A DNF (Did Not Finish) is a bitter pill to swallow; it’s one I’ve never tasted before. In the past I’ve always found a way to recover and fight back no matter how bad things have become. Despite putting on a very brave face the experience knocked my confidence and I was shattered. I’ve sat on this story for a few weeks because the ending has been unclear to me. Everyone told me I’d learn from it and I’d come back stronger but I wanted to see for myself if this was true or if people just say that to make you feel better. It’s taken a good few weeks to unravel and a few more big rides but on Sunday I took part in the Tour of Cambridgeshire and my Etape Du Dales DNF became very clear to me.
The girl said drive your car to a town called Ardrossan and leave your car there, go over on the ferry as a foot passenger with your bike. When you dock on the island turn left and just keep riding, you can’t get lost. You’ll be climbing hills all day, you’ll love it. I was half way around before I had time to worry I was on my own.
After last weeks long ride I couldn’t sleep, I felt like I’d drunk 5 cups of coffee and I stared at the ceiling all night. So I’ve spent the past week asking questions, reading and researching alternative ride food. Thank you everyone for getting in touch with suggestions and ideas. I’ve been eating gels and bars for years because I thought this was the only option for easy fuel on the move but I’ve now discovered there’s loads of alternatives.
On Saturday evening Savannah and I had great fun making Team Sky’s rice cakes. I found the recipe here on the Rapha website, I found the recipe easy to follow and really easy to make. I don’t have a rice cooker, I just used a saucepan with a lid and checked it throughout the cooking process and gave it an occasional stir. I opted for Team Sky’s favourite chocolate flavour mixed with cinnamon. I used a quarter of the recipe and this made 4, very thick cakes. Savannah helped me stir the mixture together and she was rewarded with the spoon to lick. She was very impressed, she thought her cakes were delicious.
I also bought some Soreen Malt Loaf and Fig Rolls. A few people had suggested them and because I’ve eaten both before I knew my stomach agreed with them. The Soreen Malt Loaf comes in really handy lunch box, individually wrapped portions so I thought these would be easy to eat on the move. Packing up my jersey in the morning was a bit challenging but after some forcing and squashing, it was all in. I did feel a bit overloaded at first and I was unsure how much I’d need for the ride. I took 4 rice cakes, 2 malt loaf slices and 8 fig rolls. I waited until 40 minutes in to the ride before I consumed any food, I’d eaten a big bowl of porridge before I’d left home.
I’d just ascended Hexton Hill and I was riding through an area called the valley. I managed to get the small foil parcel out of my jersey and unwrapped all whilst riding, it wasn’t as easy as getting a gel out but with a bit of practise it will get better. The rice cake tasted so good, it really made me smile. There’s a very faint taste of coconut from the coconut oil, it’s quite firm, it held together well so it’s really easy to eat. You can bite in to it but it breaks up easily in your mouth, there’s very little chewing required and the taste is subtle, it’s not sweet like all those bars. I’m completely sold. I motored along and soon came to a well known incline The Poggio, I powered up it and felt really strong but level, this felt good.
As the day went on my jersey emptied and my energy levels kept up at a really good level. I was riding with an old friend Nick, although he’s only just recently returned to his road bike after years of mountain biking he’s not really lost his pace, he’s been riding for years and I was managing to stay on his wheel and do my bit at the front. When I got home I felt completely different, it was a lovely feeling, I just felt a bit tired. I could’ve curled up on the sofa there and then and had a little snooze. This has changed the way I ride.
I made a big cycling purchase a few months ago, after my bike it was the most money I’ve spent on a single item related to cycling. I thought I was in the market for a new turbo trainer, something that would give me feedback, show me how I was progressing and get me motivated to stay on there longer, that was my goal. I already owned a turbo, it was a very basic one and to be honest it was just gathering dust, I love spinning classes but I found turbo training really boring.
I’m really time poor, work is busier than ever and Savannah has become a little person with a voice and with her own view on how we should spend our weekends together. I’ve entered some really big events this year so I’ve had to up my training, last year I was riding before work at 06:00 (after the clocks changed) but they were fairly gentle rides 10-20 miles with one bigger ride at the weekend. I knew that wouldn’t be enough this year but I couldn’t commit the time to real road miles in the week with work and a 2year old.
I went all out and purchased a Wahoo Kickr. I did all the homework, I read review after review and compared it to all the others on the market but I decided nothing else really compared to the Kickr. It was a huge outlay of money but it really has been money well spent. I’ve already clocked up some great mileage on there and simulated some big climbs but what attracted me to the Kickr was it’s open source, it allows software developers to create programs and training aids for it and I’ve used quite a few of them already.
It was easy to set up and it connects to my iphone, ipad and laptop. The Kickr does come with a 10 speed cassette so my Dad and his mechanical skills were required to change the cassette to a 9 speed but he did this with no problem. If you haven’t got the skills your local bike shop could always help with this too, there’s really clear instructions on You Tube.
I started off using the Sufferfest videos, I’d used them before on my old manual trainer. I have to be honest and say I got about 10 minutes in to it and I couldn’t turn the pedals, I gave up. The Kickr controls the resistance, it sets the gradient / resistance you should be riding and I really struggled. When I used these videos in the past I clearly didn’t have the resistance up high enough.
I logged on to Trainer Road, an app that connects you to a variety of training programs and through this I found the 3LC videos. I’m not usually drawn to ladies specific cycling products but on this day I downloaded their Ladies Road Race, I had no idea what to expect. The 3LC workout is a studio based fitness session, in this particular session there’s a group of ladies on turbo trainers and 2 coaches taking them through the stages of the ride offering guidance and motivation. It’s designed to make you, the person at home feel like part of the class and it works. I was immediately immersed in to the session and I enjoyed having the coaches there, giving me the instructions. You ride and train with cadence so ideally you need to have the ability to measure this as you’re riding. I really enjoy group exercise so this 3LC session was a great way to ride for an hour at home and never feel bored. The session had everything, we warmed up and we did some intervals, threshold, hills, sprints and cool down. I’ve never had any coaching or professional instruction on how to ride a bike, I just jumped on and worked it out so having this professional support and guidance through the session was quite a revelation. I’ve worked with PT’s in the gym and seen huge benefits from this, having professional cycling coaches guiding you through the stages on the ride was a similar experience, I gained so much from that hour on the bike.
I repeated this video over a period of 3 weeks, it was a really busy work time and I didn’t get to ride on the road at all. The next time I did get out on the road I was a little bit taken back by my own progress. I came to the first hill and kept my cadence up, like the coaches in the video trained me to and I got a PB on the hill (in January on my heavy, winter bike). It wasn’t just the fact that I got a PB but it was the way I rode that hill, I felt strong, I went in to it with different confidence and more power because I knew I’d been riding hills with a high cadence and at high speed in the video session so I knew I could do this on the open road, I just had to commit to it in the same way I’d been riding in the 3LC session. My ride that day, out on the open road felt like one of the best so far this year. That was completely unexpected with no road miles over a 3 week period.
I live a really busy life, I’m a single Mum and I commute to London every day for a job that isn’t 9-5. I’m often traveling abroad and I’m usually in the office late at night. I obviously understand the benefits of a structured training plan but I’ve always dismissed them in the past. My life isn’t structured and I didn’t think a plan would suit me but after seeing such quick development, such rapid improvement I’m keen to try and make this work. The 3LC endurance plan is 10 weeks, there’s 11 weeks until L’Etape Du Tour. I have some big events between now and then so I can’t stick to it completely but I could try and structure my weekday training within the 10-week plan. Could this be the difference, could this get me over the Alps this summer.
Savannah was caught putting my shoes on and climbing on to the turbo trainer
Savannah always likes to help, changing the cassette from 10 speed to 9
Savannah loves to spend the weekend running around Rushmere Country Park (and so do I)
Savannah always asks when will she be big enough for pedals. She got to try some out at the London Bike Show but she still pedals backwards, her cognitive skills haven’t quite developed yet
Trying out chopsticks for the first time on one of our weekend adventures
My alarm goes off at 05:30 for my morning, before work, spin. I put my turbo next to my bed so I had no excuses.
I love seeing Savannah riding her bike. she’s got no fear
I was out riding with my club a few days ago, it was a beautiful Sunday morning. The sun was up in the sky, the temperature was about 16’. We were rolling through some beautiful country lanes at an average speed of 18mph. It was classic Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire countryside and just perfect for cycling. I felt an amazing feeling that day, it’s really good to ride with a club. I was riding roads close to home that I hadn’t ridden before and they took me to a lovely stop off for tea and cake Church Farm Ardeley
My club, Ampthill Velo Club meets up every Sunday at 08:00 in our town square, when the clocks change this moves back to 08:30 to allow for the darker mornings. AVC is unaffiliated, it’s a Sunday social ride. The group is all male except me and we ride 60 miles at an average speed of 17/18mph sometimes a bit faster depending on who’s on the front. Our group has some really strong riders and I credit my ability, my strength, power and endurance to riding with this group.
Sadly I haven’t been able to make as many Sunday rides this year as last. My work took me abroad a lot in the early winter months so I lost fitness and I wasn’t fast enough to ride with them through spring. However I have been able to keep involved with the club via a club challenge, the AVC Grand Tour (GT). The GT uses a well known app that’s free to download but also has a premium service Strava. If you haven’t discovered it yet I would encourage you to give it a try. If you have a competitive streak (like me) be warned you may find it addictive.
One of the club members conceived the GT, Martin and it’s all credit to him that we go out whatever the weather and ride as hard as we can to compete against each other for points. Being the only girl I compete against the boys, there’s no ladies competition, there wouldn’t be much point. The AVC GT is a competition of stages and bonuses. Each stage is a segment on Strava, a segment is a section of road that’s been mapped out by Martin that we must learn and ride. As we pass through the segment GPS tracks us, records our time, and puts us in to a leader board based on who’s ridden the segment the fastest. When we upload our ride (either using a Garmin or via the phone app) it lets Martin know we’ve riden the segment and the time we rode it in. On paper it’s a simple yet genius idea, it’s using modern technology in an brilliant way. It allows a very small, social club like AVC to have a timed, competition, riders can go out and ride the stages at their own convenience. Not knowing who is going to go out and ride next just adds to the dynamic of it all. Segments are live for approximately 2 – 3 weeks, sometimes more, sometimes less and they range from short sprints to long, lung busters of up to 9 miles with a bit of everything thrown in hills, fast flats etc. AVC has it’s own club on Strava so Martin can sort the leader by AVC so if another cyclist passes through the segment they can be excluded from the competition. However as with all Strava segments there’s always the hope that you’ll grab the King of the Mountain (KOM) or Queen of the Mountain (QOM) which is the No1 position overall on the leaderboard for that segment.
Martin has spent hours going out riding and creating segments, discovering, reccing, and building the competition for us all to have something to focus on when we ride solo. The GT takes us to local places we might not normally venture out to and some of the segments are quite complicated, riders have been known to go out and recce routes in their car or on their bike beforehand to learn the route. It’s become fairly serious.
As well as the weekly stages Martin releases opportunities to win bonus points. It was my quest for some bonus points that was a real moment in my cycling year. It was late on Saturday night and I realised that no one had done the Stelvio challenge. The Stelvio was part of the Monster hill climbing bonus challenge. The idea for this challenge was born out of Everesting. This challenge aimed to honour the highest mountain passes in the 3 Grand Tours. The first Grand Tour of the season was the Giro d’Italia so we had to equal the height gain of the Passo dello Stelvio 1808m/5931ft. We had to confirm in advance, with Martin what hill we planned to tackle, where we’d do our reps and agree the number of reps then it was up to us to go for it. I sent Martin an email hoping he’d get it in time. I was completely set in my mind I was going to do a stealth manoeuvre the next morning and go for the Stelvio. I picked Hexton, it was a hill I’d climbed many times before. It was steep enough maxing out at 8% and almost a mile long. The elevation gain required 25 reps from me but I had to keep a check on my Garmin elevation too as I didn’t want to do all that work and get disqualified for falling short of elevation gain. Luckily Martin replied, we agreed 25 reps of Hexton, he wished me luck and I tried to get some sleep with a head filled of nerves about what I’d taken on.
I set off the next day on my bike from home, it’s a few miles ride there and I figured I could do with the warm up. The weather was almost perfect, it was warm and the sun looked like it would make an appearance with a light wind. I let my family know my plans for the day and they said they would come later and cheer me on. After I’d completed 8 reps I got in to a good rhythm and knew I could do this, it was merely a matter of keeping my head straight as my legs were feeling strong but my brain was becoming completely twisted with each rep. I lost count on several occasions and had to start a tally chart with pen and paper. The repetition was surprisingly confusing, I started to think about what it would be like to attempt an everest, the number of reps would be over 100. Hexton is a busy hill with cyclists on mosts days, we don’t have many big hills in Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire so anyone that likes hills will ride here as it’s one of our longer ones. It was a real boost meeting and talking to other cyclists and letting them know what I was doing. They all thought I was completely mad but they all gave me so much support and encouragement. They would ride a rep with me and really cheer me on then say their farewells at the top as I would turn around for another descent. I preferred the climbs as the challenge went on, the descents became quite unsettling, my brain was so fragile from the repetitions and hammering down the hill.
My family arrived as I was about half way through. My daughter was all big smiles and was only speaking a few words at this time but she was able to say “come on Mummy” and it spurred me on so much. I started taking a couple of minutes break between reps at this point, fuelling up regularly and taking on board a lot of fluids. The temperature was well in to the mid 20’s by now and my mind was completely scrambled but I was totally focused on completing the task. My family stayed for around an hour and after they left I felt quite low but I had 6 or 7 reps to go so I had to keep my motivation up and keep going. The passing cyclists were few and far between now as the day was almost over but every so often one would come along and I’d share my story and it would lift my spirits so high and get me to the top of that hill and keep me going for at least another rep.
What spurred me on to keep going that day was knowing that I would surprise the other club riders, the only person that knew I was doing the challenge was Martin. I’d tried to send him a couple of updates but Hexton is quite remote so the lack of signal stopped the texts and emails getting through. The rest of the club had no idea what I was doing. As I rode that last rep the excitement lifted my body up that hill like it was the first rep, I’d done it. I’d pushed myself up and down that hill 25 times. Every time I ride up Hexton now it surprises me that I rode up and down there 25 times but on that day I was in the zone, I was completely focused and I was fixed on completing that challenge.
The GT has pushed my cycling efforts on a number of occasions this summer. For 5 bonus points I pinned on a number and took part in my first TT. For 6 bonus points I rode across 5 counties Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex and Buckinghamshire totalling an epic 106 miles and on the last day of the GT I completed the yummy 4 cake challenge on a wet and wild day. Riding 66.9 miles and stopping at 4 nominated cafes for a slice of cake in each for another 5 points.
The route profile from Strava
Setting off on the ascent of Hexton
One of many descents
Counting reps
My rep tally chart
Off for another rep
Almost there
Monster Hill Climb rules
The introduction to the GT road book, written by Martin
The GT stages, conceptualised by Martin and designed to get us out riding whatever the weather
Some of the segments, all using Strava. It’s free for riders to use and gives our small club the opportunity to run this competition
Essex! The GT 5 counties challenge
Lunch stop on the GT 5 Counties challenge
Buckinghamshire….the end of our GT 5 Counties challenge
Cake 1 at Emily’s in Whitwell on the GT 4 cake challenge
Cake stop 2 – The Hub in Redborne
Cake stop 3 – Dunstable Downs visitors centre
The 4th and final cake and a pint to toast the end of the GT
Only Girl In The Club 