Sussex Ride - Sunday 26 May 2103

Part of the deal for taking my wife down to Sussex was that I would do a little riding. Box Hill was one of the planned rides and the other was to ride from where ever we were staying to Billingshurst to visit her sister. We ended up staying on Fontwell just round the corner from the racecourse so Billingshurst was about 20-25 miles depending on the route. However the choice of route was difficult as many of the roads in the area are very busy - much more so than the Midlands. I used Garmin Connect to create a route for my Garmin 800 (I have ended up using this as I find it the most slick and easy to get a turn-by-turn route into the Garmin although other sites do some mapping functions better) and just went for it - no looking at Strava for segments to ride - just a ride on what looked like the smaller roads.

This was the route I ended up with:




It turned out to be, with a few miles exception a fantastic route. I have hardly ever done so before but I stopped about midway to take a few photos on my phone:

It was a very pleasant ride with beautiful weather - and I even picked up a top 10 place!

Ditchling Beacon - Monday 27 May 2103

Flushed with success with my Box Hill exploits 2 days before and still being in the South of England (West Sussex to be precise rather than Surrey) I managed to find and make some time to do Ditchling Beacon. We drove along the A27 and across to the top of the Beacon from Fontwell and parked. I put my bike together and basically rode to the bottom, turned round and rode back up, and then repeated.

4.4 miles, 980 feet of climbing in total:

Here is the profile:

I was very dismissive of Box Hill but Ditchling Beacon was tough, the 6/10 rating was probably fair in 100 100 Greatest Cycling Climbs. It was hard work without any warm up at all. The descent was very fast and the road narrow with some quite sharp turns (or sharp at 30+mph), so with traffic it was not possible to really get up to much speed.

On the first descent I rode along for a further couple of hundred meters or so before turning round, dropping onto the 34 ring and selecting the 19 gear on the cassette. I shifted up to the 21 gear and got most of the way up before using the 24. I think I managed to avoid the 28 on the first climb.

On the 2nd climb I needed a gear lower in most places (legs felling pretty lactic acid laden and puffing and panting a bit due to no warm up) and needed the 28 for the last 100m or so. I was thwarted a bit on the 2nd climb as two cars struggled to get past a couple of cyclists and I felt I lost about 5 seconds max.

On both ascents I passed a couple of other riders and again was not passed. However there were very few riders compared to Box Hill.

Its a pretty constant 7-8% gradient, and the road seemed to have been been recently resurfaced as it was very smooth and even making worrying about dodging the potholes unnecessary.

My wife even took a few photos of me (breaking rule Rule #17)

Holding the traffic up!

Almost at the top

I have ridden Ditchling Beacon once before but probably more than 26-27 years ago when I rode the London to Brighton ride with a group from my employers at the time. However that far ago I had a quite different bike, and I know that I was unable to ride the hill due to the sheer number of other riders. I also remember having several punctures that caused a load of grief

Col de Box Hill - Saturday 25 May 2013

Box Hill - it is spoken with reverence and hallowed tones amongst the cycling fraternity. The long, almost Alpine like ascent, the sheer level of ascent, the views, a challenge so tough that it struck fear into the Olympic Road Race participants. Its been called the Alpe d'Huez of the South even. Given this description I felt that when an opportunity arose to take on this immense challenge that I just could not turn it down.

And its climb #14 in 100 Greatest Cycling Climbs - I have not done many of the climbs in this book (I have done #1 - Cheddar Gorge (Wiggle Mendips Sportive in 2011), #98 - Rhigos and #99 The Bwlch - although not quite all of it! Both of the latter were on the 2010 Dragon Ride). The book says that the surface was not great but as part of the "Olympic Legacy" for me the surface was absolutely fantastic - clearly resurfaced only for the race. The other roads that I rode in the vicinity were pretty normal - i.e. average to dreadful!

I was taking my wife down to visit some of her family and also to visit a joint friend of ours who I went to university with and was my best man. From the Midlands the route to Sussex is M40, M25 and A24 and Box Hill sits just on the A24 so an opportunity too good to miss. I put the bike in the car and we headed off. The M40 was as normal no issue but the M25 was its typical pain taking us an hour to get from the M40 junction round to the A24 exit. This put us a little behind schedule. We managed to park at the Rykers Cafe at the bottom and after a quick change and minor re-assembly of the bike off I went. Some pre-checking of segments around Box Hill had shown there was a loop of about 8 miles that would avoid just hill reps and see a little more of Surrey - this is this segment: BoxHill Ballbreaker. I planned to ride this loop twice and do a 3rd final climb and then turn around giving me about 18-19 miles and 3 ascents in about 1 hour - after all my wife would be sitting in the car at the cafe so I could not and did not want too spend too long. I also programmed the route (1 loop) into my Garmin so I could just ride and not bother about trying to navigate

The main problem with the route was that Rykers Cafe is literally 100-200 metres from the start of Zig Zag Road which is the Box Hill climb so I knew that I had to be sensible on the first climb and not blow up through being completely cold and with no warm up. I did cycle down to the A24 from the car park exit to add in about 200 more meters but there was no way that this would be anything like enough to warm up properly, so was in the little front ring from the word go.

Turning onto Zig Zag road was a little exciting - I recognised lots of bits from the Olympic coverage and it was full of cyclists. For that first climb it was difficult to know quite what gear to be in. My legs felt fresh and felt like I needed a higher gear, but I resisted and stayed in 34-19 for the run to the first hairpin. Up to the first bend its mostly straight but there are some very small curves of a few degrees from the straight ahead and the gradient is reasonably flat, with a slight kick up to the first bend. The first bend is quite wide and easy to negotiate - its not really a hairpin at all. There is then a short straight section with an almost constant gradient to the second hairpin which really is a hairpin - very tight and with a noticeable height change across the corner. This is followed by another straight of constant gradient until a final 90degree right turn and short (100-200m) climb to the cafe at top. And that's it.

1.6 miles long, 410 feet of ascent and an average grade of 5%. Its only 3/10 in the 100 Greatest Cycling Climbs.

The first climb I did in 8:01, the second in 7:50 and the final one in 7:58. Disappointing that there was not a bigger improvement from the first climb but re-assuringly consistent. What is absurd that in this shot ride I got 55 achievements! For Box Hill alone there are about a dozen segments at least! And the number of riders is amazing compared to where I normally ride.

This Segment has 9017 riders and has been ridden 49551 times. I came 2709th.
This Segment has 8085 riders and has been ridden 39818 times. I came 1647th.

Here is the Strava elevation profile for my ride showing that it is made up of 98% segments:

And so it goes on.

For me I was pleased to be in the top 1/3rd to top 1/4. This is about the best I could hope for. I would have been disappointed to be in the lower half.

On the day I rode no one passed be on any of the 3 climbs and I passed a reasonable number of people.

I mentioned the sheer number of people riding the segments compared to in the Midlands. There were literally hundreds of people going up, coming down or sitting at the Cafes at the top and bottom. It was like riding a sportive with so many people about. A lot of people looked like they had ridden down from London or up from Surrey and Sussex. I may have had an advantage on my climbs with hardly any miles in my legs compared to some of these people to be fair.

I spent a lot of the space above talking about Box Hill but the loop around from the top back to the bottom of Zig Zag road was equally pleasant - and there were hardly any other cyclists here - they obviously mostly only come to ride the hill itself but I fully recommend the loop that I rode (it was not the Olympic route though)

Here are some pictures of Box Hill from other peoples pages.

First Hairpin

The Second hairpin

The Long Straight (looking down)

The Long Straight (looking up) with the fresh graffiti

The picture showing the writing on the road - there was lots of support for Mark Cavendish shows it freshly painted but it is all still readable. It was quite exciting!

Longest Ride of the Year so far

For Sunday 19 May Noel suggested that we ride to Evesham. Its quite a long round trip for us ~65 miles or so so almost 4 hours on a slow day. I asked that we start at 8.30 so I was not too late home - my wife is still recuperating and disappearing all morning is not something I want to be doing too often at the moment.

Come 8.30 Sunday the weather was bright sunshine with almost no wind. It was not quite warm enough that early for short sleeves so I wore my arm warmers with the aim of not needing them for too long. They came off at Great Alne.

Our route to Evesham from Solihull is Earlswood, Tanworth In Arden, Ullenhall, Little Alne, Great Alne, Alcester, Arrow, Bidford on Avon, Cleeve Prior and then Evesham. The return leg is Harvington, Dunnington, Cookhill, Astwood Bank and then Tardebigge, Alvechurch and Wythall.

The route is here:


Evesham is at 35 miles and is down hill all the way:

Unfortunately what goes down must go up and the drag back is tiring - especially as an imperceptible tailwind became a noticeable headwind back.

Noel's "plod" down was at a much higher pace than I had expected and we had 18.4mph by the time we got to Evesham. As Noel set the pace down I had had quite a sheltered ride so took my turn at the front for the return run. The first small climb out of Evesham was far tougher than I had expected and I knew then that we were in for a tough ride. Evesham to Astwood Bank is a long drag almost always with an incline and is very tiring. The other problem is that from Astwood Bank there is no easy way back without a noticeable climb somewhere. I managed to keep an adequate pace back at ~16-17mph to Astwood Bank but we both dropped the pace off to Scarfield Hill, and I spent several miles in the little (wimp) front ring to take the load off my legs around Ham Green and Elcocks Brook and save some energy for Weatheroak Hill. Weatheroak Hill proved to be as hard as ever after ~60 miles, but knowing that that this was the last climb once we crested the top we got some pace in back home.

This was the longest ride this year - I had not done more than 50 miles so far and I really felt it for the last 10-15 miles and for a few hours afterwards. At 133.3 miles for the week it is also (just) the highest mileage for a week this year as well, so a reasonable achievement.

This year has proven to nothing like the previous 3 years mileage - I am about 500 miles down compared to these years, but given the weather and my wife's illness I have not done badly. I think that 5000 miles this year will be a very hard challenge unless we have an excellent summer and mild and dry autumn and winter. We'll have to see.

More High Gear Work

Today I had planned to ride a reasonable distance - the first 50+ mile ride of the year. However, 2 things conspired to prevent this. Firstly Noel cried off at the last minute due to an over indulgence of alcohol the night before and secondly the weather forecast that the night before indicated rain at about 1pm now suggested rain at 10am. I had planned to ride down to Alcester and Ragley Hall and then loop back but I didn't want to be 1½ hrs from home in rain. Instead I chose to ride to Alvecurch and do the 3 "climbs" out of Alvechurch. I'd then decide whether to return back via Beoley or try something on the Lickeys like Rose Hill or the Fiery Hill ascent. 

The route is here:

I climbed the Grange Lane route first as I find this the hardest, then descended Scarfield Hill, up Coopers Hill, back down Grange Lane, back up Scarfield Hill and then down Coopers Hill. Grange Lane needed 2nd gear but I climbed both Scarfield Hill and Coopers Hill in 3rd without too much pain. It was reasonably windy but the climbs shielded me from any direct headwind.

Feeling OK and with the weather still holding I rode to the Lickeys and took the Feiry Hill / Twatling Road route. Again 3rd gear was OK for Fiery Hill and I was in 4th/5th for Twatling Road. A fast descent of Rose Hill followed and then it was generally a tail wind home - in fact it was clearly a monster tail wind home from looking at the Strava results:

There was a 20 sec improvement on "Bunbury-Middleton Rd", 21 sec improvement on "Cartland Rd Hill" and a 9 sec improvement on "Yardley Wood Station Sprint". The wind was a factor, as was the increased mileage recently, but I was in probably a higher gear than I would have been a month or so ago - so I am still pleased with the performance
 

Downfall - Cycling Version

Downfall is an excellent film - I am quite interested in WW2 history and I thought the film tackled a difficult topic in an appropriate manner.

However there is one scene in the film that has been spoofed many times for many different themes. Here's 2 of my favourites:

Espresso Ride Meeting

Hitler Loses all of his KOMs on Strava

"I had the highest suffer score for men of my age group" !!!

"I guess we should not tell him it was a seniors group ride" !!!

"... this makes me just a cycling enthusiast" !!! 

Too Many Miles

A quick post.

I took advantage of the glorious weather today (7 May) and rode to work again (3 working days in a row) as the weather for the remaining days this week or so looks poor. Together with some work commitments it means a pretty small chance of any more commutes this week.

The weather was reasonably warm at 6.30am (started at about 8Deg C and rose to 10Deg C by the time I arrived) but I still needed a base layer and arm warmers under my short sleeve jersey as I feel the cold a bit. By the time I was in Coventry I would have been OK with just the SS jersey. Going home was 100% SS jersey only.

However, commuting the previous Thursday, Friday (45 miles round trip), a very fast ride for me on the Sunday, and then 2 rides on Bank Holiday (one a lovely slow pootle with my wife along the Stratford canal from Shirley to Lapworth, then back up the Grand Union canal to Knowle and the other a 20 mile dash in the afternoon on my Focus) meant that I already had over 160miles in my legs over 5 days before setting off for work today.

I really felt that distance, whereas last year at this time would have not even noticed it. The flat was OK but there was definitely some burning of lactic acid on the "climbs" each way, and I had to revert to lower gears (see previous post). Despite this I amazingly pulled out a few Strava achievements on the way home but I credit this with the mainly tailwind!

Compared to last year I am about 5-600 miles behind and still way of my 5000 miles/year target. This is down to the dreadful weather from January to April and the fact that given my wife's illness last last year I can only really get a few hours (3 at most) at the weekends if I make an early start - which then makes me tired. I've not given up on the 5000 miles but it is going to be very hard this year and will only be possible if I can commute 3 days per week. That's really tough as as well as the distance its a 25 minute earlier wake up. we'll see how it goes.

Cassette Change - a Review and Improvements?

I wrote a few weeks ago about the decision to "Man Up" and get a 12-25 cassette for my Giant rather than replace it with either a 12-27 or a 12-28. The reason was really to try to stop being lazy and force myself to use a higher gear and build some strength. Internet cycling forums (fora?) are full of advice about how to ride ("spin" or "grind", "the power is the same", "destroys my knees" etc), but ignoring all this I felt that with the 27 and 28 cassettes I bailed out too soon and looked for a lower gear which I then hung onto for too long meaning that my speed was lower than it might be. There was no real evidence to suggest this, and being an engineer evidence is crucial, but it seemed plausible. So I went ahead and fitted a 12-25 to my Giant.

Since then, when riding the Giant I have also made a concious decision to try to be in 1 gear higher than I feel I would have been before. Bearing in mind that from 4th gear on (the 19 tooth) the gearing is pretty much the same across all the 12 and 11 cassettes the difference lies in 1, 2 and 3 - the 3 biggest rings. As a result my main target is to try to keep in or above the 19 tooth ring.  I have also started to "grind" a bit more and stand up to generate lower speed torque.

I have been riding the new cassette for about 6 weeks or so now, and feel that there is a bit of a change for the better.

I think that this might have been seen today when I went out for an early morning run. The weather was pretty good - shorts and short sleeve top (but with arm warmers) and some but not too much wind.

I rode the same route as I had ridden the week before and within 20 minutes or so felt pretty strong and confident of being able to set a reasonable pace. This route is quite flat - about 1500 feet over 47 miles but features a couple of good stretches of flat fat road where even I can push out a good speed.

At Balsall Common I was at average of about 19.6mph and feeling good. I kept pushing hard and at about 30 miles (Little Alne) was still at 19.3mph average. However from this point its generally uphill all the way. Nowhere is particularly steep but its just a gradual height gain - an example is Pettiford Lane -
   
I am 39th on this segment at 3'15''.

I tried very hard to keep the pace up for the rest of the way home and pushed wherever I could but I felt the time slipping away. I didn't dare look at the Garmin to see what was happening and just kept pushing as hard as I could.

The result when I got home was an overall average of 18.9mph for 47.1 miles.

The ride is here:
 

This route was the same as I rode the week before. This weeks performance was 2:29:52 ride time at an average 18.9mph compared to last week where it was 2:39:07 at an average of 17.7mph. I was to say the least ecstatic with the pace. This is the fastest ride this year (even over commutes which at 18 miles can be pushed hard), and about my 7th fastest ride ever - all the faster rides are over 20-28 miles so not only was the pace high the distance was good as well. And I got 19 achievements (although to be fair on that route I had only ridden it 2 or 3 times before so at worst I would have got a 3rd on many of them!)

Can I claim that the different cassette on the Giant has made this improvement? Probably not as there are other factors.

For example with the better weather and work commitments in my favour I have been able to commute twice a week for the past 3 weeks or so, and been able to extend the Friday return leg to get over 40 miles on the day, and adding this up has given me 4-5 weeks at 100+ miles a week so I am obviosuly a lot fitter now than a few weeks ago:

Regardless I'll take the ride as a memorable PB.

And I am happy with the cassette choice.