Beasty's objectives for 2010

Beasty

1. 10,000km - around 7,000 commuting, 1,000 sportives and the rest on the track and turbo
2. Get down to try out Sundrive
3. Get over 40km in an hour (indoor track)
4. Stay on the bike (I don't like hospital food)

and finally

5. pipe dream - only to be revealed if ever I get anywhere near it;)

peterako

10,000km.....

At my speed that could take a few years

Good luck with the goals!

We'll ALL be watching closely

Beasty

peterako wrote: »

10,000km.....

OMG - what's happened here:eek:
Has someone stolen my boards identity and set me some ridiculous goals. Perhaps I was still under the "influence" of something I consumed the night before when I made the original post.

Seriously though - my strategy is that if I post this in a public forum, I will try harder to achieve it!

In fact, I think I should incentivise myself further by offering a forfeit if I don't hit my objectives. So here goes -

Cake for everyone if I fail to cycle 10,000km during 2010 without reasonable excuse*

* The small print:
Includes turbo and track cycling, as well as mileage clocked up on cycling machines in hotel gyms
Reasonable excuses include, without limitation, extended illnesses or injuries (over 2 weeks), imprisonment (false or otherwise), death (please don't try and sue my estate, as it will have 4 children and a wife to support)....

Captain Havoc

Beasty wrote: »

Cake for everyone if I fail to cycle 10,000km during 2010 without reasonable excuse*

* The small print:
Includes turbo and track cycling, as well as mileage clocked up on cycling machines in hotel gyms
Reasonable excuses include, without limitation, extended illnesses or injuries (over 2 weeks), imprisonment (false or otherwise), death (please don't try and sue my estate, as it will have 4 children and a wife to support)....

I wanted to write which type of cake but I feel we should be encouraging here. So instead of a triple layered chocolate cake I'd prefer if you got 10,000km with a saddle under your bum and I hope to meet you on a small bit of that journey, best of luck with it.

Beasty

Relatively quiet week, as I have been "home almost alone" since Thursday (with the 4 year old, which has meant I have not been able to get out on the bike - had to console myself with the trip to Belfast to pick up the new Bianchi fixie on Friday)

Managed a couple of commuting days - 113km in total at an average speed of 28.8 km/h, and power output of 231W. Also did 30km of Paris Roubaix on the Tacx.

Off to Manchester on Tuesday, so commuting will be restricted to a couple of days again next week, but I should get an hour on the velodrome to see how close I can get to my 40km target.

DirkVoodoo

Best of luck Beasty, 200km a week should be no bother. How about throwing a track win into the mix to make it interesting??

Beasty

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

Best of luck Beasty, 200km a week should be no bother. How about throwing a track win into the mix to make it interesting??

4 back operations, advancing years and one serious fall this year result in a stromg preference to avoid the perils of racing.

Want to explore TT opportunities, but family commitments mean I don't get much chance to get out at present, other than on the daily commute.

Once I have had a chance to get down to Sundrive I will have a better idea of what I can achieve. I guess my best option may be to join the vets, particularly as I will fall into an older age bracket next year:)

Diarmuid

Beasty wrote: »

Managed a couple of commuting days - 113km in total at an average speed of 28.8 km/h, and power output of 231W. Also did 30km of Paris Roubaix on the Tacx..

Power meter on the commuting bike! Very flash!

On a related note, check out GoldenCheetah. It's under very heavy development at the moment, and coming on in leaps and bounds. I already prefer it to WKO+, it's open source and works across all platforms. If you don't want to compile it from source, wait until the next release to try it out. Loads of features have been added.

You can import all your .csv or .who files into it if you want to try it out. Attached are two screenshots.

Beasty

To date I have only had the one bike (Cayo), but my new fixie is supposed become my main winter commuter

Diarmuid

ah ok... I guess you must have very secure place to lock it at work too...

Beasty

Diarmuid wrote: »

ah ok... I guess you must have very secure place to lock it at work too...

Certainly do - I work Northside, and never go near the city centre. We have a secure underground car-park with bike locking facilities (I used to lock it just outside the front door, pretty much in full view of security, until someone nicked one of my rear lights!)

Beasty

Back on the track in Manchester this lunchtime. Unfortunately I had to make a business call half-way through the session, so ended up breaking it down into 2 x 20 min spins.

I pushed the first session - did 50 laps, which is pretty much the pace I need to maintain to hit my 40km hour target - given I had a few laps warming-up, and only 34 of the 50 were on the drops, I am hopeful I will be able to maintain this pace for longer next time

Second session was a bit different. I dropped into a line, which reduces the overall effort considerably (I had been going faster than the line without the benefit of drafting in my first session). Almost everyone on the track was older than me (there was probably one younger - maybe in his 30's, but he was a bit of a novice on the track).

The older guys come along every Tuesday. They have varying pace - some trundle along at 25-30km, but the faster ones can up the pace to the high 30's/low 40s. There was probably 6 or 7 of us in the line, but we steadily upped the pace, dropping the slower guys one by one, until there were only 3 of us left. With about 3 minutes of track time left, I let rip, and managed to drop the older of the 2 behind me, but the other one kept on my wheel. We were going quite fast (certainly over 50km/h), I eased up and the other guy was still there - he pushed on, while I slowed down to come off the track.

Overall I probably did around 27km, in the 40 minutes or so I had on the track. I did set a personal best heart-rate of 186 (3 more than my previous best) in that final spurt, which, according to that 220-hr formula makes me nearly 30% younger:)

I got talking to the group of them after - one of them was celebrating his 78th birthday, and a couple of others were in their 80s. The one that I was racing at the end is 69, and the one we dropped was probably in his 70s.

Anyway, that's my final track session for 2009, but in 2010 I will be back, gunning for those old codgers:)

Apologies for being long-winded and tedious, but Lumen started it!

Beasty

As mentioned last week, commuting opportunities have been relatively limited, and next week will be no better (maximum of 2 returns, weather permitting)

The total distance (is there a euro compliant equivalent of mileage?) on the two commuting days last week was again 113km (making a total for the week of 140km, including my time on the track) at an average speed of 28.3km/h and average power of 224w. Although both are slightly down on last week, I did ease off a bit given the weather conditions on Thursday and Friday.

I would guess my power output on the track would have pushed up my overall average quite a bit.

Beasty

Only managed the one commute this week, because of the icy conditions. Took a bit of a diversion to avoid a particularly slippery hill, so did 58km at an average speed of 26.6km/h and average power of 214w.

Also did 50km on the VR, mainly on the Mallorca Tour 2009, which included 1,000m of climbing - average speed 21.9km/h.

No more commuting before the New Year, but I will try and get on the Tacx again at least once during the week

Beasty

Started the year on a Trek 7.6 hybrid – only really commuting the 28m (46km) round-trip to work (I had committed to do 1,000 miles between 1/10/08 and 31/03/09 for charity – in the end I did 1,625 miles).

Invested in the Tacx VR during February. Had a knee injury that didn’t bother me much on the bike, but did need sorting. I ended up having a knee cartilage operation in the middle of May. This is where the VR came into its own – I did a session on the Saturday before the operation (which was the following Monday), and was back on the turbo on the Tuesday (a very gentle 3km, increasing to 30km the following day).

Went to the physio the following Monday (for a regular post-op check) and he said it was the best condition post-op knee he had seen for over 5 years – he told me to keep up the turbo (which brought a smile to my face). (I did have another incentive to get fit – an ill-fated trip to Rome to watch the Champions League Final on 27 May)

I was then stuck on the turbo for the next couple of weeks before getting back on the road for a couple of commutes at the end of May/early June. I then did my first WW200 (less than 3 weeks after the operation).

At the end of May I discovered boards.ie, and my wallet has never forgiven me for it:) I proceeded to invest in a new road bike, and got back to the regular commute, with the ROK at the start of July my target.

Unfortunately 30 June brought about my (one and only) crash, which left me in hospital for 3 ½ days, with concussion (still have no memory of the accident), a skin graft in the corner of my eye and quite a lot of roadrash on the arms and knees. Needless to say I didn’t get over to Kerry (and even had to give up my ticket to the Wimbledon’s Men’s Final:().

Again, about a week after the accident I was on the Tacx, where I stayed for the next couple of weeks. I then managed a couple of commutes before the Tour de Kilkenny on 1 August – and what a great event that was – I had the 160km in my mind when I started, but after some of the hills in the first half I decided discretion was the better part of valour, and dropped to the 100km (actually nearer 107km). I also met my first fellow boardsies there.

While most of the rest of you were doing the Sean Kelly at the end of August, I decided to Lap Lough Neagh (a much flatter option). I also did the Gerard Brannigan in November.

Have now extended my commute to get a few more km in (now up to 57km round trip, with a couple of hillier options aimed at improving my climbing ability, although I know I would make more progress by dropping a few kg).

Throughout the year I have tried to get on the track in Manchester whenever I am over there (normally a 1 hour session whenever United have a mid-week match)

Invested (must stop using that word!) in the new fixie a few weeks ago, and once I get it fully fitted out, and have had a bit of practice, I will look to use it on the commute (again hoping to improve my climbing)

Stats to follow ...

Beasty

The 2009 stats:

Distance covered
Commuting – 4,200km, average speed 29.2km/h (2008 – 1,300km at 26.7km/h)
Turbo – 1,600km, average speed 30.9km/h
Other – Sportives/Track etc – 1,000km, average speed 29 km/h

Overall Total 6,800km at 29.6km/h

Hence need to increase distance by nearly 50% to hit my 2010 target of 10,000km!

Total time in the saddle – 228 hrs

HR average – 152, max 186 (total heartbeats – 2 million+)

Total calories burned – 280,000

Power (since September) average – 224, max 827 (40,000kj)

Average cadence – 77 (total pedal revolutions – 1 million+)

Total climbing (commute/sportives) 30,500m

Crashes – 1

MCOS

Beasty wrote: »

Power (since September) average – 224, max 827

:eek: impressive

Beasty

No time on the road so far - restricted to the Tacx and hotel gyms

Summary this week/ytd:
Turbo - 5hr 29min - total distance 157.2km over 3 sessions, average 28.6km/h
Hotel gym - 1hr 45min - total distance 50km over 2 sessions, average 28.6km/h

Overall Total distance to date 207.2km - to go 9,792.8km:eek:

2 daytrips to London next week, and with the current weather I don't expect to get on the road, so will need to spend a few evenings on the turbo to get my 200km in.

Home:Ballyhoura

I am actually aiming for 10,000km in 12mths too! I started on the 21/02/2009 so have until 20/02/2010 to finish the remaining 1252kms. That means I have to average 214kms a week for the next 6 weeks or so. Should be interesting stuff. Please let me know how you get on...those TickerFactory thingys I found great!




I even went off an did up a countdown timer to motivate me to keep up the distances during these awful conditions which really aren't helping me!

Edit: How much do Pro cyclists do a year? I looked it up and one place said between 30-40 thousand kilometers a year. Would that sound about right to you? To think they cover 3,500km in the Tour de France alone is just amazing.

Beasty

I noticed that tickerfactory measure in your signature, so went to have a look at their website. I may incorporate it somwhere.

My main strategy is to try and get ahead of the game, and hopefully stay there. It's been a bit difficult in the current weather, but if I can manage to keep up 200km a week on the turbo, hopefully it will get a bit easier when the weather does relent.

I am not sure how much the pros do. 40,000km appears a lot, but achievable - it averages 800km per week or so, but I guess taking into account breaks they would be doing over 1,000km most weeks, which is not far off the TdF rate (the 3,500 you mention is over 3 weeks or so).

Anyway, it looks like there are now at least three of us aiming for 10,000km this year (Jawgap is the other I know of) - let's have a race to see who gets there first (I think there should be some kind of handicap, based on weight and age:))!!!!

Beasty

The weather relented a little this week, and I managed a couple of commutes, total 115.3km in 4h 8m 22s - average 27.9km/h, average power 219kw

Two turbo sessions, including parts of Paris/Roubaix and Mont Ventoux - total 103.5km - average 32.6km/h (I must do more of the "Hell of the North" - it certainly improves my average speed and gets more km in!)

YTD totals - 426km in 14h 33m - average 29.3km/h

Only 9,574km to go ...

Next week I should be able to do 3 commutes, plus a trip to the track, which should get me the 200km I need to keep up with my target.

Lumen

Interesting reading. Have you an idea of your current FTP?

Beasty

Lumen wrote: »

Interesting reading. Have you an idea of your current FTP?

No!

The best average I have managed on a fast, and a bit hilly (40 min) commute was around 260W

When I extend the commute to around 1hr 10, I can get up to the high 240s

On the Dunleer Sportive at the end of October I managed 227W over a relatively flat course (just under 3 hours, plus a 10 minute break)

All the above were in less than ideal conditions

However, purely based on the bike calculator you posted a link to previously, I have managed over 38km on the (indoor) track in an hour (on the hoods, with minimal drafting), I am generating 300W+

Lumen

Yeah, I'd agree that you have over 300W FTP.

My fastest 3hr sportive was at about 70% of my threshold. The first half was neutralised, the second half a hammerfest.

I think you should do some outdoor time trials this year. You ought to be able to crack the hour for a 40k TT with some aerobars and a decent position.

Beasty

Lumen wrote: »

I think you should do some outdoor time trials this year. You ought to be able to crack the hour for a 40k TT with some aerobars and a decent position.

My back's the problem - not sure I could keep a good position for an hour. Also, any hills kill me - my weight is great to push the power on the flat, but not so helpful on an incline

However it is something I would like to have a go at - I think we should resurrect the Boards 10m TT thread, as that's the distance I would like to have a crack at first. In the meantime, I'll be back amongst the "old fogeys" pushing it on the track tomorrow:)

Lumen

Beasty wrote: »

My back's the problem - not sure I could keep a good position for an hour.

You might be surprised. Aerobars can be pretty comfy if set up right, as there is very little load on your arms.

I also have a bad/weak back and the position isn't causing me any back discomfort. Obviously all backs are different. You do need reasonable hamstring flexibility though (this is currently my limiting factor position-wise on the TT bike).

Agree about the 10m TT. Hopefully the weather will be good enough in the next few weeks to arrange one.

Beasty

Lumen wrote: »

You might be surprised. Aerobars can be pretty comfy if set up right, as there is very little load on your arms.

I also have a bad/weak back and the position isn't causing me any back discomfort. Obviously all backs are different. You do need reasonable hamstring flexibility though (this is currently my limiting factor position-wise on the TT bike).

4 back operations don't help. and my physios have commented about my poor hamstring fexibility in the past

However it would be nice to get somewhere near the hour for 40km, maybe even later on in the year after I hit the "Big One" (although that particuilar birthday cake may take some time to digest)

Beasty

Had a great commute home on Monday. It was about 8C, and there was vitually no wind. I therefore dispensed with the outer windproof shell and really pushed it, managing to average 30.2 km/h and 245W over 70 minutes.

My legs were therefore aching a bit when I went to the track yesterday lunchtime. I was not expecting to do anything special

I set off, warming up for the first 8 laps (2km), and then pushing on. I kept at it for about 45 mins on the blue line, before easing off a little, and joining a couple of the other guys for a bit of line lapping for the last few minutes (I had been lapping at the same frequency of them, but because I was higher up the track, I was going about 5% faster). They picked the speed up a little with me in the line, and one of the guys' computers showed us lapping at 24 mph (38.6km/h)

By the end of the (57 minute or so) session I had probably done over 37km, which works out at 39km/h.

I feel the 40km in an hour is now within reach. There are a number of areas I can improve on from yesterday - for a start I can go into a session fresh (and warmed-up). I also was only on the drops for less than 45 minutes in total (my right hand was very numb by the end - I may try without a track-mitt on that hand next time). I think if I can push it for the full hour I should be able to make it. Unfortunately I will not get another try until the middle of March, but I am very pleased with how this one is looking

Beasty

Managed 2 commutes (Monday and Friday - I was out of the country on the other 3 days), an hour on the track (Tuesday) and a couple of hours on the Turbo (Saturday)

The lack of wind and ice allowed me to push it on the commutes. I extended the home leg on Friday to 44km, averaging 30.3 kph and 252W for the first hour or so,

Total distance commuting this week - 124km at 29.2 kph and average power of 237W
Total on the track - 37km at 39 kph (must try and do more of this - it certainly helps keep my average speed up:))
Total Turbo - 66.8km at 35.5 kph (managed to keep to the flat and therefore fast Paris/Roubaix this week)

Totals for the week - 227.8km in 7h 5m at 31.5 kph
YTD Total - 654km in 21h 38m - average speed 30.2 kph

Only 9,346km to go!

The major difference I am noticing compared to last year is my faster recovery time. There is no way I would have been able to put such a performance on the track less than a day after a hard commute home in the past. Friday's commute home was the longest I have done, and again I was pushing hard, but was still able to be reasonably "comfortable" on the Turbo on Saturday.

The real test will be when I can do 5 back-to-back commutes. It won't be next week (I will be away for a couple of days), but if nothing crops up at work I may be able to do this the following week

Beasty

Monday, 57km commuting at an average speed of 30.5 kph and power of 245w.

Tuesday, 45km commuting and I also went out with some of the local Swords CC guys to do some nocturnal hill work (I definitely need more practice in this area - hopefully I will get out with these guys on a regular basis). We did 4 climbs up Ardgillan Hill (approximately 80m each ascent, over 2km, with a gradient of up to 12%), and then a couple of laps of Skerries. Total distance for the day was 77km with total ascent of around 800m (although the Garmin probably overstates this a bit) at an average speed of 24.7 kph and power of 210w.

Friday, 62km commuting at an average speed of 29.1 kph and power of 233w.

Total on the road for the week was 196km with total ascent of around 1,800m at an average speed of 27.6 kph and power of 227w.

In addition, 60km on the turbo/gym bike, at an average speed of 34.1 kph.
Total distance for the week, 256km at an average speed of 28.9 kph.

YTD total 910km in 30hrs 30mins, average speed of 29.8 kph.

I am about 80km (9%) ahead of where I need to be (on a pro-rata basis) to hit 10,000km for the year. Hence to push myself a bit more, I am upping my target for February to 1,000km.

Only 5,648 miles to go!!

Next week the plan is to do 5 commutes (weather and work permitting), which should be a minimum of 230km, but hopefully well over 250km. If I can get out with the Swords guys for an evening (or 2) I may even break 300km

Lumen

Beasty wrote: »

Monday, 57km commuting at an average speed of 30.5 kph and power of 245w.

:eek:

I'm sure I've asked this before, but have you turned off zero averaging and enabled per-second data recording?

It shouldn't take 245W to cycle at 30.5kph.