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

After forgetting about the ToF dinner I had no hangover to use for an excuse as I fought the headwind out to the West London Combine 40k/25mi time trial start.

Brian pinned on my number and I left my bits and bobs under a motorway overpass on the A413 (Amersham Road) before heading off to warm up and stretch a bit. Saw Richard Jerome who had previously told me that a 1:05 on this course would mean a sub-hour time on the fast ski-slope course. So, with no other target in mind, I was aiming for 1:05.

Rolled down to the Old Amersham Road for my start. I’d watched a “serious” TTer grunt and scream as he left. I would not be doing that.. at least.. not yet. I think I was the second last rider off, at 8:38.

This was only the second ride on the S-Works for over 6 months which also meant I’d not used road pedals for the same length of time. I had massive clip in fail at the start but heard the magic click just as the starter got to “1.. go!”. Phew. Big gear down the steep little ramp of a road, along the slip lane and then merging onto the main A413. My HR was not showing (that’s two flat batteries in my PT straps) so I was going to have to work off power alone. I knew I was going out too hard and mentally forced myself to slow down (400W to 300W).

There was a strong headwind on the way out. I’d read that on an out and back course, there’s no point saving yourself for the tailwind return since you can’t make up the time you lose on the way out. So, my aim was to hold around 300W for the way out (my 1hr TT wattage from last year) and then smash it on the return with whatever I had left.

On the bumpy course I found myself stuck behind a big digger. It took up the whole lane and it was going fast enough to make passing tricky but slow enough that I was coasting behind it down the hill, wasting time. Eventually we both came to a stop at a red light. A what?! Yes, the course had some road works going on so there was a portable traffic light setup. Bye bye 20-30 seconds. The digger turned right and I had a clear road.

I saw a Willesden CC jersey marshaling the roundabout and slowed down (wanting to see who it was while not getting into any issues with a club mate watching :)). It was John W.

Accelerating out of the roundabout I was somewhat shocked to see BringMeMyFix yelling encouragement at me. He’d ridden from London EC2 (ie. way too far to watch a TT). I couldn’t do much except grin (or grimace or something?) and was pretty chuffed that I had a supporter out there so I of course increased my power output.

It was hard work going into the wind. Even at 300W I was only traveling at 25-30kph at places, which to be fair is pretty rubbish. Maybe there was some gradient involved too? I passed a few of our guys along here. At one of the roundabouts had another slow down. I see car coming ’round and slow, but then he sees me and slows down too. Doh! If he’d have continued on without looking he would’ve been gone but now we’ve both come to a stop! Off I go, losing 10-20 seconds. I see Richard Jerome on his way back and yell “Go Ritch!” at him.

A while later I hit the turnaround. I think there were some more Willesden people on roundabouts here because I’m sure I heard a “go Birnie” from someone. Thanks 🙂

The speed on the way back was much better. It was so much nicer with the tailwind. I love riding fast and I love riding fast with less effort even more! I’m sure there’s also a psychological benefit to knowing you are “on the way home”.

I went passed BMMF and again he was yelling out encouragement which did well to bump my mood and speed.

Unfortunately the road works red light was in full effect again on the way home. I’d slowed down before it, hoping it might go green before I arrived at it but no such luck. I was looking both sides for options but there was oncoming traffic in the ‘other lane’ and a 4×4 filling up the road so I couldn’t get by. ARRGH! I had to unclip and wait. What a complete &%$&!

Apart from stopping your forward progress it also messes with your rhythm and forces you to accelerate when you restart. In my case it also made me think I’d broken a pedal when I tried clipping in again (trackstanding isn’t an option when you’ve been at limit for the last 50min). So, I’d clipped in but it didn’t feel right. I unclipped and pulled my shoe back, clipped in with a satisfying “click” and was angry and good to go. There’s a good 20-30 seconds lost again. Grrr..

Up up up! I could see a sign down the road and guessed it must be the finish line. I was going to sprint for it but decided I might collapse so opted for the seated “sprint” finish.

1:03:14 Result! 2 minutes faster than my goal time (and Rich’s time :)).

I missed 5th place (out of 50 starters) by 7 seconds. Fastest time was 57:36. I bet they weren’t riding on the drops though 😉

Thanks to the helpful/cheerful starters and thanks to the guys and gals from Willesden CC for marshaling the course. No wrong turns for me! 🙂

Big thanks to Scarlett for randomly showing up and cheering (and the coffee). You probably saved me a minute with the extra motivation.

bikely.com – HCC113 Course

West London Combine (WLC) 40k / 25 mile TT results – 22nd March 2009

Update

I’m just looking at my power data and shaking my head..

Normalised Power: 355W

Average Power: 342W

That’s a LOAD more than last year! Last year’s only 25 on a faster course in May..

Normalised Power: 318W

Average Power: 306W

I checked and other than the large increase it doesn’t look like a calibration failure. Guess I’ll have to do another 25 for verification now.

http://willesdencc.blogspot.com/2009/03/time-trial-round-up.html

It was a lovely day. Lovely course. Challenging climbs and fun, safe descents. But something was “off”. I didn’t feel the love for much of the day.

I also sprayed myself in my own blood after hitting a pot hole, throwing a chain and then refitting it with some kind of new-fangled thumb slicing method I’d not previously used.

Muchos Gracias to cliveo for driving me there and back. Sunlight, tan, consider yourselves repped!

Silver in 4:23.

claus left me behind early on and got a gold time. Well done!

Cyclosport.org rate Surrey Rumble difficulty as 7 and Burgess Hill Classic as a 6!! I call rubbish!

Burgess Hill Spring Classic (114k)

274W normalized power (does a better job of accounting for power spikes)

212W avg power

148 avg HR

3249kJ

474.7 TSS (training stress score)

Surrey Rumble (125k)

249W normalized power

205W avg

143 avg HR

3147kJ

389.2 TSS

Registration: BK08 JRO

Vehicle Make/Model: Grey NISSAN QASHQAI 1.6 (07ON) ACENTA 2WD

Caucasian female dark hair driver.

Last night at Shepherds Bush I wanted to move from far left lane to far right. There’s about 4 lanes. This car in front had the left indicator on so I was waiting for it to move before deciding when to change lanes myself. For some reason the car was moving right though, while the left indicator flashed. I rode up alongside the car and noticed the woman driver talking on the phone AND writing stuff down on a notepad she was resting on the steering wheel!! No wonder the silly bint was veering across the road!

I moved over to the far right lane as planned and she was in the next one over now. As I rode alongside her (driver’s side this time) I noticed she was still writing and not looking where she was going! I tapped on her window and pointed to her notepad (moving swiftly out of the idiot’s way). She wound the window down to swear at me. I commented on how stupid she was driving a tonne and a half of steel whilst writing! She swerved her car at me and continued swearing. I yelled “I’ve got your plates” and pointed to her number plates. She drove off (only to be stopped at the lights 100m away, where I probably yelled some insults at her before I continued on my way home. This woman is a danger to anyone on the road and should not be allowed to drive.

This happened Monday evening. On Monday morning (Uxbridge Rd, Ealing) I was hit by a car that turned across my path without looking or indicating. I swerved but ran out of room and connected with the woman’s car, knocking her mirror clean off!! Comedy! I was yelling at her and she jumped out of the car apologising. I berated her for not using her mirrors and then realised what I’d said. “Well, you don’t use them so I removed it for you!”. I checked over my bike and arm and was okay and she was very apologetic. I lectured her about using mirrors (I was laughing to myself by this stage) and the bike lane that indicates cyclists are around and went on my way. My arm’s a bit stiff and sore today but good enough to punch through the skull of the next idiot that tries to kill me.

www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk – drink driver who killed cyclist has term cut

A drink-driver who mowed down and killed a cyclist after an all-day Bank Holiday pub session had his sentence slashed by judges.

David Mark Chandler, 41, had spent most of the day drinking when he got behind the wheel of his Astra van. His drinking partner, Jonathan McDonald, was in the passenger seat as they headed off on the A658 Bradford to Harrogate road outside Pool.

At one point Mr McDonald was seen to ?reach across and push? Chandler as he drove, forcing the car to swerve across the road, London?s Appeal Court heard.

Stephen Granger, 50, was struck down by Chandler?s van on the A658, hitting the bonnet and windscreen.

Mr Granger was carried along by the van for a short time before Chandler sped on, oblivious to the dead man. The cyclist?s body was discovered later ?lying where he had been thrown?.

Mr Justice Mackay ? sitting with Mr Justice Aikens and Mr Justice Stadlen ? said Chandler and Mr McDonald began their drinking session at lunchtime on April 8 2007, knocking back wine and five pints of beer with their lunch.

Later they moved on to another pub where they spent ?four hours drinking?, each downing at least six pints of beer.

Chandler, of Arthington Lane, Otley, received four and a half years at Leeds Crown Court after admitting causing death by careless driving in December 2007 while under the influence of alcohol. He also pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice.

The Appeal Court heard Chandler attempted to cover up damage to his car in the accident. He also escaped to Wales the following day to avoid being breathalysed.

Mr McDonald was charged with manslaughter but was acquitted.

Mr Justice Mackay said the evidence suggested Chandler was around 50 per cent over the legal alcohol limit at the time.

But, despite the gravity of his crimes, the judge concluded his sentence was too long.

The jail term took insufficient account of Chandler?s early guilty plea and the assistance he ultimately gave to the authorities, the judge concluded, cutting his sentence by a year, to three and a half years.

Chandler?s original 10-year driving ban was also halved.

So this fucko, mows down and kills a cyclist, covers up the evidence, disappears to avoid being breatho’d and has his sentence REDUCED after all this?!?! What in the name of fucking fuck was this court thinking?! I hope the driver hangs himself. This is disgusting.

Gentleman Tom picked myself and the Rubble up from Ealing at 7.30 and drove to the Surrey Rumble start in Cobham. We signed on and I left in the 9.05 wave, a couple of waves down on cliveo and another Rollapaluza rider Jamie. On the first climb I noticed a Cecil Walker road bike. “So, you’re from Melbourne then?” I queried the rider. “Could be” was the reply.

It turns out that Mike (rider of the Cecil Walker custom steel bike) used to race for Blackburn CC in Melbourne – my old club! He’d stopped racing for them before I started but he still knew some of the same people there. Small world eh?

He warned me about a sharp descent and it was well timed as I watched a bloke go down in front of me when a car veered over to avoid some pedestrians. We stopped to make sure he was okay (he was) and carried on.

So, we rode most of the course together talking random stuff about bikes and the Oz/Uk thing all the while my Powertap’s freehub made horrible screeching noises as the bearings slowly ate themselves. I was worried that the hub would seize at any time and leave me in the middle of nowhere with a long walk home. It didn’t thankfully but it looks like I’ll be coughing up 60 quid for a replacement. Stupid Powertap cheese freehubs.

I caught cliveo riding alone but he passed me again in a big bunch when I stopped for a long erm nature break. I rode with his bunch until the first checkpoint, where my card was stickered and we rolled out quickly. I think I left Clive somewhere here. Mike and I passed a tired rider on one of the climbs and then heard a crunch as he hit the deck. It appears he was knackered (riding head down) and just rolled into a roadside ditch! Again, we checked he was okay and we all continued on.

I met Scherrit from the Bike Whisperer at Checkpoint 2 and said g’day before disappearing, leaving Mike behind it seemed.

He was back again after dragging a bunch up to me. Impressive, since I’d been riding quite hard solo for a while, trying to catch a couple of pairs down the road. We did some big turns here (proper 40kph+ stuff) while the others sat on. Bloody triathletes! Even though we’d missed a turn (I was right about that arrow damn it!) and gone around a round-a-bout a few times we’d got back on track and it was now close to home. Mike was slowing on the hills while tri guy went up the road. I had to beat him so I left the Cecil Walker to its own devices and tore off to the wheel of tri guy.. and sat on. He moved over, so did I. He moved back, so did I. He accelerated, so did I. With the speed up we were doing well until another arrow. I thought I saw one and slowed, looked behind me to see two guys turn down the side lane, looked back to see tri guy 100m down the road and then did a U-turn to head home. It was only a mile or so from here and Cillit Bang, I was home. 4:25 for the 125k. Grabbed some cakes and coffee and had a chat to Corrine from the Bike Whisperer. Clive arrived after a while and then Tom, Ricky and Ved, who’d all left in the last wave, arrived. Poor Wayne had to pack because of his back injuries. Other than BDW’s injury, for the rest of us it was a really good day. The course wasn’t insane, so people could ride together, the weather was dry and not too cold, I didn’t really get lost at all and the Surrey Rumble organisers just generally did really well.