Proved to be a bit of a disaster as I punctured 5 miles from the start and things just went from bad to worse. Found out that you can’t transfer a course from a Garmin 800 to a 705 so virtually no one on the ride had a Course to ride to.
Turned out to be a nice day. Learned a few valuable lessons about kit preparation, don’t rely on old tubes. If it’s worn or holed bin it.
Category: Cycling
2011 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Thanks for all those comments everyone .
Regards,
Frank.
Here’s an excerpt:
The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 120,000 times in 2011. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 5 days for that many people to see it.
Weekending 25 Dec 2011
Not been out on the bike for about 2 weeks now, had planned to ride to the Ice Cream Farm on Sunday but a spell of snow on Friday put that idea on hold. Things might appear to be fine on the Wirral peninsular but the lanes in Cheshire are not gritted and any snow lingers for days.
A few years back 8 cyclists ended up in the Countess of Chester Hospital, all falling on the ice riding to the Christmas Dinners at the Ice Cream Farm.
It was still slippy in the car this weekend.
A fall is going to put you out of action for months.
Monday: Big push to get the kitchen finished , last week was spent bricking up an old fireplace that revealed itself when the plaster was removed. Anyone that tells you old houses were better built is talking out of their backside.
The postman delivered a mouse mat from Dennis at CyclingtheAlps.com as he promised to give one of them to Paul at the Berlin Google Devfest they presented at.
The app is in the Google Chrome Store and is great, especially in Google Streetview.
I’ve also migrated to Google + , it’s everything Facebook isn’t or has become.
The cyclist Circle in my stream features good posts, good pictures and no bad language.
Will be taking another look at the Garmin Edge pages as they can date really quickly.
Tuesday: Another kitchen day, might get to assemble some units later on, looking to get out on the bike later in the week.
Wednesday: Drove out to the Eureka for breakfast where Merseyside CTC were the only ones in the Cafe. Dave the 4 square Mayor turned up .
Saw some of the site stats last night and some are pretty mind blowing 193,000 since I’ve enabled the counter, god knows what they were before that.
Picked up this link from the excellent Cycling the Alps site.
http://www.360cities.net/javascripts/krpano/krpano.swf
Grimselpass Gletsch Furka Rhonegletscher in Switzerland
Friday: Picked up an infection, mind you there was no way I was going out in that rain.
Called in at Vita Cycles and saw the design for the new kit. Looks good especially after all the fun and games on FaceBook in the past few days.
The plan for Christmas Eve is for a short ride out to the Eureka Cafe and maybe a bit of last minute shopping.
I’d been on Twitter looking to ride out to the Eureka with a few of the Vita guys meeting them on Route 56 at Thornton Hough and had a thirty minute wait as I’d got there early. I’ve got to admit I didn’t expect nearly 30 to turn up. The ride split at Willaston where Ian and Dave opted for the Missing Link, I followed and thought that was it but joining the Chester High road another small group had followed us.
Could be the start of something, the group was too big to manage from the front and the elastic band effect was happening at junctions. Those on the back have to chase hard to get back on the group.
Should be alright when a couple have some ride discipline knocked into them, like easing up after a junction and singling out on the narrow bits.
It looked to be the largest group to turn up at the Cafe, Weaver Valley turned up as we were leaving.
Weekending 04 Dec 2011
This week marks a change of tack on a few fronts, firstly I’ve been off alcohol for 2 weeks now. Can’t say I’ve missed it, it was a routine I’d slipped into and couldn’t seem to break it. I should have known better, it’s the first thing to cut out if you’re trying to lose weight.
Secondly I’m aiming to be back on the bike come what may, followed up by hitting the gym and the spinning classes again. Last Sunday went rather well so I’m planning to do the same again.
Monday: Up early for a week-long course at Siemens in Manchester. The drive proved to be a bit of a nightmare and not something I want to do week in week out. Course over it was a trip down the M56 arriving home in time to get to the first spinning class of the week at the Oval.
Tuesday: More of the same, trip to Manchester this time back for Becky’s spinning class at the Oval. So far so good. Public sector strike tomorrow with the tunnels closed means traffic on the motorway should be heavy.
Wednesday: Left early for course with radio reports of the Runcorn Bridge being down to a crawl. Heavy traffic by junction from Warrington but strangely enough the bottleneck where the Wilmslow and Altringham traffic join the M56 was clear with everybody seemingly having the day off.
Course going well but no spinning class to go, gives my backside a chance to recover from the Sunday ride and the spinning classes.
Thursday: Back to normal, another day in Manchester then a rush down the M56 home. Barbara’s spinning class in West Kirby, only one I could get. By no means full, I put it down to late-night Christmas shopping. Had to put some petrol in the hire car. Hard part was working out how the fuel cap worked.
Friday: It’s been an exceptional week at Siemens largely due to the endless anecdotes from the course instructor, if only all courses were like this. Dropped hire car off at work and booked into Becky’s spin class at West Kirby this time.
Saturday: More work on the kitchen. I’m now back on the weigh-in routine which has proved a bit of a damp squib as nothing has changed yet.
Called in at Vita where I showed Barry the CyclingtheAlps.com site. Stelvio Pass looks unbelievable in Streetview. It deserves a wider audience, which I’m sure it will get. Could be another Vita Challenge in the offing, Stelvio or Zoncolan with the turbo set on max, video courtesy of Google Streetview.
The conversation drifted around to Google analytics, site traffic and ad revenue. There is no substitute for content seen a few now that were going to earn a fortune from a blog with adverts only to give up after a month or two when the initial hits dried up because there was no reason to go back to the site.
http://www.cyclingthealps.com/streetview/col-de-la-madeleine-reverse.html
Sunday: Ride day, went out for the paper and it was a mite chilly so I added an extra layer before heading out. First encounter was at the top of the road where an old XJ Jag wanted to squeeze past to save 20 yards to the stop sign. Held my ground and he backed down.
Posted a slide show of the ride , it’s the first one I’ve tried so bear with me if it fails.
Lots of things happen on a ride that don’t normally make it into the blog.
I’d met up with Paul at the ICF and chatted about where things are going with the site. There are going to be a few changes in the next few weeks now I’ve got back into the thick of it again.
The Garmin side of things will be brought up to date. Possibly a new theme but one big change will be AdSence when it comes through.
Been looking up a couple of the links I follow and like this site all is not a bed of roses. Life has a habit of getting in the way of things.
Bumped into the Sunlight at the Eureka after last weeks pictures. JJ’s lad has seen the site but not his dad playing tailgunner for the club ride.
The ride home was pretty grim with it raining and the temperature on the Edge showing 1 Deg C. I’d lost my Montane Rain cape from the saddle last week. It was there in the ICF picture last week but not when I was cleaning the bike this morning. It was an £80 jacket. Still, I had the Aldi one to fall back on and it was pretty effective for the price, which was not a lot.
Ride update: The retaken pictures of the MagicShine copy lights turned out to be another disaster. Camera shake blurrs the shot on low light levels, a compact camera just isn’t up to the job.
Tackling Rest Hill the Magishine picked up signs of hedge cutting that wasn’t there when I set out. Thought I had dodged it but looking at the bike this morning revealed a flat front tyre. More hedge cutting today so avoid Rest Hill for a while.
Wild Wales 2011
The route for this years Wild Wales has been out out for some time and I hadn’t given it much thought. I sat down a couple of nights before the ride and tried to enter it. It’s written in handlebar shorthand and needs to be viewed with an OS map. Three hours later I was done, briefly put anything with double chevrons on an OS map was in the ride.
It’s two years since the last Wild Wales which ended in torrid conditions with a ride of 20 miles back through sheep slurry. This year a crud catcher went on the back. I also lost my dad the week after. In fact the funerals of father and father in law were within 24 hours of each other.
Then it hits me I haven’t been out in this neck of the woods for two year. I’m getting up the small 10% stuff in the middle ring but haven’t tested myself on the really steep stuff.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/110252799
First test of the day was trying to get money into the temperamental parking meter. Then I discovered I’d come out with 2 righthand gloves so no gloves on the ride.
Not as many pictures this year, can’t find the ones where you could see the sea after the first Control.
A large queue was forming at the start but the new swipe in system meant you were in and out in seconds.
Setting out on the ride I tagged on the back of a group with Janet and Lowrie in it. We seemed to be following a chap on a mountain bike so I moved up near to the front, where Geof Dutton AKA “The Dog” jumps on my wheel. Geoff never misses a wheel that’s why he is know as the dog.
Wild Wales 2011 by frankkinlan at Garmin Connect – Details
Had to stop to take a picture of the Llama,s they were really curious about what was going on, running up to the fence to see a group of riders go by.
Stopped before this steep descent as the valley looked really sharp and detailed, it hasn’t come out in the picture, must be the new Oakley,s.
What goes down must come up and the first climb had the rear wheel spinning out. The next stretch looked even worse.
Dave Newby the front Northender still on the bike.
Dave Newby has to dismount on this stretch taking the Doc with him.
Stopped here just after Llyn Brenig to remove the rain Jacket.
Control at Llansannan
Got a bit lumpy after this turn, opted to walk the steepest section getting back on the bike when a septagerarium/octagenarium came past me.
More nasty short sharp climbs had riders falling on them. On those I opted to walk there were guys hardly advancing on me at 2 mph in Keo,s.
Ros,s fella went down on a particullary bad descent and had to take the road back to the start.
A chap on a Planet X went down and broke his bike and another of the Sunlight went down twice, falling on the same turn.
It was about 1:3 in places and you could feel the high spots in the rim as you tried to make it to the bottom in one piece.
Got caught out by the route, saw a sign saying 20% so got 30 yards up it and bailed off. Couldn’t see what was beyond the bend and the Garmin hadn’t told me I was off Course. Two guys went past, one of them saying “No shame in walking” only to see them at the next control as I was leaving.
Chris (who was riding to the routesheet) called me back as I had missed one of the fluorescent arrows.
Later part of the ride, there was a couple offering drinks by one of the reservoirs but most were just flying by. It was one of those parts where you just had to make the most of the road. It doesn’t get much better than this.
It was easy to make a mistake in the final section of the ride, even on the gated road section which featured in the previous ride.
Following a Bala sign had me off Course and retracing my steps had me meet up with a chap that had rode the Etape. Chatted about Audaxes and such as another group went by and took the wrong turning through a farm. God knows where that led to but it wasn’t Bala.
Weekending 29 Aug 2011
Monday : morning spin class at West Kirby followed by some sign removal. Called in to see Brian about some car work but he was fully booked up so ended up doing it myself with only one skinned knuckle.
Only 4 in the spin class including a chap wearing a beanie hat and what looked like a fleece.
Called in at Vita where the winner of the Kuota Kebel was getting sized up for the frame.
Tuesday : Early start as it is MOT day.
Car fails MOT and I have a couple of hours to kill in Birkenhead. Writing this on the IPhone in McDonalds to kill some time. The plan is to do some more sign removal in the afternoon. Maybe fettle the bike for the Wild Wales.
As it turned out I spent most of the afternoon with Barry in the Vita shop doing a bit of post ride analysis.
It’s a good job I spent 9 hours signing the 86 miles route or the event wouldn’t have happened, the route sheet was unusable and this wasn’t picked up until it was time to sign the route.
Had a comment about a lack of marshals, I did suggest one for the Backford Hill crossing as it is dangerous. Apart from Barry and Phil they only had help from 2 others. On any event you need bodies to run it. Marshals for Sportives cost money they don’t stand by the side of road waving you on for free.
You don’t get marshals on a club ride.
I know you’ve paid to enter but this was a true “charity” event, not an event organiser event with a charity tagged on.
Try riding an Audax.
Signage, there is only so much road furniture you can tie wrap a sign on. If you steam past a sign on a downhill section at 30 + mph I can’t help that. The chap I rode with did it but didn’t hear the shouts and I was only 50 yards behind him.
This was approaching Heswall, missing out the lower loop.
There was a chap averaging 12 mph on the big loop who knew we we would have all packed up and gone home by the time he would finish but insisted on continuing.
There,s the rub, the first rides I did had a charity tag but wern’t as such. Vita with a touch of naeivety dive in at the deep end but by and large pull it off.
Steve rang the shop on Monday to see how things went, it went off better than I had expected. Good trade supportfor a good good cause meant the 1 mechanical got a lift back in a nice Merc. Neil Pryde and Barry manned the feed station at Delamere.
Spent 3 hours tonight removing signs and that was with the help of Val driving. Got as far as Delamere before it went dark.
Bumped into the Northend doing Keith Boardmans 5 mile TT,s at Benty Heath Lane.
It’s dark around 8:30 pm now so cyclists need to start using lights. I know, it’s only August.
Keep the feedback coming as we (we) need it to make next years event better.The rides the ride but this years loop to Hoylake was unessesary, perhaps a bigger loop into Cheshire. Feedback needed on the short ride as it sent you on roads I wouldn’t have sent you on. We can come up with a good route that doesn’t involve A roads. The new Wirral Circular coastal springs to mind.
Insane Downhill Bike Race In Chile
Untitled by frankkinlan at Garmin Connect – Details
Weekending 31 July 2010
Monday: Website down over the weekend so time for a fresh start.
Time again to go on the wagon and take alcohol out of the equation again and start afresh. Booked some spinning classes and pressed on with all those little bits of jobs that need sorting.
Tuesday: Tex,s morning spinning class which unlike the others are likened to a 45 minute climbing session. If your spinning at 200rpm instead of 60 you will get your tension increased.
Of out to look at curtains which involved calling in at Eureka Cycle Sports. No curtains but it did allow me to put a coat of paint on the front door.
Becky’s evening spin class at the Oval, notable for the entire back row filling up with me on the front. You could almost feel them wishing for a row of corner bikes. Filled up a bit more before the start so it didn’t look so obvious.
Becky has a new class at West Kirby on Monday at 7.15 pm after the 6.00 one.
Sweated buckets, weights, shower and then home. Incidently the showers downstairs must be the worst around. Mould in the grout, dirty, next to non existent suspended ceiling. A hygiene hazard at best.
Started to read “Eats Shoots and Leaves” a 2004 best seller so hopefully the punctuation should improve. That is if I find the bit that actually says what the rules are.
Wednesday: Up early to clean and fettle the bike. New Dura-Ace brake blocks in the rear as the old ones were beginning to pick up, had them a while as they have an old price on. Lost a kilogram to boot.
Headed out to the Eureka with an eerie quietness to the roads, there was no school run as the schools have broken up for the holidays.
Not too many there when I arrived apart from a couple of Northenders. It soon filled up later on with the Northend out in force. Opted to go out with the CTC as it is exactly 5 years since I started going out with them.
Saw Ray who is on his 52nd 100 miler this year.
Todays ride was to Handley and should be here.
‘http://connect.garmin.com:80/activity/embed/102160746’
Met up with Colin Bell who is the brother of Dave Bell who I served my apprenticeship with at Associated Octel.(now Innospec)
The route was through the lanes including a few I hadn’t been on before, finally ending up at the Calverley Arms, avoiding the A41.
Good service, my baguette was nice and so was the pint, it would have been rude not to have one.
The pace had slowed a bit so much so that at the cottage with a pond in the garden on a bend at Huxley, I went off the front.
Route back was Waverton, Christleton, cycle path through Chester coming off it at Blacon, Upton and across the A5771 and back up Woodbank.
Plenty to talk about at the Eureka, Garmins as usual and the Ventoux popped up once or twice during the day without my prompting.
74.6 miles, couldn’t go that extra half mile so to say.
Seen a request for pictures of Charlie Dipple on Facebook but can’t get in touch due to a blocked facebook profile. Here is one of them. Comes out bigger than the original when I paste it here at least when I edit it.
Thursday: Barbara,s Morning Spin class at West Kirby . Delayed 15 minutes because another class was using the amplifier. Hot class sweated buckets, called in at Vita on the way home to pick up some Nuun salt tablets as I want to replenish the salts lost but not the calories. Shop full of new Bianchi,s to look at and start at a resonable price in a shop that has a £12,000 bike on display.
Tesco,s for the comic and a sandwich and a trip to see my mum.
Booked a pm class at West Kirby, tried the Nuun tablet which guess what? tasted of salt.
Friday: Lost 2 kg since Monday mainly by knocking the alcohol on on the head. The scales say my body composition Water % has gone up from 43.9% to 44.7 in 4 days. Time to finally put it all in a spreadsheet.
There have been complications mainly insomnia which was probably why I hit the bottle again. Will have to see how it pans out as I don’t really want to see the quack at this stage.
More later, off out to the Eureka for lunch.
Headed out to a cash machine and then down Town Lane practicing bunny hops on the sleeping policemen. Works quite well once you’ve done a few. Called in at Aldi for a punnet of plums and headed out to Eastham Ferry calling in at CycleSurgery for a Sky waterbottle.
BLT toastie at the Eureka where there was another one having Garmin problems.
Vision is one of them, if you can’t see the screen of a normal computer you are going to be in real trouble with 705 or 800 on the move.
I’ve just switched to prescription glasses so a ride is now like seeing HD for the first time.
The FourSquare app on the Iphone has locked up for the last week.
Called in at Vita on the way home then back via Landican lane to practice more bunny hops. That was until the bottle toolbox forced it’s way past the tang on the carbon fiber bottle cage. Forced the pump out of it’s mount, hitting the crank every revolution.
I don’t know how many vans Gunform have but got buzzed by another at the Woodchurch flyover making a beeline for the motorway. That’s the second time it’s happened to me. Someone there is riding their luck.
Called in to McGarvey,s Opticians to see how the custom Split Jackets were coming on. Well they were in but awaiting the case and the rest of the bits you get with the real thing. They are a better fit than the Radars on the Kask Vertigo.
Probably worth doing a post on prescription sports eyewear at a later date.
Had a drive around looking to pick up bits for the kitchen installation to no avail. What was noticeable was riders in team kit, so here goes Discovery Channel, Astana(brave), Team Altura(plain kit) and US Postal.
Saturday: Stayed steady, Alcohol units 0, disrupted sleep. Time for a ride as the suns out and it’s the last day of the holiday.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/102829216#.TjRLKsE8bAc.wordpress
40 mile ride around Wirral with a few bikes shops and motorbike shops thrown in. Still looking for a new pair of shoes. Met up with Dave at the Eureka who ordered a bacon sandwich with a brown crust and a white top with the crusts cut off tongue in cheek. Low and behold that’s what he got apart from the crusts being cut off.
Lot’s of the big hitters were doing short rides as it is race day on Sunday
Sunday: Work so no ride, weekly total 141 miles. Alcohol units 2.
Weekending 03 July 2011
Liverpool Chester Liverpool 2011
Nice day for a nice ride.
Should have rode the 87 mile event as I was back by 11.45
Bumped in to Paul from work, still waiting for his bike on the cycle to work scheme.
Nearly everyone freewheeled down to the midpoint where the speed differences started to show on the climb out.
Quite a few stop at the tollbooths to rest/regroup.
It’s always great to ride through to tollbooths for free.
Big ring after this and I’m flying. Met up with Team Wallace and Grommit who bummed a free ride from KFC. At least they didn’t have the cheek to do the tunnel unlike the usual suspect Liverpool clubs.
Marshalling was a bit hit or miss with riders getting waved through red lights even though the ride organisers stressed not to do it.
Likewise riding 3 abreast on the Chester High Road before theThorton Hough turn off is not sensible.
The traffic calming islands just exacerbate the situation.
Nice section of the ride going through Thorton Hough, pity the oak tree outside the Smithy had to be cut down.
Pretty much on my own at this point but grabbed a wheel from a handy chap on a Pinarello who was on the 87 mile ride. Looked to be behind schedule if I had caught him up.
The gated lane with 5 gates, could have done with marshals on these but it went ok. CTC have this down to a fine art.
The stop at Chester had me meeting up with Team Wallace and Grommit and heading to the Claire House Gazeebo for some sun tan lotion. Saw one of the Vita Cycles Team heading out on the Delamere loop.
Had a bit of fun in the tunnel on the return leg, tucking in behind a guy using tri bars doing 30+. Surprised to see bottles being discarded in the tunnel with about a 1/4 mile to go, it’s not that steep a climb and it’s not the Tour.
Frank Kinlan's Blog 
