Some pictures of the family and garden

The family photo on the hill in front of the shed I use for training and storing all the other sh*t that is banned from the house.

The windows are wired to the mains as part of the alarm systems, although that is part of the silent alarm system....

The training setup has changed a little since this photo as well, although the fan is still used, or was... The PC, as usual, is in bits or part built with the cover off and insulation has been added to the roof to stop it from being either a fridge or oven depending if the sun is out.

The iMagic is linked up to the PC and one of the speakers for the music is visible.

Last picture is playtime in the garden before the shed was built, but after we burnt down the other 2 sheds that were in the garden beforehand. The fence was replaced as well, in part due to it falling downs and the other part was it ended up a bit charred from the heat of the shed's blazing away.

Click on the images to load the full size image.

FT power up to CAT2, 5 sec improvement next..

After yesterdays ride the FT power reading was pushed up a bit, although with finishing at the 45min mark the average was knocked back a bit from where it should have been. Should have chose a longer run and measured a true average. The FT on the chart is around 4.35W/kg and should be closer to 4.6W/kg, which in theory puts me in good stead for a time trial but not for criteriums. My sprint 5s and 1min still need working on to bring them up to CAT2 level, which will require around 1350W for the 5sec (up about 250W) and 675W for the 1min mark (up 75W) with a weight loss down to a race weight of 73kg. The sprint wattage will be the most difficult to get, although I will have to try it with a decent set of wheels on as the Askiums I use for training flex too much, rub against the brake blocks and feel like jelly at times. May be tempted to do Crystal palace on Tuesday, although I would have to either ride in tomorrow or take my bike in a bag on the train and ride to the circuit. Would be interesting to see the power profile for a crystal palace race. Tonight will probably be 30 min on the rollers as a prep for either riding in tomorrow or a recovery for Tuesday night.

Catch up

Monday was my first long session in a gym, which I spent the majority of time on the bike and next the stepper. The stepper machine was interesting as it had a wattage reading and you could see the effect of increasing and decreasing the difficulty level. Overall I spent around an hour on the machines and did some weights for the legs, although they did not have a specific machine to do leg extensions, rather just the thighs or calfs depending on the setup. 160kg lifts for the thighs and around 120kg for the calfs.

Thursday was a ride in to work and back, which turned out a bit more interesting. Stepped out the door at 5:45am and realised it had just started to spit with rain a little. Given the conditions and what I thought was the forecast I expected it to be brief and stop after 30 minutes or when I got closer to London. Big mistake, about 30 minutes later my shoes were starting to fill with water and I still had an hour to go. Fortunately it eased up and never really rained hard so it was more road splash that soaked the shoes than direct rain. One thing I did realise was my overshoes were not very waterproof at all, rather more like a sponge.

On the way in I did not get any abuse, just a taxi driver trying to get past in a bus lane and on the way home I got a friendly toot from a trucker I waved past on one section of road. All in all one of the better rides in realtion to traffic, oh, appart from the twat who did a U turn in front of me and then breaked like a moron to carry out an emergency left turn. Oh, and the van that cut in front of me in the bus lane to turn left.

The ride home in the end took over 2 hours and felt quite long and I almost was desparate enough for food to ride through the drive in at a MacDonalds. That was before the throught of puking up a greasy burger 5 minutes later up the only long climb back home put me off and I stopped and had a go bar instead.

Today I ended up doing a brief warm up on the rollers and then heading out on the road on the usual 28km route (out and back) with 267m of climbing (50m up one hill at the turning point after a fast desent). Once I started I felt good so decided to even the power out and push it a bit and see what happened. The power figures were good, although I get the feeling I'm riding like a sail into the wind and need to work on position and aerodynamics a lot more. The speed was brought down a bit by the 14 junctions and 1 turn at the bottom of the hill though.

---------Out ----- Return ------ Trip Avg
Watts -- 356/364 - 360/368 ----- 350/363 (average / normalised)
Speed -- 31.6 ---- 36.8 -------- 34.2 (kilometers per hour)
HR avg - 156 ----- 164 --------- 159 (beats per minute)
Distance ----------------------- 25.2km

Trying to watch a film

Well, session set, film set, drinks, food, go..... steady pace, nice and easy...... what the hell is this s**t I'm watching. Oh, well, though it was a good sci-fi but turned out to be one hell of a boaring chick flick, so about half an hour in I swapped it.

1hr 38m long on the bike with TSS of 98 and IF of 0.747, which is among of the lowest of Intensity Factor rides. Felt good and I think the sweat sessions have helped but not worked completely as I sounded like I had smoked a dozen cigars when I woke up this morning.

Training charts so far

This is the power profile for the 60 second burst last night and how the last few weeks have turned out so far in terms of my performance build.


On the chart you can see where I changed down a gear to maintain a higher cadence but the power drop was quite large as a result. I should have maybe started off more easy and then finished with a peak or tried to maintain a more flat profile.


Training has been progressive but a bit random in a way with a reasonable build in daily TTS, although factoring in the on-off health perception so far so good. Alt least I have not porgressed back to A&E.


Comparing last year to this I think I'm on track to be ready in another 4 weeks to race, providing the XRay does not come back with anything and my sweat sessions have worked. In theory I should be able to get some points in a CAT4 race relatively easy (in theory).

What's up doc ? Nothing.... go have an XRay

Went to the doc's on Friday morning to have another checkup, which I knew he would not find anything from listening to my chest and testing my blood pressure. "What do you want me to do ?" he then asked, which sort of summed things up so far. So he sent me for a chest xray to see if anything will show up on that, in the interim I had an idea.... maybe not a good one or one that may be recomended. Off I trundled to the hospital to get an XRay and then be told it may be 2 weeks before I hear anything, unless I have something that stands out.

Given that when you have an infection your body heats up in the process of killing off the invader, not necessarily though increased workload but to make the host less inhabitable and kill off whatever has invaded. So my theory was to turn the fan off (or point it away so at least there is a little air circulation), ride indoors and sweat it out.




Friday nights session was just over an hour long with an IF of 0.87 and TSS of 79.7 but a new 60s personal record (previous was 512W the previous weekend during the club run). During the session I thought that I'd give the 60 second power interval a go, see how my heart reacts and try and help convince myself I'm not mad (or am).



So, 39min into the ride upped the gears and gave it all. After 40 seconds I had to change down as my HR increased and finished the 60 seconds at 186bpm on the polar but only 184bpm on the ergomo with a power average of 603W. The first 40 seconds was 638W followed by the next 20 at 547W. So, that answered one question.

Todays session was a bit longer with one sprint to see what my 5s was 1h 48m into the ride a single sprint topped out at 1156W with a 1078W average. I forgot to tighten the forks into the steering frame and almost ended up on the floor when they nearly jumped out a few times. Total ride was 1h 50m long with TSS of 120, IF 0.81, avg power 240W, norm power 267W.

Before the ride I weighed my self (76.4kg), after (75.7kg) and also measured out the water and food at around 1.2 litres with another 120g of food/gell. This equated to a sweat loss of around 2 litres in the space of 2 hours between readings or 1 litre per hour. I estimate that my peak sweat loss during one part in the session was at a rate of around 1.4 lires / hour.

With the 2 sweat sessions it may be working.....

Lergy still not gone ?

Tonights session (TSS 95) seemed a little odd, although I'm not entirely sure what is going on in relation to my HR and power output. Started off nice and easy with my HR avg at 127bpm and power 266W avg 269W NP over the first half hour. Then ramped it up a bit to see where it would settle for a given output and to get some data to compare the iMagic power levels to the Ergomo. 2min at 345W avg pushed my HR to 149bpm but my legs started to feel as if they had done 60 miles, ramped back down for a few min and then ramped back up to 390W for 30 seconds and then pushed it up to 500W over the next 15 seconds, HR peaked at 156bpm ? felt wrong or different. Backed off for 14min and then did another 2 min at 375W, HR peaked at 157bpm.

Later on again, tried a run, 4min 45 at 339W avg and my HR peaked at 158bpm (last 20 seconds at 370W).

Looking back at the weekend my max HR was only 179bpm (vs 186bpm max) in retrospect (the highest this year) either I was not trying my max or I need to back off for a while until I get rid of the flem in my throat that seems to be still hanging around, even after nearly 5 months.

Been trying the vitamins and took a Barroca today to see what effect that would have, although I now suspect that some of it is passing through as my urine has changed colour to a brighter yellow from normal. This seems to be vitamin C passing through. So, next test, is to drink only water and juices while keeping well hydrated with no vitamin supplements for 2 days. See how that goes before riding in to work again on Friday.

Entire workout (245 watts) Duration: 1:20:15 Work: 1178 kJ
TSS: 95.1 (intensity factor 0.843) Norm Power: 270 VI: 1.1
Distance: 52.231 km
Power Max 502 Avg 245 Heart rate max 158 avg 123 bpm

Sunday ride data

The reason why so many people prefer to ride on thier own is the effects of the bunch and drafting. While it is good to talk (not on the phone) and get out with other like minded cyclists the impact as a source of training can be quite mixed.

Consider the effects on your HR and your power output as within a bunch the effects of drafting can make it quite easy at times as you end up getting pretty much sucked along and only have to put a bit of power out. That is until it goes up hill.

The effect of the bunch (majority have the competitive drive to burn themselves out on a Sunday given a group - me included) can be good or bad. During one of the climbs I gave it a go and you can see my HR maxing out and then the power slowly dissapearing away, along with my immune system and a fair few drops of sweat. Started off too hard due to being in a group and trying to keep pace with someone else, rather than go it at my own pace for the whole climb. This can be a good thing, as long as it's not done too frequently (every day).

The overall summary for the ride was interesting with peak power just over 1000W.

The power distribution shows the full effect of drafting where you end up not pedaling for quite a time as you would otherwise end up running up the back of someone, unless you choose to ride on the front for the whole time.

The heart rate distribution is also skewed further up and more broad as you have the easy times mixed in with the hill climbs at pace. For a training run I would have though you would be better of setting a couple of criteria for power zone and HR tone time and then riding to suit.

Then again for race training it is the only time you may get the urge and motivation to push yourself harder than you would on your own.

I would not tend to ride as far on my own and probably spend too much time at a higher pace than what I should be doing, so the group is good.

Sunny weekend rides

Saturday was a little cooler than expected, however that did not stop the milkbottle legs from dazzling drivers as they screamed past me. The suntan lotion (kids - all I could find in the house) also had extra whitening in so between the original state of my legs and the suncream I must have been the brightest rider out. For the ride I ended up just riding anywhere with no real set route, appart from the one hill climb that I wanted to do. THH of 117 over 1h 13 with an IF of 0.977 was a little higher than I thought and will need to adjust my threashold.
Later on I took Luke out on his bike to the park the park, so had a gentle 45min afterwards (TSS of 15.8).

Sunday ride consistend of the usual 3 stages - to the meeting point - cafe stop - home.
Cutting out the first few mins the norm power for the cafe run was NP 257W, avg 204W, 31.7kph. I did have the original intention of going out for a ride with the moderate group to take it easy and ended up in the fast group.

The homeward leg has a few different points with a couple of reasonable hills included. After someone had a puncture the next 32 min were at 31.5kph but NP319W, avg 264W with 126m of climbing. The homeward leg in total was NP287W, avg 214W at 31.9kph.

For the ride as a whole the TSS was higher than the ride to work and back at 270 with a similar intensity factor, although the ride has pushed my cumulative training stress very negative (time for an easy week...). I did set a new personal record 60sec avg wattage of 512W but my 5 min was 392W, still down on last year, although I still need to run another analysis with the iMagic vs Ergomo to verify what is what.

The 5 min power was set on one of the climbs where I thought I would give it go a bit and try and keep up with Matt (cat 2 rider) who promptly ride off into the distance leaving me gasping for air. The first 2 min of the climb was at 448W avg.

Overall felt good, better that I thought, although I do need to ease off this week to recover properly. Time to do some spinning on the rollers.

Ride to work - 61.4 miles

Felt better than I thought after getting home as I was expecting the first homeward leg to be a bit more of a drain, although the power meter has made a difference, even with a wobbly crank (more on that one later). The journey to work and back always seems very interesting from the aspect of driver mentality within London compared to the rest of the country. I was called a "f***ing p**k" once and cut up twice, all for riding my bike in accordance with the highway code.... nice eh ?

But, it gets the hours in (improves my sanity) and once I'm out of London the rest of the ride is quite nice, so nice I will be investigating a longer route (and more quite) for the return journey. Setting off early in the morning ensures you have less of the 4x4's, BMW X5's and rust buckets to try and knock you off or kill you with fumes....

Today I tried the first of my masks that I have bought to ride with, once in a high traffic area, which is a near chemical biological protection mask. The filtering is P3 (you get P1-P3 with P3 filtering out the smallest particles) so it seems to get rid of all the soot from the busses quite well and better than the screwfix special, which is a P2. The mask filtered out everything and for the whole journey I could not smell anything, appart from when I lifted it up for a drink.

The mask did make it more difficult to breath in slightly and was a bit uncomfortable around the nose as the fitting seems to be for when you are not gasping for air with your mouth wide open. Wearing the mask could only be done for upto 45min to an hour before it would need emptying (water) and your nose re-adjusting back. But, I'd rather breath through a mask than the inner London smog, ozone and whatever else is released into the air. Later on I'll post the pictures and a better review.

This week (last 7 days) I have managed to get in 9:45 on the bike with a TSS of 766 and a kCal burn of 9,025 (at 22%). Nice weekend ahead and a gentle club run for a recovery.

Ergomo vs iMagic

iMagic vs Ergomo Pro wattage accuracy is on trial here as I have been dubious about the wattages being recorded by the iMagic and an element of how it seemed to be working. Having purchased an Ergomo Pro I was then able to match the two up and see what the differences are. My Ergomo was purchased from cyclepowermeters and installed during a visit on Friday morning.

It should be noted that I have set the scaling factor to 115 in the iMagic (i.e. for every 115W read as 100W) as I was trying to calibrate it against my polar kCal burn. The quick test seems to explain why I was still not convinced it was correct, but thought it was closer than it was.

The initial chart of a ramp up over 3 minutes shows how the iMagic over and then under reads against the Ergomo over a range with the top end out by upto 10%. Comparing a small stable time slice at 302W in iMagic mode this equated to 322W in Ergomo watts. At this point I was more curious as to what the diference was as I had a feeling it may have been due to wheel speed. The reason was that when training in fixed wattage mode on the iMagic it always appeared to feel easier at higher cadences, which encouraged you to increase your cadence... After looking at another part of the data it starts to make more sense, as it does get easier as the wheel speed increases on the iMagic, although not by enough to cancel out the differences.


Comparing wheel speeds on the second wattage test the two systems seem to be comparable enough over the range, although out by a slight amount. This may be partially due to the wheel circumference in the Ergomo at 2130 compared to the measured 2125, although the difference seems too small to make a >5% diference in speeds. Overall though once the axese are corrected the scales seem to match up for the test.




The correlation was quite good with an r squared of 98.14% for the formula of (Wheel mph = 0.903 iMagic mph + 0.6457)


Next was the second quick test but this time the iMagic was set to a fixed wattage mode and then increased over a period of time. The difference starts to become a lot more apparent with a slower wheel speed and a higher wattage as the accuracy starts to drift out considerably.

Increasing the cadence and wheel speed, while not altering the iMagic wattage it did reduce the real Ergomo wattage from a 50W error down to a minimum error of around 20W. The difference in wheel speed between 21mph and 24mph should not have made anywhere near a 30W difference, although the wheel was a shimano R550 with a conti trainer tyre on at 120psi.

Summary - I'm happy as my wattage is around 10% higher than what I was training with, instant watts !

1 hour tired circuits

Headed off to the park for an hour of riding with the strong wind making things interesting from the aspect of watching the power on the headwind section. Warmed up for a few laps and then tried a few sprints out along the streight section, which had a slight back wind.

Entire workout (264 watts)

Avgerage HR 140pbm - max 178

Duration: 1:08:09 Work: 1079 kJ

TSS: 101.3 (intensity factor 0.945)

Norm Power: 302 Distance: 22.617 mi

Elevation Gain: 312 ft

Not sure where 300ft came from as I thought the circuit was flat.

Peak 5s (1047W) 10s (959W) 20s (679W) 30s (561W)

Peak 1min (437W) 2min (384W) 5min (358W) 10min (335W) Peak 30min (303W)
Peak 60min (280 watts) - Norm Power: 311

For the sprints one sprint was a longer one with my heart rate finishing at 173bpm and 32.3mph with the help of a back wind. My dad told me the speed limit was 10mph in the park... ooops.

1 second wattages over the period :

345, 388, 476, 583, 757, 938, 1014, 1001, 1035, 1056, 1057, 1036, 1008, 691, 422, 263

Sunday trundle, until the speed sensor

Set off for a gentle ride to recover properly from the previous 2 days so that I can finish off tomorrow with a harder session out on the road before returning to the indorr sessions. With a strong headwind on the outward run it was very interesting to see change in wattage and speed between sitting high like a sail into the wind or closer to the bars more aero style.
For the first 30 min or so I was riding alone, until I met up with a guy just past Little Weighton who I though it would be polite an sociable to have a chat with. The next 30 miles were at a nice steady pace, chatting about bikes, police, cctv, cycling clubs, old routes, etc.

On the way back in to Hull on a slight downhill section they had installed a 30mph speed sign (the ones that fash a hazard warning slow down), so with little warning to the guy I was riding with I set off for a sprint. 36.9mph and 1189W peak later the sign flashed ! The power readings seemed to be a little odd though, although it may have been due to my back wheel lifting off the ground at one point. 174W, 294W, 468W,691W, 885W, 1065W, 1189W, 1161W, 1125W, 0W, 1019W, 814W, 814W.

Entire workout (197 watts)
Distance: 41.475 mi Elevation Gain: 2008 ft
Peak 5s (1085 watts) 10s (886 watts) 20s (720 watts) 30s (603 watts) 1min (414 watts)
Peak 10min (295 watts) 20min (286 watts) 30min (283 watts) 60min (245 watts)

Tomorrow may be another park circle with some sprint sessions in again or another route out and about, while I can.

Ergomo a go go...errr... watts up ?

Well, drove to Rugby to pick up my ergomo, where it was fitted and fiddled around with. The ergomo does not support Dura Ace cranks, so I ended up getting some FSA SLK's with the ergomo as a kit, all in. The cranks were a bit dissapointing as they had about 1mm of lateral play on the chainrings, which was identified after they had been pressed and fitted on. So with the prospect of having to take the whole kit off and replacing it with my Dura Ace or seeing how it goes, I was far too keen to get ride this weekend with the power meter on. So, with FSA still on I set off back to Hull to visit the parents and try out the power meter.

Friday afternoon I managed to get away before it became too dark and headed off down to the local park, which has a road running round it as I figured it would be sod's law that I rode out my usual route and ended up in the dark with no lights on. Setting off was quite interesting, with my eyes glued to the screen watching the power jump around. So, with power equipted bike I set off on the first circuit, then the next and the next. Sprint down one section, recovery, sprint, recovery and a few experiments.
Unfortunately, after the ride I was unable to download the data. Due to a great combination of events the Ergomo had a default time setting in 2044. Cycling peaks, however, blows up if you set the system clock forward past 2038 (or somewhere around). So, lesson no 1, set the date...

Saturday was a bit more interesting riding out over my old usual route (wiuth a few diversions and tea break). After a quick data check I set out, tired from the sprint session on Friday. I think I have to revise my threashold power setting... Fridays spint registered 1098W, however sunday topped nearly 1200W.

Heart rate: max 175bpm avg 144bpm
Entire workout (276 watts) Norm Power: 298W
Distance: 42.096 mi Elevation : 1696 ft
Peak 5s (882 watts) 10s (800 watts) 20s (737 watts) 30s (636 watts)
Peak 1min (473 watts) 2min (384 watts) 5min (340 watts)
Peak 10min (328 watts) 20min (319 watts) 60min (297 watts)

Random training set 12.6.2.1.a - felt right though - but too short

The remote control unit for the sterio seems to interfere with the heart rate sensor as every time I turn up the volume with the remote within 6" the HR maxes out !

4:30 avg power was 333W and my HR finished at 176bpm and that was about all I could do at the moment. With the second random set of sprints the wattages were down on the previous session, although this time I decided not to take the trainer dancing across the floor. The sprints are intended to be a weight training substitute mainly rather than top end HR and lactate training so I have been waiting for my HR to drop to 140bpm and then sprinting a bit and stopping before I get stressed. 11 build sprints and then 4 smaller ones. Yesterdays was 12 main sprints, progressively building up to the dancing session.

Included an energy dring this time and also drinking on the rego now (1.6kg tub to use up).

Pedals addived today (Speedplay X1) and a new chain so I'm ready for the power meter fitting on Friday. Have eneded up with an FSA SLK chainset to go with the power meter as they were supposedly having difficulties getting hold of a stronglight pulsion. Been emailing the UK distributor to see what the issue was with them... Can't wait for the weekend :-)

Ouch, short, ouch, session

First off I managed to squash the muscles in the ball of my foot by riding my commuter bike with soft soled shoes on, which made walking a bit painful.

This session added to that a little as I realised where the other part of my performance has dissapeared over the last few months, peak power.

The gentle warm up felt ok, not really feeling up to a long session (sleep calling) so started off slow and then had a try out with a sprint. Ouch.... felt lousy, so next time put a bit more into it, then again, again and then the last one was pulling the trainer across the floor. Each one was stopped to prevent my HR from going above 170bpm, although not too soon. The wattages are iMagic watts (take the Magic element as probably where they come from, as in reality I may be able to light a 60W bulb and that's it).

Peak 10 second theory (with rest beforehand) wattages were 782, 799, 806, 863.

Due to the lack of a weight machine I will probably fit in one fo these short sessions in per week as I should be able to do this late on Wednesday night's every week or other week, depending on how I feel tomorrow.

Lovely day and missed the club run

Had a long sleep in today and then managed to get a session in, bliss. Starting to feel good now and my form (or what I had that was close to form) is returning quickly, so maybe back to racing sooner that I thought. From the session today I think the conclusion is that I need to get riding in to work again for a few days to get my system back into the swing of things again. This should take a few weeks and I would like to try for a full week of riding in within a few months, to see what it is like and see what effect it has on my training.

For the week the kCal total is 4921 and iMagic distance of 138miles and a time on the bike of 6 hours. Next week should be interesting as the training will build to a peak over the weekend as I will get to pick up my Ergomo on Friday morning and have a reason to ride the full weekend :-)