We were at the hill stage on Friday and I’ve never seen a bike race splinter into tiny pieces so early! Wasn’t sure how the TTT bit would work though and the pictures I’ve seen back up my doubts! Not there today though as we’re in saint Etienne for the dauphine 🙂

No racing for me this weekend but on Thursday I hit my target time for the season on our 12.5 mile club TT course – the first year I rode my best time was 34.15 and last year it was 34.08. I really wanted a 33 this season and managed it with 33.50. really pleased with that!

Having a few weeks off to go on holiday with just one spoco on Wednesday before we go. Will be nice to have a bit of a break and just riding for fun!

Club event on V226/V212 for me last night. Officially 15 miles but for our club events you actually do 15.2 because the timekeepers prefer to do the finish timing by the start rather than going up the road a bit 😉 to add some spice my OH was off a minute behind me looking for revenge after I beat him in a 25 on Sunday.

He didn’t pass me but did do a slightly faster time than me. I’m still pleased with how I rode though. I was aiming for 40 minutes and would just about have got there had the finish been at the 15 mile point. I was the only woman doing the 15 (apart from a guest pro triathlete but she doesn’t count :wink:) but beat all the other women through the 10 mile split (they also run a 10 at the same time and take 10 mile times for everyone, you can then carry on for the extra 5 if you want).

Average power about 10w up on what I have been doing for 25s.

Bridlington 25 for me. We camped over at HQ last night as it was an 8am start, my club mate who persuaded me to enter got there and realised she’d forgotten her tent poles so went home and left us to it!

Ended up 3rd lady in 1.08.01 – with a 10 second or so delay caused by an idiot driver who was deliberately delaying riders by passing them then slowing right down – apparently he did it to 3 or 4 others too.

More importantly I beat my OH. He is still wandering round muttering about not being a morning person…

TTT training today. Thankfully all of us raced (and PBd) yesterday (the others did a 10 on v718) so we were all happy to focus more on skills than speed. 20 miles of the national TTT course done, working out tactics and calls. Apparently there are only 5 ladies teams entered at the moment (entries close in 11 days).

A25/11 for me today. Hardest I’ve ever worked on the TT bike for a new PB and club ladies record of 1:02:12. Not a huge fan of the course but it was fast despite the wind. Only problem is I know I could have gone faster – hit a pothole with about 7 to go, hoped I hadn’t punctured, carried on riding… Then realised when I got home that the rear tub was completely flat. Looks like I did puncture after all but it must have gone down pretty slowly thankfully.

Now to learn how to change a tub… (I bought it 2nd hand with the tyre on so have never done it before!)

Bad luck on the puncture.

Decent night for my club TT – looked like it was going to be windy but seemed to drop nicely. Rode out on my commuter in a ski suit then switched to the TT bike which my OH had driven out with. Happy with 34.53 at this point in the season (12.5 miles with a hill) – my all time PB is a short 34 and I’ve never gone sub 35 before July until today.

Plus someone I’ve not seen for a while asked me how much weight I’d lost, rather than asking if I’d lost weight.

Yes, but I do most days. Lovely morning for it.

Good work all round on the PBS

A 25 mile PB for me on V232/1 today. 1.05.55, not as fast as I think I’m capable of but the headwind on the outbound leg was horrible and other people suggested it was a slow day. My power numbers looked decent though so I’m hoping for better weather on Etwall next week!

Horribly windy club TT tonight. Over a minute faster than last week though as the TT bike came out to play, and also faster than my first ride on the TT bike last season (which was a much better night). 2 strava QOMs on the tailwind section too…

I do usually vote, but we don’t have local elections here this year (even though one party has still put campaign leaflets through the door for them, definitely talking about locals rather than GE…)

Yes 🙂 riding from home to watch it tomorrow and Sunday. Have Eurosport player on my desk this afternoon…

They slowed down, waved and did a bit of a tune with the horn, definitely friendly horn rather than angry horn! 🙂

At this time of year most people in my club use their road bikes in an attempt to get a softer handicap for the points competition 😉

I can’t keep the bike in the office and I’m not leaving the TT bike outside (I worried enough about my powertap pedals today!) I have however been known to commute in a skinsuit with a jersey over the top (most of the time my OH will drive over with my TT bike and I’ll ride out on my commuter and meet him there, it’s just that today he was riding elsewhere).

Anyway, that was my fastest non-aero time round the course, not that I’ve done it on the road bike too often. I also set a new max 20 minute power figure 🙂

And as we were waiting for the start a Team Sky car came past and gave us a bit of horn based encouragement 🙂

First evening TT of the season for me tonight. Due to logistics (my OH needs the car) I’m riding straight out from work so I’m on the road bike rather than the TT bike (I’m not commuting on aero bars and a disc wheel!). I’m just going to use it to refamiliarise myself with the course, catch up with people and set a crap handicap to improve on next time 😉

V235 for me today. Most comfortable ride on the TT bike yet positionwise (not comfortable in terms of effort though!) so the bike fit feels like money well spent. 3 minutes faster than the same event last year and £30 for 2nd lady (admittedly in a small field!). I think I should also have gone top of the ladies competiton in the Yorkshire SPOCO competition by my maths.

Now looking for some events on faster courses for the next month because I have my eye on a club record or two (one of which is already mine but I reckon I can go faster)

I’ve only done one 50 and dropped my gel when I tried to open it… my problem was holding position – a 25 is about my limit (or was, I’ve had a bike fit for this season so hopefully it is better now)

French alps, following the dauphine. Mainly roadie stuff.

V212 for me today. First time on the TT bike in anger this season, first ride with the new position and only the second outing for the disc wheel. Very windy so I decided against putting the new deeper front wheel on and was quite glad of that. Some sketchy moments going past gaps in hedges and so on.

About 2 minutes faster than the same event last year (which admittedly had hideous weather) but more importantly within a minute of my course best which was on a glorious warm and floaty July evening when I’d had 5 weeks off work spending a lot of time on my bike so I’m happy with that for this stage of the season.

I’m a data protection lawyer 🙂 still at the stage of persuading clients that they do need to set aside time and budget for it but starting to see signs that people realise they have underestimated the task. Not complaining 😉

I sometimes use erg mode and sometimes just use gears (I have a smart trainer but if I use my power pedals it won’t work in erg mode). I’m actually getting to the stage where I prefer to do it myself and have more control over cadence.

I’m trying to stick with zwift a bit longer as last year I really lost structure once the club TT season kicked off in April and I peaked way too early. I may drop down to once per week though.

Speaking of which I’m now heading into a run of TTs so no more bunch stuff til early may at the earliest.

To be fair pimbo was a 45 mile road race on a course with no technical features or hills so it was never going to be the same intensity as a crit. A few attacks were covered in the first hour but then everyone seemed to settle in and wait for the sprint without even bothering to attempt any attacks so it got a little dull for the last 15 miles or so!

2/3/4 at pimbo for me today. I had a 22 mile ride to get there so wasn’t expecting to get much other than bunch experience out of it (I mainly do TTs so sometimes get a bit nervous in bunch stuff and need to do more of it to get more comfortable). God it was boring! There were a couple of half hearted attacks in the first half but nothing stuck and in the second half of the race I felt like I was rolling round in zone 2 until the last lap or two. The garmin file says it was a bit harder than that but it got to the point where everyone knew that no one would get away so no one even bothered trying!

I will be doing before the end of this tax year for similar reasons, but I do at least have the full year to sort it out. It’s likely to be S&S and I want to wait until there’s a bit more on offer before doing something. At the moment I split my investments between a S&S ISA and a SIPP which will still get most of my money but I’d like to have this running alongside those if possible just in case at some point after I turn 40 using the LISA becomes more appealing.

Popping my head into this thread after I picked up my first points this morning 😀 I’ve been dabbling with racing on and off for a couple of years but I mainly do time trialling and it was only a handful of infrequent races each year. This year my OH is training specifically for bunch races so I’ve started racing a bit earlier than my annual dabble in about May!

Today was a ladies 3/4 at Tameside. 15 starters which relatively quickly dropped to a front group of 11. I spent a lot of the time at the back of the group – I still struggle with the confidence to move up and get back into the line a bit further forward. I had to chase on a bit after the hairpin each lap due to being at the back but it was manageable.

I knew it wouldn’t be quite so manageable on the last lap or two, and that if I stayed at the back I’d probably be gapped at that point. I didn’t want to be the person who missed out on a top 10! With an aim of getting top 10 rather than actually winning the thing I decided to ride right to the front with two laps to go, lead out through the penultimate hairpin and then try to hang on as best I could for the last lap and a half in the hope that the increase in pace would drop at least one person so even if people came back past me I’d get a top 10. And that’s precisely what happened. My increase in pace gapped 2 people, and I know that if I’d stayed at the back someone else would have done what I did, and that would have been me off the back. I still have work to do, but it’s the first time I’ve tried much more than just sticking with the group and wishing I had any sprinting ability!

V810 last week – i went for the non-aero category so nothing special just remembering how to ride hard for 10 miles.

Took the TT bike out for the first time since September today (have used it a bit on the turbo). Just a gentle spin round v212 (no event on, just a training ride) to get a feel for the new position.

Bunch races tomorrow and next week but I’ll be back on this thread after that…

yiman – Member
deadlydarcy – Member
Has anyone been reading (or, ahem, reading excerpts on twitter like me ) any of the Great Repeal Bill white paper?
I love the bit where we “Transpose existing EU legislation into domestic UK law”. I.e. copy and paste EU law and call it UK law.

Now THAT really is “taking back control”.

As is the bit which says (to paraphrase slightly) – there’s quite a lot to get through so we might need to use a procedure which is fairly light on parliamentary scrutiny. Wonderful.

I was marshalling leeds half a few years back outside kirkstall leisure centre. The runners were in a coned off lane rather than having a full closure, but cars couldn’t turn left across it.

Someone wanted to turn left at the lights and realised she wouldn’t be able to so instead decided to see if she could cut through the car park.i was on the car park exit she wanted to turn into so had to stop her.

The thing was it had some of those spikes that only let you drive one way over them, and it wasn’t the direction she wanted to go. They would let you out but not in. After taking her abuse for a while I was very tempted to let her through and laugh when she got stuck….

First solo TT of the season has been delayed for me. Entered an event via the ctt website for the 18th and got the email confirmation through that my payment had been successful but then the system seems to have lost the record, it never made it to the organiser and now the start sheet has been published it’s too late. Not the organiser’s fault, but trying to get to the bottom of what happened is a bit frustrating!

TT bike fit tomorrow.

I have bits and pieces. A Lampre Merida winter jacket which I picked up cheap and is very visible on winter rides. A team sky jersey from about 2011 that I rarely wear. A Canyon SRAM gilet because I really like the kit. Some Pearl Izumi sports tours shorts, and a Boels Dolmans coloured helmet. Wearing the last three at the same time gives a rather confused look…

The last time someone overtook me wearing a world champions jersey it was Tom Pidock. I think he’s allowed.

I did Kiss C last night too – not on the main results but I am on the “live” version which was a much fuller list.

Did the international women’s day ride this evening rather than a race, although I was finding it pretty easy so when another group came past on the last lap (possibly ZZRC sub 3?) I upped the effort to stick with them for the rest of the lap.

Good work 🙂

First race of the season for me yesterday – city rc 3 up in Beverley. We were the only all ladies team and it was our first outing together. Only one of us had even done a 2 up before let alone a 3 up! All on road bikes with no aero kit and we were mainly just training and learning how to work together rather than racing. Went off a bit hard and popped our weakest member at about 10 miles so had to nurse her home but it’s all about learning from our mistakes so better to do it now than in the nationals! (Really local to us so we’re putting a team in just to be there)

First race for me today – SZR on the evil Richmond hilly course (i.e. Just the hills and skipping the flat bit). Finished midway down cat c which is roughly what I’d have predicted. Never knew I could feel so broken after less than a hour on the turbo…

I did loads of miles on zwift last winter but this year I feel like I’ve got a much better balance – a couple of hard zwift sessions in the week with my weekend rides being (mainly) outside (on road or cross bike). I rarely do the easier z2 rides on zwift this year whereas last year I did.

So far I seem fitter for it based on the reliability rides I’ve done, but we’ll see when TT season starts.

I have a TT bike fit booked so will try to make sure the 3cm rule is taken into account…

Also looking at wheels at the moment. So far I’ve just used road wheels but I bought a 2nd hand disc at the end of last season and now want a deeper front (and maybe a rear for non disc days) to go with it.

I’m a bit late to the thread, but I’ll be TTing again this year. Probably my main focus for the year. I’ve got a TT bike fit pencilled in so hopefully I should be able to find a more sustainable position (I can get into what seems to be a relatively fast position for 10s but can’t hold it for anything longer).

In terms of targets I’d like to get below 23 minutes for 10 miles (PB 23:17), improve my 25 and 50 times, and more importantly get to the finish of the national TTT with my teammates. None of us have ever done a 3 up before (and 2 of us have never done a 2 up) so it’s very much a learning experience between now and June. We’ve got our first TTT training session next weekend, but we’re starting on road bikes.

I’ve been on zwift for well over a year and finally did my first race this morning. A 10 mile TT rather than a bunch race, but still a hard enough effort to set a new FTP. Must get myself organised to do a proper race (main problem is timing and finding one that fits my schedule as I almost never ride in the evenings and prefer to go outside at the weekend)