I'd entered the N&DCA '10' on the F15/10 Brogborough course quite early, and as the date of the event drew close, the weather forecast was pretty dismal, with persistent rain forecast for the whole afternoon. Consequently I felt a bit apprehensive. However, on the day the conditions turned out to be near ideal with warm sunshine and a gentle sidewind throughout.

I never really know how my first time trial in a while is likely to go, and to be frank I'd have been happy with a sub-24 minute ride. I'd done a few Zwift time trials, but I find them rather tedious and surprisingly hard compared to a real life time trial. Anyway, the HQ for this course is only about 4 minutes bike ride for me, and as per usual I went down to the HQ, signed on, chatted with a few people and ridden up to near the start far too early. I rode a few loops round Brogborough then went to hang around at the start for a bit.

In which I end up riding a solo 2-up

The Port Talbot Wheelers 2-up 25 mile time trial is often my season opening event. It involves a trip over to South Wales to visit a former club mate and regular Team Grumpy 2-up time trial partner. The usual pattern is to drive over on Friday, eat a massive Indian takeaway; test ride the bikes and have a moderate walk on Saturday; the event itself on Sunday; drive home on Monday.

After I decided to return to the TrainerRoad fold, I was looking forward to another stab at a VTTA Zwift '10'. Unfortunately, I had to pack this as I was a bit unwell, with a mild cold affecting my breathing. This only became evident after my warmup and about halfway through the TT. I thought it prudent to stop. The next day, I felt quite woozy so I also took tthat as a rest day. Of course, this was a peculiar, if mild, cold that came and went. Fortunately it didn't materially affect my preparation fof my first open event of 2025, the Port Talbot Wheelers 2-up '25'.

This event is the usual starter for the season, and historically I've ridden with my regular 2-up partner - and 2025 is no exception. This year has the added motivation of the first edition of the Duo Normand since it was blown off the calendar by Covid-19. The event itself has been reduced from 25 miles to 15 miles owing to roadworks on the opening stretch of dual carriageway. That's not too bad, really, as the remaining section is on a more 'sporting' road. Here's Team Grumpy looking good in the 2024 edition of the Port Talbot Wheelers event, in which we (well actually, I) punctured just a few minutes after starting.

After last week's debacle where my bike collapsed under me into a salty mixture of iron oxide and sweat, bringing my time trial to an abrupt end after 10km, I was uncertain how today's event would go. Because I'd been generously gifted an old road bike by a club mate - actually I already had this, but I was awaiting some 11-speed shifters from Ali-Express before mounting the bike on the trainer - I was able to get up and running again the following day, albeit on the 8-speed gearing the bike came with.

On the back of nearly a week of using this bike, I was aware of a slight gearing issue, where some gears occasionally jump slightly. I hoped this wouldn't be an issue. This week I took things pretty easy in the 48h ahead of the time trial. On Monday I just did an Athletica recovery session, and I didn't ride in the morning of the time trial. I planned out a 40 minute warmup routine, which consisted of the 20m ramp up, then a couple of higher power sets of 30s at 113% FTP followed by 2m30s at 95% FTP, separated by 4m at 69% FTP. Then a easy spin before my start time. 

I'd been somewhat concerned for some time about the state of the bike frame mounted on my Tacx Neo trainer - many years of heavy sweating had corroded it really badly. I had joked recently about it collapsing, and had obtained a replacement. But of course as I awaited parts to arrive, I hadn't set it up.

I completed a decent 40 minute warmup pretty well, though I'd noticed that the gears were sounding a bit rough, and occasionally the rear mech seemed to want to change on its own accord. Oh well, I thought, I have a look tomorrow. A few minutes before my scheduled start ay 19:04, I moved to the start pen and waited a few minutes to start.

So this was my third attempt at the VTTA 10 mile time trials on the Tempus Fugit course. Last week I went backwards with lower power, so I was feeling a bit apprehensive about this one - would I continue my backwards trend? On the plus side, I've been completing the Athletica workouts with a bit more gusto than over the past few weeks, and many of my physiological metrics have been going in the right direction. But still...

To recap, I have been finding it difficult to pace myself properly on these events, and this is something I need to work on. After a carefully planned warm up, I did start off quite well, controlling my pace and holding things steady for about 6 minutes before everything started falling apart. I finished with an average power of 236W - somewhat less than I'd be happy with, but about 8W higher than event 2 and 4W higher than event 1. My finishing time was 24:09, and in the AAT table, I came in 34th out of 57 riders.

You might have thought that after the debacle of last week's VTTA Zwift TT, I might have been able to do a bit better. Well, if you did, you were wrong.

Once again I rode like a bag of spanners, and in fact did a marginally worse ride than the week before.

The first of the VTTA Zwift time trial series was preceded by a 'test event' that I missed. So I came at it a bit cold, not having done a Zwift TT in nearly a year. The TT was on the nearly pan-flat Tempus Fugit course. This is really quite unrealistic as even on the flattest real life courses there are minor undulations and variations in wind resistance that make the ride a bit more variable than in a virtual world like Zwift.

Anyway, I made the most stupid error (especially given the decades of TT experience I have), and shot off at the start at a completely unsustainably power. Subsequently I was all over the place power-wise and faded really badly towards the end. I could see my average power dropping...I finished in 24:20 (I think), with an average power of 232W. Apparently this was good enough for 7th place on Age Adjusted Time (so I am told). Maybe the re weren't many VTTA members taking part!

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.

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.

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.

Well, this was the last of our club's evening '10's for 2024, and really I'm near the end of my season. I have done very few open events, largely because of various domestic issues, and I have two events to come: an open '10' on 14th September and an invitation time trial on a closed circuit on 22nd September. I'm now switching my focus on changing my training schedule - but more on that in a separate post (it takes time to evaluate a new training platform, in this case athletica.ai).

Anyway, this was a pretty warm and humid evening for the nine riders who turned out for this event. As far as I could tell, my power was at my usual level, but didn't seem to translate into the expected speed (the time triallist's lament). After the previous week's difficulty in staying in the aero position, which was due to a combination of my sports glasses and the folded retention strap of my helmet, I felt pretty good while racing. Maybe it's just the end of the season?

This was the penultimate event in our 2024 evening time trial series, and with some fast riders entered, some good times beckoned. 

For my part I hoped to improve on my previous ride where I recorded 23:57. The weather was pretty similar to that event, though a bit cooler and the wind was a little more gusty. nevertheless, having seen some improvement on my training metrics I had some optimism. Unfortunately, my ride was imacted by some discomfort on the bike. This was due to a last minute change back to a visor-less Kask Bambino helmet, used with my prescription sports glasses. I wasn't riding my venerable Giro Advantage aero helmet, as (due to its age) the various straps that hold it to my bonce were pretty much all perished. Probably it's time to ditch that aero hat!

Originally set for the Stony Stratford course, we used the back up course of Astwood for this evening's event as we've seen very low entry numbers for the Stony Stratford course. As usual I prepared the timing and signing on sheets for the event, and rode up to Astwood on the P5 TT bike. 

We had 11 riders for the event, including a Sam, a new rider to our events. It was a little cooler than of late, with a blustery 17mph wind that promised to make the opening leg down to Chicheley rather tougher than usual. As it turned out, I think I rode a pretty good time trial this evening, recording a normalised power of 255W. Looks as though my form is building just as the season comes to an end! As expected it was a little tough out to the first turn but that was more than made up for by some wind assistance on the rest of the course. I finished with 23:57, which I was quite pleased with. It was enough for 2nd place - a distant second place behind Sam who finished with 21:01 despite a few hold-ups on the way round. I was first on vet standard.

After the debacle of a fortnight earlier, when our two lap event at Astwood had to be run as a single lap event with changed start and finish points owing to three-way traffic lights on the course, I decided it would be wise to check out the course first thing in the morning. Lo and behold, the lights were still in place (though one of the riders said they had been removed by the end of the previous week, so maybe they's been placed back).

Thirteen riders entered this club event on the F15/10 Brogborough course. I'd been feeling pretty optimistic after my 21:56 in the VTTA '10' the other weekend! For the record, I've been following a TrainerRoad high volume 40k masters training programme - at least as best I can given various things impacting on my training. I don't do specific FTP tests as I prefer to use the TrainerRoad AI FTP estimation. I also track my training using intervals.icu which offers its own FTP estimate, usually a few watts lower than the TrainerRoad AI FTP estimate. I guess the true value lies somewhere between them.

On the evening of the event, we had a 13mph tailwind for the outbound leg, and a corresponding headwind on the way back to the finish. I'd chosen to ride the P5, and felt pretty good in my usual high gear with the tailwind. I'd noted good speeds whenever I looked at the Garmin - usually around 30mph. Of course things were a little harder on the way back, and while the power and heart rate went up, my speed and gearing went down!

I’ve increasingly felt the need to carry a mobile phone while out on the bike, and particularly when out on the time trial bike. This is for two reasons - firstly the potential need in the event of a mechanical I cannot sort out and secondly because there are functions I use on my Garmin Edge 840 computer that require a mobile phone.

Problem is that mobile phones have got bigger and bigger and my current phone, a Samsung model, is really a bit unwieldy for carrying, even in a jersey pocket. And when wearing a skin suit, the only real solution I’ve found is to carry it in a sealed case and hang it round my neck on a lanyard. That’s pretty uncomfortable!

We had rather nice conditions for our 20 mile time trial over two laps of the Astwood course. Unfortunately some traffic lights were placed on the course - three-way traffic control - just in the run up to North Crawley. This forced a change from two laps to the more usual one lap, and also to the start/finish points, which we set either side of the traffic lights.

I was well-warmed up before the start, but getting going on the aero extensions seemed a bit difficult, but by the time I exited North Crawley I was settled into a good rhythm. Because we were starting in North Crawley, the biggest climb on the course was within the first half instead of at the finish. Maybe this changed things a bit, but I felt like I held down a respectable power to finish in 23:43 to take second place on actual and on veteran standard.

This was one of my all too rare open events. The F11/10 uses the A41 as it bypasses Tring, and it’s the fastest local 10 mile course owing to the gift hill in the middle of the course.

The VTTA event was listed as preference to VTTA members, so the field was predominantly older cyclists with only a few Senior category riders (though many of the reserve riders were of that category).