IN THE SADDLE

The pleasures and sorrows of training alone

By: In the Saddle
18-01-2012
training.
1 comment.

Solitude in the city is never quite what it seems. The next person is only a thin concrete wall away, a busy road within earshot, a 24 hour supermarket open for business close by. But on a bike you can escape and leave it behind, close the front door and pedal yourself into the middle of nowhere.

You, an empty road, horses in a field, and the wind filling your ears.

My winter training has differed in one significant way from previous years  – it’s been undertaken almost entirely alone. I have a bible (written by Joe Friel) and it decrees that riding alone is the most effective way to train. But as I hope has been made abundantly clear on this blog, effectiveness is not a singular aim I attempt to achieve in training. Yet unlike the core strength exercises and the pedalling drills to hone technique, I’ve actually stuck to this commandment. I’ve clocked up hours and miles alone – yet it’s rarely felt lonely.

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2012: Look, no hands!

By: In the Saddle
02-01-2012
training.
10 comments

Looking back at the year just gone I’ve spent approximately 450 hours riding a bicycle. I’d wager that I’ve spent approximately 450 of those hours with both hands on the handlebars.

Riding hones the pedalling technique, endless fluid circles. The body adapting, the bike an extension of the rider. Endless loops of Richmond Park, I could navigate it with my eyes closed. Or packed into a fast moving peloton, navigating hair pin bends. At times one handed, either hand, looking backwards, sideways, nonchalantly, effortlessly. And yet… as soon as both hands let go I feel like a fish out of water. Or at least a fish about to leap from the water to land face first onto the tarmac.

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2011: A year of writing about riding

By: In the Saddle
22-12-2011
miscellaneous.
3 comments

One of my new years resolutions this time around will include writing down and keeping somewhere safe what those resolutions actually are. But I’m pretty sure last year’s included putting in a little more time and dedication into this blog. And looking back over the past twelve months gives me quite a sense of satisfaction that it was a resolution I actually stuck to (apart from during those times when I got lazy, distracted, or couldn’t think of anything interesting to say. Which was quite often).

So a big thank you to everyone who has visited during that time, I only hope you found it was an enjoyable experience, that you were entertained or learnt something new. Or at the very least weren’t appalled and disappointed. Getting positive comments and feedback makes all the hard work worthwhile. It’s also a real privilege to have been given the opportunity to meet and feature the guys from the cycling world who I admire and look up to, and for some of the best photographers around to lend me their work illustrate my words.

Below is a selection of articles from the past year that you might like to revisit or perhaps discover for the first time. Thanks again for reading and supporting this little blog, and I hope you’ll continue to come back during 2012 – I promise not to be quite so lazy and distracted next year…

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Q+A: Jered Gruber, writer & photographer

By: In the Saddle
12-12-2011
interviews.
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Jered leads the bunch up Paris Mountain during the USPRO in 2008: “David Zabriskie was already up the road, but I got a big enough gap on the field to get a chance to enjoy Paris Mountain and its thousands of fans all by myself. It was special. It would have been special just like that, but it hit unforgettable for me, because a lot of my friends, including Ashley, were in the first kilometer of the climb.” Photo by Darrell Parks

Jered Gruber left behind a career in America as a pro cyclist to pursue a life travelling with his wife Ashley across the roads of Europe. Since first picking up a camera just two years ago, the duo have photographed and reported from Grand Tours and the Classics, capturing some stunning images along the way. His work can be seen in magazines such as Peloton and Bicycling Australia, and on the official poster of the 2012 Giro d’Italia. It may sound like a dream come true, but as Jered reveals, it’s taken a lot of hard work and perseverance to get this far…

Give us a brief account of your cycling background. I started riding in 2002 after spending most of my childhood playing golf. After graduating high school in May of 2001, I traveled to Europe with a friend, Teddy. We did the European Trip and one day ended up mountain biking with my uncle and Teddy. Teddy kicked my ass. He always kicked my ass though, but for some reason, this time it stung. I wanted a bike, so bought a bike at the very end of the year for $400 from a guy in Athens. Shoes, bike, wheels, pedals, everything.

After that, it was a slow, slow process to getting reasonably fast. Cat 5 to Cat 4 in 2002, Cat 3 in 2003, a year studying and racing out of Heidelberg, Germany in 2003-2004. Cat 2 at the end of 2004, Cat 2 and 15th at U23 Nats in 2005, Cat 1 in 2006. In 2007, things started to pick up. I had been working hard since about 2005, but it took until 2007 for things to start to come together. I signed on with a great squad, the TIME Factory Development Team, and suddenly everything clicked. The people behind that program really made me the bike rider I became (plus of course my good friend, coach, training partner Jacob Fetty).

How long have you been writing about and photographing cycling? I’ve been working with PezCyclingNews since the end of 2003. I can’t believe it, but that makes for eight years now. I started working with PEZ while studying in Germany for the 2003/2004 school year. I began with Homeboy articles, then went to EuroTrash, articles, etc etc. I didn’t make any money until 2005, and at that time PEZ offered me a little something to take on some more responsibilities. That stipend of sorts really got me through those lean years when I raced full-time and made no money on my bike.

The magazines didn’t come until I met Ashley. We moved to Europe in 2008 and that’s when things really kicked off. Ashley’s continual desire to travel got us on the road and taking pictures. We got lucky and made a contact at ROAD Magazine as well as Bicycling Australia. They were happy to have our work, and we were so happy to have the chance to see our pictures and words on paper! We moved over to Peloton Magazine at the end of 2010, and that brings us to our current set up: PEZ, Peloton, Bicycling Australia.

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Oat Cuisine: The perfect porridge

By: In the Saddle
07-12-2011
food & drink.
1 comment.

They say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and that couldn’t be more true when it preludes a five hour ride on a frosty winter’s morning. Lunchtime is usually come and gone by the time you return home hungry and exhausted, so you need some serious fuel in the tank before setting off.

It’s no secret that porridge makes for the perfect cyclist’s breakfast; it’s got all that low GI slow-energy release stuff, sustaining you well through the morning, and it provides some welcome warmth before stepping out into the cold. And it’s cheap, offering far more healthy nourishment for the pound than any other breakfast cereal on the supermarket shelves (most of which are horribly over processed, and over priced). Yet, porridge can also become a joyless stodgy glop that’s a chore to force down if you don’t get it right.

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If the bike fits: Cyclefit at Pearson

By: In the Saddle
02-12-2011
bicycles, kit & bits.
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My bike fit was undertaken at the Cyclefit studio at Pearson Cycles, 232 Upper Richmond Road West, London SW14 8AG. For more information visit their website.

The Man-Machine: one half is a complex mechanism of joints and moving parts, the other is a bicycle. One is endlessly adjustable and adaptable, the other is a cyclist. The ideal is a perfect union of the two separate entities, working in harmony and efficiency – except the reality is usually much different, involving wonky knees, sore backs, and cricked necks.

I’ve come to the new Cyclefit studio at the new Pearson Cycles shop in Sheen to iron out a few glitches and doubts I’ve had about my own riding setup. And it’s very early into the session that I become aware of just how little thought I’d previously put into getting my bike set up correctly and to how my body sits and moves when it’s on it. My first surprise was really just how much discomfort I was willing to accept as part of trying to ride a bike quickly – and that these discomforts could so easily be eliminated without compromising on speed.

The bike fit, perhaps unfairly, has garnered a reputation of advocating comfort over speed, practicality over style. Stuart Jeffreys of Cyclefit who will be doing my bike fitting, admits this perception has been reinforced by the type of customers they often see – many returning to sport after years of a sedentary lifestyle, backs hunched in front of computer screens. It’s these cyclists, and others who encounter obvious problems – perhaps caused by poor flexibility, or by previous injuries – can most easily see the significant benefits of having a bike that fits their body properly. But almost everyone – including experienced cyclists – can benefit from one too.

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Winter Riding Part 2: The Inevitable ‘Top Tips’

By: In the Saddle
11-11-2011
training.
3 comments

Martijn Maaskant of Garmin-Cérvelo on the Muur. Photo by Jered Gruber

Riding through winter is very much like riding through summer. Only it tends to be colder. But, as you’ve no doubt read in countless magazine articles and forums and on websites, there’s a whole host of pitfalls to side step, heart rate zones to ride in, perfect rain jackets to purchase, and actual Phd theses on winter tyres to digest. So as if you didn’t need any more advice on how to ride your bike, here are my - characteristically verbose – tips on arriving in spring ready to attack the racing season with gusto…

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Winter Riding Part 1: Rediscovery

By: In the Saddle
08-11-2011
training.
2 comments

Lizzie Armistead gets in the winter miles through the stunning forests of Leuven, Belgium. Photo by Jered Gruber

The tan line on the back of my wrist is gradually fading, early morning rides have been replaced by late morning lie ins. Recently sausages and mash has formed the back bone of my diet, and I’ve indulged my slothful impulses. Unfortunately the winter hiatus is coming to end – today is marked as Base 1, Week 1, Day 1 on my Excel spreadsheet.

Getting off the sofa and back into training isn’t going to be as easy as I might have thought; over the past few months, as the season drew to a close and the winter loomed, it feels as though my attitudes towards competitive riding had been shifting. Taking the time out had been an opportunity to rediscover that hankering for racing, the need for competition. Absence making the heart grow fonder, and all of that.

By now I should be salivating at the prospect of a chaingang, chomping at the bit for a competitive training ride through the hills. But I’m not sure it’s worked.

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The Oktoberfest Final Week: Win The Sufferfest’s ‘A Very Dark Place’

By: In the Saddle
27-10-2011
the oktoberfest.
3 comments

First of all, congratulations to Heather Shearer and Marc Durdin who were the winners from the previous two weeks – both get to download and enjoy The Sufferfest’s latest training video A Very Dark Place.

Heather impressed us with her story of being undettered by the freezing temperatures of Saskatchewan – the road race she had entered my have been cancelled, but there’s always some crazy randonneurs ready to risk life and frost-bitten limb to ride their bikes through sub-zero temperatures. When water sprayed up from the road freezes on your cassette, limiting you to just a couple of gears, you know the conditions are tough. But despite this, she completed the 200km ride through Prince Albert National Park – an achievement worthy of any self-respecting Sufferlandrian.

Marc’s prize should really be passed onto his friend, the subject of his entry – having sprinted clear of the field in the final metres, our hapless hero unshipped his chain in a bravura display of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. But if we find he was shifting down gears, we reserve the right to refuse him his prize.

For this week the prize will go to someone displaying the reflexes of a cat, the cunning of a fox, the lightening speed of a cheetah – we’re only interested in winners this time…

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Pearson Cycles 2012: ‘A Cunning Plan’

By: In the Saddle
24-10-2011
miscellaneous.
3 comments

Heritage, authenticity, history – what most bike brands wouldn’t give for just a fraction of Pearson Cycle’s.

A lot has changed since their first shop set up for business 150 years ago, and no more has this been evident than in the most recent of those years. Fads and fashions have come and gone, technology has progressed, and the bicycle industry has matured. But amongst it all has been a prevailing trend to look backwards.

Steel frames continue to survive in the face of carbon, and bike brands new and old continue to plunder the history books for inspiration. You’d forgive Pearson for sharing the same nostalgic outlook, but for Britain’s oldest bike shop the future isn’t boxed-in by its past – their new 2012 range reveals a brave break from tradition.

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The Oktoberfest Week 3: Win The Sufferfest’s ‘A Very Dark Place’

By: In the Saddle
18-10-2011
the oktoberfest.
1 comment.

Last week we offered you the chance to win a copy of The Sufferfest’s latest training video A Very Dark Place. All you had to do was regale us with a tale of heroic suffering – riding through the cold, riding through injury, or riding against the good advice of other more sane and rational people. However, after being inundated the previous week when we sought from you stories of failure, my worst fears about my readership were once again confirmed – aside from the few hardy souls able to boast about overcoming suffering and achieving glory, the rest of you are all weak, soft, sorry excuses for cyclists. It’s clear this blog attracts losers rather than winners.

So this week we’re returning to safer – and perhaps more familiar for you lot – territory. We want to know about the time you managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory…

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The Oktoberfest Week 1 Winner!

By: In the Saddle
14-10-2011
the oktoberfest.
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Thanks to everyone who entered last week’s The Sufferfest competition, but there could only be one winner (don’t despair however, as there’s still time to enter week 2 of the competition here). Or should that be loser? We asked you to share your stories of cycling humiliation, your suffering through shame. We had lots of great entries, the best of which are shared below, but the story that really had us flinching was Dan Williams’s warning tale of what can happen when riding after eating a dodgy curry the night before. Dan, hope you enjoy your copy of A Very Dark Place, as finding riding partners might not be so easy after everyone reads this…

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Going around in circles

"Locals are watching from
pavement cafés. Non-racers. The emptiness of those lives shocks me." Tim Krabbé, The Rider

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