Twinkly Dave: Ragley Bikes Supported Endurance Racer

RSS

• Oh the humidity!

  Went to Bury on saturday to spend my winnings at the Leisure Lakes shop there. I’ve decided I don’t like Bury, not for any particular reason, it just seems a bit grotty…as did the shop, whose entrance was helpfully hidden round the back of a frozen food store, up some incongruous looking stairs, past a buzzer controlled door :-/

  Bought myself a new helmet to fit my pea sized head, some muc off on a BOGOF offer and another tube of nuun tablets with the vouchers…and was given cash change for the remainder, which was surprising. Angela and I then jumped back in the car and headed over to Hebden Bridge for a little ride in the sunshine round the valleys.

  

  I get the sneaking suspicion angela didn’t enjoy the climb out of Hebden Bridge towards stoodly pike very much…despite my attempting to make it as shallow a gradient as possible you don’t get much of a choice round those parts, you’re either at the bottom of a hill, at the top of a hill or at about 45degrees and wheezing like a woodbine smoker!
  Still, once you’re up you’re up and the rest of the route was nice, though our planned stop for some lunch at the stubbing wharf was halted by not being able to even get close to the pub itself due to huge numbers of people enjoying the weather and the cider festival! We ended up driving back over to the top brink for a pint of timothy taylor and some pub grub after finishing the ride on the way home as it looked the least packed of all the pubs we saw!

  I headed out on Sunday morning for a 4.5hr ride over Darwen Tower and Rivi, met Wayne on his was back from a ride and then proceeded to boil myself in the heat. Even worse than being in the sun was being in the shaded woods where the humidity was just awful – it felt like being in a rainforest (i imagine, having never actually been to a rainforest). Still, I got round 55.88 miles @ 13.9mph and did 6735ft climbing without the brake pads melting in the nasty, sticky mud

  dgpowell 11:55 am on June 29, 2009 | 3 Comments | # |
  

   

• that pic

  

  it wasn’t taken by a professional (well, yet, anyway), that’s all i’m saying!

  That’s me getting into a rhythm that is. I like getting into those…and I’m getting better at it…and they’re getting faster too

  dgpowell 1:19 pm on June 25, 2009 | No Comments | # |
  

   

• You probably won’t believe me but

  that went quite well as far as I’m concerned!

  Mountain Mayhem I mean. I dropped out after 8hrs and after finishing my 8th lap with stomach cramps, but I don’t mind too much as I wasn’t really “targetting” the race.
  I was setting consistant and decent lap times despite not being on top form yet and felt good legs/arms/etc wise, no signs of tiredness or pushing too hard and I could still eat and drink just fine – I just didn’t want to risk carrying on and making myself ill.
  I tried out a few new things that seemed to work well (not telling you what though ) and have a couple of little adjustments to make based on how I rode, which I’ll do and check in the next few weeks, that should result in me being in decent shape/mood/condition for the next few 24hr races (hopefully)

  

  The race was quite fun;
  I kept finding myself on bits of the course I recognised with no idea how I got there,
  didn’t get rained on,
  didn’t have to walk large parts of the course due to them falling apart,
  got to laugh at numpties riding into each other and getting all wound up (maybe this in’t very PC, but tough, two people racing for 30umpteenth place 17hrs before the finish swearing at each other for touching bars makes me laugh)
  didn’t crash
  chatted to other people while riding
  did a jump (no-one was watching though)
  ate stuff without gagging
  and other such things

  I have to Big Up both “4th is the new 6th” Rod and Jase for coming 4th and 5th – and providing me with much entertainment by really racing each other all through Sunday; it was good fun watching the race unfold from the timing tent!
  TimK got 3rd with the Knights of Niche Cheeky Wassacks (sorry) in the SS cat and I’m lead to believe trio25 got 1st in her cat too with the Gritty Kittys.
  So I knew loads of people who SHOULD have been on the podium – in previous years It’s gone down as low as 8th place, but this year they only had the top 3 on the stand for some reason. Shame.

  UPDATE: the results are up. I still didn’t come last (121st in fact…at least it’s not 6th!)

  dgpowell 2:58 pm on June 23, 2009 | 2 Comments | # |
  

   

• a weatherwatch and such things

  First up: Mountain Mayhem this weekend, so here’s the ubiquitous weatherwatch for it:

  bbc
  uk weather
  met office

  so far, so dry!

  Big thanks go out to Jason (and son, obviously) for helping out. ‘Tis much appreciated!

  Entries have been sent off for SITS and Relentless24 – I’m aiming to “peak” a bit for SITS, instead of trying really hard at mayhem and getting wound up with a million numpties on the course! (Should have a spangly new bike by then too ) and relentless24 sounds like a lot of fun – proper mtb course, scottishland scenery and maybe a midge or two…

  dgpowell 2:31 pm on June 15, 2009 | 7 Comments | # |
  

   

• a carcass dragged

  Had 2 afternoons off work this week, so in my continuing attempt to regain a dreg of fitness before mountain mayhem I took myself off into the hills on the road bike for some private suffering.

  Tuesday’s ride was nice, the sun was out, it wasn’t insanely windy and the hills didn’t seem as horrible as they had during the previous week. I knocked out 120 miles, feeling better the further I rode and (just like last year) got sorely tempted to have a go at the Garstang time trial that was taking place as I cruised down the A6 towards the end of the ride. Eventually I will weaken enough to sort it out and actually have a crack at it (provided there’s somewhere leave the bottles and camelback). No, really, I wil this time.

  Friday’s ride was supposed to be done in the rain, according to the misery-mongers on the bbc. So I dressed accordingly and carried waterproof stuff with me. It didn’t rain on me…and wasn’t as cold as they threatened either, so i nearly boiled. Still, it was better than being in work and a near-comfortable 105 miles in the hills was good news.

  I spent a couple of hours on the turbo trainer during the week just to spin out the legs and do some easy stuff without having to battle the traffic. I don’t like using the turbo trainer, but at least when taking it easy I can still watch telly

  Wasn’t sure what to do today, eventually I decided to head out on the road again and have yet another go on the hills (the good thing about having nice long loops is that they don’t get boring quite so much). The wind was back with a vengance and was an absolute bugger for the first 25 or so miles.
  “Oh well” I thought, “it’ll get easier once I’ve reached the bottom of the loop and start to ride north”. Evidently the wind can hear my thoughts and did a quick about turn at the same time as me and continued to blast me in the face for a further 35-odd miles. Grr. Saw a few people out doing this ride while i was up on tatham fells and even spotted a food stop situated where I normally scoff a cereal bar, it was tempting to stop and try to buy a brew, but I carried on and “treated” myself to a High5 gel. I would have preferred the brew!
  Got home 93 miles later (see there’s so many route variations you could do a different ride every day with the same “core” set of climbs) still feeling OK – i could tell I’d been for a ride, but wasn’t by any means tired and ate all the pasties in the house

  dgpowell 9:49 pm on June 7, 2009 | 4 Comments | # |
  

   

POWERED BY CAKE SINCE 1979

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