The hills I & II

OK, so our first climb up Kennedys Bush was on Sunday. It was pretty wet early on, so an afternoon romp up the hill was declared a good thing as it was drying out fast. I had collected the rebuilt bike earlier, so loaded it onto the car and collected Logan then headed to the hills.

We parked at the gate and had a quick test-ride through the quarry to check out the new gears and make sure everything was good for our first hill climb. It was, so we started up the road. I hate hills. I despise them. I loath them. I detest them. I especially hate hills with downhills in the middle (Kennedys Bush Road, Kennedys Bush Track, Rapaki Track, and so on) as there is no logical reason for making hills like that.

So, we make the gate by the crocodile, jump over and carry on up. I hate hills (did I mention that?) and they go on and on and on! I'm gasping, Logan wants a higher gear so he can stand and push, I'm avoiding ruts, rocks, sheep, poo and other track nasties and almost dying from lack of oxygen. There are a few close calls on the way up, usually with us slipping into a rut and not being able to get out easily, but make it to the 'top'. It's not the Summit Road top as the last 500m or so is a shear cliff face of shale and death cookies, so we turn here and begin the descent. Our first downhill, and it's in the ruttiest track in the country! More close calls, and we're both standing on flat peddles, arses in the air (or over the wheel) and flying down the bumpy track. Some of the bumps are vigorous enough to cause blurred vision - we have no suspension remember! I'm not just worried that we're going to fall off or not be able to stop, but that Logan's eyes are going to pop out of his head and get lost in the grass somewhere.

We make it to the bottom of the track, and down the road again (new top speed - 61.9kph)  in one piece, but I still hate hills, or at least the up part. Logan wants to have a small cry about the fact that it's 35mins up, and 10mins down, and why can't it be the other way round!

We decide to do a double-trip up & down on Monday, and a plan is in place. It's a holiday, and the forecast is good, so an afternoon of hill climbing is determined to be better than a day of sitting in the sun drinking Black Russians and relaxing. So, we packed up the guide dogs (and a wife & child) and head to the hills again.

The first sign that things may not go to plan greets me at the other side of the road when I'm collecting Logan.

Yep, across the road is a car with 'Tandem Smash Repairs' on the door. Spooky! We head hill-wards again, drop wife, child and dogs at the start of the track, then foolishly drive down again and begin the ride up to the track. I hate hills. I loath them. Did I mention that? Halfway up we have an issue. The chain is jumping and slapping when we freewheel, and it could be the new knobbly tyres grabbing the chain when we're in the small chainring. So, till we know for sure, we move to the middle chainring and continue climbing. Yes, middle chainring and hills.

Now we're really burning the legs on the hill. No longer do we have the granny gear, it's all push push push! We make the top of the road and try to determine the issue with the gearing. It's annoying and if we can't freewheel, the descent is going to be impossible. The chain and tyre is not the problem, it turns out the new cassette is not freewheeling, we have the worlds stupidest fixed-wheel tandem. The climb is called off because if we can't freewheel down, it means we have to peddle the whole time, and avoid the rocks and ruts, and it's all just bad news because that is going to be bloody hard!

Sadly, the wife, child, Logan's guide dog and the guide dog puppy are somewhere up the hill. Did the wife take her phone? No. Did the child? No. Will Logan jog up and fetch them? No. So, poor me (insert violins here) has to ascend the hill on foot in my stupid bike shoes and find them. And find them I did, at the top of course. I HATE HILLS!!! Down we go again, grab Logan, who has been snoozing beside the bike and fending off multiple queries of 'are you OK, did you have an accident' and resisting attacking them. He is lounging beside a tandem. Alone. Even if he wasn't blind it's still a stupid question. Where did the other person go? Flying down the hill? Eaten by rabid sheep? 

We ride down the road, peddling the whole way (harder than you think it might be actually) and load the bike back on the car. Nowhere near the amount of hill training we wanted, but then I do hate hills... We'll get the bike fixed up again, then have another go. Molesworth is looming fast, and we need not only a reliable bike to ride, but also some experience on the hills when we do!

I hate hills.

Damage Inc.

Logan has been unwell, one of the hazards of not being able to see what you are eating I guess.

I picked up the repaired bike this evening, new cranks and chainrings and chain and cassette and tyres, more $$ spent, another kidney sold, but there can't be many more bits we can break now surely!

What damage did we do? Got the old crank and chainring back and thought you might like to see it.

Not bad huh? We also snapped a few teeth off the old cassette too. That's how strong our legs are man! We're pure power! Barely contained super-energy! An irresistible force! All that and more.

We get to put all the new gear to the test this weekend, once Logan has finished painting the porcelain of course... We have to ride up and down at least one hill before Molesworth, and that's only 2 weeks away!!!

Headwinds and cable ties

We scheduled a wee ride after work on Thursday, the idea being to give the legs a warm up before we hit the hill on the weekend. I was going to skive off work a bit early, meet Logan around 5pm, then we'd head off on a ride before the southerly hit.

Everything went well, except the 'before' part of that statement. My little weather monitor shows the windspeed picking up dramatically at 5pm, and blowing good and hard for many hours, primarily the hours we were out riding in it of course.

We started out quite nicely, heading north and east mostly, wind at our backs, speed occasionally jumping over 40kph (yea!) and very pleasant (despite traffic). However, when we turned to head back down the other side, it was a headwind that almost halved our speed and made the flatness of Canterbury feel like riding up Mt. Everest! We pushed on through it (with a cheeky road cyclist draughting behind us for a while) till we could turn north again, and things became easier.

We decided to head up to Spencer park and take the Pegasus track back down to North Beach so we could have a bit of off-road as well. Easily achieved, and we were onto the Pegasus track before long. One advantage of the track is that it's mostly sheltered from the wind, so heading south on it is easier than on the road. We'd done about 30km of road so far, and that was enough for now.

We had made it almost halfway down the track and were climbing a small rise up the sand dunes when Logan's enormously strong legs caused the chain to bend & rip the small ring off the front chain ring of the bike.  Bent, twisted, mangled, completely ruined. We examined it and yes, she was toast, but even worse was the fact that it was bent so badly that the cranks would no longer turn as it kept hitting the bike frame. Doh! We're a long walk away from the carpark too.

Some bush engineering comes into play, trying to use tools and rocks to bend the ring back so the cranks can turn, all to no avail. Here I would like to say a big Thank You! to all the cyclists who stopped and offered assistance, it was bloody awesome to see so many people willing to help others. Sadly, almost none could help... Funnily enough, a group of 3 stopped to offer assistance and I was chatting to one while another was chatting to Logan, marvelling at the damage we had caused and watching Logan use a crescent as a lever trying to bend the ring back into place. Those who have read this blog before know it's Logan who does the mechanics on the bike (usually changing tubes while I gossip) and it wasn't till a few minutes later than he admitted to the man he was conversing with that actually, he is blind, and no he can't see the gestures he was making, and pointing at bits of the broken chainring wasn't actually helping him much.

We were at the stage where only removing the crank so we could dump the small ring was going to save us, and nobody carries an allen key big enough for that task. Until the bloody fantastic Welsh fella (I should have got his name!) produced one like a rabbit from a hat. Sadly, removing the crank was not the solution, and a new plan was devised. We managed to remove the remaining screws from the small ring, and using the mighty power of cable ties (never go mountain biking without them!) we strapped the ring to the bottom bracket and we were able to turn the cranks again! With thanks and praise for the Welsh, we were off down the track, hoping to make it home before sunset, but not wanting to put any extra pressure on the remaining chainrings.

We did make it home in the end, and despite the pitstop, managed about 43km with a top speed of over 40kph! Logan is taking the bike to the shop today, and we're expecting to hear that the damage we caused is actually impossible to cause by peddling, and have them recommend  (again) the new set of titanium cranksets at $6,500 a pair. (That's pair left & right, so we'll need two sets please.) Donations are welcome at this stage! I think Logan sold a kidney to get the bike this far, and now he's muttering about how much children cost and how the American celebrities are willing to pay big bucks for little kids nowadays...

So, moral of the story? Cable ties are essential, strong wind is always a headwind no matter which way you go, and the mountain bike community are a wonderful bunch who are always willing to lend a hand (or tool) when they can.

High speed madness PT II

On Saturday they had the 6hr/12hr race at McLeans Island, which meant it was nice and clean on Sunday, but also that the track was not full of psycho bikers going hell for leather, but instead was chocka block full of families enjoying the sunshine and the great (fantastic!) outdoors.

We were here to try and get some lap times on the track, see if we can set a good time for a tandem. Lap one was a little slow as we had company of the small kind for the first leg, but they were farmed off after a couple of k's and speed picked up. The corners are still way too sharp, the trees are still in the way, the track is still very narrow and windy and bumpy and full of rocks, but we knock the first lap off in good time.

Without delay, we're into lap two. Higher speeds this time, faster corners, tighter turns, bumpier bumps, and we finish the second lap a couple of minutes faster than the first. The tracks' bumps are quite different at higher speeds. It's like the difference between riding over a rough surface, and riding a horse at a gallop. The 'waves' seem to catch the tandem just right, synchronising the rise and fall of us both like some kind of insane merry-go-round.

Logan now has a new seat post, something that had been an issue for a while now, and he's discovered the joys of rigid mountain biking and it's effects on your rear end. Not being one to complain (well, actually, I'm not one to listen to the complaints of others) we start off on lap number three. Less than 10 seconds in, we are joined by a workmate of mine who has clicked off one lap already and tags along for another behind us. She's along for the comedy value alone. I want her to see just how close Logan gets to the trees as we go around the corners. (Turns out, heaps of room, I'm taking the corners so wide he has massive amounts of space, sometimes several inches between him and the trees.) This lap is our fastest, but most damaging, so is declared our last of the day.

Lap one was 35.5 mins. Lap two was just under 34 mins. Lap three was just over 32 mins. This puts our average speed for the last lap on this bendy windy course at just a tad under 20kph which is good. We can beat that as we have some areas where we can improve and get better and faster, and now I know we can take the corners sharper too! The trees we graze on the open area will be grazier (ooh, new word) and some of the other corners will be less slow and less wide (see: faster and sharper) and we'll knock this puppy off in less than 30 mins before long.

Next weekend, hills.

urgh.

High speed madness PT I

Tonight, the ride was a little rushed, in more ways than one. Having done the typical ride from work to Logan's house by racing all the road cyclists along the way (hehe, it's funny watching them fall away behind my enormous mountain bike), I was well warmed up. We headed off to the riverbank and made good steady time.

Then I remembered, it's 4 weeks till the Molesworth Muster. 4 Weeks! Yes, we have 4 weeks to train for the 80km race, and we have not as yet ridden up or down a hill, not have we done a ride over 50km. OK. Lets get serious here.

So we arrived at McLeans Island and clicked off a quick lap. As we had dawdled a bit, it would be tricky to get a second lap in and still have light to see by on the way home (yes, I should have brought my lights)  so we started back down the stopbank. There was a moment of panic just as we started out. Someone strapped a rocket to the back of the bike! Logan was up and cranking, the bike was accelerating beyond measure, and I was trying desperately to maintain a straight line on the top of the stopbank. Yes, he decided to turn the power on! No, he didn't bother to tell me.

Well, after a short burst of that madness, we decided to try it again later on (when it wouldn't kill us) and just a few km later, had another go. Very cool, when you can see the road ahead, and we'll get the routine down pat, but makes the distance fly past as we hover around 40kph. With the right gear choices and a bit of tarseal and I recon we can easily click over 50kph for some time. Kinda looking forward to that!

So, tonight was short (41km all up) and tomorrow night we'll do it again, with more laps tho, and then Sunday, we try for a multi-lap session. How many 10km laps can we do before legs fail, lungs collapse, or trees finally grab us? We'll try for 6.