Jul 3
For some reason I spend far to much time listening to trio and once again I find my self entering another “intresting” event, this time the first 100 mile all off road event in the UK.
Its a few weeks after the transwales so gives me time to recover and start putting in some more miles again.
Jul 1
As I said in my last post I came to the decision a few days ago it was time to move from a 32×20 to a 32×19 which to most is not a big change but for me is still a good progression in my single speeding. I did a good old high intensity spin with some of the lads from MAD yesterday and we took in most of the trails in the three rock NPS course and a few old classics plus a horrendous climb which I have not cleaned on my single speed yet and had to push about half of it.
I did notice the climbs were harder but not to bad so will ride 32×19 for a few months like I did 32×20 and then move to 32×18. The hope is by next summer I will have moved to a gear that makes single speeding possible but also competitive at a level I want to be.
Second pushy spin of the week and the legs were feeling tired and so was I but I headed out today on a road spin today but more about that tomorrow once I have downloaded my stats at work.
Jun 30
Some people hate him, some people love him, every one will always have an opinion but one thing is for sure and that’s the fact he is helping people fight cancer. I have always like the adverts Nike have done with him and this one is just as good I think.
Jun 29
I had a plan today to head out on a nice recovery session with a friend up onto the local trails in three rock as my legs were still a little tired from yesterday but I was cancelled on at the lost moment. I was in two minds weather to bother but after putting some new tyres on the SS, in the end I decided I might as well start some sort of training so tried to do a intensity session, it works quite well as the first half is up hill and then the trails are a mix of hard climbs and technical cross country with not an amazing amount of down so really works you. I did not think I was going to enjoy it very much as I don’t like pushing my self hard but it actually turned out to be great fun on the single speed but I am going to move to a 19 tooth cog for the extra power and speed.
Stats:- http://connect.garmin.com/activity/7723891
Quite happy with my average speed of 12.2 as there is a fair amount of climbing and my heart rate was a lot lower that is used to be on a comparable spin when I was training for the trans wales last year so all is good.
Jun 28
I always have this strange love with my road bike and quite enjoy flat spins where you can drop your bike into the largest ring on the front and the smallest on the back and just power along at 30-40kmph and watch the world go by. Today was one of those days as we headed up to Dundalk to do the Tour of Louth which was a primarily flat 100km sportive, I headed up with some lads from the boards.ie cycle group who I used do a fair amount of my cycling with before I got injured so it was good to meet up with people and say hello again.
We set out and the first 50km was fairly fast with an average of 34.2kmph and I even managed to lead the front pack for a while before getting spat back into the main group but was a great experience of cycling in a big group of about 30-40 riders. The second half had a very short, but steep hill in and I could just not keep pace with the other guys who were at some points hitting 50kmph on the flat by all reports which is a bit over the top for my abilities at the moment. My average for the last half was a bit slower because of the hill at 32.8kmph but I was still happy with because there was a group of four riders I was with who were taking it in turns to pull the group along.
My average for the whole thing was 33.4kmph and it took just over 3 hours to do the 101km of the course which I was very happy with and I even got a gold medal for completing it under the 3 hour 20 which was the cut off before a silver medal. Happy with my time and would definitely go back and do it again as it was only 10 euro to enter, and feeling fairly confident about the ring of kerry cycle next weekend which should be just as good as a lot of the boards.ie people are going down.
Jun 24
Monday – 19km Single Speed Three Rock Spin
Stats – http://connect.garmin.com/activity/7455126
Tuesday – 22km Single Speed Tribradden Spin
Stats – http://connect.garmin.com/activity/7495454
Not much to say really… Two very nice “solid” single speed spins with some hard climbs but I have to say I really enjoyed them. Tuesday was a bit of a nightmare with some punctures but I have ordered two UST nobby nics which should be here at the start of next week which should stop any problems.
I have started to notice the climbs getting a bit easier and I have started reading Joel Friels Mountain Bikers Training Bible again and I have some ideas from that and reading other stuff which I am going to look at putting into practise.
Jun 24
Single speeding…its like a heroin habit…ruins your life, drives friends away
Phil from MAD
Was speaking to Phil who I bike with the other day and he came out with this, just made me laugh a lot….
Jun 21
Woke up this morning feeling very unmotivated and decided that today was going to be a sofa day, alas Phil from MAD had organised a long spin but no one turned up so persuaded me to get off the couch and go for a ride. At first there was a distinct lack of motivation as I dragged by self up the road to three rock on the single speed, the three rock climb really is just painful and not very fun on a single speed or any bike to think about it. We headed out onto the Wicklow way and over to ride the new Tribradden walking trail but added in a new cheeky trail that I spotted on google earth for good measure which makes a nice loop of the Tribradden mountain though I reckon it will ride nicer the other way round. From Tribradden we headed down the Wocca Wocca’s and then over to Masseys for the nice flowing trails to home.
Generally a good spin and it turned from just another slog up three rock to an awesome day when we got to ride some new trails though I am getting a little bored of cycling the single speed all the time, there are some occasions when a full sus would be more fun and take away the sufferance you go through riding the single speed. Hopefully I will have my full suspension back from the bike shop by the end of the week so I can do some longer miles on that.
All in all my third day riding and the legs are feeling it a little bit but I think buy the start of the Trans Wales I will have done enough miles on the bike for the legs to be used to it, there was an interesting tweet by Joel Friel on the Internet that said “It isn’t how many miles, it’s what you do with the miles.” which is very true and maybe looking at doing some more specific riding might produce better results.
Jun 20
No one at the Laragh coffee shop
Last night I headed out on a fast single speed spin round Ballinastoe so the plan for today was to start building up more miles in the legs leading up to the Transwales. I had a lazy morning and slept into 11 and did some work and managed to get out of the door for about 13:00, the plan was to spin out to Laragh for coffee and then climb back over Sally Gap and back into Dublin. I cycled out to Laragh via Eniskerry and the climb up past Djouce forest which gave the legs a good introduction to hill again, when I got to Laragh I was upset to find no one chilling outside the shop drinking coffee so instead of being a billy no mates I just carried on the spin and climbed up past the glen mcnass water fall. I have never done it this way before but its a much more gradual than coming from the other way so tested the old climbing legs, once I got to Sally Gap I just span back via glencree and back into dublin. I was certainly suffering a little in the last 10km but I think that was a lack of food which I need to get back into the habit of eating on spins but a quick gel and that put me back on track quite quickly.
I think the spin was about 75-80 km but my garmin failed at the 68km mark, up until them I amanaged an average of 21.7kmph so was fairly happy for my first longer spin, the next one just needs to be my first century of the year which I will aim to do next weekend.
Jun 17
Ashtanga Yoga Posture
I started doing yoga about three months ago just as I was properly starting to recover from my shoulder injury. I was very sceptical at the start that yoga was just another hippy fad that people did and raved about because it gave them inner peace etc which at the time I would just put down to being a load to rubbish.
What Yoga has given me straight from the word go is a complete core work out two to three times a week. For people doing yoga that is not the only reason, yoga really does give you a sense of inner peace and starting of how to live a better life, some I agree with some I disagree with but that’s for another day.
For my single speed riding I have a stronger core which has allowed my to climb better and it has reversed all the muscle tightness that would come from riding hard. I used to be able to just touch my toes I can now put my hand under my feet, at 10 I could do crabs and shoulder stands and at the age of 27 I can do them all again.
As I see it there is really no loss from doing Yoga a couple of times a week as it will only benefit you. If you wish treat it as another training session which is what I log it as in my training diary but to me it may sound a bit hippy but it is a lot more than that.