Riding the Boards of Champions

I put this video together from our Beeston Cycling Club trip to the Manchester Velodrome.

It was an absolute blast. Can't wait to go again. The banking is very steep, 42 degrees, but really not that scary once you get on to it.

It was also great value. We had dedicated use of the track with a coach for 2 hours. For 16 of us this came to £23.50 each including bike hire.

I just hope the indoor velodrome in Leicester gets the go ahead. Beeston CC may end up with a track team yet.

Riding the Boards of Champions from Adam Bird on Vimeo.

Ride like you feel, just occasionaly

Currently in the midst of base-training which for cycling means lot's of long rides at a pace within yourself to lay the platform for the real improvements later on.

On these rides you're constantly monitoring your heart rate, power output or pace to make sure that you're operating at the correct level.

The problem is it can get rather dull.

I had a couple of hours this afternoon that started out as another Zone 2 'endurance' but I pushed it a little more into Zone 3 'tempo' as I was short of the normal 3-5 hours we normally cycle at this time of year.

By the end I'd ditched watching what I should have been doing and just rode as I felt.

It felt brilliant.

Still not up to the pace I was before my crash but it did show me that the base training is having an effect.

I'll return to it on the next ride with renewed motivation.

When you're wrapped up in training plans, it's easy to forget that the reason you ride in the first place is because you enjoy it.

The Internet is a cess-pool

Running the web site for Beeston Cycling Club has been a real eye-opener as to the crap that stands in the way of legitimate use of the Internet.

We run the site with a Wordpress blog at it's heart. Allowing our members to post and comment on rides, events and anything that takes their fancy, sadly it was thigh diameter last night, is key part of what makes our club different.

Problem is the couple of us that administer the site have to deal with pages and pages of spam comments.

Link building detritus that I'm amazed if it serves any purpose other than to keep several thousand Internet Cafe users the world over meagrely employed.

I guess this is what it was like during the Victorian era in Britain. Rich people able to pay others to mask them from the abject poverty and open sewers running in the streets. Anyone trying to work their way up, beset on all sides by scum.

Ain't progress brilliant.

My Second Bike Race

Slightly more successful this week. Stayed with the leading bunch pretty much all the way.

Fast and furious at times. Cornering literally shoulder to shoulder with other riders at speed was a real buzz.

When I got to 10 laps to go I was confident that I would finish with the pack and really started to enjoy myself.

I experimented with different positions in the pack, different lines round corners and straights and was planning to be somewhere near the front when the final sprints kicked in. Not to join them, I hasten to add, just to get a view on what happened and how more experienced riders got themselves ready.

Unfortunately I was caught the wrong side of a crash on the final lap. Nasty one, we were travelling at around 35mph at the time. I ran out of road to navigate round it and my race was over.

Absolutely hooked, training hard now and maybe, just maybe I'll trouble the leaders in a few races time.

Found this picture of me in action http://www.veloriders.co.uk/gal/album60/IMG_0523

My First Bike Race

I took a step into the unknown this weekend and competed in my first bike race. A 22 lap criterium at Darley Moor Motor Racing Circuit, near Ashbourne, Derbs.

Armed with my new British Cycling race licence I joined over a 100 other cyclists all gunning for the top ten positions where national ranking points were available.

I didn't trouble the leaders.

I've posted about it on the Beeston Cycling Club web site: A Racing Education

Beeston Cycling Club Kit

After our ride from Nottingham to Paris in May, raising money for our childrens' school in the process, we've decided to set up a cycling club. The idea being to promote cycling in the local community for young, old, experience and inexperienced alike.

Every club needs a kit. This is our rather splendid one. Hot from the designer's mind. We're going to look the business.