this morning i rode to work. i do this most days. at my last workplace i had a commute that took me 15 miles out into the countryside, up and over the mendips and along country lanes. it was all too often the very best bit of my day, by some considerable margin. i made the mistake of saying this to my boss and they weren’t overly impressed. i think it sounded better in my head. i’ve had to vary my commute to cope with a new job which totally annihilated my ride time. nowadays i turn left out of the house and ride quite a long way in the wrong direction before looping back round towards bristol. as steve said, ‘so you pretty much ride to your old work place then ride back to your new workplace, is that right?’.

if i’m honest, the time spent on the bike in the morning still has an unerring way of shaping the next 8 hours. it’s to do with the time of day, i leave the house at around 6.15am and am at work within the hour (unless i’m totally creeping, in which case it takes a little longer). at this time of year i can see the days lengthen with each passing week. I’m waiting excitedly for the moment when i first see the sun lift above the hedgerow. this morning was clear and bright, the ill-defined blackness inexorably gave way to a crystalline blue; the sky above was a gradually faded sphere from lightening blue to dark ink, with the rising dawn light picking out the silhouetted and soft lines of the mendips and the dark somnolent shadows of dundry hill. the lack of blusteriness made it all the more enjoyable, as did my determination to rein in the pace a little having really ragged it lately. i was riding fixed with my saddlebag (containing books, clothes, lunch and a kryptonite lock) and i think this aided and abetted the feeling of calm.

i rode up and over belmont, then dropped down towards the suspension bridge. it was around 6.50am at this point, and there was a sudden and startlingly unusual absence of traffic. i rode slowly across the bridge in glorious isolation, gliding above the avon gorge, aptly suspended on the thin road surface with the flickering lights of the city on one side and the flowing luminescence of the portway on the other. i felt profoundly apart, and curiously privileged to experience the awe-inspiring wonder of the bridge on my own, the two towering brick edifices on either side stood tall and brooding against the indigo backdrop of the morning.

remove cars for full effect

i rode across the downs and made it to work in good time, glowing from the experience. i didn’t share the experience, beyond a cropped ‘it’s a really beautiful morning out there’, unsure if there was any point trying to explain it to my colleagues who had driven through traffic for 20 minutes. even now, 13 hours later, it makes me feel happy. such is the power of the bicycle and its limitless potential to conjure up transcendence.

anyway, it was reassuring to see that even the mighty G has similar issues:

Come on without

in other news, i brazenly took advantage of a monstrous tailwind to set a quick time on a strava segment. cheeky, but what the hell. i shudder to think what i might have done if not tired. yesterday took it out of me. graham douchebag has also been suckered into the evil machinations of strava, he is also now embarking on the ‘pj diet, eat little, ride lots’. i fear kieran may also be following this path of ascetic athleticism. god help us all. i blame strava, especially the power to weight readings.

i won’t repost the ‘shit cyclists say’ video because it’s been reposted a gazillion times elsewhere (it’s a worth a google if you haven’t been sent it three billion times already by all your cycling buddies), and i try to avoid reposts, and belle said it’s like that in our house, and not in a good way. but i will repost the picture below, to go back to the original point. thanks to jeff jones for this one:

the reason for this ridiculously early transition to a heftier, nastier block of training, is the Chippenham Hilly on 6th March. I have two warm up races before then, the Frome 10 and the Severn 25. After that it’s a total hardrider shitstorm, with 3 or 4 of them on the bounce. i’m looking forward to it.

to this end, i’ve been heading out on gears. whilst riding fixed is amazing, and great for winter, it’s not great for intensity – and i mean sustaining efforts over hills and on the flat, rather than tapping out a rhythm. i’ll be factoring in a couple of rides a week where i seek out hills, spaced around 2 or 3 miles apart, and essentially savage myself on the ascent, then recover on the flat. this is my own slightly fucked up take on intervals. it’s slightly more scientific than it looks and seems to work. the efforts will be slightly below threshold, with the aim being to sustain a relentless pace, then unleash a bit more where possible and if appropriate.

i’ll also be doing quite a few ‘like-for-like’ rides. this means tackling a similar distance and profiles to the event(s) i’ve entered, if anything a bit longer by around 4 or 5 miles, to build up the mental stamina as well as the physical fortitude required to hurtle round a hilly parcours at a 25mph average. The WTTA Hardriders series is one of my targets this year; last year i came 4th, but i finished the season much more strongly than i started it. my vague theory is that the knowledge of what i can achieve, allied to a steady winter, will help me improve by a placing by the end of the series. it also depends what sort of form last year’s 3rd place rider brings to the table.

Needless to say, i’m full of doubt and anxiety, nervous about how quick or slow i’ll be, and worried about how quick everyone else will be. but i’m absolutely itching to race again, it’s so exciting. i love riding my TT bike, getting tucked in low (i’ve worked on this) and attacking the hills. i also hope that the early season hilly events will be the springboard for a full-on assault on some club records later in the year. i shall keep you posted.

it was lovely to ride at a sedate pace, nowhere near the lactate threshhold, with no sense of what i should or shouldn’t be doing to cloud the experience or tip things into a relentless training thrash. as a result, i was able to look around even more than usual. it was fantastic. belle enjoyed it, and she only stuck it into the granny on one occasion where the road pitched up in a most undignified fashion. i took lots of pictures. it was also nice not to be dropped by a fellow cyclist and left to cling on at the back.

the amazing gothic orangery

the tree and the raptor

in close-up, as close as i dared get to the talons

a skeletal tree

the view across to wales, with people in the middle ground

belle on her new bike

tales of the unexpected

1. they were installed with a bare minimum of fuss. as soon as i realised the best policy is always to read and then wholly ignore the instructions, i was good to go. they clip around the QR on the wheel axle. you have to remove the springs. the only problem i had was that the small plastic expanding jobbie used to secure the mudflap to the mudguards does not hold in place with the metal washer supplied. i swapped it for a very short mudguard bolt and self-tapping nut. i felt suitably worthy and masculine after effecting this bodge.

2. they are really easy to adjust to avoid any issues with rubbing or noisesome nastiness. they have two very small allen bolts that allow you to adjust height. this is very nifty.

3. the use of two metal ‘L’ clips means that the mudguard does not have to go under the brake bridge. this is a real step forward and an insightful solution to a problem. Crudguards are bedevilled by this issue, they go right under the brake caliper and thus the clearance is so tight you can’t run anything other than 19mm tyres (I exaggerate, but only marginally) and most people i know who have piously stated just how goddamn wonderful crudguards are already have clearance for full mudguards.

4. they extend right down and are thus good at keeping spray off your riding companions. that’s if your riding companions have opted to wait, or instead put the hammer down when you are eating a banana and left you alone to bang your face repeatedly against a block headwind whilst they saunter up the road in their own belgian echelon. bastards. in which case next time you go out don’t use any mudguards and give them a mouthful of ebola-infected slurry from north somerset’s finest country lanes.

5. i have also road tested them this weekend. at first they did that slightly high pitched rubbing noise on a couple of occasions, but it then just disappeared, as though they settled in and were happy. i used them through 45 miles of filth and mess and they were grand. i used them again today and no problems whatsoever. also, my feet were utterly dry – a problem with the shorter race blades.

in conclusion, sks race blade longs are the answer to the following questions:

1. can someone please, for the love of god, find me a mudguard that is better than the crudguard, that doesn’t rub for four hours or flap around in the breeze and is in no way flimsy?

2. how can i convert my once proud race bike, which has now become my second best bike, into some sort of fast trainer, and avoid being persona non grata on the club run?

3. what mudguards should i buy for my only bike, one which i foolishly bought without mudguard eyelets, despite intending to ride throughout the vagaries of the english four-season winter?

i am very happy with them.

the rear; note clips on the QR axle.

the brake bridge; note 'spatter' around the brake

front, with brake bridge adapter

front, with mudflap 'bodge'

i dressed according to the forecast, taking a pacamac thing that stuffs into a half-water bottle. I opened the door, although i use the word ‘opened’ in the loosest possible sense, i turned the latch and the door blew open as the wind invaded the house, marching through the gap without ceremony or even a hello. The rain sliced across in sheets of drizzle, so i quickly changed into a more robust jacket and went back out. It took a lot of effort to close the door again. it was an inauspicious start.

we met at the tobacco factory, a group of slightly damp and nervous bike riders. steve rolled up ten minutes late. i should add at this point that we waited for him, despite not knowing if he was coming or not. this is a point i will return later in this post. as with all big headwind days, we opted to ride out into the claws of the beast, thus hopefully gaining on the return leg when our legs began to tire. the route took in clarken coombe, clevedon and churchill, before climbing up shipham and dropping down to cheddar. from cheddar we rode back up the gorge and across, coming back into town through whitchurch. it’s a standard base club ride, with a bit more main road than usual because some people were on their bestest, newest bicycles. i was on my condor which i have equipped with SKS race blade longs. i shall let you know the outcome of this experiment in a forthcoming post.

cheddar gorge is an incredible place. the steep sides of the gorge tower above the ribbon of road like silent sentinels. there is a peculiar sense of geological time, of forces over and above what we can understand from within the finite and utterly transient time scales we have available to us. it’s awe-inspiring, and was used as the National Hillclimb in 2006. There’s a steep section in the middle followed by a long and generally fast ascent of around 3%. it’s not my favourite climb in cycling terms, but it is a fantastic place to ride though, if that makes any sense at all. Today the wind favoured us, giving a gentle push all the way up. if i wasn’t trying so hard to take pictures i might have had a real go at it and see what sort of time i could do. as it was i got stuck on the really steep bit (it’s 17% near the bottom) with a camera in my hand just as the headwind suddenly reared up and channeled down the gap between the enormous cliffs on either side.

base club climbs the gorge

later we really upped the tempo, riding with the wind as we hurtled through the lake side villages of bishops sutton and chew magna. all was well until I sat up to eat a banana. the others didn’t notice at first and a gap opened. i ignored it and ate my banana, confident that i could close it fairly easily. My confidence was misplaced, it went out to around 70 metres and we turned back into the block headwind; i was completely adrift; the front four were working together (and not waiting) and i was have a really tough time and chewing stem. it made me realise why road races get so edgy when the wind blows – once you’re out the back, for example after a corner, you’ve pretty much no chance of getting back on again. I sat up in the end, and felt sure they would wait. they didn’t. it took near enough three miles. i unleashed some mock indignation. they said they thought i was taking photos or something. steve later tweeted:

“softlad wants us to stop so he can eat a banana. have trouble getting yer bib on or summat?”

it’s now an apocryphal part of the short history of base club. in the end we managed the 45 miles, with 2500ft, in about 2hr 40 minutes; roughly 17mph average. it hurt a bit and was the hardest i’ve ridden over distance since last season. which is a good thing, of sorts.

a veritable showstopper: the Lynn Perrie

More grace and more glamour!

so there you have it; the glamorous world of RTTC time trials.

the only problem is i haven’t got time to try them out, or photo them, or review them until Friday because tonight i’m going on an archaeological mission to a venerated BSCC club member’s house to look through copies of cycling weekly dating back to the 1920s. this is all part of a hush secret research project. I’m also looking at his memorabilia, which is also part of a hush secret, on the QT, never never, black ops project.

so many exciting things, so little time…. hold tight readers! all will be revealed!

there are also some stupidly fast times on there. anyone trying to beat the mark on burrington combe might want to consider that danny axford’s time (and alec’s) were set during the Colin Carfield Road Race where James Dobbin, the twice national hillclimb champion, decided to take the race and all contained therein by the scruff of the neck and see if he could annihilate them in 7 short, hilly minutes. he succeeded. so hence, the times are very fast.

and as bob said in a comment yesterday:

there are a couple of climbs in the Bath area you might struggle to beat – only because my GPS was in the car at the time and I don’t know how to delete routes from Strava. So apologies for anyone trying to average 59.4km/h from Bitton to Bristol on the A431. Sorry.

so to sum up: today = very tired, small ring, spin spin spin, no get up and go, thighs of misery.