WInter Riding

Here's a short video of climbing Rose Hill (almost the top of the Lickey Hills) near Birmingham

Starting in Barnt Green it climbs to the foot of the Hill and then in the mist drops back down the Old Birmingham Road

As with all my rides at the moment, slow and hard work:

The Alvechurch Climbs and the Lickeys

Another video of a Sunday ride.

Its here: 

Starts at Earlswood Station and goes down to Alvechurch to do the each 3 climbs out of the village in a westerly direction. Then up to Barnt Green to climb Fiery Lane and up to the Lickeys/Rose Hill

Left the Video running all the time and in West Heath, approaching Kings Norton, I caught a moped at some roadworks. It pulled away from the lights but I quickly caught it and stayed with it until the small climb. Just shows that a heavy person on a moped is no quicker than a fit(ish) person on a bike:

Don't believe the gradient - my Garmin Virb is more "inconsistent" than my Garmin 800 - we were pretty well on the flat here

Hill Climb Training - a First time with the Heart Rate Monitor for a Long Time

Today was the last day of my extended (2 week) Christmas 2014 holiday. I wanted to get out for a short ride but the weather forecast the night before suggested frost, so I played it by ear to see what it was like when I woke up. However I had planned ahead and decided that I'd ride over to Rose Hill (or Bilberry Hill as its also known) in the Lickey Hills and do some Hill repeats. The main reason for this was that if it were icy the route over was a bus route so should be reasonably ice free and also its not too far to go. Rose Hill is also a reasonably tough climb (especially in the winter) and although not overly long it's one of those hills that gets steeper as you get closer to the top. Its about 12-13% at the steepest.

I also, completely on a whim decided to wear my Garmin Heart Rate monitor the first time for a long time - I'd given up on it again as it was getting very erratic the last few times I'd worn it much earlier in 2014 - I wrote about some of the issues in this post. Certainly when I first put it on it read 64bpm - I am fit but not that fit.

I had to spend about 5 minutes refitting my front mudguard as I'd removed it to bring my bike back from Dartford where we'd been for a week over the Christmas holiday. It does not fit that well when on the Thule 561 rack - the Crud Roadracer mudguards only take a few minutes to remove so its not an issue. It also took a further few minutes to finally get ready to start and it seemed that this 10-15 minutes helped the strap to read a more sensible value.

It was bitterly cold when I set off but the main roads seemed to be reasonably ice free for the first 5 miles or so. However as I got to the top of Groveley Lane I saw some ice and slush on the road which I managed to avoid but the road was very slippery. I then saw just ahead 3 cyclists waving me down - it appeared that it was so icy that at least one of them had fallen off. I dithered for a minute or so but decided to continue but got off the bike and walked down pavement about 1/4 mile to the railway bridge where the road was OK again. I am not sure why that particular bit of road was so icy though.

From there it was just another mile or so to the bottom of Rose Hill. I dropped onto the 34 inner ring at the roundabout to start spinning up from the very beginning and did the first ascent. It didn't feel too bad at all although I was not trying. The lowest gear I used was the 34-24 (2nd) and rolled up reasonably comfortably. I turned around at the top and mostly free wheeled to the bottom, mindful of potential ice patches. The 2nd and 3rd climbs were also pretty easy, but I was starting to feel it by the 4th. However as I hadn't been lower than the 34-24 gear for all climbs felt I could easily complete a 5th climb. On the last ascent I did use the lowest gear (34-28) but just to be lazy - I could have done it in the 34-24 again but didn't bother.

Once at the bottom for the last time I was originally going to head back the same way I rode over as its quite rolling and as a result its feasible to get over 100ft/mile of ascent. However given the ice on Groveley Lane I rode back via the Bristol Road South to Northfield, then Cotteridge/Kings Norton (past the house in Middleton Hall Road that I lived in for 2 years as a student at Birmingham University), Kings Heath and Yardley Wood.

The new 2015 Strava Segments feature meant that again I picked up lots of 2015 KOM and top 10 placings being one of only a few riders to have ventured out early enough in the year!

Here's the route:

Here's a better picture of the elevation courtesy of Veloviewer:

The actual ride was 94ft/mile which is pretty impressive for this non-hilly urban area of South Birmingham.

Here's some more data from Veloviewer:

Looking at the HR data I am not sure it was working properly for the 1st 1/2 hour. I am fit but not fit enough to keep my HR below 100 - I think once it shows above 130 it was OK. Its also interesting to see where I stopped and walked down Groveley Lane which I have circled in red. Also the max HR at the top of the climb was a consistent 165-169bpm - so I was not working flat out but kept the effort even. I don't trust it to be reliable over a whole ride but it performed better than it had last time - so I might start using it again a bit more often for more challenging rides.

Given that the strap itself costs around £35 I can't justify buying another unless I want to start training a bit more specifically.

A Training Ride for my Upcoming 100 mile Rides

On 13 July my son and I are riding the Dynamic Rides 100 (link) and I'm doing the Ride London 2014 in August. I have not ridden 100 miles for quite a long time 2012 although I have done a lot of 80 mile rides in the last few years. I have no issues riding the London route - its pretty flat, but the Dynamic Rides is likely to be a bit more challenging I think, based on the other Mac Rides that I have ridden - its included Saintbury Hill for example which is a reasonable slog. Given that the Dynamic Rides event is only 4 weeks away I felt that I really needed to push up the mileage - mainly to get used to sitting on a bike for 6 hours or so again, and also getting the food and drink better over the ride so that I still felt OK at the end. Finally I really wanted to get more time in the sun as during the Parkinsons ride I was feeling a little too much sun by the end. A 100 mile ride is more of a whole day and if the sun is too strong it can be unpleasant.

So this weekend I decided to go for another 80mile ride and go down to Evesham, loop back and do enough miles to get the 80 (there was another carrot in that this would complete the June Strava challenge as well. The weather was a bit overcast, but there was a reasonable tail wind and the pace was really high down to Evesham - in fact I had 19.7mph average by the time I got to the bridge over the river. However after riding up the pedestrianised section to get heading back I was turned right into the wind and realised at the point that there was no chance of keeping anything like that pace home - especially as its uphill back. It was a drag but I felt that despite this I was able to keep some level of pace. At Astwood Bank I turned off to go up to The Lickeys. My legs were start to feel it but I was still able to keep a reasonable pace. The flat run from Beoley to Hockley Heath was OK - 20mph cruise - and that sort of pace is useful to bring the overall average up. 

Back at home I was very pleased - 86miles, 18.2mph average, 4:44 ride time. I had thought of doing another few miles to do a hundred but the high pace that I was pleased with was not really doing me any favours by then - and I wanted to be home for other things for the day. 

The only downside was that it stayed overcast for the whole time, so no benefit for the time in the sun objective! But I felt much better prepared for a 100 miler

Here's the Strava data:

Burn Out??

Its been an interesting year this year for cycling to meet my target of 5000 miles

Based on the previous 3 years I felt that another 5000 miles this year would be relatively easy, and this was despite needing to moderate the weekend durations to make sure that I spent time with my wife who is still not over the illness of this time last year. There have been a number of events however that have put reaching the target at a serious risk of failure.

The first was weather. For the first few months of the year it was dreadful and definitely unsuitable for cycling. I barely managed 600 miles by the end of March meaning that the target was challenging already. Whilst the weather started to improve I still struggled to build any serious miles until June.

By now the weather was better and I made a concious effort to cycle to work as often as possible - cycling to work is "like" free miles in terms of time out of the house and hence time with my wife. I get up pretty early anyway and around this time was getting up even earlier so as to be able to leave work earlier. Thus the morning commute is a freebie. The earlier start meant an earlier finish so I could be home barely any later than normal if I started later and drove.

As a result this year I managed a pretty respectable number of commutes and a higher number of 3 days/week commutes. I work on 2 sites - my main site is 18 miles each way and reasonably quiet roads, the other site is 25 miles each way with less quiet roads and is really not a practical option to cycle - so I don't. This means commuting only when I can be sure of being at the main site which is 2-3 times per week, normally Tuesdays, Thursdays or Fridays. Twice a week is OK but I do find the commute home on the 3rd day pretty hard as I am pretty tired. An alternative on Friday is to make an extended commute home bringing the return trip to about 25 miles and over 40 miles for the round trip.

As well as pushing the commuting distances from June I managed to get some reasonable weekend rides in - again by making an early start on Saturday or Sunday. So for June I managed 600 miles, July 700 and August 580 making 1800 miles in 3 months. The 700 mile month in July is the biggest monthly mileage I have ever done in since getting back into cycling. I also went out quite a bit with my son who is keen on cycling (and now quicker than me under most circumstances) and for example we rode the Donington Circuit one evening.

The downside to all this was that by the end of August I was getting pretty tired. And by mid September I was feeling really pretty spent. I managed just over 400 miles for September which is the minimum monthly distance required to achieve 500 for the year, and by September I was just about back on target - that is I had made up for the poor start of the year and caught back up.

Here's some of the data that I manage in Excel:

Weekly mileage for each bike with annual cumulative average in orange

This graph shows that it has taken to about week 40 to get the average 100 miles per week that is equivalent to 5000 per year

Annual mileage - total and per bike

This shows that 5000 miles is possible for me starting from 2010 when I set the objective.

As of mod-October I am at 4000 miles with about 10 weeks left so I need to maintain 100 miles/week. This is going to be hard - previous years I had about 500 miles to go in 10 weeks having got more miles in the first few months as a cushion. Now that its very dark in the mornings I have stopped cycling to work. I have some holiday left but its still a huge ask.

Given a target of 100 miles per week from Oct-Dec is difficult because of the weather and light, but as per title - The huge mileage I have done over the summer has almost burnt me out. Even without commuting a 40 mile run on Sunday morning is really hard, and I have started to look for other places to cycle to rather than push the distance. For example I went over to Mucklow Hill in Halesowen a week or so ago - climbed it twice and also Gorsty Hill. This is the route:



2300ft of ascent in 36 miles isn't bad for round here!

I have also been over to Beacon Hill in The Lickey Hills (or The Lickeys) having been shown it by my son - although we went down it that time and ow I have been going up it. It is the steepest climb locally peaking at 16% and forcing me to use the 34-28 gearing - everything else that I can ride to from home I can manage in the 34-25:

Beacon Hill Segment, near the Lickeys

 I am currently 21st so fairly happy with that.

The upshot is that I am getting resigned to reaching about 4500miles this year and will be very pleased with that. I ma pleased because of the challenge of getting time to do the miles and because I am quite tired - I still want to get out and ride but am looking for something slightly different. These shorter routes covering some slightly newer areas have been a refreshing change and have helped maintain interest even if not distance.

Also my new Scott has been really enjoyable and I am enjoying riding that as well.