Even though we followed the posted route, I only clocked 1450m of climbing, something that skewed my pacing somewhat, no idea where the other 600m went, seems fairly normal here though, would be nice to thnk that the 5000m of climbing for the Etape might be a mistake too!

My pacing was affected so much that with 2km to go I still had enough in the tank to sprint for the line (my first ever attempt at such foolishness), except there wasn’t one, I arrived at the village with a full head of steam to find that the end just petered out into a collection of the other quicker folks that had arrived before me. This aside the ride as usual was superbly organised, the French just know how to put on an event like this with well over 1000 riders taking part.

I was quite shocked to find on just about the only flat section, around half way into the ride that I’d picked up a pace line of 30 odd riders. Just shows that I’m still too big that they found shelter behind me, would have made a nice picture, rather than the usual desperate gasping for air pictures that I normally get. 

For those that aren’t familiar with the Baronnies, they are a range of lesser hills that sit in front of the high mountains, namely the Tourmalet and Aspin. Don’t be fooled though, their relatively low Cols belie the fact that the valleys start around 400m, unlike the foot of the Aspin for instance which starts at 700m. This means lots of good climbs in short sucession, no slacking in the Baronnies.

The scenery in the Baronnies is quite stunning, with lovely climbs giving the occasional glimpse of the higher mountains as a backdrop. Spend a few hours climbing there and you will exceed the climb of the Aspin, with almost no traffic, and so far I’ve been shielded from any wind. Now, if they could have sorted out the rain yesterday, it would have been bliss, the organisers said that this was the first time it had rained on their event after 9 events completed, just my luck!

I completed the ride in 3 hours 29 minutes, a bit ahead of where I thought I would be due to the reduced climbing, will be sure to enter the next one in two years time, it's a classic event.

After the ride was over and all had returned safely, there was a nice tombola prize give away with some goodies from Arbes supplied, not bad for 10 euro....

It’s been almost 3 weeks since arriving in France, and what a packed 3 weeks it has been! 

After the initial shock of arriving to a frozen house and snow on the ground, we have started to settle into the different routine that living in France offers. Spring is in the air and the snow has been replaced with warm sun. We have already viewed 15 properties, trying to find the perfect home and guest accommodation, watch this space...

The following weekend I rode out with my new French cycling club (VCL - Velo Club Lannemezan), nice bunch of guys, who unlike some clubs in the UK, actually look out for each other and ride as a group, slowing down if a slower rider (me) needs to slot back on. I wanted to join a French club, it would have been easier to ride out with some of the local English speakers, but as I really want to be able speak French I thought I’d be better off. I suspect it’s going to be an uphill struggle learning French, I’m guessing riding the Etape might be easier for me…

Overall the weather has been quite spectacular, temperatures hit 20c the other day, and I managed to get sun burnt climbing the Col d’Aspin, yes, my first Col of the year completed in a tad over 1 hour. Not a staggering time, but most of the locals don’t go near the Cols until May (the Aspin was closed by snow until a few days ago), so I feel I’m a bit ahead, that’s certainly a change for me, but I can’t help feel that with the Etape booked for July I need to get cracking with the training, and what better way to improve climbing than getting out and doing it?!

For many years now we have had the desire to move abroad to somewhere in Europe, well actually either Italy or France. Like most, having taken holidays in those countries we held out a feeling of how nice it would be to live there full time. With work abroad nigh on impossible to get, the option left is to run a business of your own. Like many, the appeal of running a B&B or Gites was strong, but we always felt like something was missing, the business needed a theme. Whilst on an Italian cycling holiday, the seed of an idea was planted, perhaps run a B&B that focused on cyclists... 

It was a couple of years later, when a series of stressful work events took their toll that we decided, we had to make a change. Last year we took a break in the French Pyrenees, looked at some properties, took in some of the cycling on offer and reasoned that this would be a great place to run a B&B that catered for cyclists. With the lure of the Cols, we set about putting a plan into action, the first of which was selling our house. We knew that we were pushing or luck, selling in a tired slow market at a poor time of year. But despite this, we managed to get a good price, even the exchange rate moved a little in our favour. 

So here we are, now camped in a small cottage close to the Col du Aspin and the Col du Peyresourde, with a view to the Pic du Midi (above the Tourmalet) on the way back from the bakery! We arrived to be greeted by freezing temperatures, a heavy snow fall and a house that was quite literally frozen solid, even the loo was solid ice and no running water cold or hot. We set about defrosting the cottage, melting snow in a metal bucket on the only heating source, a large wood burning stove, gradually getting the loo to flush, a small step in the right direction that gave a surprisingly big relief! The following day the water pipes had thawed sufficiently to give us hot and cold running water, the cottage immediately felt more homely.

We are now scouring the area, looking for just the right property, a place that will have fantastic cycling available almost all year round, catering for all abilities, just as soon as we are ready, we will let you know what we have found.

Here, even the local cyclists welcome you with open arms :-) 

I never expected much from this year, due to a 5 week layoff over December trying knee injections for my dodgy knee; I didn’t start any training until the 8th of January. Best part of 12 weeks of turbo training later; I finally felt fit enough to get out on the road (http://www.ciclobyron.com/hosey-hill-chain-gang-rides-again), confident that my form was coming on nicely. I really should slap myself sometimes, no matter how hard I try on the turbo, the first few rides back on the road are always a huge struggle, and this year was no different! The hills went on forever, and I started to doubt that I’d ever be good enough at this lark to warrant showing my face and my lovely Pinarello in public!

It seemed a very short time before the first TT of the year (http://www.ciclobyron.com/1st-time-trial-of-the-year) was upon us, the aptly named “April Fools TT”. I’d only done aerobic work on the TT (or so I thought, see below) up to that point, nothing TT specific, it was going to end up in only one way.  It was a rapid realisation that my hopes of challenging for the 2011 TT championship were totally unrealistic, last years winner had clearly been training all winter and was a clear 2 minutes clear of my time. I gave myself a few TT’s to get better, but to no avail; I started to think that time trials just weren’t for me and threw in the towel. I had a holiday in the Pyrenees planned and need to get some hill work in my legs, and didn’t think that I could devote enough time to both.

I started doing a hilly loop to try and get my legs into better shape (http://www.ciclobyron.com/hill-training)  taking the common sense advise, that to get better at hills, simply ride more hills! With the help of Strava I started to see improvements in my hill climbing speeds and times, at last something was paying off!

One of my favourite things about bike riding is taking in new different places. Last year I was able to ride in Italy (http://www.ciclobyron.com/spring-training-gabicce-mare-italy) for the first time, and also part of one of the TdF stages, albeit in Belgium. This year a visit to my sister in the States (http://www.ciclobyron.com/usa-a-great-riding-experience) gave me a chance to ride there too. Even though it was only early May, the temperatures were in the 30’s (c), something we never managed all summer long. Whilst the hills weren’t exactly challenging, I managed a few rides and didn’t suffer that loss of form that I usually get on holiday. It was also the first time that I’d seen snakes as roadkill, and vultures feeding in the middle of the road, man those are big birds close up!

In June I had a weekend break in Cornwall and joined the Penzance Wheelers (http://www.ciclobyron.com/penzance-wheelers-proper-job) for their Sunday ride, my first group ride in Cornwall despite coming from Penzance originally. They made me feel completely at home, truly a great bunch of guys, they welcome tourists to join their rides, give it a go if you visit the area, the hills are a bit of a challenge though, be warned.

With the year flying past, it was soon time to take off to the Pyrenee’s, I’d been riding as hard as I could in preparation, but still felt that I was under powered (http://www.ciclobyron.com/col-daubisque-col-du-soulor-one-fat-bloke). Just to make life more interesting I managed to catch a cold on the drive down, my thoughts of getting extra miles in my legs before the “big” climbs somewhat dashed. I still completed a hilly loop with 3 x cat3 climbs a couple of times, despite struggling to breathe in the welcome warm weather. When I managed the Col d’Aubisque the following week, it was probably the proudest point in my life having never scaled a mountain climb before, I’d now managed a “HC”.

No sooner had I gotten back from the Pyrenee’s, I had the chance to ride on a Velodrome (http://www.ciclobyron.com/velodrome-riding-experience) for the first time. I’d never been particularly interested in riding on a track, but the chance came along, and I have to say that I was really pleased I went along, I thoroughly enjoyed the day.

In September I competed in the Kent Sportive, my first foray into an 80 mile event. The wind that day was torturous, and it wasn’t particularly warm. It was a very well organised event, although I think it is fair to say that some of the other riders were quite an unpleasant lot, lots of wheel sucking and then disappearing into the distance when they could have offered some assistance themselves. I was a bit saddened to miss their gold time by 12 minutes, but I couldn’t have really given any more.

Another “first” this year was my clubs inaugural hill climb competition (http://www.ciclobyron.com/gs-avanti-inaugural-hill-climb-competition). I’d completed a few time trials so I knew the drill, just not over such a short distance with a nasty hill to contend with. Suffice to say that although I enjoyed the day, I wasn’t about to do the tour of all the other hill climbs in our area.

The last thing of interest this year was my VO2 max test with Garry Palmer (http://www.ciclobyron.com/dr-garry-palmer-vo2-max-sportstest). I’d highly recommend anyone who is interested in the best from their training to check out Garry’s testing facilities, they certainly opened my eyes.

I've really enjoyed this year, have been lucky enough to do several different things, sure there have been set backs, but the riding has been some of the best I've ever had. So what of the future? Well.... I have some exciting plans in the pipeline, just waiting for all the planets to be aligned so that I can reveal  them to you all, suffice to say that I hope that you will all be involved!

 

I confess, I’m a bit of a gadget freak (I've been called much worse). I like to use tools to establish if I’m training as hard as possible. With this in mind I’ve been curious about doing a “proper” physiological analysis for quite some time, I’ve wanted to know if my training is being as effective as I’d hoped. My only real gauge otherwise is my performance against others, often derived from Strava. Whilst I could plainly see that I’ve made very good progress this year, against others I’m still woefully behind, I felt that “something” wasn’t quite right. I also found that I had pretty much reached a plateau since August.

I had planned to take a couple of weeks off for recovery purposes in October, as I’ve been finding training had become quite a strain, my knees were complaining, and in any case, it appears to be good advise before starting winter training. My intention was to get stuck into some hard interval training, with some aerobic base training, almost as a “must do”, rather than something I thought was totally necessary, I thought that my aerobic capacity was good, how wrong I was.

Last week I visited Dr Garry Palmer for a complete physiological assessment, one of our club members had seen Garry last year and spoke very highly of the results he gleaned from his visit.

To begin, Garry takes notes with regards to what you have been doing sports wise in the past, and what your intentions are for the future. I’ve got a plan for next year in my head, so discussed this and the various activities that I’ve achieved this year. We also discussed the volume of training, and potential for the future.

Next up is a body composition analysis, accurately measuring body fat using a skin fold technique and accurate weight measurement.

With my bike already setup on the trainer, I jump on and start a warm up. I watched Garry during this period; he appeared to be calibrating the equipment, ensuring that all baselines for the analysis were correct.

Once I was warmed up, Garry talked me through the various stages of the testing process. I was then introduced to the face mask apparatus that measures the CO2 levels being inhaled, and the exhaust gases being exhaled, the ratio between the two being very important. I have to say that it was rather a claustrophobic device, but you do kind of get used to it. I was also fitted with a heart rate monitor which I put alongside my Garmin strap as I was curious to compare results later.

Next up is the test to failure, or as is otherwise known, a ramp test. A gradual increase in power until you are unable to go no further. This establishes your maximum heart rate, and gives a peak wattage reading, whilst all the time monitoring your VO2. The end part of this process I found particularly unpleasant, after all, whilst riding normally you always avoid riding to failure (or blowing up).  

Once this test is complete, it is time to look at all the results to ascertain your strengths and weaknesses.  The good news is I have plenty of scope for improvement! I would have been pretty disappointed if I was told that I had reached my potential of course. The result of the body fat analysis showed that although I had a relatively low body fat for most of my body, my stomach more than made up for it, giving me a worrying figure of 20.2% fat overall. Despite losing over 10kg since I’ve been riding, I’ve only managed to reduce the size of my stomach a bit, not lose it. I’ve been scratching my head wondering why, with well over 5,000 calories a week burnt in exercise why I’d struggled with my weight as I don’t eat excessively. 

These results were very shocking as I thought that I’d been doing a lot of aerobic exercise, it would appear that the ramp test I did last September wasn't accurate, my max heart rate is 183bpm, not the 187bpm I tested last year (thanks Garmin).

This means that the training zones I've been using were incorrect, when I thought I was training aerobically I was actually training at threshold (the tipping point between aerobic/anaerobic), when training at threshold I was actually totally anaerobic. This would also account for why I’ve struggled with my weight as I’ve hardly been doing any aerobic exercise that would burn fat.

We discussed the way forward, and in a nutshell, lots of aerobic (base) training to underpin and build the fitness levels I already have. Together we put a plan in place for the next 6-9 months which should address my glaring deficiencies. Also there is a weight loss plan, which I’m hoping will come fairly easy once I start training again in the correct zones, although it is fair to say that I could cut out some chocolate out, my weakness!

I have to say that I was really pleased to take this test, it will hopefully give me sufficient information to make further gains in my riding, something that I don’t think would have happened otherwise. If I make good gains I would like to go back and take a re-test next year, see what differences there are.

Whilst not for everyone, if you want to take the guess work out of your training regime, I would highly recommend taking the test.

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