Arg, I fell going along the flat cycle path near Cramond. There’s a wee bump that I normally ride over; today I lifted the front wheel over but let the rear hit it. This caused the rear to shoot up, pitching me over the front wheel and landing at non-trivial speed on my right shoulder. Bounce, bounce, roll. Ouch. Felt like my right shoulder was probably broken. No phone reception, so got back carefully onto bike and rolled back towards town a bit, then phoned for rescue. Decided to take a proper look and, yes, very obviously broken. Mega thanks to Jon for getting me to hospital and recovering my bike too. Xray showed clavicle broken, near the shoulder and, since the bone is pointing up at a jaunty angle it’s likely I’ve detatched one of these ligaments. Pah, fracture clinic tomorrow and either ‘conservative management’ (ie. do basically nothing) or surgery to pin it.

I’m in good company though!

I have some Good painkillers, but won’t be cycling, motorbiking, climbing, driving, karting, drinking, breadmaking, or typing properly (left hand only, painfully slow!) for weeks. 10UTB is a no-no, as are most if not all SXC events. Still, could’ve been worse .. fortunate it happened close to town. Ironic that it happened on a straight flat path which I ride on several times a week.

Life has been a mixed bag recently. I started putting some focus on endurance/distance in preparation for 10 Under the Ben. My ~50 mile loop around Kincardine was followed the next weekend with a ~65 mile ride back up from Ayrshire against a strengthening headwind. But following that, I got a bit of a chest infection which I didn’t shift for two weeks, plus a stomach bug, plus toothache. Arg! So, two weeks passed as I waited to get healthy again, only managing an easy trip around Glentress during that time, and it knocked me out of doing the Contin SXC race last weekend. Boo. 🙁

Still, this week has been better. I cycled to work on Wednesday for the first time in ages, and took the afternoon off today to blast round the red at Glentress at nearish race pace. Leaving from the hub cafe, I reached Buzzards Nest after 19 mins, top of Spooky Woods after 47 mins, and was back at the Hub in under 1h 20m. The matrix/lombard st trails are still closed sadly. The only real trouble was a sore lower back coming down Spooky Woods. I often get this – I think it’s maybe the change from “climbing muscles” to “standing on pedals” muscles. Maybe some “core strength” work required? I dunno really.

I had my heart rate monitor with me, mostly to cajoule me into riding at something like race pace. Average rate from the hub to spooky woods was 153. I experimented with different levels of exertion on the long climb. Mostly, I stayed between 150-155 but at time I moved up to 160 and it seemed fairly sustainable. Anything above 165 feels like I’ve started a countdown timer – okay for short bursts, but not for a sustained climb.

After SXC race 1, I decided I needed to up my training somewhat. It became clear during the race that a) the basic pace was higher and b) there’s a big need to tolerate short bursts of higher output.

So, training-wise over the last 2 weeks I’ve done:

– four days commuting to work (about 80 miles total). Two of those days, I used the ride into work to do intervals (ie. going flat out for a short time, then recovering then repeating). I intended the ride back home to be a gentle recovery, but both times I got suckered into racing other cyclists. *grin*

– last weekend, a 30 miles jaunt over the Pentlands. Super muddy, rutty, technical and windy. But I enjoyed it and definitely felt it improved my technique.

– this weekend, a 55 mile road trip via Kincardine. Pretty pleasant, and it felt a lot easier than the last time I did it (last year) which suggests that my training is going pretty well. This is in preparation for 10 Under The Ben in May – aiming to do ~50 miles offroad then.

I definitely feel improvement in terms of being able to sprint for longer, recover more quickly and push bigger gears when I have to (my tendency has always been to spin all the time, but that’s not always possible in MTB races). But the increased training is also taking its toll as my body adjusts – I need to be careful not to step it up too quickly too soon.

There’s still 3 weeks until SXC round 2 at Contin. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep up with the intervals midweek and longer rides at weekend, and be able to see an improvement during the next race 🙂

Yay, I just did my first proper competitive mountain bike race! \o/

It was substantially tougher than I expected! I thought I was a) pretty fit, and b) reasonably fast. Ooh, it turns our that there’s lots of people who are much fitter and much faster than me. Final results aren’t out yet, but I’m pretty sure I finished 19th out of a field of 43 in my class. (Update: provisional results have me 25th out of 52; dunno why they’re different from what was on the screen at the finish line).

The weekend started nicely with a 3h drive down to Kirroughtree on Saturday afternoon, through some very fun “driving roads” – south of the Leadhills, accidentally onto a tiny B road for a while, then on through Galloway forest. Having promised rain all week, the weather forecast changed its mind at the last moment and so with “sunny intervals” on the cards I had decided to camp.

I also decided that switching to my new “fast but not very grippy” tyres was a good plan.

Neither of these turned out to be good ideas.

After finishing my tyre change, I got chatting another friendly mtb’er at the campsite (Alex), with me explaining that it was my first race etc. Turns out, he was entering the elite (ie. scary fast) group the next day. He’d done lots of races, so I got a few handy tips although his description of the course (“much more technical that the 10 Under The Ben course”) left me wondering what I’d signed up for.

As the sun set and the rabbits hopped away, I had a great view of the stars. Then it occurred to me that “no cloud cover” plus “March in Scotland” means VERY COLD. Indeed, my 3 season sleeping bag wasn’t a match for the ice which formed on the outside of my tent (I kid thee not) and it was rather chilly all night long.

Onto race day: fuelled by porridge and tea I headed along to Kirroughtree. A big slow queue for race registration before I could head out to reccy the course. At first it seemed pretty tame – fireroad and a steady singletrack climb up through the woods. But when I hit the first steep climb, my rear tyre spun out immediately on the soft muddy forest floor and I had to push up the hill. I quickly realised my ‘fast’ tyres were entirely the wrong ones for the day and so another tyre-change would have to be on the cards.

As I made my way round the course, it became clear this was no 10UTB-style “fireroad plus bits of singletrack” course. It was mainly “natural” trails, snaking their way through trees – which meant loads of super slippy tree roots. This was the theme of the day – roots, roots and more roots and lots of soft forest mud. I haven’t really done much roots before, so I did a lot of sliding out and this made it tough course. Vertically, it felt like most of the lap was climbing, and the only sustained descent was right at the end of the lap – swoopy trail-center hardpack. There were two incredibly steep climbs on soft ground – which I’ve no idea how anyone could cycle up (I ran them). Not many steep descents – the two big ones were still pretty straightforward. Mid-course, there were a few wee rocky bits, but it was easy to carry enough momentum to cross them.

I’d set out on my reccy lap about 1.5h before my race started. However, I didn’t take a map so the only way I could be sure to get back to the right place was to do the entire course. A bit non-optimal, doing 3 laps rather than 2, but at least I got to see the whole course ahead of time. I got back to the carpark with 30 minutes to spare, but with sweat pouring off my brow and a tyre change still to perform.

Fortunately, I’ve been practising doing speedy puncture repairs recently – primarily to see if it was feasible to fix a puncture without losing too much race time (not really; takes me ~4mins). But nonetheless, I was pretty glad of the practise because I managed to switch tyres and get the bike back in one piece just in time for the start. I wasn’t sure what to wear either. I did the reccy lap with leggings on (cold morning) and a cycling jacket over a base layer. But I was overheating by the end of that lap. In the end, I just went for shorts and a long sleeve top, figuring that I was unlikely to suffer from cold during the race (v true!).

Whistle blows, race starts. I had lined up maybe 3/4 of the way down my group because I had no idea how I’d fare, especially having seen the course. But I spent the first half lap either passing people, or trundling along singlefile in a queue until others either fell off or the road got wide enough to get past.

I recognised the approach to the first steep hill, where I’d spun out on my reccy lap. I was following another rider, and as he tried to power up the hill, his wheel spun out. But, with my grippier tyres on, I was able to keep pedalling – yay!

The rest of lap 1 was pretty processional, with clusters of five of so riders bunching up behind slower riders. I managed to pass quite a few folk on the wider uphill sections, but also lost several places on a dumb fall going downhill. Unsighted by the rider on front of me, I didn’t see that “left” and “right” were two fine options, but “straight on” lead to a big immovable object … boing!

There were lots of minors spills throughout the field, as people encountered the many slippy tree roots. I went into cyclocross mode several times – if people ahead were getting stuck, I just got off the bike and ran with it. I made up a useful number of places that way. Turns out, having a steep staircase to climb/run up on the commute to work was useful training after all!

At the end of lap one, I was thinking I’d pushed too hard. But by lap two, everyone was much more spread out and it was easier to stick to a steady pace. I passed quite a few people, but a lot of the different categories set off at basically the same time, so it was never clear how I was doing. Halfway through lap 2, I got passed by 2 or 3 of the fastest younger riders on their 3rd lap – man, they are super fast uphill .. scarily so! I was pushing hard enough that my stomach started feeling dodgy for a while so I had to back off a bit. On the last half lap, I had quite a lot of (tired) fun. The swoopy bit back towards the line felt fun (it was downhill) and there was a couple of guys in sight which gave me something to chase (although to no avail).

Over the finish line, and … nothing. Just a bunch of cyclists hanging around chatting. I had to ask someone where the timing screen was, and figured out that I’d came in 19th out of 43 riders. Ah well, not too bad. The course was substantially harder than I expected. If it wasn’t so root-sy it would’ve been easy, but then …

So, what I have learned?

• Open category is definitely the place to start. I’ve heard the same story before – “I thought I was pretty fit, until I entered my first race”. I can add my voice to that now!
• My fast commuting pace is, well, more akin to warmup pace rather than race pace. I get plenty warm cycling normally, but during the race sweat was dripping from my head like never before. I’m totally reassessing what I consider a “training” ride now.
• Need to figure out how to ride over roots. Abstractly, I know hitting them straight on is good .. but you don’t always have the choice. Unweighting is good, which works fine for single roots but they often come in groups. Carrying speed might be a good plan, but I need some faster legs first.
• Need to practise intervals, and improve anaerobic fitness. Distance cycling is almost all aerobic; racing is often anaerobic.
• Need to improve core muscle strength – my lower back was killing me after the downhill at the end of lap one. I get the same thing towards the end of Spooky Woods at Glentress. Need to figure out what I need to change.

Good stuff from today:

• Yay, I did a race! *ticks box*
• Judged my pace fairly well. Only overcooked it a little on lap one, backed off a little on lap two (to avoid breakfast revisital) and ended lap two with only a wee bit of energy to spare.
• Switching tyres pre-race.
• Remembered to keep looking ahead and planning ahead. I got annoyed at 10UTB by the number of times I hit the start of a steep climb in the wrong gear … managed a lot better today.
• Running up the steepest hills rather than pedalling at a snails pace.

Next round is up at Contin, near Inverness, in a month’s time. Rar! 🙂

Finally the ice has (almost) cleared from Holyrood Park, so I was able to do my homebrew “fitness test” to start my training. I figure that timing myself over three laps of Holyrood Park / Arthurs Seat will be a good yardstick. I can come back and do the same course in a few months and see if I’ve got faster. There’s little in the way of traffic lights or junctions, and it’s a mixture of steepish climbs, fast descents and a fair bit of flat road too.

Date: Jan 16th 2010, 15:00
Route: Holyrood Park loop (3.3mi including 100m ascent)
Distance: 3 loops of 3.3mi, plus 2mi there and 2mi back = 14miles.
Bike: Courier Nexus

Lap 1: 13m50s, 153bpm average => 14.3mph average
Lap 2: 14m22s, 155bpm average => 13.8mph average
Lap 3: 14m26s, 155bpm average => 13.7mph average

Notes: Start/end at zebra crossing near Holyrood Palace. Snowgates were shut at bottom of hill, requiring a short muddy/icy excursion. Lots of pedestrians around, but didn’t have to stop for traffic.

Heartrate was 160-163 climbing the hill, which felt sustainable. Went up to 167 after the final steepest bit of the climb, which didn’t feel so sustainable! Tried to keep at 150-160bpm round the rest of the lap, but ran out of gears on the downhill.

I went to re-setup the gears on my bike (Gary Fisher Hoo Koo Ee Koo) last week and couldn’t get them working. Now, this is a bit frustrating because I’ve set up gears many times before and, although it can take a wee while to get them indexed right, the recipe is simple and pretty foolproof.

But for some reason, shifting wasn’t happened right. After a while, I realised that it wasn’t really an indexing or limit-screw problem; the bike would eventually go into every gear. Instead, it was as if the bike had developed memory. If I’d previously been shifting up, then the first down-shift would be ignored! Subsequent down-shifts would work fine. It was as if the bike could remember whether the previous shift has been up or down.

My first suspicion was that the derailleur pivots were corroded or gunked up. I was just about to go ahead and strip it down – but, upon releasing the gear cable from the derailleur I realised that the derailleur itself was moving completely smoothly. Hmm, strange, can’t be that then.

My next suspicion was that the ratchet mechanism in the shifter had gone funny. But, by watching the cable move as it came out of the shifter, I could see that it was doing its job correctly – each click of the gear lever moved the cable out/in by the same amount every time.

Finally, I watched the gear cable along its length. Near the handlebars, it moved in time with the shifters. But at the other end, it wasn’t moving at all on the first shift. Suddenly, I suspected the cable itself. Releasing the gear cable from the derailleur again, I wiggled the metal cable back and forwards through the last ‘loop’ of the black outer. It moved, but it certainly felt a little bit sticky. Sticky enough to cause the problem? Perhaps there was enough resistance to counteract the tension released by the first click, but not enough to resist two clicks.

Lacking any objective means of measuring the friction, I decided to replace them. With a bit of help from Sheldon and my trusty Dremel, I soon had the new cables cut to length – using the old ones as a pattern.

And, guess what? I now have silky smooth just-like-new gear shifts all over again. Woo! 🙂

I started 2009 with the aim of riding LEJOG in May. I’m really glad I blogged it all, because now I can return to the posts as a spectator and enjoy a different side of the ride.

In 2010, I’m starting with a different aim – to race in round one of the SXC (Scottish Cross Country) mountain biking series at Kirroughtree, plus the Ten Under The Ben endurance race in May. I also intend to blog my preparation and training and, being lazy, I’m just going to reuse my LEJOG blog and continue tacking on new posts to it.