Membrane
June 10th 07, 10:34 PM
Intending to break my 200k duck I woke at dawn. Earlier than needed, but
I was exited as I'd been working up to this one for a while. Peeking at
the clock every minute or so to check if it was time to get up yet
seemed silly after a while, so I got up at 05:00 and sabotaged the alarm
that I had set the night before for the unlikely event that I wouldn't
wake up in time by myself. Made the sandwiches for lunch and mixed my
drinks, slapped on the factor 30 because the forecast predicted a fairly
sunny day. The forecast also read warm and humid, so I swallowed my
vanity and put on shorts on instead of my usual leggings which hide my
rather blinding white legs.
For the departure I headed out to the nearby University College Dublin
campus at 06:45 arriving at 07:00. I had calculated that when starting
at that time, ~60% of the 1300 or so participants would have set en
route. Which hopefully would mean that I would have a chance of passing
a few of the slower riders whilst not being passed by loads of others
myself. Motivation matters on a long event, being passed by most
depresses the spirits.
The organisers had repeatedly emphasised that participants *had* to wear
hard shell helmets. Even if I had owned a helmet I probably would have
chosen not to wear it. Why should I for an event held on the terrain
where I ride year round sans helmet; the public roads of county Wicklow
where Ireland's rules of the road apply.
I didn't fancy potentially being criticised by the organisers for
exercising that choice, so I decided to give the check-in a miss and
ride out straight onto the route. I wasn't going to pick up the
completion medal and certificate at the end, so no loss there. The fact
that I also had my earphones and music player on probably wouldn't have
helped to endear me to the organisers, because as everyone knows you're
not safe without a helmet and having earphones in is downright dangerous
as it deprives cyclists from a vital sense.
Weather was glorious, hardly a cloud in the sky, 20'ish mid day
temperature, only light winds.
Turning onto the Stillorgan Road to UCD I slotted in between 2 other
cyclist on their way to the event, I sped up to a comfortable pace and
promptly dropped both of them on the short stretch to UCD, a promising
start. I had stayed off the bike for a week prior to the event at the
recommendation of the event organisers and that showed, I had built up a
surplus of strength.
The day offered a good opportunity to compare myself against others.
Normally I ride solo where I don't encounter many other cyclists. In the
beginning I passed a lot of other participants whilst hardly being
overtaken myself. Although I got a kick out of it, it also worried me. A
moderately fit bloke on a E300/£200 13kg hybrid bike from Halfords isn't
supposed to be able to overtake folk on expensive road bikes. With my 46
years I couldn't put it down to youthful enthusiasm, so I contemplated
that it could be the result of stupidly setting out to fast for which I
would pay the price later.
This was on the early part of the route on undulating terrain with the
proper climbs still to come. On the first real climb to Glencree I was
still passing others, only not as many, and overtaken myself by about 6
riders, although only 4 got away from me. From Glencree to Laragh it was
about 50/50. Things changed on climbing the Wicklow Gap, I was now
passed by many more than I managed to overtake myself. It was then that
I accepted that the early result was down to the surplus of strength,
and I had spent it. From that moment on I abolished any illusions of
grandeur and accepted that I wasn't as good a climber as a fair number
of other riders.
Fortunately my earlier fear of having overdone it at the early stage
didn't materialise, I wasn't visited by the man with the hammer. Using
my own pace I got to the base of Slieve Maan, renowned for being a b%tch
to get up on with about 120km behind you. Here I became even more
convinced of the sense of a MTB style triple. You may be considered a
wuss by compatriots, but it allowed me to spin my way up the b%tch doing
a steady 80rpm. In contrast many riders on doubles were having to grind
their way up using what looked like < 50rpm cadence, or worse stop and
get off their bikes. < 50 rpm can't be good for the condition of the
muscles. Many were wobbling left to right all over the place. The only
riders on doubles that sort of managed to get up it ok were out of the
saddle for most of the climb.
Despite having spun my way up, when I arrived at the summit it took me
some 5 minutes to get my breathing and heart rate back to normal,
usually these drop back quite quickly. Having turned in the direction of
Rathdrum having descended from Slieve Maan an ambulance with the sirens
on sped in the other direction, sadly it seems that a rider who came
after me had a nasty crash descending from Slieve Maan.
The ride back to Dublin was fairly uneventful. I did ok pace wise, I
hung on to the back of a group of 3 riders who were maintaining a
similar pace to mine. After having cleared the last moderate climb out
of Enniskerry the road into Dublin is vaguely downhill. At that time I
looked at my computer to see what time it was: 15:30'ish. This came as a
surprise as I had anticipated that it would take me about 10 hours to
complete the route, I was considerably ahead of schedule. This inspired
me to try and set a decent time. A climber I am not, but on flattish
terrain I can more than hold my own, I picked up the pace and was flying
again passing quite a few others.
I decided not to go back to UCD to clock off, but to head straight for
home. I got back at 16:05. Total ride time home to home according to the
computer 08:25, which means I did the route in 08:00 hours. Total
distance 198km, average speed 23.5km/h which I am pretty pleased with
for a ride that includes 2500 meter of ascend.
Elevation profile:
http://www.wicklow200.ie/2007/images/W200-2007-profile.jpg
Lessons learned:
1) I'm not much of a climber.
2) My current low quality hybrid on the whole allows me to do alright
compared to others using better bikes.
3) The bike doesn't restrict my range significantly.
4) The bike's MTB triple suits my limited climbing ability.
So I've decided to stick with it instead of looking for something
better.
--
Membrane
I was exited as I'd been working up to this one for a while. Peeking at
the clock every minute or so to check if it was time to get up yet
seemed silly after a while, so I got up at 05:00 and sabotaged the alarm
that I had set the night before for the unlikely event that I wouldn't
wake up in time by myself. Made the sandwiches for lunch and mixed my
drinks, slapped on the factor 30 because the forecast predicted a fairly
sunny day. The forecast also read warm and humid, so I swallowed my
vanity and put on shorts on instead of my usual leggings which hide my
rather blinding white legs.
For the departure I headed out to the nearby University College Dublin
campus at 06:45 arriving at 07:00. I had calculated that when starting
at that time, ~60% of the 1300 or so participants would have set en
route. Which hopefully would mean that I would have a chance of passing
a few of the slower riders whilst not being passed by loads of others
myself. Motivation matters on a long event, being passed by most
depresses the spirits.
The organisers had repeatedly emphasised that participants *had* to wear
hard shell helmets. Even if I had owned a helmet I probably would have
chosen not to wear it. Why should I for an event held on the terrain
where I ride year round sans helmet; the public roads of county Wicklow
where Ireland's rules of the road apply.
I didn't fancy potentially being criticised by the organisers for
exercising that choice, so I decided to give the check-in a miss and
ride out straight onto the route. I wasn't going to pick up the
completion medal and certificate at the end, so no loss there. The fact
that I also had my earphones and music player on probably wouldn't have
helped to endear me to the organisers, because as everyone knows you're
not safe without a helmet and having earphones in is downright dangerous
as it deprives cyclists from a vital sense.
Weather was glorious, hardly a cloud in the sky, 20'ish mid day
temperature, only light winds.
Turning onto the Stillorgan Road to UCD I slotted in between 2 other
cyclist on their way to the event, I sped up to a comfortable pace and
promptly dropped both of them on the short stretch to UCD, a promising
start. I had stayed off the bike for a week prior to the event at the
recommendation of the event organisers and that showed, I had built up a
surplus of strength.
The day offered a good opportunity to compare myself against others.
Normally I ride solo where I don't encounter many other cyclists. In the
beginning I passed a lot of other participants whilst hardly being
overtaken myself. Although I got a kick out of it, it also worried me. A
moderately fit bloke on a E300/£200 13kg hybrid bike from Halfords isn't
supposed to be able to overtake folk on expensive road bikes. With my 46
years I couldn't put it down to youthful enthusiasm, so I contemplated
that it could be the result of stupidly setting out to fast for which I
would pay the price later.
This was on the early part of the route on undulating terrain with the
proper climbs still to come. On the first real climb to Glencree I was
still passing others, only not as many, and overtaken myself by about 6
riders, although only 4 got away from me. From Glencree to Laragh it was
about 50/50. Things changed on climbing the Wicklow Gap, I was now
passed by many more than I managed to overtake myself. It was then that
I accepted that the early result was down to the surplus of strength,
and I had spent it. From that moment on I abolished any illusions of
grandeur and accepted that I wasn't as good a climber as a fair number
of other riders.
Fortunately my earlier fear of having overdone it at the early stage
didn't materialise, I wasn't visited by the man with the hammer. Using
my own pace I got to the base of Slieve Maan, renowned for being a b%tch
to get up on with about 120km behind you. Here I became even more
convinced of the sense of a MTB style triple. You may be considered a
wuss by compatriots, but it allowed me to spin my way up the b%tch doing
a steady 80rpm. In contrast many riders on doubles were having to grind
their way up using what looked like < 50rpm cadence, or worse stop and
get off their bikes. < 50 rpm can't be good for the condition of the
muscles. Many were wobbling left to right all over the place. The only
riders on doubles that sort of managed to get up it ok were out of the
saddle for most of the climb.
Despite having spun my way up, when I arrived at the summit it took me
some 5 minutes to get my breathing and heart rate back to normal,
usually these drop back quite quickly. Having turned in the direction of
Rathdrum having descended from Slieve Maan an ambulance with the sirens
on sped in the other direction, sadly it seems that a rider who came
after me had a nasty crash descending from Slieve Maan.
The ride back to Dublin was fairly uneventful. I did ok pace wise, I
hung on to the back of a group of 3 riders who were maintaining a
similar pace to mine. After having cleared the last moderate climb out
of Enniskerry the road into Dublin is vaguely downhill. At that time I
looked at my computer to see what time it was: 15:30'ish. This came as a
surprise as I had anticipated that it would take me about 10 hours to
complete the route, I was considerably ahead of schedule. This inspired
me to try and set a decent time. A climber I am not, but on flattish
terrain I can more than hold my own, I picked up the pace and was flying
again passing quite a few others.
I decided not to go back to UCD to clock off, but to head straight for
home. I got back at 16:05. Total ride time home to home according to the
computer 08:25, which means I did the route in 08:00 hours. Total
distance 198km, average speed 23.5km/h which I am pretty pleased with
for a ride that includes 2500 meter of ascend.
Elevation profile:
http://www.wicklow200.ie/2007/images/W200-2007-profile.jpg
Lessons learned:
1) I'm not much of a climber.
2) My current low quality hybrid on the whole allows me to do alright
compared to others using better bikes.
3) The bike doesn't restrict my range significantly.
4) The bike's MTB triple suits my limited climbing ability.
So I've decided to stick with it instead of looking for something
better.
--
Membrane