Posts Tagged ‘cycling’

Last week we did a club ride around Phoenix Park. Hugh got some amazing photos at dusk. It was more night time by the time I got there but still lovely to ride around mostly traffic-free or low-traffic roads.

DUCC has a bunch of bikes for members to use. Except that last year the university moved them and didn’t tell us where they had put them. Ans infact, they didn’t seem to know. When I went down there the first time, nobody knew where they were. Luckily, our former captain was still around and led us to to the back of an abandoned pub where there was a locked storage room with a sign on the door saying “beware of the leopard”.

We’ve now successfully liberated three of them and tested them out on some club rides!

Cycle Against Suicide is a mental health charity. I recently took part on their King of the Castle Sportif which had celebrity guest Sean Kelly leading the ride. Kelly has four green jerseys at the Tour de France and red jersey from La Vuelta and is now one of the leading cycling commentators.

I have taken my bike outside about a dozen times since IRONMAN Copenhagen two years ago, so I signed up for the 65k rather than the 120k, and even then this was a lot further than I have ridden this year. I was nervous after having so many problems with getting my bike fixed.

They did a neutralised rollout at the start with motorbikes stopping cars at junctions and keeping everyone together. It was a bit chaotic but no crashes and felt very pro. The first half was lovely. There was one small hill but otherwise it was relatively flat. And was the ride went on, the rain lifted and the weather became much nicer.

I was following everyone else but my GPS said we were off course. I discussed it with a few other riders and everyone agreed we were on the right road. I decided to slow down and stick with the group so that I would have some local knowledge around me. After all, my GPS was clearly not reliable because it was saying we were on the wrong road when everyone agreed we were on the right road.

We were on the wrong road. But we managed to find our way to the feed stop. After some lunch, there was another rollout and we headed back down the coast. The view was lovely but it was also into a headwind and I started feeling pretty bad. I just stuck with it and tried to eat some more. At 10k to go, my nightmare scenario did happen and the rear tyre lost pressure entirely. Luckily, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been: I was able to pump some more air into it and it held foe the remaining ride. But there is clearly still a problem there.

Overall, a lovely chilled out event. With a burger included at the end as well.

Cav! The Merckx record has been topppled with Cavendish winning his 35th stage of the tour.

Otherwise, some had described it as a dull tour. It’s true that Pog mostly dominated. But Evenepoel and Vingegaard both took stages. I wasn’t sure about Pogačar at first but I’ve come around to him over the years. Shame he isn’t going to ride La Vuelta.

Fantasy league went well:

I had Pogačar-Vingegaard one-two as well as Almeida and Ciconne. Cav was my sprinter and while there were lots more points to be had with others, I’m happy with my choice.

I was without my bike for three months earlier this year so I wasn’t sure I would remember how to ride a bike. Even without the gap, I cycled inside exclusively over winter so my last proper ride was Helmsley Triathlon last summer.

Luckily, I did remember. I had forgotten what a joy it is to be out on a bike when the weather is beautiful. Will have to do this more often.

My next challenge is to workout how to stop my sun cream clouding up my prescription sunglasses.

After three months, my bike is back with me!

I took it into my local bike shop for a 24-hour service on 1 March. They said the seat post clamp was cracked and that they would need to order a new one from Bianchi. But they weren’t a Bianchi dealer, so they had to speak to Hollingsworth, who were, to get them to get the part. Week after week this went on as they blamed Hollingsworth and Hollingsworth blamed Bianchi.

In the end, I spoke to Woodrup and got them to order the part for me, which they kindly did and had it within a few days. Thanks, Woodrup! Having physically got the part for them, I know have my bike back. Needless to say, I won’t be rushing back to said shop.

Tadej Pogačar. Others also cycled.

I almost managed to catch Bogdan in the fantasy league. I had Pogačar and Martínez but alas, wasted all of my sprinter points on Jakobsen.

Ever since I first watched the IRONMAN World Championship, I wanted a Felt IA. And now I have one. On Zwift.

For years I worked hard to get to level 37 to buy a digital Felt IA from the in-game shop. I made it to level 33. Then in December, they redid all of the levels and dropped the minimum level requirement for that bike down to 16.

What a fall from grace in the Ed Ops fantasy league. After my victory at the Giro I was promptly spat out of the back at Le Tour when one of my GC riders, Carapaz, didn’t make it through stage one. My sprinter pick was with my heart, Cav, which wasn’t a terrible pick but alas, he didn’t make it to Paris. So, despite having Vingegaard, Kuss and three other Jumbo-Visma riders, I never got back into the pack. Better luck next year!

We’ve been searching for a bike for Venla for a while as she wanted to move to a peddle cycle. This was a tough challenge because a lot of them are twice as heavy as my bike. I get that I have a fancy bike that is super light. But sitll, even my first cheap cross bike was around 11kg. Many of the children’s bikes, which are half the size, are significantly heavier than that.

Thankfully, we eventually managed to find a Frog 52. It comes with a spotty design. How come grown-ups never get that?