Donington track evening...

Donington may well call be known as "The heart of British motorsport" but this evening it was a rather slower form of wheeled sport that took to the track, cyclists! And I was one of them. The circuit has been opened up to bikes a number of times this summer but this was the first time I'd been able to go and have a play.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening but, with hindsight, maybe I would have been better taking the bike there and back in the car rather than riding it. I had ridden to work and back today, then swapped to the road bike and rushed over to Donington to be there in time for the track opening. I put in seven reasonably paced (for me) laps of the circuit before then riding home before it dropped dark. I was wrecked by the time I got home for my supper!

My best three laps of the 2.5 mile circuit were, according to Strava...

7min 15secs @ an average of 20.3mph.

7min 16secs @ an average of 20.3mph.

7min 27secs @ an average of 19.8mph.

My maximum recorded speed was 36.9mph - which I guess must have been down Craner Curves. If it wasn't then I'd love to know where I could have managed to go quicker!

So, overall, a great experience. It's certainly something that I'd love to do again as I'm sure I could reduce by overall lap time and maybe push my fastest speed up a little, if I really gave it a go heading into Craner. Not riding so many miles before the event may go a long way towards helping my speed too!

The Strava ride details are HERE!

It may well look rather empty in the photos above but these were taken very early on in the session. Over 900 riders took to the track in the end!

The 6000 mile year...

Once again I’m sat, with a beer, looking back on another year of cycling. My own cycling that is, not the amazing year of pro-cycling we’ve had the pleasure of seeing in 2012! Well done Team Sky, Team GB, Sir Bradley Wiggins, and everyone else that helped make it such a great year!

So, back to my own year. Since I started recording the mileage I ride, back in 2008, I’ve tried to set myself a goal for each year. Between the middle of June and the end of the year in 2008 I managed to cover 1089 miles. In 2009, I logged a total of 3573 miles. The following year and the mileage was up to 4211 miles by the end of December. Last year, 2011, I upped my game a little and took the mileage to 5364 miles. 

For 2012 I wanted to try and push myself further still. I set the target at 6000 miles. As most of my cycling mileage is made up of commuting to and from work it meant I’d have to put in plenty of extra miles on top of the basic route to and from work - I live less than 2 miles from work as the crow flies and only around 2.5 miles by bike! Time to get peddling!

This is how the year went...

January
46 rides
376.66 miles covered

February
47 rides
452.63 miles covered

March
53 rides
701.92 miles covered

April
33 rides
313.39 miles covered

May
51 rides
620.66 miles covered

June
44 rides
471.16 miles covered

July
39 rides
427.09 miles covered
*Longest single ride of the year 101.37 miles*

August
53 rides
549.08 miles covered

September
46 rides
609.44 miles covered

October
40 rides
441.23 miles covered

November
47 rides
480.80 miles covered

December
46 rides
570.51 miles covered

All that little lot adds up to a total of 6014.57 miles - 14.57 miles over my target for the year!

Using GPS, I was able to plan where I'd reach 6000 miles.

The cafe at Alvaston Park - for a bacon sandwich & a latte!

As for 2013... I think it may be time to have a year without any set targets and just enjoy cycling for the sake of it! Maybe....

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

A second century ride...

Maybe it was an alignment of the planets, maybe it was the inspiration drawn from watching the opening ceremony of the London Olympics the night before, but yesterday I managed my second ever 100mile cycle ride. To be precise, 101.4miles! Who knows... it may even have been as a result of the huge amount of Chinese food (and a bottle of beer!) that I consumed whilst watching the Olympics! Whatever it was, after a summer that has been more or less washed out by the weather, it felt great to be able to do this ride.

 

I’ll not go into the full details of the route (too long and too boring to list every place name) but, briefly, it took me east from Derby into the country lanes and villages of South Nottinghamshire, skirted around Loughborough, as I crossed through Leicestershire, on the way back into South Derbyshire before heading out onto more familiar roads around Melbourne, Hartshorne, Repton, Hilton and Longford. From there, I turned back towards Derby for the final 20mile run in to home and a well earned recovery milkshake!

The Garmin GPS stats for the ride are...

Total distance - 101.4 miles.
Total time - 5hrs 37 mins.
Max speed - 32.8 mph.
Average speed - 18 mph.
Calories burnt - approx 3,500.
Average heart rate - 151 bpm.
Max heart rate - 180 bpm.

The Strava map and elevation profile for the ride are HERE.

Climb every mountain...

Okay, so it wasn’t really a mountain, but at the time it felt like one! Today, I took a ride out to Alport Heights, the first hill over 1,000 feet you come to when you head out of Derby. And, when you take the route I did, it’s damn hard work! Were the views from the top worth it? The jury is still out on that one!

So, back to the start. I set off at just before 7:30am and heading through the outskirts of Derby the weather was dry, but cloudy, with little or no wind to speak of. The traffic was more or less nonexistent - as you’d expect for a Sunday morning - and I soon found myself in open countryside to the north of Allestree and heading for Cowers Lane. From there I carried on to Idridgehay before turning off the Wirksworth road and taking to single track lanes that headed up to Alport.

It was at this point that I started to think that it may have been a good idea to have checked the GPS data a little more closely for the route I’d plotted, the road in front of me was ramping up at a rather alarming rate! In the final mile to the car park at Alport I climbed over 450 feet, at an average gradient of 7.6%. At one point, my Garmin 800 registered the gradient at 22%! I don’t mind admitting it, I left my legs and my lungs on that climb today! When you add the rough surface of the road, the amount of grit, the grass/moss growing down the middle of the road and the water running down the hill it makes for a killer of a climb!

Garmin screen capture.

If anyone reading this fancies having a go at the route I chose to reach Alport, you need to travel towards Wirksworth on the B5023. Around 1.2 miles after passing through Idridgehay take the right turn into Barnsley Lane. Enjoy the short bit of downhill road before Storer Lane, Taylor’s Lane and then Malinscommon Lane remove first your legs and then, a short time later, your lungs. Enjoy!

On a more positive note, the view from the top was rather nice and having a number of Curlew displaying, and calling, overhead just added to the atmosphere.

The Cannondale Bad Boy takes a well earned break!

 The view from Alport Heights.

Radio masts at Alport Heights.

The Alport Stone.

From Alport it was a quick, and easy, run back down into Belper (top speed of 33.7mph) before following the A6 all the way back to the edge of Derby. A mix of cycle paths, parks and river paths got me around the city centre before picking up one of my routes from work back home. In all, I covered 40.48miles at an average speed of 16.3mph and climbed just over 1,830 feet in total. Not my quickest ride, but not all rides have such a killer hill on the route.

Stats from the Alport ride...

Total distance - 40.48 miles.

Total time - 2hrs 28mins 56secs.

Max speed - 33.7 mph.

Average speed - 16.3 mph.

Calories burnt - 1752.

Average heart rate - 156 bpm.

Max heart rate - 186 bpm.

We need the rain, right?

Another month goes by and I’m still trying, without success, to get in some regular long-distance bike rides. Every time I have the hours free that are needed to ride for more than 50 or 60 miles, it rains. Still, it’s good for the garden I guess!

May did at least turn out to be a little drier than April and, as a result, I managed to notch up a total of 620.66 miles. Almost all of that was made up of commuting mileage with just 114 miles being ridden whilst not on the way to or from work. The longest of the rides was a 57.73 mile trip over the border into Nottinghamshire, to test out the GPS routing on my new Garmin 800.

Taking a break for food and drink.

Stats from the Nottinghamshire ride...

Total distance - 57.73 miles.

Total time - 3hrs 57secs.

Max speed - 33.1 mph.

Average speed - 19.1 mph.

Calories burnt - 2058.

Average heart rate - 156 bpm.

Max heart rate - 179 bpm.

Garmin details.

Having only used the Garmin to log the distance of my rides up until this point I decided it was time to jump in at the deep end and see just how good the guidance feature of it really was. The evening before the ride I plotted a route that included as many roads and junctions that I’d never ridden before as possible to give me a route that would fit in with the free time I had. If it all went wrong I’d be left high and dry as I’d have no idea where I was! Need I have worried? Not a chance! The Edge 800 performed faultlessly. Over the next few weeks (weather permitting) I’ll post a Blog update devoted to my experiences of living with a Garmin. I’m still learning just what this clever little bit of kit is capable of but so far so good.

So, after five months of mixed weather, and a shortage of ride time, my mileage at the end of May had reached 2465.26 miles. I’m a little behind were I’d like to be but at least I’m over 270 miles ahead of this time last year. The 6,000 mile target for the year is still on!

This past weekend I had hoped to make the most of the quiet roads, whilst most people enjoyed the Jubilee celebrations, and attempt another 100 mile ride. The weather put paid to that idea and, in the end, the only chance I had to get out was for a very easy 17 mile loop around Derby and Alvaston this morning. Not a great start to June but at least I have all summer to look forward to! Maybe!

 

Beauty & the beast... nature fighting back against

industry on my ride this morning.

The plus side to all of this changeable weather is that the garden is doing rather well out of it. Pretty much all the summer bedding is doing well and many of the perennial plants are coming into flower too. All we need now is for the temperature to pick up a little and we may be able to sit outside and enjoy it all - after I’ve been out and ridden one of my bikes that is!

 

 

 

  

  

 

 

A mixed bag...

It's a typical Bank Holiday Monday once again - cold, grey damp and breezy - so I'm left with updating the Blog once again. Well, you can't spend all your time in the pub,can you? It'll be a mixed bag of "news" today but, with very little going on, it will all be over before you know it and we can get back to important things... such as beer.

Just over a month ago we were pleased to see one of our Camellias finally come into flower, and were equally disappointed that the other had failed yet again. Well, ye of little faith, at last we have red flowers too! I just hope we don't have to wait another two-and-a-half years for the next ones!

At last, red Camellia flowers!

As I expected, April turned out to be a big let down for me and my cycling. A combination of all the wet weather and a weeks holiday meant I covered a total of just 313 miles, my worst mileage since last December. My mileage for the year (up to the end of April) now stands at 1,844 miles. At the end of March I was 246 miles ahead of last years figures, I'm now just over 40 miles behind! May needs to dry up and warm up, I need to knuckle down and up the mileage!

For a number of months I've been toying with the idea of treating myself to a GPS bike computer, the Garmin Edge 800 being the one that really took my fancy. But, and it was a big but, the price kept on turning me away from parting with my cash. Until last week that is. A special offer price from one of the big on-line cycling stores, that saved me around £90, was too much to resist and I took the plunge! Just two days later I was the owner of the all singing, all dancing Garmin 800.

So far I've used the Garmin for a couple of short rides, one of 30 miles and one of 26 miles, and everything is working a treat. I now have more information from my rides than I know what to do with... distance; speed; average speed; heart rate; max. heart rate; altitude; ascent and descent percentages; temperature. The list goes on. Then there is the mapping, route planning, GPS tracking and more. By the end of the summer (if we have one) I should just about have everything worked out! Maybe!

The Garmin Edge 800.

Once I've got a few more miles logged with the Garmin, and also used the route guidance on some unfamilliar roads, I'll post a full review on here.

Stats from this weekends rides were...

Saturday.

Total distance - 30 miles.

Total time - 1hr 45 mins.

Max speed - 25.6 mph.

Average speed - 17.1 mph.

Calories burnt - 1197.

Average heart rate - 155 bpm.

Max heart rate - 181 bpm.

Sunday.

Total distance - 26.36 miles.

Total time - 1hr 27mins.

Max speed - 27.8 mph.

Average speed - 18.1 mph.

Calories burnt - 1167.

Average heart rate - 168 bpm.

Max heart rate - 182 bpm.