End of season 2011 and looking forward to 2012

Cycling has never been so popular in the UK than it is today. After 20 odd years of road cycling I'm only now getting used to it not being the odd sport that few take part in. I'm also not alone is wanting to prepare for next years cycling events after the successes of this or earlier seasons. So to that end I'll do a little blogging to keep those interested up to date with my progress. I hope this allows people to learn a bit from me and it would be even better if I get some useful feedback from others in the same position. Perhaps we can share and learn as we go.


So after a successful 2011 with my goals met in both the Etape Caledonia and in the Alps with La Marmotte I couldn't resist having a go at a late season short distance circuit race. Not that I've ever done one before you understand.


A couple of months ago the Scottish National Criterium Championships were being held in Paisley and I managed to squeeze into the vet/cat 3/cat 4 support race. As a "vet" (40 years plus) I was starting my first club race in 21 years. It was fast and furious - and that described a couple of the other riders who didn't like being overtaken. Anyway, I finished 15th overall out of 46 with half the field taken off by the organisers for dropping back too far (that's the rules) -not a bad showing I think. I even managed to run in 3rd place at one stage in the race, but that was just to look good in front of my wife and daughter. Next time I'm taking Gerard Vroomen's advice below.

http://gerard.cc/2011/09/30/cyclists-are-losers 


And disrupting the "standard" tactics normally seen in crits and see what happens.

That's me above, I'm the one in black, looking a bit serious.


For me, yesterday was day 1 for 2012 as far as I am now concerned. September was pretty much a cycling washout. Too many working trips away from home, too many dinners out and not enough sleep. That's what they call the off season I guess. Well mine is well and truly finished. I went out yesterday on the bike for 20 odd miles and felt like I'd never been on a bike before. It was windy and tough.


A few weeks ago I was able to perform a VO2 max test, for the first time ever. I took part in a clinical trial at Glasgow University. They were looking into heart disease and validating a new method to spot signs earlier. The VO2 max test was the benchmark used to view the other clinical figures perspective. Little did I know that it was high enough for them to ask me to come back and take part in their cycling performance testing. So assuming I can fit in all 9 tests within a three week window I will perform the VO2 max test, lactate threshold and maximal power test three times each. Given the lactate threshold test involves a 40km time trial I can see November being a bigger than normal bike month.  For those interested, my VO2 max was 64 and my fat percentage was 7%. Given I felt not at my best I think a figure of 70 may be achievable over time. At least that's the target now anyway.


We have an end of year last hurrah coming soon. Some mates and I are going to ride the Etape Caledonia course on 30th October. This will give everyone another chance to see the course again. Lets hope the weather is kind to us.


Speaking of which, there's more people I know doing next years Etape Caledonia than ever before. It's going to be great fun and a stark contrast to the first two years when I went up with my family and rode the course on "my own" - if you ignored the other 1199 people. To think it went from 1200 to 5000 people in three years in very impressive. But I do wonder why they don't reverse the course for a change. I think doing it in reverse would be fun.


So plans for the next couple of months include lots of Sufferfest Turbo trainer sessions, getting out on the fixie, finding myself the right cycling club to join and of course 9 painful performance tests mentioned above. I'll let you know what the numbers say at the end of November.


Happy riding. :)