The Rules - Revisted

As a cyclist you may be aware of "the rules". My personal favourites are 5, 9 and 12. And for my son number 42

However they are somewhat controversial. 

Here are a stripped down no s**t set that are much better: "no s**t rules":

Cycling at Donington Park Race Circuit

I found out about an opportunity to ride around Donington Park Race Circuit for the princely sum of £1 on the evening of 22 August 2013. Donington is about 1 hours drive away I took a 1/2 day off work and me, my son and my wife drove over to ride round (my wife decided not to ride in the end).

It was a great evening. The weather was almost ideal other than a headwind down the Craner Curves and back up. The whole circuit was available (including the Melbourne Loop/hairpin). Several hundred riders took part from families on all sorts of BSOs, a bloke on a modern penny farthing, several tandems and road bikes from £300 Careeras to multi thousand bling machines. Passing 4 year olds on a tiny BMX bike was a surreal experience. The family nature meant that line discipline was absent and this meant that the racing line was the same width as the track.

My son had a massive explosive puncture on the rear wheel after about 3 laps. I am sure he'd like to think that is was due to massive power but it looks like a manufacturing defect in the tyre. He rode my Scott for 4 laps while I had a break as we didn't bring a spare tyre.

Like all these things nowadays Strava has dozens of overlapping segments - here's the ride (note 46 achievements!):

Here's a few photos.

On the start finish/straight

Breaking the rules

Face of pain (or just ugly?)

Massive Speed!

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: