Warwickshire Hill Climb 2011 report

"Matt, what do you think? How are we doing?" This is the question one of the group asked Matt Clinton a few months ago when he came out riding with us one summers eve. He thought about it for a while and then said, "You need to learn how to suffer". We waited for some elaboration on this point, but none came.

Yesterday saw the 2011 Warwickshire Hill Climb competition take place on Saintbury Hill and Dovers Hill. The event was attended by ten riders from Mike Vaughan Cycles and a host of friends and family. This competition has made me realise I didn't have a clue about suffering. I've now opened the door a crack and can see a world of pain beyond that would make Hieronymus Bosch nod with approval.

We assembled at the event HQ in Weston Sub Edge and made camp in the corner of the carpark. The HQ is situated near to the base of both hills. The organiser Alex Laycock and Warwickshire R.C. volunteers had rigged the Village Hall with the trappings of a typical cycling event (hot tea and cakes stacked high).

Megan, Jack and George preparing to give it all.

I can tell you that I was already super-nervous. I've ridden over a thousand miles of various Sportive events but never branched out into other cycling disciplines. The thought of pushing my hefty 100kg frame up two steep hills against the clock isn't in my top ten "things to do before I die" list. You're more likely to find it in my "things to do to make me die" list.

Mark Powell shortly before his head exploded.

As per Matt's advice, I started cycling about 30 minutes before my climb was due. Being number 21 meant I rode at 21 minutes past the hour. I was also the first MV rider to go, so I felt a slight burden of expectation from the various supporters lining the road. Waiting behind me was 16 year old Jack O'Neill and at 27 minutes was 15 year old George Goodwin. At 29 minutes our only lady (riding that is!), 14 year old Megan McDonald. Right near the bottom of the starting order was our not-so-secret weapon, Matt Clinton.

In one minute intervals the riders were unleashed on Saintbury Hill. Two chronologically challenged gents at the start-line organised the competitors as they rolled onto the thin chalk line. It was my turn in no time and I levelled the wheel onto the line and felt one of the gents take hold of the bike. I wanted to advise him against trying to hold me upright for thirty seconds, but he insisted I put my feet in the pedals. I let him take the strain as I clipped in. The other chap gave me the countdown and I started looking up the road.

"Don't go off too fast" Said Matt at the briefing. No problem there Matt. I pushed it enough to feel the effort hit my lungs and legs. However, as soon as the road swept to the left it became even steeper. I sat down and started to try and find a rhythm. It's at this point I realised that no amount of optimism and no amount of visualising would overcome the monalithic enormity of cold hard Physics. Power over Weight ratio, something very simple and indelibly real. If you weigh a lot, like I do, you need to produce an enormous amount of power to climb as fast as a smaller rider with less power. I don't have an enormous supply of power. I can stamp up a hillock or power along a flat, but this .... this is completely alien to me! I always nurse myself up hills like this, minimising my losses.

Saintbury continued in undulating waves of lung-bursting agony, delivering the occasional false summit for good measure. I settled into an uneasy tempo, riding above my threshold but knowing it was slow. Stealing a glimpse behind me half-way up I was relieved to see no sign of my minute man but that was really the only positive I could extract from the experience.

Racing up a hill is not fun. That's not the point. I could feel my airways burning and sweat was pouring onto the bike as I forced the crank round one revolution at a time. It got to the stage where I had to get out of the saddle to actually maintain forward momentum. I started to think that I would have to throttle back and just limp my way to the top when I saw the chequered flag in the distance. Mercifully the slope dropped away towards the end and I upped the pace to an eye-watering 10mph over the final few metres.

After riding off into the distance to get my lungs back in my chest I came back to the finish line to join up with the MV crew shouting support at the top. My time was 8:35.2. The first rider I saw was Jack O'Neill flying to the finish with a more controlled style and considerably more panache. He beat me comfortably. Then moments later, riding as if the hill was an optical illusion came George Goodwin, completing the climb in 7:20, more than a minute faster than me. It occurred to me that I hadn't been using a plaster on my nose and that was probably why he did so well.

The MV crew continued to make the ascent in markedly different styles. I made it to the bottom of the hill in order to grab a drink and was able to watch Mark start his climb. I asked him to take a camera up the hill for Liz but he wasn't having any of it. His start was ridiculously quick and I thought his oxygen debt would destroy him around the corner. But he failed to fail and turned out a time of 7:54, a good 12 seconds quicker than his time last year.

Shortly after that, the machine that is Matt unclipped himself from his turbo and made his way to the start making sure his legs were on tightly with a few tweaks of an allen key. After all his advice about starting steadily he proceeded to leave the start line as fired from a Tank. "It's all relative", explained one of our riders as I voiced my doubts about his advice. Good point.

Matt made the climb in 6:03.6 (yes ... the same climb I did, Saintbury Hill). His main rival was Tejvan Pettinger (Sri Chinmoy CT) who was riding out last. Mr Pettinger makes Bradley Wiggins look like Elvis in his latter years. He managed to climb Saintbury in 5:52.0 which I believe is a new course record!

With just under 12 seconds on Matt the stage was set for round 2, up Dovers Hill. This is a more predictable climb, where the slope remains pretty uniform all the way up. That doesn't mean this is an easier hill. For starters, the slope is steeper in general. It's a shorter climb but the increased gradient plays havoc on the power-weight ratio thing. I was contemplating giving up before I'd got round the first bend.

A total fear of failure kept me from dismounting, but I knew I was climbing slower than I had on Saintbury. To prove this for me, my minute man came past me at the finish line. Thanks to the misleading power of perspective and the fact I was in the traditional "overtaking" position on the road, my son thought I had caught up a rider and was about to catch him at the finish. Ahem.

Mike giving Dovers Hill his angry face

Megan managed to climb Dovers in an impressive 6:25. George Goodwin managed it in 4:55.7, which is just insane. Matt climbed Dovers in 4:10.5 and Tejvan Pettinger managed to fly up there in 4:03.2, an awesome feat.

Overall Matt finished 2nd to Tejvan and the rest of us walked away with varying degrees of satisfaction at our times. I know Chris Brock came away with the realisation that racing uphill is a different beast altogether. I share that sentiment Chris. Knowing you have raced up a hill is a good thing. Just take a look at the faces in these photos; there are lessons to be learned on those hills. I don't know what your lesson will be, but mine involves less donuts.

Breaking Evens

Having spent the first Sportive of 2011 dragging myself up the daunting slopes on the Dragon Ride in Wales, I decided to iron out the bumps for my next big event. To this end I searched for route profiles that didn't look like a cardiogram of a twenty stone smoker running for the chippy before it closes. Eventually I found what I was looking for. Flat out in the Fens looks refreshingly uniform on the profile. In fact, short of riding on a frozen lake, this route is about as flat as you can get in the UK.

Having gained a bit of a belly over the last 12 months, I couldn't wait to level the playing field (so to speak) and ride a route that my frame is suited to. I have never been able to ride over 20mph for a 100miles, and this would be my goal. I chose the 112mile route and on Sunday 26th June I woke at 0400hrs and set off to Peterborough with my friend Neil. The plan was simple; I would share the pain with Neil until his body disintegrated, then I would tow his shattered husk to the finish. It's a plan we have used on a number of occasions.

We arrived at Peterborough Regional College just after 0700hours, the official start time, and made our way to the line for around 0720hours. Although several hundred cyclists had already departed there was still a large bunch waiting with us whilst the official read out the rules of the day. Soon we were waved off down the road and Neil pushed the pace to the front of the group.
After a few minutes of travelling through Peterborough we found ourselves entering the Fens. With fresh legs and a generous breeze, I upped the pace and we zipped along beside the picturesque waterways at around 23-24mph. Our group soon thinned and we were left with a guy who had ridden "The Long One" the day before (129 miles out of Goodwood) and was attempting the 154 mile Fens route. Hats off to him! Also we had a portly fifty year old man who looked like he should have been watching TV with a beer.

After another ten miles we had picked up some other riders as we trickled past and our train had grown to about ten riders in length. Of the ten riders, mostly men in their twenties and thirties, it was the fifty year old with the belly who kept taking turns from me and Neil at the front.
I would be tempted to say that the Fens are beautiful, as we were riding on a cloudy and warm summer morning. The roads are fringed with untamed wilderness, grasses and flowers bursting with life. But mentioning this to Neil, he noted that commuting during the winter on these roads would be hellish. He has a point. Whilst they are stunning, the roads are almost completely lacking any shelter. Hedgerows are few and far between. Houses look lonely and slightly out of place in the Fens (for a Midlander anyway), exposed as they are from all angles. I thought about this place in the winter, with the colours drained away from the land and the elements attacking relentlessly, and realised I probably wouldn't be able commute through the winter.

As the miles ticked by, our pace slowly began to fall. Our initial burst of speed for the first twenty miles was settling down to 21-22mph until we hit the first rest stop. After a very short and functional conversation with the fifty year old ("Come with us, you take turns on the front!"), the three of us left together for the next stage of the journey, after replenishing drinks and gels.
For the next thirty miles we stayed together, steadily accumulating another string of stragglers as we pushed slowly onwards. Sadly, it was at this point we lost contact with the older companion. At about 70miles there is a "hill" which climbs for a total of thirty metres (hardly the Bwlch). The slope is long and the gradient barely more than 4%. But after so many miles at such a pace, it was enough to fracture our group into pieces leaving Neil and me to push on alone.
After the second and final feed station, we had around 42 miles remaining. This final leg of the journey was beginning to concern me. I was starting to worry that my legs wouldn't be able to keep this pace going much longer. I desperately wanted to break the 20mph barrier and with the feed stops added on, our margin for error was dropping by the mile.

If the first two stages of the journey had been hard, this final leg was triple the pain of both combined. Looking at Neil it was clear that he was close to complete melt-down. His eyes were beginning to lose focus and salt was drying over his face. He looked listless and pained, at the same time. In fact, he looked exactly like he looks every time we get to around 80 or 90 miles. He locked onto my back wheel and we trundled onwards, keeping the pace just over 20mph.
In order to build some energy reserves up (and to keep Neil pushing onwards), we started to piggy-back the groups we overtook; Rather than riding straight past them, we would bridge the gap between groups and then rest at the back for a few minutes. This proved to be a very good way of regaining some strength. For twenty miles we hopped from pack to pack, steadily making headway.

Eventually, at around the 90 mile mark we reached a group of three riders who took some catching. We nestled in at the back and when I looked at Neil to see if he was ready to go, he shook his head and smiled grimly. "That's it for me, I'm staying with this lot." Fair enough. Little did I know I would be seeing him again in less than thirty minutes.

I bade him farewell and rode off, pushing my pace slightly higher in order to make some headway on them. I charged forwards a couple of hundred metres down the road before swinging over a bridge and 90 degrees to the right. At that point I found myself on a long straight road. Now, I've been on long straight roads before, but they have never been this hellishly flat. This road was like a line on a snooker table. The natural curve of the horizon meant the road had no visible ending. The sun had come out and the Fens was blasted by the hottest temperatures of the year. To compound this, a gentle but persistent headwind pushed against me.

No hedgerows, hardly any houses, few cars and very little wild-life. Just small dots that turned into exhausted cyclists as I struggled onwards, passing them with almost geological slowness. After five miles on this road, I looked over my shoulder. Down the arrow-straight tarmac, just two hundred metres behind me was Neil and his group.

Another couple of miles later, still fighting the wind and the heat, my right calf muscle started to cramp up. Like the breakaway groups on the Tour de France, caught at the end of the race, I gave up and let the group catch me. I had almost exhausted myself for no gain whatsoever. I hid at the back, sheltering from the wind and let my imaginary power-bar build itself back up.
Shortly afterwards Neil was hit by cramp, and then another rider in the group pulled over to the side of the road, clutching a leg. I stuck with the remaining two riders. With ten miles to go until the finish I overtook them, telling them I would probably see them again in ten minutes. Fortunately the road finally forked and our direction changed.

The last 10 miles were essentially a race against the clock. I performed some very basic maths (which took a long time) and came to the conclusion that if I turned myself inside-out, I might still break even. The headwind had dropped my pace down to 19-20mph and my strength was all but gone. By getting out of my saddle and stamping the pedals I found I could raise my pace temporarily, by pedalling normally after this effort I could keep the speed from falling too quickly. By doing this I bled the last of my reserves from my legs.

I completed the 112 miles in 5:30:52, which worked out as 20.3mph. Neil finished 5:40:21, just ten minutes behind and averaging a fraction under 20mph. Later that day I nearly puked out of the car window on our way home. Neil felt pains all over his body for the rest of the week. I can only put this down to the effort we put into this event. We both agreed that neither could have given any more than we put into that Sportive. We literally finished on empty. After riding the Fens, I have learnt a valuable lesson; I genuinely believed "flat" meant "easy". I stand corrected.

My First Winter

This morning I rode past a rabbit which was standing in the middle of a frost-laced A- road, staring blankly at the oncoming traffic. I didn't stop, I was far too cold and if I had stopped I would have felt like an idiot. The rabbit was probably suffering the effects of mixomatosis, but to all intents and purposes the little grey bag of fluffy bones looked frozen and suicidal. Standing there with a vacuum chill sucking the air out of its lungs, cars thundering past on both sides, staring fixedly along the white lines, the rabbit looked how part of me felt. This was my first experience of Winter on a bike, and it has left me uncomfortably numb.

My first real foray into proper Winter cycling was in November 2009. I went out with Leamington Wheelers one week and then bumped into my local Kenilworth Wheelers the following week. I was just finishing a fifty mile ride with a friend when the impressively drilled Kenilworth Wheelers came past us, a blurred fusion of flesh and metal. Six of them, all sporting modified extra-long mudguards (Duct tape and bits of plastic in the main), whirred past us. We decided to try and keep up with them and they kindly let us piggyback the remaining twelve miles. It was very pleasant drafting a bike with mudguards that actually stop the muddy spray from blinding you. It was also an education to see them warning each other of hazards with hand movements and loud shouts, switching the front two slots with clockwork efficiency. It was also an eye-opener to see six cyclists powering through the inclement weather conditions on their "Winter Rides". I learned a lot about club etiquette that day, and also realised that cycle clubs may be nice in the Summer, but through the crueller months they are a major motivator.

Charting the seasons by the farmers fields, Warwickshire and the surrounding counties started to look barren towards the middle of November. Harvest was gathered, ploughing was completed and seeding had left a thin green blanket of shoots over some fields. As I continued to put in my base miles, it became apparent that my bike was beginning to suffer. After each ride the urge to clean my bike was still present, but the thought of standing outside with a hose and a bucket seemed less than remotely appealing. So the bike stayed mucky for a little longer. During rides I became accustomed to hearing creaks and groans where before there was only a mechanic purr. The weekly deep-clean turned into a bi-monthly affair. And it wasn't long after this apathetic approach that my first spoke sheared off. This was followed the next week with another sheared spoke on the same wheel. A few days later, after getting these repaired at my LBS, the third spoke went and in a fit of consternation, I emailed customer support at Trek.

They got back to me promptly and after hearing the circumstances, agreed to replace the rear wheel for me. I'm new to the customer support in the cycling world, but Trek left me feeling warm and fuzzy inside. My LBS also helped out by liaising further with Trek for me, even though I got the bike from a shop some miles away. The new wheel was with me before the end of the next week and I vowed to keep tabs on my spokes in future, purchasing an inexpensive spoke tightener for good measure. I'm not totally blaming my reduced cleaning regime, but I would probably have noticed a loose spoke if I was cleaning the components more frequently.

It was late December when frost started to cover all of the roads on my way to work. I was forced to stop riding for a few days and instantly felt the calories coagulating around my midriff as I gorged on lard-based Christmas products. I haven't got a Turbo Trainer, mainly because I only have one road bike and don't want to keep swapping it on and off. So, on the 30th of December, as soon as the sun peeked out and the roads began to sweat, I met up with my friend Neil and we struck out for some distant hills.

We took the bikes along forty miles of familiar and enjoyable roads, taking in Stratford-Upon-Avon as the crowds braved the cold and thronged to the sales. Spinning out towards the village of Kineton, we aimed the bikes towards Sunrise Hill. This is a decent sized 16% incline, the steeper approach to Edge Hill. It has a delightful sign at the bottom suggesting that cyclists should dismount. We kept the pace to an acceptable post-Christmas trundle and grinned at our own stupidity as the temperature dropped to zero. We were about a mile from Sunrise Hill that I noticed my rear tyre was looking podgy at the bottom. I ignored it, attributing the bulge to my overindulgence. However, when the road levelled out and I started to spin faster I noticed my arse was bouncing the wheel rims into the road. I had a slow-puncture that was now ... flat.

We stopped outside Redwings Horse Sanctuary and I started to operate on the rear wheel. The problem was my clothing was only suitable for shielding me from the wind and keeping my body-temperature floating around "acceptable" levels whilst pedalling vigorously. Now that we had stopped and I had taken my big gloves off, the cold wet metal of the wheel on my hands and the wind were having a dramatic effect. My motor skills were rapidly deteriorating and my hands were very quickly rendered almost useless. The tyre levers started pinging off the wheel with machinegun rapidity as I struggled against the elements and my mannequin fingers. I watched a disaster movie recently where traumatic weather conditions caused the air to supercool in a matter of seconds, turning some poor actors into instant popsicles. The scene stuck in my mind for some reason.

Eventually I replaced the tyre and grabbed a CO2 canister from my saddle pouch. The canister was a recent purchase and it was only in the arctic conditions that I discovered it had no screw top with which to attach to my valve. Stupidly I had purchased the wrong canisters. Neil had a threaded one in his pouch and gave it to me. I then promptly burst the freshly prepared inner tube, which must have been pinched against the rim of the wheel due to my clumsiness. With the deflation of my spare came a morbid realisation. I was forty miles from home, shivering with the cold, in cleats and wearing tights. Luckily I had my phone secreted about my person and so I phoned my wife. She was in the shower (my 9 year old son told me). It took me a while to speak the right words, but eventually I stuttered to her my request for a lift. Even more luckily, Redwings has a nice warm cafe and Neil kindly gave me his emergency tenner. The majority of our journey had been along country roads devoid of civilisation. For me to get a flat less than fifty metres from a cafe was like a pinch on the backside by Lady Luck. I hobbled into the warmth and ordered a hot chocolate and coffee cake. Neil cycled off home hoping to avoid a flat. Less than an hour later my Father-in-law picked me and the bike up in his nice warm car. Thanks Ted.

The cold stayed in my bones for much of the day. The lesson of that journey has stayed with me longer. I was not adequately prepared and it almost cost me dearly. My first act upon returning home was to go and get some puncture resistant tyres from my LBS. The salesman informed me that farmers were cutting their hedges at this time of year and the resulting thorns on the roads were causing lots of problems for cyclists. I took his word for it at the time, but when I rode past the rabbit with the thousand yard stare, I also noticed the perfectly trimmed hedgerow down the side of the road. I ♥ my LBS, it's like an Oracle sitting atop a conveniently low placed mountain-top.

So why am I cycling in the cold and the dark and the wet? Why do I bother taking the bike out when bitter winds are making my eyes water and my ears freeze? Good question really. I suppose one reason is the physical benefits I am receiving by putting in this level of commitment. There's also the financial burden of paying for a bike I vowed to ride all year round instead of getting a second car. But the main purpose for putting in the miles is because I'm loving it.

Just because I love it doesn't mean that I don't occasionally get bored. I firmly believe that a goal makes for more relevant and purposeful exercise, and also keeps the enthusiasm up during more inclement periods of weather. I've also realised that cycling isn't just about the exercise, but equally important is the bike maintenance. For Christmas I got a big bucket of bike cleaning products from my telepathic wife. I spent the next day making the bike look like new. It now purrs once more. I realise now that the creaks and groans were mainly the loose/dying spokes on the rear wheel. I've come out of this harsh season a wiser man and once my festive waistline subsides, I'm certain I shall ride faster than ever come the Summer.

03/01/09