Giant Pygmy

This Saturday is Dunwich Dynamo; a 120 mile night ride from Hackney to Dunwich in Suffolk, augmented for me with a 40 mile ride home on Sunday morning! I did it last year and it was brilliant! This year it’s the final tune up/saddle time befor the Etape, two weeks later. I’m going to get the bike in full Etape build, save for a dynamo front wheel as a shake down, leaving it like that until the Etape.

The weather forecast is coming around, the BBC now thinks it’ll be dry – here’s hoping!

The Planet X superlight pro carbon has had a number of upgrades to be ready for the Etape in 3 weeks. I fitted the last upgrade over the weekend and tested it out by riding 72 miles to Holbeach in Linconshire (not exactly hilly!)

Anyway, a run down of the changes:

1. Saddle upgraded to SKN Titanium
2. Brakes: Swapped the Tektro ‘price point’ brakes for Ultegra and an amazing improvement in performance!
3. Bottle Cages: 2 Specialized ones added
4. Computer: Shimano wireless Flight Deck added
5. Stem: Swapped out for Zipp 145 carbon stem (drool!)
6. Bar: Added Zipp Countour carbon bar (drool more!)
7. Tape: Bontrager gel tape
8. Wheels: I had opted for my Easton Circuits as they’re lovely but for the mountains I’ve opted for Shimano Dura Ace WH7850 Scandium wheels in tubeless config to save weight
9. Tyres: Hutchinson Fusion 2 road tubeless 23mm
10. Seatpost: FSA SLK carbon (what else?)

It’s a thing of beauty now, all set for France!

If you’re nice, generous or just plain ol’ good stuff you can support my charity here: www.justgiving.com/ventoux2009

Cheers

After the Chilterns I was sore.  I had a pretty good recovery week, riding a gentle 80 miles over five days; ready for the Norwich 100 on Sunday.

The weather forecast was randomly changing all week and it was obvious that we were going to get wet, it was just a question of how much!  I figured that we’d be riding in a group so fitting a mudguard wasn’t going to have much effect in avoiding a soaking.  I wore my Icebreaker merino baselayer and merino socks to try and counteract the cooling effects of the expected soaking.  Over that I had a standard shorts/jersey combo and my Pace eVent jacket.  Torq bars and gels and two cannisters of drink mix.  It was cooler out so I started off with one botle of mix and one of water.  Food and drink strategy worked perfectly for the ride.

It’s always difficult to get up at 6:00am on a Sunday, but drag myself out I did and I was out of the door 30 minutes later, laden with Weetabix and OJ for a gentle 6.5 miles to the city centre start line.  The weather was dry!

What to say?  A 7:00am mass start, settling into a big group at a healthy pace out to Reepham and beyond.  There was a selection for the fast guys and I held it together for a while but thought better of  the 27mph pace and settled with a smaller group, much more comfortable in the low 20’s.  The rain had left tell-tale wet roads in our path, meaning we got wet anyway; but the real rain didn’t start until the halfway point in Sheringham (2hrs 15mins for 50 miles).  Then it rained properly, hailed a bit too!  The easterly wind made heavy work of the coast road but my group was cracking on a good pace and we seemed comfortable.

At Bacton I put the tubless system to the test – I didn’t plan to, but the wet roads and debris made flats a fact of life – as we rolled along the sudden pfft! pfft! pfft! said somone had a hole.  Me.  Crap. One guy offered to stop with me but I said the ought to stick with the group, I didn’t know what was in store.  I stopped and turned the rear wheel to check the damage – a 1/4″ cut with latex fizzing everywhere.. hang on, latex!  I turned the hole to the bottom and shook the wheel.. pffff.. nothing; the hole had sealed and there was still air in the tyre, cool!  I broke out my CO2 and added more air; that got the hole going again but it sorted itself out prett quickly and the tyre was good and hard.  I was rolling again in less than 90 seconds!  trouble was, I was rolling on my own.

I slogged on into the wind, the sun came out and I resigned myself for  along 30 miles back to the city.  This went on for 5 miles before I was joined by Deiter who appeared out of nowhere and rode strongly on the front for about 15 inutes!  We started to work together and soon found ourselves turning away from the sea and into the welcoming arms of a tail wind.  The speed came up and we settled into our pace.  We collected another rider just before Horning but dropped him between Wroxham and Coltishall, I didn’t see him again even though we stopped when Deiter had a flat in his front wheel.   When we got into the city suburbs the traffic (and the 50 milers) made it tricky to ride with any organisation and I found myself alone again for the run in.  Pushing on I was able to make it back to the Cathedral just as the rain started again for a time of 5:54:44.  Happy days.

A quick bottle of water and I was off for a gentle spin home in the rain.  I think I got wetter going home than during the ride!  Thankful for a shower and dry clothes I was home again before 1:00pm.  All in all it was  apretty grim ride, the north norfolk hills didn’t hurt too bad and the pace was good, legs felt great.

Lessons?  My old speccy BG gloves aren’t that great anymore – lots of numbness in my left hand.  Merino wool is still great though.  I was pretty toasty all day!  Nothing major planned now until Dunwich Dynamo on 4th July.  With 5 weeks left though I think I’ll be doing a long solo ride next weekend and some hill sessions.

I watched the Dauphine stage to Ventoux on the web; it’s brutal, nothing less.  Even @lancearmstrong said on Twitter that it’s the hardest climb in France.  Oh Great.

So, there’s a lot of things I should do on a regular basis and apologising for not writing updates on here is one of them!

Sunday (June 7th) was my full dress rehearsal for the Etape, the Chiltern 100.  As it was at the end of half-term it fell nicely with us returning from Somerset and I’d been booked for a while!   We arranged to  stay with friends an hour away from the start in Great Missenden so I had an early start to be at the HQ for sign on at 7:15am.  The day started as it meant to go on and the sun shone brightly in a cloudless sky, the travel was easy and on arrival, the ride organisation was very slick.  It didn’t take long to find Rob and his club-mate Ross and we were ready to start at 8:00am.

As it turned out we got away in the third group of 20ish riders at 8:04 riding easily out of town and onto the route proper.  We lost Ross at this point, he, as it turned out, was in for a long day out.  Rob and I pressed on trying to find a group and get to warmed up.

The Chiltern 100 route is 106 miles with 2600 metres of climbing, the major difference between it and the Etape is the number and severity of the climbs, 22 in all, some of which touch 21% gradient.  Brutal.  Through the ride I have to admit that I didn’t have a clue where we were most of the time, the route signposting was very good and we only missed one turn all day, I just followed the signs and waited for the next beasting.

That’s not entirely true, the first 30 miles or so were really good, the climbs were big but gentle and we had a small group most of the time.  I felt comfortable and the bike was rolling well.  I started to suffer after 55 miles or so when we hit the steep climbs; 4.5mph uphill in the granny gear, when you’re already running a 34×27 is pure unadulterated punishment, nothing less.  The terrain also meant that groups never formed, occasionally a small group would form but the next hill would tear it apart.  Rob was riding strongly thanks to some good preparation and a good show at the Etape du Dales two weeks previously:  He did a lot of the work in the 3rd quarter of the ride, I was hanging on and starting to feel a little better.

The feed stations were very well organised and stocked.  Because of the weather we made sure we stopped and filled bottles; I was carrying my own Torq powders to mix up, but to be honest it got pretty sickly after about 3 hours; a lesson for France, a simple bottle of water from the second feed was my favourite thing of the whole ride! I did however, feel that the Torq gels I’ve been using were starting to work; the added caffeine makes for a potent cocktail of in-ride fuel.  I’ll be choosing them again!  After 75-80 miles I started to level out, my legs felt like I could carry on like that all day (my back didn’t though, more core stability work there!) and we checked our speeds and feeds, deciding that we were still on for a Silver standard finish; it was going to be tight though…

To cut a long story short we managed to drag ourselves into the finish in 6:25:37, well inside the silver standard cut-off and without falling apart in the last 10 miles!  Due to some heat exhaustion and computer problems we misjudged the remaning route by about 5 miles; thankfully in our favour and we rolled into the finish together, just happy to have finished!  Other reports I’ve read from elsewhere makes me feel better about my performance, a lot of people suffered and struggled:  Riding a steady pace and keeping it together appears to be an achievement to savour!

Next weekend will be the Norwich 100.  A complete opposite to the Chilterns.; fast and flat with big groups on the road.  Excellent.

That’s March in the bag; a healthy 621 miles covered and the revival of the Planet X bike with gears too.  Speed is generally up and weight is down (11st 8lb this morning).  Next test isn’t until the end of May, I’m doing the Gran Fondo at the Chiltern 100 so I’m going to up my weekend miles on my medium and hard weeks to 3 hours and look to get out on a long ride somewhere between now and then.

The Etape website has a new route profile graphic which highlights the enormity of the Ventoux climb:

I have to say too that I’m enjoying it all right now – I’ve found a timetable for the week that means I can get the riding done with minimal impact to family life and now the clocks have changed there’s scope for riding in the evenings.  I’m hoping to add Tuesday nights with Phil and co back into the mix in a few weeks time and measure how well my early season prep has gone.