thinking "it wasn't that bad, was it?" but it was. I'd done far less riding in 2010 and just didn't do this kind of distance, let alone cobbled. I wanted to ride alone and left the other three guys. We met again when I waited at the last control but I just kind of rode away again, preferring to fend for myself. It turned in to a bit of a time trial towards the end as riding harder made the cobbles like Le Carrefour less punishing and I could see I was knocking the few remaining kilometres over. Having the checkpoint guy say "only 30k to the finish" helped.


Le Carrefour de l'Arbre and you can see I'm not messing about.

Powering through town now and a little worried I'd lost the route (little yellow turns painted on the road) since there were no other riders. It was glorious when I found another little yellow arrow! I rode in and there was the Roubaix velodrome! As I rode towards it I heard Ricky and Wayne yell "Shaaaaane!" and Grupetto or something. Some guy wanted to try and get one over me in the sprint but sorry mate, not gonna happen. Just like that it was over, I'd done it! 275k in under 12 hours. Ride time was about 9 hours 10 minutes.

Nhatt, Wayne, Ricky, James were at the line. I was toast. Didn't know what was going on. Didn't care. We waited for the rest of the Grupetto to arrive and then went and collected our finshing certificates and got some food. Then got some more food. Eventually we made our way back to the hotel for some more food and showering and then some beers and more food.



As per Grupetto rules, we were the last ones to go to bed on all nights and obviously drank the most.

Massive thanks to Ricky, Wayne, Tom, Dave, Rob, James and the Baxters.

I'm riding the London-Brighton-London (~200k) Rapha Gentleman's TTT, an invite-only Team Time Trial tomorrow for London Fixed Gear and Single Speed. We are in a team of splitters riding gears, much to the annoyance of a very vocal bunch of whingers not riding it either geared or fixed. I'm still feeling the effects of Paris-Roubaix (report coming soon) so not sure how this will go. Not really sure what to expect other than a long day in the saddle. I can guarantee we will drink more beer than the winning team..

They done these rides/races before in the US:
www.rapha.cc - East Coast
www.rapha.cc - North West

I'm posting this on behalf of a London cyclist looking for information about a fight with a cab driver.

On Tuesday March 9th at around 4-5pm, I was cycling west along Oxford Street, London, near Dean Street, when a taxi suddenly swerved across the front of me to pick up a fare and we collided. Following a brief verbal exchange, the taxi driver grabbed the scarf around my neck and strangled me until I was unconscious.

For more information: cyclistneedshelp.blogspot.com

West London Combine 2010 Event #4 25 mile TT was held today on the HCC114 course. This is the north-south-north-south course I quite dislike.

Another 5am wake up and the wind was strong WNW from the get go. After doing some laps around Great Missenden to stop myself cooling down I lined up 5th to start.
The timing guy called "5" and I rolled up and got held (as you do) and then I waited.. and waited and then timing guy calls "rider 6" which took me a bit by surprise.
"I'm rider 5!"
"You should've gone already"
"Ah sh1t!" and I launch down the road shaking my head at what happened.

The first north leg wasn't too bad since I was fresh. The turn-around gave me a tailwind and I pushed the pace, actually running out of gears in doing so! I tried winding down the pace a little but this seemed counter-intuitive.. that was until the turn around.. oof! Into the headwind now and after leaving a lot of energy on the road this was horrid. Power was all over the place, speed was low and to cap it off my wrists and arms were taking a battering - I really need to do more (some) riding on this TT bike. At points I was getting out of the saddle and onto the bullhorns just to relieve the stress on my wrists. The rough roads don't help here. Turning around again and it was the last stretch with a tailwind. The pace was lifted and a lovely horse float came past which helped boost my speed. Unfortunately they slowed down and then stopped encountering other riders so I was on the brakes and since there was oncoming traffic had no way around! Doh! Finish. 1:02:11
Power was down on last year's ride but so was time, thanks to the cheat bike I guess. Still, I beat Simon (sorry mate :)) and compared favourably to Malcolm Woolsey who usually does sub-1hr and this time did a 1:01:xx. Peter Dixon destroyed the course with a 58:02 taking a minute of his PB.

HCC114 25mi TT:
Duration: 1:02:11 (1:02:17)
Work: 1121 kJ
TSS: 104 (intensity factor 1.005)
Nor Pwr: 307
VI: 1.02
Distance: 40.924 km
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 971 300 watts
Cadence: 35 114 91 rpm
Speed: 4.1 57.1 39.4 kph
Pace 1:03 14:38 1:31 min/km

Lance's Willesden CC summary can be found here.
Last year's 1:03:42 on a road bike.

Neil drove myself and some bikes to Paul and Paula's home in Feletto Umberto near Udine in northern Italy. The rest of the bunch arrived by plane and we proceeded to get on each others nerves, I mean, shared some lovely and challenging cycling together, for a week. We scaled the "hardest climb in the UCI Pro Tour" Monte Zoncolan as well as riding into Slovenia, riding to the coastal towns of Grado and Duino and watching some of the Giro (Cycling Tour of Italy) fly through Spilimbergo.

The weather was fantastic. The hosts fantastic. The terrain was fantastic. The company fantastic. It was a great trip and I HIGHLY recommend getting yourself to the area if you like cycling, or wine, or coffee or food or lovely scenery or.. you get the idea. Also of note was the city of Strasbourg where Neil and I stayed on the way back. 'Shambles'-like buildings plus some impressive cathedrals and very 'old town' feel as well as some Belgian beer bars = full of win!

Photos from Italy (some are mine, some are not)

Well, since I was going for my first sub-hour time, I wasn't too happy with 1:00.04 but thinking about it..

I'd been drinking a lovely combo of beer, cider and bourbon at Shaun's 40th barbecue since 11am yesterday.
I got to bed at 1.30am after scoffing a 12" meatball (more meat?!) Subway to ease the inevitable hangover.
I woke up to the alarm at 4.30am and had only instant coffee to drink, having run out of beans the day before.
I rode (a bit shakey and holding back the vom) to the start 40k away and actually felt ok when I got there, though obviously didn't look it, judging by some of the comments!
I'm a bit annoyed that if I didn't miss the last turn (I only just made it, braking hard, thinking I was going straight on) and almost stop at 2 RABs for cars I'd have made sub-hour. 4 seconds!

Having said that, it was a new PB for the 25, taking 1m29s off my previous best time - set on the same course on the S-Works road bike 2 years ago.
Simon took FOUR frickin' minutes out of my time with a 56:11 so he must've been on fire today - I need to ask him for his training plan or EPO dealer ;)
I'm not sure what time Lance got, I was too busy consuming cake and coffee and hobbling back to a chair to notice - I've strained my glutes again - the ride home was horribly slow.

Scherrit came over later and asked me about pacing and power. I was just loading the data into WKO so we had a chat about it:
My power data indicates that I'm producing very similar power on the TT bike as I did on my road bike, even with far less training at the same time of year. This is very good.
It means that my TT position isn't robbing me of any power and my return to cycling after such a 'non-event winter' might be doing good things for me.
My Average Power and Normalised Power values are also fairly close. I think this indicates reasonable pacing, ie. if there was a big difference it'd mean I was spiking the power output at times.
It was the first 25 this year with the correct power meter fitted and it shows I am putting out over 310W for the hour. I wasn't able to hit this on the turbo so assumed my power was well down. It's not. I should be happy. 4 seconds. *sigh*

On 13 May 1787 11 ships sailed from Portsmouth, to establish the first European colony in Australia; it also marked the beginning of prisoner transports to that continent. It is known today as the First Fleet in Australia. from wikipedia

5 years ago, on this day, I arrived in the UK from Australia. I'm off to steal a loaf of bread..

The Union Cycliste International (UCI) yesterday announced more sweeping changes to the Olympic track cycling programme. Having already drastically altered the events on the schedule, the sport's governing body has now changed the qualification system and the national quota per event.

At the London Olympics in 2012 each competing country will only be allowed to enter one athlete in the men's and women's individual sprint and Keirin. The ruling also covers the new omnium event to be introduced at the London Games.

Not only could this ruling affect how British Cycling approach their funding allocation, and the number of athletes on the lottery-funded programme, it will seriously water down the sprint events at the Games in 2012.

By limiting all countries to one rider per sprint event the UCI has seen to it that track sprinting is no longer the best riders competing against one another. Great Britain, France, Germany, Australia, Japan and the Netherlands all had two riders in the top 18 of the sprint qualifying round in Beijing. (The top 18 go through to the knock-out rounds.)

The new system would effectively eliminate the second fastest riders from each of those countries, therefore taking six of the best riders in the world out of the competition. Doing this results in six slower riders moving up in to the qualifying spots and in to the knock-out round.

In Beijing, Daniel Novikov of Estonia qualified slowest (in 21st spot) with a 200m tt time of 11.187 seconds - not a world class time by any means. Now he, along with three even slower riders, will qualify for the Olympic sprint competition.
Has the change come about as a result of Great Britain's dominance? Maybe. In both the men's sprint and keirin GB won both gold and silver in Beijing, but they're not the only nation to suffer. France has a strong sprinting line-up while those events are the only ones the Germans are still competitive in.
Whatever the reason, the sprint and keirin events will no longer see the best riders against the best riders, as the Olympics should be, but a second rate competition ridden by a larger spread of riders from around the world. The world title will now be the harder competition to win.

www.cyclingweekly.co.uk

Five riders from the Coomealla-Mildura Mountainless Bike Club will travel to the Adelaide Hills to compete in the Kona Dirty Weekend 24hr MTB race at Cuddlee Creek on the 8/9th May.
Once the starters gun is fired at 2pm on Saturday 8th, riders have until 2pm Sunday to complete as many laps of the rough and hilly ten kilometre track as they can. Most laps wins. Riders can compete in either solo class or in relay teams of 2,3,4 or 6, with riders staying on their bikes all through the night, battling physical and mental fatigue. With 150m of altitude gain - and descent - every 10km lap, fatigue is guaranteed.
Paul Cocks, Leon Pedersen, Jason Dawes and Phil Sullivan are competing in the extremely competitive four man relay team category for the first time. The demanding ride/rest/ride/rest/ride cycle takes it’s toll on team riders, especially when they are trying to drag their resting bodies out of a warm sleeping bag to start a lap in the wee hours of the night. The guys are confident in their preparation and looking forward to a fun event.
Anthony Connell is lining up in the solo class for his third attempt at a solo 24hr race. And while he’ll be happy to just make through the night to the finish line on Sunday, the competition will be hot - the first 50% of Dirty Weekend solo finishers win the right to line up with the worlds best at the 2010 24hr Solo World Championship in Canberra this October.
“The idea of qualifying for the Solo 24hr World Championships is enticing and I’ve trained harder because of it, but so has everyone else, so if I all I do is finish with me and my bike mainly in-tact, I’ll be stoked,” said Anthony.
The five riders will have some great stories to share about their 24hr experience with other riders and spectators at the Coomealla Mildura Mountainless Bike Club’s race the following weekend on the hilly Kerribee course – 20 minutes drive from Mildura towards Euston - on Sunday 16 May.

Coomealla Mildura Mountainless Bike Club Website: www.mountainlessbikeclub.com.au
Kona Dirty Weekend website: www.bikesa.asn.au

Have a great ride Anthony!

The West London Cycling Association 25 mile TT today (2010-05-02) was reduced to a 10 mile TT due to the horrible weather. Even so, only about 10 people rode from an start list of 27.

5am start to the day, no coffee and riding out into the pissing rain was pretty rubbish and if it hadn't been for Simon picking me up with a couple of miles to the HQ I'd probably have missed my start time too! I was on the Kinesis (new winter bike) since I didn't want to ride the TT machine in the rubbish weather. Started and thought I was riding pretty well considering the conditions but the power meter didn't agree. I guess yesterday took more out of my legs than I thought. Messed up the RAB when I was wiping my face and hit a pothole - whoops. 26:41 or two minutes slower than last year (road bike, in the dry) and about 6th place. Simon had a great day and did a 25:00 on a road bike with clip-ons. He came in 3rd overall. His training is paying off. Well done! Thanks loads for the lift home!

Big thanks to the Hillingdon CC, South Bucks RC and Amersham RCC volunteers who were standing out there in the cold and rain and didn't even get a ride! Champions!

UPDATE: Andrew Cowburn has already got the results out. 11 riders finished. Fastest was Malcolm Woolsey with 23.47. I was 7th and looking at my Powertap data exactly 50W down on average power compared to October last year. 3kph slower. Bah!

Simon's Great Missenden Wet One Race Report

So I missed the bunch due to faffing around with seatclamps and loose bottle cages. Rode part of the loop they do which was actually quite nice - around Burnham Beeches - very posh houses in amongst nice woods. The sun was out, contrary to weather forecasts which helped things. I was short on distance after doing some random "try not to get too lost" looping around so I went to Richmond Park for a single lap. I haven't been there for ages. "You made that hill look effortless. Were you even breathing?" was one bloke's comment after riding up the steeper hill going CW. Ha! Maybe actually riding my bike is helping my fitness.. who would've thunk it?! I'm not looking forward to the very early start 25mi TT tomorrow.