So finally it was Fred weekend. Snail was all packed up. Sushi had been delivered. We’d panic bought a new teapot and we were off to the lakes.

Its been a funny one for me this year. Any other year and I’d have plenty of long fast rides behind me and more often that not be thinking about Ironman Lanzarote looming in a week or so and should I really be doing the Fred at all, but this year has been different. It’s been far more important to me to make sure that my partner Ali has enough miles under her belt to get round. I chewed my brain a little whilst packing up the van. I’ll be riding at my own pace and Ali is riding with another friend Simon. It felt strange knowing I’d not be with her but I also knew that it was very important for her to achieve this for herself.

The Fred itself is funny, no, it’s not a race but it is a timed event and I think every starter has a time in their head that they’d like to get round in, myself included. It’s the only sportive that the time bothers me, I don’t look on the others, just enjoy a day out with friends. I did it a couple of years ago in 7.10 but had, had to walk down Wrynose pass as an inch of hailstones had landed and my hands froze to blocks of ice that wouldn”t move to brake. Last year I pulled up with a grinding BB in torrential rain at Whinlatter as I decided it wasn’t worth getting any colder and wetter just before an Ironman and risking getting ill. There’s a few from last year who never fully shook off illness and it dragged with them for the rest of the season.

I wasn’t really sure what time I could do to be honest, under 7 would be nice and didn’t feel to unrealistic. like most riders I’d been scanning the weather. I decided if it was abismal then I’d ride with Ali and Simon, no point in risking it on Lakeland decents if there’s a river flowing down them. Wind sounded like it would be the issue of the day. And yes it is May!

Surely it can’t be as bad as Lanzarote winds I thought!

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We were camping in Torver at a lovely little site. It was a short ride down to Coniston to sign on. It’s been really nice this year to have met via twitter lots of lovely folk also doing the Fred. We met Leon our Pose running coach and his wife Lorna, Hutty, Craig, Simon and Jen. Jen and Steph had kindly offered to do our bottles at Matterdale Head and Whinlatter. For the second stop they were to be joined by half of our local running club Todmorden Harriers, Sarah, Gemma, Kath, Issy and Amanda, who were coming to cheer Ali. The big Flanders flag was to be our marker. Rick was also heading up to cheer, quite a roadside party!

Saddleback the event sponsor were there with our new Arundel tubi saddle bags, I’ve been hunting for ages for a tub bag, it’s upset me to have such a lovely bike spoilt by a black plastic wrapped spare under my saddle. Unfortunatly Leyzne don’t make one :( so it doesn’t quite match my new helpful hound! 

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Whislt the others went to Chesters to eat cake, Ali and I rode back up to the van to put our feet up. Dinner was cooked and I finally got to use my minature cheese grater, I’m not sure why that made me so happy!

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We woke early on Sunday to pleasant looking weather. Deciding to set off at 7am just incase the forcast weather arrived early. Dibbed then off. I’d had a bit of a dither about what wheels to take. Choice was my Hope full carbon tubs or my Hope 36 spoked heavy winter (sensible) wheels. I’ve had heat punctures and exploding rims in the Lakes before. It’s a beautiful place but it does have a habit of eating bikes alive. Somewhere in my daftness I’d decided I was less likely to heat puncture with tubs….ahem….or was that that I just like riding them? or they’re pretty….only thing that they don’t do fantastically, like all carbon rims, is stop! Still they climb better so off I rolled!

It was beautiful whooshing along passing all sorts of folks on all sorts of bikes, tandems, mountain bikes, hybrids, funky carbon racers….and the one that puzzles me…..really grubby squeaky bikes? Surely you’d clean and check it before throwing it down a mountain pass?!

Before I knew it I could see Jen and Steph, yellow flag flying! Quick bottle stop and off again. I quite like chattering to folk as I pedal along. It does surprise me when the odd one says ‘Its Emma isn’t it?!” not sure how but hello Paul T from Twitter! 

First taste of the wind arrived on the A66. With a thump! The fast lads set off at 8 so there’s hardly anyone to shelter behind. I’d caught some guys and sat in for a bit, then decided it was too slow (honestly why?!), I took to the front with a man train forming behind me, the odd one took the front then my idiot brain decided I could go faster and jumped forward again and again. Quite why I thought doing TT effort down the road was a good idea was a wonder to me. Still the wind was being a cowbag! Even in strong winds the GF_Ti behaves beautifully, every stamp responds. Realising that much of the day would be spent crouching on the drops, it was a pleasure to hold the FSA SLK bars, super comfy.

Through Keswick and down the bumpy tarmac of Borrowdale valley, a quick trip to the hedge (you boys are lucky with your outdoor weeing facility!), then it’s into the climbs, first Honister with riders sprayed all over the road. Then a whooshing tail wind up Newlands, like a hand pushing you up, almost funny, until you think about where that wind is going to bite you. A roar from David at the top then a whoosh back down before Whinlatter. You can hear the supporters as you climb up. Lovely to see so many people out and such a change from last year in the freezing rain.

Some photos from Steph.

Now normally you can whizz down Whinlatter, today however the wind was out to play too, the map appeared in my mind, I realised it’s direction and how long I’d be battering into it, The man train had latched onto my bum again, only this time they didn’t seem keen to take a turn, lazy gits! Fancy letting a girl do all the work! One of the Saddleback riders came past, I recognised the super stealth bike that I’d been drooling over the day before, I rode with him a short way before he sailed away into the distance, chuckling at the boys on my wheel.

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(more photo’s from Pascal here http://www.flickr.com/photos/mpascalj/sets/ )

I think it was here that I started to have a bit of a sense of humour failiure. I was watching my average speed drop, more than drop, plummet! I’d worked out what average I needed to do the time I wanted, No chance! I’d lost 2mph in 20 miles. It wasn’t until I loaded it up onto Strava that I gained an understanding of quite how windy it was. Ali and I had ridden this section together on the Lakeland loop, we’d ridden gently, I’d not realised I had a cold at the time so we were steady away. We were faster that day! I was riding as hard as I could into the wind! 

I caught a guy up in a blue top, appologies I forgot your name :( we began to chat, he was from London, not with a club and just enjoyed riding long and meeting new people along the way. We rode side by side, I’m sure we could have worked together and gained a bit but it was more interesting to chat and both complain about the wind. Thankyou.

Then thankfully it was time to turn in from the wind. The impending doom of Hardknott and Wrynose slowly coming into focus. A quick caffiene gel from Clif, I do love how the little bit you tear off with your teeth has it’s own lanyard so you don’t loose it and make litter. It’s all about the detail!

It’s a majestic climb, little dots of colour dance up the ribbon of tarmac that seems to almost touch the sky. Just on the top bend a guy directly infront of me stopped, BAH!, before I knew it someone had grabbed my seatpost, told me to clip in and shoved me off, I felt like my brake was squeezed, it wasn’t, just the 30% start! Keith, another Tod Harrier was shouting my name (yes, Toddies get everywhere!), over and down into the bowl between the two climbs. One of the guy’s I’d stomped on the A66 with caught me on the decent. We rode up to Wrynose together, the wind now in our favour pushing us up the climb. The decent from Wrynose can be scary, you can pick up speed at an alarming rate. I could smell burning rims, trying to just dab the brakes. I saw a guy a couple of years ago crash nastily on the last bend. It scares me. Down and safe and the last 10 miles we’re straight back into the headwind. The man turned out to be from Tenerife, we worked together, grinning at each other as we jockied back and forth, grasping hands as we finished. 

7.31 :( better come back next year eh!?

At the finish Jen and Steph were smiling, I joined them, my mind filled with thoughs of was Ali ok?

Craig was through next, taking an hour and a half from his previous time! Shows how hard he worked, chuffed for him. Then Hutty with Leon just after.

I decided to ride up to the van so that Ali had warm clothes to put on and a recovery drink. The wind had increased. I was worried that they’d be out there getting battered by it. Quickly packing stuff into a bag I headed back down to the finish. Jen remembered the riders coming through, where they were or how far in front of Ali and Simon. I knew they’d be safe together, Ali is a physio so if Simons back went she could fix him and Simon works at Bikeshak so any mechanicals would be sorted.

Then we saw them! 10.22 and some HUGE smiles :)

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Ali and Simon’s joy was amazing. I’m so proud of them. Ali has raised nearly £3500 for Macmillan by doing this. She was muttering ‘I did it!’ as she went to sleep and again when she woke up.

Here’s her blog if you’d like to read her version of the day.

http://millsphysio.wordpress.com/

And the best place for celebratory breakfast? Lucy’s of course!

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And now it’s just grubby bikes to clean!

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Last night I did a road race (which im still quite an ameteur at). It was 5 laps of a rollling circuit with 80 men!! It was handicapped so I started in the 1st group but that was still quite fast. The 2nd group caught us after 2 laps and the 3rd and 4th group caught us after 4 laps so the whole race was together. With half a lap to go the group split and I ended up in the 2nd group but I was happy to have stayed with the main head of the race for almost all of it :) 

Feel like im getting fitter now so hopefully some results will start showing :) 

Just for a bit of fun I did a 10 mile time trial on a tandem with Dan Harris. The course was fairly hilly and we did it in 24:23 which was 50 seconds faster than our previous time. So our aim for the next one is to beat 24 minutes! ….

OK, where to begin? I’ll start by saying Don’t try this at home! I’m not a doctor, a dietitian, nutritionalist, or in any way qualified to give you advice on how to eat for health, sport, or otherwise. These are purely my own experiments, to see how my body reacts, provided here as something people may be interested in reading about. My personal interest in the subject comes from years dedicated to racing a bike and the need for a high power-to-weight ratio in the hope of moving my mass faster than my opponents on the race track..

“I’ll start by saying Don’t try this at home!”

Phew! That’s that out of the way, now I can get onto the why, how, where, when and anything else I think I can add to the mix. Like I was saying: power-to-weight = a deciding factor in the outcome of bike racing, and in particular my main passion – offroad bike racing, and more recently running – where speeds are lower, drafting less of a factor, and rolling resistance at a premium. The heavier I am the more my tyres are gonna drag through that mud we seem to get at the majority of UK enduro events (and on the main, due to our weather, most of my long-distance challenges) I know the limitations of manipulating the amount of power I can generate -ie: just how much more training I have to do to see incremental gains – so for a guy like myself – one who likes a lot of food, likes a drink, get’s overweight quite easily, and considers himself fairly lazy compared to opposition – manipulating my weight seems like, and has proven over the last 19 years or so, to be the quick-fix to getting some good results.

Some of you may remember the images above – from last year when I reached an all-time sports high weight of almost 84kg, and then dropped back down to 76kg over the course of a month. This is fairly typical of me, and my racing life, although rarely to this extreme. Well this time around, at the start of April, I stood on the scales and weighed-in at 79.4kg. I then upped my riding massively by riding 1000 miles, I did little to my diet, and by the end of April I stood on the scale again and weighed in at…

…79.3kg!

Er?… what’s that you say? “pretty much no change for a massive increase in effort and energy output?” Yup, that’s right folks: No Change. I even went so far as to take some measurements before and after and although there were the smallest changes nothing stood out. This pretty much backs up everything I’ve experienced throughout my racing career. The only times I can say that an increase in volume has lead to a decrease in weight are the following:

1: When I first started endurance sport

2: when I massively overtrained

3: when I manuipulated my diet at the same time as increased volume

Given what I know about my own body, how it reacts to exercise and food, and all the things I have read and processed I have come up with a “strategy” that works for me if I want to reach race weight in a hurry which, I’ll admit, is just about every time! I’m sure there are folk out there who will say “it’s just like this or that diet” and it probably is seeing as I’ve read and tried most of them at one time or another. The difference here is that I’m looking for a long-term change to habbits, or a diet for life, as basically I don’t believe in the concept. My thought is that there is a reason my body can store fat and that is that it was supposed to, and evolved around, humans losing and gaining weight every year, based on the seasons and the food sources that were originally available to it.

“I believe evolution is smarter than I am, and that if my weight wasn’t supposed to go up and down then there would be no reason for it to have the capacity to store fat in the first place”

So my desire for diet is purely to make me light enough to race fast enough to be in with a shout. Race done = stand on podium = diet done = give me that cake coz I’m gonna eat it! Anyway, enough background and onto the nuts and bolts, what do I do when I want to get lightweight and race-fast?

The first thing I do is cut out anything “fast”. The reason sports nutrition products work so well for sport is because the body can process them very fast. They are, on the most part, fuel of which we have primarily two sources: Carbohydrates, which the body burns easily but can only store a limited amount, and fat, which it burns less easily but can store much greater quantities of. So I save the race fuel for race race day and very kindly ask my body to reach for it’s stores of fat instead.

“Fast” foods are not only limited to pre-designed and packaged race fuel in handy sachets. From my experience they also include anything that wasn’t originally on the menu – ie: processed grains and such products – and anything that was on the menu seasonally that the body adapted to eating lots of, in season, in order to put on bodyfat to get it through the Winter months and lean periods. So I’m off all the stuff like cakes, bread, rice… and anything natural that is full of sugar and encourages my body to put on fat – mostly fruit. Which means most of my meals look something like this:

“Fast” also includes any calories that come in the form of fluid. So I’m off the drink in every sense of the phrase except the obvious – water – and those are the very simple basics I like to employ as my foundation for getting to race weight in a fairly shart space of time. As a usual rule-of-thumb I don’t count calories – either in or out – I don’t regulate the size of my meals, and I don’t regulate the number of meals I’m allowed. I just slow the whole thing down. On average I drop 1/2 to 1kg per week, and on on average this is on less than 6 hours of “training” or exercise each week.

However…

…I’m as impatient as the next man when it comes to just about anything so there are a few tricks I like to trial and play around with that can, and usually do, speed up the process. So, in my next blog I will write about some of these things, how they have affected my weight-loss this time around, and the means I use for tracking my progress… 

Posted via email from Phil Moore

To be honest I wasn’t planning on racing this one. Tokyo Fixed is one our latest stockists and one where, during lengthy chats about bikes, riding and racing, it was very apparent we had the same point of view. Which is why Morvélo stepped in to sponsor The Hunt {A Fixed gear Crit}. For both Morvélo and Tokyo Fixed, racing and events should be about fun, speed, enthusiasm and throwing something different into the mix. So a fixed gear crit seemed like a great choice to us and one that hasn’t happened over in the UK before, but has in some lively races in different parts of the world. I’m a sucker for novelty and change so I signed up along with fellow KMP rider and friend Phil Moore.

Now, the three words Fixed Gear Crit would normally conjure images of a crash fest. A mixed ability of riders thrashing around a circuit with no brakes would probably be many peoples idea of hell and one to avoid. But they would be missing the point. Sure, there will be crashes, and there were, but no more so than the road racing I’ve taken part in. It’s a fact of life. If you race road or track bikes chances are you’ll be in a crash. So the key is to not think ‘If’ but to make appropriate plans. You see it and hear it all the time whether it’s a 3rd Cat race at Hillingdon or in the Giro, stay near the front. Do that and you’ll have a great race and stay safe. Unless you have Roberto Ferrari sprinting in front of you.

So that’s what I did. Making the choice that I’d rather lose energy than lose skin. Which is why it looks like I’m giving everyone a race long leadout in this video. Just look for the flash of white in amoungst the sea of black. Oh and some bad ass deep Reynolds Pista wheels! Hear the rumble.

There were two heats and then a final. I was in Heat one. The pace was good, the racing close and The Hunt undoubtedly had the best atmosphere of any road or track race I’ve taken part in. Large amounts of cheering and heckling (Phil bought his megaphone :-) and a good passionate crowd. It reminded me a lot of the Singlespeed World Champ (MTB) races and events I’ve been too. A smallish group of enthusiastic riders, a wide range of abilities, a desire for some fast and fun racing and some great looking and sweetly specced out bikes mixed with some beaters that look like they could tell some good stories. No attitudes and an international flavour with riders from the USA, Holland, Greece and Italy making it over.

So Heat 1 and keeping my nose in the wind I played it safe. Which is more than can be said for a few riders. Hearing the mash of metal and tarmac a crash came down mid-pack and sent one rider down and several swerved off into the car park – but into a fence. Thanks must be given to them for narrowly missing my parked car too although I’m not sure you’d notice another dent in it. The heat was lively with attacks going off every other lap. I tried a few times but the quality of the riders at the business end was high and I was always brought back. I gave it one last big dig on the last pinch but went too soon and was passed to take 2nd in my heat. Happy with that though!

Phil saddled up for Heat 2 and spent most of the race sitting pretty near the front. As misfortune would have it though, the one time he slipped back a bit the bunch got squeezed a Phil took it upon himself to tear some extra ventilation holes in his knee warmers – and knees:

Game over. Patched up he returned finely to heckling duties as I lined up for the final. Once again the plan was to stick near the front. Everyone was a bit more cagey in this one, with one big attack going by the eventual winner but he was bought back a few laps later just as we heard that tell tale noise of clashing pedals once more. I looked over to see that it had happened fairly close to the front. Chas from MASH SF signaled to GO GO GO! So the 8 of us just buried it to make sure the split stayed. Now we were in a smaller group and working well to stay away with everyone doing their turn. Last lap and the guy who beat me in the first heat went for a flyer. I’d seen how strong he was so thought this was THE move.

Trouble was, it wasn’t. I caught him just before the last rise but had pulled with me two super fast Italians who promptly dispatched me in the last 200 metres. The others were closing fast and I still had a slim gap. With nose on the handlebars pedalling full tilt around the final bend I crossed the line 3rd! Hell yeah!

All in all one of the most entertaining races and events I’ve been to and plans are already a foot to hold another. You can be sure that I’ll be there again and Morvélo will be supporting.

Check out the full gallery over at Imagehunters

April turned out to be rather wet, something about the most rainful in the UK during April the the last 100 years? Summat like that at least. I got wet, a lot, most of my rides it seemed, which was a bit of a bind as I’d talked a bunch of people into a group commitment to try and ride 1000 miles each that month. Oh dear! Anyway, quite a few folk took me up on the offer and most of them sprinted ahead of me whilat I got destracted by various talks, running and general work and life commitments. Then the rain got heavier, as it always does, and I thought about throwing in the towel.

Then I thought about all the other folk who were putting in the miles and decided failure wasn’t an option. Problem was there was only 10 days left to go and over 400 miles yet to cover. I decided to knuckle-down and commited myself to living in damp/wet cycling kit far as many hours as possible each day. In the end I made it with about 24 hours to spare! All-round it was a great effort, with quite a few folk who have never done that sort of milage doing the lot, and quite a few more having a damn fine crack and covering more than tey’ve ever done. From some of the blogs I’ve read, and some of the messages, it seems quite a few folk had a good time despite the weather aswell.

Onto the prizes…

When I announced the challenge and invited people to join in I also offered some prizes. So without futher delay the winners of each are:

1) The random draw from everyone who registered for the challenge: Rebecca Sutton

2) The random draw from everyone who completes the challenge: Graeme Warren

3) My favourite story someone writes about their experience, or one of their rides, during the challenge:

Goes to Sean Brassil for pretty much all of his blog posts which I found very inspirational, and in particular his short movie about his first 70 miles on the challenge.

4) My favourite photograph that someone posts from one of their rides during the challenge:

Goes to Naff Judge for his image of two shoes stuffed with newspaper! Not the most inspiring image but the image that most captured the way I was feeling with a few days left to go!

So that is that: 1000 miles done and dusted… all I need to do now is work out what each of them has won…

I couldn't face not going out although checking through the window at the lashing rain, it was going to be an easy option to cry off. It was one of the days though that I just couldn't be dissuaded. Kitting up in everything waterproof I owned I had a momentary pause as I opened the shed an pulled out the road bike. It was properly hammering down. Like standing in a power shower. Back went the road bike and out came the cross bike. For some reason I thought it would come in handy.

Posted via email from Oli Pepper

It rained a lot and then it rained some more. Fortunately as we arrived in Floressas the sun began to shine and the temperature began to rise :-) friends were found, someone in a big orange fun bus might have been admonished by a local land owner for a bit of over zealous offroading (Sorry!) Belgian camper vans were pulled from the holes they were digging themselves into and then the serious business of celebrating the local culture began.

 The race had taken over the village and increased its number of residents three fold. Race HQ was the castle in the centre of the village where local beer was on tap and the specialty of the area confit de canard was being served for dinner. Saturday morning rolled around and clothing for racing was donned and we headed out on mass to the race start. The course was superb, hard climbs and super fun fast descents. After 5 laps i was a mess but the rejuvenate powers of wine and duck fat soon had me feeling better.

Sunday was a slow start, followed by a slow breakfast. Then we ventured out on the roads around Floressas in the warmth and sun to see the sights and stop to eat sausage in the sunshine. lounging in the sun after the ride it became apparent that the race organisers had food, beer and wine left over and it was our duty as the remaining campers to help them through this food mountain. it sounded like a hard task but we figured we could manage! The mayor of the village who earlier had been pulling stuck cars out of the mud of the campsite (have i mention it rained?) produced some of his vineyards own aperitif, too sweet for some but amazing to my taste buds. Then came the soup and more confit de canard,  all topped off by a monsterous thunder storm that we had the pleasure of watching come rolling in across the valley from the ramparts of the castle.

Monday morning arrived and so did the rain, bucket loads of it and just in time for us to try and pack away the tent. With dampened spirits and all the clothes i was wearing we left to go and explore some more of France.

We headed for Cahors and with it we appeared to bring the rain. Looking at maps we figured to head for the coast it never rains if there are beaches right? As it turns out for the next two days we had glorious sunshine and 30 degree heat, the sea was played in, meat was barbeque'd and the bikes were pulled out for some exploring along the amazing forest cycles paths of La Coubre.

The forest around here meets the sand dunes on the coast and any venturing off the cycle path seemed to involve deep sand and walking. Never the less we ventured up one of the sandy fire breaks to see if there was anything to find and low and behold singletrack was found sweet, sinuous flowing joyus trails.

 The only problem was the sun was setting and we had no lights and an uncertain distance to cover to get back to the campsite. We begrudgingly headed homeward but with the promise of more singletrack to ride once the sun rose again. Sure enough the next day provided alot more of the same, broken up with sections of leg destroying sandy fire breaks.

Friday morning heralded the start of the return to Calais via a campsite close to Rouen, We packed up slowly and hit the road. With in a couple of hours we found out where all the rain was hiding along with a pretty hefty dose of hail and thunder. And emergency layby meeting established a lack of enthusiasm for camping and a desire for home so the Burn was downed , music turned up and we headed for Calais.

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Posted via email from Phil Moore