Category Archives: Cycling

Cycling

[push] 30 minutes in the red zone

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So last night was the Smithfield Nocture, and I was out racing the penny. I was well down on prep an was down with a cold a few weeks back, so hadn’t even been doing many commute miles recently.

This year we where riding in the opposite direction this year, which made for an interesting downhill hairpin into Snow Hill. The race started with a processional lap and then a rolling start, so I had the chance to get a few lower speed attempts to get the idea of the line. But I knew that I was going to waste a lot of effort slowing down as I approached the corner. Then it was into the wind and back up the hill to the start / finish line.

So how was it, once we got started the pace was high, I was hanging on to the back of the second group on the road about 11 places back, but with in 4 laps they had split off into 2 groups and I was getting dropped. But that still left 16 riders behind me..
All I could do is dig deep and just keep pushing myself and hope that I could hold off everyone who was behind me.
The race was 20 minutes and then 3 laps, which is a very long time to push yourself at maximum effort.

I know that I was over taken by 2 more people during the race, but I was doing everything that I could to keep them in sight but they were sitting about 200 yards ahead of me. When I had the chance I would glance back but couldn’t see anyone following me, so I was out in the no man’s land between groups. Which is one of the hardest places to maintain your pace, as you have no one to slipstream.

With two laps to go, I was lapped by the leading group of 4, which is when I really started to lose count as to my placing. I know that I overtook 9 other riders, but it was very hard to tell if they were back markers or people dropping back from the leading group.
In the final lap I was aware that someone was behind me, and in the last 100 yards he pushed past, and even at maximum sprint I couldn’t keep up.

The crowd seemed a bit down this year on previous, but they still produced a huge wall of noise, which made for a great atmosphere, and a great race.

I think I was about 12th, the official placings say 17th. Which strikes me as a little low, but I didn’t crash and had fun, so I was a good night out.
If I am going to do better I will have to do more training and get a bigger wheel. To that end I had a ride on one of the new racing machines made by Unicycles.com and I was amazed at how much more power it felt like I had on the bigger wheel.

While I was getting the feel of the machine I recognised a chap walking up towards the race circuit. He shouted a hello and asked a question about the bike. He was Michael Hutchinson ex pro rider and time trial rider.
After expressing an interest in the penny I was riding, I naturally offered him a go. So I can now claim that I have given someone truly famous from the world of cycling an holder of multiple time national champion his first lesson in how to ride a penny farthing.
He is currently writing a book about the history of cycling and bicycles so wonder if I will get a mention.
Achievement unlocked.

Race stats:
Distance: 6.5 Miles
Average speed: 14.5 MPH
Top speed: 19.5 MPH (which is down on my best ever top speed of about 22 MPH).

Cycling

[bike] The language of crashing

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Last week I was involved in a bicycle crash.* I was hit by a metallic painted smoked glass windowed BMW at at about half ten at night as I cycled home from climbing.
I was riding through Camberwell in the bus lane, having just passed a bus, and was now on the inside of a line of traffic waiting at traffic lights.

The car in question decided that he didn’t want to wait in line and could use the bus lane to slip up the line of traffic and he was going to turn left anyway so that made it all right. I haven’t checked the hours of operation on that bus lane, I don’t remember it being a 24 hour one.
So he pulled into the left lane, which was a problem, as that is where I was.
Now I my spider senses had tingled so I had a very small window of realisation of what was going to happen, so was already slowing down and swerving towards the left hand curb as he drove into me. This vastly reduced the seriousness of the crash, (I’m not going to say accident, as it was clearly his fault) so I wasn’t knocked off my bike.. I had time to yell out a short warning before we made contact.
Not that it prevented the inevitable crash, that just meant that a lot more people got to see it..

Not that there was much to see, it is not like I fell off or anything. I just bumped my shoulder against the side of a car, wobbled a bit and stopped. The car drove on for another 20 feet before the driver realised that he was going to have to stop before he could lean out of the passenger window to ask if I was ok..

Given that I hadn’t fallen off, there was no bleeding and apart from my shoulder being a little tender I was fine, so I told him to be careful and carried on home.
I wasn’t badly hurt there didn’t seem to be any mileage in doing anything else.

So I have spent a week with a sore shoulder, there are still some actions that are achy, so I will have to take it easy for a little while yet.

Anyway the point of this post was to try and talk about the language and the conversations that have happened in the following week. I have dealt with several..
“Cycling is so dangerous”
“Were you wearing a helmet”
“you’ve got to be so careful”
“you just hear so many bad stories”
“you have to watch out out for lorries”

I’ve been trying to explain that basically I am fine, just a bit stiff, and it is not that bad. You ride carefully, but if the people in the cars are not paying attention, they are going to catch up with you from time to time.
But that doesn’t mean that cycling is a bad idea.

And I just have no idea how to articulate that.

* Spoiler, I am ok, there is no need to worry, nothing broken with either me or the bike, but I am a bit achy.

Cycling

[Commute] Back on the bike..

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Today was my first cycle commute since my spectacular crash in September..
Today I learned:
– That I am really unfit.
– My cycle computer thinks it is a round trip of 80 miles. (Rather than just 20)*
– It wasn’t as cold as I expected.  Which meant I was wearing too many layers.
– That I like cycling, the turbo trainer is dull.

* Clearly it detected some RF interference while it was in my bag under my desk, it also thinks that my top speed was 78mph.
I wonder if I can use that as justification to buy a shiny new GPS one?