Road Cycling

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For someone who is a massive n00b myself and at the moment have relatively short amounts of time to fit in a ride, my commute is my short everyday benchmark. It's 6.5km (Sorry, 4 miles) so nothing, but 8 miles a day I can smash through and it helps get my fitness up.
I then slot in a 10mile, 15mile, 20mile etc. on a morning or evening if I know I have a little extra time between meetings. I just get on strava and work out a route back to mine, which is going to be a longer one etc. I can now do longer rides no problem, if they're pretty flat :p hill climbs are what I need some practice on...

I'm 14st5 so not exactly a featherweight and climbing just burns like hell. But there are little parts where I know if I do them I can get a 5% for 1km or something, so I'll start adding in a couple more slow climbs to get used to them.
5-7% for 6km at the weekend was probably the worst thing in the world for me, I thought I'd die and had to stop like 3 times, I'm not afraid to admit that.
 
Vonhelmet said:
Aye, set your own goals. It's nice to move up the charts, but at some point you'll come up against some semi pro skinsuited guy on a £10k bike who was drafting a bus the whole way and then you're screwed.
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Lots of the segments around where I live are held by Dani King (olympic lady) and some other guys that rode in the mens and womens tour of GB, quite embarrassing how slow I am in comparison :o
 
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Malt_Vinegar said:
Should I keep doing the same route, and just work at getting faster naturally? Perhaps I should use this as a benchmark, and do other rides inbetween, then see what improvement I make?

Any ideas on what I should do, and how often to try and improve quickly?
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For quick improvements I would first find a slightly longer route, as mentioned you'll soon get used to 10 miles! Find a good 16-25 mile loop which is fun to do, good roads and easy to get to from home. All of those things will make it a ride you fancy doing 'just to get out on the bike' without any planning. Ideally find a route with more elevation than your 10 miles & 180 feet (something like 16 miles & 700ft/20 miles 500ft). You'll hate it the first few times but climbing is one sure way to 'improve quickly', once you're attaining good speeds on ~4-6% climbs your speeds on the flats will naturally be loads quicker and easier to maintain.

janp said:
Most importantly, listen to your body, get proper rest and nutrition. It's just as important as the training, if not more so.
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Recoveries are almost as important as riding, certainly when starting out and increasing average speeds/mileage!

Malt_Vinegar said:
I am reasonably fit, currently sub 50 minute 10k time, 12.5 stone and 5 feet 8.5 inches. Used to be very fit, playing Hockey seriously, but now not playing much at all. So I should be able to improve quickly if I get it right..
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You're around my height and weight (5'7" & 80kg) so your riding will mostly be about conditioning the right muscles and stamina. Easier than than how I started as I as quite heavy (15 stone) and rode my work commute (9 miles a day, almost flat) for over a year, my body had become very used to riding, but not to climbing! ;)

FrenchTart said:
Once you're closer to the time and you've done some other longer rides you will find it easier to set a reasonable target.
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As until you've done some longer rides you really won't know what a reasonable target is! :)

randomshenans said:
5-7% for 6km at the weekend was probably the worst thing in the world for me, I thought I'd die and had to stop like 3 times, I'm not afraid to admit that.
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No shame, at least you attempted it! I was like that a while ago - a local climb utterly ruined me (stopped twice!), more recently it hurt (but no stopping) and I didn't even drop down to my lowest gear. First time I was riding so slow I ground to a halt and fell over! :D ;)

Bear said:
Lots of the segments around where I live are held by Dani King (olympic lady) and some other guys that rode in the mens and womens tour of GB, quite embarrassing how slow I am in comparison :o
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Similar to me here, lots of NTFO pro riders (placing me 87th on a segment I ride daily) and as they're based in Hereford there is also a local non-pro club. Still get a lot of their pro guys turning up for some of the rides, local hill climbs etc, including Matt Rowe (Luke Rowe's brother) who recently proposed to Dani :D
 
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Roady said:
You're around my height and weight (5'7" & 180kg) so your riding will mostly be about conditioning the right muscles and stamina. Easier than than how I started as I as quite heavy (15 stone) and rode my work commute (9 miles a day, almost flat) for over a year, my body had become very used to riding, but not to climbing! ;)
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You're 180kg? :p
 
Malt_Vinegar said:
What would be a good challenge then for such a ride? 6 hours?
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Two years ago I did Liverpool-Chester-Liverpool in under 7 hours. That ride is 100 miles with about 3600 feet of climbing. Ride London 100 has more climbing, at about 5700 feet, so 7 hours should be do-able if you're in decent shape and have done your training. 6 hours is going to be harder work, but if you've got nearly a year to get there it might be achievable.
 
randomshenans said:
5-7% for 6km at the weekend was probably the worst thing in the world for me, I thought I'd die and had to stop like 3 times, I'm not afraid to admit that.
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That must come out at a cat 2 climb, right? There's a 3.6 mile climb at 6% near me which takes me about 25 minutes to get up. KOM on there is 15:30 :eek:

I've not climbed it in a while, I might go up there this weekend.
 
Vonhelmet said:
That must come out at a cat 2 climb, right? There's a 3.6 mile climb at 6% near me which takes me about 25 minutes to get up. KOM on there is 15:30 :eek:

I've not climbed it in a while, I might go up there this weekend.
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I keep meaning to head over there, looks like a good challenge. It can be an October target, trying to get more miles in at the moment. :)

I'm riding the Monsal Head hill climb at the weekend, which should be a lot of "fun". Strong start list as well with Tejvan Pettinger, Russell Downing and Sarah Storey all there. I'm hoping to get an entry for the national hill climb, more for the experience than anything. This season has taught me I'm a better time triallist than a hill climber, which came as a bit of a surprise but there are some powerful skinny sods out there.
 
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Man this bike shop sucks.

Went down in me gear and cycling shoes, as the Manager asked me to do, so they could size everything up. Get there, and no Manager, just the usual bods.
"Here's your bike Sir, it's all been setup to the measurements you gave us"
They wouldn't let me try it in the shop. "Try it out, and come back Sunday if it's still not right"
I've got back to the office, and the saddle height is 25mm too low. /facepalm

If they can't get the saddle height right, I can't imagine they've got much else of the geometry right. Sadly, I don't really know anyone that can give me advice that I trust.

Why does buying a new bike have to be so hard :P
 
FrenchTart said:
I've been meaning to try it out for a while too. Let me know if you want company when you head over :)
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Careful as he'll have you carrying his bottles...! Von the domestique! ;)

janp said:
They wouldn't let me try it in the shop. "Try it out, and come back Sunday if it's still not right"
I've got back to the office, and the saddle height is 25mm too low. /facepalm
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FrenchTart said:
At this point I would insist on a refund. They're messing you about massively.
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Same, in fact I'd insist on it - you've been more than accommodating with their initial ***kup, they've proven several times that they are completely useless following measurements, your instructions and couldn't care less about their customers satisfaction. You'd have got better service from Halfords spending a tenth of what you did!

Once it was all confirmed I'd write them scathing reviews on whatever social media they have, along with a review on their business on googlemaps (these are almost impossible to get removed, trust me!). Maybe they'll then learn the importance of their customers, but I doubt it.
 
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