Great French Words of Cycling

Cycle sport is an inherent part of the culture in countries such as France and Belgium, much like football is part of our culture in the UK. Road cycling in particular is steeped in European traditions handed down through many generations. It is also true that French is the unofficial language of road cycling and because of this there is some great cycling-specific terminology. Here are some of my favourites...

Peleton - the term used for the main bunch of riders. It comes from the French for 'herd'.

Contre le Montre - the time trial or 'race of truth' where the rider competes solo, against the clock.

Parcours - a french term for the route the race takes each day.

Hors Categorie - or 'beyond classification' a term used to describe the hardest of the mountain passes.

Grimpeur - a climber suited to the high mountains.

Rouleur - a rider suited to the flat lands, usually larger riders.

Casquette - the short peaked, cotton cycling cap worn by riders.

Maillot - jersey, most famously the Maillot Jaune or Yellow jersey worn by the leader of the Tour de France.

and my own personal favourite...

Souplesse - a word without a direct translation into English. It is used to describe the suppleness or fluidity of a riders pedal stroke. It is often talked about with regard to 'fixed wheel' riding. The great champions are often remarked upon as having wonderful 'souplesse'.

Fine souplesse is something most of us mere mortals can only aspire to. I can categorically confirm (particularly after nearly meeting my maker coming down a steep hill in Kings Park last night on my fixed wheel bike) that my souplesse is almost entirely up my arse...

Keep spinning ;-)

Col.

Beautiful Day

You will all have had that feeling when everything just seems to go right. No matter whether it is work, sport or in your social life, there are some days where everything just seems to click. I was lucky enough to have one of those days today.

I have set aside Mondays as the days for my longer rides in the last few weeks leading up to the Etape. I was therefore absolutely delighted to see the sun shining when I got up this morning. It meant short sleeves and the summer bike for the first time this year (a lot of cyclists will have two bikes, a winter and a summer. The winter bike is the workhorse, often an older bike, fitted with weather beating accessories like mudguards and maybe load carrying rack and panniers). Using the summer bike means freedom from this extra weight and the feeling of flying...

I deliberately chose a flat route but felt really good as I sped off to Kilmarnock down the old A77. The weather was perfect. Not too hot and not too cold (although I did meet an Aussie cyclist over in Glasgow for a year - still wearing full length tights, jacket and skull cap!). The scenery was delightful (Ayrshire is really beautiful from a bike).

All in all I managed 40 miles in 2 hours 15 minutes. Back in time to play with the kids in the sunshine. So good pacing but still only half distance. Not to worry, shan't spoil my good day thinking about that...

All the best,

Col.

Optician Awards 2009

Some of you may know what I do for a living. I am an Optometrist (or Optician to the majority of the general public). I work in general practice in Glasgow. I would imagine that less of you know that I have a particular interest in Sports Vision. This is a specialist area, which deals with vision assessment of people participating in sport.

I run a specialist clinic where interested parties can have their vision assessed in the most comprehensive way. As well as the normal tests you would expect to be carried out when you have your eyes tested, we also assess visual functions particularly important for sport. Measurements include dynamic vision (vision of a moving target), reaction speed, hand eye coordination and peripheral awareness. To do this we use the latest in up to the minute Sports Vision technology. We also offer training packages, where athletes can come repeatedly to the clinic and train their eye muscles and coordination. Done repetitively this can lead to performance improvement, as with other areas of sports training.

Our particular set up is pretty unique in the UK. There are other clinics in England, based at the Olympic training centre at Bisham Abbey and Old Trafford, the home of Manchester United. However, we are unusual in that we combine our Optical services and our sports coaching all under one roof. The line between what is Optometry and what is sports coaching is definitely becoming more blurred.

We have had a very busy and productive year in 2008 and were fortunate enough to be nominated for the recent Optician Awards. These are an annual event held by our industry publication "Optician Magazine". They are designed to show recognition for outstanding achievement within our profession. This year the awards were held at the National Motorcycle Museum in Birmingham and we were shortlisted in the "Sports Vision Practice of the Year" category.

So it was that our practice manager and I flew down to Birmingham last Saturday morning. We spent some time at the Optrafair trade show, then got ourselves ready for the gala dinner in the evening. It began with a champagne reception, with a guest list reading like a who's who of UK Optometry. There were lots of faces that I only recognised from magazines. There were also some friendly faces that I hadn't seen for some time. We also bumped into Marilyn Munroe and were photographed by the paparazzi on the way in...

The formal part of the evening consisted of a dinner, attended by 650 guests. There was also a live video link to another 200 or so upstairs in the bar area. We had a very pleasant meal in the company of our hosts, Rupp & Hubrach, who were sponsoring our category. Then it was time for the awards, which were done is a very "Oscars" style. Each section had a shortlist of five, from which the winner would be announced. No one knew the results prior to the event except the judges.

Our award came about half way through the thirteen on offer and I admit to more than a few butterflies. Fortunately, and to my very great joy, we were announced the winners! We had to go on to the stage and accept the award (thankfully no speeches) and have our picture taken.

The rest of the evening passed in a bit of a blur to be honest. I hardly noticed who won the awards that came after ours. I was too busy grinning. As a practice, we are all very proud of this award and feel it is great recognition of what we are trying to achieve.

Take care and keep your eye on the ball,

Col.

Impact Fitness

At one stage last year, when my son was still pretty young and sleep was scarce, my fitness reached an all time low. I was eating poorly, with lots of sugar and caffeine to get me through the day. There never seemed to be a spare minute, so exercise was confined very much to the back burner. Add to this the fact that I was knackered all the time and you can see that it wasn't a great recipe for a healthy lifestyle!

My wife and I discussed the situation several times and eventually we decided that we needed a kick start in improving our weekly routines. We decided to try a personal trainer, something my wife had done with great success a couple of years earlier after the birth of our daughter. This was how we came to meet Gordon Hill of Impact Fitness, with my first batch of sessions being a birthday gift from my beloved!

I was a bit wary of using a trainer, as it was going to be a new experience for me. I need not have worried. Gordon is a very friendly guy with the ideal persona for a personal trainer. He is very friendly but with a steely edge that helps him to push you on. He tailors each persons sessions to their individual fitness levels. He is also a very fit guy, so you never feel that he is making you do something that he wouldn't do himself!

Initially my sessions took place at my local hockey club. Gordon would set up circuit training for me on the grass. Latterly, when the weather took a dip, we would meet at the gym of Parklands Country Club, which is the base for his training. I enjoyed the sessions from the start , although my fitness was woeful! With the rest of my lifestyle at that time, Gordon was definitely fighting a losing battle! But we persevered.

For one reason or another, I had taken a break from the sessions since Christmas. We reconvened last night. I had asked Gordon to help me with the final push to fitness before the Etape ride. This was a challenge he seemed to relish...

Last nights session was based on interval training. Short sections of near maximal effort, followed by short recovery to allow the heart rate to re-stabilise, repeated. Gordon had me working through intervals on the exercise bike, rowing machine and treadmill. By the end I was gasping for breath and feeling more than a little nauseous! As I begged for mercy, we finished off with some abdominal work and some much needed stretching. This stretching seems to have helped my knee pain quite a bit. I will need to do more of this easily forgotten part of my training regimen.

I will be seeing Gordon once a week up until the ride. If you want details of his services, you can visit his website at:

http://www.impact-fitness.co.uk/
or at here:
http://www.parklandscountryclub.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=36&Itemid=57

Keep happy and keep training,

Col.

Coaching Session (Part 2)

I recently posted about my visit to cycling coach, Colin Bark. He performed a very thorough test of my fitness with an aim to helping my preparation for the Etape ride. Well, I am pleased to report that..."the results are in!"

Colin e-mailed me last week to give me the details from my test. They are as follows:

Lactate Threshold = 148 bpm

Zone 1: Recovery: 97-117bpm

Zone 2: Aerobic: 118-132bpm

Zone 3: Tempo: 133-138bpm

Zone 4: Sub-Theshold: 139-147bpm

Zone 5A: Super-threshold: 148-151bpm

Zone 5B: Aerobic capacity: 152-156bpm

Zone 5C: Anaerobic capacity: 157-162bpm

I don't fully understand these yet but the lactate threshold basically indicates where the body changes from aerobic to anaerobic respiration. This is where lactic acid build up becomes a problem. During the Etape ride, I will aim to keep below this line except for short periods (eg small climbs). The data will also allow me to plan my training more successfully. In particular, it will help me during my turbo sessions to ride at the correct tempo.

The results for my test session are shown in this graph:

Apologies that it is not very clear, but you get the general gist of it. The figures on the right show my maximum power to be 360 watts, my average cadence to be 86.9 (definitely not Lance-esque there, could do with being up a bit) and my maximum heart rate was 165 bpm.

Colin is going to help me plan my training program for the month or so leading up to the Etape Caledonia. Hopefully with his help I can maximise the time I have left and make up for the missed training over the last couple of weeks.

Cheers and keep riding,

Col.

Fitness Update

As you may have read in my earlier blog post, I have been struggling recently with injury. It started with tendonitis in my right knee. I have since learnt that this is quite common in cyclists and is due to the knee-cap not tracking correctly during the pedal stroke. This can be due to issues with bike fitting (I "fitted" my own bike using various techniques that I have read about. On the whole I am happy with it but there is a nagging doubt that a professional might be able to do it "better". Unfortunately, time, geography and budget will probably prevent this from happening before the ride). The good news is that the knee is feeling a lot better. I have been doing the R-I-C-E as often as I can and have stayed off the bike a bit. I would say the knee is now back to around 85% of it's maximum, compared with the 30% of a couple of weeks ago.

Unfortunately, the knee has not been my only injury problem of late. I have also been struggling with a groin strain. All joking aside, this has been really pretty painful. Bizarrely, about the only time it didn't really bother me was when I was on the bike. This is because the range of motion is so isolated and in just a straight up and down plane. However, almost any other type of movement (including getting up from sitting, getting in and out of the car, turning or lifting) caused significant discomfort. This was driving me crazy and was making me very grumpy (even more than usual!).

I decided that I needed to do something about it. After already having time off the bike due to the knee problem, I could feel the hard earned fitness leaking away. I was loathed to let it all disappear! I ended up telephoning the Sports Injury Clinic at Hampden Park, Glasgow. For those who don't know this is Scotland's national football stadium. The clinic is available to all, professionals and amateurs alike. I telephoned in the morning and an appointment was arranged for later the same day. The clinic is very swish and modern. It is located right in the bowels of Hampden, below the football museum.

I was seen by a very nice physio called Jim, who listened carefully to my history and went through a diagnostic process. This included examining my posture and getting me to perform some stretch and strength tests. He ruled out that I had a hernia and located the problem as one of the small muscles/ tendons/ ligaments (sorry, I forget which) attached to the main groin muscle. He gave me some deep massage and then stretched out the groin muscle. As he was doing this it gave a click and felt immediately much better! I am pleased to report that it has been infinitely better ever since.

I am hoping that this means my bad luck with injuries is all behind me but we will have to wait and see. If nothing else, it has served as an interesting exercise with regard to monitoring my stress levels. During my enforced inactivity I became acutely aware of the targets I had set myself. I was also aware of the (self imposed) burden of pressure I was under. The sponsorship I have raised so far is awesome and thanks to all who have contributed, but it has obviously (however sub-consciously) come with some weight of expectation. I will need to try and manage this as the ride approaches...

Take care and keep stretching yourself,

Col.

Graeme Obree

There are very few people in the world that I would call a genius. There are also very few people that I would call a legend. That means that there cannot be many people who I would refer to as a legendary genius!

However, last Wednesday night, I had the very great pleasure of meeting someone who I would refer to as just that – Graeme Obree. This is a man who is without doubt, both in the world of cycling and in the wider world, unique. For those that do not know his story, Graeme Obree is a champion endurance athlete and also a top-class bicycle designer. His story has recently been immortalised in the book and movie “The Flying Scotsman”. I will do my best to try and distill this story into a few lines.

Graeme Obree grew up in Ayrshire, Scotland. He took to cycling at an early age, mainly as a form of escapism. He did not have a happy childhood (he was bullied at school due to his father being the local policeman). He quickly became a local cycling champion, showing a talent for time-trialling. He designed a unique bicycle, which enabled him to achieve improved aerodynamics. On this bike (which he christened “Old Faithful”) he broke the world Hour Record (one of the most coveted and hard earned world records in cycling. So simple, yet so difficult. It requires the rider to ride around a track for an hour and travel as far as they can) and the World Championship.

This revolutionary riding style was widely copied but eventually banned (it would appear just because the governing body at the time didn’t like its aesthetics!) Graeme also lost his world record to Chris Boardman. Not to be deterred, Graeme designed a new bike, and a new riding position (christened the “Superman Position”). On this bike, he rode to a second World Title and a new Hour Record.

Throughout all of these achievements, Graeme battled with severe depression. In particular, this affected him at the time of his brother’s death. He twice attempted suicide. Fortunately, he has managed to overcome and manage this condition with the same strength he showed as a cycling champion.

The evening I attended was at the Tramway theatre. It was a lecture to promote the Riverside Museum Project. This is a new museum, which will be on the North side of the Clyde and will replace the current Transport Museum. They are organising events to cover all areas of transport and I was fortunate enough to get a ticket for the cycling event.

http://www.glasgowmuseums.com/venue/showProject.cfm?venueid=7&itemid=33

I decided to ride along to the Tramway Theatre. It is quite close to my house and it was a nice night. In homage to the great man, I rode my favourite fixed-wheel bike (to be honest, I had a notion for getting Graeme to autograph it but in the end I chickened out!). I arrived to find the hall mostly full, with about fifty or so expectant cycling anoraks…

Mr Obree was introduced following a short presentation on the riverside project. He looked a little nervous and a bit unaccustomed to talking in front of so many people. He went to some length to stress that he wanted his talk to be informal and that he encouraged everyone to ask questions as he went along. He was not to be disappointed…

The first section of the talk covered Graeme’s initial years in cycling and how he came to design his bike “Old Faithful”. He talked of looking at a bicycle “as if for the first time” or “through the eyes of a child”. By doing this he realised that there were certain things that were hindering him when he tried to ride fast. The three most striking changes he made were these:

• He positioned his handlebars so that he could hold his arms under his chest, rather than stretched out in front of him. This was initially done by turning his conventional handlebars, later using specifically made bars. It allowed a significant reduction in aerodynamic drag, thus making him faster.
• Secondly, he realised that the top tube of a standard bike was kind of in the way! He reasoned that this was hindering him during his pedal stroke. He designed his new bike with a single sloping tube to rectify this.
• Lastly, and linked to the second change, he drastically narrowed the width of the bikes bottom bracket. This (along with the sloping tube formation) allowed him to pedal with his legs much closer together. NB this is the part of the process that used parts from a washing machine.

Listening to Graeme talk about these changes, it was immediately apparent to me that he is a truly gifted man. He has an ability to look at the sport of cycling in his own unique way and work out the best way of achieving his goals. Interestingly, I asked him whether he thought that he would have been as successful had he not used the various new positions and instead used regular equipment. He answered that he didn’t know? (We never will) Maybe, but he did say that he had ridden very fast times on standard bikes.

Graeme used his unique set up in his first Hour record ride. Details can be seen at this excellent website:

http://www.wolfgang-menn.de/hourrec.htm

Interestingly (as depicted in the film version of “The Flying Scotsman” he had two attempts at the record, on consecutive days! He initially failed in his attempt, whilst using a Mike Burrows built bike. He then returned the next day to break the record (to perform such a feat without adequate recovery time is unheard of, in any sport) on his own bike.

After talking about the breaking of the Hour record for the first time, Graeme discussed the banning of the riding position and the developments that lead to his second revolutionary bike. He talked about the processes that lead to the development of the “Superman Position”. It is totally awesome to think that the man who created such a unique riding style as Obree did with “Old Faithful” then went off and did it again! This position was again heavily replicated and was responsible for the furthest ever hour record, set by Chris Boardman in 1996.

http://www.wolfgang-menn.de/hourrec.htm

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your viewpoint (personally, I am a bit torn on the subject) the Superman position was banned too. As far as the Hour record is concerned, the goalposts were well and truly shifted. Now, all records must be set on a “standard” bike, with no modifications. This has lead to the creation of “The Athlete’s Hour” or “The UCI Hour”. The details of this can be seen here:

http://www.wolfgang-menn.de/hourrec.htm

This leads me on to probably the most interesting part of the evening. All through his talk, Graeme gave the distinct impression that he was still very much a racing cyclist. He looked very lean and fit. He talked about recent races he had ridden in. When asked whether he would use the new Glasgow track (once it is built for the Commonwealth games in 2014) he was quite forthright in saying that he would like to break a World Record there! Now you can’t say fairer than that.

He then brought out his “baby” as he called it. A monster of a bike, that Obree built himself, purely to fit within the current UCI guidelines for the Hour record. I cannot believe for a minute that he would go to all of that trouble and not then use the bike…

I was lucky enough to get a picture with the bike, including it’s massive front chainring (I think he said he was running something like 67 x 13, makes my 39 x 14 look a bit poxy!) I only hope I get to see him ride it one day. Maybe on that Glasgow velodrome…

Lastly, Graeme was kind enough to sign a World Champions cap for me. I will be auctioning this at some point in aid of the GTF. Please watch this space for details.

Commeth the Hour…

Col.