Mt Nebo and bigger challenges

Vous êtes inscrit(e) à l'Etape du Tour qui aura lieu le dimanche 8 juillet 2012 entre Albertville et La Toussuire / Les Sybelles.

I keep reading this sentence over and over again, enjoying the sound of the French words and even more the meaning of it, expecting to wake up any moment and realising that it was just a dream...

After yesterday's ride I know that it will be a challenge. Alberto and I joined the QSM riders up Mt Nebo. Or was it me trying to get a head start and then being collected one by one as expected?

It was muggy. Little sweat pearls formed on my arms, mixed with the sun screen into a white gooey mess, ran down my face, stung in my eyes and then dripped off my nose just to burst on my freshly cleaned top tube. I hadn't even reached McAfees. The muesli sat heavily in my stomach. More familiar riders came pass and I grabbed their wheels as they said "Hello", but never for long, never for good.

Still, my time to McAfees was my second fastest for the year, only slightly slower than last Tuesday's best and I rode the heavier Powertap wheels. Alberto waited for me at McAfees and kept me company from there onwards, all the way to Mt Nebo village where the bunch waited for us in the shades of big poinciana trees.

The views with early morning low clouds were magnificent. After descending Mt Nebo; Alberto, Jack and I went straight into the city for coffee while the rest of the bunch added another few kilometers by going via Gap Creek Road. Knowing Gap Creek Road with its two 16% gradient climbs, I feared I'd be toast for the rest of the day if I'd joined them, and I also felt uncomfortable at the thought of making them wait for me yet another time.

But even without the added kilometers and only 75.9 km and 1180 m of climbing in my legs I felt like a vegetable for the rest of the day. We got home and all I wanted was a cool(ish) shower, clean clothes, a big protein shake and a couch to lay on for the rest of the day. My work clothes didn't get ironed, the big basket of clothes stayed unfolded and my car dirty and doing the dishes was a struggle. Sweet life of a cyclist!

Now I just have to complete the medical certificate confirming that I'm fit for "cycling competition", double the distance, quadruple the climbing and look forward to July 8, 2012. I guess I have some training to do between now and then but what a dream to maybe come true! It's possible.

The End

On a sad but unrelated note: I read yesterday that Fixie Inc will discontinue their business activities in 2012. Eventually, so they announced on their blog, it was not possible for them to increase their production quantities to a critical mass, which justified their operating expenses and their personal efforts. I always loved their boutique bikes and especially that Peacemaker of mine. Earlier this year I eyed a Chiprace Titanium bike, which I will now never own. I wish Recep and Holger all the best and hope they will build bikes again sometime in the future.

Prime lap

"There is nothing for coming second in a prime", Adam once told me many years ago.

The prime lap, a lap within a criterium race, usually around the half time mark and signalled by a whistle blow, that pays a prize for the first rider across the line, kinda like an intermediate sprint in a road race.

My club Hamilton Pine River Wheelers has taken to conducting two prime laps in C-Grade, the first one just for the ladies and the second for - you thought guys, right? - everyone. Yeah, there was some discussion after the briefing whether this was fair but gentlemen: "I wanna see the day when one of us five ladies will out-sprint all of you 35 guys"

I had a few goals for the Nundah criterium this morning:

1. Stay upright and out of trouble,
2. Observe and position well throughout the race and
3. Have a few goes and a lot of fun.

Some days I'm really keen to push myself. These are the days when it hurts but I'm OK with the pain and want to go harder, dig deeper, ride faster. And then there are less happy days where I resist the pain, hate to hurt, and just want to ease up and roll home, slowly. I couldn't tell what kind of day I was going to have when John and I warmed up around the criterium circuit this morning.

Two laps in and I hit the front with John and I immediately knew that it was a Happy Hurt Day. But the majority of the bunch must've had this type of day because with 39.1 km/h average speed it was one of the faster C-Grade races I've done and nobody seemed afraid of chasing. We got a little bit of air behind our wheels but not for long. There were counter attacks and counter chases and before I knew it there was the whistle for the first prime lap, the ladies' one.

Michael, my new fellow German acquaintance, attacked, and because I was there and saw him going, I went after him, grabbed his wheel, checked back - clear. Then I remembered from the briefing that we weren't allowed to take a lead out from a male rider. I stayed slightly off his wheel but dug deep and started doubting myself There is no way I can stay away for a whole lap, they will swamp me any moment surely...

Bet this talk takes lots of energy. We came into the straight, I sensed a wheel behind me and immediately assumed it was the bunch. Game over! A girl came flying pass me and I didn't jump on her wheel. By the time I realised it was just her and not the bunch, it was too late. Split seconds! Wrong decision! Maybe if I had, I could have recovered in her slipstream for a moment, just enough for a sprint. But I had nothing left and ended up rolling over the line second.

Nothing for second in the prime? I don't agree. There is so much fun in it and the opportunity to learn. That I should just trust myself for example. And not to go quite so early. Or at least to take full advantage of a wheel when it's there for the taking.

There was the "boy's prime" right afterwards and I was in the hurt box for a while, just hanging on.

John showed up from somewhere. I told him that my soggy little matches were all used up. He wanted another dig, I could tell.

There was a lull just after the 30 min mark. No way of getting to the front as riders spread across the entire width of the track with no gaps wide enough to get through or big enough for my level of confidence.

Four more laps, maybe five the most, and all of a sudden the door opened in front of me. The bunch drifted to the right of the track, strung out by another attack. "If in doubt, just GO" was ringing in my ears so I went. It was weird to ride straight pass twenty or more riders, right to the front. And there I rode for half a lap. It was so much fun just riding. By the time we got around the back, my arms were tingling and I knew I had blown myself to bits.

Nothing for last either, except an amazing morning of bike racing with good friends and nothing to regret. I had achieved all my goals.

Compact

Compact has been a real revelation for me. Girls, if you are not Anna Meares or Nicole Cook, do yourself a favour and consider a compact groupset next time the decision comes around.

Compact groupsets are the equivalent to triple chainrings on roadbikes - uncool and only for people who are soft. That's what I always thought. Until some of my well respected female cycling friends raved about it, girls who are much stronger than I am. And I also know some male master's riders who have been racing compact groupsets for years with race results to show for.

With view of some big climbing plans next year I choose a compact groupset for my new Canyon. The 34 teeth small ring (in comparison to 39 teeth on a regular groupset) made me apprehensive. I thought I would spend even more time in the big 50 teeth chain ring than I already spend in my 53 because I like my gears big and my cadence low. I'm not the high cadence type. High cadence makes me breathless and slow. My fears were unfounded. I'm comfortably spinning away in my small(er) chainring and it probably even improves my pedalling efficiency on the flats.

But the real eye opener is the climbing. Where I used to grind my way up the 8-9% gradient McAfees training climb, cadence dropping into the low 50ies or even lower, I'm now able to sustain 65-70rpm the entire way. It makes me a much faster climber. Only yesterday I took another (!) 29 seconds off my seasonal best time (on a 6 km climb). Yes, the seasonal best that I had only posted the week before. The difference between this week and last week was that I used my heavier Powertap wheel with a 12-27 cassette last week while yesterday I used the lighter (and stiffer) Ksyrium SRs with the 11-28 cassette. Just to put this in perspective: The speed I'm climbing now, I only ever managed when I did gym work, trained 12-15 hours a week, raced and weight 2 kg less than I do now. Climbing speeds that I haven't even come close to in the past two years.

The power graph from last week also showed that I indeed put out a higher average power over the course of the climb, about 10W more. It's like gym work: if I load the leg press with 300kg I only manage 8 reps. If I put 200 I can repeat the exercise so many more times. Makes totally sense to me and I just wish I had entered the Tour of Bright to try my new compact on Mt Hotham.

But even if you are not chasing personal bests up your local climbs, I reckon the ability to ride comfortably at a faster cadence and have a gear or two to fall back on for rest and recovery on a long scenic climb is an advantage on any cycling holiday. The rides in Phuket for example would have been even more enjoyable with the compact groupset.

Alberto made a rare appearance on our Tuesday morning training climb this week, riding my Time Edge, and he reminded me that the Time is also a beautiful climbing bike. I don't really like riding it anymore but I feel that I have to take it up McAfees next Tuesday. I want to have the direct comparison with a normal 39/53 groupset and need to confirm that it is indeed the compact groupset and not me who has miraculously turned into a better climber over night.

And last but not least, when all the spinning makes me dizzy, and the whole gear selection gets too complicated, I can always just roll out on the Fixie.

And so I bought a race license for 2012

While I usually don't mind riding with only the iPod for company, and sometimes I even crave a ride by myself, just me, my bike and my thoughts; due to circumstances I have done a lot of lone riding over the past few months and quite frankly, right now I'm a bit tired of my own silly chatter in my head.

It became clear to me last Saturday at Nundah when, after talking with people by the race track and having such a good time, I headed down the bike path to the beach - alone again - because everybody else was racing. This lone ranger ride bored me out of my brains and I realised how much I missed the social aspect of racing and training. And so I bought a race license for 2012.

And I got on the phone and packed my week full of cycling dates. Tuesday morning McAfees with P and Damien, no other takers but three make a crowd! Wednesday morning a Fixie loop along the river with my best buddy John and Friday the QSM big bunch ride with Alberto's team.

If that wasn't cycling company enough, Saturday's race calendar featured Lakeside. It's still the best racing in Brisbane on a Saturday morning, in my opinion, so I decided to put my new license to good use. I pinned number 24 and I wasn't the last one to sign on. My guess is that there were over 30 people in C-Grade and the other grades looked equally numbered.

This was not about competing nor winning but all about riding fast with other like-minded folk, the mental stimulation of watching their moves, and calculating mine, the sharp mid-race word exchanges What are you doing back here in the prime lap? - I was looking for your lead out wheel...!, and the entertainment derived from all the deep rimmed carbon and top of the range hardware. Saturday morning's Show of Bling would have made Pros envious. Would the Canyon look fast with my Corima wheels? I might have to find out next Saturday.

BEET IT! Does beetroot juice help me ride faster?

A few weeks ago I received an email from Sophie asking if she could send me samples of that new product she was representing to try and test it and maybe blog about it.

Please note that I'm not getting paid to write about this and it is my own opinion.

Stamina Shots - I can be forgiven for thinking it was something like Clif shots or Hammer gel or some other on the bike mid-ride fuel.

The parcel was waiting for me on my return from Europe. When I read the enclosed press release and info sheet, I was surprised to learn that this product was to be taken one to three hours before a ride. Most of my riding is done at 5am before work and I don't think I will be up at 2am for my beetroot juice hit.

But small logistical problems aside, I tried the first bottle on a Saturday morning, straight after breakfast and coffee, about 45 min before my ride.

I have to be honest here, I hated the taste - intense sweet condensed beetroot with something else. Lemon - according to the label. I gulped it down like medicine, hoping that just like a bitter potion the awful taste was part of the deal and would ensure it worked the miracles it promised.

In my wickedness I made Alberto have a sip but to my great surprise he loved the taste, which may just proof that I'm scarred for life. Beetroot compote was a staple dessert in East German school lunches and I must still hate it from back then.

So why bother with it? Well, it promises all sorts of weird and wonderful performance improvements and comes hailed as the next (yet another?!) superfood (what, the shabby old beetroot now a wonder drug?).

From the press release:

Beetroot juice is a natural source of nitrate, which is the active ingredient that affects an athlete’s performance. The nitrate inside BEET IT has two physiological effects. Firstly, it widens blood vessels, reducing blood pressure and allowing more blood flow. Secondly, it affects muscle tissue, reducing the amount of oxygen needed by muscles during activity. Combined it has a significant impact on performing physical tasks, whether it be low or high intensity.

And

Researchers at the University of Exeter have published findings showing that beetroot juice enables people to exercise for up to 16% longer.

I'm not a scientist and I don't know enough about the test protocols they used at the University of Exeter but the sample group they mention (nine club-level male cyclists) appears small and how they managed to exclude any other variables in order to be able to pin any improvements on the red juice, I don't know. Therefore I better leave the evaluation of those test results to the experts.

But curious of the benefits of the beetroot I did my own Internet research and there seems to be indeed some wider agreement amongst nutritionists that beetroot and especially the Nitric Oxide that it contains is beneficial for cardiovascular health and subsequently for athletic performance.

And what's my own experience? Thanks to Sophie, who provided me with not just one but quite a few Stamina Shots, I was able to drink a bottle before almost every ride over the past two weeks. Each time I felt great on the bike. I even posted personal best times up my regular training climb, improving my seasonal best by a whopping 31 seconds (over a 6 km climb). Can I pin the performance improvements exclusively on the beetroot juice? I don't know, I also rode a new bike.

Would I buy the product? To be honest, I'm thinking about ordering a box as I write this. And the taste? I still wouldn't kill for it but it has grown on me over the past two weeks...

Best of it all? It's 100% natural, 100% organic and I love the design of the little bottles.

Felt vs. real air temperature

Felt air temperature squares with real air temperature most of the time here in Oz, the same way the outside temperature corresponds to the temperature inside the house. That's Australia (or should I rather say Queensland?) where breaks in the weather don't happen suddenly and people can live reasonably comfortably year round without having central heating or air conditioning running. You are kinda in tune with the weather that doesn't change much day to day.

Saturday morning for example we rolled out at 6 am and it felt hot and humid and it actually was already pretty hot and humid. Not much headache there what to wear...

So this post may not be of much interest to anyone cycling in Oz or the Southern hemisphere right now but I thought I post it for anyone facing winter over the next few months. And - call me crazy - I already miss the crisp mornings in Germany.

At first I really struggled to get my clothing right for my holiday rides last month. Either I was overdressed or, in the majority of cases, not adequately dressed for the temperatures. What puzzled me was the fact that I rode in exactly the same temperatures during winter here. Mostly the thermometer showed between 7 - 10 C. But 10C in Oz felt somehow warmer than 10C in Germany. Mind you I wore my Australian winter cycling clothes so I had a good measure for comparison because here I need a long sleeved undershirt maybe two times a year. I finally got a good wear out of all my winter gear - at ones. But even more surprisingly, 10C in Germany could even feel extremely differently from one day to the next.

Balmy 23C inside my parent's apartment made it even more difficult to determine how many layers to pile on and a quick sticking the head out the bathroom window was also rather error prone. One of my best indicators was neighbor's roof. If it was white from morning hoarfrost, I'd hang around the breakfast table a bit longer, and I wouldn't set a foot (front wheel) outside until the roof was black again.

One morning I started the ride at 1.3C and the temperatures reached 3.9C at its peak. I wore all the winter gear I had: long sleeve undershirt, winter jacket, long pants, two pair of winter socks, overshoes, beanie and warm winter gloves. 15 min into the ride my fingers went numb. Silly me thought I could just ride harder to warm up but the faster I rode the more painful the cold bit into my face and fingers. That was my first hand experience of the windchill effect, which was very well explained in this table in the October or November issue of the German bicycle magazine Roadbike. It shows in blue boxes the felt air temperature vs a certain real air temperature at a certain speed (yes, you worked that out already!).

But this still tells only half the story. It doesn't explain how the same temperature can feel different on two different days, or even within one ride. A quick google search and I found the answer: it's humidity (I had suspected that) and air density. It makes perfectly sense for German weather forecasts to mention the expected felt air temperature as I remembered them doing back in the days when I lived there. There is not much use in doing so in Queensland, where the humidity and air density stay the same.

And while I enjoyed these few crisp morning rides, marvelled at the grass and trees covered with white layers of frost, remembered how winter smells, the icy perfume in the crystal clear morning air - I think I'd loose my fascination with real vs. felt air temperatures fairly quickly. Had I stayed any longer, I would have had to go shopping for warmer cycling clothes and improved the hit rate of my snot rockets. Respect to all those, who continue riding through winter.

It's not me, it's the bike!

All my pretty horses are back in the stable. The Fixie is back from major surgery. The seat post had to be cut out because it had dry welded to the seat tube. Nobody understands how this could have happened in less than eight months but there you go.

The Peacemaker is sporting a brand new T3 seat post that actually moves and I figured, since it was under the knife already with the best frame expert in town, we might as well have some elective cosmetic surgery done and add a bottle cage, so I had the holes drilled into the down tube. I have to thank the guys at Fusion for looking after it and following up and getting it back to me as good as new after my holiday.

The first Fixie ride after over two months and I fell in love with it all over again. There's something special about riding a bike so simple and cool.

My eyes finally adjusted to the intense blues and purples of spring time Australia and the Canyon finally got to show off what it is really build for: proper hills!

My friend P and I took up our regular Tuesday morning habit of riding up to McAfees lookout, and there was lots of chatting and catching up to do because we hadn't seen each other for five or six weeks. And so we chatted and climbed and chatted and climbed. It was up to me to dictate the pace. P wasn't interested in making me hurt for a change and so I comfortably pushed the pace, not taking it easy but not going anywhere near the red zone, just spun up like the new compact groupset is now allowing me to do... and when I rolled pass my usual street sign marker and pressed the timer button out of habit, I was surprised to see a best time! The elusive PB that I had been chasing all year on all those Tuesday mornings where I busted my arse trying to climb as fast as P and Sue-Ann, heavy breath and on the rivet, here it was without even trying.

Well, I didn't gain any fitness and rather put a little bit of weight over the past few weeks (Go figure!) so it must be the bike. I can't wait to actually push the pace next Tuesday and kinda regret that I haven't signed up for the Tour of Bright... and this morning I rode down to Nundah with Alberto, who was on club duties, and I loved the buzz and excitement of all these people pinning numbers and chatting and seeing friends and I decided that it probably won't be a waste of money if I bought a racing license again for 2012.

And before I forget! A few months ago I promised to check the Community Bike Repair Station and I'm happy to report that it's looking as new as it looked three months ago and - over a cup of coffee - I watched plenty of people using it.

How much training intensity is needed to improve fitness?

During my recent four week holiday in Germany I managed to ramp up close to a 1000 km on the bike, that's more kilometers than I would have ridden had I stayed home and worked.

My fitness must have improved greatly then, you would assume, right?

Now, before jumping to conclusions you need to know that I rode almost every day - apart from a couple of rest day and a day when it drizzled - but most rides were of exploratory nature with lots and lots of photo stops. I never pushed the pace unless I ran late for breakfast, or - later during my holiday - lunch. Germans don't ride before dawn I learnt (and integration demands following local customs). No ride was longer than two and a half hours and my furthest distance was just short of 60 km.

Naturally, I was curious to find out where this type of riding had left me fitness wise. When I uploaded all my Garmin data, I wasn't surprised to find that I had spent the majority of the time in my Endurance heart rate zone.

I didn't take my Powertap wheels with me to Germany so before I manually added the Training Stress Score (TSS) for each ride by estimating it, based on my heart rate data according to Friel's method of estimating TSS, I had a brief glance at the WKO+ Performance Management Chart just to see where my fitness would have been had I not ridden at all during my holidays. As you can see, four and a half weeks of no riding lets your fitness hit rock bottom, or close.

After WKO+ had plotted all my manual TSS entries, the graph looked somewhat different but not at all what I had expected. Seriously, I, like you probably, too, expected the green line (CTL = Chronic Training Load = Fitness) to go up, at least marginally. Instead, the line is dead straight, even lacking the usual "spiky" nature. I maintained the same fitness level throughout my holiday. Would you call this flatlining? Sorry, bad pun...

OK, it's not all just bad news. When my disappointment settled and I thought about it more logically, I realised that with the (reasonably good) fitness I had before my holiday (hovering around 64 TSSM) I needed a lot higher doses of intensity in order to improve. My TSS for each ride was somewhere between 50 and 100. Not enough to cause great fatigue (Red line = ATL). A medium intensity training ride of two hours usually gives me between 120 and 150 TSS, which would cause a much higher spike in fatigue.

Had I started out with a lower fitness level, I probably would have improved, just like I would have lost fitness had I started my holiday at 80 TSSM. A good graphic lesson and I now have a better picture of what's required when I actually want to improve.

If I was training, I would have considered these four weeks as perfect base training, leaving me ready for higher intensity now!

And I leave you with some of the photos I took on those rides that helped maintain my fitness and probably also my waistline if you remember my previous post:

Germans are serious about alternative energies. Solar and wind parks are everywhere.

Leave the church in the village! is a German idiom meaning that someone should not get too carried away. I could fill an entire post just with photos of churches of the region but ... yes ... I should leave the church in the village!

Tree lined "Landstrassen". My absolute favourite! There is such a European feel to riding along such roads, especially in autumn when the oak trees turn red and yellow. Note that there is no shoulder! That's very typical for these roads. Drivers leave plenty of space when they overtake a cyclist.

Bicycle Super Highways I call them - purpose build bikeways around the newly created lakes, no cars allowed. Fast smooth brand new bitumen, often featuring a strong head or cross wind.

The hilly playground for the Canyon with Festung Königstein in the background (Saxon's Switzerland just South of Dresden)

Time for cake, yet? There must be a cafe somewhere in this town, surely...

Cobbles! I know they cause European nostalgia in many cyclists. Can't say I'm fond of them...

Noticed the turn of tides, the changes from green to golden, the arrival of autumn?