I am a happy user of a Garmin Edge 840. In fact, since GPS-enabled bike computers became a thing I've only ever owned Garmin Edge devices (500, 520, 520 Plus and now 840). That, I think, says quite a lot about my perceptions of these devices.

Over time, the capabilities of these devices has increased, with new (and often connected) features available. I now routinely use live-tracking and a ConnectIQ app called Windfield which both require a bluetooth connection to a phone. Windfield is very useful as it provides upcoming weather forecast updates and shows current wind speed and direction.

I started using Zwift after recovering from my first (and so far only) bout of Covid at the outset of the first UK lockdown in spring 2020. At that time I was working from home and I settled into a routine of riding Zwift before and after each working day, with a significant impact on my fitness. I remained a home-worker until I retired in 2023, but I kept using Zwift along with some other virtual platforms after that.

For me, Zwift has generally been a bit of a solitary activity. I did try a couple of meet-ups with work colleagues, and took part in the VTTA Zwift time trial series last January, but really I'm just there on my own in the garage.

The New Years Day '10' is a regular event in the North Bucks Road Club calendar of events, and one that I am generally keen to turn out for. Unfortunately over the last few years, my attendance has been spotty to say the least. I ddn't ride in 2023 owing to a family emergency, and I didn't ride in 2024 owing to a hideous respiratory cold (not Covid, at least!).

One of the frequent problems with winter events it the likelihood of bad weather. This year was particularly bad, and while we were optimistic owing to the larger than usual number of entries (11, including a many from a local Triathlon club), as I was monitoring the forecast over the last week, as New Year's Day drew closer I was seeing rain, then sleet, then snow, then finally strong gusts of wind combined with heavy rain.

As usual I've gone into Christmas week with an eye on the club's New Years Day '10'. Also as usual, the travelling and generally trying to be sociable, has disrupted things along with not sleeping too well. The NYD '10' was one of the events that I set in Athletica.ai training plan as a target event, and it'll be the first real test of my fitness. I am still funneling workouts into TrainerRoad, and my AI estimated FTP has jumped a whapping 2W to 251W since I started with Athletica.ai. That might reflect better progress than it seems since having an increasing FTP in one's mid-60s could be rather good.

In other news, I added a second A race to my schedule, the Duo Normand, reinstated to the calendar for the first time since Covid did away with the 2020 edition. At least this event is on a Sunday and can be properly entered in the Athletica.ai calemdar, unlike events not on a weekend (almost all of the North Bucks Club events are on Wednesdays). This is actually pretty poor feature of Athletica.ai, but I suppose only a few mid-week events are likely to be key events in my season.

On the whole, this set of 20 albums was pretty disappointing, with the top spot in my ranking going to the first Ian Dury album, New Boots and Panties!! This album didn't seem to connect with many other reviewers, maybe because it's so deeply rooted in the London vernacular. But for those of us who came to music in the punk years, it was an important album bridging pub rock with the new punk rock and quite typical of the (often peculiar) Stiff Records roster. Every track is a banger.

Biggest disappointment was Prince's Purple Rain. I've tried over the years to like his albums, but I've never been able to muster the enthusiasm of his many admirers. Other disappointments included My Bloody Valentine's comeback bore-fest mbv and I really didn't like Adele's 25 much either.

This is a career-spanning box set of vinyl albums, comprising the four studio albums released 1978-1981 (Real Life, Secondhand Daylight, The Correct Use Of Soap and Magic, Murder and the Weather), the 2011 album No Thyself and a compilation album Rays & Hail, now beefed up to double album status with tracks from No Thyself. I'm not familiar with Rays & Hail, but I do have a couple of other compilations featuring rarities and alternative versions of songs, including the John Peel radio sessions.

I'm going to review this set in two sections. First my recollection from the time of original release and then second a review of the set as I play through it.

 This tranche of albums that I should apparently play before I die had some strong contenders. Love's Forever Changes, heralding the end of the 60s dream; The Beatles' White Album, which I rated 4 as I think they should have made a single album; Wild Gift by X, which was new to me; Motorhead's Ace of Spade all merited a score of 4 from me.

Two albums scored 5 - Nirvana's Nevermind (I rated it because of it's impact on grunge, otherwise I'd probably have rated it 4) and Soft Cell's Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret.

Word has reached me via the timetrialling forum that my favourite time trial, the Duo Normand 2-up team time trial, is slated to return in 2025 and will be run on September 21st.

The last time I rode the Duo Normand was in 2019 - in 2020 it was abandoned owing to the Covid pandemic, and it never returned to the calendar, though I recall a half-baked effort with an event over two days with a short run and a very short 2-up time trial. My long-term 2-up partner and I are very excited by the possibility of another outing at the Duo. Our first race was in 2003, and with the exception of one event, roade it each year until 2019. We even won the Corpo category in 2010 at the combined age of 100! 

I’ve now been using Athletica for a few months. While the indications I see on form via intervals.icu are nothing but positive, I reckon the proof will be in performance on the ground in the New Year’s Day ’10’ - about 6 weeks away. Here's a banner from Athletica, proclaiming "Train Smarter, not Harder". Does the app live up to that billing? Read on...

The whole training plan seems rooted in science - every so often I see a link to a publication or at the least an athletica blog article. This makes the app seem much less of a black box than, for example, TrainerRoad. There is a regularity about the training plan: each week has a recovery session; a 30:30 short HIIT session; a Threshold session of 4m intervals set at several watts above threshold; two tempo/sweetspot sessions, one of which is at higher gear/lower cadence as a strength training session. Interspersed are endurance sessions, often long enough that I’d prefer to do them outdoors. I’ve also noted that while I sometimes struggle to complete sessions (particularly the Threshold sessions), I am more able to do so than I was with TrainerRoad. Every few weeks, there are threshold and power profile tests scheduled. I’m unsure how these play out in terms of fine-tuning the various parameters, but as far as I understand it, the system looks at the power profile graph as a whole (or maybe specific points along the chart).

Some real stinkers in this set of albums, but some real classics too.

Kraftwerk can usually be relied upon and here's another great album, with two distinctly different sleeve designs out there. The same is true of my favourite Kraftwerk album, Autobahn. 

When I bought a Tacx Neo 3M trainer, I decided to set my partner's bike up on the old first generation Tacx Neo. It was still pretty functional, if a little noisy, and I thought it might be fun to ride together on a virtual cycling platform. Prior to this, her bike was mounted on an old non-smart Cateye CycleSimulater trainer.

With a switch to a smart trainer and a virtual cycling platform came the need for easy to manage gear shifting. I'd had the bike set up with old Campagnolo 8-speed gears with Ergo-levers. But I had an 11-speed cassette mounted on the Neo trainer. Poking around in my parts bin unearthed a pair of Shimano rear mechs, one 9-speed and one 10-speed, and a bar end shifter that could be set in friction mode. I swapped out the Campagnolo rear mech and installed the 10-speed Shimano mech with the bar end shifter set in friction mode. All was well with that arrangement, except gear shifting was a little inconvenient with the bar end shifter.

After our seatpost issue on our spring cycle tour, we switched to our near 30-year old Longstaff tandem. After a few modifications (most notably fitting 32mm tyres), we’ve ridden this tandem exclusively over the summer. One peculiar issue was that after an hour or so riding, there was an irritating clicking sound. We couldn’t quite place it, but it seemed to be associated with a saddle.

We’ve always found it helpful to fit a suspension seatpost on the rear of the tandem, as the stoker can’t always see what’s coming along the road. We have a Cane Creek Thudbuster on the Thorn touring tandem (it was the non-suspension post that snapped) and we had an ancient ITM suspension post on the Longstaff tandem. I can’t personally vouch for the effectiveness of suspension posts, I’m not actually the user - I’m relying on feeback from my stoker on these matters of comfort.

I’ve generally gone with advances in bike technology as they’ve developed over the years. Mostly these have represented refinements in existing technology, such as the steady creep in gear numbers from 5 speed freewheels (when I was cycling to school as a teenager) through to 12 speed cassette hubs. In mechanical gears, I’ve usually been able to keep abreast of which cassette spacing would work with what combination of shifters and gear mechs.

All that began to change as we moved into combined brake/gear levers (STI from Shimano and Ergopower from Campagnolo).

And in this set of 20 albums, loads more folk and country. Plus two albums by The Pogues within 3 days. Of the two Pogues albums, I preferred If I Should Fall From Grace With God over Rum, Sodomy and the Lash.

I don't have much in the way of Pogues albums in my library, both these were added to my Qobuz favourites.

Well, I’m about 6 weeks in to my Athletica.ai subscription. So far it’s been pretty impressive, and here are some observations.

I’m seeing a kind of regularity between each week’s workouts. Generally speaking, there’s a sweetspot workout, a strength/endurance trainer workout, a short interval HIIT workout and a threshold workout. These are supplemented by one or two longer endurance workouts, which I generally try to do outdoors.

The last time I bought a smart trainer, I plumped for a Tacx Neo. It’s a beast of a trainer that has stood up to the rigours of my indoor training pretty well in the 8 years plus I have it. Garmin Connect records that it has been used for 2665 rides (covering 92,968.4km) since 28 July 2016.

My usage stepped up after Covid struck in spring 2020, and once I’d recovered sufficiently from my early (and so far only) bout of Covid, I enlisted in Zwift, and pretty quickly was bookending my working day (working from home) with Zwift rides. At the outset, the first generation Tacx Neo was robust, and pretty silent. The internet seemed awash with tales of technical issues with these trainers, but mine has been pretty much faultless over the years.

I don't as a rule like hill climbs. I much prefer longer climbs that I can settle into. But I felt duty bound to turn out and be the sole NBRC member to take part in what is traditionally the club championship. I expect you can see where this is going...

This year's course was at Three Locks, and is actually a big ring kind of climb. Unfortunately the weather turned to wet as well as quite cool just before I rode over to the course! We had seven riders signed up, and six turned out.

Another tranche of albums from the 1001 Albums You Must Hear list - I'm now more than a quarter of the way through. Several supposedly classic albums in here, some of which I felt were rather over rated.

I was disappointed by Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) by Eurythmics. The singles, especially the title track, are penomenally good, but the album as a whole dragged a bit. I think I felt the same about Touch.

For years now I've kept myself from being too aligned in one tech ecosystem. For example, my main computer is a MacBook but my phone is an Android device. I've used Garmin bike computers for years now (since the Edge 500), but have always used Polar wristwatches. I measure weight on a digital (but not network aware) scale and blood pressure on a Withings unit.

My time trial bikes have Shimano cassettes matched with Campagnolo chainsets, SRAM chains and 11-speed SRAM Red eTap gearing. Oh, and for good measure they have Magura hydraulic rim brakes!

This event was to be my penultimate time trial of 2024, but it turned out to be the last one as the invitation event on 22nd September was cancelled. It was billed as 'preference for slower than 22 minutes', and as my LTS was 21:57, it was a narrow squeak to get in (many thanks to the organiser on that front). I think that after all 22:00 and slower entries were accepted, the remaining places were filled from fastest to slowest, which would normally have left me in a gap between the two sets of entries. Anyway, I got a ride so that was OK.

As usual, I rode out to the event, about 23 miles. This always makes for a good warmup, and with the added excitement that a mechanical such as a puncture would likely cause me to miss my start! No misadventures, and I had enough time to collect my thoughts before riding up to the start line.