Twinkly Dave: JMC/Clif Supported Endurance Racer

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• Stuff that’s happened recently (to me, on a bike…)

  Yesterday I rode my road bike for a while…well, for 8hrs, and felt good all day. Didn’t feel tired afterwards and feel fine now. Yay. I might just be getting fitter!
  I battered all the hills into submission, then hammered the flat sections…then battered some more hills into submission, just cos i could
  If anything, i was riding faster, smoother and more comfortably towards the end than during the first four hours, i seemed to get into a nice fast rhythm and was secretly hoping that someone would stop me before i got home and tell me i had to take a 50 mile diversion, just so i could ride for longer!

  Took the scandal out on sunday round the 3 towers route, but snapped a spoke before i got to peel tower, so just turned round and headed home with a wobbly wheel. I still kicked some roadies arses though, so it wasn’t all bad. Up until the spoke went i was riding really smoothly and “efficiently”. Ace.

  Friday’s after work ride was the first road-night-ride of the year done in full on nice winter weather; ie sub zero but with starry clear skies and a moon bright enough to turn my lights off in places
  Sadly my toes went numb while riding and i had to suffer the first “itchy pain” of the season as they came back to life back at home, but on the plus side my new dhb waterproof gloves from wiggle performed superbly, as did the dhb thermal tights and endura skull cap. Mmmm, toasty warm!

  I like riding bikes.

  dgpowell 10:45 am on November 27, 2007 | Comments Off | # |
  

   

• Designed Specifically…

  …for pissing all over speeding bullets

  
  click for bigger

  Yes, i know my living room is in a state and needs a damn good clean. I’ll do it as soon as i get bored of riding the bike…

  dgpowell 2:30 pm on November 13, 2007 | 11 Comments | # |
  

   

• Bad things come in 3′s*

  *and then, occasionally, a 4th occurs.

  Sunday’s ride was cold, officially the first cold ride of this winter, and quite wet. Not that it rained on us, despite the cold it was quite a nice day, and with a bit of a tailwind down the final descent to worsthorne from the top of the widdop reservoir climb we couldn’t really have asked for more.

  It wasn’t until i went to fasten the waist strap on my camelback that i realised i’d slammed the car door on it when packing earlier and had wrecked the buckle. Perhaps not the worst thing to ever happen during a ride, but a bit annoying to say the least and definately Bad Thing Number 1.

  Sadly, before we’d got more than about a mile from the thread holding the cleat bolts into my right shoe gave up the ghost. This left me with the super slippy combination of rigid fiberglass soled shoe skating over the polished steel arms of an eggbeater pedal, which made the descents sketchy to say the least (and made for some comedy “lifting foot off pedal” moments when riding up hill and forgetting that i wasn’t clipped in).
  That was Bad Thing Number 2.

  We carried on with the ride, planning to stop at Blazing Saddles in hebden bridge to see if they had a replacement part for my shoes, but by the time we got there Bad Thing Number 3 had occured. Somehow, on the last descent into the town, rich had managed to snap his rear gear cable. Thankfully it had snapped right at the mech, so with a bit of persuasion and some borrowed cable cutters (again, from blazing saddles) we managed to bodge it so he had a few gears to choose from.

  With my shoe mended and rich enjoying his choice of about 3 gears we carried on with the rest of the ride being uneventfully nice. I made it home fine, left the bike in the living room, had a wash, made a brew and sat down…

  PSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHH

  eh?!
  for no apparent reason, and a good hour or so after putting the wheels down next to the frame and leaving them i got a puncture!

  dgpowell 10:54 am on November 12, 2007 | 1 Comment | # |
  

   

• With frightening accuracy

  I’m not usually known for reading the guardian, be it the paper version or online (in fact it’s rare that i’ll read anything news related unless it’s a copy of yesterday’s Sun, while waiting at the barbers), but this article caught my eye for it’s accurate depiction of my household…

  “So, if you made plans to go cycling with X two weeks ago, why didn’t you tell me till the night before?”

  “Because you would have been all huffy about it and made me feel guilty,” is not the right answer.

  dgpowell 2:38 pm on November 8, 2007 | 2 Comments | # |
  

   

• The Unexpected…

  Went to Lancaster on saturday to watch some fireworks and generally “be somewhere else”. Had tea at the water witch pub on the canal, which was nice (well, my food was nice, angela’s belly pork was 50% fat and served up as a square with only a butter knife to hack at it with!) then wandered down to the castle to see what was going on.
  Shockingly there was no bonfire, which is always a shame as a nice big bonfire is good thing to gather round’, but the fireworks were quite good, even if we did get showered with debris after the grand finale…

  Got up on sunday and packed the car to head off to the Haworth Mudman duathlon. To my suprise and delight said car started first time and off i set, armed with route directions from the MSN website and a road atlas.
  One hour and fourty five minutes later i was parked on someone’s (very nice) driveway swearing loudly at the MSN directions and road atlas for basically guiding me straight in to the middle of a little housing estate in the next town across from where the race was being held!
  I eventually found my way to the school hosting the event (no thanks to the maps or directions) and managed to register just as the organisers were packing the pre race talk and entry desk up. I stumbled over to where brant, paul and rich had set their bikes up in the transition area, trying to get undressed for the run and say hello to everyone all at once and before i knew it we were off!

  I’ll leave all the details of the race itself for the little report i’ll write over on the on-one site, once the results are up officially, but – given i have done no running whatsoever in preperation for the race – the result was both delightful and unexpected, even if it did leave me utterly drained (in under 2hrs!) and now walking like douglas bader!

  Suffice to say i sucked at the running but stuck it out and then put the hammer down on the riding section. I didn’t want to go at 100% race pace on the bike, knowing there was another run coming up, so i went at 99% instead
  The effort paid off and i was able to cross the finish line after more running/jogging/walking/hobbling in 3rd overall and 1st in my age catagory!

  

  It was cool to meet people/see people again, even if it was fleetingly before the race and while contemplating curling up in a ball and having a little sleep afterwards and as always at the races, it was nice to chat to other competitors and have a laugh on the finish line about “that puddle”/”almost going the wrong way” etc. Sometimes the social side of the races is as important as the actual race (and is usually less painful)!

  Now, where’s that ibuprofen gel gone, my calves hurt…

  EDIT: the results are up here, proving i am a considerably better cyclist than runner!

  dgpowell 11:31 am on November 5, 2007 | 9 Comments | # |
  

   

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© Twinkly Dave Mostly in 2009
Spolling Mistooks are on Porpoise.