Yet Another Cycling Forum
General Category => Audax => Topic started by: Jack_P on 06 January, 2016, 09:58:42 am
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And he's off, looks like a trip round the bowl to start, lets hope that's not a bad sign after 2 big days
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Hope trust & pray that frequent bowl visits are not Theme of the Day.
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It's a reasonable day to be out cycling in the South East. Overcast, misty but little wind and dry. I hope Steve is experiencing similarly benign conditions and is able to use them to their maximum potential.
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And he's off, looks like a trip round the bowl to start, lets hope that's not a bad sign after 2 big days
That's a very positive way of looking at it... :-\
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One thing about the MK Bowl is that it's impossible to tell how he is doing from the tracker. His usual lap time is under 3 minutes and so tracking points every 10-15 minutes can't give us an accurate view of the number of laps (and therefore his average speed). We'll just have to wait for the Strava upload tomorrow morning to see how he got on.
One big benefit is that the Bowl is near his home and so if he has food pre-prepared there he'll waste less time stopped than if he stopped at a pub or cafe somewhere out on the road.
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And he's off, looks like a trip round the bowl to start, lets hope that's not a bad sign after 2 big days
That's a very positive way of looking at it... :-\
Although not "Godwin" distance that's two big days on a bike, have you tried a 300K ride in the recent climate.
Yes its not enough, but hey that's another thread altogether
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The weather forecast for next week is looking cold so the Bowl would be good in that respect
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How far is is around the bowl?
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1km
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Not exactly flat either.
https://www.strava.com/segments/962111
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1km
Thanks, as he was up that way the other day I wondered about using the track at Scunthorpe to similar affect, its about 500m with fairly shallow banking, I know he isnt keen on drafting but a perfect place to be paced by a team of helpers
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Allez Steve
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1km
On n00 laps of anything that short the boredom must be killing. I did 200k on a 5 km circuit once and that was bad enough.
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The weather forecast for next week is looking cold so the Bowl would be good in that respect
As long as it is either dry or gritted. I seem to remember on the few icy days last winter that he went up and down the A5 for a while. But at 1.1km he'll need 301 laps per Godwin. That would require a persistence remarkable even for Steve - unless he swapped direction every 10 laps or so. Shame he couldn't do a circuit involving Marsh Gibbon.... ;D
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One of the last times he did laps of the bowl he was swapping direction after each lap.
I can't imagine doing hundreds of laps of a circuit that short. It must be mind numbing.
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Someone has put a photo of Steve on the bowl from this morning on Facebook.
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Comment with the photo is interesting
Steve Abraham is behind bars today - testing the cycling track on a windless day, to see how it compares to the road...
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One big benefit is that the Bowl is near his home
So is KFC :)
I know this for a fact because I bought him some nosh there when I took a ride over in May to see him on the Vortex.
I'm assuming he has a key and uninhibited access now?* [Save any Boot Sales of course!]
Maybe the bowl is the shape of things to come :-\
[edit:* just to clarify, I meant access to the Bowl, not KFC]
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KFC
I think he's trying to cut down on sugar intake.
(22g of sugar in an Ultimate Pulled Chicken Burger according to their nutrition info. But so so tasty.)
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KFC
I think he's trying to cut down on sugar intake.
(22g of sugar in an Ultimate Pulled Chicken Burger according to their nutrition info.)
[I noticed you picked the ultimate sugar bomb from the entire list :)....save the deserts!]
Blimey, I think I'm quite impressed they even publish any list (http://assets.kfc.co.uk.s3-website-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/119028526f83782293a915827e1ac65e.pdf)at all to be honest.
He liked the chicken pieces [he looks good to go on those as regards sugar] when I was there....I seem to remember it's called something exotic like a 'bucket of X pieces' :facepalm:
[I'm getting hungry all of a sudden]
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"Shame he couldn't do a circuit involving Marsh Gibbon.... 😀"
Yes, +1
I've been out 'ont andem',up north you see, today. We did a twenty mile circular from Leyland out over the flat lands towards Southport. Came back through Croston, the village in the news for flooding and RAF help. I was thinking of Steve whilst we were riding as the roads are quite flat, good surfaces, we'll lit where heavier traffic and easy to navigate. It would make a good repetitive circuit. The terain is very similar to the Marsh Gibbon area, I'm sure a decent length circuit could be plotted down there.
I'm quite puzzled as to why the MG visits stopped? I wonder if he hates Bells? Did the team manager put a halt to them for some reason? Fear of Steve being ambushed by over enthusiastic YACF members who knew where he'd be riding?
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1km
Thanks, as he was up that way the other day I wondered about using the track at Scunthorpe to similar affect, its about 500m with fairly shallow banking, I know he isnt keen on drafting but a perfect place to be paced by a team of helpers
We use 0.4 km as the lap distance at Scunthorpe. Nearer velodromes are available, notably Welwyn and Reading.
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Bets on today's finish time and distance then? since it's impossible to guess from the tracker...
I'll go for a 11.15pm finish and 312km.
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Whilst it must indeed be mind numbingly boring, circuit racing that sort of distance, perhaps it allows him to concentrate on upping his speed and to have support close at hand?
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I didn't really understand the FBk reference to ' testing the cycling track on a windless day, to see how it compares to the road...' Looks like 252.6km and 2522m elevation - none too flat.
'There must be better circuit options'...
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You can't just judge how suitable a course may be purely by the elevation figure.
Compare Steve's ride today (round the bowl that has a 10m climb) to various other (extreme) options that have the same distance and elevation gain.
Imagine a 252.6km ride that starts off with a 25.22km climb that's a nasty 10%, then the remaining distance is very slightly downhill (-1%). That'd be horrible for his style of riding (trying to keep the HR down).
Or a ride that climbs at about 1% the 2522m over the course of ~230km and then has a final 25.22km 10% descent. That might be nicer with the free miles at the end, but it would require more energy to be expended than riding around the bowl[1].
Steve's now tried it on a windless day and can work out whether he's better off going somewhere really flat (Goole/Boston/etc), whether he should use the Bowl, or just head out on a normal ride on the open roads that may contain hills.
The shorter day has also meant an earlier start for today, which is good.
1. Very small rises (under 3m) can be climbed purely by freewheeling up them (30kph will allow you to freewheel up a 3.5m rise until you come to a halt) and you'll reclaim most of the lost speed on the subsequent descent. (Losses to rolling resistance are the same either way, for air resistance it's better to travel at a constant speed rather than periods of being slow then fast). Big long descents are bad as you lose much more energy to air resistance and there's a limit to how fast you can go (so you're not efficiently converting anywhere near a good percentage of the gravitational potential energy you had back into kinetic energy.) Anyway, all of the physics is a bit meaningless. It will mostly depend on whether Steve looks at the figures and decides whether 250km here was easier/better than being out on the open roads.
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yes - greater % recovery from a low & regular elevation, with each iteration... I'd imagine that KS' Florida Flatwoods circuit area is tedious enough - though he's had company, but multiple day 300+ revolutions of The Bowl..? :o
edit. Hope Steve is Ok, as partly wondering why a test of 'only' ~250km...
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157 miles...? :(
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157 miles...? :(
Nope, not great at all compared to recent form.
based on simple totals, it would seem short circuits dont suit him at all.
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Agreed, Matt.
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157 miles...? :(
Nope, not great at all compared to recent form.
based on simple totals, it would seem short circuits dont suit him at all.
Oh don't be so bloody negative mattc!!! :-*
For all you know, this could be one of the 'easy' days required by the medics. In which case 157 miles is pretty good.
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157 miles...? :(
Nope, not great at all compared to recent form.
based on simple totals, it would seem short circuits dont suit him at all.
Oh don't be so bloody negative mattc!!! :-*
For all you know, this could be one of the 'easy' days required by the medics. In which case 157 miles is pretty good.
Or maybe he was feeling f**ked after riding tougher-than-necessary Audax-style Big Rides the previous days, and/or bored out of his tree riding the Bowl which is considerably shorter than any of us kibitzers have advocated...