The band of 6 ride the lumps and bumps around Northleach.

So, the Saturday club ride, as usual my longer ride tends to be on a Saturday, I take a gentle warm-up over 17ish miles from home down to Discover Bikes / Carles Coffee shop to meet the rest of the Performance Cycles cycling club for the weekly club ride. My group is the Intermediate group or “The Interz” as we are more commonly referred to.

The club has a great set-up for the weekly club rides, starting with the Social Group, then there is a relatively new group “The Group with No Name” AKA GWNN, the Interz, Fast intermediate “FIGS” and then the Fast Group. Each group has an average speed range so there should be something for everyone.

Well back to my Saturday morning, woke up feeling refreshed having rested a couple more days due to the previous weekend load and work etc. I was feeling good. My Garmin assisted tracking was saying the numbers were looking good. So, I got up grabbed breakfast and coffee and started to get my kit ready to head out. I like to allow a bit of time for anything unexpected along the route so ideally, I prefer to depart Chez Dickson around 07:30 am to maybe grab a cheeky coffee at Carle’s before the ride and catch up with the friends I ride with and some I don’t ride with every week.

With everything nearly ready I try to start my bike computer. Now for some time it has been very temperamental on the startup. Every now and then not wanting to switch on at all. Then as if by magic it starts. I need to get it switched on first to allow everything else to pair and recalibrate the power meter pedals, Heart Rate Monitor (HRM) rear radar etc. You can imagine my frustration when it would not switch on. I knew it was charged, the one great thing with this Edge 1040 is its battery life. Just in case I plugged into a power supply in the garage beside the bike. Nothing, no effect whatsoever. I then thought it always come to life when I connect it to the laptop. So off I trundle clip clopping through the house in my cleats walking more like Bambi on ice on the tiled floor. Taking the stairs very carefully, last thing I need is a tumble and that will end the big event.

Plugged into the computer, nada, nothing still dead as a doornail. So, I have a quick google squinting to read the text on the screen as I had none of my reading glasses and everything was a blurred mess. I guess that is what “beer goggle” is really like.  Read a suggestion that maybe direct charger and hold the power button for 1 minute. Tried that, stopped counting not sure how long I was there but Sooty’s magic wand “Izzy wizzy, let's get busy!" and it started working.

So carefully and hastily back out get the bike finished off, lock up the garage house etc and set off, 15 minutes behind my time. So much for a gentle warm up. At least the first bit of my ride is downhill so off I set. Settled into TT mode and pushed to get close to the shop as quickly as possible and avoid crazy rushing when I get there.

Part of the way there I look at said Garmin and the average speed was 20mph and I had just crested a little climb. So, I started chasing those numbers. There were a few bits which are a bit draggy and repetitive slow sections, so the average slowed. As I closed in on the shop it was 19mph average so I absolutely railed it the rest of the way through the twists and turns of Cerney Wick, powering out of the corners nearly getting my knee down on the apex’s I felt good, normally when I pass the pub I would dial it back and coast in but I was determined to hold that average so I pushed hard. Ad rolled into the carpark with a 19mph average, and it was virtually empty, so I went from being late to the second rider there. Wow what a gentle warm up.

So, this week our numbers were somewhat depleted and only 6 merry men, well I say merry they are quite a mixed bunch, the one thing we all have in common is the ability and acceptance of a lot of banter. So, one of the group, having recently returned from an all-inclusive holiday where the Yorkshire man in him refused to miss out on all you can eat & drink buffet etc started to make his excuses. Looking around I could see that we had a nice group for a steady ride as Yorkshire FM and another guy were not up to full fitness so we would not be pushing the same sort of speeds we started out at last week. That was like a Pro tour team lead out train racing for the first Pave section of Paris – Roubaix. It was a fast ride. So, todays ride set off, a nice steady ride, one of our lumpier routes with a few longer climbs and some drags with a bit of a peak on them. Great training for myself and the upcoming Dragon ride.

What a lovely bike!!!

So off we went, and the craic was mighty and a good ride. I felt strong and towards the end found myself on the front with my riding partners taking it in turns to share the load but mostly just myself staying on the front. There were times when we needed to just turn the dial down a little to keep the group together. And then at one point it looked like we were going to lose one off the back. Having been that rider the other week I knew how demotivating it can be to watch your group ride off and you can’t keep up, so I eased off. Got the rider on my wheel and gave them a tow to the rest of the group and pushed them to stay with us to the end.

I still managed at times have a few blasts up some of the shorter climbs to try and get the fast twitch muscles firing and raise the intensity levels a little to help the FTP improvements I need to make to ease the pain I will suffer on June 22nd. I also managed by pacing the start of a slightly longer climb to catch the wheel of the front ride in our group and hold it, which a couple of weeks ago I was not doing, and it was the rest waiting for me.

So, all in all my confidence in completing the ride is increasing with every session. I just need to get some focused training for the next 6 weeks or so and set myself up for the best I can possibly be given the constraints of a full time job and a family.

After a much enjoyable coffee were a couple of our group joined us for the cake, coffee and lots of banter it was time to head home. I ride a little bit with one or two others until our paths diverge and I head for home. I knew I was going to be close to my minimum distance target of 70 miles, so I was watching the computer as I approached the village. Our house is just off a rather tasty climb which I tend to just ride up as far as I must until I make a sharp exist stage right and turn into our road and finish. Unfortunately, that would have had me short on the distance and I decided as part of my training I would had the climb to the end of every ride as a gauge of my fitness level or tiredness or C all of the above. So before the climb assist page popped up had made the decision to go for the climb. I am not sure I have ever ridden up this climb, I have descended it multiple times having ridden up the next road along the ridge, and the one time I remember I did it form home part way up on clod legs, never again to that. So I rode up what I am calling the Col de Broad Town. So the KOM for this climb is 2 minutes 52 seconds. I knew I would not be challenging for the KOM so it was a benchmark and see where I am with nearly 70 miles in the legs. I managed 6 minutes 42 seconds. So the benchmark is set. Lets see how I can improve going forward.

The Strava segment for the climb. Steady enough to get the lungs blowing and the legs on fire.

Summary of the ride.

So, the training will continue and I am constantly looking for ways to finese my efforts and maximise the gains to hlep the main event. Stay tuned for more updates.

Oh and if you are reading this and have not been to the Justgiving page but would like to support my efforts to help Macmillan then please hi the link below.

https://www.justgiving.com/page/martin-dickson-73