It is a fact - cyclists are hot in bed!

The training continues and this weekend a 112 mile round trip to Downham Market was planned with Matt and Nick accompanied by Bruce (The Laird). Unlike the earlier trip to Southwold a couple of weeks ago which was cancelled at the last minute due to rain, they actualy set off at 09:30! The riders were so desperate to avoid another icy garage turbo session that they ignored to snow warnings, arriving home at 6:30 pm, frozen and famished. The reports of Downham Market were interesting - a historic market town - but unusually they had a market stall selling mobility scooters! The pub lunch (the number one cycling topic is always food) in the Crown was well received and apparently the staff were very accommodating whilst also offering excellent, though not necessarily reassuring advice on how to avoid having their bikes stolen. 
 

There is a real feeding problem, not to mention the cooking and shopping involved. Each long ride seems to double a cyclist's appetite for at least a couple of days - absolutely everything goes, milk, biscuits, fruit, cheese, beans, and chocolate; anything and everything is used to supplement the usual meals. In the last 2 weeks of January we got through 1.6kg of large Tesco peanuts! (yes, it really is true, 4x400g bags) In addition all this training is making one hell of a lot of washing (Nick comes off the bike or the turbo absolutely dripping even in sub-zero conditions), if Matt was generating the same amount of dirty laundry as Nick there would be another crisis and they would need to learn to use a washing machine but fortunately Matt has rather cooler and minimalist approach - still there could be an idea here -maybe Bold soap powder will sponsor us.

On a good hair day!

Regarding the title, it is actually true but not in the way you think. All the turbo and road training must have put his metabolic rate into hyperdrive and he lies there absolutely roasting hot!

Crisis what crisis?

Nick and Matt have found it really hard to knuckle down to the riding recently, so rather worryingly there has been very little training to blog about. The filthy weather has eliminated most opportunities for outdoor riding and anyway they have been at work most of the time so training has not really happened.  Last week there was a vague plan for Nick to join up with the rest of the Tour De Force riders (TDFers) for a training ride in Surrey on Sunday. The terrible weather on that day made the 300 mile round trip seem a bit unappealing so he stayed at home. The next chance for the dynamic duo to meet up with the other TDFers will be the first weekend after Easter when they will head off to Sheffield for another training weekend of 100 and then 60 miles with a few hills thrown in.

Satge 15. Click on image to enlarge.

As a motivational aid to fire them up Nick downloaded all the profiles of the mountain stages from climbbybike.com . He looked visibly paler after doing this and sat on the sofa with a very concerned expression frowning at a picture profile of Mont Ventoux (see below), Matt said he would look at it later - so no panic there then.  Mont Ventoux really does have Nick  worried, they will ride 130 miles to its base and then there is a 20 kilometre 9% gradient ride to the top, finishing at 1,900 metres!

Profile and gradients of Mt Ventouux. click on image to enlarge.

Bye for now.

Are you lost my friend?

There is a definite divergence in training methods. Nick dutifully did his first back-to-back training session of the year (as recommended by Phil Deeker the lead cyclist for the Tour de Force) and Matt went to London for the weekend to see the Lion King! Actually this takes the heat off Nick for a bit, as despite all Nick’s training, with a 30 year advantage Matt apparently breezes along without much effort. On Matt’s first run out with the Iceni cycling club last weekend Nick was amazed at how well he did over the 60 mile route, considering he had never cycled in a large group before. Anyway, yesterday Nick set off on his own, to Sheringham in the freezing cold  “to do some hills”. It was about 26 miles there, then he cycled 5 times up the same hill from Sheringham to Upper Sheringham and down again to Sheringham station. He had lunch in a café then climbed the same hill (yawn) 5 more times before coming home. On the last trip up the hill an old boy who must have seen him go past more than a few times came out and inquired "Are you lost my friend?"! 

With a hundred miles in his legs he looked shattered as he got home on Saturday night but surprisingly he still managed to crawl out of bed for the 07:30 Sunday Iceni ride to the Star-Wars (exact name uncertain) Café in Bungay. Nick was in surprisingly good shape when he got home and pointed out to anybody who would listen that his hundred average solo speed was almost the same as on the 50 mile group ride, blah, blah, blah! So he was obviously feeling quite pleased with himself (smug) and extolled the virtues of the “big beans on toast” at Star-Wars as a revolutionary new fueling method. Nick clocked up almost 150 miles this weekend but they’ll be doing a lot more than that in France over serious mountains not just bumps, no room for complacency just yet! 

Really tedious stuff for the geeks.

 

Silly me!

 

I'm feeling a bit stupid now because it turns out that the interviews were a spoof on YouTube written by one of the other riders, very entertaining though! You can have a look yourself .  The same guy " the Fellsman" has done a whole series of them with music and everything to support his campaign.