Do you carry ID when out training?

A serious post for a change. For many years I have used products from Road ID (see here: http://www.roadid.com/Common/default.aspx ). Somehow I have managed to lose my last one so recently ordered a new one, the Wrist ID Elite in a nice shade of blue. The service, as always was excellent, and took just a few days to arrive from the USA.

Why do I wear one? The following is taken directly from the Road ID website:

The inspiration for Road ID was born in the fall of 1999. For my father, the inspiration was his concern for me as I trained for my first marathon. For me, the inspiration was a black, King Kong size pick-up truck that I nearly came face to face with on a long Saturday run. Earlier that fall, I began training for my first marathon. My father worried about me logging all those miles and would often tell me to “be safe.” One day, he suggested that I carry an ID so that he could be notified if I had an accident while training. Of course, I dismissed that suggestion. I thought: “What could possibly happen to me while running?” So, there I was, in a ditch, on the side of the road, having nearly been hit by the aforementioned pick-up truck. From that ditch, my father’s suggestion to carry ID started to make a tremendous amount of sense. Luckily I was OK. But, what if the truck had hit me? I would have been rushed to the local hospital as “John Doe.” Without proper ID, family members and friends could NOT be contacted. Likewise, my Medical records could NOT be accessed at the hospital. How long would I lay there unidentified? This freaked me out. A few months later, from my father’s damp basement, he and I launched Road ID. To us, Road ID has always been far more than a business. We are on a mission to save lives.Since 1999, we have received countless thank you letters and emails from customers that have used their Road ID in accident situations. Many of these customers say they might not be alive today if it weren’t for their Road ID. You can view some of these stories on our testimonial page.We thank you for visiting our site. While here, take the time to read a few testimonials. If you do, I trust that you will make Road ID your new training partner and enjoy the peace of mind that comes with wearing it. Remember, if you ever find yourself in a situation where you can’t speak for yourself, your Road ID will speak for you.

And there are many cases of people being injured or suffering sudden illness whilst out training, such as this well known one:

The unknown jogger lay in a Cardiff hospital mortuary for 36 hours. No one knew his name, his address or what had happened to him. There were no signs of violence yet the 39-year-old man had been found, lying in a gutter, at the side of a quiet residential road by a passing motorist. It seems he cracked his skull on the pavement as he fell, but the moments that led to his death remain a mystery. For international athlete Steve Cram to learn in a phone call that the victim was in fact his younger brother Kevin was devastating.

I'm aware that there are plenty of similar products to Road ID available but the important message is that whenever you are out training, always carry something that will identify you and/or enable your NOK/family to be informed.

Normal joviality will resume shortly. I hope.

Stay safe folks.

Winterising the Bike - in August!

Is 'Winterising' a word? Probably not but I know what I mean. My package from Wiggle arrived this morning (excellent service as usual) so this morning I set about fitting the bottle cages (easy peasy) and the Crud RoadRacer Mk 2 mudguards (somewhat harder, but certainly not difficult). The rear guard is indeed much longer than the original version (something I'm sure my ride buddies this winter will appreciate) and the extended guard around the front mech (see picture) is a very simple but no doubt effective piece of design.

The bike is ready to ride so I will take it out for an hour or 2 in the morning. After 4 quite intensive weeks of cycling this week has been all about unwinding and recovery, and there is very little in the training diary. The next 2 weeks will be fairly intensive leading up to my final long and hard ride (a 155km hilly sportive) and then it's a 3 week wind down to Challenge Barcelona.

Train smart folks.

More Rattler Pics

Early days, relatively clean:

The joys of Blissford Hill - all 25% of it.

Winter is Coming

What has happened to the Summer? The weather here (and I guess across most of the UK of late) is horrible: cold, wet and windy. And definitely not fun cycling weather. Which is probably why I visited the Wiggle website last night and ordered a set of the new Crud RoadRacer Mk 2 mudguards. I used the Mk 1s last winter but the redesign for this winter looks good, with extra material around the front part of the rear mudguard to provide additional spray protection for the front mech and your ankles. I believe the rear mudguard goes further round the wheel at the back as well to provide better protection for your ride buddies. I also ordered some now bottle cages so I don't have to keep swapping them from bike to bike, and being a bike tart I have ordered ones to colour co-ordinate with my Litespeed. I will provide pictures once the latest goodies have been delivered and fitted and the Litespeed is in winter spec.

This morning I dropped my 'retro' wheel off at the LBS to get the freehub sorted; hopefully that will be back early next week and I can maybe take the Litespeed out for a run the following weekend.

Take care folks.

Retro Wheels

Daz put me up to this! He mentioned when I posted some pics of my Planet X about getting some retro wheels and a few days later I unearthed these in my garage; they are Shimano WH-6500 wheels circa 2003. I used them for a couple of years when I first got into triathlon and they were really smooth and comfortable and I reckon they would be good for the winter trainer. After some faffing about getting the 10-speed cassette to fit I was somewhat peeved to discover the muppet that did the hub re-build a few years ago (and I haven't used them since) had lost a bearing and so there are only 8 on the drive side instead of the required 9. This would probably account for he freehub 'grabbing' when freewheeling so I will pack it off to the LBS for a service and hopefully it will come back smooth as silk.

Rattler Pictures

Me, looking dirty but happy!

My ride buddy, Hamish:

And some mucky legs!

Yesterday we had an interesting day out to Dorchester to visit the Terracotta Warrior Museum. Somewhat smaller than we had anticipated it was nevertheless interesting although I left with more questions than answers. There was lots of information about the Emperor and how he united China but very little about how the warriors were found and the excavation process.

More importantly, though, today is GCSE results day and we are waiting (im)patiently for news of our eldest son's results. Fingers crossed.
Edit: The results are in - 5 A*, 5 A and 1 B. He is very pleased (as are Mum & Dad). :-)

New Forest Rattler

Today it was back to the New Forest for the Rattler sportive; I did this event last year but had some mechanical issues that held me back, alhough I did still manage to finish. So this year the mission was to finish without any mechanical dramas and hopefully take a bunch of time off my 2009 standard (4 hours 20 mins).

I left the house under overcast skies and with a steady drizzle of rain. I picked up Hamish on the way and we arrived and registered in good time ready for the 0830 start. We were somewhat surprised to see the first riders set off at about 0815 and after unloading and assembling the bikes we wandered across to the start to see a fairly lengthy queue already waiting. We joined the end and set off at about 0915.

Our plan was to ride moderately hard all the way (not a very technical plan I grant you) with brief stops at the 2 feed stations to stock up on supplies if required. After a couple of miles we had left the rest of our start group behind and quickly caught up with the tail end of the previous group. The rain had resulted in the roads being quite slippery, and in a couple of places it was quite treacherous, with mud and gravel washed on to the road. We caught an ex-Army guy wearing a Help for Heroes shirt and after a chat he joined us until the first feed station where Hamish and I stopped and he carried on. We didn't stop long - top up the drinks bottles, 2 pieces of flapjack and a quick wee and we were off again. Once again it was just Hamish and I and we were exposed to the wind. We were, though, working well together and were maintaining an average speed above 20mph. Too well it would seem, as we picked up our own peloton who were happy to sit on our wheels but let us do all the work. We got a little fed up with this so attacked up a hill and left them behind. Shortly before the 2nd feed station we caught a group of 4 who were riding just a little slower than us. Rather than go through the whole 'peloton' thing again we decided to join their group and sat with them until the 2nd feed station. After repeating the routine off the 1st aid station we were on our way again, and quickly caught a large group that were travelling quite swiftly. We agreed to ride with these but we both noticed that, as the miles went by, the group was getting slower and slower. Decisive action was required. With 21kmto go, at the bottom of a hill, Hamish and I exchanged a 'look', had a quick exchange of words and then we accelerated; me at the front and Hamish on my wheel. We went passed the rest of the group and fully expected a few to grab our wheels. I had my head down and didn't look back until we reached the top. Not only had we left the group behind but they were actually out of sight! I was working hard at this point, and didn't realise how hard until I noticed that Hamish wasn't coming through to take a turn on the front, so we eased back a bit to recover. We were still going reasonably quickly though so I was surprised when a glance over my shoulder revealed a small group catching us, and at some pace. They came passed and we grabbed their wheel. Jeez these guys were travelling quickly. Just hanging onto their wheels my HR was bouncing around between 155 and 160!

We kept this up for a few kms and then we reached Blissford Hill. All 25% of it! Fortunately it's not very long and although we lost 30 metres or so to the rest of the group on the climb we soon caught back up and then all worked together for a very fast ride to the finish. Hamish and I were delighted to finish with a total time of a few seconds over 4 hours. My bike computer showed a ride time of 3 hours 54 minutes so I was well happy with that.

At the end we looked like we had participated in a cyclo-cross race; some very amusing sock marks! A great ride and another well organised event by the Rattler team. The hot soup, roll and tea at the end was very much appreciated. The New Forest is a lovely place to cycle through; today we had to avoid ponies, donkeys and cows, although there was no sign of the pigs we saw when we did the Spring Sportive in April!

I have a couple of days of downtime now; we're off to the Terracotta Warriors museum in Dorchester tomorrow; should be very interesting.

Rest well folks.