Posts Tagged ‘cycling’

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?

During COVID, JP started organising a Zwift league for the triathlon club. 13 series later and it is still going! Mostly thanks to JP’s relentless organisation skills. It’s been wonderful to have a way to stay connected to the club.

I accentually got myself promoted to the top division last series which meant racing against people much better than me. And led to some exhausting evenings with Amy chasing me down for most of the race. But thanks to only three dragon league riders showing up for all five races I managed to scoop myself a bronze 😆.

After 3.5 years of Zwifting, I’ve finally got my Tron bike.

The Big Fat Bike Ride is a sportive organised by clothing brand Fat Lad At The Back. Bogdan and I did the same event back in 2018 when it was known as Up North Yorkshire sportive.

Last time we took it easy with the 40k route; this time I pushed onto the 80k one. Still fairly short all things being considered. It was well worth it. beyond Kettlewell is when the scenery really gets beautiful. The route was similar to the White Rose Classic which is probably the most beautiful sportive I’ve done.

it is a lumpy route: no big climbs but no real flat either. I felt much better on the bike than I did at Tadcaster sportive and was able to put out an extra 20 Watts of average power which is a good confidence boost with the triathlon season arriving.

I also made a video about it: