In September 2003 I first rode the Duo Normand, a well-established 2-up team time trial in the Normandy countryside around Marigny. My teammate for that, and every subsequent Duo Normand ride, was my regular 2-up partner. We semi-seriously style ourselves Team Grumpy, and we have a Team Grumpy website. We rode the Duo Normand every year from 2003 to 2019, except for one year. The high point was our victory in the Corporatif category in 2010, but since then age has brought with it diminishing returns.

Team Grumpy on the way to victory in the 2010 Duo Normand, soundtracked by a cacophony of infants and church bells, but total indifference from the crowd.

I switched to Athletica.ai as my preferred training platform pretty much a year ago, and aside from a brief absence from the platform (after which I had to start pretty much from scratch) I’ve found it pretty good on the whole. Athletica seems to be well-rooted in the science of training, with a significant reliance on HIIT workouts. A typical workout schedule for me generally has one HIIT workout each week (shown below via intervals.icu below, click the image to enlarge).

This was the final event in our series of evening club events, and attracted 13 entries (though one didn’t start owing to illness. Through the day we’d had some spectacular thunderstorms and extremely blustery conditions with gusts of up to 48mph. Clearly not ideal, but at least by the time we started the event things had calmed down, and despite there being several heavy showers tracking around Cranfield, I think all the riders completed the course without getting wet.

For my part, I found the outward leg down to Newport Pagnell rather tough and the still rather gusty wind made it impossible to keep on the aero extensions. I was caught at the turn for a minute by a fast rider on a road bike. Things were a bit better on the return leg and I was making better progress to the finish. I ended up in third place with 25:52, good enough for second on veteran standard.

This evening ’10’ came after a fortnight of dealing with a right leg injury (bizarrely incurred while mounting the tandem) and a longer period of family related stress, both significantly denting my training, all mixed in with a few hospital appointments.

Last week, I rode a club event on the Cranfield course, which I won with a narrow margin, but at some cost to my right leg’s recovery. Frankly I didn’t really pull out a strong performance that evening. So I was keen to see how I was going via this evening’s event.

This review really focusses on  the optical HR data collection with my newly purchased Polar Vantage V3 watch.

Last autumn, I bought a Garmin Vivoactive 5 watch, largely to collect data that was then pulled in by Athletica.ai, such as sleep, resting HR and HRV. Watches have never really been a maor part of my sports data collection - because I almost explusively train on a bike, I generally collect data via a Garmin Edge bike computer (currently an 840), or via trainer software such as Zwift. So, why go back to Polar, specifically the Vantage V3?

I noticed the other day, via the GP Lama YouTube channel that the latest firmware update for the Garmin/Tacx Neo 3M trainer (and, I think, the version 2 and 2T Neo trainers) enables virtual shifting on the Zwift platform.

I run Zwift on an AppleTV in my garage using a Tacx Neo 3M trainer, and I experience some issues. Firstly, the AppleTV bluetooth remote buttons are gradually breaking, presumably an accretion of sweat damage. Replacements aren’t cheap (and might just go the same way). Secondly, I often have a bit of trouble with jumping gears while training, particularly in intense intervals.

I was rather pleased to have more moderate weather for this event - rather than hitting the 30 degree mark, we were in the low 20s. I looked at the weather and decided it was sufficiently blustery that I needed to take care with my front wheel choice. In the end I think that my decision to ride the P3C with its Hed trispokes was wise. In any case, I want to get some rides on on it to do any fine-tuning before the Duo Normand (if they ever open entries).

The opening section along the bumpy University Way ends with a left turn onto the road to North Crawley and Newport Pagnell (we turn just after the 'civic amenity site'. Much of this leg is downhill, but the expected speed didn't really materialise because of the haed wind. Additionally it was quite difficult to see the many road defects in the evening sun. This particularly bad as you approach North Crawley.

This event was moved from the scheduled Brogborough course owing to roadworks. I decided to try the backup Cervelo P3C TT bike for this event, largely because I was interested to see if my recently resolved foot pain issue might move my L-R balance back closer to 50:50. The bike has Favero Assioma power meter pedals and venerable Hed H3 trispokes front and rear. I think it looks the part...here I am just after turning left onto the main road.

I have this set up with SRAM 11-speed Red eTap - there are gear switches on the base bar but I'm using the blip box as switches while on the aero extensions - you can see it by my right hand in the photo. This works well, but I'm going to try and sort out a more rigid way of affixing the blip box. 

A very warm morning for this open event. While it was held on the Astwood circuit, the start and finish were in different locations and I never do well on this version. I finished in 24:53 in the middle of the field. I think having the hardest climb on the course after a mile and then having to race to a T-Junction and along Astwood Hight Street just slows me down a bit.

Full results via CTT.

We had a warm evening for this club '10' on the Astwood course. I was somewhat concerned by a hospital visit the day before, which preyed on my mind through this event.

The warmth was a bit oppressive, but the first section down to Chicheley and the first turn was fairly quick. Once round that turn, I found it a bit harder to keep the power up. Whether that was a lack of focus or the tail wind (or maybe both), I'm not sure. In any case I felt decidedly lacking.

This time trial didn't go according to plan! We did have quite a nice evening - warm but maybe a bit windy out there on the dual carriageway section. Issues began with a missing magnet on my helmet, which meant my visor wouldn't stay attached. I rode with my Bolle sunglasses, which meant I spent a lot of time peering over the top of the frame - plus my helmet was rendered quite non-aero! 

Also the traffic flow out on the course seemed a little odd. This was noticed by a number of other riders, and meant I got a bit held up at three of the roundabouts.

I have long since stopped blogging my progress through the 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. I’m doing this through a web site which serves up an album each morning, and an associated plugin for the music server that I use (Lyrion Music Server, or LMS). The plugin links to the album via Qobuz, which I subscribe to. In fact, I can only recall a single album that the plugin couldn’t find, and I ended up playing it on YouTube.

I recently found I’d played half of the albums on the list, so I thought maybe an update was worthwhile.

Another Wednesday, another club ’10’. This time we were back on my favourite course, Astwood, and as usual I prepared the signing on and timing sheets for Dick to use. I’d also reverted to my deep rim front wheel as I didn’t think the wind would too much  for me to handle the wheel.

When I arrived up at the meeting point in Astwood, I discovered to my annoyance that the paperwork had fallen out of my pocket en route. That was easily remedied using Dick’s blank signing on sheets, so no real problem.

When we “almost-formalised” Team Grumpy as a vehicle for our two-up time trialling endeavours, we used an old saying for our byline:

Youth and Talent are no match for Age and Treachery

At the end of last season, we were casting around for a course to use instead of the Stony Stratford course, which was proving so unpopular, that we mostly cancelled the events owing to a lack of interest. The reason for its unpopularity was probably threefold: it has a stiff climb on the outbound leg, there's some rough road surface which makes the high speed sections of the return leg rather unpleasant and it's a non-standard distance (11.4 miles). There's also a lot of competition for parking with loads of paddle-boarders and other river-users.

After a lot of head-scratching, we decided to adopt a course developed and used by Team MK, the Cranfield course. This begins just outside Cranfield University and runs down to Newport Pagnell before finishing near the BikeBus. This isn't a particularly flat or quick course - check the link, and see the course profile below.

Another warm and sunny day, leading to a sunny evening. Unfortunately, another evening '10' on the Brogborough course with a headwind out to the turn! On the bright side, I'd made a better front wheel choice than a fortnight ago, plus the wind wasn't as strong as on that occasion. I remained a little cautious on the starting descent, and stayed on the base bars till just before reaching the under pass. I could see Jim waiting to photograph riders! Here's a link to Jim Eastment's gallery - I'm grateful to Jim for photos.

 Settling in after the starting descent

Once again, I was back on the Astwood course, this time for two laps, for the Team MK open '20'. Team MK use a different start/finish combination than we do for our club events, starting just past the BikeBus cafe and finising right outside the BikeBus. This has the advantage that the BikeBus can be used as an event HQ (and their coffee is good!), but in my opinion it has the disadvantage that the climb into Astwood is located shortly after starting the time trial. 

Anyway, I rode up to the HQ with plenty of time to spare. Too much time, as it was really quite cold. Fortunately I'd made a last minute decision to bring some arm warmers. After a further spin up and down the road, I made my way to the start.

After a delightful warm spring morning, I think all of us lining up for this North Bucks Road Club evening '10' on the Astwood circuit course probably expected a nice warm evening. Unfortunately we were a bit disappointed as the temperature started falling quite quickly. I was quite glad I'd brought a warm jacket with me for the ride home.

Aside from the falling temperature, there was a distinct breeze which served to help me along the way down the A422 from Astwood to Chicheley and the first turn. Of course, there would be a downturn to that, but it's always good to get off the main road quickly. And aside from a double decker bus buffeting me, I had a pretty quck ride on this section.

We originally bought the tandem frame in the mid 1990s, when I equipped it with some classic tandem kit. As a consequence, it has a lovely retro vibe to it. We haven't used it a great deal after moving south from Dundee at the end of 1999. After the seatpin incident at the end of our 2024 cycle tour, our Thorn touring tandem was out of commission until the snapped seat post stumpt could be extracted. At that time it was clear that the Longstaff tandem wasn't a terribly forgiving ride, so I started making some changes. But first, the initial bike set up.

The original build

I had high hopes for this time trial on the fast Brogborough course. Unfortunately, the weather featured a much stronger wind than I had expected - with some obvious (adverse) consequences! On the basis of the conditions when I left the house, and the forecast, I decided to ride with a deep section front wheel. We had 19 riders entered for the event, and I ended up not starting in my scheduled #7 spot, but as #20, having started the last dozen or so riders so that the timekeeper could get to the finish before the first riders. Accordingly, I was pretty cold by the time I started.

It was clearly going to be tough out to the turn. I'd not anticipated quite how strong the wind was, and my bike felt really quite unstable - dangerously so - coming down the start descent. And with that in the back of my mind I didn't really use the tribar extensions on the way ot to the turn. In fact, the headwind was considerably tougher than the graphic below - and with the gusts seemed to be wrenching my bike around.