Well I guess he’s done what he intended, he’s tried road racing. I know quite a few riders who try racing, get their 3rd cat, then don’t really do much after that. Though I don’t think that’ll be Nath.

A fair point

@nathb – Good to hear 😀 reckon you should look at doing a road racce or to before the end of the season; if nothing else you’ll learn a lot about position/race awareness

Awesome! I’d do the 3/4 and be targeting the league win if I was you!

Seriously at 5w/kg you should be able to just ride around the outside of the pack… sod racecraft.

Regarding indoor/outdoor, I live in London – cycling is crap for the first/return 30-45 mins.

You need to move then, Staffordshire’s nice 🙂

Southern Yeti, with respect, MrBlobby has 5w/kg and only has 1 Cat 4 point. Ok so he’s doing a bit of testing and getting results there but he’s also not getting the stick Nath seems to be attracting lol.

Training is motivating and engaging in its own right!

MrBlobbys team mate, Mr Cartwright is partial to a bit of indoor based training himself and I don’t think anyone would call him out for it 😆

Apologies, I’m not intending to give him stick.

I just have a sense of what I could do with 5w/kg and know that none of the Cat 2’s I ride with have an FTP that high.

Hopefully that’s encouragement to go out and take apart the 3/4 at Hillingdon!

All or most of you are familiar enough with the Training Bible to know that not having access to the right sorts of roads is even mentioned as being a limiter to people’s potential. Training indoors eliminates that limiter and in fact provides the perfect way to apply the training stress needed to promote continuous gradual improvement.

That Nath is doing so with such focus and discipline is a great credit to him and I can’t wait to see how far it goes 🙂

Me too Southern Yeti 😆

I’m heading there this evening with my paltry 3.7 to see where that gets me 😀

Thanks crosshair, I only came out that day to play with you and Nath 🙂 Road racing not my focus at all.

Regarding the not racing thing, from racing TT the past few seasons I have learnt that you get better by racing, and that the season really isn’t that long.

If that’s Tim Cartwright… having seen him put a minute into the field at a recent 10… does anyone know his w/kg?

It was listed as 5 for CVR. 385w @ 77 kg

I think he’s at about 400W off around 76kg.

Edit… and he can put that out in position which is even more impressive.

I guess those are the sort of numbers you should expect from a formidable TTer.

Sorry for using you as an example MrB- I know you can handle the heat 😉
You probably had a higher ftp/kg than Nath that day and yet didn’t beat him 😉

Regarding the not racing thing, from racing TT the past few seasons I have learnt that you get better by racing, and that the season really isn’t that long.

For sure.

TT is a little easier to dip in and out of though. With mass-start racing, there is such a huge part of the race that is dependent on factors outside of one’s own performance. With TTs, your results are significantly more affected by how you ride yourself. Setting a PB in a target race may be scuppered by windy conditions, but where you place in the field should not change too much.

My clubmate has an FTP of 4.9 W/kg at 78 kg. He’s currently top 10 nationally in TT at 25 and 50, and top 20 at 100. And a vet 😀

Crosshair, Nath was racing, I was spectating 😉

(By which I mean, to find myself in a small group going into the last lap I didn’t really have a clue what to do, while Nath new exactly what he wanted to do. And he has a much much better sprint that i have!)

My clubmate has an FTP of 4.9 W/kg at 78 kg.

In TT it’s all about the CdA and the watts. w/kg largely irrelevant. You just need to be up near 400W and have put a lot of work into your CdA.

http://worldcup.cycligentrankings.com/blog/racer-spotlight-tim-cartwright-2/

You old dinosaurs will all be Zwift racing this winter 😆

In addendum – I’ve learnt this myself over the last few years as I basically stopped road racing after the 2nd was born. I just can’t get away to consistently do road races any more. I’ve taken to doing TTs in groups of 2/3 at a couple of places in the year (plus a few Merckx-style club 10s), and then doing a bunch of HCs at the end.

In TT it’s all about the CdA and the watts

Yup, and his is tiny 😉 Watts/CdA is probably a better measure. I’m working on mine, and pretty pleased with the position now. Which is good, ‘cos Watts is not going anywhere fast 😆 (except downwards)

@jd77, re. power, that’s interesting, I thought because I didn’t calibrate it was way out (too low), but maybe it wasn’t too far out – I just shouldn’t have struggled with cramp at ~240w weighted, but then it was warm and I’d had a few drinks the night before. What power meter do you use?

Does everyone on this thread live like a nun and eat/drink nothing but puritan stuff?? 😉 Seems I need to to have anything vaguely resembling a good race day 🙁

I’m a pescatarian (that’s not a star sign) and probably have two bottles/pints of ale a week. So yeah nun amounts 😆

Getting my 5 portions of fruit/veg in comes easily (otherwise I’d starve ha) it’s bulking stuff out that’s the hard bit – mountains of oats/rice/pasta/vegan protein (can’t digest milk). I do have cake like 3-4 days a week though so not exactly purist. 🙂

Mentally preparing myself for 40 mins of pain right now, by putting it off ha.

I hear cake is great as an energy source for 40 minutes of pain.

And a pint is a great recovery drink. 😉

In all seriousness though. I eat a pretty good diet. Lean meat, sushi, salads, plenty of fresh fruit and veg (mostly very fresh – straight from the allotment which is 50yds from the house). Don’t have junk food. But I’m no nun. I do have the odd bar of chocolate, and have a beer or 2 a couple of times a week (mostly at home). I don’t ‘go out drinking’ though.

I do tend to struggle to cut back on the calorie intake through the winter though. I’m down at about 72.5Kg at the moment (189cm), but I was up to about 78 in late Jan. FWIW, my Tanita scales reckon I currently hover around 7% body fat (high 6s / low 7s depending on when I weigh myself – which would reasonably correlate with being 13/14 at 78Kg)

FFS – not having a good night!

– Ribble have cocked up my frameset order – sending me the wrong forks and no headset/hanger/cable stops
– Rear tyre on my wheel was flat (non turbo wheel)
– about 15 mins into my workout the turbo lost resistance meaning I had to spin at 105rpm in 52/11 to maintain around 330w for over 25 mins!! My natural cadence is 90-96rpm!!
https://www.strava.com/activities/1078810585
Tonight is a good night for a pint!!!

Weird as exactly the same thing happened to me during today’s Zwift. About halfway through the ride the turbo control cut out and just left it in what felt like the default resistance setting. Bit worried it was the turbo but maybe it’s Zwift.

My diet is horrendous- hence why I’m 85(ish) kg 😆

I do reign it in with MFPal a bit but have no trouble bringing back a 2000 calorie deficit 🙂 I aim for -300 and lose about 3/4lb a week if I stick rigidly to it. I’m so hungry from work at the moment that in practice, it’s around evens but I think I’m adding a bit of upper body mass which isn’t helping.

Write up to follow 🙂

Oh but I don’t drink 😆

@jd77, re. power, that’s interesting, I thought because I didn’t calibrate it was way out (too low), but maybe it wasn’t too far out – I just shouldn’t have struggled with cramp at ~240w weighted, but then it was warm and I’d had a few drinks the night before. What power meter do you use?

A 4iii – I dont think i remembered to calibrate mine either, but 240W NP seems about right compared to other rides with similar RPE (e.g. https://www.strava.com/activities/1047761093)

I cramped as well, but I usually cramp through not eating enough which I dont think would have been the case on Sunday (4 weetabix with nutella, 1 banana, 3 bottles of energy drink and 3 gels)

Does everyone on this thread live like a nun and eat/drink nothing but puritan stuff?? Seems I need to to have anything vaguely resembling a good race day

Nope, although I cut down on the beer last week; had 4 beers spread throughout the week and none on saturday night. Did have a few beers on Sunday night though (after I got home from the race, I chopped logs for an hour or so, helped my wife inspect her beehives, and bottled a batch of beer, so I reckon I earned it)

Im 67kg at 170cm, and this has been steady since april. Usually go up to about 72kg in the winter as my riding volume drops off a cliff during cx season

I was a little bit jaded with Thruxton. It doesn’t really allow me to play to my strengths as the hill saps my sprint and there’s no real advantage to reward good bike handling. I know I’m not playing the right tactics either- but I am enjoying busting a few moves, even if they are more Dad-dancing than Disco-deva!

Hillingdon then, and back in May when I came here for rd1 of the West Thames, I raced with Nath and got dropped with three to go.
Whilst I *know* from my data that I’m fitter, that gave me my first goal- don’t get dropped.

Other than that, it was a case of seeing what sort of moves happened and responding accordingly.

It was anti-clockwise tonight, so I would have to ride the ‘hill’. I thought back to my first time here when it really was a hill, now I barely even noticed it- that felt good!

I felt out of sync with the different start time so had to think a bit harder about prep. A few keen guys were banging out warm-up sets on their turbo’s but I didn’t feel the need to do much. I ramped the volume up a tad last week so didn’t want to burn a match before I started.

I picked up some SIS caffeine tablets as an impulse buy in Halfords the other day and brought a bottle as a warm up drink. Yuk! They are minging! I need to experiment to see if I can change the taste as they literally made me feel sick.

I had to get petrol beforehand so necked a Whispa Gold as pre-race sugar and also a gel on the line- I meant business tonight!
A few warm up laps completed, we gridded up and got ready to go. The comm decided to remind us about the huge clumps of wet grass on the circuit (I think a few minutes kicking them off may have been better but hey ho) which of course put everyone on edge!

I was hoping the wet conditions would level the playing field a little with the 3’s but at the same time, guessed they should or could be better bike handlers than an average four (although not if they’ve only been doing indoor intervals and Zwift racing, hey Nath!) That’s a joke by the way so sorry about that!

So we were off and it felt good to be back! Just like the winter series but about 12 degrees warmer! The first couple of laps were sedate with some short punches off the front but each guy soon sitting up. The pack was rightly very wary with every corner a cacophony of useless scratchy brakes.

I had to concentrate a lot harder than Thruxton. It’s a lazy, easy, boring cruise compared to this that’s for sure! I milled around in the middle of the bunch, trying to pick out lines for later in the race and purposefully varying my position to reassure myself I could corner on any route once the pace picked up. Gradually from the third lap, a few more concerted efforts were made and the bunch had to Tally-ho and do some work.

As we slowed each time, I would hang back and roll in with momentum and make up a couple of places. On the bend before the climb, I would let a good two bike lengths open up and accelerate right through the corner- launching me back into the group for little or no effort.
I was still comfort braking more than I ought to though and having to force myself to let go before I tipped into Brians. My muscle memory wasn’t that fresh and it took me a while to start riding it properly again at full pace.

As I drifted forward after a few laps, I found I could read the race really well and began accelerating almost on a hunch. Sure enough, a guy attacked into the wind and I just surfed wheels and found myself in the move for a lap. Next lap, I was still there having not worked too hard when the counter was launched- so I thought ‘in for a penny!’ and did a strong surge to join his wheel. We had a tiny gap and guys were even trying to get some rotation going but that was never going to happen. A guy was solo up the hill at this point as the last man swung off and left me exposed in the wind. So I powered up the climb and got on his wheel- what’s all this Cat 3 fuss about!

As we went down the straight the next time though, he blew up and I was as high as I wanted to go at this stage of the race- 177-180 I think. Finding myself in the wind, I carried on at Vo2 max as the next counter came ripping past.

This is the significant difference from the 4’s I think. The attacks come at the hardest part of the lap, not the easiest and they are more sustained with more guys joining in.

Anyway, the bunch chased hard and I found myself off the back by ten yards. Hero-zero in a lap!

But….. unlike May, I have some muscular endurance now so I just kept turning the pedals and tried not to panic. Riding the shortest line possible, I knew if I could stay this close I’d be getting a meagre draft effect so that was my focus for the time being. Soon enough, by cornering a little faster each time, I got back on with a sigh of relief and set about recovering.

The front guys got tired soon after too and we cruised for half a lap so I took the chance to get some drink down my neck.

When the next attacks came, I was still well back so just let others cover the moves and did as much as necessary and as little as possible.
It didn’t take too long before I felt ready to carry places forward again and I knew we must be getting close to the end. With about five to go, another sustained attack took place and I just hung on and waited for it to subside.

Another surge happened with three to go but shut itself down up the climb. Taking a tight inside line at Brians, I used the good old outside line towards the Bus-stops and took a bit of wind to move forward to about 12th place or so.
Two to go and things got quicker but I felt more than able to cope. I was conservative but made sure I held my position and made up places when I could.

Last lap then and I felt in about as text book a position as I could be. Top third with loads of strong wheels to follow.
As guys drilled it up the hill around me, I just stayed seated and seemed to move slightly forward if anything. Oddly calm, things looked great! Top ten was right there.

Ok, I know, I’ve used that line and sadly, the next line many times before too!

As we went through the pinch point, I held firm on the exact course I wanted- right hand side. This would carry me to the inside of Brians, for the outside of Bus-stops and a nice roomy outside sprint to the line.
And then! Some guy (who as usual I’d had on my radar all race) came up through the bunch about 5mph too quick for the bend at the top of the hill. Petrified of hitting the brakes, he was literally shouting at everyone to clear the way. Three of us had to sit up and move wider.
And that was it really. Instead of being on the back of the front ten, moving forwards with a plan in mind, I was now ten yards back and chasing.

The ghost of TiRed’s past, reminded me to drop a couple of gears for the hill and I just held firm on what was by now about 20th wheel and got ready for a wattage Bazooka!
Whilst not quite a fresh one, it was better than many races lately at 1150w and saw me make up a few more spots for what I hope is about 15/16th place.

I say I hope because I can’t be certain if a break got away in the final two laps- I was up to my eyeballs in spray and grit so don’t know for sure.

So, didn’t get dropped, didn’t get points, but certainly didn’t feel like a small fish in a big pond.
It’s WAY more fun than Thruxton so I may head back next week depending on my schedule.

Edit- take that back, the big power spike was earlier in the race. Only 978 in the final sprint.

well done CH, pretty good achievement to be active in, and finish near the front of a 3/4

Bloody good write up & show CH (bar that one comment 😆 ) !!

Did you notice a guy on a Ribble R872?

Sorry- knew you’d like it 😆

No? Is that some kind of Bike ❓ 😀 😉

Guy I know has surprised me by showing up on my strava feed as racing there this evening lol

Oh lol! Did I beat him ? 😆

Black circle. No obvious break. Beat our friend Johnny (red circle) 🙂

Anyone racing in those conditions tonight deserved a point! From the comfort of HQ I think there was a rider off the front of the 3/4s.

I rolled in in the minor points of the E123. Wet enough to be reminded of my triathlon days.

For Stat fans…
NP 333
AP 312.
A wet fart of a sprint.

Ah, would have said hi if I’d known. I didn’t hang around for results- I had to wring my stuff out 😆

Yeah, I normally eat fairly healthily, rarely any alcohol – not through any particular choice, just usually forget about it.

I’m absolutely regimented with the training, but nowhere near as strict on the diet. Healthy so long as it still tastes good, rather than super dedicated on that front.

Interesting to know what everyone else has for breakfast on race day. I had porridge and a couple of slices of jam on toast.

Depends what time I’m racing. Today was scrambled egg on toast, then an impromptu fry-up at the local Farm Park café for brunch with the wife, an apple and chocolate mini roll for a snack and then Cornflakes with copious Chocolate Nesquick powder at 16:00.

Whispa Gold and SIS Gel pre race. Tuna on toast when I got home.

AP- 257w
NP- 282w
MP- 1155w
Speed- 25mph