Lofty Ideals

Last week I had to use up some of my annual holiday as I'm only allowed to carry a limited number of days from one year to the next. Time to finish off some of the jobs left over from last year. Main one on the list was boarding out the loft (fancy name for a bit of space between the ceiling and roof).

First stop on the Saturday morning was the builders' merchant. "I'd like some 50mm x 50mm carcassing please." "No!", "What do you mean - 'no'?", "We've run out, we can get it to you when we get a delivery some time next week". Oh, well. I ordered all the materials, nearly £300, I needed and hoped it wasn't going to be delivered too late in the week.

The materials duly arrived on Wednesday morning (with associated grumpy driver) and once off-loaded it was down to work. The general plan was: move all the rubbish, I mean rarely used items, from one side of the space; remove the old insulation from between the joists; screw lengths of the 50mm timber to the top of each joist to create enough depth for the insulation; put in the new insulation; cover with boarding. Of course being a roof meant that a good proportion of the work was done on my knees reaching in to the further recesses beyond the purlins. Things weren't helped by the house not being square so the boarding had to be cut individually.

With all the material outside the house there were several trips up and down from the loft to measure, cut and fit all the timber. By the end of the first day I was knackered - I hadn't done a full day of physical work for some time and it showed. Still I had half the area insulated and boarded out and the rubbish, err - rarely used items, neatly stashed away in the area behind the purlin.

Day two was a little more awkward as the sections of boarding all had to be cut to fit round things like the ladder hatch and in order to avoid having tiny slivers of boarding (it came in 2440x600mm sheets) there were a few medium sized pieces laid. By mid-afternoon I was done. I even had one piece of boarding left over that I could use as a shelf at one end of the loft. Time for a cup of tea.

The finished loft. 

Down in the kitchen I was about to put the kettle on when I heard a "drip ... drip ... drip ...". Looking round there was a small puddle around the multi-fuel stove! Aaagh! Working my way back upstairs, there was a wet pipe in the airing cupboard so back up in to the loft. Everything was dry. Even more puzzling was that I'd boarded the area around the pipework the previous day so couldn't have knocked it recently. A panic call to my wife to find out which plumbers they used at her work and a further call to the plumber - he couldn't get to us until the following day. I needed to stop the leak - it wasn't huge, maybe a cupful an hour, but it would do damage unless I got it stopped.

The pipe was the cold water feed and quite large, as a guess I reckoned a wine cork would fit the outflow in the cold water header tank. It did! So immediate problem solved. It didn't explain why the leak had suddenly started though.

When the plumber arrived the following day the size of the hole in the pipe bore no relation to the rate of water leaking out. The pipe passed through the joist at the gable end and I reckon that it was the joist holding the pipe together. Previouly there was no pressure on this joist as it wasn't where you'd walk when in the loft but now with all the joists linked together by the boarding there must have been just enough flex to disturb things. At least it didn't take too long to find and fix.

Back on the bike I've had a few rides, some even spring like though it's back to being cooler at the moment. Last Sunday Andy had sorted out a lumpy ride over the southern part of the Etape du Dales - he's in training for the Fred Whitton. The full ride was about 90 miles. Heading out of Skipton my legs felt decidedly dead - I wasn't too bad on the flat but as soon as things started going uphill I was straight out of the back of the group. By the time we got to the top of Fleet Moss I decided I'd had enough and headed back home. It was hard enough getting back up the last hill before home, I certainly wouldn't have managed the Coal Road up from Garsdale Head. Just one of those days I suppose.

With the clocks going forward evening rides are almost no lights needed now. Tuesday was a lovely night so I went for a quick blast on a flattish loop round Gargrave. Thursday was really mirky and it was lights front and back for safety's sake.

Whether it's a hangover from the layoff following my op or my training not being particularly effective I've struggled with plain speed this year. Now to go faster on a bike you can do two things: pedal faster in a given gear or use a bigger gear. I've been doing the former, preferring to "spin" rather than "grind" but there's a maximum cadence rate above which you aren't particularly steady plus even a little below that rate it is actually quite hard work to keep the revs up. A good indication of this is the fact that I've never even used the smallest three cogs on the cassette. So I've been trying to ride a couple of gears above where I normally do. It's definitely hard work but my average speed on the two rides this week is nearly 3kph higher than on previous similar rides. Early days yet though.

Le Petit Grand Depart

Managed some short faster rides this week, mainly at night though with the increasingly longer daylight hours the first half of one ride was in daylight/twilight. On Saturday I led the first of our club's improver rides. These are intended to help riders improve their speed as well as improving group riding skills - riding as a tight group tends to increase speed as you are sharing the workload and actually doing less work at any given speed. It's why you get the peloton in races. Anyway there were four of us and we managed to stay pretty well in formation, of course there are lessons learned and hopefully next week will apply some of those.

Andy and I had arranged to do the route of the club sponsored sportive on Sunday, this is all tied in with the Tour de France and the first 60Km follow the route of the first stage up Wharfedale, down Bishopdale to Aysgarth then along the valley to Hawes. Rather than continue over Buttertubs a la Tour, the sportive then heads back to Ribblehead, down to Settle and back to Skipton. Around 130Km or 80 miles in total.

It then got decided (not by us) that this would be a good time to get shots for a cycling magazine article on the event so surprise, surprise rather than the usual handful of riders, nearly twenty turned out. (Not cynical me ... ) There was an 'A' group of about 12 and a 'B' group of about 6. After a short detour through Skipton town centre to get some shots there we headed up the Grassington road at a steady pace and it wasn't long before the first big climb over Kidstones was reached.

This is steady with just a short section at the top that is significantly steeper than the rest. Then it was the fast descent in to Bishopsdale and with the sun coming out it felt a lovely spring day. Then we turned left up Wensleydale and directly in to the strong westerly wind. The pace dropped significantly and it took a good while to get to Hawes. Cafe stop mandated!

We were just leaving when the second group arrived so not that far behind really. I'd joked earlier with Andy about the section up Widdale and over to Ribblehead being tough and with the wind blasting down the dale it certainly was. There's no shelter on this section so it was just a case of keep pushing on. To make matters worse it was starting to rain. The group got split on this point and we had to wait a few minutes at Ribblehead. Fortunately the wind was now on our backs as we headed down Ribblesdale but even so we were all cold and wet enough that another cafe stop felt mandated at Settle.

By now I was feeling the distance and didn't really fancy the climb up out of Settle and over to Airton since I'd also got the climb up home to do as well. Also one of our group was heading back to Howarth so he and I went the flat way. Not really an easy option as it turned out since he was pretty quick but by the time we got to Carleton my legs were definitely on the way out so it was a slow crawl up the hill and back home. In the end I managed 142Km so another longest ride so far. Having foregone a cafe stop in Settle, the 'B' group arrived in Skipton only about half an hour later.

For those that did the full route finishing over the top from Settle, they took just over five hours so something like 4hrs30 would appear to be a good time for the route in less breezy conditions.

Increasing the mileage.

Well the Eden Valley Sportive went well - got round in just over four hours (3:45 moving time) and managed to avoid most of the rain. The roads were very dirty and by the end my drivetrain sounded like it was made of sandpaper. Pretty much all of the roads were completely new to me, I'd certainly not cycled on them before and probably only driven about 3 miles of the route.

On the plus side: it was my longest ride to date after my op and I didn't feel tired or cramp up towards the end. On the down side: a lot of riders didn't have mudguards so many people looked like they had been doing a mountain bike event and there were a lot of gel wrappers littering the course - if you've room to carry a full sachet you've room to carry an empty one.

Midweek saw me doing a couple of rides including a TT type route that was set up last year as a means of club members benchmarking their performances. Note that it isn't actually a recognised TT route/course as it's some weird distance. My previous time on this was 1hr6mins and I did it in 1hr10mins so a little slower but it was at night and on the previous occasion I had some other riders to aim for. That time was also midsummer rather than early spring so I'd quite a few miles in my legs. I would have been very surprised if I'd beaten it.

Come Saturday and I felt like doing a longer ride and since the wind was from the south west I headed that way so that I'd at least get a tail wind on the way home. As I was heading out of Waddington near Clitheroe there was a couple of shouts of "Bob!" it was Rick and Ian who we'd gone to Majorca with last year. After a bit of a chat, useful to get my breath back after the headwind, I carried on and eventually pulled up at the cafe in Dunsop Bridge, the village closest to the geographical centre of the UK. Somehow even with a tailwind I didn't seem to make good time on the way back, ah well. There were also very few cyclists about and I only saw one until I got to Gargrave when the next three were people I knew. All that was left was the climb up home which felt rather tiring but with 110 km done it was 15Km further than the previous weekend.

I wasn't sure whether to go out on Sunday as I was feeling pretty tired, but thought I'd see how it would go. I'd not ridden with the club for a while, partly due to getting my fitness back and partly down to nerves about riding in a group. The plan was to ride up to Ribblehead and back. One thing I've noticed is that my legs don't have that "zip" at the moment but I'm not too bad on the flat. Going with the 'A' ride should help sort things out. We got to Airton at a fair pace but I was a bit slower on the long climb over to Settle. I'd never ridden up the dale to Ribblehead, it's not too bad apart from my personal bete noire of the short climb after Stainforth.

It's when we turn at Ribblehead that we really notice the wind. Fortunately Andy and The Herb take up most of the front duties but even so it's hard work. A cafe stop at Clapham then back roads weaving in and around the A65 as far as Bell Busk where I headed back home via Gargrave while the others continued to Skipton. The final hill felt even harder than Saturday but I had now got a further 116Km in my legs.

Really quite a tiring weekend!

Getting there

A bit of a gap since my last post but things have all been a bit steady improvement hip-wise whilst the weather hasn't been particularly great.

I've been managing longer rides at the weekends aiming to build up stamina in time for the Eden Valley Sportive which is just under 60 miles. I've also managed to get some evening rides done on shorter loops around home. Most of these rides have been solo as it's easier to deal with than if you are in a group but on a couple I've been joined by Cath and also by Fletch one of the lads from the cycling club whose also had a recent operation (on his wrist) so it's been a sort of rehab group out on the road. 

It may seem odd that a wrist operation keeps you off the bike for a while but you do pull on the handlebars quite a bit when riding especially on hills. Also it affected how he worked the brake which could have had interesting results!

Last Saturday we did a fifty miler over towards Clitheroe then over the Nick o' Pendle and back through the villages just to the west of Nelson and Colne. I didn't feel too bad after this but on the Sunday had to shorten my intended ride to Hebden Bridge as fighting the wind was increasingly hard work and my legs felt very tired.

This Tuesday evening I did a loop that keeps to the main roads round by Earby and Colne. I thought I was going well, or perhaps more accurately better than the previous week, until I got home and found out that I was just 18 seconds quicker. At least I'm consistent!

On Thursday I thought I'd do the same loop but this time deliberately keep my heart rate in Zone 2 which for me is between 120 & 137BPM rather than push it all the time. On a route with any sort of hills this is actually quite hard to do: your heart rate drops quite, well very, quickly on the descents and you struggle to keep moving and keep your heart rate down on anything but short uphills. The result was quite surprising - I was just six minutes slower over than the previous two rides: 1hr25 rather than 1hr19. (Weather conditions were similar on all three rides so that can be ruled out as having any significance) I think this means that I'm not very efficient when trying to push harder. But that's the point of the training zone rides - to increase riding efficiency. What I think I'll do is use this loop as a test to see how I'm improving.

Despite it being dark when I've been doing these rides I did manage to notice a badger crossing the road in front of me on Thursday night. We've a few round here, there's a set less than a mile away, but it's the first one I've seen locally.

Brilliant!

Not the weather which remains as stormy and worrying for those in low lying areas as it has for some while now but I've finally got outside on the bike.

On Saturday I managed to get a half-hour ride with Cath riding down the dale from Kilnsey to Threshfield and back. (Did it this way to get assistance from the wind on the way back) I was a bit unsteady for the first few hundred metres but it's nearly ten weeks since I've been on a bike. This half hour was squashed between the morning ice and the afternoon storms.

On Sunday I went over to Bolton By Bowland where there's a lot of roads with gentle gradients, about as flat as you'll get round here. Two laps of a sixteen Km loop. I felt fairly strong for both laps and I managed roughly the same time for both laps so fairly consistent but I was definitely feeling tired towards the end. I was still tired last night but things will get better.

Turbo, Turbo, Turbo

Although I've been given the all clear to go biking, I'm not heading out on the roads just yet and I'm certainly not restarting commuting by bike for a while. This means sessions on the turbo trainer, not the most interesting of activities but a bit of music can help pass the time. I also need to get my backside used to being on a bike saddle again.

Turbo sessions are a bit like track sessions on a fixie - there's no coasting as the resistance on the back wheel brings you to a "halt" pretty quickly, so half an hour is half an hour of pedalling. Also, unless you have one of the fancy models it's pretty well impossible to  stand and pedal as the bike won't move beneath you as it would on the road, consequently it's a constant session sat on your backside.

I've no idea how a set length or "distance"[*] of time on the turbo equates to the road but I'm pretty sure it isn't one to one! My first couple of weeks' training have been steady tempo rides: thirty minutes pedalling at around 90rpm[*] but doing that for an hour or more definitely would be boring so a quick google shows quite a few training sessions to try out.

What's neat about the modern generation of cycling computers is that they are effectively two-way devices: not only do they record your rides and performance ready for uploading to a computer and sites like Strava, but you can also create workouts on the computer and download them to the device ready to follow as a training routine. However I need to go against all male instincts and read the manual to find out how.

It's eight weeks tomorrow since my operation and I've stopped using the crutches - I've hardly been using them properly at all for a couple of weeks to be fair, usually they (well it) get in the way and I walk better without them. I had a few trips out where I forgot to take them so it's not a leap in to the unknown. The only "aid" I now still need to use is Foxysoxy (yes it really is called that) which is used to get socks on over my foot, though occasionally I can do so without it.

[*] I've a "turbo" mode on my GPS unit so I can figure out just what I'm doing during each session.

ThunderBob is GO!

I had an appointment with the surgeon this week - a six week check up. He seemed very pleased with my progress but did hint that it was still early days and didn't seem too surprised that I couldn't tie my shoelaces on my right side.

Obviously I'd a question or two and I'm now allowed to drive again and to ride my bike though given the weather I'll be sticking to the turbo trainer for a few weeks, I'll need to get some fitness back before I head out on to the roads. You don't get a sticker for your passport so I'll be setting the alarm off every time I take a flight and then get patted down, I will either have to show the security guards my scar or learn "I've had a hip replacement" in whatever language.

I've entered the Eden Valley sportive on the 2nd March to give me some incentive to get fit. So I've seven weeks to get up to speed and have the fitness to do 60 miles.