WELLAND VALLEY CYCLING CLUB NEWSLETTER
MAY 2009
New members
We welcome Tom Harrison, Chris Parr, Michael Rodber, Richard Cole, Sarah Ellis, Huw Ellis, Ian Moore and Ian Murdey. We welcome back Nick Barnett (though it doesn’t really seem that he’s been away), Richard Mortimer (Can it be true that he’s been lured back by the prospect of wearing the new club kit?), and, from the land of paella, patatas bravas and, of course, Operation Puerto, Loz Cox. Loz has ridden in very classy company – he did his personal best time for a Ten in a two-up with Shane Sutton.
Performance
The number of members riding sportives is ever growing and this trend was exemplified by the club’s showing in the recent Northamptonshire Spires and Squires event where we had 15 finishers in the 80 miler and 4 finishers in the 50miler – well done to all those riders.
On the time trialling front, Adrian Killworth and Alex Fry have shown massive improvements in both club and open events, and it was great that Claire Waterfield and David Clarke rode the National Ten Championships this year albeit with not quite the success that they’d hoped for. Last season we had a marked decline in numbers riding club events there’s been a great upsurge this year. It has been particularly pleasing to see so many young riders taking part and very much holding their own – congratulations to Katie and Jake Hubbard, Dominic Toner, Sophie Nicholls, Tom Harrison and Sam Crabtree.
Phil Rayner and Colin Griffiths are as competitive as ever in LVRC road races while Vic Barnett and Kristian Morris have picked up points in BC races. Linda Hubbard has made some successful sorties to the Milton Keynes Bowl circuit races where Simon Vicary and Chris Begley have been racing most weeks.
Vic Barnett and Nik Kershaw have been riding National Series Mountain Bike Races and Vic is, as ever leading in his age category. Unfortunately because of upcoming surgery on a shoulder injury Vic is unlikely to complete enough events to win the series this year.
We’re being well represented in the Friday Night Mountain Bike Series with riders in all categories. Mike Winters is riding particularly well at the moment and it’s good to see Dean Barnett returning to competitive riding – the skill’s still there – all he needs is the fitness!
Club kit
It’s good to see so many riders in the new club kit. I’m very taken by it – it fits well and it looks good – that hint of pink round the shoulders really does it for me. Thanks to Claire Waterfield for sorting out all the first phase of the ordering – the first is always the worst. Most members will be aware that Grant Warwick has taken on the kit supremo role. I’ve had a few e mails for Grant sent to me because members didn’t know his e mail address. It is grantwarwick1@btinternet.com .
Coaching bits
HIGH5 are currently heavily advertising their sports drinks – I guess that most of us are skeptical about these claims. You might be led to believe from their publicity that a quick swig of any of these drinks will instantly transform you from donkey to racehorse. Do they work?
The Spring 2009 edition of the Journal of Cycle Coaching contains an article which is a digest of current thinking on energy drinks.
I will list some of the points made:
- Conventional energy drinks have contained either just carbohydrate or 2 parts carbohydrate and 1 part fructose.
- A carbohydrate/fructose combination works seems to better for providing quick energy as it is more quickly absorbed.
- The concentration of carbohydrate and carbohydrate/fructose drinks should be about 6% during exercise and is best consumed at between 600 and 1400ml per hour.
- The carbohydrate and carbohydrate/fructose drinks also aid recovery after heavy training if the concentration is around 20%.
- Carbohydrate/protein energy drinks, with proportion of 80%carbohydrate and 20% protein have been marketed for some years for recovery following hard training and there is considerable evidence to support their effectiveness.
- Several independent tests on the use of carbohydrate/protein drinks during rides suggest that they improve endurance, slightly reduce muscle damage and hasten muscle recovery post exercise
- The tests for the carbohydrate/protein drinks are mainly tests to exhaustion – the riders that use them die 30 miles further up the road.
- Carbohydrate/protein drinks taken post exercise also speed recovery.
Just before you order a tanker load of HIGH5’s or Allsports’ best, you might want to bear the following in mind. I would stress that these are my observations.
Most articles I read on the subject stress the need to check out by trial and error ‘what works for you’, so you need to try things out, not assume that they’ll make a difference.
Tests to exhaustion suggest long rides – if you’re riding for 20 or 30 miles at a reasonably easy pace, you hardly need an energy drink – water will do fine.
Your body recovers after heavy exercise without the above concoctions. If you’re racing on successive days it might be worth thinking of a muscle recovery drink but if you’re having a day or two’s rest between races you may well not need it.
Fashion looms large throughout cycling as with most sports. Energy drink consumers are not immune to this and manufacturers certainly capitalize on this – it could well be that it will be held in couple of years rhubarb will be the new protein.
A cheap source of carbohydrate for drinks is Allsports Dynamight, and you can mix this with fructose, obtainable as fruit sugar, from Holland and Barrett and it comes out much cheaper than the ready mixed carb/fructose drink powders.
The protein used in carb/protein drinks is dried whey. Try mixing a spoon or two of dried milk with carbohydrate and then some fruit squash for taste – if you think it will do you good it very well might!
The best way to quickly recover from heavy exercise is to stay young – Boots Anti Wrinkle Cream is apparently a proven rejuvenator – why not try a tablespoon of it before meals.
Fancy getting your name in print?
If you would like to write a piece for the newsletter on any vaguely cycling related topic I’d be delighted to include it in a future issue. I’m definitely running short of ideas – I’ve been producing a quarterly newsletter for more years than I care to remember!
Dave Birch 28.05.09