THUNDERBIRD FIVE , MARMOTTE AND ALL BOATS LIFT ON A RISING TIDE

Whatever happened to giving the teacher an apple?

Since October 'training' has meant teaching, teaching has meant Milton Keynes and that has meant an Alan Partridge type life at The Holiday Inn Express. Which itself is Shangrila compared to DeVere in Newport Pagnell, where we ran the first two courses of the Autumn term. I do seem have an in-built resistance to faceless conference centres with shell-suit graphic carpets. In much the same way that some people have a phobia about being buried alive or being eaten by spiders.
I am currently CycleFit's John from Thunderbird 5 - Jeff Tracey's, space-confined, lonely and patently less favoured son.
So after six weeks of conference-centre food, no training and re-cycled Milton Keynes air, Jules decides to drop in our mission impossible (should we decide to accept it) for 2011. Yes 'The Marmotte'. A race so difficult that it makes Etape du Tour appear lacking ambition.
Not only that but Jules has a notion that we may do a couple of triathlons as a warm-up?
I am speechless. And that of course means defenseless. I will need to find my voice to resist this madness I will come back to this later.

SICI Class - November 2010

So far this year we have trained about a hundred Trek Dealers for Trek Fit Services and about fifty students through The SICI School in London. Most of the SICI students so far have been physios, osteos, coaches...etc and all the Trek dealers are, err, Trek Dealers. All students accept the principle that individual variability should be at the heart of any fitting process and session. This is all quite a trip for me and Jules who were banging a lonely drum nine years ago when our obsession with cycle-fitting became CycleFit. The accusations at the time of quackery seemed unfair precisely because we were trying to replace 'trial and error' and heresay with a system that was both scientific in its approach and repeatable. It took a while but people slowly started bringing us their bikes and bodies to see if we could help build a better relationship. Thousands of fitting sessions later and thankfully they still are. The physical therapy community were early adopters and believers and it is to people like Graham Anderson at Balance that we owed our survival of those initial lean months. So it is now no surprise now that the phsyios, chiros and osteos are now such diligent students. Generally rubbish and dangerous with spanner or wrench in their hand but hey ho.

But what is such a pleasant shock is how keen all the Trek Shops are for education and enlightenment. Out of a hundred or so students who have come through the programme only one has rebelled to the point of excluding themselves from the course. It was both a disappointment but also a relief to see him walk off with his odd socks and even odder demeanour. I won't disclose the shop because that wouldn't be fair but I pity the folk that buy their bikes there. Expect some good old fashioned trial and error and peering through the tops of bars to see if you can see the front hub or not. Also expect the bike to be hitched up underneath your nether-regions by the sales staff to make absolutely sure it is a good fit.

Mid-flow with Euro delegates

Me and Jez Loftus (from Trek UK) started to run together a little around Willen Lake close to our Hotel in Milk And Beans. We were doing pretty well until the USA Course Director Matt Groose came out with us one morning. He chuckled as we puffed around a lap and then he strode off to do another four while me Jez limpled back to HQ for a crap breakfast. Jez is probably the only man I know with worse biomechanics than me. He has a foot-flare that makes Charlie Chaplin look well aligned.
Who am I to talk? I recently had a session with Fabulous Fran and Mick (podiatrist) from Balance . After a few minutes being video'd on their running machine I was getting very little feedback. All I could here was a low-level wheezing and squeeking? I couldn't really look around because my running balance is not so good, so I just kept plodding on. "Anyone there"? I gently enquired. But the squeeking just got worse. After a bit longer I convinced myself that they had pissed off and left me lumbering along as a joke. As I stopped the machine and looked around I saw Fran and Mick with their fists stuffed in their mouths. Both also puce and in tears from stifling their giggling. The cause of their mirth was spooling endlessly on their screen. Me filmed from behind - clumsy gait, oversized calves and strangely mincing shuffle. Fran tried (and failed) to recover some professional composure. Mick walked off leaving "sorry mate" hanging behind him. We all caught the meaning. Not sorry for laughing but sorry for my bollixed biomechanics.

So now back to those triathlons. There are two hopes and one of them is called Bob.

A couple of the courses have asked why Jules and I are intent on training the competition to compete with ourselves?

We have always seen this the other way around. We think that raising the level of the industries professionalism must intrinsically be a good thing and that will result in all boats lifting on a rising tide of improvement? Plus the whole industry and customers will benefit from a dynamic and diverse 'fit' community all working and sharing their experiences. Or are we naive and idealistic? Oh I do hope so.

Phil is in Newport Pagnell

Blog update coming soon...I'm teaching Trek dealers the dark art of bike fitting.

Fondo, Deepest Darkest Kent,and Vittoria's agan..

Get down at about 7ish and we will ride at least to the first feed, then relieve Sandy and then man the stop until the end of the day. What could possibly go wrong?"Julian Wall 2010

The weekend started poorly when I snapped the chain on the C59 I was due to ride on the Fondo as I rode through Acton on Friday night. Brand new Super-Record 11sp as well. But no worries as I have dutifully carried a chain-tool around for 20 years to meet such an eventuality head-on. 11sp is so daft that you need a 50kg Campag tool to split or re-join a bloody chain. Puts me off Campag and I am a Campag Man!
So I have to load the bike into a cab and pay £30 to go to my car in Uxbridge, only there is a traffic-jam so me and the driver sit in silence reflecting upon the futility of modern life.
The Fondo weekend has not started well...

Sunday - Fondo Day!
So in all innocence and full of optimism I wake up at 4.00am and drive to Sandy's house. Still dark and high on his flask of dubious coffee we hit the M20 at about 6.15am.

We get there at 7am and Jules tels me to get changed 'cos I am riding with him. Tired but elated I climb in the back of the van. It strikes me when I only have one leg in my shorts that this will never happen. Why am I bothering to get changed - there is no way I will ride. As I clatter out the back of the van Jules hits me with the expected - 'err, get your jeans one over your kit and lets drive out to the 1st feed - we will probably ride later though so keep yer kit on.'

Yeah right...

By the time the first riders came through our feed (top pic) me and Jules had eaten our own body-weight in fig-rolls and peanuts. But everyone was raving about the course and how good the signing was that we could not help but be lifted by their enthusiasm. I can report that the 1st fed stop had a great party atmosphere! My cycle shorts were starting to chaff a bit under my jeans.

As the last riders drifted through our feed stop Sandy's doleful tones came down the radio from the 2nd feed sounding like Neil from The Young Ones:

"err guys I am in a really really lonely place. Really bleak and nobody here but me..."

So me and Jules bowled over Romney Marsh to relieve Sandy to ride the hilly part of the course. I love Romney Marsh and can see why Jules wants to run a Fondo there. I also wish we had been able to ride a bit of the course. Chaffing getting a bit worse.

By the time we finish the 2nd feed it is getting late and the last folk are running over the line. The biggest buzz was hearing everyone's stories - the course was harder than everyone first assumed - especially if you did the longer 150kms route!

Next year me and Jules are definitely riding.

Barna just put some Vittoria Roubaix tyres on my bike. Now I have had a natural antipathy to Vittoria since 2002 when on my 40th birthday I crashed badly on a borrowed bike that was fitted with said tyres. I instantly blamed the tyres as I was convinced my lean angles were reasonable. On reflection maybe I was stronging it slightly (pic below). I was so angry I got back on and finished the race. After riding home my left arm blew up like Popeye. My GP thought I had broken my wrist and sent me for-xrays. My friend and GP James Cavanagh popped in for coffee a few days later and looked at my arm which by this time was hot, stiff and bloated. He instantly diagnosed celulitis - an infection.
Lots of drugs later and I recovered with an anti-Vittoria fixation which has lasted to this day.

But I have to say the 24mm Roubaix feel very comfortable and grippy. And lets be honest I dont ever go round corners like that anymore. Even in my dreams. Vittoria you are on the way to being forgiven. Thanks James for saving my left arm for my 40th birthday present...!

I crashed on the very next lap at this precise point.

and ended up looking like this.

"

Asymetrics, The Hearse and Iver-Heath to London Via Uxbridge

Asymetrics are a bastard. Generally I can get Little One stripped, cleaned, new nappy, clean vest and clean gro-suit on, all in the length of an early Bruce Springsteen song. But not if gro-suit is 'asymetric'in design. These play havoc with my oestrogen-rich, sleep-poor brain at 3:00 am and can de-rail the project for another two songs or so.

Rewind a couple of weeks and Jules invites me down his house in Hythe to pick up a cot his own little ones have grown out of. The ride we have together through South-East London is the only time (except Trek Fitting Course in Milton Keynes) that we have ridden together this year. Bad form. The late night ride to Jules car - parked somewhere hellish near Blue Water - is fun, if a little long (1 hour 20). But also sets me thinking - more of that later.
In the morning I join in the Wall family chaos and busy myself helping Jules's son Zac make an England World Cup piggy-bank for a school project. I later hear a that little Zac won a prize for our efforts. England apparently were not so fortunate?

Jules loads the beautiful white cot into his ancient Ford Mondeo Estate and gives me the whole lot as a present! I drive off humble and speechless. I don't like cars and have mostly avoided owning one my whole life. But this old Mondeo moves me for some reason. Maybe it is the sticky child finger-prints over every visible surface, or the baby vomit slowly fermenting in the central console like aged Parmesan? But I associate this monolithic old car with Jules and his family - it is like a big faithful old family dog Jules has given me. Rich in all their trips and memories over the decade.

And that sets me think two things.
1. I will look after this big old car as long as I can. So far it has four new tyres, a couple of litre of engine oil (it was almost totally dry), a cursory wash and new road-tax. The car is convinced there has been some mix-up after 12 years of abuse.
2. I will try Jules secret plan of driving to outskirts of London and then ride in the rest of the way.

Two weeks after the birth of my daughter I start my new regime. Drive to Iver Heath (Stepford) and leave the hearse down a quiet street. Then I ride along the Uxbridge Road into Central London. What could be simpler? Well the images should show that I start my commute in a week that I would have been better deployed building an ark. I don't mind riding in the wet but I hate getting wet - does that make sense? By the time I get to the Mondigo Noir the rain is bouncing off the suburban streets. Under the giant tailgate of the Mondigo I can dry off and change in relative comfort. It takes me straight back to the end of so many road-races decades ago when all you wanted to do was get home and get warm. Funny that you never felt the cold if you won. I felt cold alot. I remember a race around Essex where it started to snow halfway through and Jules and Mark had to prise my duck-egg blue fingers off the bars at the end. I digress.

For now my riding horizon has narrowed to Iver-to-London Via Uxbridge. But I don't mind and get a genuine little lift when I come around the corner and see this beaten up old car waiting for me. Because therein lies, a towel, dry trackie bottoms, a couple of digestive biscuits and half an hour of Radio 4. Rock and roll.

SLICE AND DICE

"I have said it before but Tourmalet is evil. Not the hardest climb in terms of gradient or length but the most mal-intended, bleek and ugly piece of rock man has ever thrown a shit piece of road up."

Mark slices his hand around at me to indicate the action of a darting fish whilst gurning like Les Dawson and nodding in a generally knowing way. The only inference I can discern is that he, for some reason, requires me to descend down the back of Marie Blanque very fast. I am thinking this is no time for an exhibition descent for so many reasons.
1. I am climbing like a man-hole cover so going fast downhill would just look like sour-grapes.
2. I am on a GPM/CycleFit test bike (Serotta HSG) which has the brakes set-up around the wrong-way, i.e. with the front-brake on the left, which should be illegal by the way. and it has 175mm cranks. Nothing to do with descending but I am a big fan of short cranks - gives more room at the hip and gives more clearance on the bends.
3. It is a wet, misty day and the roads are slimy wet rather than wet, wet. If you know what I mean? Wet roads give good grip - especially in warm weather - colder roads are always more slippery as the water becomes more viscous. But slimy roads are the worst and hardest to detect grip levels.
4. The bike is fitted with strange tyres. Michelin Pro Race 3's are my norm or Conti GP4000's - the latter is more puncture-proof but the former rolls better and grips better.
So Mark Neep's (GPM) quasi instruction to show-boat is weighed against my wife's order to come home safe and look after the burgeoning family. Ergo I cruise down semi-fast, semi-smooth searching for grip via brail through my prostate. Automatic braking is forced into consciousness as I have to do the reverse of what is natural. The scariest part is running a bit hot into the hairpins and wanting to trail a brake - but which one and which lever????

Mark (Ray) Neep

This is day one of our first Etape Recce trip co-hosted as always by GPM10 and CycleFit. We are staying at the underwhelming Laurent Fignon centre in the middle of Bagneres du Bigorre.

Back in The Pyrenees for what the fifth time in seven years? Our local guide Pat (font of all knowledge) explains whilst we are riding that it is because the area is poor and the Etape du Tour and Tour de France are one way of attracting visitors and income to the area through the year. I see all that and the inevitable crap weather is force majeure but I have never found the area that welcoming or helpful to visitors. The attitude at our hotel is almost comedy French nonchalance, that only serves the Basil Fawlty to well up inside of me. This is all chaff. I just hate being in the shadow or even the same postcode as that bastard Tourmalet. Ignore me I will go away. But as Jules points out - this will be his third Etape and every one has included the Tourmalet in some form or another!

An old friend lurks out the window!

The Marie Blanque, it seems, affects the individual in inverse proportion to one's ability. To an old diesel van like me it was just business as usual. Lowest gear and slug up like the old punch-drunk campaigner that I am. To a lighter, faster and altogether more balletic climber like Jules it created problems. The only rational that I can find is that better climbers do two things that I don't.
1. They start too fast - which is always dangerous on a steep climb.
2. They expect too much of themselves.
The Marie Blanque is short but it still veers between 11 and 13% in the last four or so kilometers. This needs to be respected, Jules?
The Solour I thought was merely Tourmalet Light but with better scenery and none of the baggage. Like all the climbs on this year's Etape it starts easy and can sucker the enthusiastic into early efforts.
No surprises that Tourmalet was closed when we reached it (it was open from La Mongie side). I knew this because I had recce'd the route the previous day. But I still feigned disappointment that we would not be able to climb it to the top that day. Bummer.
To my surprise most of the group decided to climb to where the road was closed and scramble around the barricades (heavy machinery) and continue on closed roads to the summit and from there back to Bagnerres. I protested on Health and Safety grounds but was largely ignored as the disingenuous coward that I am.
It became a little worrying when we were already on our second bottle of broad-shouldered red from the Languedoq and most of the summit party had still failed to show-up. I was not at all surprised when Mark's phone rang and he got up from dinner and shot off in the GPM Peugeot to pick up stranded stragglers. By the time we were all together around the dinner table it became clear that once again Tourmalet had punished the bold, under-equipped and off-guard. For some it was a scary freezing descent off the summit. For a few others it was a puncture with hands too cold to repair and no shelter, help or life nearby.
I have said it before but Tourmalet is evil. Not the hardest climb in terms of gradient or length but the most mal-intended, bleek and ugly piece of rock man has ever thrown a shit piece of road up. Which makes it remarkable that everytime I come into work now I am faced with a 20ft picture of the snow-bridge just below La Mongie. An admittedly fantastic picture taken by a friends of ours from the now infamous 2008 Etape. But why that particular mountain?

The first thing I see in the morning. Every morning.

Heart of Darkness

And so it is I find myself lining up with many tens of other cyclists at the start line at Hillingdon criterium circuit - one of my least liked (second only to Tourmalet) cycling venues. About to take part in my first road-race in nearly eight years. And it’s all my own fault.

I started riding again after the Trek Fit Services course finished in Milton Keynes at the end of March (see last blog). The ride we had in Milton Keynes in the lashing wind and driving rain nevertheless reminded me of how much I missed riding - especially with old friends - thanks then to Ned and Jules. So I kept a solid batting average of around six hours a week for most of April and so far most of May. Now these figures might seem limp biscuit to some but actually represent dedicated training to me.
When Konrad joined us a month or so ago he announced that he wanted to race - at CycleFit we are long used to working around staff racing regimes. So I casually remarked that I would possibly like to join Konrad racing at some deliberately vague and unspecified time and date in the future. Maybe? But Konrad doesn't do either vague or unspecified and hence I find myself nervously crouching at the back of an LVRC race surrounded by shaved, oiled legs and well thought through race-plans. I of course am only armed with a dimly stated will to live and chubby hirsute pins. I am being flippant. In truth I am genuinely nervous because I really don’t want to crash - it would be so inconvenient for Jules and the business and Donna with a baby on the way. Eight years ago I never got nervous before a crit - I trusted my speed and bike-handling agility to keep me out of trouble. And for the most part it did until it didn't and I ended up in A&E. I also subscribed to the old rugby-coach maxim that the surest way to get hurt was walk softly into a tackle. I always tried to ride crits from the front and fizzing with confidence and authority.

Confidence and authority were both no-shows as we rolled out on the first lap. Instead I tried in vain to hide in the wheels and stay out of anyone's way - like the new kid in school trying to walk in the shadows. The pace was brisk but just manageable unless someone attacked; this would immediately put me in deficit until the bunch retrieved the situation.
It felt very strange and bewildering to be back in a racing bunch again after such a long time - you forget how fast the bunch rides and how far you lean around the corners. The subtle tidal movements of break, attack, retrieve, consolidate and repeat. A certain predictable fluidity giving the fast circulation amorphous beast a certain structure and order.
I settled into the rhythm if not the pace of the race faster than I thought I would - simply by being smooth, not braking, leaning further and always staying in the right place at the right part of the lap. All that stuff came back after a few minutes. What sadly didn't was the legs, the lungs, the attack spirit and of course the sprint.
In the final analysis I rode around rather than take part. I was very happy to see my wife's car inappropriately parked with one wheel actually on the circuit and small ginger terrier yipping wildly. Very happy not to have crashed and happy to resume the role of husband, father-to-be and business owner. But for that hour and a quarter I was a racer again. And I think I am hooked.

I am writing this a week later in the dreaded Pyrenees on a CycleFit/GPM Etape Recce. I am not riding the Etape because if all goes to plan I will be up to my knees in a birthing pool off my head on gas and air. And I consider that a reprieve from this year’s ill-conceived and ghastly route. I wish you all luck. But tomorrow I have to face my nemesis again and lead a group up the bastard Tourmalet. The weather forecast is fittingly crap, I have the wrong gears and will have climbed two epic Pyrenean monsters before we get there. Sweet joy.
My legs hurt from Hillingdon one week ago. I may have got away with it on the day but the metabolic debt has to be reconciled eventually.
Tomorrow is another day. And why oh why is Tourmalet at the end of it?
I will let you know how I get on.