Author Topic: Audax and Road Safety was: Re: Mike Hall RIP  (Read 15477 times)

CrazyEnglishTriathlete

  • Miles eaten don't satisfy hunger
  • Chartered accountant in 5 different decades
    • CET Ride Reports and Blogs
Re: Audax and Road Safety was: Re: Mike Hall RIP
« Reply #100 on: 02 October, 2018, 10:27:07 pm »
One item not discussed yet regarding sleep is the moment you sleep. Everyone has his own prefered moment, the time of the night when an hour or two of sleep has the best possible effect. For some people that's at the start of the night, for others at the end of the night. My most effective sleeping time is between 4 and 6 in the morning. Sometimes the control spacing forces me to sleep earlier. If I do that, I will inevitably be sleepy between 4 and 6 and hardly gain any ground. Despite having slept a few hours. Sometimes I can't even fall asleep at the time/place I have to sleep because I don't need to sleep yet.
So if possible I prefere to press on and sleep in the wild between the controls since that gives me a better quality sleep.
This effect is often forgotten by those who advocate enforced sleep breaks.

My best sleep time, for three hours is midnight to 3am.  I've not thought about this before, but it's probably a reason why I've struggled on Andy Corless's rides, where I'm not likely to make the overnight control until 3pm, but why, generally I prefer 600s where I can get to the sleep control at midnight. 

Likewise, as a lark rather than an owl, I'm usually awake at 6am so a start at that time is not a problem unless I've got  to travel a couple of hours to get there.

It's probably also a reason for some groups not to work effectively - if you have riders who have different body clocks they'll have their dozie flatspots at different times - although if they can ride together at least they can look out for each other.

Another thought comes to mind.  On Mille Miglia in 2010, I spent a few hours asleep at the Fausto Coppi museum - as they'd set up some tents there.  Riding along the flat roads of the Po valley back to Milan, we came across a group of 6 riders who had clearly ridden through the night and were doing a convincing impression of riding in 6 different directions on a dead straight road.  Gernot and I were quite concerned that one of them might weave into us as we passed, and took great care as we overtook - if a driver wasn't paying a 100% attention and not given them a wide berth it could have had nasty consequences.
Eddington Numbers 130 (imperial), 182 (metric) 571 (furlongs)  114 (nautical miles)