Tagged: HW

Riding fixed on 110.9 gear inches AKA 1 week 3 TTs

Last week I attached a 13 tooth cog to my bike. This combined with my 55 tooth chainring gave me 110.9 gear inches.

I was scared and excited, would I go really fast? or more likely, be unable to turn this almost proper time trialling gear.

I ended up riding three TTs.

Tuesday: VC Bristol/Kingswood Tri
Wednesday: BSCC
Thursday: Dursley RC

I hit pb’s for two of the three, only missing a third pb, by 5 seconds with a gruesome headwind. I was really happy with the weeks racing and felt good on the bigger gear. I need to keep riding it to increase strength though.

All through the week I was wondering how I was feeling so good and not getting tired. It subsequently hit me this Monday morning when I woke up feeling like crap!

I’m hoping to feel better to ride the Inter Club TT tomorrow night.

Even after attending three events I failed to take a single photo.

I would really like these wheels.

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Inter Club TT Pt2 – Head Wind Vengeance

Last week on Wednesday evening, the second part of the Inter Club TT battle took place.

Most of the BSCC TT big boys, were absent due to holidays. This meant a win was looking unlikely.

I’d headed up with Kieran who’s more accustomed to road racing, but more than able at smashing out a TT!

We pedalled around to warm up and noticed instantly the massive head wind. Oh dear I thought, last time I rode here, the wind destroyed me and my time!

Although it was to be a head wind on the return leg this week. I opted to just ride as hard as possible from the off with the tail wind, and hang on for the return. Something that I’m sure I’ve heard PJ mention.

Well, it worked! Although not a pb, I was really happy with my time of 23.29. It was also the first outing with my disc fitted which may of helped getting back through the wind. Averaging 28.6mph to the turn showed how strong the wind was, as this dropped to 25.5 by the time I’d crossed the line!

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SixClix – TT Lurking

On the bank holiday Monday I headed out to ride the VC Bristol 10 mile TT course. Their TT series started this Tuesday and I’m hopefully going to ride a few of them.

It was a little chilly, but the sky was clear and I had a really good few hours of spinning around being lost for about 75% of the time. It made a good change from the same roads and routes that can become a routine.

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What a difference a day makes

Or so I thought.

Yesterday Tim went riding in the rain. I had many excuses why I wasn’t riding, but it was mainly because I’m lazy.

When I saw the weather today I had no excuse. The BSCC Inter Club TT is this Wednesday so I needed to get my legs moving again.

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I set off in dry warm weather, perfect riding conditions for a few miles after work. I’m currently running a 64 gear inch due to a mismatch of parts so a fairly relaxed ride was the plan.

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Cruising about in the dry was such a change, until after about 52 minutes and 54 seconds of this, the rain came back!! At this point I’d covered just over 20 miles and was feeling hungry, with TDO Tuesday tomorrow and the BSCC Inter Club TT on Wednesday, I decided to head home. Slightly wet, but thankfully not cold.

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Patiently waiting

Over the weekend I decided to finally do something I’ve been putting off for too long. My Bob Jackson Vigorelli has desperately needed a new coat of paint since I’d had mudguard eyelets and a few other bits of brazing done. A quick clear coat by me to cover the bare metal wasn’t doing the job.

I was going to go with a simple one colour powder coat. But in the end decided to take the plunge and head back to Argos Racing Cycles where I’d had the brazing done for something a little more involved.

It was so hard to decide on what to go for. I ended up making my final decision whilst I was at Argos, being surrounded by frames and having the sample colours in front of me certainly helped!

I was quite pleased and surprised when I was told one of my requests had never been done by them before. Fingers crossed it turns out looking ok!

Pictures to come in about 6 weeks. Hopefully it’ll be worth the wait.

I couldn’t visit without taking some pictures of the always amazing and interesting array of frames, waiting to be collected or worked on.

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A night of two races

Last night was the second round of the Bristol South CC classic league, a series of time trials.

It was to be an evening of two races. Race one was getting to the TT in time. Last week for me and Tim this didn’t happen, Christian managed to arrive moments before the last rider was off and within seconds of getting there was off racing.

To cut a long, boring and slightly stressful story short, me and Christian both made the TT in good time, Tim was off playing polo.

This weeks race was over a 5.2 mile course, the UC115. I was riding my Dolan Track Champion with a 88 gear inch and Christian his Giant TCR with a choice of gear inches.

We were both pretty pleased with our results, 6th and 7th of 23 riders. Christian took nearly a minute out of his time from last week. My slightly optimistic time of 12 minutes wasn’t reached, but at 12.21 with a terrible start I was happy.

The results can be seen here .

The winner PJ, had a more eventful evening, you can read about that here. He then provided 6 of us with a train back home, it felt good to fly along in a group after the solo excitement of the TT.

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