Mal and I stayed in a lovely little spa town called Ilkley. On Saturday we wandered the town and eventually had dinner in the Bar T’at ale house before heading to bed at the nice but pricier than I usually do, Craiglands Hotel.

The next day I left early, eating only a sandwich from yesterday and an instant coffee in the hotel. Mal went up into the local hills to explore. I’d planned to grab more food at the start but wanting to start soon to avoid the heat got the better of me. This skimping on breakfast would bring my unstuck around the 100k mark.

The White Rose Challenge (formerly Classic but they split from British Cycling) long route was 182k and had a rather large and annoying for fat buggers like me, 3850m of climbing.

Route: Ben Rhydding, Askwith, Farnley, Norwood edge, Blubberhouses, Greenhow Hill, Grassington, Kilnsey, Kettlewell, Buckden, Oughtershaw, Hawes, Garsdale Head, Dent Station, Newby Head, Ribblehead, Stainforth, Malham, Airton, Cracoe, Burnsall, Appletreewick, Bolton Abbey, Langbar, Middleton, Ben Rhydding.

The ride was much touger than the Dragon Ride I’d done a couple of weeks beforehand. I’m so glad I took the good bike to this with a 27T and not the Rubble with its 23T. The hills were steeper and some of them were probably just as long AND steeper. It really did require quite a bit of effort to make it over things like Fleet Moss (589m, highest road in the Yorkshire Dales apparently) and the descents were much trickier (more fun, but there were a few riders with gravel rash at the end) than the straight, wide Dragon’s. I hit 84kph on coming down Fleet Moss and that’s with 20m visibility at the top and before realising my headset was loose. “Damage” was such an appropriate nickname to get from Paul..

I totally fell apart at the 100k mark, somewhere between the 2nd and 3rd feed stations. It wasn’t a full-on bonk but I did just hit a mental and performance wall. I had to suddenly eat and drink a lot more, slow down and just keep the legs ticking over. Moving forward slowly is better than not moving forward at all. I eventually pulled myself together but the damage had been done. It was around here I also noticed my loose headset – my fault for playing with torque wenches days beforehand. At the 3rd feed I borrowed an allen key set off a bloke on a blue Scott (I think) – thanks very much mate! Once the headset was sorted I had a proper stop, sat down, stretched a lot, ate a lot, refilled two bottles, saw Dave Lloyd refilling and eventually started again.

From the 3rd feed to the finish I was doing better. This is normally where I start to catch lots of people that went past me earlier on. I guess I’m a strong finisher when it comes to longer stuff these days. At some point I heard some guys chatting about what gold time was – “7:37” I answered, “I’m on 7:12 what about you?”. “I’m on.. crap we’re nearly done and I’ve got time to get Gold!” and with that I sped off from them, finding new reserves and busting a lung to finish.

I made it within time but I’d forgotten about the Powertap shutting off while I was stopped at the feed trying to recover. I missed Gold by 8 minutes! I beat Ed’s time, which was my goal, but only 7:45 minutes! Come on!

Mal met me at the Ben Rhydding Sports Club finish while I did what I could to recover in the heat (the free meal and a beer helped) before we commenced the trek back to London and the ride home.

Hot and sunny ‘down below’.

Cool, foggy, 20-30m visibility on top of the bigger hills. Crazy stuff.

A far more detailed write up of the White Rose can be found on Ed’s blog.

White Rose Challenge Results, 83rd from 300 finishers isn’t too bad for a hefty bugger. Next year..

White Rose Challenge Official Photos

Mal’s and hippy’s Photos

On Saturday, Ved, Desi, Mal and I jumped into Ved’s girlfriend’s car and zoomed, well, okay, leisurely rolled, from London to Bridgend in Wales for the 2009 Dragon Ride. On the back of the car we had Tom’s bike rack supporting three bikes – two nice ones for Ved and Des and my heavy piece of winter training aluminium – aka the “Rubble”.

Our pace was dictated somewhat by paranoia and the bouncing bikes strapped out the back of the car. Would they all make it?

Having done no cycling other than my normal commuting and a single 100k ride on the Condor fixed since the Tour of Ireland in early May I was just a smidgen under-prepared let’s say? I’ve done enough of these long sportives to know that the distance was not going to be too much trouble but I knew at the same time it wouldn’t be the most pleasant 190k.

We arrived in one piece, and unloaded the car into the Jesmond Villa B&B. It was a fairly cheap B&B right in the town – perfect for what we wanted. For some reason, all the bugs we had run into seemed to favour my blue bike – coating the top tube and saddle and completely missing Des and Ved’s carbon bikes. Wipe down or save for a protein snack on ride day?

We met John, who had caught the train with his bike to Bridgend and then all headed into town. For a place expecting 3000 riders to descend upon it tomorrow it was eerily quiet! A strong waft of garlic drew us to an Italian restaurant but budgetary concerns saw us heading back towards the Wetherspoons pub. What a fantastic decision. I think I might move to Bridgend just to live in this place! None of us could believe how cheap everything was! I wanted beer. The others wanted food. Most of the group ordered two main meals for the price of one in London. Beer was half London’s prices. I was so excited they had to keep taking the drink menu off me (spot the alcoholic!).

A few more guys and gals from www.londonfgss.com rocked up (Paul, Pip and Sophie) and we all ate and drank more. Some (hiccup) drank more than others. Nevermind.. I’d been training for this aspect over the last month. 🙂

Everyone eventually left to get some sleep and so, finally, did Mal and I. Set the bike up and went to sleep.

In the morning had some jam toast and coffee and then stripped the bike to put it back on the car – ha! No warm up for us. There was a bit of a struggle to park but we all got setup eventually and rolled along to the start line. Some photos were taken of our little group and the countdown started.

The final official start time was 9.15 and I think we rolled out on the 9.15 slot but there were still people behind us so I guess they kept it open a bit longer. Immediately the pace was up. It’s always the same.. everyone is excited, full of energy and just wanting to start. One or two guys in our small group were off the front. I held back, fighting the urge to chase. This lasted about 5-10k and then it was every man for himself!

I was worried about the good bike on the car rack so I’d decided to bring the indestructible Ribble which had 39×23 for it’s lowest gear and weighs as much as a Smart Car. I actually have a 27T and thought the Ribble had a 25T so it was a bit of a shock counting the teeth two weeks later and finding out I was running 23T! No wonder I found it hard to slow down on the climbs – I was always in and out of the saddle just to keep the gear ticking over!

Desi and I yo-yo’d around, he’d catch up and pass me on the downhills and I’d catch up on the up hills. This was substantially bigger in rider numbers than most of the sportives I’ve done with about 2500-3000 riders on the road. Since we’d started towards the back end of the field there was lots of passing required. Lots of rider traffic is not always the best when you’re one of the faster riders down the hills. “Outta my way! Weeeeeeeeee!” 😉

I lost Desi somewhere along the way. Spotted Tommy at the top of Blwch 1 and said g’day while he yelled “beat ya!”. At the 50k first feed mark I found Mike the Bike and we had a chat while I scoffed jam tarts. I started again and it was after this feed we hit the LONG climbs of the Brecon Beacons. These are supposed to resemble French climbs (I’ll find out soon when I’m there for Le Tour with Croydon Cycle Works) in that they aren’t uber steep like the 15-25% climbs around London they are around 6% gradients but they gone on forever! In this heat, with no breeze to provide any cooling, climbing these was more about maintaining mental toughness than physical toughness. I know I can climb pretty much anything in the UK (just slower than most people) so I wasn’t worried about that but you would get to what looked like the top of the hill and then see more cyclists off into the distance, around a corner. “MORE?!” you groan out and then keep plodding along, sweat dripping over everything, warm bottle water providing minimal relief. I was thinking to myself “I wish I could just lie down in the shade for a bit” – if only there was shade and if I could only let myself stop. I was literally waiting for people to start falling down from the heat, although no one near me did I could hear ambulances and guessed they were tending to heatstroke victims. It was that hot!

At one point a guy rode past me and said “Is Rollapaluza harder than the climbing the Brecons?” (I was in Rollapaluza kit). It took me about 5k to catch him, ride up next to him and say “Yes!”. “It took you 3mi to think of an answer?” he said. “No, it took me 3mi to catch my breath to voice it!” and with that I let him carry on away from me. The descents in this area were a nice break from the everlasting climbing but they all seemed to have headwinds that required a good amount of pedaling to make good speeds (80kph max – I’ve gone faster in England).

Before the second ‘Cray’ feed I met one of the Willesden riders, Phil and slowed for a bit of a chat. I then left him get on with it so I could get to the feed. No surprise there then! At the feed I was eating more of those tarts and noticed the other Willesden riders – John, Simon and Dave?. We had a chat there about Mike going the wrong way at that first feed (good excuse to stop the endless climbing!) and then Pip arrived. I loved Pip’s “I should stop riding these in the big ring” and points at his old Cinelli which was probably running 53T up front. “You’re sick!” I said as I ate more tarts. I pulled a swifty on him, went looking for food, ended up chatting to someone else and then rolled on.

It was pretty easy going from here on. One of the Irish blokes I’d got chatting too earlier had his bottle bounce into his back wheel so I chased his companion down to let him know. Other than that it was incident free and not too difficult, riding-wise.

The third feed was at Cimla around the 140k mark. After that I wish I’d known I was going over Bwlch again as I’d probably have let some more digestion occur first. At least the views were nice while I rolled along 🙂 My Powertap packed up at 173k mark (it could have something to do with pouring my isotonic drink all over the squeaking cassette – whoops) so I was running with no data – oh no! At least I was close to the finish.

It was downhill to the finish after Bwlch. I put the pace on with some other guys knowing we were close. I rolled over the finish line in a bit of a daze and was shocked to see John at the finish already. I think I mumbled something to him while catching my breath. When I had recovered I was all “How did you get here so fast?! I don’t remember seeing you pass me!” Turns out I was right about the heat – John had basically ridden to the Brecons and passed out due to the heat! He had to be ambulanced back to the finish whilst having IV drips of saline applied! Damn! I KNEW it was hot!

My finish time was 7hr 12min on the dot, which was slower than I’d hoped but not really unexpected given I’d done basically nothing other than commuting since Tour of Ireland in early May and I was riding “the tank”. Also 93kg, does not a natural climber make! 🙂

We all sat around (Mal, Paul and Sophie had gone to the beach) at the finish waiting for the others to roll in. I got to cheer on Mike and the other Willesden boys finishing. Everybody did good times and we then packed up and turned back for London. Experienced my first taste of Motorway Services. Awesome 😉 Unpacked and then rode home from Richmond to Ealing before collapsing for a good snooze.

Profile:

www.dragonride.co.uk – 190k Profile

Dragon Ride 2009 Results

Ved’s RR

Five days, 600 miles, nearly 1000 kilometres.

Through rain, hail, high winds, sun.

Over rough roads, fast roads, up and down mountains.

Rolling through the lovely green Irish country-side day after day with a fantastic bunch of fellow cyclists.

What a fantastic event this was! Huge thanks to the organisers, the sponsors, the Garda, the motorbike out-riders, the helpers, the other riders. Awesome experience!

hippy’s photos from Tour of Ireland 2009

Decided again to go with the faster Quest bunch from Denham. They really were the fast bunch this week! Nice weather brought out a few more riders although some were out racing and others were doing a Willesden audax. The average speed was only 1kph faster than the last time but it was very much more ‘bursty’ with rest periods in between the faster bits. I also rode an extra 25k. TSS (Training Stress Score)/IF (Intensity Factor) = 359.8/0.845* versus the last time out 173.3/0.628* so clearly a harder workload – 4434kJ expended compared to only 2685kJ last time.

Entire workout (245 watts):

Duration: 5:09:15 (6:16:07)

Work: 4434 kJ

TSS: 359.8 (intensity factor 0.845)*

Norm Power: 283

VI: 1.16

Pw:HR: -0.5%

Pa:HR: 5.84%

Distance: 149.573 km

Min Max Avg

Power: 8 1149 245 watts

Heart Rate: 93 175 136 bpm

Cadence: 29 244 89 rpm

Speed: 3.6 59.7 29.7 kph

Pace 1:00 16:40 2:01 min/km

Hub Torque: 2.5 63 10.5 N-m

Crank Torque: 0 200.4 28.1 N-m

*UPDATED values thanks to VeloTraining pointing out my FTP value was set far too low. Increase from 260W to 335W makes these TSS/IF values much more realistic.

Distance: 164Km – Climb: 1481m

Distance: 172Km – Climb: 1933m

Distance: 245Km – Climb: 2776m

Distance: 210Km – Climb: ?m

Distance: 170Km – Climb: ?m

(c) ThePurdys

1:03:42

The 25mi HCC114 course is again on the Amersham Road but further north than HCC113, starting near Great Missenden, and instead of being a simple out and back, it’s start-north-roundabout-south-roundabout-north-roundabout-south-finish. Amazingly, I didn’t mess this up!

I felt pretty rubbish today. Went out a bit fast, as usual, told myself to slow down, as usual, but seemed to get into serious muscle ache when last 25 I felt fine. And I just didn’t seem to be able to get the power I wanted without pushing well above what I felt was my limit.

Having finished I think I’d strained glutes, quads, triceps and neck muscles! So much for the 40k warmup riding to the start. Really should’ve ridden and stretched yesterday. Anyway, I need to analyse my power data before final judgment because even though I should’ve saved 30sec with aero tweaking (I fitted 20mm Vittoria Diamante Pro tyres and removed my bottle cages), the course was different and the wind was very much different.

Instead of grinding out 340W on the outbound leg and then smashing it on the way home as per the CC113 ride.. this course went north on Amersham road then U-turned back past the start to another U-turn, then back past the start for a final U-turn before heading to the finish. The key here was the wind didn’t seem to let up in either direction!

When I left the HQ, the fastest time was a low 59 set by Willesden rider Meurig James. There were two other 59’s on the board.

I reckon I made the top 10. Not sure what happened to Richard Jerome, he was 2min in front of me but he’d bailed at the half-way point for some reason.

Let me get that Powertap..

WLC 25mi 40k TT HCC114 (today’s ride):

Duration: 1:03:45 (1:10:55)

Work: 1259 kJ

TSS: 174.7 (intensity factor 1.282)

Norm Power: 333

VI: 1.01

Pw:HR: 3.31%

Pa:HR: 3.9%

Distance: 40.897 km

Min Max Avg

Power: 0 914 329 watts

Heart Rate: 112 185 176 bpm

Cadence: 35 133 85 rpm

Speed: 14 55.7 38.5 kph

Pace 1:05 4:17 1:34 min/km

Hub Torque: 0 51 10.4 N-m

Crank Torque: 0 182.9 37.4 N-m

WLC 25mi 40k TT HCC113 (25 ridden 22nd-Mar-09):

Duration: 1:03:15 (1:05:00)

Work: 1297 kJ

TSS: 196.4 (intensity factor 1.366)

Norm Power: 355

VI: 1.04

Pw:HR: n/a

Pa:HR: n/a

Distance: 40.467 km

Min Max Avg

Power: 0 921 342 watts

Cadence: 35 174 85 rpm

Speed: 4.5 59.4 38.5 kph

Pace 1:01 13:20 1:34 min/km

Hub Torque: 0 54.3 11.1 N-m

Crank Torque: 0 153.2 39.0 N-m

So, I’m 20W down on Normalized Power and 13W down on Average Power. Doh! I knew I felt worse today. 🙁

Perhaps the wind put me over the edge and I was never on top of my gear? I was in a lot more pain today (muscle strain – glutes especially) and I was forced to finish a lot stronger since I was feeling guilty about my poor ride and was watching the distance count down and pushed hard at the end unlike the last one that snuck up on me. Averaged 345W for the last 3min leg.

I didn’t go for a ride yesterday so might have started with stiff legs.. although 40k should’ve sorted it out. It was colder today though. I really don’t know.. just guessing.

Update from the cheeky Purdys..

Did you know that Meurig managed his 59 without all his technical support having left home in a hurry and it was his first event this year. Ron sugggests you should try switching yours off! 🙂

West London Combine 25mi HCC114

HCC114 25mi TT Course

bikely.com – HCC114

Update! 13th out of 56 finishers (59.1 to 1:22.02) WLC 25 19th April 2009 Results

On Easter Monday I rode from Ealing to Smithfield Market with rjs. We met purple_mj and cycled on to the London Phoenix Easter Classic start point out east at the Fairlop Waters Country Park. I was on my good bike since the forecast was supposed to be nice. It started to rain just before we arrived at the Park.

Met fatboyralph and Ant at the start and also Miles who caught the train over from Hillingdon. I met him on the Quest/Willesden/fast lot clubrun the day before where I did a soggy 130k. He was quite new to the fast lot too and is very keen to get involved in some racing. We all rolled out together and it took about 2 minutes for me to go from “I’ll just ride it easy at the start and see how I’m feeling later on” to “We HAVE to catch that bunch now! GO GO GO!!!!”. Miles and I left the others behind. Desi was with me for a while and I was almost going to shut it down and ride with him but I think the adrenalin had kicked in properly so I continued after Miles.

It was raining lightly for the first half of the ride and the roads were wet enough to cause me (and some others) grief. My bald tyres (on since L2P last year though the bike was unused for 6 months) meant I was sliding everywhere for most of the morning. It was VERY sketchy! I almost almost ate my front tyre when climbing out of the saddle and the back wheel spun around suddenly.. twice. At another point I almost lost it in front of a car when going in a straight line down hill.. I SLOWLY moved right to pass someone and the back end of the bike shot left and right like Bauge’s skid on the track during the Worlds 🙂

So with all this sliding around and wet sketchiness I spent most of the time sat 5-10m off the back of our bunch, moving up when the roads dried a bit and being very heavy handed with the brakes before all the corners, making sure my bike stayed upright. So much extra work for nothing.. damn it! I would have dropped my tyre pressure but didn’t want to lose the bunch.

At one point I shot off the front for a wizz (sure I could have told them what I was doing but it was more fun to see if they chased) and the bunch ended up getting 1k on me. Chased them for some time and managed to catch them up again and shortly afterwards moved onto someone’s wheel at the front. He was accelerating off the front of the bunch so I went with him (that adrenalin again!) and then he noticed me on his wheel and pushed hard.. eh? I thought “meh.. nice try pal” and left him in my wake riding off on my own (as I tend to do).

Then caught up with a London Phoenix rider who was supposed to be cleaning up after the last riders but had freed up space in the sag wagon for a rider who had crashed – he was using the crashed rider’s back wheel – some odd combo of Shimano and Campag that was giving him a bit of trouble. We rode together chatting a bit until near the end at which point Miles passed, having chased me down, originally not noticing I’d gone. With no big hills though I hand the upper hand on this course and passed him for the “win” 🙂

GOLD standard ride with a time just over 3.5hrs for the 114k.

190k all up for the day. ToI is looking good. 🙂

Thanks Ant, Desi, Rob, Martin, Miles, Daccordi and Stuart (who I met after the ride) for riding with us to/from the ride. Thanks to the Phoenix for putting on a good ride. Sub 3hr next year 😉

I might use this must-change-tyres moment to test some of those Schwalbe Ultremos.. or some faster Vittorias. Newsflash: I’ve bought some new Rubino Pros, some new Diamante Pro 20mm and some uber-bling Vittoria Evo Corsa KX tyres. I’m going to try the 20mm Diamantes on Sunday’s time trial.

London Phoenix Easter Classic Powertap:

Duration: 3:29:32 (3:30:30)

Work: 2655 kJ

TSS: 384 (intensity factor 1.05)

Norm Power: 273

VI: 1.29

Pw:HR: n/a

Pa:HR: n/a

Distance: 113.014 km

Min Max Avg

Power: 0 1108 212 watts

Cadence: 32 215 91 rpm

Speed: 3.7 55.8 32.5 kph

Pace 1:05 16:13 1:51 min/km

Hub Torque: 0 49.1 8.4 N-m

Crank Torque: 0 122.3 23.0 N-m

www.londonphoenix.co.uk

www.bikely.com – easter classic long route

Ant’s Blog Report – fauxplat.tumblr.com

It looks like about 130 riders will complete the 950km Tour of Ireland this year..

www.rte.ie

Just got back from the 2009 Tour of Flanders / Ronde van Vlaanderen tour with Graham Baxter’s Sporting Tours. What a great Grupetto weekend!

Wayne, Tom, Ricky, Dave, Graham and myself arrived in Ghent late on Friday night after our bus crashed into the back of another bus whilst in the Dover ferry port! It appeared as if the driver let out the hand-brake whilst his foot was on the accelerator rather than the brakes. The bus revved and a few seconds later plowed straight into the back of another bus, smashing the front window of our bus, the rear window of the other bus and destroying our radiator. After some delay we had a new bus (Thanks for giving up your time off to drive for us Roy!) and loaded bikes from the trailer into the new bus itself. I think we arrived in Ghent around 11pm, having eaten dinner on the ferry. The only thing left to do now was start the Belgian beer tasting. We found a nice bar on one of the canals and sat outside for a few. Back to the Ibis hotel for not enough sleep.

Not a good start.

Up at 6am Saturday, we ate breakfast in the hotel (where “Continental” Dave was born) and headed to the bus park, 4k from the start point of the Ronde Van Vlaanderen where some of us assembled our bikes and others, specifically, me, just yelled at the Ribble and puzzled at how a chain could become so twisted. After a good few minutes of twisting, swearing, pondering, swearing and twisting, I finally got the chain oriented correctly and utilised Dave’s mechanical skills to turn the derailler allen key for me 🙂 On went the wheels. Job done. Stress over. Phew!

We threw the bike bags (thanks for the loan Clive) onto the bus and rode to the starting point. It was easy to find with a constant stream of cyclists making their way to it. The start point itself must’ve had thousands of riders milling around, picking up rider packs, drinking, chatting, etc. This ride was BIG.

After collecting our packs, filling our bidons and emptying our bladders we rolled out easily with a mass of other riders and rolled along bike paths and small roads out of Ninove.

We were taking it pretty easy, riding past a lot of cyclists and being passed by quite a few too. Hitting the first cobbled section was a bit of a shock. I’d ridden Belgian cobbles before but on a touring-spec MTB with fat tyres at low-ish pressure. This time I was on the Ribble with Vittoria Pave tyres (thanks Laura) at 8bar/115psi! Yes, I know this pressure was ridiculous but I wanted to avoid having to search for a track pump on arrival, avoid pinch flats and see how the cobbles felt first before dropping the pressure. Suffice to say, I was vibrated to hell on the first few sections of cobbles! We were stopping quite a bit for regrouping and adjusting bits and pieces and I used one of these stops to drop tyre pressure.

After only a couple of the long, flat sections of cobbles my hands were in pain – the knuckles ached as I bounced along. To avoid this I would grip the drops and then release until the pain returned and then grip the drops again, maybe move to the tops and alternate gripping and just resting my hands on the bars. At some points, especially longer downhill cobbles, there was just no chance to control the brakes so the bike was just left to run. After about 3 sections I’d got the hang of it and was powering along and just living with the knuckle pain.

The vibrations were causing my saddle pack to unclip. This eventually led to it snapping the velcro strap around the seatpost so I had to transfer my multitool, puncture kit and tubes to my jersey pockets. I should have stuck with the simpler double-velcro type.

The first cobbled climb, the Molenberg, involved another hardware failure. This time, my commuter-tension SPDs let go a couple of times. I had enough momentum (and super-human power and mad skillz of course) to continue without dabbing. At another regroup point I tightened the left pedal. Glad I had the multitool!

From here on I was pretty happy with everything. I much preferred the cobbled climbs to the cobbled flat sections since you weren’t vibrated to hell and my legs are far stronger and better suited to pain than my arms and hands. The climbs are steep but not impossible with 39-25 gearing. The biggest trouble was other riders stopping or weaving wildly in front of you or even, in Ricky’s case, falling on top of you! I think the Koppenberg was probably the hardest climb or was it the Valkenberg? but it was made trickier for me when the guy in front weaved from one side of the road to the other and then stopped dead in front of me. I run straight into his back wheel and had to unclip. I swore at him, remounted and continued on up after Continental Dave.

CS Grupetto atop one of the ‘hellingen’

I’d lost the guys after stopping to transfer my kit and mess about. I upped the pace and TT’d down a long, fast cobbled descent only to be stopped by a copper to let traffic through. I caught up with the guys again at the first feed stop. It was in some kind of shoe factory – Safety Runner or something? It was a construction line with riders first getting their cards stamped and then weaving up and down aisles picking up waffles, stroop waffles, bananas, muesli bars and Isostar drinks.

I guess we were some way over half way done and Dave and I were feeling a bit keen to up the pace and stop the stopping. We left Graham, Ricky and Tom to continue on at their pace. Dave and I started knocking over the climbs, well Dave killed the climbs and I struggled along behind him and then the roles reversed and I rolled down the descents with Dave pedaling. 🙂

Towards the end it turned more and more into my kinda riding – long, flat and fast. Dave and I swapped turns, being passed by bunches (some riding like muppets) only to take them back again after 200m. It was like commuter racing on a grand scale 🙂

The Muur-Kapelmuur was fantastic. It was lined with fans all cheering riders on. It’s the second last climb so guys were getting tired, weaving and stopping and falling all over the place. I was too pumped to let anyone mess up my climb so did my own share of yelling to keep riders going or to get them out of my way. “Hop Hop Hop Hop Hop!!” “On your left!!!” etc. The rider in front of me was speaking Belgian to the crowd and I caught the last word which sounded like ‘applause’. He was egging the crowd on! They responded with a massive cheer and clapping. Fantastically inspiring stuff and just what I needed to continue my assault on the Muur. I caught Dave up near the Chapel and we carried on, safe in the knowledge we were near the end with only the Bosberg remaining.

The finish for us was a bit of a shambles. We were cheered through the finish line but then didn’t know where to go. We turned back across the road following some riders but then it thinned out and we had to check the map. We headed back to the finish line to see if there were any signs. Nope, but more riders were going the other way so we followed them. This was more promising with massive bunches of riders waiting at lights for the police to let them through. Eventually we made it back to the start/finish area. Job done!

After a burger we collected our finishing certificates and polished off a few beers waiting for the others. Turns out they’d already gone to the bus and were waiting for us. Whoops.

Luckily the guys had given them a cover story about us being lost. I think they were being dramatic since we were at the bus only 30min after first being called by Jonathan. It only took 10min from when I noted the missed calls to get to the bus. It wasn’t in the same place and we came from a different street which helped our ‘lost’ story somewhat. We disassembled our bikes in record time and piled on. Back to the hotel for a clean up and then beers and then out for dinner (Mexican) and more beers and I think back to the hotel for even more beers. The hotel bar was staffed by a friendly lady who did a great job getting us to hang around drinking 🙂

Sunday was another early start and then a day of frantic race following in the bus! We saw the start in Brugge, a random bit of road somewhere, the first feed stop, Oude Kwaremont and the Muur.

Euskaltel team car in Brugge

The peloton roll out of Brugge

The peloton is still together after 100k

At the first feed station there was a two man break with 30 seconds on the rest

After showing Wayne (who didn’t ride on Sat due to injury) the Oude Kwaremont climb we headed back up the road to watch from inside and outside a pub, but not before spotting someone wearing a Rollapaluza cap! I was wearing a Rolla shirt so didn’t appear completely mental when I approached him to comment. I needed to get back up the hill for a fast exist though so left him be.

The peloton was now looking dusty and ragged. There were splits forming everywhere. I couldn’t believe the speed they went past and the speed all the cars and outriders went past! Unbelievable!

Wayne and Tom climbing up to get a view from the Muur.. which was basically impossible due to the numbers there already. Roy did a great job of getting us there at all though with some fearless parking!

Stijn Devolder (1) just before he attacks in the winning move on the Muur for his second Ronde victory in 2 years.

We watched the final 10k of the race on a huge screen setup in town near the Muur.

After the race we walked up the Muur for another look before heading back into town for some beers. Whatever you do, don’t take the bottles away from drunk bar women! 🙂

That night after some beer-cheese sandwiches (thanks Chef Wayne!) I ate steak and chips and tried far too many Belgian beers, helped in part by the fact that Ricky and I, along with two of the Manchester blokes, were the only 4 on the bus to tip the winner in the sweepstakes! 32 euro each. Nice work!

Those Manc buggers sure can put it away! We arrived back at the hotel maybe 1 or 2am and they were still looking for more beer. The hotel bar had closed so vending machines and “Nacht Winkels” provided our options. Some time around 4am I finally went to bed. All in all it set me up for a very very hungover bus trip back to London.

What a fantastic cycling long weekend! Big thanks to all those involved.

Grupetto FTW!

cyclingnews.com – stijn devolder

Some pictures from the Tour of Flanders

Update:

Ricky got me the link to the Chorlton Velo club that the four Manchester lads belong to.

www.chorltonvelo.co.uk

I’ve uploaded my Powertap data and Dave and I finished with a ride time of 5h:37m

Duration: 5:37:14 (6:41:19)

Work: 3575 kJ

TSS: 573.6 (intensity factor 1.021)

Norm Power: 265

VI: 1.47

Pw:HR: 4.41%

Pa:HR: 3.25%

Distance: 142.167 km

Min Max Avg

Power: 0 924 181 watts

Heart Rate: 99 187 145 bpm

Cadence: 29 209 75 rpm

Speed: 0 64.1 25.8 kph

Pace 0:56 0:00 2:20 min/km

Hub Torque: 0 90.5 10.6 N-m

Crank Torque: 0 156.7 25.0 N-m

(c) 2009 Ved

Martin, Clive, Vedran, Scarlett, Desi, Ricky, Tom and Ant (ride leader) and myself (a mix of Rollapaluza CC, Willesden CC and Grupetto riders) covered a nice 65k roll around the Kent countryside today, plus another 85k for me getting from Ealing to Smithfield Market and on to Orpington (and back).

Not so nice was someone’s foolhardy decision to climb Yorks Hill, sight of the famous Catford CC hill climb. Scarlett (a seasoned hill-climber) and myself (a seasoned lard arse) both made it to the top clean. Scarlett in something like 2:30 and me in 3:something. Luckily the rest of the ride was much more leg friendly with some pleasant climbs (“Mountains” in Kent, oh how we laughed) and fun descents.

Thanks to everyone for making the ride good fun and Ant for routing us (d’ya see what I did there?) 🙂

Ant’s Route