Update 17-June-2012

I went out for a ride this morning expecting sunny weather but was disappointed. It was a case for the first hour or so for "Rule 9". I went off towards Rose Hill, then Alvechurch, Tardebigge, Astwood Bank and then Redditch to have another go at some of the segments there. I was feeling OK and (for me) pressing on OK. I felt reasonably strong at Rose Hill (actually the Fiery Hill/Twatling Rd Climb) and also up Scarfield Hill and carried on up to Astwood Bank.

At Astwood Bank instead of going straight on I turned left and headed to Redditch. I have ridden this way before about 18 months ago (actually on 2 Jan 2011). I knew that I'd get near the Icknield Street turn but if I carried on I'd get to the "Paper Mill Rip" segment and from there I was hoping to find the way onto the road that would take me along to Easemore Road and into Redditch town centre to have a go at the Unicorn Hill and Prospect Hill segments again. In addition on Easemore Road there are 2 segments - 1 up and 1 down so plenty of options there.

I almost got round to the Paper Mill Rip section without error - just a couple of mistakes. I also spotted the way up to Easemore Road from Paper Mill Road (well hidden and getting a bit agricultural) so was able to approach from the right place. Easemore Road was a bit of a drag after the miles already under my belt and I knew it wasn't a great time. I rode down Unicorn Hill to where I felt the longer segment started (BUOTC Unicorn Hill) and returned and rode the segment (2 for the price of 1!). I felt reasonably strong and knew the time would be better than previously. I stopped for a quick bit of food before descending Prospect Hill, rode down to the Volvo Garage (the start), U-turned and within ~15 seconds had almost blown. The rest of the ascent was a painful slog back to the top. I pushed for the Easemore Road descent but knew that basically from then on it would be a gentle ride back home. I rode back over a few more segments but there was almost nothing left in my legs. The only positive was I managed to drive the average speed up from 16.7mph in Redditch up to 16.9mph by the time I got home.

Over the whole route I managed to get 16 Achievements (some new of course) but some others were outright improvements.

Rides stats:
Distance =59.9 miles,
Average speed = 16.9mph, 
Maximum speed = 36.2mph, 
Height gain = 2924ft.

I have used my Excel tool to extract the segment data for this ride and present in this table (with a little bit of additional work). There is some more work to do to get the position in the segment rankings, this is the next job to do. I can read all a riders Ride Data (the rides they have ridden) with the overall stats (average speed etc) and the details of each of the segments ridden during that ride and the times etc. for the segment.

Segment ID	Effort Moving Time (s)	Effort Distance (mile)	Effort Average Speed (mph)	Effort Name	Climb Category	Average Grade (%)	Elevation Difference (meters)
824883	371	1.24	12.1	Scarfield Hill, Alvechurch	Cat 4	4.16	82.6
876084	552	2.35	15.3	Icknield St Climb	No Catorised	1.52	68.6
882563	83	0.23	9.9	Prospect Hill	No Catorised	5.25	20
891731	407	2.45	21.7	B4101 Hockey Heath	No Catorised	-0.56	26.4
891753	337	1.78	19.0	Poolhead Lane	No Catorised	-0.32	19.8
937392	164	0.52	11.3	Astwood Lane Climb into Astwood Bank	No Catorised	5.34	44.4
982643	82	0.32	14.2	Vicarage Hill Cheswick Green	No Catorised	2.02	10.6
1007821	79	0.47	21.4	Dyers Drag	No Catorised	-1.11	8.609
1068596	190	0.67	12.7	Easmore Rd Climb	No Catorised	3.73	40.6
1069174	502	1.85	13.3	Fiery Hill / Twatling Rd Climb	Cat 4	3.67	108.935
1080918	43	0.20	16.7	BUOTC Unicorn Hill	No Catorised	3.37	14
1265825	81	0.64	28.3	Easmore Downhill	No Catorised	-3.50	36.4
1328072	182	1.08	21.3	Paper Mill Rip	No Catorised	-1.34	23.4
1328098	63	0.29	16.8	Ravens Bank Rise	No Catorised	1.54	7.4
1403219	289	1.12	13.9	Brookhouse Road Climb	No Catorised	3.59	64.878
1409586	102	0.57	20.3	Clayfields	No Catorised	-2.08	23.2999
1417426	117	0.76	23.3	fiery hill descent	No Catorised	-3.64	44.8
1456696	292	1.48	18.3	Sheltwood Decent	No Catorised	-1.19	38.4
1458872	116	0.56	17.5	Croft Lane	No Catorised	0.47	5.586
1458941	22	0.10	16.7	Unicorn Hill	No Catorised	5.90	9.8
1472706	106	0.39	13.4	Cruise Hill Climb	No Catorised	2.73	17.827
1483394	189	1.14	21.7	Umberslade Road to Cut Throat Lane	No Catorised	-0.52	23.287
1516358	46	0.39	30.7	Rough Hill Drive Decent	No Catorised	-5.61	35.2
1516367	394	2.38	21.8	Island Challenge	No Catorised	-2.41	72.8

The other thing that is really easy now is to generate a graphic showing e.g. performance vs. date. He is my improvement over Scarfield Hill in Alvechurch:

Certainly an improvement this year!

And the roads were wet and dirty:

See where my overshoes were!

Also when I got home (and later in the day I got two of the "Uh Oh.." you've lost your KOM emails from Strava. The first was Hampton Hill (Solihull) taken by Steve Large by 3 secs and the second was Dyers Drag taken by another 7 secs by Dave Brown, so I am now 8 secs behind on this segment (although still 2nd overall). Steve is quick and does pretty long rides whereas Dave is nothing by a segment whore!

Here are these emails:

Update 4-June-2012

Weather was better so took the opportunity for a ride on the Monday.

The wind was blowing to the West so I made a bit of an effort on the "Leg Sapper" segment and got to 8th position with a PR and a time of 2:19 against the previous best of 2:28, equivalent to 1mph faster. This moved me from about 19th to 8th. I was pleased with this.

Took in a climb of Rose Hill - it felt painful but got another PR of 3:37 vs. 3:41 from March earlier this year and moving me from 20th to 18th.

After Rose Hill took my normal route round to Tardebigge as the intention was to have a ride of Unicorn Hill and Prospect Hill in Redditch to see if I could eat into Dave's times. I was not really sure where exactly I was going and spent a long time looping back on myself to get to the town centre. Finally I got there and came upon Unicorn Hill rather quickly. I recognised it from the Halfords Tour Series on the TV a few weeks ago and having had a look at the map the day before, but it came up a bit quick and I fumbled the gears to drop to the small ring. It was not too bad and I was treating it as a bit of a sighter ride for a better attempt later. I then went down Prospect Hill (its actually a One Way road) and went all the way to the traffic lights at the bottom and turned around to come back up as I was not sure exactly where it started from. Again I treated it as a bit of a sighter ride and while didn't loaf I didn't give it the beans either. Swung left at the top and rode in what I though was the direction of Beoley.

It all went a bit wrong here as Redditch seems to be lots of areas (housing and industrial) only linked by busy (bike unfriendly) dual carriageways. The long and the short of it was a long looping ride round Redditch before finally recognising something I'd seen before and getting to Beoley. I went home via Icknield Street, but again with no real segment hunting aim. 

More importantly was that on Unicorn Hill I was only 3 seconds behind Dave at 28 (vs 25) seconds and only 1 place in 15th position. That 3 secs should be easy especially if I can approach it better next time. The other reason for trying Unicorn Hill is that it is a direct comparison with some Pro cyclists. The top 7 times were all set during the Tour Series Race and the KOM is Dean Downing who set a time of 13secs - over twice as fast as my time - and he rode up at 28.6mph! That's why they're Pros I guess.

On Prospect Hill on the 1st attempt I was in a strong 4th place at 1:07 although a long time behind Dave's KOM time of  0:49. That will need some real effort.

There were also quite a few other segments in Redditch that I rode without realising and now I know where they are I'll definitely have a go for them. The only problem is trying to get back out of Redditch!

Total ride distance was 56miles in 3:19:18 giving an average of 16.8mph and the total climbing was 2989ft. I probably could have made a slight improvement if I'd known where I was going in Redditch but my legs did feel quite tired for some reason

As an observation the horrible noises from the Focus FSA Mega EXO BB have gone at the moment - I haven't done anything. Hopefully a replacement is on the way from Wiggle so we'll see what happens. I'll be riding ~80 miles next weekend on the Pedal for Parkinsons ride so I hope it is OK.

Update 10.00pm: Dave's been out to have another go at the Unicorn Hill segment and gained 8 seconds - not so sure I can catch that, but I am flattered that he thought I'd pass his previous time and needed/wanted to post a faster time!
Also went out with my wife this evening after dinner and rode (her on the BSO and me on my Mongoose) another 9 miles. I am only 21 miles from reaching the 1/2 way point of the 2012 mileage target, and hopefully will run this off tomorrow.

Another brief update.

After 3 commutes at the end of March I added in another ride on Sunday (1 April) with Noel. We went down to Evesham which is normally a good 60+ mile round trip. Weather was OK (shorts) but needed a few layers on for the first few hours. Noel & I took reasonable turns at the front and as a result got down to Evesham and back to Astwood Bank at about 17.4mph average which was very pleasing. At that point I wanted to detour through to Tardebigge and on and Noel had had enough, so we split at that point. I pressed on and added a few extra Strava segments to the route and despite doing a total of 72.9 miles for the morning still got the average at 17.1. The additional segments were the "Sheltwood Stretcher" (a drag over a mile or so) and Icknield Street Climb, and on both of these set the 2nd fastest time overall, so was well pleased.

Didn't get a great deal of chance for riding to work the week commencing 4 April other than the Friday (we are heathens and work on Good Friday) which was a bitterly cold morning (-4Deg C on my Garmin 800).

However the weather perked up on the Saturday and I went out for a blast to get as many segments as possible in the afternoon. Did a 30 mile loop at 19mph and made a number of improvements on a 4-5 segments and felt pretty good as well. Despite seeing strong signs of improved pace I can see KOM slipping away now as more people are signing on and its getting pretty competitive out there - sometimes the KOM don't stand for more than 12-24hrs when the weather is good at the weekend and there are a few ((Box Trees Lane, Kineton Lane, Pool Head Lane etc) where the competition is intense. Kineton Lane has seen a drop if about 20 seconds of time over the past 2 weeks with 4-5 people holding the KOM.

Finally, as I am off on holiday the week after Easter I have been nipping out in some of the mornings for some miles. On 11 April I decided to do some hill repeats and went over to Rose Hill with the intention to do at least 2. The first ascent was hard, but I felt OK afterwards and went to a 2nd loop, which actually seemed to hurt less. On completing that 2nd loop I decided to go for a 3rd loop and this was no worse that the 2nd. I felt I could have done a 4th loop, but probably would have struggled a lot on the way home so glad I didn't. The first ascent was 3:45 and the second and third were both 3:56. The 3:45 was my 2nd fastest time ever and the fact that the next 2 ascents were the same time was excellent for me. I think that I should try and push a lot harder on this hill now.

I think that all the miles slogged out over the Winter are starting to pay off. Whilst my main target this year is 5000 miles again, I also want to increase the average speed to be generally 18mph for most rides up to 60-70 miles. There's no structure to this or specific plan but I believe it will be possible on a couple of days - weather and overall distance dependant and probably needing at least another person to share the time at the front. Les hope so. I can do it over 20-25 miles so don't see why it's impossible over a longer distance.