Did Ron Purdy take this?

Our little group rolling from Rich’s to the start.

We set a good pace and were at the start pretty early. Bit of a bugger since it was freezing we had to keep riding around until nearer the start time. Since I had no intention of taking this hill climb seriously I wasn’t going to bother with a practice ride up the hill. It wasn’t until Rich and Simon rolled down from a test run, and suggested I give it a go since “you have ages to wait, you may as well” that I bothered riding it. I was struggling on the practice climb! It was ok until it kicks at the half way (300m) mark. By the time I got to the top (and this time saw Ron, yes Ron not Jumbo!) I was struggling.. and this wasn’t even pushing it. I heard that the course record is 1:33 and I think last year’s best was 1:40ish.

I was 28th to start so dropped my bag at the bottom and had another roll around the green (getting my breath back – ha!).

Paul, the starter, joked about me being fast. Not because I looked fast, oh no, but because I had the same bike as him 🙂

And 3-2-1, we are go go go! Spinning away from the start I change up a few to reduce my silly cadence and over the bridge I’m telling myself to “calm down, it gets steeper”.

Around the left hander there’s a cameraman so I just drop my head or stare ahead, I can’t recall which, grip the hoods and grind on. I think I drop another gear or even two here. I’m really hating this stupid climb now, really hating it. I feel like I’m going embarrassingly slow (and probably was). It kicks up now and I’m out of the saddle, woah, jelly legs I’m back in the saddle, woah, not quite, my knicks have hooked the saddle and I’m back out of the saddle. I’m ~100m away from the finish line so I force myself to stay out of the saddle and really dig in.

Maybe for the first time I look like a real climber, albeit a chunky one. This is where it gets crazy. I was into new realms of horrible. It was like a sprint finish but all wrong.. there was no one else around so there was need to dig in to edge your wheel in front of theirs. There was no “winning”, it was all mental now, my brain willing my carcass towards the line.

The line, oh where’s that damned line?! Argh! Just one more pedal and DONE! Roll over and stop within three metres. I just manage to un-clip my left leg and put my foot down before I topple. I’m breathing like there’s not enough air in England. I try to move towards the grass verge but my leg just wobbles and I have to steady myself so I don’t collapse. I must be like this for a quite a while.. simon comes over and says I did good.. and to take it easy. Ha! I must’ve looked pretty bad. I finally manage to bend my legs enough to allow me to sit on top tube. Another minute or two and I can wheel myself over to the grass and sit down. I stay here until all the others finish. There’s some confusion about times. Rich and I have to ride down to get the stuff and back up again. At the top, I think Simon, confirms that I’ve got second place and that I might’ve won the club hill champs. I laugh out loud at the thought that I suddenly have climbing merits!

Still, pretty chuffed with 2nd. Thanks all.

Results: www.westdraytonmbc.co.uk – 2009 hill climb results

Course: HCC011 – Windsor Hill, Wooburn

Willesden Blog: Hill Climb

Willesden Blog: More Hill Climb

“Take that, sober, skinny people”

Distance: 670m

Time: 2:02

272W min

930W max

587W avg

The Condor Pista I use for commuting just received a nice little upgrade in the form of a rebuilt rear wheel. Not just a standard Open Pro onto any old fixed hub though – oh no – this puppy is now running a Powertap fixed hub. Scherrit from The Bike Whisperer converted an older model geared Powertap wheel I bought off ebay into a fixed setup with the aid of a Wheelsmith conversion kit and a Surly Fixxer (and of course it wouldn’t be complete without some of Scherrit’s filing). The original aluminium nipples (fail) were trashed so the whole wheel was rebuilt in order to correctly dish it for the fixed setup.

More pics of the Condor with fixed Powertap conversion can be found here.

All this done just in time for Wheelbuilder.com to announce they are doing conversion kits for the new style Powertap hubs..

For various reasons I’ve barely ridden since conquering the Pyrenees in July. Today I finally dusted off the cobwebs (literally!) on the S-Works and rode Westerley CC’s 10mi TT on the HCC180 course which starts in Great Missenden and is a simple out and back involving a couple of roundabouts.

It was supposed to be a 2-up event (2 riders working together to set one time) but I asked Roger if I could ride it solo since I’d never done a proper “10” before. A couple of years ago I’d done some of the Westerley’s evening 10s that were held over 11 laps of the Hillingdon circuit and actually 10.25mi. I think I was doing 26s for those.

Conditions weren’t the best today (it felt pretty breezy in both directions) but I’ve ridden that road when they’ve been a lot worse too.

Technically (and I’m certainly no TT expert here, just my musings) my ride wasn’t too hot. I was all over the shop with power output. Starting too hard is one thing but all through the 10mi I seemed to be up to 400W and then down to 300W and after one effort to pass another rider I dropped to 250W!

Towards the end Jumbo (edit: not Ron Purdy, see, that’s how long I’ve been away :)) was cheering me on (and probably stopped me riding up a slip lane when another cyclist turned that way in front of me) and I was lucky to sight a pair of riders up ahead which forced up my pace towards the finish. It hurt but it felt good at the same time. I stopped my watch thinking I’d gone low 25min in actual fact I’d done a long 24.. 24:55 to be precise. So that’s my 10mi PB and something to aim for when I have a built TT bike and do some actual training rather than competitive drinking next year.

We had breakfast afterwards at the Deep Mill Diner and I then had a frantic ride over to the Westerley hill climb I’d entered to set a completely unstartling time of 3-minutes-something. At 95kg I’m never going to be competitive but in this case I was just too trashed after the 10 to climb. It wasn’t even particularly steep or anything I just had totally dead legs and after the flattish start totally faded, ran out of air, hit the bail out gears and rolled to the top.

I guess I was just too fast for them to get any photos of me..

WitzEnd > Westerley 2up 10 11th Oct 2009

HCC180 10mi TT 24:55 PB:

Duration: 24:55

Work: 518 kJ

TSS: 45.2 (intensity factor 1.043)

Norm Power: 349

VI: 1.01

Pw:HR: n/a

Pa:HR: n/a

Distance: 16.265 km

Min Max Avg

Power: 0 1022 346 watts

Cadence: 36 118 89 rpm

Speed: 5.5 49.5 39.1 kph

Pace 1:13 10:55 1:32 min/km

Hub Torque: 0 59.3 10.8 N-m

Crank Torque: 0 152.7 37.2 N-m