Velo29 Cycling Team

Dont you just hate it when things start to go a bit wrong. it really is fairly annoying BUT we live to fight another day. so theres no point moaning about it.

Basically as far as my training is concerned there hasnt been a great deal of it for the first couple of weeks of december. with out boring you too much heres how it went

• I was out for a bit of a recovery ride when i pushed down on the pedal ‘as you do’ with my right leg and i got a sharp unbearable pain on the outside of my knee. fairly randomly.
• This resulted in me having to ride the half an hour home only pulling up with my right leg as it was so painful to put any force down on the pedals.
• the pain continued as a i walked up the stairs at home……… i realised i may have somkind of problem, got a bit pissed about it and proceeded to self diagnose myself via google – i had alsorts wrong with me a this point and my cycling days were over
• Decided to be sensible and have a couple of days off my bike.
  during these two days the mild, wet and windy place i like to call home turned into what looked like a somthing from scandnavia.
• Also during these two days i came down with the mother of all flus and then spent a week, sweating, freezing, sweating, aching, with a pounding head ache and a poor appetite.
• plenty of time for my knee to clear up though…..or so i thought, first day i felt a bit better on the rollers and 5 mins later agony again. ‘FFS!!’ i believe is the abbreviation of the phrase i screamed out at this point.
• Went to a shit physio who i know (and who didnt charge me) and he poked my knee and told me to rest for a couple of weeks. hmmm no thanks.
• Found a better local physio someone told me about who is a fairly desent cyclist himself and he reckons that my right IT band was tight. which when he was stretching it compared to my other leg it was fairly evident.
• So a bit of strapping on it, plenty of ice and lots of stretching , and a week of easy sessions on the rollers and i am away once again with no evdience of pain at the moment.

And after alot of looking at the possible causes it would appear that the cleat on my winter shoes was set a bit too far back compared to my race shoes and apparently this is a known cause… so back to it now.

and if anything good has come of this it is that it has happened at the end of november and not during the season (fingers crossed) and it has got me back into the routine of doing plenty of stretching which cant be a bad thing.

In other non self news i was reading a ridiculous article the other day about how to endure the festive period with out putting on too much weight. this Article may as well have said ‘ Have a shit Christmas, your a cyclist and therefore a stiff’ some of the advice it actually gave was… and feel free to take it if you want:

• have a healthy filling meal before going to a buffet asnd drink a big bottle of water to keep you full.
• Why on earth would i spend my own money on food that when someone else hasa put on a buffet (or challenge as i like to call it) to demolish. and if i had a meal before hand i personally couldnt just sit there whilst everybody else ate.
  
• Drink a pint of water between every alcoholic drink when you go out.
• Fair enough ,in theory is sound advice BUT who really wants to ask for a pint of water after every alcoholic beverage consumed plus…. i dont know about your mates but i dread to think what mine would do if i was knocking bike pints of H2O or H2O on the rocks all nite.
• opt for less cheese and more fruit when the cheese board comes out or have a little salad
• Im not even going to comment on this.

I like the advice on this website

http://www.adelaidecyclists.com/forum/topics/christmas-cycling-tips-for

ha but in all seriousness eat more , ride more

Oh, i have another job as well working the local shop, get plenty of easy hours with good times for training. i.e couple of hours early on a morning doing the papers then home for 8 out training and back to the shop at 3 -4 o’clock until 10ish so all good. im therenow infact as im typing this….. just dont tell the boss hahah

and i swear if one more person comes in and tells me how ‘cold it is out there’ NO SHIT’ get over it and say somthing a bit more interesting…… theres plenty of other things kicking off in the world of news

Bert Out

The off season, winter what ever you want to call it.

Gone are the days of old that i have only read about when we hang our bikes up at the end of the season, hide all our kit in the back of the cupboard and pile on the pounds eating and drinking until January the 1st.

New training methods (cheers sports scientists), the fact that the Pro season starts in January now and even good amateur races kick off in late January/ early February means that although training at this time of year is much less specific it still we are still out there getting ‘in the miles’ through november/ december… even October.

Personally I reckon the UCI should bring in a rule that means that once the season is over, no one is aloud to train until January 2nd . Although I have no doubt some hitters would eat some bad meet that would cause them to hallucinate and accidently train with out knowing it and there fore break the UCI ruling………. something like that anyway

that rule is unlikely to come in to place though :

So my off season/ winter so far.. hears what i’ve learnt:

• I reminded myself how much a hangover wrecks your head and whitby porto pizza rots your guts for days.

• Running hurts – To beggin with anyway, during the first month or so of training, i did a fair bit of running down the beach and on the cliff. TO be fair i did actually enjoy it but i was in agony that first week, back, hips ankles, muscles i didnt even know existed. This resulted me doing most of my running on the beach with the dog. thanks to foolishness and lack of plannin i got caught out by the itde a few times and ended up wading knee/ hip deep through rock pools… good times.

• Swimming is boring – My mam pursuaded me to go swimming with her a few times, heres how that went – ‘I reluctantly passed £4.20 to the lady behind the counter (funnily she was wearing a black and white striped jump suit.) From here i went to the cold wet, changing rooms, slipped into my speedos (bought in France, Me and meadows have a matching pair each, youths size (cheap)), whilst doing this i was been watched by big hairy fat man, also sporting speedos, a quick shower COLD!!!!!! into the pool ‘SORRY SIR CAN YOU PLEASE GET OUT, OVER 40 LESBIANS ONLY SESSION UNTIL HALF PAST!!’ ‘but its 27 mins past and there is no lesbians, infact no one in the pool’ eventually i am aloud in, splash around, get no where fast, and im fairly cold and the arms are hurting. Found a float to use instead throwing my arms in random direction. 30 mins later, bored, cold and annoyed that i had parted with nearly £5, i had a quick wee inn the pool for old times sake and went for a shower, which was too cold to be pleasant but too warm to get out so i spent more time stood there than actually swimming. WASTE OF A morning!

• People spend more time posing and looking at themselves in the gyme than actually working out and i can squat far more than i can bench press.

• If you have a few light flu symptoms dont go for a 5 hour hike in -4 and knee deep snow. It makes it worse and causes a case of full blown, knocking on deaths door man flu.

• If I do get man flu i should move to my grans where i get sympathy as oppose to continue living it my mams school of hard knocks, march or die i dont care if your ill dig the snow out of the road, clear the snow off the conservatory roof and walk the dog for a few hours FFS. ( i did survive though after been very close to death).

I have also started drinking cans of whoops ass and having 2 teaspoons of MTFU with my weatabix on a morning. This has resulted in doing 5,6 and even 7 hours rides in wind, rain , hail – Why??? i know not. And for your interest my current long ride food tipple is panini bread with cheese and ham or salami. Fantastic, keeps me ticking over nicely.

Now the snow is here i have managed to borrow a cross bike which should help a bit, as well as the rollers there should be no problem . The dream would be sunnier climates but as it goes im not made of money and still have too work.

Gonna have to get my hands on more cans of whoop ass i reckon

oh and next season I am going to be riding for Lecuimie espoir Quimper in Brittany again and im heading out there on the 14th/15th Feb.

i leave you with this :

Dan up the road on a brief visit to France - holding onto a motorbike but showing that although form comes and goes class is permanent i

Right, to start with….. I normally read theses things and people do nothing but apologise for late postings or not writing anything for say hmmm…. 8 months??!!! Well I don’t apologise, I’ve simply had better things to do with my life than write a load of shite about what im doing, whats been going on bla bla bla bla bla……….. Until now…. I have 5 mins to waste

oh and I went back in time to a place called Scaer for a few months where internet doesn’t yet exist (not even dial-up like what we have in Whitby ‘GET OFF THE PHONE MAM IM TRYING TO USE THE INTERNET’ ) . hohoho

Also lacking back in Scaer is plumbing ( we had a bucket under the kitchen sink), they are JUST getting the hang of electricity – we did have it BUT couldn’t have the kettle and cooker on at the same time and if we wanted a cup of tea after 11 o’clock we had to boil the water before 11PM and stash it in a flask otherwise all the electricity went off and we had to go hunting for the flick switch in the pitch black down stairs.

My first night in this appartement alone, said bye to the old parents as they went off too there 4* hotel. hmm ‘what should I do now???, I know I’ll have a cuppa!!!’ Bad idea, Pan of hot water, hob on, BANG Electric off…. WTF. Pitch black didn’t know what to do, scary old appatement, not even any street light. I poked around in a fuse box , clever??! then decided bals to it before finding my bed and getting some kip.

Anywho, racing in France – Fantasic, think I would struggle to find the motivation to race in the UK these days, even the smallest of races have closed roads, a bit of a crowd, a Frenchman shouting random shite down a microphone, one of the regulars who just shouts something that just sounds like he thinks he’s on the BUDWEISER advert WaaaaaaaassssssssUUUUUUPPPPPP!!!!! The crowd seem to love it.

Don’t want to bore you with a full season of race descriptions/reports etc… its great, its hard, its often windy and more often wet. if you get the opportunity do a race or two out there then grab it with both hands and if you here someone shouting QUINZE, DIX, CINQ!!!! Sprint like your life depends on it

that’s it for now

im sure your waiting in anticipation for my post……… it may be a long wait/it may not be

Story posted November 25, 2010 on British Cycling Website | Team Press Release

North East based racing Team Velo29 have put together a new Premier Calendar Squad for the 2011 season. Velo29, sponsored by online bike store www.velo29.com have been around for a few seasons and are now ready to move into the top echelons of UK cycling.

“We are very ambitious about what we can achieve at Velo29″ comments Team Chairman Richard Williamson. “The structure has been put in place over the past few seasons and we are now ready to take on some of the big UK outfits. We’ve got a feeder team developing local talent, plenty of contacts to bring in experienced riders and have all the support in place that a Premier Calendar Team warrants”.

“The budget’s not huge but the finance is secured for the foreseeable future therefore the riders can take some assurance from this and concentrate on the pedalling” Richard adds. “We look after our riders and we see a long term plan essential to achieving this. Riders need support and security. They need to know we’ll attend every big race and they will have the backing they need to be able to succeed.”

“We want our riders to do well and have ambition. If that’s sticking with Velo29 then great but if they want to move to a bigger team or abroad then we’ll help them do this. We’ve got plenty of contacts on the Continent and further afield who can help us achieve this. Already we have two former Velo29 riders doing well in Brittany and it’s great to see riders develop and move on.”

“We get invites to some pretty cool places” add’s Team Manger Daniel Smith. “I’ve taken Teams to Cameroon, Senegal and Eastern Europe in the past few years. We’ve got cycling contacts in pretty much every corner of the globe! The Team Launch is in February 2011″ adds Daniel. “In terms of the squad, we are pretty much where we want to be. We’ve got some new signing’s, seasoned Continentals and importantly organic talent. There is still place for another two squad members and we’d be delighted to hear from interested parties to fill these spots.”

Further information is available from richard.williamson@velo29.com

Well having just completed my first two South African mountain bike races I am finding anything over than lying down difficult! I’ve only my own competitive nature and lack of any technical skills to blame.

Saturday was the 60km Midrand Meander, too many meanders to be honest though still very enjoyable. The course was far from technical but I am struggling to get my head round riding bends on gravel and sand, all I’ve ever known is solid tarmac!! Even the cobbles in Flanders don’t move under your wheels!! Still there were plenty of straight drag sections to move through the field and get a gap big enough to make a hash of the bends without been seen! I was quite pleased with myself on the only two technical climbs jumping (actually stepping) off the bike and running up passing men who’d got half way before stopping. I finished 1st woman, in one piece and pretty shattered.

The next day I again saw 4 something AM and headed to Bubba’s Lodge a million miles away from anywhere. Following the handy Garmin most of the way then tagging onto the back of any car with bikes I again found myself down some gravel road with the thought that maybe next time I come back John should get a team jeep, in pink of course! The race was 70km, part of the Biogen Super Series and as yesterday was super organized with the course marked out really well and loads of marshals handing those lovely cold plastic waters packets, very useful as drinking on a mountain bike isn’t all that easy. This time I started near the front of the race and the pace was flat out along a road then onto a sandy path. I was nicely dragged along though had to sprint out of every sandy bend which I went rode in squares! About 20km in the effort from yesterday, the fast start and the sprints caught up with me. I had that ‘near cramp’ feeling and dropped off the wheel I was glued to in front. My dislike for time trialing forced me back into ‘danger zone’ when a guy who’d earlier crashed came past. I hung onto him and couldn’t believe it when he kept waiting for me out of those crazy deep sandy bends! Feeling a lot better having passed half way I did relax a bit more and started to come to terms that I had very little control in the sand, and that even if the bike slid I wasn’t going to fall off, even if I did I summed up it would be a fairly soft landing as long as I avoided the rocks and trees….I think far too much about these things when riding!!
I finished again 1st, 12th overall and all limbs in tack with just a few scratches from finding myself in the bush when my square turns went wrong. I was a little confused when sent in the direction of the medical tent until I saw I was splattered in blood colored energy drink!
I’m now on a mission before Wine2Whales to improve my technical skills so I don’t feel such an idiot and must learn to stop making very girly yelps every time I lose balance!

Catherine

The first update in the transfer season brings 4 new signings. Chris Mark and Jack Rees have come in to bolster the premier calendar squad whilst Thomas Timothy and Jonathan Bean head into the development squad. Judging by Tom’s first training ride last week he definitely has the potential to move rapidly up the rankings.

Speaking of moving up the rankings, well done to Chris Wood ‘Pecker’, Rob ‘The Badger’ Wheeler, Rob Carter and Dan Smith who all moved up a category this year!

Two years ago a Scottish friend encouraged me to ride a mountain bike marathon event in the Scottish Borders, roughly an 85km route with some serious amounts of height gain. It was rather wet and muddy, I snapped a chain and went the wrong way twice (don’t ask) so I had a personal score to settle with this course. Last year was a no starter for my racing so I entered the 2010 event on the back of some good form and results. It’s a 5 round series and the Selkirk course is regarded as the best of the series, lots of moorland single and bouble-track, rock and root infested descents, 30 minute climbs up to 400m above sea level and a final descent where you can literally scare yourself silly………which I did.

Me, Tom and Nick arrived at Kev’s house on the Saturday afternoon where we met Neal and Jo who were also staying over for the event. We headed out for an easy mountain bike ride on the sweet, tree lined, snaking singletrack before ordering a curry and a few beers to finish off the evening and relax the nerves. The marathon series attracts a wide variety of mountain biker from serious (leg shaving) racer to the chilled out, relaxed weekend riders there for the fun and social aspect, giving the event a really great atmosphere. The extra bonus was the weather behaving itself giving us perfect riding conditions. After the nuetralised start a group of about 10 riders formed at the front pushing the pace and I let myself drift off not wanting to go too hard early on and blow after 40k. After the first descent I caught a Pedal Power rider (James Fraser-Moodie I’m told) and we worked together for about 60k, James pulling away on the climbs and me catching on the descents. We caught a Belgian rider who had legs the size of tree trunks (literally) and we worked together going through-and-off on the road sections. We were in 5th, 6th and 7th position. Me and James dropped the Belgian on the descent at Innerleithen and James attacked on the climb to Minch moor, an attack I couldn’t respond to. I was really pleased with my ride so far but I had made my mistake 2 hours before the start when I decided to use the energy drink at the feed stations instead of a camelbak. An important rule of thumb when racing is never try an energy product in a race when you haven’t tried it in training. This resulted in some quite bad cramps over the last 15km forcing me to stop a couple of times and stretch my muscles out. After dropping 5-10 minutes and 4 places I was able to continue at a slower pace. Luckily I was close to the final descent and tried to make up for lost time by braking as little as possible and scaring myself silly in the process. I finished 10th in a time of 4 hours 15 minutes, 30 minutes off the winner Nick Craig, a (super fast) legend in our sport. Tom claimed 3rd in the middle Marathon and Nick finished the big one in a personal best time. I think many riders will agree that the Selkirk Marathon is one of the best events on the mtb calendar and I will certainly be returning next year.

The 2010 Radar Ride. It was truly an ‘epic’. We arrived at Wanlockhead at about 8.15 am. Driving up the M74 from Brampton it went from grey to dark grey to light black with the camper van being buffeted by the wind. There were three of us in Andy’s camper van and conversation was subdued. I’d wished I’d had a few drinks the night before, at least then I’d have an excuse for feeling crap. Wanlockhead could be a one-horse town if it had a horse! We rolled out at about 9.20 in driving wind and heavy rain with poor visibility, the group didn’t so much split up as was blown apart! I don’t remember too much about the first few miles other than avoiding potholes and compensating for gusts of wind. We got to the first pass, ‘Dalveen’, not so steep, stayed in the big ring. Andy wasn’t feeling well and decided to drop out so we parted company on the descent. I joined up with a guy from Teesdale CC and continued toward Moffat on a fast descent with heavy rain and a tail wind, made the feed station at 66km and decided to put my waterproof on. It was shortly after this I joined up with a couple of lads to form a mini group that would stay together for the rest of the ride. Climbed up the Devils Beeftub (bit like the Hole of Horcum) and raced down to Talla Reservoir, still in the rain and still at this point with a tail wind. Every now and then the road twisted into the wind and we were reminded that for every kilometre with the wind behind us was another to fight on the way back. We were joined at this point by a guy from Dumfries who new all about road racing and advised on the next section which was about 20%. I really needed a pee break and stopped at the bottom of the 20% Wall of Talla, it was a good group and I thought if I climbed well and didn’t lose to much ground I could catch them on the descent, the plan worked and we joined up again. Long fast downhill on a narrow windy road to Meggat Reservoir. There was a rider down being tended to, one of two needing hospital treatment. Still fast down to St Mary’s Loch, and then turned back into the wind. It was gusting to about 45mph, we worked really well as a group with everyone taking a turn on the front although, despite waiting, we dropped a couple of riders, including the road racer from Dumfries. We crested the climb up The Grey Mares Tail and if anything had to work harder on the way down, picking up a couple of more riders, still in the rain which by this time was starting to ease although the wind had increased. We made it to the next and last feed station stopping for long enough to top up with water and grab another banana. By this time we were an established group and set off together without having to agree and slotted back into the chain gang. We passed riders who tried to stay on, it’s not that we were going fast, we weren’t, we just had a good rhythm and kept it going. After about 50k of this we finally turned back onto the road leading up to Wanlockhead with 16K of up to 15% left to go to the finish, (the final section up to the radar station had been closed due to severe gales!), and crossed the line together. I came in at 6:30:4, 48th out of 127 finishers after 106 miles of exhilarating hard riding.

My bike racing this year has been approached from a slightly different angle to previous years, for a start I’m a lot more relaxed and have more fun and as I love all areas of cycling I try to ride a wide variety of events, from flat crit races, to hilly road races, to short xc races, to cross races, to endurance mtb races. The 2 ten hour endurance mtb races that I’ve done are part of the ’10 series’ organised by no fuss events. The main goal is for everyone to have fun and there is a category to suit almost every type of rider. The format follows a common theme, pick a team of 1, 2, 3 or for and do as many laps as possible in ten hours……..simples. As I’ve yet to convince my Velo 29 team mates of the immense fun you can have on fat tyres off-road my good friend and mtb training partner Jason Hynd stepped in to pair up with me for ’10 at Kiroughtree’. Having raced the event 2 years ago Jason knew what he was letting himself in for.

We arrived on the Friday to heavy rain and set up camp with local North East riders and good friends ‘Treadhunters’. A course pre-ride revealed an 8.5 mile course with 1200ft of climbing, steep, muddy descents with off-camber roots, fast, snaking, rocky, super fun singletrack pieced together with short fireroad sections. A good challenging course made more technical by the rain and mud. After sign-on we all settled down in our mini-race village for tea and a chat about the event to come. As the rain came down on the Saturday morning I decided on a fairly short warm-up before sneaking in behind the lead-out car. I knew that getting into the singletrack near the front was important to avoid the bottlenecks, so I latched onto Ian Nimmos wheel and stayed there. I knew there was a potential to ride 6 laps each so I chose a pace that would allow me to do just that. I came into transition 1 minute behind the leader, whipped the transponder off my ankle and onto Jason’s for him to head out. Our friend Kev had come over from Selkirk to help us out which made a hugh difference. Kev would clean and lube the bike whilst we got clean, changed, fed and stretched ready to go out again. This was the set-up for ten hours of racing. The rain fell for most of the day making the course very muddy while we focussed on riding consistent laps and not making mistakes. Our mini-race village was great as there was always someone to talk to between laps. I must say that Clair’s banana bread is one of the best pick-me-ups for a long race, I will be putting an order in for more when I’m heading to a long race. I decided not to check the leader board when I heard the mc announce that we were in the lead by some 12 minutes. When I asked Kev he was rather sheepish and came out with his trademark saying for the weekend ‘anything can happen’. After hearing about his experiences and misfortunes (broken bikes, snapped seatposts, dead night lights, unreliable team-mates) in long endurance races I would definitely say that I agree. After my 5^th lap I was especially tired and heard the news that due to the conditions of the course and the fading light the event was being shortened by 1 hour. Relief flooded through me and then I realised that if Jason had no problems on his final lap we would win. We headed over to greet him joking that we might strap my head with a bandage and send him out on another lap…….evil I know J Like a deer in the headlights he didn’t know what was going on, looking around confused before we could get the message across that it was all over. The prize presentation was completed after some ‘music artist’ had destroyed some well-liked songs. We stoked up the bbq and sat under the e-z-up sheltering from the wind and rain and downed a few well deserved beers.

Big thanks to no fuss for an excellent course and event, a great ride from my team-mate Jason and flawless support from Big Kev (he’s 6 foot 7).

Only 2 weeks to go before the Velo29 Martyn Dobson Memorial Series kicks off at Croft… I hope you will all turn up to ride or to cheer on your buddies. First race is on Thursday 29th July. Here’s the race flyer to remind you of all the important details!