@cosmicbike, I'm also still in! Just hadn't had time to update the thread!
The Metric Century (100KM) A Month Challenge ChatZone
- Thread starter ColinJ
- Start date
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- Location
- Shrewsbury, Shropshire
Write up tomorrow when I'm rested
.
Ajax Bay
Guru
- Location
- East Devon
September 100 done, but maybe the last - read on.
An excellent ride - first two thirds of Barry's Jaeger Bomb 300 audax - perfect weather. Enjoyed the Fosse Way gravel section, feeling suitably bold as the gravel got deeper at the NE end.
Riding in a group, a swift first 70km; had a quick stop to control at Poulton, coinciding with the 9am assembly of about 50 riders from soi disant Performance Cycles. I enjoyed a quiche and a pint of milk from Lidl Amesbury (second control) before cutting through the Woodfords to the lovely Wylye valley, riding the latter in company with a 'fixed rider'. Stopped off to say hello to a friend who lives in Corton on the road NW of Wylye village. Onwards through Sutton Veny, Longbridge Deverill and Maiden Bradley (back in a small group after the village) through Kilmington to Alfred's Tower, above the Stourhead estate. I was due to stop for tea with a friend who lives just below the tower when, descending the wooded Kingsettle Hill at speed (?40kph) my front tyre blew (new on for LEL so about 2300km on it, the rear had another 1000 on it from Mille Pennines) and braking on a deflated front tyre didn't do it, and I lost it (together with any memory after the action of braking and keeping as straight as possible). Others in a group mostly from Stonehouse were right behind me and all I remember was being asked if I had a preference between Bath and Yeovil hospitals - I chose Yeovil (and went there by road (thanks to the air ambulance for attending too)). CT Scan and X-rays in A&E etc before transfer to ICU. Two days in ICU was enough - the punctured lung was stable and the multiple rib and shoulder blade fractures will apparently heal themselves. Discharged Monday evening and back home generally sore, battered, grazed and weak but will get better. Thanks to my fellow riders for calling the ambulance quickly, for agreeing to let a local take charge of my bike (which is fine apart from a punctured front tyre and a bit of scratching to the Brooks saddle and STIs), and for taking my saddle and top tube bags and GPS off my bike and sending them with me in the ambulance (NB really good practice; they even put one of my glasses' lenses in). I hope the my fellow riders were not too delayed on their ride, that my crash did not "spoil [their] ride" and that they enjoyed another 5 hours of excellent riding (we had taken 8:10 for the 200km so far). Sorry to have missed the ride over the Mendips, which would have been in daylight. Hey ho! When I recover my bike I shall ride the hill and try to see where I came off. When I think of the hills I've been down this year, Alfred's one is pretty innocuous (100m drop in a kilometre). The road west from Alfred's Tower seemed fine to me as I started down it (and I think I've been down there before) and consider I was in complete control, but until I go back I will not be able to make a decent objective assessment. I would like to know what made my tyre go (I was not braking much) and examination of the tube (idc - bike is now with the friend I was going to have tea with) will probably not shed much evidence on that. Hey ho! After 25,000km I guess statistics caught up with me, but I'd much prefer they didn't/hadn't. At least it was early in the month so if I can heal well, who knows if I can't keep the 100s going by a ride in late October
. I am using this ride for both metric and imperial century challenges - force majeure.
An excellent ride - first two thirds of Barry's Jaeger Bomb 300 audax - perfect weather. Enjoyed the Fosse Way gravel section, feeling suitably bold as the gravel got deeper at the NE end.
Riding in a group, a swift first 70km; had a quick stop to control at Poulton, coinciding with the 9am assembly of about 50 riders from soi disant Performance Cycles. I enjoyed a quiche and a pint of milk from Lidl Amesbury (second control) before cutting through the Woodfords to the lovely Wylye valley, riding the latter in company with a 'fixed rider'. Stopped off to say hello to a friend who lives in Corton on the road NW of Wylye village. Onwards through Sutton Veny, Longbridge Deverill and Maiden Bradley (back in a small group after the village) through Kilmington to Alfred's Tower, above the Stourhead estate. I was due to stop for tea with a friend who lives just below the tower when, descending the wooded Kingsettle Hill at speed (?40kph) my front tyre blew (new on for LEL so about 2300km on it, the rear had another 1000 on it from Mille Pennines) and braking on a deflated front tyre didn't do it, and I lost it (together with any memory after the action of braking and keeping as straight as possible). Others in a group mostly from Stonehouse were right behind me and all I remember was being asked if I had a preference between Bath and Yeovil hospitals - I chose Yeovil (and went there by road (thanks to the air ambulance for attending too)). CT Scan and X-rays in A&E etc before transfer to ICU. Two days in ICU was enough - the punctured lung was stable and the multiple rib and shoulder blade fractures will apparently heal themselves. Discharged Monday evening and back home generally sore, battered, grazed and weak but will get better. Thanks to my fellow riders for calling the ambulance quickly, for agreeing to let a local take charge of my bike (which is fine apart from a punctured front tyre and a bit of scratching to the Brooks saddle and STIs), and for taking my saddle and top tube bags and GPS off my bike and sending them with me in the ambulance (NB really good practice; they even put one of my glasses' lenses in). I hope the my fellow riders were not too delayed on their ride, that my crash did not "spoil [their] ride" and that they enjoyed another 5 hours of excellent riding (we had taken 8:10 for the 200km so far). Sorry to have missed the ride over the Mendips, which would have been in daylight. Hey ho! When I recover my bike I shall ride the hill and try to see where I came off. When I think of the hills I've been down this year, Alfred's one is pretty innocuous (100m drop in a kilometre). The road west from Alfred's Tower seemed fine to me as I started down it (and I think I've been down there before) and consider I was in complete control, but until I go back I will not be able to make a decent objective assessment. I would like to know what made my tyre go (I was not braking much) and examination of the tube (idc - bike is now with the friend I was going to have tea with) will probably not shed much evidence on that. Hey ho! After 25,000km I guess statistics caught up with me, but I'd much prefer they didn't/hadn't. At least it was early in the month so if I can heal well, who knows if I can't keep the 100s going by a ride in late October
. I am using this ride for both metric and imperial century challenges - force majeure.
Lilliburlero
Pro sandbagger
- Location
- South Derbyshire
Sea of vapours
Guru
- Location
- Clapham, Yorkshire Dales
Very sorry to hear about that @Ajax Bay . I hope you recover both rapidly in general and rapidly enough to keep the 100km/month year going.
I frequently wonder how so many people can crash so often in road races and limp away relatively unscathed whilst the more obvious result of crashing at high speed is to be fairly seriously damaged, as you were. I also often wonder what the result of a front tyre blow-out going downhill at non-trivial speed would. I then typically review how long my front tyre has been on and, having just done that, it's now only a little short of 12,000 km. I'm now seriously considering replacing it on the basis of 'it does not owe me anything and, whilst it also doesn't look or act worn, a new one would be reassuring'. Anyway, I'll muse on that, quite possibly the next time I'm rolling down a hill at 50+kph, and maybe retire it quite soon, despite there being no apparent reason to do so.
I hope to see you posting again at the end of October. Do let us know what happened, if you're able to determine the cause of the failure (anecdata, I know, but nonetheless interesting in the way that potential failure modes are ;-) ).
I frequently wonder how so many people can crash so often in road races and limp away relatively unscathed whilst the more obvious result of crashing at high speed is to be fairly seriously damaged, as you were. I also often wonder what the result of a front tyre blow-out going downhill at non-trivial speed would. I then typically review how long my front tyre has been on and, having just done that, it's now only a little short of 12,000 km. I'm now seriously considering replacing it on the basis of 'it does not owe me anything and, whilst it also doesn't look or act worn, a new one would be reassuring'. Anyway, I'll muse on that, quite possibly the next time I'm rolling down a hill at 50+kph, and maybe retire it quite soon, despite there being no apparent reason to do so.
I hope to see you posting again at the end of October. Do let us know what happened, if you're able to determine the cause of the failure (anecdata, I know, but nonetheless interesting in the way that potential failure modes are ;-) ).
OP
OP
ColinJ
Puzzle game procrastinator!
- Location
- Todmorden - Yorks/Lancs border
Yes, that sounds a horrible accident, @Ajax Bay! Those are nasty injuries but it sounds like they could have been even worse. GWS.
I have only had a front tyre go like that once and that was on the descent into Hebden Bridge from Pecket Well. I was being chased down the hill by a double decker bus at the time and it was way too close to me. I managed to stop without crashing, which was damn lucky given that the tyre peeled straight off. Even luckier, the bus stopped without running me over but by then it was only a couple of metres from me! I gave the driver a long stare and slowly shook my head to register my disapproval ...
On a cheerier note ... I am just back from a week in Devon and got a couple of metric centuries in while I was down there.
I had planned to do a forum ride over Dartmoor on Sunday but there were no takers and it was raining heavily so my cousin Nigel and I postponed it for a day. We ended up doing a different ride to our planned one. We rode from our holiday venue at Finlake through Chudleigh and climbed over the Exeter Old Road to Exeter where we caught a train to Barnstaple. We had a quick cafe stop there and then headed out on the excellent Tarka Trail down to just beyond Great Torrington after which we took to a succession of nice lanes which took us over the NE quadrant of Dartmoor to Moretonhampstead, and then down to Bovey Tracey and back to Finlake on busier roads. Verdict: The scenery is nice, and Devon is 'significantly lumpy'. 126 km covered in total and I am counting that as a metric century even though the ride was split into 2 parts by a short train journey.
I did an easy recovery ride the next day then did another longer ride on the Wednesday. Nigel and I fancied seeing Exmoor so we pinched the medium route of the 'Exmoor Beast' sportive. We moved the start/finish to a multi-storey car park in Tiverton and dropped down into Minehead for a cafe stop next to the harbour halfway round the route. We then did a splendid climb over Dunkery Beacon (well, very close to it!) and descended to the Exe Valley which we took back to Tiverton. It was rush hour by then and the A396 was a bit too busy for my liking. I've since looked at the map and decided that I would have chosen to take the quiet hilly route from Exebridge to Bampton and then over Hone Hill to Tiverton. It would have been harder, but it is the kind of thing that I like to do. Verdict: Scenery still nice, Devon still significantly lumpy, and West Somerset definitely 'not without noticeable undulations'!
Nigel is a pretty fit cyclist ... I stopped briefly a couple of times to allow cars to pass on the singletrack road, and a few more minutes to take photos. With those short delays, I took 50 minutes to tackle that climb. Nigel did it in just over 18 minutes!
The next day, we did a recovery ride over to Oddicombe Beach at Babbacombe (Torquay) to meet up with the rest of our family group for lunch and then rode back by the same route in reverse. We had planned to ascend the Exeter Old Road climb again but rain threatened and our legs were still stiff from the previous day's Exmoor ride so we headed back for coffee and cake at holiday HQ..
The weather was iffy on Friday so I stayed in and chilled out while the family went sightseeing. Nigel went out and did a short, fairly intensive ride. He gave me a tracking link to watch his progress and it was pretty interesting to watch his data as he progressed. He did long stints at 250 W and hit about 750W for one short ramp. He averaged nearly 29 km/hr for his 40 km loop which included about 700 m of climbing. I am not jealous ...!
I'm back home now and catching up on the Vuelta and ToB.
I have only had a front tyre go like that once and that was on the descent into Hebden Bridge from Pecket Well. I was being chased down the hill by a double decker bus at the time and it was way too close to me. I managed to stop without crashing, which was damn lucky given that the tyre peeled straight off. Even luckier, the bus stopped without running me over but by then it was only a couple of metres from me! I gave the driver a long stare and slowly shook my head to register my disapproval ...
On a cheerier note ... I am just back from a week in Devon and got a couple of metric centuries in while I was down there.
I had planned to do a forum ride over Dartmoor on Sunday but there were no takers and it was raining heavily so my cousin Nigel and I postponed it for a day. We ended up doing a different ride to our planned one. We rode from our holiday venue at Finlake through Chudleigh and climbed over the Exeter Old Road to Exeter where we caught a train to Barnstaple. We had a quick cafe stop there and then headed out on the excellent Tarka Trail down to just beyond Great Torrington after which we took to a succession of nice lanes which took us over the NE quadrant of Dartmoor to Moretonhampstead, and then down to Bovey Tracey and back to Finlake on busier roads. Verdict: The scenery is nice, and Devon is 'significantly lumpy'. 126 km covered in total and I am counting that as a metric century even though the ride was split into 2 parts by a short train journey.
I did an easy recovery ride the next day then did another longer ride on the Wednesday. Nigel and I fancied seeing Exmoor so we pinched the medium route of the 'Exmoor Beast' sportive. We moved the start/finish to a multi-storey car park in Tiverton and dropped down into Minehead for a cafe stop next to the harbour halfway round the route. We then did a splendid climb over Dunkery Beacon (well, very close to it!) and descended to the Exe Valley which we took back to Tiverton. It was rush hour by then and the A396 was a bit too busy for my liking. I've since looked at the map and decided that I would have chosen to take the quiet hilly route from Exebridge to Bampton and then over Hone Hill to Tiverton. It would have been harder, but it is the kind of thing that I like to do. Verdict: Scenery still nice, Devon still significantly lumpy, and West Somerset definitely 'not without noticeable undulations'!
Nigel is a pretty fit cyclist ... I stopped briefly a couple of times to allow cars to pass on the singletrack road, and a few more minutes to take photos. With those short delays, I took 50 minutes to tackle that climb. Nigel did it in just over 18 minutes!
The next day, we did a recovery ride over to Oddicombe Beach at Babbacombe (Torquay) to meet up with the rest of our family group for lunch and then rode back by the same route in reverse. We had planned to ascend the Exeter Old Road climb again but rain threatened and our legs were still stiff from the previous day's Exmoor ride so we headed back for coffee and cake at holiday HQ..
The weather was iffy on Friday so I stayed in and chilled out while the family went sightseeing. Nigel went out and did a short, fairly intensive ride. He gave me a tracking link to watch his progress and it was pretty interesting to watch his data as he progressed. He did long stints at 250 W and hit about 750W for one short ramp. He averaged nearly 29 km/hr for his 40 km loop which included about 700 m of climbing. I am not jealous ...!
I'm back home now and catching up on the Vuelta and ToB.
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I once posted on the forum about swapping rear and front tyres round to share the wear and I believe it was @zacklaws who very strongly advised against it as a front blow out like @Ajax Bay had could be the result . I thought he was being overly dramatic but I never did swap them round but it's appears it was very sound advice . Did check my front tyre before today's ride . An accident like @Ajax Bay makes you think
- Location
- Egham
September 100 done, but maybe the last - read on.
An excellent ride - first two thirds of Barry's Jaeger Bomb 300 audax - perfect weather. Enjoyed the Fosse Way gravel section, feeling suitably bold as the gravel got deeper at the NE end.
Riding in a group, a swift first 70km; had a quick stop to control at Poulton, coinciding with the 9am assembly of about 50 riders from soi disant Performance Cycles. I enjoyed a quiche and a pint of milk from Lidl Amesbury (second control) before cutting through the Woodfords to the lovely Wylye valley, riding the latter in company with a 'fixed rider'. Stopped off to say hello to a friend who lives in Corton on the road NW of Wylye village. Onwards through Sutton Veny, Longbridge Deverill and Maiden Bradley (back in a small group after the village) through Kilmington to Alfred's Tower, above the Stourhead estate. I was due to stop for tea with a friend who lives just below the tower when, descending the wooded Kingsettle Hill at speed (?40kph) my front tyre blew (new on for LEL so about 2300km on it, the rear had another 1000 on it from Mille Pennines) and braking on a deflated front tyre didn't do it, and I lost it (together with any memory after the action of braking and keeping as straight as possible). Others in a group mostly from Stonehouse were right behind me and all I remember was being asked if I had a preference between Bath and Yeovil hospitals - I chose Yeovil (and went there by road (thanks to the air ambulance for attending too)). CT Scan and X-rays in A&E etc before transfer to ICU. Two days in ICU was enough - the punctured lung was stable and the multiple rib and shoulder blade fractures will apparently heal themselves. Discharged Monday evening and back home generally sore, battered, grazed and weak but will get better. Thanks to my fellow riders for calling the ambulance quickly, for agreeing to let a local take charge of my bike (which is fine apart from a punctured front tyre and a bit of scratching to the Brooks saddle and STIs), and for taking my saddle and top tube bags and GPS off my bike and sending them with me in the ambulance (NB really good practice; they even put one of my glasses' lenses in). I hope the my fellow riders were not too delayed on their ride, that my crash did not "spoil [their] ride" and that they enjoyed another 5 hours of excellent riding (we had taken 8:10 for the 200km so far). Sorry to have missed the ride over the Mendips, which would have been in daylight. Hey ho! When I recover my bike I shall ride the hill and try to see where I came off. When I think of the hills I've been down this year, Alfred's one is pretty innocuous (100m drop in a kilometre). The road west from Alfred's Tower seemed fine to me as I started down it (and I think I've been down there before) and consider I was in complete control, but until I go back I will not be able to make a decent objective assessment. I would like to know what made my tyre go (I was not braking much) and examination of the tube (idc - bike is now with the friend I was going to have tea with) will probably not shed much evidence on that. Hey ho! After 25,000km I guess statistics caught up with me, but I'd much prefer they didn't/hadn't. At least it was early in the month so if I can heal well, who knows if I can't keep the 100s going by a ride in late October
Ouch, sorry to hear of the off. Liked for getting out there, and for suggesting that it 'may' be the last century this year. On a positive note, the bike sounds like it's OK, and you do have 51 days to get back in form..
- Location
- Egham
Septembers ride done today, and for me it was very hilly. My normal sort of routes would have made about 600m of climbing, but since I'm trying to do the Strava climbing challenge this month I went hunting for lumps and managed 1175m in the 102 km ride, no mean feat in the Thames Valley, and all within 8 miles of my front door (no way I'm going into the Surrey Hills on a Sunday, cycling madness...). Looking at some of the rides posted I know this is next to nothing in comparison, but for a flat terrain rider like me I felt like I'd achieved something extra today.
9 months done, getting into the cooler days now so stick at it folks, and get the rides in early in the month if you can, just in case the weather turns nasty.
9 months done, getting into the cooler days now so stick at it folks, and get the rides in early in the month if you can, just in case the weather turns nasty.
OP
OP
ColinJ
Puzzle game procrastinator!
- Location
- Todmorden - Yorks/Lancs border
I know why he said that - zack has reminded me of it a few times! He was doing one of our very hilly local audax rides - 'Spring into the Dales' which includes a steep descent into the little town of Earby. (You may remember the Tour of Britain going up the road to a KOM point a couple of years ago?) His front tyre blew out on a tight bend and he very nearly got badly hurt. You can't get a true impression of how steep the road is from this picture, but trust me - you wouldn't want a blowout going down into that bend!
Incidentally - talking about potentially catastrophic bicycle failures ... I encountered a rider walking his 'badly injured' bike to the checkpoint following that town on an earlier edition of the event. I stopped to ask if I could help and he showed me that his forks were about to snap off. He had done that scary descent and had then been progressing along a flat road when he felt the front of the bike start to wobble. The steel fork had rusted through from the inside and the fork blades were barely still attached ...
OP
OP
ColinJ
Puzzle game procrastinator!
- Location
- Todmorden - Yorks/Lancs border
BTW ... I discovered that people aren't joking when they talk about titanium seatposts seizing into aluminium frames! The saddle on my CAAD5 feels ever so slightly lower than the saddles do on my singlespeed and cyclocross bikes so I thought that I would try and raise it by a couple of mm. No joy - it is stuck solid! Fortunately, the saddle is not far off its optimum position so I can definitely leave it where it is, but I will attempt to shift it if I can without damaging the post or the frame. I'll see if some hot air from a fan heater helps ... (aluminium is supposed to expand well over twice as much as titanium for a given increase in temperature)
Ajax Bay
Guru
- Location
- East Devon
Rest assured I shall share any useful information I can glean, once I inspect my bike (which is 70 miles away) which will not be for a few weeks (glad the ride was dry so it will not deteriorate from not being cleaned). Because convalescence and pain allow idle thought, I am trying not to beat myself up with the notion that I descended too quickly, or that once the tyre went my skills were wanting and a good rider would've kept it upright and at worst gone onto the verge/hedge in a controlled way. As we've seen upthread, Devon offers superbly 'undulating' terrain (glad you've been enjoying the terrain @ColinJ ) and I have my OS 1:50,000 map with all the chevrons in East Devon and have ascended and descended most of them (some many times): these offer a good variety of descents. You can't ride around (downhill) thinking 'I should allow for my front tyre blowing' - well not if you want to enjoy riding in Devon (and the Pennines, and Wales etc etc).
Thanks to all who've wished 'GWS' - it will be a race against time (31 Oct) to be sufficiently recovered to do 100.
