How fast might too fast be?

Because we missed a weekend ride, we replaced a torture session on the static bikes with a real world ride. The weather was looking like it was going to turn nasty, so we drove out to McLeans Island for a few laps.

We haven't been here since the bike was upgraded (I think) and our best lap time at that stage was about 31 minutes. So, with fresh legs, we headed off at a gentle pace, taking it nice and easy, with the intention of tackling the corners with the suspension for the first time. About 35 minutes later we popped out and decided it was too easy. We'd been gossiping like old ladies as we rode, so was more of a gentle stroll than a training ride.

Straight into the next lap, no hanging about, and this time we put a bit more gas into it. I hugged the trees a bit closer, skirted the puddles tighter, and hit the corners with a bit more speed. Time for lap 2 was 30 minutes, a new best for us, but I wasn't happy yet. We'd still be chatting merrily as we rode, no stress, no pressure, no worries. Lap 3 was to be faster again!

In we go, this time I'm taking advantage of the terrain more, cutting into the corners harder, faster on the downhill sections, later braking on the windy bits, and no cruising this time. End result? 29 minutes including gossip! Hell yea!

It was starting to get dark, so we wandered back to the car. I was happy, this is the kind of riding where we're competitive and having fun too. Perfect. Some more of these sessions and we'll be ready to kick some arse in 'the rage' in a few weeks time.

Of course, it was too easy, so tonight, in the drizzle and southerly winds, we're doing another sprint training session. As happy as I was after last nights session, the glow will have faded before I finish tonight. Well and truly faded.

Work harder not smarter!!!

Over the last couple of weeks I've been doing some work on the static bike. My old Giant was clamped to the torture device and spent several weeks after the Christmas break calling me, begging me to come back and have a spin. I resisted. It wasn't easy, but I resisted it's call knowing that I would somehow magically become fit and athletic by cycling to work and back each day, and going riding with Logan a couple of time a week.

Then Logan had a break from riding (and any activity requiring the participation of his middle-area) and I decided to pull the wind trainer sessions out of the cupboard and give them a go. Cor. Crikey. Blimey. They is hard. I sent a copy to a young lad at the office, and he declared them a tough ride. I sent a copy to Logan, and he rang me after one and sent a collection of abusive comments my way. Yes, they are that good. Burn? No man, these make your legs feel like they are fueled by napalm!

With my trainer sessions in mind, I mapped out a short road ride for me and Logan yesterday. It wasn't far, and wouldn't be long either, but I was fairly sure Logan wouldn't like me very much afterwards. I was pretty sure of it in fact.

I collected him after work and we went for warm up ride for about 5km, then a quick turn and time for a sprint. Top gear, Logan up and stoking, me pushing hard, top speed rapidly approaching, both sit and hold that top speed! We couldn't hold top speed as long as I dreamed we could have, but my legs, and Logan's, were screaming and the lungs were requesting a break. Drop gears, spin for a bit, get our breath back, then have another go. We sprinted again, this time a little longer but in one gear lower. Another short rest, then a pace-attack, keep the cadence the same and keep stepping up through the gears. Then another short spin, then another sprint. After that, it was just one more spin, pace and sprint and the legs were screaming! The lungs were rasping! This is a lot harder than on the trainer!

After about an hour we headed home. Legs were tired, and now sessions on the trainer looked fun and easy in comparison. We'll do this more often, as often as sanity (or lack thereof) will allow. More rides, harder rides, longer rides, the Rainbow Rage is only a matter of weeks away now. A few weeks of hartd training will make the 106km fly by!

Gently does it!

This is my first posting for some time....well that is if you don't include the POSTING I nearly got on the bike!
A few people have asked how the bits, the undercarriage, the boys or... my nuts are after smashing them into the seatpost when we experienced yet another gear failure?
Honestly; I think the majority of the remaining bruises are mental rather than physical! Oh sure.. for a brief period of time I was a bit inflamed, a bit bruised and a member of the silly walks club but after 5 or so days that'd all but returned to normal.
The hardest thing(if you excuse the pun) was climbing back onto the trainer -which I thought might be a gentler start than the tandem, for a test ride....
10 mins on the trainer at a reasonable cadence and I found out that despite my ability to walk normally, talk normally and generally perform all physical tasks with no (or very little) discomfort there was still a groan in the chassis when undertaking the action of cycling.
So...we waited...and I decided last Sunday was a good day to shake the foundations and give the tandem a go!
So, with new brakelines fitted, gears changing like a dream and my plums newly restored we set off!
Two hours later -after plenty of bumping, grinding and generally testing the bike, the brakes and the balls we returned home with all things tested given a pass mark.

time now to get into the training.

Back in the saddle

Yesterday, we went for the first ride since the 'accident' at Bottle Lake. Logan had done some training on the indoor bike and declared is loins to be girded. I was doubtful, but figured it was about time we did some road miles, so we loaded up and rode the road, heading for the rough, bumpy, uneven, lumpy, erratic, jarring and speed-sucking surface that is the river bank road.

What makes this an interesting ride is the surface - it moves between gravel to river stone to deep wheel sucking rocks to sandy to hard packed and occasionally you make a wrong turn and end up in the river, or at a dead end, or heading down a 4x4 track with enormous muddy puddles and no idea if there's a vehicle coming the other way. Oh, and horse poo everywhere, damn horses.

What does irk me tho, is that there is no way to get under the motorway bridge on foot (or on bike) which is a shame, as if you could, you would be able to get from McLeans Island to Bottle Lake in a circuit, making a nice, almost completely off-road ride for over 50km. But, for reasons unknown, be it design or topography, you have to turn tail at the bridge and head all the way back.

While this road/track is not a awe inspiring ride, it has a couple of advantages.
1. there are no hills bigger than a stopbank.
2. This is just the kind of surface we will be experiencing in a few weeks time for the Rainbow Rage.

eek - the Rage is only a few weeks away - 21st March. We have accommodation all sorted now, nice and close to the start line (a real lucky find) so we should be fresh and well rested for the short 106km jaunt to Hanmer Springs. We have no predictions on our time yet, more training for hills and distance before we start that discussion in earnest. Our training is now 2-3 rides a week together, and 2-3 indoor training sessions each week too. Hills are still an issue, but we know what we have to do, so it's just doing it now. Hills. Yay. Expect to see me gasping and panting and retching on a hillside near you soon!

Crack, Ping, Squeal

What a day!

How many small things should go wrong before you realise they are all warning signs and you should do nothing more dangerous than soaking in a hot tub with a glass of pinot noir and watch some non-intellectual telly before retiring to bed nice and early for a good nights sleep. I had about a dozen such warnings all day long. Logan had a few too. Did we pay appropriate attention? Nope, not a bit. Did we decide to do something obviously dangerous? Well, yes, but that's every time we climb on the bike, so no prizes there. Did the warnings come to fruition? Yup.

But, first things first. We headed out to Bottle Lake, riding into a headwind of course (another omen) but made good time. We headed up the right hand track towards the dreaded hill. Yes, 100m of vertical hell. Similar to last time, we rode up the hill 5 times in various gears, sitting, standing, spinning, grinding, panting and wondering why in the hell we were doing it. Unlike last time, there were no rests between laps. Up, down, up, down, go, go, go, pant, pant, pant!

Well, after 5 laps, we decided that the horrid part was over, lets go have some fun. We went down the road and onto the narrow bumpy single track that has a surprise ending. This bit of track is tricky, as it requires a lot of attention to be paid as you descend, and even more once you are down to take the corner and steep mound just after it. So, in full focus, and at top speed (a fraction under 50kph), I was sitting and about to change from a high (downhill) gear to a lower (climbing) gear so we could take the mound with enough speed to crest it and be in a gear low enough to make sure we would. I was spinning the pedals slowly. 10m before the hill the bike made a loud cracking noise. I initially thought it was a fully mature pine tree snapping, but Logan made a noise like somebody in distress and requested/demanded we to come to a halt, which we did. At this point Logan stepped gingerly off the bike and his seat fell to the ground. "OK" I thought, "so we broke another bit of the bike." But Logan was looking a little pale, and seemed to be in pain. He looked like a man who just used a seat post instead of a seat and went mountain biking. He looked like a man who had decided not to use his bum on a seat, but instead utilise the unlikely method of a testicle on a seatpost as we bounced and crashed over rocks and ruts and uneven surfaces. Yep, the bolt in the seat clamp stripped the thread from it's supporting nut (the crack noise I heard) causing the seat to do awful things to Logans undercarriage. The dropped bolts and clamps and other bits were scattered all over the track and undergrowth (ping!) and finally, Logan expressed his discomfort (squeal).

With cable ties in hand, the seat was reattached and we decided to head to North Beach and hit the road rather than attempt to finish the lap. Logan however could not sit, and when he tried to, snapped the cable ties and we lost the seat again. OK, Plan B fails, onto Plan C. I rang the wife and organised a collection from North Beach, we lowered the seat post all the way down, and Logan stood as we rode. It reminded me of our first outings - very little control. Even worse, at one point we had to stop, and Logan was clipped into his pedals. How do you dismount when you have no seat and are attached to the bike? Not with any grace, and when you are injured, it's even worse.

We did however make it to the park, and a short time later my wife arrived to collect us. Just in the nick of time. Logan was now in considerable pain and any movement he made was making me wince.

The trip home was, of course, spent thinking of witty phrases...

• Logan said he'd give his left nut to ride that track
• Frankenbike has a nutcracker seat
• The tandem has 2 x 26 inch wheels, and now so does Logan
• Be careful when you go to bed tonight, don't let the wife kick the throw-cushions off the bed!

So, the bike goes back into the shop on Thursday and Logan will probably be in hospital by the time this is posted. I think I'll end up doing some solo rides for a while, check out the downhill tracks at Victoria Park. The bike is an easy fix, the stoker may take a bit longer. Donations of ice packs would be gratefully received.

Burn-in

So, after the success of ride #1, we headed out for a more challenging jaunt around Bottle Lake. The ride there was swift and we hit the trail, aiming for the uphill chunk which we intended to climb a few times to test gearing, climbing with the cranks out of sync (Logan is ahead of me in the stroke) and burn the brakes in a bit more on the descents ('cause the don't work so hot at the mo). First crack up the hill was in 7th gear (granny ring) and knocked off without much problem. Down we go, this time we do it in 5th. OK, still good, back down, up again in 3rd, that's a bit small, down again, up again in 4th, good choice, down again (why!) and final climb in a mix of gears to play with changing under load, and it was sweet.



Can you believe that I rode up a (small) hill 5 times? I still don't believe it, and I was there!

We finished the lap with vastly increased speed as the bike handles so much better now. The final drag-strip through the dark was taken at full throttle, and we even flew over the final hump which has an awful sandpit collection on the other side. It did make me wonder how much speed we'd need to get airborne... Hmmm... We'll practice high speed tail-whips first and work on getting air later.



We cruised back home and made plans for the weekend - more hills! Yup, lets take on Summit Road again, tackle some more hills and burn those brakes in some more...

Sunday rolled around fast. Real fast. The weather was supposed to turn nasty at midday so we planned to be up there when it did, of course. With wife in tow, we parked up at the top of Vic Park and headed east along the road enjoying the sunshine and lack of wind, preparing ourselves for the first of the descents and hills on the new setup.



We'd done this road together once before, and I've done it solo a few times as well, so I know there are nothing but uphill’s in both directions. But the plan was to go from one end to the other and back again, climbing like strong men, descending like mad men, and arriving back at the car before the rain came pelting down and wind whipped up to gale force southerlies.

Good news is that we made it there and back in good time and with reasonable speed as well and apart from a strong southerly, the weather held too. We achieved a new top speed of 69.5kph coming down from Castle Rock which would have been faster if I hadn't been a wimp on the blind corner and tapped the brakes. Next time we're going over 70kph for sure!

While we pottered about on the tarseal, I was secretly wishing we were on the singletrack below (or often, above) us. We're taking the frankenbike to McLeans Island for a few laps, then we'll do some balance tests, and then we'll think about the Bowenvale Traverse track on the hill. I'm not worried about the track itself, even though it's like a long rut with tussock and rocks for decoration. I'm not even worried about the inclines and sharp bends and narrow width. It's the steep, dramatic, constant, irreversible descent that hangs inches from the side of the trail. Tandems are not renowned for their handling and ability to maintain straight lines offroad, and when it starts to go bad, it can go really bad in the blink of an eye (or more usually, the compression of a sphincter) and when riding the trail up there, real bad = massive injury as we plummet down the hillside. I can deal with falling off. I can live with hitting a tree. But sliding down the hillside on a tandem might be the last thing I ever do, and until we’re rock solid on our balance on narrow paths, we’ll stick to the non-deadly trails.

So, next trip out is Tuesday. More kilometres under the new fat wheels, and as much of it as possible in the safety of loose gravel, forests, rock gardens, wildlife and other distractions. Tail whips, air and Bowenvale are on the hit list before the Rainbow Rage, but not necessarily in the order.