Challenge Barcelona - I'm on my way ...

The bike is packed, just got to put my race kit and some spare underwear in a bag and then I'm ready. The alarm is set for 0400 tomorrow; ye gods!

I'm not sure what race tracking is available but the relays are going last and have a scheduled start time of 0840. Our race number is 2344 and our team name is Tres Vinos Finos ('3 Fine Wines'), because we're getting better as we get older!

Hopefully I will have another PB to report on when I get back. All the best.

House Purchase

People have said that buying a house is one of the most stressful things you can do. Well at this moment in time I will disagree. We saw a house we really liked, we put an offer in, the offer has been accepted, and now the legal stuff is going on. To be honest, when we made the decision to buy a house we honestly thought it would take some time to find the right place and get things moving. Whether it's the fact that neither the seller nor ourselves are in a chain but things seem to be galloping along, and we are delighted by this progress. I suspect things will slow down a tad now but that's fine by us. I am confident the house will be ours by Christmas.

The plus side of buying a house is that we get to furnish it. Kitchen, living room, bedrooms blah, blah, blah. What I'm really interested in is the turbo dungeon. The house has a cellar and this will become Turbo Man's domain. I will store a bike there and will set up a turbo trainer complete with sound system, TV and DVD player. I'm seriously considering getting a virtual reality trainer as well; may as well do the job properly!

All that, of course, is in the future. More immediately I have Challenge Barcelona just 5 days away. I had my last hard session today, a really tough interval session that saw me get within 2 beats of my max HR on one occasion and above 95% of MHR on 5 of the 6 intervals! Tomorrow is an easier day and then I will be up at the crack of dawn on Thursday to head for Gatwick airport. I'm hoping that any fallout from the General Strike that is taking place in Spain on Wednesday will have sorted itself out by the time I fly around lunchtime.

All the best.

When do you become 'responsible'?

Mrs TM and I are just back from a thoroughly enjoyable weekend seeing the kids. We stayed in The Marriott Hotel by Manchester Airport (courtesy of Tesco vouchers!) and very nice it was too. I even ventured into the swimming pool and managed about 100m of front crawl in between playing around on the floats, boiling in the sauna and chilling out in the jacuzzi. It was great to see the kids; they are all looking well and the youngest 2 seem to have grown noticeably in the 3 weeks since they started back at school. Keeping up with teenagers, though, is very hard. Our second son didn't stay with us on Friday night because he had to be up early to go and play rugby in Hull on Saturday (they won 41-0). We picked him up as we dropped our eldest son off; he was off to a social evening with his friends on Saturday although we did all meet up again on Sunday morning.

Getting back to the title of this post, when do we become responsible? Is it when we leave home? Get a job? Get married? Have kids? Well I've done all of those things so I suppose I must be responsible, but is owning a house the ultimate expression of being responsible? We decided, almost on the spur of the moment, that now was the right time for us to get on the property ladder. We made a list of things we wanted in a property and started browsing the internet and drew up a shortlist of properties we wanted to view. To cut a long story short we have seen a property that fits almost all of our requirements. In fact it far exceeds what we were expecting to buy and it will stretch us financially in the short term. But it is a lovely place; the building itself is some 250 years old and so benefits from oak beams and 16 inch stone walls. It also has a cellar that Mrs TM has already agreed would become a proper turbo dungeon! However, I'm getting ahead of myself. We need to ensure the finances are in place and go through the legal motions to make it all happen. Fingers crossed!

What this house purchase business will mean is that any 2011 cycling plans I may have had have gone out of the window. The revised plan will include a bunch of sportives as and when I can get them in and hopefully The Outlaw triathlon as parto f a relay team. And that will be about it. New bling and overseas trips will be sacrificed on the property altar, but hopefully 2012 will be better in this respect. We will just have to wait and see.

Looking ahead in the shorter term, I fly out to Barcelona on Thursday for the Challenge Barcelona triathlon. If I'm honest with myself I could have really done with this race 2 weeks ago as I felt lean and sharp then. The last 2 weeks have seen my training programme become sporadic and nutritionally I have not been as disciplined as I perhaps should have been. I will, though, enjoy the event and hopefully the fitness I have gained throughout the year will not have deserted me in the last 2 weeks and I can record another 112 mile PB (as I have on each of the last 3 occasions I have tackled this distance). Whatever happens, it promises to be a very enjoyable weekend.

All the best

New Event Added - Dunsfold Sportive 17 Oct 10

It seems that Barca won't be my last event of the year, as I've entered the Dunsfold Sportive. Maybe it's because it starts and finishes at the Top Gear test track and the chance (no matter how slim) of meeting The Stig ...

Or maybe I am The Stig?

Challenge Henley is GO!!!

A long course (ie Ironman-distance) triathlon on 18 Sep 11 with a swim in the Thames follwed by a lumpy bike course and a scenic run around on the tow path. Sounds ideal for all your mad IM-dstance athletes! I would love to do this (as part of a relay team of course) but I have other commitments already planned for Sep 11. Never mind, maybe 2012.

For further info see here: http://www.challengehenley.com/

The leg is getting better. Fortunately it doesn't appear to be stopping me from cycling although walking and stairs are a challenge. Fingers remain crossed that I will be fully recovered by 3 Oct.

Why now?

This morning I was up reasonably early to take our dog, Bandit, for his morning walk before heading out for a planned 3-hour ride. I met a fellow dog walker who was out walking his 2 dogs, one a lovely 10-week old whippet. I've met these a few times and my dog, a lurcher, enjoys playing with the whippet, which is unusual as he normally ignores puppies. But he seems to really enjoy playing with this one, and this was my undoing! Whilst running along Bandit had to take avoiding action so he did not trample on the whippet, and in doing so crashed into me; his shoulder hitting my calf. The pain was immediate and intense. Although I managed to stay upright walking was extremely painful. I managed to get home and after laying down for a bit I had a soak in the bath; the bike ride long forgotten. I went for another walk this afternoon that eased the muscle a bit but once home it soon stiffened up again. I'm hoping that I will wake tomorrow and all will be well.

2 weeks to Barcelona; I really don't need this. :-(

Southern Sportive - Me and my ride buddies

The Shutt VR Team. Darren (Diesel) Hague at the front, having recovered sufficiently enough to smile after fixing a puncture some 32km from the finish line and then TTing all the way home. Me, the cyclist. For all my tri buddies yes, I am that skinny now - no more muffin top! To the right of the picture is the leg of Squadra Donne team member Sarah Maidment. Not quite sure why the photographer focussed on Darren and I whilst Sarah was around but hey ho! no accounting for taste!

Shutt VR ride report is here: http://www.shuttvr.com/blog/2010/09/southern-sportive-2010-with-team-shutt/

Southern Sportive (Petersfield)

Slept in. Late. Windy. Sunny. Met ride buddies old and new. Hills. Lost contact lens on fast descent. Found contact lens inside sunglasses at first feed station. More hills. Big, steep hills. Flapjack, the food of Gods. Over 70kmh down Goodwood Hill. Ride buddy punctures on fast descent. Sorry mate, can't stop! Manic last few kms. Finish line. 5 hours 34 minutes. Gold. Very happy.

So, my last big ride before Challenge Barcelona has been completed and I feel I'm in better shape than last year. 3 weeks of maintenance and taper now before the big day. I'm really looking forward to it.

A low ebb

After dropping the kids off at school yesterday I had a final day of leave today to recover from the journey. 10.5 hours from leaving home to getting back takes it out of me although the journeys themselves were pretty good, with no real hold ups.

Today, though, we are feeling somewhat empty and a bit emotional. Mrs TM and I are waiting for a phone call from our daughter to find out how her first day was, but I've no doubt she is being kept busy and has plenty of other things to occupy her. This is a good thing, but is not helping our emotional state.

Chin up, stiff uper lip etc etc

Ceramic Bearings ... mmmmmmmmm

Before I start, I hope those fellow bloggers racing at The Vitruvian this morning had great races; no doubt I shall hear about it all in due course.

My BBB Ceramic Rollerboy rear jockey wheels arrived yesterday and I fitted them to the Shimano 105 9-speed rear mech on my Planet X bike that afternoon. After experiencing some creaking from the bottom bracket area during my ride that morning I also took the opportunity to remove the chainset and external bearings, clean it all out and re-grease it before carefully reassembling it all. I really like the external bottom brackets, as they are so easy to work on. It took me just 17 minutes to remove the chainset and bearings, clean it all, regrease it and put it back together. And the results were well worth it. This morning I had an almost totally silent bike when pedalling, and only the Mavic freehub clicking away when freewheeling. Fantastic. It feels really smooth as well.

I've had a so-so week of training. This week's priority has been to get the kids ready to go back to school so I have trained whenever possible. I have managed to get some 220km on the bike and will try and squeeze in an hour on the turbo tomorrow (Sunday) morning so not too shabby. Later that day I have to do a return trip to Leeds to take the kids to school which means up to 10 hours in the car, depending on traffic. I don't know if it's an age thing but I find this really tiring. Our eldest is starting his A levels, our second son is starting his GCSEs and our daughter is starting boarding school for the first time so its a big change Chez Turbo Man. It's going to be strange with no kids in the house for the first time in almost 17 years.

Drive carefully folks.

A Hotch Potch of Stuff

Joviality returns. Not quite as good as the Batman version but hey ho!

A lot of things going through my head today so this may be a bit random.

Other cyclists. This morning I was out on my ride and, as is my want, I gave a cheery 'Good Morning' to all cyclists I pass; it doesn't matter what bike they ride - road, MTB, sit-up-and-beg - I greet them all equally. Many respond in kind but others just give me a stiff ignoring. Not even eye contact. What's up with these people? Look up and smile. You never know it just might make you feel better.

Jockey wheels. Yes, the humble jockey wheel. Usually overlooked but over the past couple of rides I've had a feeling that my drivetrain wasn't as slick as it should be (I even got off the bike at one point to check the rear brake wasn't rubbing). I decided it was a bottom bracket issue so took out the chainset and gave the bottom bracket a good clean and put it back together. Still not as it should be. The wheel freehub was next and after spinning the wheel a few times I concluded this, too, was fine. The chain was clean and had been properly oiled which just left the jockey wheels. I took them out and removed the 'bearing'; they were indeed filthy, although I would be very surprised if this was sufficient to create enough drag to be noticeable. I duly cleaned them and applied bearing grease to all surfaces (that I subsequently found out was a mistake, these should be lubed using a light oil) and put it back together. It was certainly an improvement but still nowehere near as smooth as my TT bike, that has a ceramic bottom bracket and jockey wheel bearings. Which got me thinking; are ceramic bearings worth the cost? The FSA jockey wheel bearings cost nearly £40 for an improvement that probably can't be measured (although rank highly in the bling stakes!). I wasn't prepared to pay that. But I did find BBB jockey wheel ceramic bearing sets for less than £20 and so, in the interests of bike science, I duly invested in these. They haven't arrived yet but I will let you know the results once they're fitted.

Training. Training is going well and I'm really enjoying getting out on the bike almost every day (the joy of being on leave). Add in the structured turbo sessions and the build up to Challenge Barcelona is on course. And I've exceeded 4500 cycling miles so far this year.

Speed. Increased speed is the result of a balanced and structured training programme. Last night I received an email advising that the results of the New Forest Rattler sportive were available. I duly checked and was very pleasantly surprised to find that out of 334 riders that started the 79 mile route Hamish and I had recorded the 5th fastest time. Very happy with that.

Carbon bikes. My Planet X has been getting plenty of use lately and whilst I enjoy the lightness of a carbon bike this particular frame is no more comfortable than my aluminium/carbon Litespeed. I suppose this is a bit disappointing but then it should not be a total surprise; the Litespeed (in it's day) was at the upper end of the aluminium frame scale whereas the Planet X is at the bottom end of the carbon frame scale. That's not to say it's a bad frame; for the money it is very good. It's just that I feel there are much better frames out there just waiting for me to try.

Expensive pants. And I mean pants as in the English usage not the American version. My lads are now teenagers and have started buying their own clothes, including underwear. I've never quite got my head around some of the prices charged by the so-called 'designer labels' for underwear but I may have to have a re-think. My eldest lad bought some Calvin Klein pants, but bought briefs rather than his preferred boxer style. I prefer briefs (hopefully not too much info for you there) and so he gave them to me. And I must say they are one of the most comfortable pair of pants I have ever worn.

Weight. I'm now comfortably under 11 stone (10 12.4 this morning, ideal for prancing around in Calvin Klein pants!) which I find remarkable considering the constant battle I used to have with my fluctuating weight. I'm really enjoying my food as well (although I daren't tell Cavegirl about some of the stuff I eat!).

Start of the new school year. Hell's teeth kitting the kids out ready for the start of the new school year is expensive. I could have bought a very good mid-range carbon fibre framed beauty for what it's cost to get the kids ready for school. Or have I got my priorities wrong?

Well I think that's enough ramblings for one day. Train smart folks.