high peaks training ride

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team pursuit

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testing testing

hello from Kendo... this is just a test to see if my attempt to write something is successful. Bit cold and wet at the weekend eh?

Easter Racing

First event of the year usually more effort than result so I went into the A5 Rangers Hilly '31' on Easter Saturday with more hope than expectation but I was more than pleased with my third place a mere 5 minutes behind the winner Clive Nicholls of the High Wycombe CC.
It was the worst conditions I have ever raced in 50mph winds blowing halestones horizontal to the road as riders ploughed up the A5 just north of Towcester. I could feel the stinging cold on my singly Lycra clad shoulders. Two laps of a 15.4 mile circuit, I kept it steady on the first lap and had a bit more of a go on the second lap as the weather improved but the wind was almost enough to bring you to a standstill.
On the Easter Monday I rode the Leicester RC Hilly '29' to a more standard 13th place 8 min behind Matt Botrill (De Rosa RT), I felt I could do better but two events in close succession on the first week of my season in tough conditions was hard on the legs.

East Surrey hard riders 30m TT

We had a team of 4 for this event that went out from Reigate up to Dorking then South towards Broadbridge Heath then up Rusper hill to finish at Leigh ( or thereabouts, knowing where I am is not one of my strongpoints).

I was pleased with my time, especially as this was only the second event of the year. Happily? for me John Woodburn passed me just before Newdigate and with Colin Parkinsons words ringing in my ears I kept him in sight - at a respectable distance, until the bitter end. I am quite sure that this gained me 20-30 secs, although how he maintains this pace for 30 miles is beyond me.

Congrats to Paul Alderson for his 6th placing, making this his second top 10 placing already this year.

From left to right; Peter Doherty, Paul Alderson, Jonathon Thomas and myself

Many thanks to East Surrey RC for a fantastic event, superbly marshalled and organised and also not to forget Sabin for cheering us all on a the end.

Faro Training Camp

Over the past few years I have had the benefit of a week away around this time of year. March another birthday and another year older I look forward to a bit of sunny pre-season training away from the rain and wind of the Midlands. This year we managed 10 days staying in a friends house up in the hills just north of Faro at the Eastern end of the Algave near the Spanish border. Every year I pile on the weight over the winter months, and while flat Leicester shire might not provide a problem to the extra pounds I usually transport around until they shift in the racing season. The hills of this part of Portugal prove somewhat more of a problem to the overweight and the vertically challenged, now this winter I have ridden and eaten to be in top shape 'early doors' as it were and I go to the Algarve half a stone under my normal weight thinking these hills are going to present less of a task this year, how wrong could I be!

Long training rides in such hilly terrain is no fun so I usually restrict myself to shorter intense rides every morning and then a power ride on the flatter roads along the coast in the evening if I feel up to it. We had great weather this year, sunshine in the low 20s most days but do those hills hurt, I have a two mile climb out the front door past quarries where they hold a round of the European downhill series. This is somewhat of a rude awakening for tired legs, then a series of punishing uphill sections through Alportel on the old main road North (N 2) to Barranco Velho
Through forests of cork trees with their distinctive naked lower trunks where the bark(cork) has been stripped away, I don't know how much longer this industry will survive the modern plastic equivalent, this area produces 80% of the worlds production of cork. When I first came these forests had been ravaged by forest fires the previous summer end everything was black and dead, but over the intervening years it has recovered and this year it looked green and healthy with new plantations to compliment the higgldy piggldy cork trees every one with an individual owners mark.
If I am carrying on for a longer 4 Hr. ride its right along the N124 to Cachopo, then a terrifying decent down to cross the river Odeleite and long a climb up to the high point at Agua dos Fusos with views out along the whole South coast. Its a 10 mile drop down to Tavira (N397) on the coast, not easier going the other direction this little climb takes over an hour with not allot of rest bite in the baking midday sun

Back along the coast road (N 270) these roads are mostly quite now the (IP1) motorway has been built but two draggy climbs up to Sao Bras, I only have to climb over the quarry road and then a 50mph drop to our base at Bordira on the other side. This year has been much like the past a series of rides leaves me knackered and spent and I long for a bit of normality, I'm just not cut out for the hills.
Just before going away I was out on the trusty winter 'steel' when ploughing into a fierce headwind I was visited by an almighty crack, or my bike to be precise, my seat tube fractured just above the bottom bracket in a terminal case of fatigue. Then to cap it all my 'spare' aka 'Portugal bike' (or 20 yr old carbon bike) is mislaid in transit so I am now down to a 30 yr. old 'fixed' or a racing bike for the immediate future or until they can locate and repatriate my lost machine
With the realisation that I have two events over Easter, The A5 Rangers 'Hilly' 31m on the Saturday and the Leicester 'Hilly' 29m on Easter Monday I'm not expecting any miracles

Tea and jazz

It was a fast run down to Sharpthorne (near East Grinstead) for the A group today. Usual crowd plus Kay, Wombat, Simon and Clinton returning from the Bs but minus Alan who had to go to work, so no cycling pictures or video this week. Married life (or maybe my best bike) seems to be doing me good as I kept the pace up most of the way out. Sabin had a new cafe for us to visit and it was excellent - good tea, scrambled eggs and cakes and a superb jazz quartet! After discussion we have decided to advise the Hon Club Run Sec that the A group requires entertainment at all tea stops forthwith and could he please make all necessary arrangements. Niall, Sabin and I kept things moving on the return leg to Betchworth, after which we crawled up Pebble Coombe and then homewards.

Special mention to Mark Williams who last weekend participated in the 500 mile Barcelona-to-Cannes event.

And thanks to everyone for their cards, presents, best wishes and congratulations on our wedding last weekend. Following that we would like to change our vote in this month's blog questionnaire - our favourite must now be wedding cake.

Great advert ... great message

You may all have seen this on TV, but follow the link to one of the cleverest public service messages I have ever seen:

http://www.dothetest.co.uk

Just £3 a month!

Emailed to me by my friend Mike of Showpix LOL :-) It's a picture of me taken by Tim Vandenvelde at the end of stage seven of the Ironbike. I feel as rough as I look :-)

PSA - Paris - Nice

Heads up for those without Eurosport, there is a live stream from here: http://www.cyclingfans.com/

Click on Sputnik in the grey right column, it opens in media player. I don't know if there's a mac' option.

It's a good website for the more obscure or lesser known races, I watched Vuelta a Murcia on here last week.

Don't forget the Terrino Adriatico on Wednesday too!

A Good day for mudguards!

Today’s destination for the A group was Roundhurst farm. As we gathered at Cobham C.P. it was good to see Geoff Redhead out after his forced layoff. There was only myself, Trevor Lenthall, Niall Clutton & newcomer Geoff (Not Redhead) who headed out, so as we passed the B group it was good to gather up another couple of riders in the shape of Taxi Bob and Ken Dolman.
We all climbed up from East Clandon at our own pace, easier with no Andy Hicks to race against, then gathered again at Shere. Then down to Bramley and Hydestile where we caught up with Gary Smith who was out on his bike, but lost Trevor who headed home. Gary tagged along for a while but turned off, along with Kenny, when the pace quickened on the climbs, or it could have been that we went the wrong way. We stopped when the lane we were on, hit the roadworks for the new Hindhead tunnel entrance. After retracing a mile or so we headed direct to Haselmere on the A286, as it had started to rain, and we wanted to crack on. It was here that I was glad that I had taken a map as Roundhurst farm is tucked away down a very quiet & hilly lane. As we climbed up to Black Down there was a couple of junctions were we had to stop and refer to the map, but we did eventually find our way to the farm, to the relief of all of us.
Refreshment at this organic farm were first class and well worth the ride, with tea, soup and cake the most popular orders of the day. Highlight of the visit, for us city slickers, had to be the litter of piglets that had been born this week, that were asleep in one of the pens.
Heading back was less of a drama until we hit Cranleigh, which ment climbing over the steep 21% Horse block climb where I’m happy to report (the main reason for writting this) that I was first to the top, closely followed by Bob, Niall & Geoff, but have to admit that I was the only one with a triple chainring.

Then it was on to more familiar roads and Coombe bottom. I thought we all rode well, with everyone doing hard turns on the front at various times of the day.
No punctures. Drank 3 bottles. Clocked 90 miles by the time I got home.

Warm Weather Kilometres

Last week me and Juanita jetted of to Ibiza for some warm weather riding. After a couple of days wandering aound Barcelona and especially La Sagrada Familia, we took the short hop to Ibiza.

Monday morning we did the local road loop, known as the Jesús route, to test our legs. Our legs were pretty good because we smashed our record for the climb to Jesús. yay! Later we rode into santa Eulária to get me some new tyres. At Kandani - http://www.kandani.com/ There was a lot of chat and excitement about the race they'd hosted on Saturday. They'd had Marga Fullana over to compete. Marga in Santa Eulária

Tuesday was a steady semi exploration ride. We headed out toward Eivissa town and then north to find ruta diez, one of the official off road routes in the area. We managed to pick up ruta 10 near Sant Rafel but ended up going around in circles on the same section, so we cut to the end of ruta tres where it joins 10. This is the final hilly part of ruta tres. It climbs up to santa Gertrudis via a series of longish steep rocky climbs and short rocky descents. Juanita has been climbing better than me recently, so on the run in to the hilly section I try to keep the pace high to wear her out. I get to the last and longest climb in front of her by pushing it a bit on the descent. This climb is quite rocky and rutted with only one good line, so I take this line with my elbows out :-). I can hear her closing behind me on the last few hundred metres, but she can't get past. At the top of the climb the gradient eases and once I get to this section I can big ring it and out sprint her. She must have realised this because at the moment we crested the hill, she came flying past on my left in the rough and was gone.. Damn! We had café and coca cola in Santa Gertrudis. On the way back we discovered a new route to the top of Sa talaia de sant Lorenzo. On the top of almost every big hill or ('munt' in catalá)there are usually a few antennae and satellite dishes, originally they were places for beacons warning of approaching pirates. Luckily for bikers and hikers, we are allowed to use the rough access roads that cut through forests to the top. Sa talaia de san Lorenzo is one of my favourites, it's a good, hard and loose in parts, middle ring climb with a sharp kick for the last 150m. The descent has a fast singletrack (camino de cabra)through the woods alongside the track.

Wednesday we arranged to ride with the hombres at 3.30pm outside Kandani. We awoke to find the whole of Cala Llonga swathed in fog (niebla) and distinctly cooler than the day before. At three we set off for Santa Eulária in arm warmers (mangitas) and a bit cold. Over the hill and we were in bright sunshine! Ah well, we'll be wearing as much clothing as locals :-) Crossing the roman bridge into santa Eulária we are surprised to hear a car beeping us, it's Pascual one of the club members waving and shouting. Wahey, it's nice to be recognised....by a local! At the shop we are greeted with lots of hola que tal's. Que tal is reserved for friends and people you know, which again is nice. There were some new faces and some old. Elena was there but on her road bike, she had an off on the mtb and had road rash on her chin and both knees....ouch. She set off by herself for a gentle recovery ride. We all set off in the opposite direction, one of the riders is a fireman and is on call so we can never be too far from town. This works very well for us because it means we get to discover all of the local trails and what's legal and what's not. Some of the trails are ok in the winter because the land owners are away, but we have to be wary in the summer. I wonder if they ride through our place when we're away? :-) We roll off in the opposite direction, down la rampa, up the rio and back into the fog that is Cala Llonga. Out through the golf course and into some new trails that we hadn't seen before. We crossed trails that we did know, which gave us ideas for new routes. Even another new way up to sant Lorenzo and a fantastic new singletrack descent. Today's ride was also deliberately flattish, because there was a big race coming up at the weekend that involved a huge climb and they wanted to save their legs. So any suggestions by Werner to go over mountains rather than around was met by shouts of 'arriba no! :-) During the burn up through the caminos and lanes back to santa Eulária we somehow find ourselves manouvered on to the front into the wind, how did that happen? Me and juanita look at each other and smile and do our pull. I guess we're no longer protected guests and have to work like everybody else now :-)

Thursday we decided to recap the club ride to map out the new trails we'd ridden. Juanita is excellent, she remembered every twist and turn, and even adds some bits to make it her own. At one point a black dog runs at us barking wildly. I say " good boy, muy bien" and he lays on his back for me to tickle his belly :-) In Ibiza every casita has a noisy dog that patrols his territory diligently and fervently. His territory seems to extend to about one metre around the perimeter wall of the house. When you pass he'll chase you as far this invisible line and no more, then strut up and down the line; job done!! When we first began riding in Ibiza this was quite frightening and we'd p.l.f. to get away. Sometimes I'd stop and face them down and they'd back off still barking. Other times I'd shout and they'd scuttle off with their tail between their legs. This seemed a bit harsh and unfair as they were only doing what was in their job description as a guard dog. So, more recently I've taken to congratulating them on doing a good job. " Bueno perro, muy bien". With the result that they go all soppy and want me to rub their belly. Everyone likes to be praised for doing a good job :-)

Friday Werner asked if we wanted to go on a ride to inspect some new trails that he'd been building during the winter. Bright and early we set off with Werner over Valverde towards the reservoir (depósito de agua) We set off up the climb opposite and into the trees up a slippery rocky climb. Just as Werner is telling us that he doesn't cut the track too wide to discourage motos, his derailleur catches a branch and snaps off his drop-out! Disaster? No, matching up to his german stereotype of efficiency and preparedness Werner has a selection of drop-outs in his bag :-) Five minutes later it is fixed and we are off again. Throughout the winter Werner has been scouring the hills for anything that remotely looks like a trail and then cutting his way through the trees. The result is a series of excellent steep downhill trails consisting of rocky drops and zig-zag hairpins. These are my favourite type of descent, steep and technical where you pick your way and let the bike go on the scary bits and brake on the easy bits :-) Five hours later we'd had enough technical singletrack and were spinning back along the caminos towards Cala Llonga.

SWRC featured on Cracknell's Sport Relief

Well, well, well ... take a look at www.cracknellchallenge.com/blog/day5/index.html look for image 10 of 12 ........

A SWRC jersey covering a familiar torso ...

So that's where all the Bees went today !!

Having grown used to having twenty plus riders in the 'B' group it came as rather a surprise to have a group of just eight riders lined up at the Betchworth meet on the 1st March. But having just read the previous post I can see that several regular 'B's had 'jumped ship'and joined the 'A' and 'C' groups. Well I can report that Phillipe, Tony S, Alan B, Ant F, Aubrey and myself plus a couple of ex 'A's, Bomber and Tony F ( recovering from illness ) didn't hang about in doing a semi circular route to Turners Hill and the Tulleys Farm T shop. We were sitting down for tea and buns by 11am having also had assistance, at times, from a strong tailwind. Sorry if anyone went to meet us at Danehill, but it was generally felt that Tulley's was a better option on the day. Once refreshed we sped away to complete the circular route dispersing in several directions nearing Betchworth. With 50 miles in the 'bank' from Banstead and back home by 1pm I had plenty of time to catch up on the never ending 'list' of domestic chores. Must remember to stay out later more often !!

Head camera trial number 1

There was much micky taking of my head cam. trial today when we were at Penhurst, but here are the results. I think it went OK although the wind gets picked up on the mic. whenever we go over 20mph.

March winds

Bright but very windy for today's ride from Betchworth. Twenty or so were gathered at the village hall, for which privilege the club pays a voluntary £50 a year. Despite this generosity, access down the side of the hall - used for years by us all to relieve ourselves - has recently been blocked off. Ted once suggested at a committee meeting that we request the hall management to install toilet roll holders there in return for this payment, but rather than accommodate this reasonable proposition a large wooden board has instead been erected. This may well soon go the same way as the side of the hall, given the watering it suffers every first Saturday.

The A group was swelled by a few B group riders - Simon, Jack, Richard and Dave - and for once we outnumbered the B group. Penshurst was today's destination and Sabin expertly guided us via Edenbridge, Four Elms, Bough Beech reservoir and Chiddingstone. We had a tailwind for much of the outward leg and this helped push up the speed to well over 20mph for long stretches.

Penshurst is a very quaint place but still a bit feudal - the lord of the manor also owns the tea shop and is jacking up the rent by 30% soon. This will surely mean an increase in the prices there. That wouldn't be so bad but the guy who runs the tea shop is useless. Twice Jack had his beans on toast put in front of him and twice taken away; eventually it came back a third time and he was allowed to consume it. Various other orders were mislaid and at least one person was overcharged. And the place has only a single unisex outdoor loo (bit of a theme emerging here this week) - all part of the quaintness, I guess.

For the ride back, club clown Parky - in his quest for innovative blog video - had his camera fitted to the top of his helmet. Quite how he intended to operate it I'm not sure, and any video may well just be a close-up of the camera bag which was still attached and flapping around in the wind, but I look forward to his post to see what he managed. We had a headwind now and my legs soon started to feel it, though everyone else seemed ok. We split crossing the A217 at Hookwood and the group progressively disintegrated thereafter. First back to Betchworth was Andy and the rest of us came in ones and twos. Average speed was still a good 17.4mph. Then it was up Pebble Coombe and home, my legs the most tired they've been for ages.

M had been to Tanhouse Farm, her C group also swelled by B riders who can't get out to Betchworth. Apparently the chocolate cake was excellent.