Frank Kinlan's Blog – Page 30 – A weblog offering firsthand advice to the overweight looking to improve their health and lifestyle through cycling. A link to a pdf of the diet I am following is on the Diet under the About menu.

Garmin Edge 605 and 705 Maps.

When the new Garmin Edge 605 and 705 arrive Edge users are going to have to get to grips with Garmin Mapsource maps.
As the 205 and 305 are not mapping GPS units it means the new 605 and 705 owners are going to have an even steeper learning curve to climb.

None of the Garmin 705 bundles I’ve looked at come with a map other than a basemap. Garmin basemaps are about as much use as a chocolate teapot. I suspect they are included to stop you throwing the thing at the wall out of frustration.

Garmin maps are not cheap, the retail price for Topo GB 2 is £150 which when added to the price of your shiny new Edge 705 is a lot of money. I mention Mapsource Topo GB as it is Garmins Ordnance Survey equivalent and if your a mountain biker this is the product you are going to need. Roadies (moi) can use the other maps such as Metro or City Select. All these products can be obtained substantially cheaper on the net or on Ebay. I paid £18 for my copy of Metro Europe V6 so all though not the current version was worth it just to update the Training Centre software map.

You cannot export the raster based Ordnance Survey digital mapping based maps to a Garmin only Routes and in the case of Tracklogs, Courses.

You can download the Mapsource program for free from Garmin.

http://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=209

As you have a basemap with your Edge it will install and at least you will get to see the functionality of the program.

I’ll update this post as I learn more.

Buying an Edge off Ebay (A link to Pauls blog )

This is a link to Pauls blog about buying an Edge off Ebay.
As you can see he got his for a bargain price.

http://sidsjourney.blogspot.com/2007/07/winning-on-ebay-at-right-price.html#links

I used a similar tactic to get one of the Garmin Mapsource Metro maps.
Edge 205 and 305,s are starting to be discounted now with the new 605 and 705 due any day now so you shouldn’t be paying full price for an Edge.

Weekending 21 Oct 07

Monday: Spinning class at West Kirby followed by a class at Europa Pools. Just about got into the class at West Kirby had a good go and burnt 760 calories. The woman next to me had too much resistance on for one of the climbs and was struggling. You’d never ride a bike with that level of resistance in the saddle so why try to do it spinning. It’s just going to screw up peoples knees. Then we had a hover, another knee killer that I gave a miss.
Should have called it a day then but got to Europa Pools just in time. I’m still of the opinion that newbie women should do Sheila,s class. There was another first timer tonight who did OK and didn’t try to compete with the advanced pupils in the class.
It’s a question of numbers, West Kirby, full, all pretty know what the score is a newbie is going to be out of their depth especially if they try to hide on the back row.
Europa Pools by contrast, less bikes, no back row so hidding places.
One of the girls was talking about weightloss and spinning, hasn’t seen this site which is probably a good thing. One night, two classes, and two different approaches.
1150 calories burnt. Couldn’t give it my best in the second class as there was nothing give.
Tuesday: CTC meeting at 7:30 but where? Booked in for a spinning class at West Kirby tipped the scales at 81.9 Kg after last nights effort. 650 calories.
Wednesday: Ride day . Rode out to the Eureka for breakfast and ended up going out with the CTC to Kingsley.

The rided out to the Red Bull wasn’t too bad with the climb up Cob Hall lane making sure it wouldn’t be a flat ride. I ended having a jacket potato for lunch which came very quickly. Peter,s jacket potato took ages but the numbers were about double what Jill thought would be dining in.
The winter rides were very popular last year with number in excess of 30 turning up. It could place a strain on the kitchen but most of the time they went off well.

We have a puncture on departing the Red Bull which slowed things down a bit but gave Maurice the chance to ride off on my bike. The first one or was it the second, fixed we set off in a downpour. To add to the woes it was bitterly cold. Our luck doesn’t last as we have to stop again for a flat. Eventually the sun came out and we were on our way again, but not for long.

Just past Delamere at the bottom of the Switchback we stop again. Just as well Barry is with us as he profers a folding tyre and another tube. The tube that came out was given the once over and by the look of it a few need their eyes testing. It’s no wonder it leaked air, even the patchs were perished. The folds where it had been stored in the saddlebag were showing signs of perishing too. A bit of thrift is fine but this wasn’t fit to make elastic bands with.

If we need to spend some of the DA,s money because the CTC are restructuring spend it on a box of innertubes.

Bit of a mixed ride as one chap had 3 punctures and we were stopped for about an hour, got back to the Eureka to find it closed. We had lost about an hour got caught in the rain which was really cold and ended up splitting from the group, what was left of it.
The ride: 52 miles in all, cold, wet after lunch and a tad slow with all the stops.
Spinning class at West Kirby with Margaret. Barbara was off and this proved to be a right shock to the system. More later. Miles turns up for the class and we hadn’t seen each other since the Brimatage Time Trial. Margaret has us doing a couple of new techniques in the class like intervals and progressively increasing the load. It was a case of 2 1/4 turns in for a bit and then a 1/4 turn out for a while then another 2 1/4 turns in and so on. Chest presses were done in position 2 instead of 3 and it was a 4 minute sprint at the end with enough resistance in to let you know youve had a good session.
Even the streches at the end had a different twist to them.
Really enjoyed the change, Barbara is going to have to move house more often.
Margaret teaches Pilates by the way. Had 10 minutes in the Gym before the class doing a few weights.
Thursday: Work, hit Borders on the way home for a cycling magazine fix and came out a tenner lighter.
Friday: Work. May try the lights on the Iceni out. Bought a Cateye EL530 that I want to compare with the Sigma halogen lightset. The EL530 looks bright but the beam is very narrow and only has one setting. Fitted the Cateye set, the rear is really bright and the front will have to be tried out on a dark lane against the Sigma lights. I’m impressed with the output of the Sigma lights but have never given them a decent ride.
Saturday:Work. Going to give the lights a try even if it’s just around the block. I’ve been reading enough articles about them but you can’t beat just getting out there and having a go. More to follow.
The rugby wasn’t yanking my chain so I did the lap around the block to check the lights out. First off it was cold so the lastest Aldi winter cycling kit got it’s first full outing.
As for the lights a mixture of the two systems seems to be the answer.
The Sigma lighting set was good enough to ride by on an unlit road as there is 15 watts of halogen light to play. Once I work out how long the batteries should last it will be the primary means of lighting on the Iceni.
The Cateye EL530 is a bit of a mixed bag. The main spot is a very intense blue white light but very small the closer it is positioned to the front wheel. The spread of the beam is poor given that the centre spot is so bright. You can ride with it and if I didn’t have the other system I’d probably be saying how bright the spot was.
The mounting bracket that is supplied with it is poor and although you don’t need tools to put it on moved on the bike. I’ll do a proper reveiw of the lights. I felt let down by the recent Cycling Plus reveiw.
Sunday: Work. Went out for a 5 mile ride to test the lights out again. The Sigma pair last about an hour I’ve been told on full power. You can actually ride at a normal pace with these and the spread of light is even. Wasn’t a bad little run and gave me a chance to try the Aldi winter cycle gear again.

Spin Rage

Just had to post this link about spinning rage. Courtesy of the CTC email newsletter

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/19/wgym119.xml

It gets a bit vocal in West Kirby at times but I’ve never seen anyone tipped off their bike. Fallen off their bike yes but never tipped off. Classic stuff.

Weekending 14 Oct 07

Monday: Wrote up the weekend hillclimb and booked into Europa Pools for 7:15. Got a bit bored waiting so went to West Kirby for Barbara,s class. Vocal class this one and didn’t have the benefit of the fan. 650 calories and then it was off to Europa Pools. Got there just in time, Louise,s sister had us all doing a survey on perceived effort mine was less tonight as I’d already done one hard class.
The is no let up in Barbara,s class as the tracks on the CD just follow on from one another. At the end of it for the two classes I’d burnt 1150 calories.
Tuesday: Booked in at Europa Pools but ended up getting an earlier class at West Kirby. Had the fan tonight and enough water to see me through the class. 660 calories which is about right. I’ve stopped doing seated climbs now in virtually all the classes as it’s not the way I normally climb on the bike.
The resistance gets turned up accordingly but not so much as to grind the pedals around. If I was out on the bike I’d just select a lower gear. I’m not loking to bulk up my legs with these classes just improve my climbing.
Wednesday: Work and on call, Nothing planned. Might try a routine out of Mens Health magazine at home. Tried a couple of exercises from the Fitness Special got to admit it’s harder than it looks. Some of the moves are really hard and beyond me at the moment.
Thursday: Work. On call again. Chinups and 20 pressups. Nothing aerobic.
Friday: Work followed by a spinning class at West Kirby. 690 calories with max heartrate of 178 BPM meant this was this weeks maximum effort. Had a fan on me for the whole of the class but it was still hard work. 10 chinups, may try some crunches seeing how effective they were after Sheila,s class last week.
Saturday: Work. Nothing planned as Sunday I’ll be doing a short ride.
It looks like I’m not going to get a Saturday or a Sunday group ride for at least a month so I’m going to have to come up with something mid week. Next Wednesday looks good though.
Sunday: Rode out to the Eureka for breakfast. As this was the only riding I was doing it was at a fast pace down the Chester High Road. I’d caught and past a Northender doing about 20 mph. So I had this chap on my wheel , after the Hinderton Arms Tempo comes out of a side road. He gets passed as well, this is red rag to a bull stuff and it continues on to the dual carriage way. I’m only on my way out for a breakfast next minute the first chap comes past to give me a blow, further on Tempo takes it up again. By this time we are doing 27mph with me just about hanging on the back.
I wasn’t going out with any group today and I suspect if I’d gone out with the NorthEnd Tempo would have made sure I’d get well and truly battered.
Wednesday is your next chance.
It was a mistake going through the Missing Link on the return as I got covered in crap and the Toy is a mess. So much so it’s not coming in to the house until cleaned.
Went to the bike factory for some new lights for winter. I’ll write them up when I’ve tried them out.

CTC Hillclimb Llyfasi

A year ago you’d never in a million years have me doing a hillclimb but times change and I’d even toyed with riding out to the event. With limited access to the internet I’d got the details from the CTC Cycle magazine.

As it turned out 24 of us turned up on the day and it went off really well.

I’d rode up the first part of the course with a few others to see what gear to use, turning back before the first bend. I’d been told about not going off too fast, but this seemed OK. Middle ring and 25 or 24 on the back. I started fifth and this was the first time I have started anything in the pedals so its a bit unnerving the first time.
The chap in the stripes is my minute man and looks to be going well.

A minute later I’m off, have a good go on the first section with the dubious honor of having a car pass me on the narrow road. It was soon past.
round the first bend things steepened up considerably and I’d also caught my minute man I was under the impression that he had had a problem.

Looking down at the Edge my pulse is about 175 BPM its time to drop in to the granny ring on this one and spinn it out. I figure it can’t be this steep all the way up. As it was it flattened out a bit and it was time to shift up a gear or two. The finish being at a gate on the flat. Fast sprint to the finish and that was it event done.

Back to the time keeper to give my number in and take a few pictures of the other riders.

More later including the freewheel and presentation.
The results to my great surprise I came second with a time of 7 minutes 29 seconds. Well beaten by the winner doing it in 6 minutes 48 seconds. Third place was a second behind me so it was close.

It was a short ride to the start of the Freewheel most of it downhill. Taking a leaf out of Andy Walsh,s Majorcan dowhill Northend epic on Youtube I decided to have a go at filming while on the move, with nearly disastrous consequences. The road got rough and the hand that was holding the lever was having a hard enough time trying to keep the speed in check before a large jolt made the lever slip. Results are a bit mixed so I won’t post them.

And so on to the Freewheel. Now this is what I’d call a quirky event, freewheeling down a hill and seeing how far you can get up the other side. You might get beaten on the hillclimb but revenge is sweet on the freewheel. I don’t think I’d travel half way across the country just to do the freewheel mind you.

Now I’d have thought it was all about aerodynamic and rolling resistance, how wrong can you be. the chap in the third picture won the event by getting past the telegraph pole.
Carbon exotica like the Toy wern’t even close to the British steel and the chap on the Bianchi. I had a look at his tyres they must have been 35-38 millimetre touring tyres with a tread pattern in them!. Mind you, what was in the saddle bag? Hutchinson 700X23,s in Discovery Channel team colors just wern’t up to it in this event.

Your final stopping point is marked on the road and at the close I counted my position, 11th. With the event over it was off to the pub for some lunch and the presentation from Lowri.

Great day, my first hillclimb and freewheel. Probably be back for more next year.

Discovering Shropshire Audax.

I’d signed up for this Audax at the last minute having been in touch with Ray about which one he was doing the week before. He had opted for the 118 Km, 77 mile one rather than the 200 Km event. Pah I hear you cry I wouldn’t get out of bed for that.

Well looks are deceiving and I had spent Friday programming the route into Marengo. Cross referencing it with Anquet OS mapping. It turned out to be a hilly ride due to the rolling hilly nature of the area.

Every time I looked down at the Edge it was showing 10% gradient or seemed that way.

At the start there is much mirth among our group as Ray is checking tyre pressures by squeezing the tyre and coming up with a figure. The funny thing was he was remarkably close on three occasions. Triple puncture Guy should have had his sorted before the event and we had a stop a mile or two down the road to check that the tyre wasn’t going soft. Ray pronounced it Ok at 110 PSI. This puts us towards the back of the ride after a quickish start.

The first control is just past the world Heritage site, IronBridge. You can just see the bridge in the third picture. As you come down the valley you can’t help but wonder what this huge building is with cooling towers. It turns out to be a power station in the most unlikey of situations or perhaps not given this was at the heart of the industrial revolution.

I fell off the back of a fairly large group for these pictures, the actual one of the bridge not making it onto this post.

The first control was at the Tandem shop after negotiating what looked like a landslide. With the card stamped it was time to regroup and do a bit of climbing. It was staring to brighten up a bit and although the roads are still wet it hadn’t rained on us.

Things get a bit spread out on some of the climbs but it allows me to get a few shots in at the top. The last one in this sequence is at the second control point at Rays Farm. The turn is near the bottom of a hill and it’s a sharp climb up to the farm. The chain derailed on the Toy as it got shoved into the granny ring. But no damage done. Busses full of kids were struggling up the hill.

Once out of the control guess what, more climbing. The next section involving the highest point on the ride, Wenlock edge.

After the final control things have brightened up again and it’s turning out nice.
Now the thing is when your riding as a group you go at the pace of the slowest member but things get spread out a bit on the hills. It’s just the way it is, as once you get bunching of riders accidents tend to happen on the steep bits. Touching a wheel means your on the deck.

I tend to favour going off the front and waiting at the top, sometimes to take a picture sometimes not. A rider passes me as I ease up at the top of one of the climbs so I’ve got to return the favour on the next climb. More of a dash down one side of the hill and a sprint turning a big gear up the other. Honour restored it was time to slow down for the others.

It’s not all one way, but the faster riders tend to be at the front anyway. These rides aren’t races but there is an element of competition lurking under the surface.

Another rider passed comment on the Nike Lance 2 shoes. If it was going to be wet I wouldn’ have worn them. As it was they got lightly soiled we shall say at the end of the ride. Nearing Upton Magna there is a tractor and muck spreading tailer that has plastered the road with muck. It spreads for quite a distance. Now I don’t hang around as any traffic coming the other way would plaster you with the stuff. Given the speed I’m not expecting cries from behind me. Guy has leapt on my wheel and I’ve no mudguards.
You can picture the scene, to add to it Janet is on Guy,s wheel. It was a fairly clean ride up until then. Within another couple of hundred yards we are back at the start another great ride over.

The Edge is playing up at the moment by not splitting the rides up properly. Will post a link to the route when I get it sorted.

Link to Google Map of Ride

Missed out a few bits and pieces about the ride, two rides in two days takes a fair bit of writing up and the Edge not splitting them has had me trying to work around a fix for most of the week. SportTracks saving the day in the end.

Weekending 07 Oct 07

Monday: Spinning class at West Kirby, 675 calories. Picked up a back injury so certain moves were sore. Should have known better. Mixed day received Mapsource Metroguide Europe for the Garmin that I bought off Ebay. Installed it and uploaded the two rides to it. It is good and it also shows up in the TrainingCentre so the basemap is no more. It is a significant upgrade for an Edge user and I paid less than £20 for it. I’ll do a separate post on it as it is a significant upgrade for Edge users. This is all in preparation for the Edge 705.
Back to the spinning, got sandwiched between two women that gave me a good run for my money. These girls are good, got to give credit where credit is due.
Tuesday: Work. Really suffering with back problems, missed a nights sleep no exercise for the foreseable future.
Wednesday: Work. Touch and go wether I turned in. Felt a bit better through the day but the hill climb is 50/50.
Thursday: Work
Friday: Took a day off to do some brickwork for a window. So booked into Europa Pools for a spinning class. They’ve been missing me, had to explain about going to West Kirby as the Europa classes are overbooked. Hanni has challenged me to do a double class on Tuesday. Can’t get on the first class Hanni . Anyway I was getting into a rut at West Kirby, Sheila,s classes are a change.
If your a woman looking at doing a spinning class I’d seriously recommend one of Sheila,s classes. She looks after the beginners and the classes are tailored to suit women. You get to know why you are doing a certain exercise. ie bum, thighs or calfs. None of the girls are looking to bulk up so it,s all about toning.
What was unusual about tonight was after the class Sheila had us on the mats doing abdominal exercises. First time I’ve been shown how to do them properly. Boy were they effective. Thanks Sheila.
Weights upstairs in the gym and spoke to Frances about the rides. Shower, home. br />
Saturday: CTC Hillclimb by the look of things. It’ll be my first. If it’s any thing like the old Nant y Garth it’ll be steep. Putting the Bontrager Race X lites wheels on the Toy might be taking things too seriously. Mind you the Toy is very serious in the CTC, the prefered weapon of choice is British steel prefably handbuilt by one of the few remaining frame builders.

Drove out to the start with the Toy on the Aldi cycle rack. Had a really good day, will write it up as a full post with pictures. As a taster I finished 11th on the freewheel. With the comments I’ve made before carbon is not the way to go for this event. Another good day, not what I was expecting but variety is the spice of life these days.
Sunday: Went to see Jack on the toy with a trip on the ferry. Came back on the Coastal Cylcle Route. 52 miles

CTC Presidents ride.

Ride write up to follow, I’ve posted some of the pictures I took on the ride to get things moving. These are compressed thumbnails for the blog the original are about 2.5Mb each if you want an original copy.

The Presidents Ride starts and finishes at the pond in Christleton and there are a fair few turning up maybe 50 or 60 and comprised of two rides a 15 and 18 mile route to the Jessie Hughes Institute at Eaton. Roy ends up leading us off and it turned out to be a good ride. Met a few new faces from other sections including a chap that had ridden the Discovering Shropshire audax the day before.

On the way out, by the Ice Cream Farm a tractor rally passes on the other side of the road. I hould have stopped then as it is a fairly unique sight but as luck would have it our paths crossed later in the day.

Once youve dropped down to the rail bridge and crossed the canal you know know there is going to be a grinding of gears on the climb up the hill. It never fails to catch a few out. It’s the short sharp shock climbs that have me doing the spinning classes a couple of times a week.

There are tea and cakes laid on at the Jessie Hughes Institute. Institute conjured up something grand when I first heard about it and I’d drove past it before not realising that this was it. It’s a wooden hall that is due to be replaced by a brick building. A bit of a blast from the past.

There is a presentation for the the late Graham Mills whose death has left a big hole in local, Welsh and Audax cycling. He’s going to be a tough act to follow and has been missed by many.

Had to stop to get a couple of pictures of the vintage tractors that were touring the lanes in convoy, missed them the first time near the Ice cream farm but caught them the second time. Makes for an interesting ride coming across stuff like this.

The pictures that are not square were taken on the move on the bike as the rest of the group were still cruising along and I didn’t want to drop off the back and get lost.

Link to Google Map of ride

Once we had reached the start a Christleton, four of us headed off back to Chester on the canal towpath. It handily links up with the River Dee cyclepath. Our paths diverged at the blue bridge with Janet and moi heading back to the Eureka to meet of with Roy and Joan and a few others. Roy told me about the hillclimb last year so I’ll be giving it a go.

Back home via the missing link with the temperature starting to drop. Nice ride, local enough for many not to need a car assist. 68 enjoyable miles.

I’ve forgoten everybodies names so if you didn’t get a mention you know why.

Garmin Edge Stats

Now I’ve managed to retreive my history I was really surprised by the stats it was showing up for the year.

So far I’ve done 4107 miles at an average speed of 13.3 mph. Now for the oddball data 257080 calories burnt Average heartrate 123 bpm Max 192 and if I didn’t like hills I do now, 173,368 ft of climbing.

This is only the data I’ve managed to recover from Motionbased there are a couple of rides I didn’t upload as they weren’t significant at the time. I’ve posted 75 rides on motionbased most with cadence and heartrate data.

268 miles was my longest week. I’d say they were all quality miles as It’s been such a good year that I don’t remember a bad ride. I’ll delve into them a little deeper when I have time.

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this: