Cyclo-Cross comeback

When I won a place in Ride London 100 earlier this year I was lucky enough to have a chance to take part in a filming session that involved Helen Wyman.

During 1 of the car journeys between filming locations the conversation in the car was around what we had written in our submission to the competition.

My submission included details of when I used to race cyclo-cross as a schoolboy. Sitting in a car chatting with a multiple British Champion and the European Champion made me think about all the enjoyment I had from riding cross.

I have scoured ebay and my dads garage to get together enough bits to build a cross bike so that I could start again.

This all came together last weekend when I rode the cross organised by my old club Didcot Phoenix. On the Saturday I checked out the bike, snapping the chain and having to fix that, better than it happening during the race!

Sunday arrived and I set off for Didcot arriving at the course nice and early which meant that I could help Mum sort out numbers ready for the signing on process.

Then I was running back and forward between the HQ and finish line for the junior races so that I could take the judges cards back for Dad to sort out results. Not much had changed since the last time I raced!

Then after the Youth race I thought it best to ride a lap of the course to see what was in store for me. It was a long lap with some quite tricky sections so I was glad to have some time to check it out.

Then we were called to the line in sections; Juniors at the front followed by the women and then the Vets. The vets were split into 2 further sections 40-49 and 50+. I was at the back of the first section and noticed that one of the guys in the front row of the section behind had some rather fetching stripes across his jersey!

It wasn't going to be long before I was overtaken when the National Champion was starting only about 30 seconds behind me.

At the end of the first lap I thought my lungs were going to burst and my legs fall off, this was much harder than I remember. Mind you last time I raced I was a junior and this race was a Vet, I totally skipped the senior ranks!

I was the last person to only be lapped once so hence the last lap was a bit lonely and I was the last person to cross the finish line, but not before taking a tumble on one of the tight corners! 

Fortunately there was very little damage to me or the bike, unlike one of the juniors who came off breaking his collar bone, best wishes Issac hope you recover soon.

So my race was done and I had made my comeback. I thought I was quite fit having completed several marathons and an Iron distance triathlon but this was a whole different level! 

Thanks must go to the following:

Helen Wyman for inspiring me to ride cross again

Dad for helping me build and set the bike up

My brother Dave as although he doesn't know I nicked some bits off his old bike to build mine!

Mum for coming out on the course to cheer me on, just like the old days!

All of the organisers and marshals from Didcot Phoenix for putting on a great race.

I will ride some more races, I need to really get fit!

Safety!!

When I started my last post I said that I had not been up to much and writing about my ride to work wasn't very exciting.

I have felt the need to follow my last post up quickly by writing this one. Most of my posts have been about my fitness exploits from running marathons to riding long distance events to competing in triathlons. All of this fades into insignificance when matched against my ride to work when I really think about it.

My ride to work takes me across London along roads that have seen a number of my fellow cyclists not make it to their destination, there has been a large amount written about London's roads and safety of cyclists recently.  Unfortunately this is due to the number of cyclists who have lost their lives on the roads.

Boris Johnson has been criticised for making comments that have been portrayed as blaming the victims for how they have been riding, other writers have seemed to suggest that it is ok for cyclists to jump red lights. It seems to have descended into a lets blame the other party for the problem.

My views are that it is ok to suggest that cyclists should obey the rules of the road and ride responsibly, this is not any affront of any of the cyclists that have lost their lives.  I do not have any knowledge of the exact circumstances of their accidents to be able to make any comment either way on how they or the drivers were  acting.  I also think that it should be noted that there are motorists that should have their attitudes and behaviours questioned, advance stop lines are there to protect cyclists but many motorists believe that they should be allowed to stop within that box too. Indeed I have sat at one such line and had a metropolitan police van casually come to a halt at the advanced line, so there are a lot of people who need their attitude to our roads adjusting.

Until everyone accepts that there is no such thing as a perfectly behaved Cyclist, Driver or Pedestrian nothing is going to change. Some are obviously better than others and whilst I like to think that I am fairly well behaved when riding my bike I am sure that there are people who would point to some of my actions as not meeting their expectations. I know that I sometimes see some cyclists and drivers and think that they are not very considerate of the laws or each other, but only by working together, rather than blaming each other are things going to get better.

I have seen it written that cyclists jump red lights because they think it is safer, well in my experience there are plenty of cyclists who jump red lights through impatience and a thought that they will get to their destination that much quicker by not having the inconvenience of waiting at a red light. There are of course far more who do stop and wait for the lights as the law requires. To balance this out there are also plenty of drivers who also jump red lights for the same reason as the cyclists but again plenty who wait for the light to turn green.

I have also seen it written that cyclists who jump red lights are only putting themselves in danger, well no actually they are putting themselves in harms way but they are not the only people who they are endangering by their actions. Pedestrians who quite reasonably could expect the road to be clear for them to cross may find themselves being run into by the cyclist who has jumped the red light. I have also sat at a red light to see another cyclist ride straight through. Other cyclists, who like me were sat patiently, commented that they felt sorry for any driver that may hit them.

I have always found it quite strange when arguments occur between cyclists and drivers and the driver comes out with that immortal line "I pay my car tax unlike you" or words to that effect. Leaving aside the discussion about what constitutes car tax, it assumes that no cyclist drives a car. My trip to work consists of 2 sections, first I drive my car for about 45 mins then park up take my bike out of the back and cycle for about an hour, so actually I do pay my "car tax" like any other motorist. Of course I know that there are cyclists who don't drive just as there are drivers who don't cycle and I am not suggesting either has more or less rights to use the roads.

I read in the paper and on twitter this week that Police were stopping cyclists who were not wearing helmets or high vis gear to give them advice and also stopping drivers of HGV's to check on their situation.

Now until recently I could have been one of the cyclists stopped for not wearing a helmet and given advice, I say until recently as I now wear a helmet on my ride to work as I feel that my reasoning for not wearing one was flawed, I always used to say a helmet is not going to help much if I get crushed by a lorry, although this is still true obviously there are other kinds of accidents that can occur where a helmet is going to help save me from injury.

Despite having given a couple of paragraphs to the subject of helmets I do disagree with them being discussed as part of cycle safety, this may be controversial and an idea that people do not agree with but let me explain. I never used to wear a helmet when riding a bike other than when I had to because of rules of racing stating that I had to, this was despite the amount of advertising / education around the subject. I always felt uncomfortable wearing one, I really dislike wearing head gear of any sort. My point is that wearing a helmet is a personal choice and one that has been discussed and promoted widely, if people choose not to wear one that is up to them.

Discussing helmets can be seen as a distraction from the wider debate about cycle safety, if someone says the number 1 aspect of cycle safety is getting all cyclists to wear helmets this can detract from discussions around segregating cycle ways and making improvements to road junctions. If helmets is the number 1 aspect then everything else by default is a lower priority?

Recently I saw a video on youtube promoting cycle safety, the video showed the view from the drivers seat of a lorry looking in the mirror showing nothing beside it. The camera was then taken out of the cab and around the front to show a queue of cyclists between the lorry and the pavement.  The idea behind the video I'm sure is to show cyclists that they should not ride up the inside of a lorry but my initial thought on seeing the video is why do we allow such vehicles on the road if they have such a massive blind spot. On many occasions I have found myself between a lorry and kerb due to the lorry pulling up beside me rather than me riding up alongside the lorry. I believe that the big message to take from this video is simply that cyclists and lorries with such a blind spot will always be a danger to each other when sharing the roads. Yes a danger to each other, the danger to the cyclist is obvious, flesh and bone is going to come off far worse in a coming together as has so tragically been apparent this month, but in the nature of this post I am not looking to blame one or other party.

Something needs to be done to solve this, that could be segregated cycle ways or banning lorries with such blind spots from the roads at peak times, there must be a way to make the roads safer for all.

I am sure that there will be plenty of people who ride bikes and who drive that will have an argument against some if not all of my points. I welcome the opportunity to discuss them with anyone who disagrees, I am not adverse to changing my opinion if I can be persuaded properly but please be open to listening to my view as well as criticising it. We can not change opinions if we are not able to discuss and understand all views!

Please all road users consider each other and look at ways that we can all be safe on the roads whatever our method of transport.

Duathlon

So I have not had much to post about recently, only riding to work and that has not been very exciting.

So a little while ago when I saw a tweet from @dashing_divasuk asking for a cyclist to take part in Dinton Duathlon whilst she did the running it seemed like a plan.

Dinton Pastures is not far from me and I ride a bike a bit, so I duly answered the tweet to offer my services. Then the details came through, what time did I have to get up on a Sunday morning?!!

An email arrived from Sian to check that I was ok stil for the event and a text and a tweet, she had just checked the timings too!

Anyway I duly dragged myself out of bed at 5.30 put on my kit and drove off to Dinton Pastures, a lovely site and well worth a visit even if not competing at silly o' clock in the morning.

Sian arrived and we registered, collected our numbers and timing chip, the baton for the relay. I collected my bike from the car, numbered it up and racked it in transition, we were ready to go.

There was a mandatory race briefing, including the reason behind the early start, which was short and to the point followed by a quick explanation of how the transition for teams would work, I have never done a triathlon or duathlon as part of a team so this was all a bit alien to me.

At 8.40 Sian set off on her first 5k run and I went to get myself ready in transition to await her return. Her arrival was announced by the commentator picking up her number and giving a shout out to team Dashing Diva & Dude! fairly soon we were transferring the baton  and I was off on the bike.

I had guessed that it would take me about 40 mins for the ride but I had a bit of a stormer and surprised Sian by turning up back in transition about 6 mins before she was expecting me.

When Sian returned from her 2nd 5k run we had finished as the 4th placed mixed team, both quite chuffed!

The event was great, organisation was excellent and a good course, well worth getting up early for. Big thanks and congratulations to Ellie and the team for organising and marshalling a very successful event. Maybe next year I should return to complete the whole thing as an individual!

After leaving Dinton Pastures I headed over to Mum and Dads to say hi, blag some lunch and raid Dad's garage for bike bits to complete my cross bike. With the bits I had already and some spares from the garage along with nicking some bits of my brothers old cross bike I now have a complete bike! Just need to enter a race now!

Marathon Entry Process

Well with my enforced rest continuing I have no fitness details to write about so I thought I would put my thoughts about marathon entry processes down in type! Yes I have had a "Sorry" magazine from London Marathon along with so many other people.

There have been many comments on social networks about the process for the entry to the London Marathon including various questions about the fairness of the ballot. I think many people think that the ballot is a totally random pull names out of a hat type ballot but I do not believe this. I think that ages and times entered on the entry play a part. I don't know if I have read that this is fact or that it was something that has been suggested, either way it is a possibility.

The only way that people would believe that the ballot is truly fair is for the organisers to be totally open about the process. The drawback to this is that if there are factors around age and estimated times people would try to give themselves a better chance by fiddling these factors on their entry.

So it is a bit of a dilemma for the organisers if they give out too much information then they risk people trying to rig the process and if they keep it too secret they are accused of a lack of fairness.

I can't complain about the entry process personally, I have been lucky enough to get a place in the ballot twice and also ran the marathon twice more on a charity place.  The first ballot place I was successful with was just after they had scrapped the 5 rejections and your in rule, this is a rule that is widely being complained about not being in existence anymore. I guess the problem is that there were too many people who qualified for a place under this rule so it became impossible to honour and I can understand it being
removed.

The other rule that has changed this year that has come in for criticism is the Good For Age time changes, something that was never going to affect me.  My thoughts on this are that the times needed to be revised due to too many people achieving the standard, people are getting quicker! the issue I have is how the change was implemented mid year, surely the change should have been effective the following year when people had not trained and planned for the previous standard?

I do understand that there is huge frustration out there due to some people getting a place multiple times through the ballot whilst others enter the ballot every year for years and always get a rejection, something is clearly wrong with the entry system but I can not come up with an alternative that would suit all!
 
One thing that I do not understand is the delay between entry in April and finding out if you have been successful in October, this has not changed since the old paper system that I completed back in 2000 for my first attempt. Now the entry is fully computerised and it still takes the same length of time and we still have to wait for a magazine to drop through the letter box, surely this could be changed to be more efficient?

Other marathons have a first come first served entry process which people are suggesting for London, the issue I can see with this is that there are only so many places for the public, I am not sure the exact figure is ever published, but it has got to be less than 30,000! The ballot allows 100,000 people to enter and that sells out in a matter of hours, I remember the first year that Virgin sponsored the event the website could not cope with the numbers entering the ballot so how feasible a first come first served entry system would be I don't know. I'm sure some people would claim that is not fair either.

As many people have pointed out there are plenty of other marathons around the UK to enter, personally I have run the Brighton marathon every year since it started in 2010 and I have entered for next year too, how long I can keep running it every year I don't know, I guess it depends how long it is that it remains a first come first served entry marathon!!  I have run 9 marathons all together and along with the 4 in London and 4 in Brighton the only other one is at the end of The Outlaw Triathlon, I really must widen my marathon tastes!

So in summary, the London marathon entry system is not perfect but I don't have a solution for it but there are many other marathons out there that people can run if they want.

Now hopefully tomorrow I can get back on my bike and start training again ready for Brighton in April and Ironman UK in July!!

Rest & Recovery

Well I have nothing fitness wise to report since my last post!

I have taken a few days to recover post Henley and then ended up having another ambulance trip on Friday, apparently I had vertigo which completely knocked me sideways.  I think it may have been a smaller attack that took me out of Henley.

I awoke on Friday morning, yes Friday 13th, with a storming headache and no control over my arms or legs.  Getting upright to go to the bathroom brought on nausea and a definite wish to be horizontal rather than vertical!

So I ended up laying flat out on the floor of my bedroom whilst Amanda called for an ambulance, fortunately my eldest was up as he was due to be going to work.  He managed to contact them and they covered his shift so that he could stay and help.

The paramedics arrived and I still had an overwhelming desire to be horizontal despite their best intentions to get me sitting up! I felt sorry for them as they struggled to get all 6ft 2 and 14st 10 of me in a chair down my stairs into the waiting ambulance!  I must loose some weight!

Anyway after a short while we were off to the local A&E with me sweating profusely and unable to open my eyes due to the fact that when I did I was so dis-orientated that I felt that they had put me in a stretcher and raised it up to the roof of the ambulance!

After what felt like an age, but was really quite quick, I was pushed into a cubicle in the A&E department of the Princess Royal Hospital. A few tests later it must have been like a scene from Casualty as I was rushed through to the resus room and the doors slammed shut in Amanda's face.  I could hear lots of people crowding around and being asked constantly if I had pains in my chest, I didn't.

Eventually a Dr managed to convince me to open my eyes and ask me to follow his finger, immediately he was relieved to pronounce that it was vertigo and that the waiting anesthetist would not be required but that I would need to go for the CT scan anyway.

Obviously Amanda had given them some history about my fitness endeavors as they noted that my oxygen levels were showing as 86, the Dr made a comment that I should be in high 90's if I only had 1 lung working so the machine must be wrong! I could hear alarms going whenever I had that little clip thing on my finger, I would later find out that this was due to my pulse going below 50 which triggered the alarm! 1 nurse later that evening would resort to taking my pulse manually due to not believing the machine!

So I have had a pretty good checkup nothing wrong with my Head, Heart or Lungs just a dodgy inner ear!

Anyway this means that I need to take longer off before starting my training for Iron Man UK in Bolton in July which means that Andy King will probably beat me in that race now, I would have beaten him if I had managed to start my training straight after Henley, Honest!!

Challenge Henley

I think this is going to be the hardest write up I have ever done.

Ever since I started challenging myself to get fit I have always said no matter what I will finish the event. Well last weekend I didn't manage to finish Challenge Henley!

Things didn't start too well when on Friday trying to get my car ready to take my youngest son to his Nanny's where he was staying for the weekend, I tripped going out the front door and fell flat on my face jarring my shoulder.  By Saturday it didn't feel too bad and I thought I had got away with it.

So Saturday arrived and we travelled to Henley to register for the event,  rack the bikes and sort our different coloured bags out with the relevant kit.

All sorted, dinner eaten and checked into the hotel it was time to get some sleep!

Sunday arrived all too early! Porridge for breakfast and a cup of tea drunk it was time to head off to the start to meet up with Dave.

As we arrived at the start the Thames was covered in mist all looked very strange. A last minute check of red bag kit and the bikes complete it was time to don the wetsuits and await the start.

Due to the mist the start was delayed by 10 mins but then it was time to jump into the Thames and we were off.

The curse of The Outlaw returned and my breathing was all to pot again in the swim, I started following Dave but soon lost touch. It seemed like an age before the turn buoy arrived, at one point I thought I was getting close as I saw another swimmer going the other way but then realised they had a yellow hat on so was one of the pros! My shoulder started to hurt about 2 thirds of the way out to the turn giving twangs of pain every few strokes.

As soon as I rounded the buoy I was swamped by swimmers in green hats, the age groupers that had started 10 mins behind us!

With the mist over the water I could not see that much so had no idea how long it was to get back to the finish, eventually though I could hear the PA system so knew I was close. Arriving at the finish I was dragged onto the pontoon and on into transition.

A not so quick change and I was off on my bike. Amanda and Jennie cheered us on our way apparently I was only just behind Dave, according to the time sheets after I was only 45 seconds behind Dave at the end of the swim. He did take some more time out of me in the transition so I was just over a minute behind him starting the bike section.

I felt so much better starting the bike than I had at The Outlaw and was soon into my riding. After about 5 miles I had caught up with Dave and had a brief word as I went past, things were looking good.

Then the wheels started to come off, about 10 miles in and my shoulder flared up and was painful enough that I couldn't rest my weight on it as I rode. This pain lasted for a short while before easing off so I thought I would be ok.

Then about 20 miles the pain came back with a vengeance just as I saw Dave coming the other way, he asked if I was ok as I was riding with my arm down by my side, my response was "No"

I carried on resting my hand on my Tri-bars pad hoping the pain would relent like it had 10 miles earlier. As I reached the top of the road there was a right turn at which point I felt very dizzy. It was obvious that I would not be able to carry on and at the next junction I had to stop and lay down. 

The Marshall at the turn reported in that I was in need of medical assistance. Unfortunately the first car that arrived was on his way to a collision between 3 other riders. He stopped to give me a quick check over and ensure an ambulance was on its way to collect me.

The ambulance arrived and I was soon being checked over and transported back to the medical tent at the finish where I was checked again.

I have to say I could not have been looked after better the marshals and medical team were fantastic.

I kept a check on how Dave was doing on the website, it was great to see that he finished in a PB. I felt bad that I hadn't been able to stay to support him to the finish but I was under orders to rest as I looked a strange beige colour!

So now my attention turns to Ironman UK at Bolton next year, I am determined to sort out the problem I have with open water swimming!!

Cyclist Safety

Hi I have not posted anything recently mainly as my training has been a bit boring, I did fit in a swim last night to test out my new goggls for Challenge Henley at the weekend, hence my trip to work this morning was by train!

Travelling in by train gave me time to read an open letter to Laura Trott by Justin Shevlin.

Now I didn't see the article that he refers to so am not really qualified to comment on most of it. I do however have some issues with his response.

Laura is quoted as saying

“Cyclists wonder why they get a bad name. I see cyclists jumping in and out of the buses and people wonder why they get hit…..Cyclists need to help themselves and should not jump red lights. I would ride in London but I certainly wouldn’t ride like that, you just have to be careful. I can understand going down the outside of traffic but you should obey the rules of the road because we’re all road users”

Justin has an issue with this, thinking that it gives car drivers an excuse to think badly of all cyclists. Personally I agree with Laura on this quote, cyclists should obey the rules of the road and not jump red lights etc. Justin goes on to explain that he rode many miles around London including going through red lights. At this point he lost some credibility in my eyes. He goes on to ask is it just weaving if you are on a bike but overtaking if you are in a car, well no, you can overtake busses on a bike but I would suggest it becomes weaving when you go from overtaking one side to undertaking the other and back again without due care for other road users around you.

A quote from Justin is

"I know this wasn’t your intention, but today, as a direct result of what you said, cyclists on their morning commute would have felt more vulnerable and more at risk than they did on Friday morning."

We'll actually no I will not feel any more vulnerable on my cycle home tonight as a result of knowing of Laura's comments but I will as a result of Justin's and I will explain why.

Reading Laura's comments I find myself agreeing with the comments she makes, cyclists do need to help themselves, be aware of other road users around them and obey the rules of the road especially red lights.

Yes I agree with Justin that there is a minority of cyclists that do behave badly on the road but they will affect a drivers perception of all cyclists.  I like to think that I am not one of them, I obey red lights and am careful about how my riding affects other road users.

Justin's comments on the other hand seem to be aimed at excusing cyclists bad behaviour and suggest that as a cyclist there is no need for him to obey the rules. This attitude I feel will play into the hands of the frustrated drivers that he mentions. Now this may be me taking his comments the wrong way and not what he intended.

One comment of Justin's that I do agree with is with regards to the lack of comments about irresponsible drivers. In order to make London's roads safer ALL road users need to play nicely together and take some responsibility for each others safety.

This I believe can only happen if we all obey the rules of the road and don't have certain factions trying to make excuses or reasons for their own side to break the rules. I have heard comments along the lines of

"It is safer for me as a cyclist to jump a red light than wait with all the other traffic"

Now while they may believe this to be true the fact remains that cyclists jumping red lights is illegal, puts the cyclist in a position on the road that other road users don't expect them to be and gives drivers a reason to moan about all cyclists. 

However if, for example, there are junctions where it would be safer for cyclists to turn left on a red light, and I'm sure there probably are, then this needs proper planning including education of all road users to avoid the problems I mention above.

I read an article on the way home last night about lorries being fitted with safety equipment. Whilst I applaud any improvement to cyclist safety I did worry about the stats quoted. They suggested that the devices they were talking about would have saved 5 of 14 cyclist lives lost on the streets. Now I fully agree that these safety improvements are a great idea and if they even save 1 live they will be worth it but I feel it shows that there is still a lot more that needs doing to improve safety on our roads.

There will always be people of all modes of transport that complain about each other but I believe that the irresponsible road users of all manner are in a minority, I have met many polite car drivers on my rides.

I'm sure that just as Justin disagrees with Laura and I disagree with some of Justin's comments people will disagree with my point of view but hey wouldn't life be boring if we all had the same view!  One point of view that I hope we can all agree on though is that there is plenty that can and should be done to improve cyclist safety on our roads.

Throughout Laura's, Justin's and my own comments we have all views on what can be done to aid safety. There are many people and agencies who can assist with improving the saftey of cyclists on our roads and as I highlight above with regards to the lorries there is much to be done. There are also others who can throw obsticles in our way but ultimately there is only 1 person responsible for my saftey, given the current rules and limitations, as I ride to and from my London office!