Allow me to point out that West Norwood rocks, for a number of reasons – not least because I can ride this hilly 4-5 hr route from my door:
View West Norwood foray in a larger map
Rode it last Sunday with Millsy, who has been bending my ear on recovery smoothies and base amino supplements among other matters. Actually felt pretty good.
The route takes in Toy’s Hill along with plenty of other rolling sections, and has plenty of room for expansion for longer rides.
A nice rolling 3hr, 50-mile loop from my house in Stoke.
View Stoke loop #4 in a larger map
I rode this hilly 60-mile loop from Denham yesterday. It goes up Whiteleaf (double chevron) then cuts back round to take in another couple of chevron ascents to Dunsmore:
View Denham loop in a larger map
Denham is 25 mins from Marylebone, is just further west than South Ruislip, and is pretty much the quickest way to bypass the traffic out west of the smoke. Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth the hassle and extra time, but actually it’s much more pleasant to sit with a latte on the train then ride straight into the countryside, than to sweat through traffic lights and exhaust for 90 mins to reach the same spot.
The route: all 112 miles of it.
I read the detailed route description for the FWC last night, and experienced a flutter of dread. It’s going to be a monster of a ride, and one which I have to some extent overlooked with my France sportives always on the horizon.
That said, I feel great. I’m sleeping and eating well this week, and my legs are popping after back-to-back rides on the weekend followed by a couple of days’ rest. AND I’ve hit my target sportive weight of 11 stone.
I’m definitely going to need to take enough food though – the first feed station isn’t until 52 miles in.
A gentle climb on the way to Codicote.
Today, thanks to the flexible working policy of my employer, I was able to ‘cheat the week’ and go on a sunny 4hr ride straight from my flat in north London.
The expression ‘cheat the week’ originated when Andy and I used to ‘work from home’ (whilst working for former employers I might add) and head out riding off-road during office hours when the weather was good.
Well this one was guilt-free. A fantastic loop from my door, provided by Tim C at London Phoenix, that heads north through High Barnet and Potter’s Bar, getting quieter and more rural all the way. The above shot was taken near the northern limit of the route, in some stunning countryside with barely a car to be seen.
I rode completely inside 80% max HR (with only a couple of exceptions slightly over, see below), in readiness for Sunday’s sportive, and rightly so because even then my legs felt heavy after 2hrs. I’m now going to have 3 days rest before Sunday – a little experiment to see if I feel better or worse for not commuting. Although there are supposed benefits to ‘active recovery’ I’m not sure whether in fact my daily commute just wears me out and results in general staleness. TBC.
I combined long miles with quality rest and a hard workout over the long Easter weekend.
Part 1: The miles
Friday was a gruellathon, 110 miles from home to Sevenoaks. It followed the same route as last Saturday as far as Ardingly, then followed this extension route.
View Century 2 (extension) in a larger map
I flatted just outside of Cobham, then from the 2 hour mark the rain came down, and it came down almost unremittingly for a further 5 hours. Thankfully I had my waterproof but Carne was wearing just a light jersey and was soaked to the skin. The route has some healthy climbs in the first two-thirds, but from Ardingly the hills just keep coming. I followed Carne’s back wheel doggedly over most of them, until we got to Toys Hill and my eyes started to glaze over.
These 2 long rides have been really good prep for the 110-mile Fred Whitton on May 10th.
Part 2: The rest
I went to Norfolk for Saturday and Sunday nights, and got in some quality rest – more than I would have allowed myself normally. Long nights of sleep and general lounging in the day saw me progress from exhaustion on Friday night to a full recovery by Monday morning.
Part 3: The workout
Fully recovered, after a muggy 4-hour drive back to London on Monday I was chomping at the bit. I went for a Regent’s Park / Swain’s Lane quality session – the below graph shows my heart rate over 2 hours.
Heart rate graph for a 2-hour quality session. Ignore the blip at the start...
I went hard, evidently. After a 25-minute warmup I did 4 laps of the park, 4-5 minutes at brisk-to-hard (85%-95% max) on 2-3 mins steady. My chest started hurting at the top of the inhalation, which is something that tends to happen to me when I go off too hard, like a lung-strain.
I found it fairly easy to push my HR up over 170, whereas I’m sure during similar sessions in February I found it harder to achieve (and sustain) such a high rate.
My HR went even higher on the hills. I did 6 repeats on Swain’s Lane, alternating standing then seated. The first one I hit really hard (could I have gone harder?), standing up. Overall, going hard felt good, I felt strong and fine sustaining such a high HR.
Here’s the route I rode Saturday with Jock and Millsy. I started out from Archway at 8am, stopped off at Regent’s Park to pick up Mills, then met Jock at 9.15 at the café on Richmond Park. I made it all the way round Crawley and back to Epsom for about 3.30, I guess with about 30 mins of breaks / map-checks along the way.
Unfortunately it was a day of injury niggles for my two comrades. Jock actually bowed out after riding 2 sides of Richmond Park – he has shin-splints and an Ironman to do in 3 months. Mills had a back-of-knee issue that saw him head back north from Rusper for a more sedate 80-miler.
The 100 mile route (which includes the 6 miles back from Waterloo to Hornsey Lane) takes a pretty decent line out via Richmond Park, Kingston, Esher and Cobham, where it finally gets properly rural. The big drag over to Ewhurst from Shere gets you going, then it’s mainly flat until the little spikes around Ardingly. The killer is the climb up Pebblemill Road from the station at Betchworth. I’d swapped my 13-29 cassette for my older Veloce 13-26 so it was a real grinder. Then I sat down for a break on an ants’ nest.
If this route sounds like your cup of lukewarm SIS maltodextrin, check out the route of the Granfondo Luciano sportive on 28 June, which I followed parts of.
Rode a 65 mile loop from Sevenoaks today with Millsy. My plan was to ride most of the Hell of the Ashdown route, but I didn’t check which direction it had gone. For the first 2 hours I was wondering why I couldn’t remember anything about the route. Had I blanked the trauma from my memory? In fact not – we were just going in reverse. The flashbacks came later. (more…)
Today’s 4.5 hr circuit from Epsom was the ride of 2009. Sun, actual sun, clear blue skies and dry roads. Millsy and I rode a combination of this loop (from Epsom down to Rusper and up to Capel), the Pyreneen through to Ewhurst, joining this northerly loop into Shere, over to Ockham and then back up to Ranmore to finish on Box Hill.
We bumped into Jock at the top of the zigzags and finished up with a brisk 20 min scramble back to Epsom. I still had more in the tank as well. Can’t wait for the Puncheur next Sunday…
I fell off my bike today, twice. I was attempting another run at the Gerrard’s Cross loop (without the extension):
This is a nice route which I did a fortnight ago. It was cold then, and it was cold today – but today, after the snow and then the heavy rain over the weekend, the quieter roads were slick with ice. I saw one major vehicle stack-up, and another smashed car abandoned in a ditch.
I powered through the slush for about 2 hours before coming off on the 13% gradient down from St Leonards. I trudged through snow until the slope flattened out, then remounted. Then fell off again. Following this I decided to cut the ride short and headed back through Wendover to Princes Risborough.
It must be spring soon.
