WELLAND VALLEY CYCLING CLUB NEWSLETTER
FEBRUARY 2009
New Members
We welcome Chloe Parrington and hope that her broken arm soon mends.
Subscriptions and club calendars
By the time you receive this newsletter, you should have received your 2009 club calendar. If you’ve slipped through the net and haven’t received it, please let me know.
You will see that our first club championship event is on March 15th. If you intend riding this event, and want your result to count towards the club championship you must pay your annual subscription by that date.
Please note the changes in ‘Age Categories for Club Events’ on page 9 of the calendar.
It’s been brought to my attention that I’ve made a mistake in the calendar regarding the date of the Audax event in September – it will be on Saturday September 19th, not Sunday September 20th.
Club website
Congratulations to Wayne Holton on setting up the new, super smart website. You will see on the back page of the club calendar that the webmaster is now Kevin Nicholls. This you might find baffling, but to understand how the website is now run, think Roman Catholic Church. The website is the Vatican, with Wayne as God, Kevin as the Pope, and with Dean Barnett and Matt Plews as a couple of cardinals. Wayne is there in spirit form, omnipresent and omniscient, but just as you wouldn’t think of writing to, phoning or e-mailing God, you don’t bother Wayne about the website, though I suppose you could try praying to him. For the earthly dimension, Kevin is your man. If you have race results (and we’re not talking the Vatican’s dodgy record on anti-semitism here) contact Dean or Matt.
We all owe Wayne an enormous debt of gratitude for the superb job he has made of the club website over many years.
Club dinner and prize presentation
It was good to have more room to move this year – the Three Swans proved to be an excellent venue. I was intrigued to see how the visual presentation which accompanied the prize giving would pan out. I thought it a great success with the shot of Matt Plews eating an enormous piece of chocolate cake the undoubted highlight. On a personal level I really enjoyed being able to sit back and enjoy the whole proceedings rather than sitting through the first half agonizing about the need to remember everything I needed to say, then saying it (and forgetting some), and finally agonizing again over what I’d forgotten and what I needed to do about it.
Thanks to Dean Barnett and Wayne Holton for doing a wonderful job.
Life members
I am sure that all club members will be delighted to hear that at the last club committee meeting Vic and George Barnett were granted honorary life membership of the club – in both cases an honour long overdue. Vic’s award was in recognition of his world beating performances over the past few years and the honour this has bestowed on the club and George’s was for his massive service to the club for as long as anyone can remember.
Marshalling rota for club events
After many years of trying, I’ve finally managed to lose the rota organiser’s job to Grant Warwick. I would like to take this opportunity to thank club members for the co-operation I’ve received from you all in making the rota so effective. I’m sure you’ll afford Grant the same co-operation.
Open time trials
If you are going to ride open time trials you do need to enter on a CTT (Cycling Time Trials) entry form and that form needs to be with the organizer at least 10 days before the event – best to make that 2 weeks. This applies even to open events organized by the club, which are on April 18th, May 2nd and September 12th. You can download an entry form from the CTT website (link on club website), but you can’t enter on-line.
You will see a section on the form asking you to give your best time for 10miles, 25miles etc. – if you haven’t ridden such an event, just enter ‘no previous performance’. It is also worth buying a CTT handbook as this contains details of all open time trials in England and Wales for the season, including names and addresses of organizers and costs of entry. This ‘bible’ will cost you £7.50, including post and packing – details on CTT. If you have any questions concerning open time trials contact either Bill Barrie or me.
Road racing
If you fancy a try at road racing and you’ve either never done it or haven’t done it for a long time, I’ve got just the thing for you. I’m organizing a series of 5 handicap road races for Northants Cycle Racing Association, over 30 miles, on successive Saturdays, starting on March 7th. In handicap races there are staggered starts – in small groups according to ability, slowest first, fastest last. In theory, all groups come together just short of the finish line in a charge of 60 riders. In practice, the finish is usually more strung out than that with riders coming in over a 15 minute period.
If you think you might be interested in riding one or more of these races, contact me -(dave@betula.myzen.co.uk or 0116 2792756)
Performance
It is great to see the cyclocross contingent steadily growing in numbers and having great success – Vic Barnett has once again shown himself to be the country’s top Over 60 rider, as well as, on this year’s evidence, 4th best in the world. Lisa Parsons is Southern Area Ladies Champion and Keith Sperry was top veteran in this year’s West Midlands League. Adrian Killworth, Graham Atkins, new member Chloe Parrington, Gaye and John Taylor have also had good seasons. Whizz Kids Jade and Ria Mobbs, Georgia and Dominic Toner, Ross and Holly Barnett and Louis Killworth have all established themselves as competitors to be reckoned with.
Tour de France 2009
There are still places available for the club trip to the Tour de France, this time breaking new ground by staying in the Vosges in NE France from Wednesday July 15th to Monday July 20th watching the stage from Vittel to Colmar. The tour goes through Munster, which is a very easy ride (downhill) from the hotel. Munster is the home of a most formidable cheese and the main street has the most punishing cobbles I’ve ever had the misfortune to ride over on a bike – I presume that the tour route will avoid it. The countryside, towns and villages in the area are very attractive and, unlike riding in the Alps, it’s possible to have an easy day’s riding – eastward into Alsace it’s pan flat. If you haven’t booked yet, contact Chris Hyde on 07866 738912, e mail chrisatforge2002@yahoo.co.uk , or Phil Rayner on 07973479788, e mail philrayner157@hotmail.com
Starting time trialling
Firstly what kit do you need? For club time trials, all you need is a roadworthy bike and a crash helmet. Wear a top that you can stick pins into for holding your race number. As all club time trials from March to mid July are on open roads, you’re well advised to have a flashing rear light attached to your seatpost.
Most riders when they start are worried that they’ll be very slow and unless they’ve a background in an endurance sport like running, they probably will be but that doesn’t matter - there is always a wide spread of riders at club time trials. When you come along to the race headquarters, you sign on and pay your entry fee. If you’re afraid you’ll not be very fast, tell the race organizer when you pay your money and ask to have an early start number. That should dispel the worry you might have of being left out on the road long after everyone else has gone home (we wouldn’t let that happen anyway).
So now the race itself – riders are sent off at either 1minute or 30second intervals – you’ll be told which of these it will be – in most evening time trials it’s 30second intervals. At the start there will be a ‘pusher-off’ and a time keeper. The pusher off will hold you up on your bike so you can start with both feet on your pedals. The time keeper counts you down and off you go – you’ll have seen it on the television – but we don’t have a scary ramp to start from.
Don’t go flat out from the start but slowly build your speed up. When you get to the hills you’ll probably feel like death – comfort yourself with the fact that it’s not just you – everyone feels the same. Don’t go all out on the hills – save your energy for the flat sections. The only place where you should go flat out is over the last mile or so. If you finish the race so exhausted that you can barely struggle back to the headquarters, that’s good – you’ve done your absolute best.
Don’t stop near the finish and ask for your time – ride on to the headquarters and wait for the time keeper to come back with the results. You may surprise yourself and find you’ve beater several riders, or you may not. Either way, it doesn’t matter – for the first few weeks you’re racing against yourself – trying to improve your time each week.
If after a few weeks you decide that time trialling is for you, you’ll start fretting about your bike, because time trial speed is rather ‘equipment dependent’. There are big advantages to be had from fitting tribars – ask around – there are probably riders around who have a pair of clip on tribars they no longer use (I’ve two pairs myself – any reasonable offer accepted). Slick tyres that you can pump up hard help a lot and then perhaps a pair of light wheels. Many cyclists, even in our club, are hopelessly in thrall to fashion, and will want to get rid of last year’s kit to buy the very latest wheels, frame, saddle, handlebars – there are bargains to be had here. Buy a skin suit – don’t be shy – you will be more streamlined and, of course, will look pretty flash. Now there’s only the teardrop helmet to go – and that apparently helps you go a bit faster. Shaving your legs won’t make you go faster, but you will arguably look prettier.
But I’ve only got a mountain bike – not a problem – the club has a trophy for the rider who rides the fastest 10mile TT on a mountain bike. For the pot hunter with little time to train, it’s the prize to go for – only one rider contested it this year.
Coaching bits
Cadence – quite a fun topic at present – there’s a long article on it in the current Association of British Cycle Coaches journal and one in last week’s Cycling Weekly. In case you don’t know, cadence is the rate at which you pedal, expressed in complete pedal revs per minute.
Lance Armstrong, on his return to riding following cancer, changed thinking on cadence, particularly when riding up long, steep hills. Most experts in the field consider 90rpm or thereabouts as being the most efficient cadence but Armstrong aims to ride at never less than 100rpm, both in races and time trials. Alberto Contador does likewise, possibly even faster. Both use smaller gears than many other riders in order to be able to achieve the high cadence.
Why do it? – short term your legs and lower back will get less tired and you will be able to accelerate more rapidly. Long term, you are less likely to suffer from knee and back problems. Your heart rate may well go a bit higher than if you were riding in higher gears with lower cadence at a given power output. In my experience though, if you’re fit, your heart rate drops a lot sooner than your legs stop aching.
You learn a lot about cadence if you use one of the wattage measuring systems on your bike. For instance, it’s much easier to maintain a given wattage on a hill if you use low gears. My SRM system gives a read-out of modal power, cadence etc. Roughly speaking, modal means the level at which you spend most of your time on the bike. On a training ride, if I don’t concentrate on raising cadence, my modal cadence is always around 80rpm whereas in a time trial it is around 85. Why don’t I pedal faster? – after all, I’m delusionally ambitious for one so ancient. It takes a lot of thinking about and lots of practise for it to become ingrained, and I don’t have Johann Bruyneel riding alongside shouting at me to pedal faster.
It is much easier to concentrate on cadence on a turbo trainer and hope that the discipline of it will transfer to the road. Try 10x1min at 110 rpm with 1 minute easy pedalling between.
Don’t expect to be able to maintain the same high cadence up hill and down dale. You’ll do very well to maintain 70rpm on a steepish hill. Practise very fast pedalling on downhill sections. It’s a good idea for ordinary mortals to practise a range of cadences. On a turbo trainer start in a high gear at a low cadence for e.g. 3mins, then drop 2 gears and raise your cadence by 15 for another 3 mins, then drop a further 2 gears and raise your cadence by a further 15rpm, then back to the start. An hour of this would be a good winter training session, though there is the risk that it will make you lose the will to live. Some, like me, hate cold weather and love the turbo, others prefer to be outdoors whatever the weather.
Changing gear – on all of our club time trial courses except the Kibworth course, you will use both your 53 and your 39 rings, and if you don’t, you should. It’s surprising how many folk approach a hill using the 53 ring, then go down through the block till they hit one of their bottom two gears, then change down to the 39 ring – and then the chain comes off and with it, all hope of a personal best. Change from 53 to 39 when you’re about half way through the block – practise it!
Dave Birch 21.02.09