Irontwit

Laurent Fignon, the bespectacled “Professeur” of cycling, has died from cancer at the age of 50.

Laurent Fignon, 2nd wheel, on the Galibier, TdF 1992

Back in the eighties it was an American, Greg Lemond, who hooked my interest in cycling; he was someone who was from the outside shaking up the impenetrable world of European procycling. This meant that the riders I loved to hate were the spikey and arrogant French, especially Monsieurs Fignon and Hinault. In hindsight, my opinion of Laurent Fignon was entirely based on his apparent lack of approachability and not his cycling. He won the Tour de France twice and the Giro d’Italia and is one of a tiny handful of riders to have won the Tour on debut. He also won Milan – San Remo twice. His record, in other words, speaks for itself and is rightly comparable to many of the greats of cycling. Moreover, at times, such as on his 2nd Tour victory in 1984, he was almost unbeatable, and where it not for injury, he surely would have added further Grand Tours and Monuments to his palmares. What strikes me most from his biography translated into English this year, however, was his attitude towards the cheats. He retired from the sport quite simply because he couldn’t bear the fact that lesser men were beating him through artificial means. When he saw 30 riders pass him on a mountain stage in 1993 barely breaking sweat he knew his time was up, and the very next day abandoned the Tour. And for that, both Lemond and he should be remembered as great champions, and not the winner and loser of the closest Tour de France in history.

Laurent Fignon’s autobiography, We Were Young and Carefree, is definitely worth seeking out. His frank and open assessment of the 80′s and of his fellow professionals, including the likes of Lemond and Hinault, makes for a great story.

Finally, here is the ITV4 retrospective on that 1989 Tour in which the 8 second victory by Lemond remains one of sport’s iconic moments of the 20th century.

Image under a Creative Commons licence on Flickr by velodenz

The only Brit to win stages on all 3 Grand Tours is Robert Millar. More than that, he is the only Brit to have taken an overall jersey at one of the 3 week races: the polkadot jersey at the Tour de France. Mark Cavendish has the opportunity to join him over the next few weeks in La Vuelta, the Tour of Spain. He already has the leader’s jersey after his team won the opening team time trial, but I doubt he’ll count that as the record as it’s not an individual stage win. Still, there are plenty of opportunities for him to take out a sprint during the race.

Spot the technical problem

It was January 26th when I got knocked off my bike by a muppet who turned across the road in front of me. Judging by the shrieks of onlookers it must have looked pretty spectacular, but in truth, I rolled perfectly, my rucksack took the impact on the windscreen and I ended up in the road feeling annoyed, rather than bruised. The police and paramedics attended and the Officer from the GMP made it clear that it was a simple case of driving without due care and he intended to pursue the charge. While hanging around it was suggested to me by professional people that my neck must hurt (it didn’t) and that often symptoms wouldn’t reveal themselves until the next day, so I ought to get down to my GP to explain my aches and pains. It was being clearly suggested to me that a whiplash injury might be worth a few grand in compy.

The problem with this was I wasn’t hurt ( nothing more than a couple of bruises) and I wanted to get on with my triathlon training. I didn’t fancy being like one of those folk who claim disability benefit while taking disco dancing lessons on the quiet about whom the tabloids seem to love telling us  so much. So, I immediately got an insurance quote for the damage caused and wrote to the driver claiming compensation, thinking that he’d twig that I wasn’t trying to take him for a ride. He clearly didn’t pass my letter on to his insurance company as I heard nothing.

The problem then is, what to do next. Clearly I needed legal representation and I tried my solicitor but they required a sum of money up front to start an action. Fortunately, a colleague of my wife was a biker (of the motorised variety) and she put me on to Sorrymate.com who represent 2 wheeled victims of car drivers. After a conversation with them, it became apparent that no win, no fee cases could only be taken on if the value of the claim was over £5,000 (to prevent really small claims). On any amount lower than this, the lawyer could not claim a fee. My claim came to just over £2,000, so if I had added a “whiplash injury” (I’m told that the usual settlement for this is around £3,000) it would have taken me over the £5,000 limit. So here I was with a wrecked bike and assorted kit facing having to part with quite a lot of money to chase the toerag who knocked me off, whereas, if I had faked a whiplash injury I could have had the pick of any number of lawyers prepared to act for their fee. Fortunately, Fergus at Sorrymate offered to act on my behalf pro bono as it seemed my case was cut and dried, and being a biker himself, understood where I was coming from. He didn’t have to do this and I’ll be making a donation from the proceeds of my claim to the Joey Dunlop Foundation.

The upshot from all of this was that it turned out the driver had tried to protect his no claims bonus by failing to mention to his insurance company that he had knocked a cyclist off his bike. Fortunately all that quickly unravelled once Fergus got involved and today I received just over half of my claim (hey, what’s 7 months) with hopefully some more to come. Thanks Fergus!

I felt that a lot of people expected me to act fraudulently in my insurance claim (it was really surprising how many people didn’t seem to think this was at all dishonest), but I’m glad I didn’t. What’s really galling, though, is that it has taken so long to get some money – I’m just really glad I’m not on the breadline and relied upon my bike to get about.

The lesson from this, if there is one, is that if you love to ride your bike (motorised or pedal) you need recourse to legal backup just in case. Sorrymate were brilliant in pursuing my case pro bono, but I imagine that if the case hadn’t been so simple they might have thought a lot more carefully about taking it on (that’s no criticism). The best way I can find to get cheap legal backup for cyclists is to join British Cycling. Their basic Ride membership only costs £24 per annum, which I think is a very small price to pay for the thought that you can get a lawyer on your case if you need one.

Do it today!

40kph is the Holy Grail for most ordinary cyclists. Let me explain. If you can manage an average speed of 40kph for just 1 hour you will have completed the club 25 mile time trial or the bike split in an Olympic distance triathlon in precisely 1 hour. It’s a mark that separates the serious cyclist from the mere enthusiast.

For the likes of Fabian Cancellara this sort of speed is positively pedestrian (at least he doesn’t have to do a 1500m swim first!), for the rest of us it requires a mix of the right preparation, equipment, course and conditions. My own personal best bike split in a triathlon is 1:07 which I set at Bala last year. I did this on a pure road bike without aero wheels or even aero bars. The Bala course is far from flat, but the road surface is good and the conditions on the day were benign, so although I was pretty pleased with my time, it turned out I was only just in the top 40% of the results for the bike. In fact, 61 riders went under the hour, nearly 10% of the field (it’s always a quality race at Bala). I came away with a strong feeling that if I had an aero setup for my bike I could have gone a quite a bit faster.

I didn’t use aerobars last year because I felt that using them would compromise my ability to finish my first Ironman and I never got around to fitting them for just one triathlon after IMUK. Having got that monkey off my back, I’ve used them extensively this year, and they were a definite benefit for the Ironman 3 weeks ago. I’ve also got some nice deep section Reynolds carbon wheels. Short of investing in a full TT bike, there’s not much more I can do (except add an aero helmet maybe). So, if the bike is ready, and the course at Tatton is definitely flatter  than Bala, their just remains the preparation. This inevitably involves some painful high intensity efforts on the bike, but so far, so good. The only thing I can’t legislate for is the weather.

In actual fact, I have to complete the bike course in 57 minutes at Tatton in order to hit the magical 40kph average as the bike course is short at 38km.

The KR810 is all race prepped and ready to go!

Last season my last triathlon was the excellent Bala Olympic distance event which features a very fast course. So fast, in fact, that I set a personal best for the distance. As a result of that experience, one of my secondary targets this year was to do a sub 2:30 Olympic distance tri, which, given the state of my swim, effectively means a close to 1hr bike split and holding it together on the run. Unfortunately, Bala clashes with a wedding reception (Sept 12th) so I’ll have to give it a miss. Instead, I’ve entered the Tatton Triathlon a week later. To be honest, at over £60, entry is a bit pricey, but I’ve had a decent report on the organisation. Also, with 4 laps on the bike and the swim and run all based in Tatton Park it should be a great event for spectators. The bike course is flat and fast, but is unfortunately a couple of km short of the proper 40km standard distance, still that should leave a little extra gas in the tank for the run. Here’s hoping.

After that I might look at a couple of Autumnal sportives: the Tour of the Peak looks attractive, but might be a bit tough for the time of year. It does have 2 climbs on it that I’ve never got around to riding though: Winnats Pass and Holme Moss, so maybe… Last year’s edition of the Tour of the Peak sounded like a real epic due to the weather, not entirely unlike the Tour of the Pennines which I did last year, the Youtube video from which shows graphically the awful wind that we experienced that day.

The other option, of course, is to explore the bike rides in the area we have just moved to. From Chorley we have easy access to the Ribble Valley and Forest of Bowland which is beautiful cycling country in the Autumn. Let’s hope that we get an Indian Summer!

Steve Earle could never have written his seminal song, “And the rain came down,” in Chorley. Released on the album Exit 0 in 1987 and written for a farmer’s benefit concert, the song talks about the struggle of a farmer to hold on to his land in the face of drought. As I said, he could never have written it in Chorley.

Since moving to Chorley I have become convinced it must be the wettest place in the Northern Hemisphere. We’ve lived here for nearly 2 months and I can count the days on which it hasn’t rained on one hand. On several occasions we have driven south to Stockport into lovely weather, but as soon as we returned north we could see glowering black clouds collecting before Winter Hill venting their frustration on Chorley at the obstruction in their path. To be fair, I only have myself to blame.  Everybody with even a passing knowledge of Geography ‘O’ Level (1979, Kettering Grammar School, grade B) will know about and have drawn the classic diagram of orographic rainfall. It’s simple, when a raincloud runs into a hill the wind forces it up and over. As it rises, the cloud condenses and raindrops form.

Orographic rainfall on Chorley

I’m resigned to a lot of wet weather rides.

Diagram adapted from an image on Wikimedia Commons under a GNU Free Documentation License

After Ironman UK 2009 I took a hard look at how my race worked out and came to some fairly clear conclusions:

1. I needed to do some over distance swims and some swim/bike bricks to lessen the impact of the swim on my bike split;
2. I needed to radically overhaul my nutrition plan to try to avoid the stomach cramps that I had experienced in ’09;
3. I had to pace the bike leg properly to avoid the drastic slowdown that I experienced over the last 30 or so miles;
4. I wanted to speed up transition.

As the winter drew on I looked forward by drawing up a training plan for 2010 which included increasing my training volume slightly.

Despite the awful winter which kept many people off their bikes for long periods, my early season was something of a surprising success: I beat my personal best for half-marathon at successive races in Wilmslow and Blackpool, and I set the 3rd fastest time on a cycle sportive! Thereafter, things took a turn for the worse, illness forced me out of my big May target, the Fred Whitton Challenge. And although I set a new personal best at the Bala Middle Distance Triathlon in June, my training was already irrecoverably behind schedule. A combination of ilnness, injury, moving house, bad weather and bad luck meant that by the time Ironman UK 2010 came around I had done almost 2,000 less kilometres on the bike than the previous year. This, I knew, would affect my race.

Things weren’t all doom and gloom, though. The running was obviously much stronger than in previous seasons (at Bala I did my first sub 2 hour half-ironman 21km run); the swimming was also looking good. I was doing 3 sessions a week and had done a number of long open water sessions as well as 3 over distance 4km swims. Lastly, I thought I had my nutrition sorted. Gone were the cereal bars and I was going to use a gel and water strategy for the whole of the bike – I tried it out at Bala and was very happy with my performance.

6:00 am August 1st 2010

On the start line I felt quite relaxed. I knew that the lack of miles on the bike would get me in the end, but everything else was in place and all I could do was to try my best.

The Swim

I improved on my 2010 time by a massive 18 minutes. The over distance swims meant that I had none of the lower leg tension that I suffered last time out, and I actually ran in to transition. I suspect that the huge improvement was largely down to last year’s course being slightly long rather than me speeding up significantly, but hey ho, it was a great start.

The Bike

A look at my heartrate data on the bike ride confirms what I expected to happen – I slowed down significantly towards the end. It was almost a carbon copy of 2009 in that I started strongly, sustained it through the 2nd lap and dropped off significantly for the 3rd. However, whereas in 2009 this was mostly due to the extra tough swim and poor nutrition stratgey, in 2010 it was entirely down to lack of mileage in training. Even so, I still set a bike split of 6:54, over 38 minutes faster than 2009.  I still need to work on pacing the bike leg.

Two factors helped towards the faster time: firstly I had a much better bike with new aero wheels and aero bars making it much faster on the flatter sections of the course, secondly I had switched from a compact chainset to a traditional 53/39 setup. The higher gears (which I had used throughout the winter) also improved my speed on the downhills (although I do admit that Sheephouse Lane felt harder than last year!). I find this quite encouraging as I think it means I can still find significant improvements in my bike split with proper preparation.

The Run

Although I had been running much faster than I had run for years through the spring, I suspected it would count for nothing as the full impact of the lack of training miles on the bike revealed themselves in their full g(l)ory! I wasn’t disappointed. The run was a struggle from the start and after the first 6 miles I really had a hard time. At 11 miles I went through a very bad spell, and only some long walks through feeds taking in extra drinks and banana got me to a point where, by 18 miles I knew that I would finish. In the end, the run was the only part of my 2010 race that was slower than 2009 (by a mere 2 minutes). However, in 2009 I had 5 loo stops which gave me a much slower time than my actual running warranted (I reckon that my marathon would have been about 4:30 in ’09 had it not been for the loo stops).

Nutrition

I was very pleased with my nutrition plan this year. I waited for 20 minutes after starting the bike to make sure my system had settled down before taking my first gel with water, and kept this up regularly every 25 minutes throughout the bike. Every couple of hours I swapped a standard gel for a caffeinated one to give me a pick me up, which seemed to work, although my stomach did feel slightly queasy afterwards (need to test this a bit more – did I have enough water?). I also added a couple of the new Natural Power bars with pretzels (for extra salt) which went down a treat in place of a couple of gels. By the time I hit the run though, all thoughts of further gels had gone out of the window and I stuck to plenty of flat Pepsi and the occasional half a banana. No emergency loo stops and a second successful Ironman finish over an hour faster than last year was the result.

Conclusions

I was faster in every element of the race except the run when compared to last year, and although I wanted a finish of around 13:30, I considered my time of 14:03 to be a major step forward considering the big impact that the lack of bike miles made on my race.

The lessons:

1. The over distance swimming in training returned big benefits, not just in the swim, but in the way I felt through T1 and on to the bike;
2. The lack of bike miles in training simply couldn’t be hidden and this had a major impact on the latter part of the bike, and the whole of the run. I still need to work on pacing my bike split and building up enough endurance to reach the end of the bike in good shape;
3. The nutrition plan worked well and needs tweaking to better understand the impact of caffeine on my system when taken during an event, and also to see if it works in hot conditions.

I suspect that I gained the 63 minutes almost entirely in the first half of the event and pretty much matched my 2009 race pace in the second half. In theory, this means that I could improve by a further hour if I could sustain my pace, making my 13 hour dream perfectly achievable for Ironman Regensburg on Aug 7th 2011 (oh yes, I’m back for more).

It is always a source of wry amusement to me as to why cyclists from across the Big Pond seem obsessed with all things Italian. It seems that it is not enough to love your bike, you have to love the Italian lifestyle, Campagnolo, Castelli, Colnago, salami, espresso… A quick read of the popular American cycling website, Pez Cycling News (which I love) will confirm my assertion. On reflection though, it’s not that surprising that this should be the case as I’m guessing that the American love of cycle racing is closely intertwined with the large numbers of Italian immigrants to that country. In any case, cycling, despite the Lance effect, is still very much a minority interest, and any way of attaching a weird obsession like cycle racing to something more readily identifiable as cool, such as Italian cafe culture, is entirely understandable. And what could be more Italian than espresso coffee?

My own obsession with things Italian begins and ends with espresso coffee. It’s true that, along with most young men, I used to dream about owning a red example of Maranello’s finest, and I still dine out on the story when Jean Alesi waved at me from the cockpit of his Ferrari at Silverstone. I, alone from the bank of spectators, was jumping up and down at his efforts to qualify a recalcitrant car, and he saw me and waved. Honestly. It’s also true that my PC desktop sports an image of a red Colnago Master frame to remind me of that retro bike build project that I keep speccing and respeccing in my mind’s eye. But my real Italian obsession is coffee, espresso, short, intense, strong. Preferably from a Gaggia.

Illy at The Deli, a reliable espresso

Part of my pre-ride ritual always includes a couple of shots from my Gaggia, usually Lavazza Qualita Oro, and I pity you poor souls who have yet to discover the joy of owning your own espresso maker. But if you don’t, don’t worry, as the other side of this obsession is knowing where to buy the best coffee when out and about. In south Manchester, there are 2 contenders, and luckily, both are in prime locations for cyclists to meet prior to a ride. The first is The Deli in Didsbury. They use that well known brand beloved by connoisseurs of coffee: Illy. The resulting brew is dark, rich and smooth with an excellent crema and none of the acrid aftertaste that is so prevalent of coffee from the major chains. Didsbury is a frequent meeting point for Manchester cyclists heading for the Cheshire Plain and western Peak District and The Deli, with its street tables, is as good a meeting point as any.

Espresso Deli Cofano - the best in Britain?

However, if you want a true taste of Italy and your espresso must be made by an Italian, then look no further than Deli Cofano tucked away at the back of Brookside Garden Centre on the A523 between Hazel Grove and Poynton. Again, the outside tables and the location make it an ideal meeting point for a ride. Just don’t be in a hurry. Coffee this good (and it is the best coffee I’ve ever had in Britain*) can’t be rushed. Moreover, I defy anyone who has lingered over the sublime aroma of the Antica Tostatura Triestina espresso blend served by Deli Cofano to stay for just one. And if you need an excuse to go there without the bike, just find a small relative (anyone under the age of about 90 will do) and take them to have a go on the miniature railway (weekends and all week in school holidays).

Reading back through this post, I realise, of course, that I’m just as obsessed with Italian culture as the Americans (I’m even liable to get anal about bronze dye pasta). The trouble is that having just moved house from Hazel Grove to Chorley that I’m going to have to begin my quest for the perfect espresso all over again. Now where did I put that Salvarani cycling jersey?

Salvarani - classic 60s Italian Jersey

*The only rival to the title of Best British Espresso, in my experience is the London based Caffe Vergnano 1882 chain which I discovered in 2007 while visiting the capital for, of course, the Tour de France.

It’s just over a week since I finished Ironman UK and I’m in a reflective mood as I look back on the event. How did my race compare to the previous year? And, how did the race organisation fare after the criticisms of 2009? This first post will consider the raceday experience from the organisational point of view, and I’ll follow it up with some thoughts on my own race.

The race organisation

Spectators and competitors alike seem to agree that this year’s race was far better organised than 2009. Having the registration at Leigh Sports Village, close to T1 was a great success. Access was easy and there was plenty of parking – none of the horrendous traffic jams in the lanes around Rivington. Lots of plus marks there, then.

The only issue for the distributed nature of the various venues (Registration in Leigh Sports Village; T1 at Pennington Flash; T2 at Rivington and Blackrod High School; Finish in Bolton, race briefing and athlete parking etc at the Reebok Stadium) was the absolute necessity of having motorised transport to get between venues efficiently. In particular, on the Saturday you had to drive to T1 for racking your bike, then to T2 to rack run kit and finally to the Reebok for race briefing. If race briefing could have been held at Leigh Sports Village and athletes given an option for the organisers to transport and rack red bags at Rivington for them, then a few thousand car journeys could have easily been saved. It’s hardly the most environmentally friendly way to run a race, and it’s really difficult for competitors without cars. I spoke to several foreign competitors who were quite stressed out by all the travelling between venues and the extra expense required for car hire and taxis.

The volunteers at registration and at all the various venues were fantastic and really helpful (I was eternally grateful for the extra 45 minutes in bed that the lady organising buses from the Reebok gave me by switching allocations).

On raceday itself, all appeared to go very smoothly. The organisers had certainly learned from last year. The marshalling was excellent throughout the course, especially on the bike, and there were definitely more spectators out on the bike course than last year. Some of the simple issues had been addresses: dismount lines sprayed on the roads, more water at the feed stops. At the second feed in Buckshaw Village they appeared to be rationing water after the first stop (twice I was given only 1/3 of a bottle and had to stop for an extra bottle or two to top up). This wasn’t a major issue on the day, but might easily have become one if the weather had been at all seasonal (i.e. in the mid 20s Celsius). The much vaunted mile markers seemed to be pretty intermittent, but at least some were there. My experience of the run route from last year helped me no end in working out how far I had to go.

Overall, then, a qualified success, and perhaps the most heartening aspect of the whole thing was the noticeably larger crowds out on the course compared to last year who were a big help to flagging cyclists like me. A massive thank you is due to all the volunteers and marshals who helped the day go so well.

As I was browsing for stuff about Ironman I came across this interesting piece ranking the 23 Ironman courses according to the average time to ride the 112 mile bike course. Guess what,  Ironman UK came out as having the slowest average bike time and is therefore rated as the toughest bike course. There are, though,  some problems with this analysis (some acknowledged by the author).

• Ironman courses aren’t all exactly 180km long, a  degree of difference from 180km is tolerated. This could mean up to almost 20km difference in length between the shortest and longest courses – maybe average speed would be a better measure?
• The weather conditions when the averages were taken could vary considerably: Ironman Lanzarote is renowned for its wind, yet in 2010, raceday was unusually calm producing faster bike splits;
• Some courses may have a higher percentage of beginners, thus increasing the average. And of course, the reverse is true, some tough triathlons may have a higher percentage of seasoned athletes taking part. This would undoubtedly account for the relatively fast average time for Ironman Hawaii, and possibly even Lanzarote which is often reckoned to be the toughest and therefore less likely to be on a newbie’s radar.

I think a better measure would be to take an average of the top few performers, say top 20, in each event. By doing this you would take out one of the biggest variables which is the calibre of the field – the top 20 in any Ironman are pretty much guaranteed to be top athletes thoroughly prepared for the event and would be likely to be performing consistently whichever Ironman they entered. And if you could produce an average over a few years it would tend to reduce the impact of unusual weather conditions in a single year.

Still, it’s nice to know that I was faster than the average bike time on the world’s “toughest” Ironman bike course.

This table shows the averages based on overall finish times and IMUK is still well up on the table (7th). What this table does show quite clearly is that Ironman St George (in Utah) is clearly the toughest of the lot – and here, yet another variable comes in to play: altitude. The bike course peaks at nearly 5,000′ above sea level.