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New benchmark from Alex Dowsett.
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#ThePerfectHour Credit movistar_team via http://ift.tt/1bp2NML
New benchmark from Alex Dowsett.
The Scouts ended their weekend with a taste of piloting motorised transport at the quad bike centre near Pontypridd.
A place to remember. The mountain centre was once a station on the Brecon mountain railway, it’s been recently refurbished and is a brilliant facility for the Scouts http://dolygaer-scouts.co.uk/ .
No messing about for some!
The tunnel walking involved a spot of wading on arrival, we passed a mountain rescue meeting on the way back to the minibus.
The sun goes down after an active day for the Scouts; sadly, it’s perhaps the last visit for some of the troop.
Fun with the mountain bikes, everyone enjoyed floating down the mountain trail with the ‘easy listening’ group, there’s no better way to spend some time on a fresh spring afternoon.
The adults in our group rode back up after depositing the fledglings at the minibus - Strava tells me that we were reasonably pacy on the ascent, even with a 4 minute stop to navigate around a closed trail due to log felling, some time was also lost looking at the views and taking on refreshments.
The ride home was done at conversational pace but none-the-less, the lady in the ‘maillot jaune’ smashed the Strava QOM (Queen of the Mountain) data by 2 minutes - impressive!
The younger group stopped at the canal bridge in Pencelli and waited for their for their minibus lift home after the cycle ride.
Almost blown away! The walk along the ridge edge was very windy, the troop were glad to turn the corner onto the leeward side.
Saturday 25th April 2015. The Scouts were out walking in the hills on a beautiful sunny day, undertaking a circa 8 mile 4 hour hilly route.
Scouting has moved on a bit since I was young!
On the bus.
Wiggo will attemp to break the UCI one-hour record on the 7th of June! 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
A series of pictures taken at La Tranchée de Wallers-Arenberg, or La Trouée d'Arenberg, France, during the Paris Roubaix cycle race, on the 12th April 2015.
Jack, Nicolas Pierron of B’TWIN and I were ‘holding wheels’ for the FDJ.fr team, we were placed at the exit from the infamous 2.8 kilometer long, 5 star (hardest grade) cobbled section, just in case of mishaps with wheels or punctures.
A rapid moving peloton was rolling at an average of over 50 kmh at the start of the race, which meant they were ahead of schedule, so despite heading out early, we had to undertake a frantic 5 kilometer hike through the crowds to position ourselves at the agreed rendezvous point.
There are a huge number of people behind the scenes at cycle races in all sorts of roles, a fair number of support crew are dotted along critical points of the race, they’re placed strategically to assist in the event of mechanical issues in order to save precious seconds and get the riders moving again with minimum delay if there’s a mishap.
Our location was particularly important, as the trench is notoriously grueling on the bikes; adding to the difficulties, the team cars get held back as the peloton draws out into a long line, the riders sprint into cobbled sections and string out as they try to ride the center crest of the thin pavé strip, they do this in an attempt to make the passage slightly less harsh for themselves, riding off camber makes it more difficult and puts additional strain on the tyre walls.
In this instance the riders took several minutes to pass through due to a breakaway and the predictable thinning of main group that followed; luckily none of the FDJ team required our assistance, although the French National Champion Arnaud Démare did puncture further along, which is unlucky, as he was well positioned in the race.
We bumped into Sir Dave Brailsford (the main man at Team Sky and the mastermind behind the development of British cycling), who was there with one of his mechanics, doing the same thing as us. He wasn't too troubled that two Brit’s were supporting a French team, it’s an international sport after all and we were also cheering on Sir Bradley Wiggins, Ian Stannard, Luke Rowe and Geraint Thomas, so all was well. A great day out, exciting and fun, thanks to Nicolas, Cyril and Pascale for the inspiring opportunity to get immersed in the race.
Roubaix, Saturday the 11th April 2015.
Jack, Pascale and I took a leisurely stroll to view the Sportive that starts next to the new Velodrome, offering loops of varying distance that all end at the historic outdoor track; there were people from many nations taking part, the Wexford Wheelers featured above came over from Ireland.
The Saturday Sportive is an event open to anyone, taking place the day before the famous Paris - Roubaix pro race. The latter is known as ‘l’enfer de nord’ (the hell of the north), it’s a monument race, known to be grueling and epic, with many thrills and spills. It first ran in 1896, this year was the 113th edition.
The race is also described as ‘the queen of the classics’, the classics are a series of races that take part in and around Flanders during the spring; the routes can vary slightly, in this instance, the riders covered just over 253 kilometers of mainly flat terrain.
Although there are some small hills, the main challenges come from sections of cobblestones known as ‘pavé’, more simply described as big blocks of stone set in earth, they’re not ideal terrain for road bikes, as they are punishing to both equipment and riders but that’s what the challenge is all about.
The different stretches of pavé are classified with a rating system, varying from 1 to 5 stars (5 being the hardest). There are 24 sections of varying length set in among stretches on normal tarmac roads, the most famous being ‘la Tranchée de Wallers-Arenberg’ or , a long straight 2.8km 5 star section dating from Napoleonic times, featuring in wars, as well as many crashes and also ‘Le Carrefour de l'Arbre’ (ou Pavé de Luchin), often a fulcrum point as the leader from that section regularly goes on to win the race.
After 5 hard long hours of battle, the riders turn onto the track through the entrance shown to the top right of the bottom picture and the race finally ends with 1 and a half laps of this famous venue in Roubaix (just to the right of the last but 1 picture); the most exciting races end with a sprint finish, although it’s not unusual for the end to feature a lone breakaway rider.
The view when almost at the top of the Gospel Pass, taken on Easter Monday 2015, whilst out riding with my friend Andy Bennett. Starting at the Severn Bridge, heading through Chepstow, St Briavels, Monmouth, Hay-on-Wye (for a lunch stop), ending with collection after the descent to Abergavenny - a distance of 130kms, averaging 24kmh.
Unfortunately I wasn’t on form today, as not fully recovered from hill walking; although no discredit to the day, as it was a decent social and scenic ride. Andy is doing a lot of miles at present whilst training for an endurance event and really likes hills, so I was slowing him down on the climbs.
I aimed to pay my dues by pulling the front over the level to undulating terrain and laying down the lines on the tricky descents, both of which are more my forte. I will have to shed a few more kilos yet in order to hold better pace on climbs. We started too late in the day to manage the full 172km loop back to the bridge, so we’ll be doing the full ride again at some point soon.
On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow.
Friedrich Nietzsche