Monday 14th May
The plan had today as an opportunity for interval training. However the weather had other ideas with wild wind and rain. Had I just been going out for a ride I'd have been quite happy to do so but the idea of trying intervals when the wind might blow me around a bit really didn't appeal. So I went to the gym and used one of the exercise bikes to do my intervals on. The nice thing about doing it that way is that the intervals are repeatable and consistent which gives good feedback on your work. In my case I managed 8 intervals 4 on one resistance level and 4 on a slightly easier level. I changed levels as my fourth interval really was a bit of a fail and indeed so was the eighth. It's good to know how much you can keep dipping into the reserves.Tuesday 15th and Thursday 17th
These two mornings saw me in the gym doing my strength and conditioning work. I really do enjoy weights sessions. The trick to relieve the boredom is to have exercise plans that change regularly enough to keep the interest up. And I can't stress enough how important having a trainer to work up your plan is, and also to show you the correct technique. Often enough I see people in the gym lifting weights that are too large with bad form; they are injuries waiting to happen.Once you can do squats and deadlifts correctly I believe you have exercises that can keep you strong and fit for a long time. And that keeps us cycling for a long time too.
Wednesday 16th
On Tuesday night I changed the rear wheel and the cassette on my bike. The new rear wheel as a replacement for the wheel that I have broken a couple of spokes on and the cassette as way of getting slightly better spread of gears. The bike came with a 12-26 cassette and I changed that out for an 11-28 to get a slightly lower gear for the hills. However I found that I wasn't really needing the 11 and I felt the spread (11-12-13-14-16-18-21-24-28) was a little wide especially between the 18 and 21. On the road I found myself changing between them quite a lot, where one would feel a little easy and the other one a little hard. So I came up with a plan to split a 12-26 and an 11-28 to make one cassette of 12-28. It's not as hard as it sounds although I did need to "adjust" one of the spacers to make it work as the two cassettes, despite being the same model, had different cog and spacer designs.The result of that was that I used Wednesday morning's recovery ride as a test ride for the new components. The good news for me was that they all worked well and I'm very happy with the new spread of gears (12-13-14-15-17-19-21-24-28). The big gap isn't there now and it all feels a lot smoother.
Friday 18th
The bike had been in to the mechanic for a check over and adjustment on the Thursday. And this easy 20-miler was a real shame for it as the weather was awful. Wet, windy and cold. However the bike did run well and I got the miles done.Sadly I managed to cut my front tyre up somewhere on this ride and I had to replace it when I gave the bike a clean before Saturday's trip. I'm impressed with the durability of the Schwalbe Lugano that came with the bike and I put 2800 miles on this tyre before it finally gave up the ghost. It's replacement was it's twin from the rear wheel that I replaced a while ago trying out a Continental Gatorskin. I will be replacing the front tyre with one of these as soon as I can be sure of a couple of dry days as they need a little breaking in in the dry before they give the proper grip.
Note I'm having trouble with linking this ride using Strava again, so I've used my other choice, ridewithgps.
Saturday 19th
My plan had me down for 100 miles on Saturday, but to keep them easy, if there can be such a thing. The only way I could get the required miles in before my other Saturday commitments was to get away from the house around 6. So that meant getting up at 4 so that I could get a decent breakfast in and into the system before heading off.The Significant Other and I decided we should use this ride as a test of meeting up and support work as well as a test of my riding. In the end it worked out pretty well. We had a wee location mix up on the first rendezvous but nothing drastic and the others all went perfectly.
I picked a route that was essentially as flat as possible. You can't do 100 miles from St. Andrews to Edinburgh without climbing some hills. And even if I could have found a route without any hills I doubt that I'd have picked it. You need some climbing in a day out. However, like the meeting up, the cycling went well, helped a little by the wind which was from a east-north-east direction which certainly didn't hinder me very often. And helped quite a bit in some places.
The one downside of the day was an unfortunate incident with a pedestrian on my approach to the Forth Road bridge. At this point bicycles share a pavement with foot traffic and where the incident occurred the pavement is beside a lay-by. Our pedestrian didn't look when he stepped back on to the pavement from behind his car. At this point I thought he was going to get into the car but when he didn't I ended up being quite close behind him as he strolled up the middle of the pavement. And by the time he heard my request to go by we were much too close. And then he sort of danced around in front of me as I tried to un-clip from my pedals. Sadly I didn't manage it and ended up on the floor. It wasn't his fault I fell over, but it was his fault I was put in that situation. I'll be un-clipping one foot next time I'm cycling that way! The result was a slightly sore knee and a saddle and gear lever that both needed straightening up. That done I was on my way again.
Sadly this all meant I didn't have a chance of doing door-to-door in 7 hours which had been a small target so I just took it relatively easily over the bridge and onto Edinburgh where I met the Significant Other at The Brig. It's a good place to stop. It removes the need to cycle through the west of Edinburgh which is always a pain after riding down from Fife.
This was as easy a century ride as I can imagine. At the end of it I felt better than I did after my last ride down to Edinburgh. It just goes to show that hills really determine how hard a route is.
Sunday 20th
No day off this Sunday but I had a small lie-in before heading out. 20 easy miles were called for and so I headed off to Cupar. I couldn't believe how good the legs felt given the exertions of the day before so to see how good they actually were I decided to climb up to Craigrothie after I'd got there. The initial climb went well and then after I swooped into Craigrothie itself I felt good enough to take the small climb there in a biggish gear and out of the saddle. That's how to keep training fresh without doing too much. I turned for home after that and although it was into whatever breeze there was I had a good ride back. A lovely short ride on a lovely morning.This ride also saw the second appearance of my legs this year with it being warm enough for no longs and no overshoes. I still had my gilet, long sleeved jersey and arm warmers on and they were well needed.
This was the end of this week's training. I start again tomorrow!
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