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.

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).

The 'summer' weather so far has been pretty poor and July has been quite coold and frequently showery. For this evening's club time trial, we had reasonably warm conditions, but rather windy. This was really obvious on the more exposed sections of the course.

But to backtrack slightly. After the equipment debacles of last week's Astwood event, I'd had a close look at the eTap on my P5 TT bike. It was workign flawlessly, and I really couldn't find any faults. So I'd planned to ride that bike at this evening's TT. By the time I was getting bikes prepped, the wind had got quite gusty and I worried that the 90mm front wheel rim might be a bit of a handful. Accordingly, I decided to ride the P3 with its H3s front and rear.

Well that didn't go according to plan.

I spent a chunk of the day continuing the rebuild of the Thorn tandem, then when the rain came on retired indoors to watch the finale of the 5th Tour de France stage. Then I got set up to ride up to Astwood (this includes printing out the timing sheets and signing on sheets). I got half a mile up the road, and found my chosen bike for the evening (my Cervelo P3) was making some loud unaccountable knocking noises. This sounded bad, and didn't appear to be due to the transmission, handlebars or seat, so I returned to the house and grabbed my other TT bike (my Cervelo P5). This entailed some hurried tyre inflation and a change of shoes (different pedal type - old Speedplay X-series). Then a mad dash up to Astwood. Of course, the level crossing was down, to my frustration!

Our latest club event was on the quick local course starting on Brogborough hill. We had pretty good conditions for the event, sunny and with a light 9mph headwind out to the turn. I did find the return leg rather tougher than I expected. Also unexpected was  my win in this event, with 23:24.

Full result over at the NBRC website.

I returned to the NBRC club events after the cycle tour of the Hebrides. I've had a bit of a disrupted season so far, with the minor operation taking me out of two club events, plus the tour taking me away from two others. The training has been similarly affected, though the stats indicate that Im (just about) hanging in there.

Anyway, it was back to Astwood for this event, on a sunny evening with a light wind. It seemed to be cooling down quite quickly. I chose to ride the P5 with the deep rim front wheel, which worked out well. We had a field of 9 riders, and all started. Several were on road bikes, including the winner. I came in second, but first on vet standard. I didn't really notice any real problems except for the coach that came at me head on at one point on the lane after turning at Chicheley!

We had a rather nice evening for this event (except for the brief rain shower before the event started). I rode the P5 TT bike with the deep front wheel as there was only a very gentle wind throughout. I actually felt pretty good and was riding well above my current estimated FTP for much of the time. This is quite encouraging as I come back from a brief medical hiatus in training.

We were all a little concerned about traffic levels as stationary traffic on the A421 increased the number of vehicles on the course as drivers used the road as a rat run. But by the time we were riding everything seemed to be back to normal. I had a clear run through. 

This event saw my return to club events after a brief hiatus on medical grounds (minor operation), so I was a little apprehensive as to how I'd get on  - while I had done a few turbo sessions, this would be the first time out on the road.

As it turned out, I got on OK, though a bit of the pace I'd have expected on such a nice warm spring evening. I had no real issues other than my usual mucking up the clipping in at the start!

I think this event replaced the regular Icknield RC 30k event that for the last few years has been run on two laps of a circuit that takes riders over Mentmore Hill. That’s always a bit of a shocker, because the descent has appalling road surfaces. This year’s event was held on the Astwood circuit course (two laps), with the Bike Bus as race HQ.

On the day, we had brilliant sunshine but there was a rather strong wind (it was 15-17mph during my ride, with gusts exceeding that. I had some technical issues though these didn’t affect my admittedly lacklustre performance. More on that later.

The Duo Normand was the best time trial I regularly rode, and as a 2-up tream trial, I always rode with my long-term 2-up partner Gerry (together we styled ourselves Team Grumpy). There are many reasons why I believe this was the best time trial - a large field raning from non-specialist riders through to professional teams; a challenging course of around 54km; and in a great location in the heart of rural Normandy. Gerry and I ended up taking annual holidays in Normandy because of this race.

Sadly the Duo Normand seems to have fallen off the calendar of events, partly due to the Covid pandemic, partly due to local sports politics, but also (I believe) due in part to the political stupidity that is Brexit.