The search for the perfect turbo trainer tune!

Normally I have a set playlist that I listen to when I'm on the turbo. It's an hour long, comprises a mixture of genres, ranging from electronic dance music, to hip-hop, to heavy metal. This morning however, while I was warming up for the first 5 minutes on the turbo, I decided I'd change my playlist.

While I was choosing which tunes would be the most motivational to get me going, I found what I think is the perfect turbo tune. Now the majority of you reading this probably won't be that familiar with the work of Norwegian electronic jazz trumpet legend Nils Petter Molvaer, but please, bear with me!

Nils is somewhat of a pioneer in his genre, that of mixing improvised jazz trumpet, with electronic effects, metal guitars, loops, samples etc. One of his early albums, Hamada, includes a mental tune called 'cruel attitude'. This, is the perfect turbo tune.

After 3 or 4 minutes into the 8 and a half minute tune, the tempo and intensity starts to increase, and by the half way mark the band are in full flow, which nicely translates into a tune that well and truly puts the hammer down and kicks you up a gear on the bike. I used it after about 20 minutes into a 40 minute turbo session this morning, and it was just about timed perfectly. 

I found that the first few minutes were used to get me even more in the zone that I already was, and I gradually got faster and moved up into bigger and bigger gears the more the tune went on. By the time it finished I was flat out at a cadence of about 120, totally in the zone, with my legs screaming out in pain and with sweat dripping off me like a pig on a spit roast! Awesome feeling, awesome tune, give it a go. Tell me I'm wrong?!

......this is what the tune made me look like when it finished....!!

Can't ride, still training!

Another week till I'm back on the bike, you don't want to know why! Suffice to say it's doing my head in and I am beyond itchy to ride. My new gore ride wear is hung nicely in the wardrobe, bike is freshly clean, cycling shoes at the ready, the only thing I need now is time. Roll on next week!

In my downtime therefore I am doing what I can, which pretty much just involves core work. Lots of planks, kettle bell squats, leg raises and so on. If I can't feel the burn on my legs from riding up 19%, I'm sure as hell going to feel the burn in my abs from some core work.

It's all a means to an end, all training for Le tour Alzheimer's on 20 July, so all good. Even if I am frustrated as hell seeing all the cyclists I follow on twitter going out for rides, and the sun outside and lighter mornings beckoning me to join them on the road.

See you soon!

Wearing a bike helmet and having lights is obviously not cool!

My wife and I took the kids to buy some rabbits yesterday. Nice for you to know and yes they are very cute, but totally irrelevant to cycling, right? Well, on our way home from the pet shop, while we were driving down a dark country lane on the outskirts of rural Harrogate, we luckily managed to spot a teenager on a bmx, in the dark, riding on the road a few hundred metres in front of us, with no helmet, no lights, and no high viz anything! And to make matters worse, when we got close to him he decided it would be a good idea to ride on the wrong side of the road to let us pass!! 

We drove past him, slowly and with our jaws on the floor at how stupid this lad was, and how much of a death wish he must have, and I couldn't help but think that whoever taught him to cycle obviously didn't do a good job teaching him how to be safe on the roads, and what to do when a car approaches!! I guess being visible and staying alive just isn't cool enough these days?!

If you are reading this, whoever you are from last night, just remember that having a cool bmx (and it was a cool bmx by the way) and being able to do a 180 on a vert ramp is all well and good, but it won't do you much good if you get run over because some car driver doesn't see you, in your black outfit with no high viz, lights or helmet at 8pm on a dark evening on a country lane with no street lights!! Muppet!!

Stay safe kids!!!  ;-)

Training changes, what a difference a year makes!

12 months ago my average training ride was about 20km, with the odd 25-40km ride on a weekend which just about wiped me out! And all of the rides tended to be on nice days when there no wind or rain!!! Since I finished London to Brussels last year I got my head into a space where longer distances in all weathers, I.e. 100km+ in my terms, became more of a possibility on a regular basis. 

This year I have signed up to do another endurance ride for Alzheimer's, namely the first stage of the tdf from Leeds to Harrogate. Before you get excited, i have not turned pro, the ride is a few weeks after the main event and unfortunately not on closed roads, but at least they are familiar roads and in my home county of Yorkshire :) The ride we are doing is 120miles, 193km, over the actual route including all 3 of the main climbs, so I have consciously increased my training to get ready. Not only was I training all winter in all weathers, with the exception of a couple of Weeks in December over Xmas, I have been on the road throughout 2012, and this year I've been on the road every week from 1st jan onwards. What a bitch of a ride that day was!!

Now though my training has ramped up a notch. I am off the bike right now for a couple of weeks recovering from an operation, but in jan and feb I was regularly doing a couple of very hard hours on the turbo during the week on the dark evenings when most other folk were in the house keeping warm and getting fat (!!!!) followed by anywhere from 70km to 100km on a weekend, again with very few other cyclists out on the road to nod at. I fully intend to carry on this level of training when I get back on the bike in a couple of weeks time, and my mantra now is 'get fit not fat', and I am finding that I live my cycling life according to this as well as the infamous rule #5 and rule #9 (velominati.com in case you don't know what I'm on about!!)

I'm working up to making my staple training ride 100km each time, longer by the summer, and building in as many hills as I can muster. Otley chevin and ilkley moor especially, but as we get closer to July I'll be going over to buttertubs and the other stage 1 climbs. There is a nice 156 km ride from my house to kettlewell and back that I have my eyes on for a nice summer day, bring it on :) 

I guess the reason for writing all of this is reflection, and also to show that with a lot of focus and training it is possible to make huge leaps in the space of a year. I don't confess to be the fastest climber, ask my mate the 'bike geek' and he will tell you that I can get up a 20% climb with the best of them, but I may not be at the front of the bunch. But for someone who was knackered after a 7km ride 18 months ago, to be honest I ain't fussed. I have my own style that works for me, seated mostly but with some out of the saddle for short sprinting climbs. I do want to work on getting faster up hills, but it's not my priority. Increasing the distances, getting a faster overall average speed, and being ready for July is where my head is at right now. And so far, so good!

Mental strength

The more I cycle longer and longer distances, the more I come to realise how important mental strength is, to me at least, especially on really tough rides or when the weather is not good. I am also finding more and more that it is key to a lot of things off the bike. 

In work for example, I am recently self employed so the success of my job depends on me alone. The same mental strength techniques I use on the bike to keep me going, or get me back in the saddle when I am thinking about quitting, are the same ones I use in the business world.

There are countless books on the subject so I am not about to pretend I am an expert in the subject. I have some techniques I keep in reserve for use when needed, on and off the bike, and they work for me. And I have tested them on and off the bike in a number of difficult situations so I can vouch for how beneficial mental strength techniques can be. 

Different things work for different people, but the key to all of them is being mentally strong in order to get through tricky situations that really test you and show you what you're made of. If you can endure the pain, accept it as a normal part of life and not your enemy (also core to Buddhism), then you're half way there. Finding the ways to get you there is the hard part, but if you work it out for yourself and get through the other side, whether that is in a business sense or on a bike ride that is pushing you to your limits, then the rewards and feeling of satisfaction are 100% worth the effort. And I do think you become a strong person in the process too.

That's all on this post, I'm boring myself now!!! If you want to read about this topic more, you can do a lot worse than reading the navy seals training guide for mental toughness. Those guys wrote the book on mental toughness, literally!

The relationship between Buddhism and Endurance Cycling

If you are a spiritual person then at some point in our life you may have come across Buddhism. I am not religious in the slightest, but I do have an affinity and appreciation for Buddhist teachings and interestingly, I think embracing Buddhism has helped me as a newbie endurance cyclist these last few months, given the truth of suffering is the first of the 4 noble truths and core to Buddhism. I.e. embrace suffering as part of life, don't try and fight it.

You don't get through an endurance event like London to Brussels, or anything else of an equal, lesser or great scale, without coming across a reasonable amount of suffering and pain along the way. Any professional cyclist will tell you they need to embrace pain and suffering on the bike in order to get through the miles and have the best chance of winning their race. The same is true of amateur cyclists trying to get through a long training ride, or climb up a steep hill, or even cycling 379km from blackheath in London to the centre of Brussels.

Read my previous blog entries about my 3 days in the saddle across Kent, Calais, Brugge, Ghent and Brussels and you will come across numerous constant references to various levels of pain or hardship I had to endure in order to make it to the finish line. The thing I love about the bike the most is the fact it's all on the individual, nobody else can turn my pedals for me, I can draft in someone else's slipstream to make it easier for me, and I can take energy drinks etc to give me a turbo boost, but ultimately it's all on me. If I am to get through the miles I need to find pain and suffering, accept they are part of the journey, find my own (often private or internal) ways to accept or shut them out, and then break through the other side.

And when, eventually, you do break through the other side (of suffering), there are few greater feelings in life. The realisation that you have conquered and overcome personal fatigue, pain, suffering, mental torture on your own, that you have embraced suffering as part of the bike ride you're doing, is for a lot of people the meaning of life on the bike. Or one of them at least....!

The irony of Buddhism teaching us to not have attachment, compared to endurance road cycling being all about (for some) the pursuit of numbers, watts, calories, targets etc, rather than just riding to be, has not escaped me. I leave that argument to other more qualified Buddhists though, I'm not about to punch that far over my weight!!!

Back to the point; getting through long distance cycling events is all about suffering and pain, Buddhism can help you find ways to embrace them as part of normal every day life, which eventually makes it easier to get through them on the bike. It's a constant journey and the pain and suffering on the bike never stops, but in an endurance event you need all the help you can get, and whilst this isn't the only trick I use to get past pain and suffering, it is one that helps, which is fine by me!!

The face of pain and suffering as I endured through the 2012 wiggle Yorkshire weaver sportive!! 

London to Brussels cycle challenge 2013. Day 3 Saturday 7th September.

Day 3, Brugge to Brussels, flat with a hill at the end, 63 miles, or maybe 68 miles, nobody seemed quite sure, and we meet 8 miles before Brussels to ride in procession into the city!

As it was the final day they gave us a lie in, well, until 7am anyway! I'd slept well with my filthy bike right next to the bed as there was no bike storage here for some reason. 

Breakfast, get packed, kit on, inflate tyres, meet up with my new riding partners Nick, Claire and Martin, and we were also joined by a young lad called Tom who's birthday it was that day, and Mike, an older guy who they all knew and seemed a nice chap.

After 50 yards of cobbles we were onto the tarmac again and so off we went. Through the outskirts of Brugge, onto the cycle paths and on to Brussels. We were all feeling elated this day, presumably because the end was in sight. The first water stop was at 20 miles again, so off we went through beautiful village after beautiful village.

The orange arrows had always guided us up to that point, although they ran out when we reached a town who's name escapes me! After cycling round the roundabout to try and spot the correct route we pulled over to dig out the map and work out where to go. 

We were joined after a few minutes by another 8 or 10 of our group who were also lost. Deciding that straight on and then right was the best way to go, we all clipped in and cracked on to get to the water stop. That next section of riding was superb. Our group reassembled and we hit the 30kmph mark where we remained for the next 10 miles or so, until we saw the water stop by the side of a canal. 

Top up water bottles, toilet stop, quick chat to the others and we were back on the road. Next target was lunch in another 23 miles or so (I forget the exact mileage).

I don't know what had happened to me at that water stop, but somewhere between pulling over and demounting the bike, having the water stop and setting off again, I had gone from being in full energy mode whizzing along at a comfortable 30kmph, to being completely devoid of any energy whatsoever and struggling to keep up with the others.

I will write another post about the nutrition side of the ride as it deserves its own section, but for now let me just say that I was puzzled and also starting to get pissed off with losing energy right before dinner every day, when I knew I was drinking loads and eating all the flapjack and gel sachets I normally did so I should have had more than enough calories on board.

Anyway, the others ploughed on to lunch and I fell back behind Mike, who very kindly drafted me the last 5 miles or so to lunch. I'd made it, eventually, only another 20 miles to go to the meeting point 8 miles out of the city.

Now starts the story of how I got nicknamed Popeye by Mike!!

At the lunch stop, after the usual carb loading, bottle top ups etc, I chatted to nick about my energy levels. He reckoned I was just using up more than I was taking on and should have some of his energy drink (High 5) and take plenty of gel sachets (up to 3 per hour) for the rest of the ride. Finishing this was NOT an option! They had all very kindly agreed to pull me through to the finish line, so that was that. No argument, back on the bike, one final push and let's finish this thing!

The energy took a few miles to come back to me, but when it did, Jesus Christ did it come back to me! Claire and nick had sped on ahead so I was riding with mike and Martin, and an Irish guy who I'd met at the start line who's name escapes me!

Their pace was ok, but only around the 22kmph mark, and I wanted to go faster for the final section. With 15 miles to the meeting point I hit the turbo boost button, up'd my speed to 30kmph and time trialled the last section. I gave up counting how many people I passed up how many hills that weren't supposed to be there! And after a few miles of my own personal quest, I finally caught up with Claire and nick, and Martin who was also ahead of me by now.

To say they were surprised to see me was an understatement! And even more so when I rode past them all to do my share of riding on the front. It was the least I could do after all the help they had given me.

The speed on my computer read 32kmph, approx 20 mph and stayed there. I was as strong as I had ever been and repeating the names of the people I was doing this ride for over and over in my head (see post on day 2 for details) was all the motivation I needed. I don't mind admitting I also asked my departed grandad to give me some energy to get me through the last few miles. I like to think he was listening because the energy levels remained there and after getting split from the group at some traffic lights where I didn't clip in fast enough, I arrived at the meeting point with 8 miles to go,to the applauds of my fellow riders. And that was why Mike nicknamed me Popeye! Because my gel and energy drinks had the same affect as Popeyes spinach!!!!

We hung around in the nearest pub for a while to wait for everyone else to turn up. Then when we were all there we set off to do the final 8 miles and ride into Brussels as a single procession, flanked at the front and rear by 2 of the support vans.

Those last 8 miles were quite slow in comparison to the last session I had done, and I parked myself at the back of the group to keep out of trouble. In a group so large (80+) it is very easy to stop too soon or not watch where you are going, and before you know it you've fallen off. I was buggered if that was going to happen to me now, so I cruised along in safety at the back. It was quite nice being clapped and cheered long the way and eventually we made it into the city centre. 

For some reason we rode around for an hour looking for more hills to cycle up (or that's what it felt like)  and then, finally, we rounded the last corner and arrived at the hotel, our finish line.

Emotions were running high by that point as the first people I saw were my parents and my wife. Much kisses, hugs and photos later and it was all over. Everyone was congratulating each other in the hotel lobby and drinking some well earned fizz!

Unlike the previous nights I didn't spend the night sharing a room with alexei, I was in another hotel with my wife and parents. We walked (slowly) the 1km to our hotel and that was that. An amazing meal out for the 4 of us, a bottle of wine downed like it was fruit juice and to bed.

I'd just ridden 240 miles (some say we did 245 miles) over 3 days and raised over £1300 for Alzheimer's. It is the hardest and best thing I have ever done individually, and really showed me just how much mento strength I have when I go looking for it. And I'm not too bad up the hills, and quite fast on the flats.....when I eat enough energy gels!!!;-)

There is more for me to tell out this ride it for now this will do.

Until next time.

Phil