The Tour de France gathers pace (or rather loses pace) as the race its the mountains today – when the going get tough….
I’ve browsed to these posters (Promoting the Discovery Channel riders) on show in the US at the moment – I just love the style of them. More posters in the series here
Lily celebrated Saturday by putting five olives on her fingers then eating them. The olives, that is. 
A very simple but strangely compelling and lovely video called Where the Hell is Matt?.
First race on the road this year (if you don’t count a duathlon), the supporting 3rd cat and Juniors’ race for the National championships at Horwich (nr Bolton). I was disappointed a bit – I’ve got high expectations of myself – but I finished in the middle of the whittled-down bunch on a wet but fast course. Probably about 20th place – but the results will confirm that. Sprint finishes in bike races are a bit out of my territory and I was looking for a break to get into instead, but it was too fast a course with easy corners – so there wasn’t much jumping about into and out of tight bends (luckily – the roads were wet!).
Having made my excuses, I must say that I just am not up to that speed of racing yet (26.5mph) after commuting and riding steady since the last cyclo-cross race in January. I’ll get there – as I ride the races at Colne, Clitheroe and Rochdale later in the summer, but I’m going to have to ride more strongly as well as intelligently if I’m going to repeat my podium place at Colne in 2005.
The races themselves were well put together (by Horwich CC) and it’s always much more exciting racing in front of a good crowd. British Cycling’s report here.
 |
Wow – it’s wierd looking back on this video of the house building now. Seems like we’ve come so far. What a satisfying struggle it’s been!; |
RANT: The world cup is nearly upon us and an ever-increasing number of drivers decide that it’s time to stop sitting around and really help the England football team over in Germany by flying small flags on their cars in England. There’s a thin line here – I don’t want to discourage patriotism. The problem is; it isn’t partriotism. I wonder how many of these people know when St George’s day is (or indeed who he was). There was no flag-flying going on when the English team went off to Melbourne for the Commonwealth games this spring.
What’s funnier is that the whole concept of a flag is that it’s a visual symbol recognisable by its patterns to denote a particular country. But that’s not enough for the thickies… they need the word “England” written on – just to be safe in case someone thinks the George cross means Brazil , Paraguay or something. Even the concept that flag drag will boost fuel costs seems to make no impact on the dim whits who fly these annotated flags from their cars. I wonder how many of these patriots think the price of fuel is astronomical in this country?
But my real rant is about how this links to football, and why I like to play it but hate to watch it. Every summer, I love to watch the awesome challenge of the Tour de France, the tennis at Wimbledon, some cracking Athletics meetings and several other sports. But there’s something else in football. Many sports have their passionate fans, but none are so partisan. I don’t really mind whether Lance Armstrong or Ivan Basso win a stage or the overall… it’s how it’s done that makes it entertaining. The England fans I saw watching the last world cup in the pubs of this country didn’t care how it was done – didn’t even care whether England had played fairly – they just wanted them to win. Panache not required. What a dull outloook on life. Rant over.
Dull work-related stuff alert about the Civic Trust’s Green Flag and Green Pennant award scheme. As the national standard for measuring the quality of our parks and green spaces, my colleagues and I are making every effort to encourage Doorstep Greens to go for an award once they’re up and running.
I’m one of the Green Flag and Green Pennant scheme’s judges – there are more than 400 of us – I’ve had a busy month. I’m judging three sites this year fairly near to where I live and it takes quite a bit of reading up (100 page management plans are hard going but a necessity for large, Victorian public parks).
An element of the award is purely judging the quality of the management documents – a desk assessment of all the background information. It gives a great insight into the amount of work going into our parks and green spaces behind the scenes.
It’s what happens on the site visit – the judgement day – which really makes it all worthwhile though. No amount of paperwork can prepare you for the great buzz you get when you visit the space and meet the local people who use it. It’s a very important tradition for Green Flag judges to meet members of the local community – “Friends of†groups, etc., when judging a site. From the people who use it, you get the ‘warts and all’ version of the park’s value. For these moments, you can forget the management plan – its maintenance schedules, health and safety audits and peat-free statements – when you meet the people, the park comes to life.
It’s the same for all the Doorstep Greens I’ve visited with work. You just don’t want to know the extent of the number-crunching, analysis, planning, writing and emailing that goes into keeping Doorstep Greens going and making sure that they survive into the future. Like the Park Management Plans I read for Green Flag applications – it’s a necessity – but the spaces and the people who bring them to life beat the paperwork hands-down.
A lovely Belgian Cyclo-Cross moment when the former world champion decided it was time to retaliate against an abusive fan. Footie fans: this is a bit like the Cantona moment, but unlike a fottballer, he just carries straight on with his job afterwards. Click piccie to watch the video.
It’s been a long slow haul and almost four years since we moved in but we’re on the last leg of doing up our house. 15 months ago, the old extension was pulled down and I had the satisfying task of putting the kitchen units in last week.
A whole week off work was a rewarding one and along with invaluable help from Alan (the joiner who worked on our house before his boss left us all in the lurch and went bankrupt!), we got all the units, plumbing, electrics and appliances sorted.
The blue is just a film cover to protect the doors… it’s going to be very very very shiny white.The first two are what it looked like in February 2005, and the last two photos are where we are to date
A new set of six photos I’ve uploaded to Flickr. “I saw you in a crowd” is a mini, virtual show of some photos from my recent work trip to London. I was lucky enough to not be in a rush wherever I travelled, so i ended up walking to all the meetings. The temptation to take shots of all the landmarks was avoided and I got this idea into my head about isolating colours. I’ve done this a few times before and it’s fairly easy in Photoshop, but it’s a challenge to pick the right images to do it to. I think they’ll work better printed up than on the screen – they need a bit of space around them.
I had a great time in the Fred Whitton Challenge. I think it’s probably the hardest shorter distance cycle ‘sportive’ in the country – there are a few 300km rides and such like but they’re for nutters… but the Fred Whitton ride is, in summary:
A ride over all of the (tarmac) Lakeland passes.
114 miles
Approx 4,100 metres of ascent and descent
Very polular (500 plus riders)
I did a respectable ride and finished in 6 hours 38 minutes. I was the 34th finisher from 516 finishers (and quite a few more starters), and was pretty pleased with the result. I’ve never been a good climber so the challenge was always going to be interesting for a 13 stoner. I used the right gears (39 tooth chainring on the front and a bottom gear of 32 teeth on the back). The tiny gears seemed ridiculous at first but as soon as I hit Honister Pass at 48 miles I knew they were a wise choice. Quite a number of people had underestimated the steepness of the climbs and were in for quite a bit of pushing the bike and a long day in (and out of) the saddle.
The climbs of Newlands Pass (after the first feed at Buttermere) and then Whinlatter Pass were both rhythm climbs which suited me much better than the uneven gradients of the others. I had a good leg from there to the final feed at Gosforth (86 miles). Going on from Gosforth I was starting to get into dodgy territory – the gorgeous surroundings of the lower Eskdale valley were no distraction from the worry I was about to cramp up. I saw the zig zags of the one-in-three climb of Hard Knott pass (101 miles and the highest point on the ride) dotted with people pushing bikes ahead of me and was resigned to a tough climb.
However, to my surprise, riding on my own, I managed to get into some sort of a rhythm and, apart from the stench of burning clutches from all the slow passing cars around me, I felt surprisingly comfortable. The descent of Hard Knott is viscious – with no time to look at the views, and constant braking as you screech down the staircase-like hairpins. The 
final climb of Wrynose pass is a mere two miles up the valley and I had no problems with my easy gear on the easier side of this high pass. I’d ridden this side of Wrynose with Richard (Hannaford) in 2005 on a bottom gear of 42-23, so I knew I’d be fine.
The final run-in is deceptive, and with about 600 feet of climbing over to Coniston is not to be sniffed at after 107 miles. Still – with so many mountain passes in the bag it was an easy spin and a lovely power ride over the last couple of miles.
Links:
Results 2006
Official website
Blogs of note:
Mark Wilson, Southport CC (2003)
Mike Inder (2005)
Someone from Thames Velo (2003)
Haven’t had much sporty stuff on the blog for a bit – time for an update about what I’ve been up to and why I can’t walk faster than a snail’s pace today.
I had a pretty good run in the Three Peaks Race yesterday
. It’s not the hilliest fell race there is but at almost 24 miles it’s a hard, hard endurance event. I’m sure there are tougher things to do, but it’ll do me for now. Key headline is that I finished ten minutes quicker than my first one (last year), with a time of 3hrs 44:59(click for split times). My cycling team mate Rob Jebb won for the second year running with 2:54:15 – a four minute improvement on 1995. Somehow, because of a stronger field, I guess, I finished five places further down the field than last time….
The story.
Managed to prepare pretty well but the main worry was that I’d been cycling a bit more than I should have been. There’s not much substitution for running as training for this distance, with the 4,500 feet of climbing and (importantly) hard descending. The main ‘lesson’ I took with me from 2005 was to go out a bit more gently and leave plenty in the tank for the finishing 10 miles. That said, I somehow managed to get up the first mountain, Penyghent, two and a half minutes quicker than 2005. Ooops.
The long stretch after descending the fast track from the summit didn’t seem to take its toll too much – I reached Ribblehead knowing that I hadn’t over-stretched myself a full five minutes quicker than last time. Although I improved on every split, things just got so much harder after Ribblehead. I was starting to get very tight calf muscles (all than non-running training!) and the decline in my wellbeing was compounded by a nasty fall on an innocuous bit of rocky track next to the Settle-Carlisle railway. A lamb ran out in front of me and I just caught a rock with my left toe and went straight down in a heap. Sitting there for 30 seconds or so I was in quite a bit of pain, but made what was to be the right decision in getting up and seeing how I felt. Three or four minutes of limping and nursing a bit of a bloody knee was all it took before it soon mingled in with the rest of the pain and got pushed from my mind.
From the summit of Whernside, the highest and steepest part of the race, I started down the next descent a little bit more cautiously. Partly because of the fall, and partly because of the nagging signs of cramp in my calf muscles. I had a nasty spasm of cramp that I quickly dealt with by belting it with my fist (!), then continued down the steep track, fingers crossed that all the flat tonic water I’d drunk during the race (quinnine reduces cramp, apparantly) was working.
By the time I reached the Hill Inn (the last point you can logically pack in!) I knew I was going to get back in one piece, but had to slow my pace – drastically, to keep the cramp at bay – in would have stopped me dead in my tracks and I knew it – so I had to be wise and mentally strong in letting people run past me. The competitive urge is hard to overcome, but I was right to lay off for a bit. The climb of Ingleborough was satisfying – the end’s almost in sight and although there’s an attrition on the legs that you can’t describe unless you’ve experienced it – you know you’ve done it.
The four mile descent back to Horton in Ribblesdale is a bit of a cruel one. The gradient is gentle, but an uneven path surface is cruel on tired legs and aching feet. Again, I had to let people pass me, knowing that if I tried to stay with them, I’d be rolling on my back in the side of the path with cramp for five minutes. The final false-flat passes excruciatingly slowly, then, ‘you bloody beauty’ – I can see the road only a few hundred yards ahead.
After I came over the line I got a great hug from Lily and it was ace to have some family in support. I really seized up afterwards and have been hobbling about for 24 hours since. Well worth it though.
Mates
Matthew (Pixton) defeated his demons, having had to pack in 2005, and overcame some horrible cramp to finish in 4 hrs 49 – will “never do it again” (my words, 2005 – maybe he’s got more conviction than me though!). Carl (Nelson) was not so lucky at his first attempt and blisters got the better of him. His long walk down from Whernside to the bus back to safety added insult to injury. Mike (Cottrill) soldiered round in 5:03 – a hard day out, but got a good finish under his belt.
