willpower

The dude was from Actionography so maybe try there first.

Once upon a time, I had a road bike with a triple. And there were a few occasions when I was very grateful. I remember one day getting passed on OKW by a girl with an H seeding... and I couldn't hold her wheel! Also, there were a couple of Double Centuries where I wouldn't have been able to ride slowly enough to stay with my team with anything bigger than 30x25. In due course my triple STI lever broke, I replaced it with a double, and haven't missed the 30t since. In fact these days I use the bike for commuting and leave it permanently in the 52t. I think these days I would prefer a compact crankset, e.g. 50-34, with an 12-25 cassette. It gives almost as much range with a lot less front shifting which seems to make more sense. Oh, by the way... that Dale is a great looking bike! Enjoy it!

He did it! Official World Record distance = 535.86 miles

Well from what I understand there was a little marshalling error. DG was the first rider off in the Elite Men, right after the Elite Women. The women's turn was at 15 km, and then marshals had not yet moved to the 20 km mark when David came through. So David turned, and I guess shouted something like "is this the 40 km turn?" and then had to turn again to do another 5 km. The whole manoeuvre would have cost him around half a minute, which makes his margin of victory over James Perry rather impressive, with an effective average of 48 km/h on rough tar on a windy day. Even if to some marshals he apparently looks like a girl, no one can say after this weekend that he rides like one.

I road 246 km on Sunday... just took it easy, 3:32 and 4:15 or so. I'm really uncomfortable off the bike though... no idea how I managed to get so many roasties!! Should be okay for the league. And the stitches should be out by then.

I got my crash out the way on Wednesday

Well today was an easy ride through to Stellenbosch, with the biggest challenge being avoiding the trucks in the right hand gutter. The pace up helshoogte was fairly reasonable the first couple of times, then started hotting up on lap three. On the third descent I rode over a little bump in the middle of a straight section... The trouble is you can't really see bumps like this especially in the shadows at 60 km/h. I lost my handlebar and ended up ripping some nasty holes in my knees. Carinus certainly came up with some interesting routes this year. Not sure what was wrong with the old helshoogte lap from a few years ago?? (Up old, down new)

Ian it depends how strong you are. And also, what are the max gradients of the climbs? I would be quite happy riding 8.1% in 39x23 but your mileage may differ. Also, if that hill kicks up at 15% for a few hundred metres somewhere, I think we would probably both be happier with the option of something smaller. I don't see the point of changing your cranks / sprockets now, unless you can find similar passes to train on.

The only wheels lighter than deep section carbon tubulars (e.g. Zip 404 / Eastern Tempest II, Campy Bora) are low profile carbon tubulars (e.g. Zip 202, Campy Hyperon). The weight advantage the skinny wheels have on steep climbs (about 100g) is counter-balanced by the aero advantage of the deep section rims on the flats. The other problem is the price. I think the Hyperons are about the most expensive wheels you can buy. If you compare 404s etc. to alloy "climbing" wheels (e.g. Easton Ascent II, Mavic Ksyrium ES), the deep section carbon tubulars are about 200g lighter, and the weight is distributed closer to the hub. So they really don't climb that badly.

A couple of months ago MultiSport Magazine did a profile on Kirsty Weir (3rd in her age group at world duathlon champs last year). Apparently her resting heart rate is 28

Nellie, who could ever ignore you??? Anyway, it's good to know that the WC elites have at least one fan. By the way, when the CSC guys were doing their publicity breakfast thing last month only about a third of the squad was there. I wondered if the other guys were told to stay home at the hotel because they couldn't hold a polite conversation with us mere mortals... Well I'm sure not. But I wouldn't be surprised if the 'real' pros get some sort of training to help them think up at least semi-intelligent things to say to the press and the general public without embarrassing themselves or their sponsors. Maybe some of the local guys don't realise that it is actually worthwhile putting in a little effort to build up a decent public image.

Looks like I'm on an elite team with 8 solid riders next year. Anyone looking forward to 5 x OuKaapseWeg next month?

Chris, if you are strong enough to make the front bunch in your group on your heavy bike, then riding a light bike will save you a little energy give you a better jump for the sprint, i.e. about 2 seconds. on the other hand if you just get dropped on Chappies on your heavy bike, and would have been able to stick with the bunch on the climb on a lighter bike, you could lose 4 minutes from there to the end. if you are not riding in a racing group, i.e. bunches are not so important, I really have no idea. But the ride will be more fun on the lighter bike. And the NBS factor is certainly not negligible.

Quite true bruce. During the main part of the season (Jan to March) I will likely follow a very different programme depending on my goals (Giro?) and how much time I have for training and resting. For me running is a great way to build up fitness to a competitive (cycling) level without having to put in very many hours of training. I really struggle to cycle at the intensity that I can run at during training. So for me a one hour run with intervals will be a tougher workout than a one hour cycle.

Running is good for anaerobic fitness, and anaerobic fitness is good for hill climbing. And time-trialing. I think my training over the last two months since I returned to road racing would be of some interest here... a handful of training rides. no gym. 3-4 runs a week. a bike race every weekend.

The DC was a pretty good advert for RK. They took 8min out of Hannachi there (though I guess he had to wait for his team mates...)

http://www.mybike.co.za

Should be a fun race. For the first couple of hours at least. Does anyone have a route profile pic or at least accuate distance from last year? PPA's distance estimates always seem to be about 5% out... (By the way, Maties/UCT came 5th in 2001. It was more Maties than UCT.)

The Clanwilliam Triathlon was on 30 September. The organisers usually do a good job. They also offer a duathlon and a long swim on the same weekend. I've raced there a couple of times, but this year it clashed with the Tokai Mast Challenge, and I can never resist a race up a big hill!

<advert> WP duathlon champs is coming up in two weeks time. Any takers? </advert>

Hope you enjoyed the ride yesterday, 6:30 was a little early for me, by about 8 hours in fact!

150 km is great for base fitness if you can handle the distance, but if you want to ride fast, then train fast. So maybe if you average 25 km/h on your endurance rides, try to do a short ride where you average say 30 km for a section, swapping pacing every 30-60s. Maybe at first you will only last 5 km at that pace, but that is okay. Try this once a week and hopefully you will be able to last a bit longer, maybe working up at 20-30 km after a month or two. The idea is that training slowly won't really help you ride fast. You'll just be able to ride slowly further. For hills I find it's helpful to ride at lactate threshold (about 80-85% HR) up a steady climb. Keep it controlled. Then repeat (possibly on a different climb later in the ride). Slowly increase the length of the climb and the number of reps.