Progress!

Sunday 15th Feb was a great day for cycling, lovely sunny morning and fairly mild for feb! I covered 85 miles on the chopper, at an ave of 15.2mph. I did two key climbs, Stoney and hunters hill, both done in gear 1 (spinning). I usually like gear 2 and out of the saddle but as I was planning a longer ride than normal I opted for energy conservation. This is me being sensible. I do have a habit of attacking climbs, but understand I can't do this on each mountain in the tour! 

Legs felt great at the end of the 85 miles, a good sign my winter base endurance

miles are paying off.

Total for the week was 334 miles, on either MTB (with panniers) or chopper, so a good week for feb. 

Week summary

Last week I cycled just over 300 miles, mostly on my 29er MTB, as the chopper was being serviced (again). I've used a new pannier rack and my work gear in the pannier bag to make some of the miles on the MTB feel a bit more like the effort required to power the chopper. The chopper rolling resistance is pretty high, something I am very aware of. This week I'm planning on upping the weekly mileage to 400 miles, this sounds a lot but in reality it's only about 50% of the distance I'll be covering each week in France! Lots of training to come then :/ 

Happy knees = happy Dave

One real issue that I have come to recognise since training on the chopper is the impact it's having on my body.... Mostly my quads and knees! You see the chopper is heavy and it has tyres which don't roll well (a combination of thick MTB like tread and a max of about 3.5 bars). All this combined means to keep the bike moving along requires a fair bit of torque being placed through the cranks. I've tried 'spinning' in a low gear, it just doesn't seem to work, I just end up going slower and with a high heart rate! Plus the high cadence spinning action  causes the diddy front wheel to wobble excessively! As a result I find the best speeds are achieved with a slightly higher gear than what I might use on a road bike. This is fine, as long as your knees track correctly. Placing high amounts of torque through mal-aligned knees is a sure recipe for disaster! I'm very aware of this, so as a result I spend a fair bit of time each day doing core work and stretching key muscle groups like my hip flexers, quads, lower back etc. This has really helped (I think) to keep potential niggles at bay. I've suffered with right patella tracking issues for the last few years, but since December 2014 I've really knuckled down and committed to a daily 'TLC' routine. Since then I've been riding with no pain or knee issues :) 

Here are a few photos of me doing my core  & stretch exercises.....

Team Chop 'Sportive' calendar

I like Sundays. Great to do a big ride, then spend some time plotting and planning. My wall planner is taking shape! 

Today (1st Feb) I did 60 miles, averaging 15.4, which I'm happy about given the strong artic northerly wind of the coast! Bloody freezing! The chopper bike worked well today, much thanks to Alister at mecycle cafe who sorted out the brakes and gear tension. My legs lasted out well, although I probably pushed it a bit to much on way back, hate slowing down in the wind.

I've finally organised most of my weekends between now and July, here is a list of events I will be attending. I will be on the chopper unless otherwise stated  .....

15th march: Jodrell Bank sportive 

22nd march: Eden Valley, Epic Events

29th march: Cheshire Cat (kilotogo)

April 12th: North shore & moors (MTB)

May 2nd: Selkirk national MTB champs

May 10th: Fred whitton challenge 

May 24th: polka dot jersey sportive

May 31st: roman roads sportive (HMCC)

June: 6/7 Bala boot camp (including the balla half ironman (road bike)

20-23rd Team chop bootcamp in the Lake District