Riding to work

Had a late day at work so only rode to work and back.  This is still a 1 hr ride each way, so not inconsequential but not the required intervals of the program.  Kids up all night so got a pretty bad sleep. Hopefully will be rested by then.

Right shoulder is still locking up so trying to keep up my exercises for that.

Crosswinds

Riding in amazingly strong crosswinds  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8qgjyqibwY&feature=player_embedded

Work

Getting home late really screws with your training. Will still do an injury proof workout http://www.menshealth.com/print/20272

Second week

Onto the second week of training. 3 sets of 10 min steady state training last night. This went pretty well, back of knee is a little sore but manageable. Have that nice drained feeling the next day. Same workout tomorrow night, but got a late night at work scheduled so might just have to ride in to work instead.

Delayed start

So, I was supposed to start my training regime this week.  I had taken last week off to let a major strain I had in my back subside.  Then over the weekend, life happened and I didn't get a chance to do any real training.  Work this week is crazy, so I can't do my CTS field test. I've decided to simply ride in on Tues and Thurs and do the CTS test on Sat.  This should give me a kick start to training, not the one I was hoping for, but some riding is better than nothing.  I'll plan my days around work better next week so that I can do all the required workouts for the week.

What next

Last night while closing the garage door, I managed to pull a muscle in my upper back. I sort of leant over at an unusual angle and bang went a muscle. Hope it clears up in a few days.

On a positive note, I felt better after a sleep, re my ride to work yesterday.

Back in the saddle

Rode to work, first time since I got sick, which was about 10 days ago.  Felt pretty damn stuffed by the time I got home.  Will take tomorrow off. 

Got a new workstand, so will make working on the bikes sooooo much easier.  Have to replace the hydraulic hoses on the Trance, fix the cranks up, put a new derailleur on and replace the gear cables.

On the Anthem I've gotta regrease all my hubs, put a new chain on it and just give it a once over.

Might actually get to ride them on the dirt sometime this year....

Countdown to the Merida 24hr 2011

The Merida 24hr is in a couple of months, so I am going to start documenting my training on this blog.  As in previous years, I'll take my training program from "The Time Crunched Cyclist" by Chris Carmichael.  I'll be doing the New Century program, and supplementing this with some bodyweight strength and core training.

This week will be a build up week, as I have been sick and off the bike for a week and a bit.  A few rides to work should blow out the cobwebs.

Why ride for 24hrs Solo

Why consider riding for 24hrs solo? Why not? My first foray into 24hr riding was a workmate who introduced me to riding organised for 4 of us to enter a 24hr as a 4 man team. At the time I had a basic hardtail non-tubeless tyres, v-brakes and a seat that was way too hard.

I did 4 laps and I swear it was the hardest thing I had ever done. My butt hurt, I hadn't heard of Chamois creme and I was glad the whole thing was over. But I did learn a crucial lesson during the last lap. I was not particularly enjoying it, but I didn't want to stop. I just kept going slower till it was a pace I could sustain. And I kept it at that speed for the rest of the lap. In retrospect, it was the right thing to do and it set the right mindset for the future. Even when you're feeling bad and you want to stop, just keep plodding on. As long as you're going forward, things are good.

I then entered various combinations of 2's and 4's with friends, eventually getting a dual suspension bike. That was a game changer for me. As someone who has fluctuated up to 100kg, a hardtail for 24hrs is just murder. Dual suspension is where it's at. A second hand Giant Trance was my friend from then on.

Eventually I decided to do a 6hr solo. At this point, I'd only ever done 2 laps of a race consecutively, which would take me about 2hrs. This would be 3 of those in a row and was quite daunting. I approached it with the same mind set, just keep moving. I managed a reasonable showing, only stopped for pit stops and actually had quite a good time. This spurred me on to eventually try riding one for 24hrs solo. 4 solo's later and I've competed in the World Championships.

I'll start laying out the posts loosely along the lines of:

* Training
* Eating
* Bike
* Pit
* Contact points
* Apparel
* Mental

Hopefully someone will get a bit of use out of the posts.

Crazy downhill in Brazilian slums

KB training

Kettlebell training today. I tried to move to the 24kg bells for some of the movements. Instead of doing 2-arm clean and presses with 16's, I just did one arm with a 24kg, but could only do two rounds and had to go back to the double 16's for the last one.

I also tried the single 24 for the one arm front squat, but only managed that for 2 rounds as well. It was really hard to hold onto that bell out in front of you. I think I might be holding my elbow a little too high, and I think I need to tuck it in so it sits closer to my body.

Using the 24 really upped the intensity and I was puffing hard from the get go. The biggest problem with KB's is the big jumps between levels. It'd be nice if they had a 20kg one readily available (I have seen them, but they're not that common).

These KB workouts are really seeming to get my whole body more in "sync". It forces you to use your whole body on movements like the Turkish Get Up and I really feel it working all the muscles of my body. I may even look to keep them in my program throughout the year, depending on how the other training goes.

Endurance training methods compared

I came across a really interesting series of blog posts on endurance training. The author goes through all the major types of endurance training and discusses their positives and negatives. They're quite long posts, but they're really quite well written I think. It's certainly made me rethink my training schedule for next year.

Race Face X-Type BB Service Tool

I was perusing the Jenson USA site and came across this tool, a Raceface BB service tool. I have been wanting to get something like this for a while. DIYMTB has some, but they're about $150. This one was $65USD so I got one.

It will remove and install bearings onto a Hollowtech or X-Type bottom bracket. It's a pretty solid tool and the instructions show how to set it up for each purpose. I purchased some Enduro bearings and upgraded the roadie. It's pretty easy use and I had the bearings replaced in no time. The only trick I would note is that you need to get the old bearings and line them up with the new ones and press again. This will seat the new bearings just that little bit further down where they need to be.

Interestingly I can't find any mention of the tool on the Raceface site, but it appears to be legit and it works well so I won't complain even if it is a knockoff. It's certainly work the money if you've got a few bikes and are replacing BB bearings regularly.

Kettlebells and cycling

Due to the family situation, it hasn't been practical to get to the gym these days. To compensate for this, I have been using kettlebells. These are essentially cannonballs with handles. You can do a wide range of exercises with these simple tools and they are great for conditioning

I'm also interested in general fitness, so I'm not so concerned if some of the movements aren't directly useful for cycling. Interestingly, Lance himself uses them for his conditioning workouts and John Claxton seemed to favour them.

They generally come in multiples of 4kg. Males generally start with a 16kg bell and women a 12kg. The most common sizes for males are a pair of 16kg and a pair of 24kg bells.

The current program I am on is a conditioning workout, which doesn't take very long, maybe 22min, but is very taxing nonetheless. I modified the program from this article.

The workout consists of two different workouts. I am doing 3 a week alternating workout A, workout B, workout A so that I am doing two of the opposite workout each week. The workouts are:

1) Double-KB clean and military press, 6 reps
2) Alternating renegade row, 6 reps (each side)
3) KB pushup (8 reps)
4) Turkish get-up, 3 reps (each side)
5) One-arm front squat, 8 reps (each side)
6) One-arm KB swing, 15 reps (each side)

Here's the second:

1) Double-KB clean and push press, 7 reps
2) Double-KB bent-over row, 8 reps
3) KB pushup (8 reps)
4) One-arm windmill, 5 reps (each side)
5) Double-KB front squat, 5 reps
6) Hand-to-hand KB swing, 12 reps (each side)

The exercises are done with just 30 seconds between exercises and 90 seconds between rounds. The idea is to do a total of 3 rounds. It has taken me 2 weeks to do the full workouts twice, so next week I will go for the entire 3 rounds.

It doesn't seem like a lot of work, but it gets harder each round and the swings at the end really have you gasping for air.

The KB's really work your core and back chain of muscles (lower back, glutes, hamstrings) all of which are essential in riding. Throw in a few upper body exercises and you have a great overall workout.

A word of warning: Kettlebells can be quite brutal if you let your form slip. I've injured my shoulder and back before with them and so have others. Interestingly, advocates say that kb's are great for back rehabilitation. I dunno about that, but I enjoy using them even with the risks.

The absolute cheapest place to buy them in Brisbane is Southside Fitness.

First post

I've got the blogging bug back, so I thought I'd start the new one specifically focussed on cycling.

Going Tubeless

After all the hype that I've read for tubeless, I finally tried it just before the last 24hr race I did.

The reasons I wanted to try it were mostly increased grip, due to lower pressures and a wider surface on the dirt and a decreased rolling resistance, as when you're out there for 24hrs you want it to be as easy as possible. I was also interesed to see how well it handled, as I was sure that the fact that I run such high pressures now are a cause of some of my poor handling.

I'm pretty fat at the moment, (100kg) so I run my tubed tyres quite high (45-50psi) to avoid pinch flats, something I've had problems with before. I'm of the opinion that this doesn't help me at all in rocky/rooty terrain as the tyre will be bouncing off these obstacles, rather than rolling over them.

I couldn't afford a new tubeless wheelset, so settled on getting a Stan's conversion kit. I then got a pair of LUST Maxxis Crossmarks all online from www.wiggle.co.uk and the lot only cost me $200.

Installation

My current wheelset is a Frankenstein mix of a Maxxis 317 rin up front and a Velocity Synergy O/C in the back. Stan's website states that 317's are fine, but they don't mention the Synergy's. Since I had no other option, I thought I'd give it a go.

Most people recommend a high pressure pump like that at a service station, but it's said that you can do it with a floor pump, so that's what I tried.

The installation instructions are on Stan's website and I'd recommend watching them a couple of times through, just so you understand all the steps. There are also many YouTube videos of people putting them on, so you won't be alone for pointers. I will give you a couple of things that I found useful.

Because I didn't have access to a powered pump, I had to use a floor pump. This did work for 2 out of 3 tyres. I ended up with 4 Crossmarks, for various reasons and one of them just wouldn't take for some reason. Nothing I tried could get it to seal enough for me to pump it up.

If using the Stan's kit and a floor pump definitely unscrew the core of the presta valve. This isn't removing the thin stopper, these valves actually screw apart and you can get a heap more air in at one time, which is a must.

I had no real issues with either of the rims, the Velocity Synergy seemed to work fine.

The scariest part of the whole procedure was having to drill your rim, as noted in Stan's video. Just make sure you don't go all the way through, you only want to drill the innermost section.

The Ride

So was all that effort worth it? Absolutely. The things I noticed:

1. The general ride seemed a lot more smooth. As I said above, I normally run 50psi and the max for Tubeless is 40, so I ran round 39ish. You could definitely feel the smoother ride. Whether I was actually faster, I couldn't say, but it felt smoother. There was however the disconcerting sound of less inflated tyre constantly sounding like it was going flat. I couldn't help but look down periodically and check that it wasn't flat.

2. I'm normally terrible at riding in the sand and the race at Canungra was shocking for it. The interesting thing is, I managed to handle the sand a lot better and didn't come off once. I attribute this to the larger surface area of the tyre and the softer tyre not biting into the sand and throwing me off.

3. Similarly with the rock garden on the course, I managed to ride this every time and I wasn't constantly bouncing off the rocks which usually throws my momentum.

4. Off camber corners are also one of my weak points and I think the normally hard tyre doesn't help this at all, as it skates off the corner. The sweeping off camber corner during the race I rode many times and not once felt that I was going to slide off it.

So overall I'd say it was an great outcome. I'd certainly recommend to anyone to make the upgrade to Tubeless.