Sarah cycles the Time Trial

Guest post from Sarah Broscombe – Welcome to Team Half as Good!

“Women, you have 37 minutes and 35 seconds to cycle 14.5km. An average of 23.2km/hr.”

I have never been on a road bike. I really wanted to give this half as good challenge a go. On my mountain bike I generally average around 15kmh, though to be fair that usually includes a significant hill or two and with bits of knobbly off-road. So I had NO idea whether I could a) stay on a road bike, which to me looks like doing the Luge on a razor blade, and b) average anything over a laughable 17kmh or so. The women’s half-as-good Olympic challenge is 23.2kmh- 14.5km in 37m35.

Lake Annecy, then, the Greenway, about 29C and getting windy. A hired comp bike (skinny tyres but straight handlebars with recognisable gears). I’ve got no speedo so B comes with me, which is fantastic for road crossings as well as information. First thing I notice is that it’s a firm ride, on skinny tyres with a saddle that looks like a prehistoric pelvis fossil and feels penitential.

Second thing I notice is, it should be called the GreenGATES, not the Greenway. Entry and exit pairs of gates across each road, farm track, entryway or path. The gates are slanted so you lose a lot of speed approaching as well as going through unless you can whizz through diagonally at speed. Which I can’t on my wheelie razor blade. As you can see from this chart, I had to slow down considerably 7 times, plus a further 4 complete stops for traffic passing. Clobbers your average, that.

Third thing I notice is that after 3km I’m knackered and really, really dehydrated. No bottle cage, but on this wafer I’m riding I daren’t let go of the handlebars anyway. Problem solved when B starts spraying bits of water in my mouth from his water bottle. Now THAT’s chivalry!

From 5km to 10km the path rises gradually but steadily. After 8km I reckon I can’t finish. I’m just not used to maintaining speed like this. After 10km when it stops ascending I reckon I can do it- but the last 2km is just gate after gate, and all the sudden deceleration and fierce acceleration after re-starting is taking it out of me. My head is bobbing like a ducked apple by the time I get to the last km.

We pull up in the shade. B reads from his speedo- I’ve done the 14.5km in 32 minutes 7 seconds, an average of 27.1kmh, taking 5 minutes 28 seconds off the goal time. I’m so happy I get all sniffly. Can’t quite believe it. We ride the 18km back into the wind rather slower (19kmh, though, still not bad), but I’m getting steadily more excited. I think I might be the first woman to join Team Half as Good, and it’s very nice to feel as though I did indeed earn it. The buzz lasted for about 3 days!

Time Trial Guest Post – From Winston

My attempt at the 22km test was a little different to most. I am used to cycling but short on time at the moment so I thought I would build my timed 22km section into a longer ride. Setting off at 8am from Hebden on yet another blisteringly hot day I reached an inconspicuous hump backed canal bridge where the Selby Canal goes under the road near West Bank (south of Selby). The wind was against me but light and the sun melting the tarmac. I thought the little bridge might make an ideal starting house and ramp, so pausing to start the mobile phone stop watch on the bridge I was interrupted by a beep! A car waiting for me, now stationary on the narrow bridge. I didn’t even try and explain why I was stopped in such a ridiculous place but instead made a faltering start at a time in the day when I was having a bit of an energy gap. Still, it should be easy enough… The course was flat. I had to stop once at a busy crossroads and again to open a gate. but apart from this made good progress. Encountered two other cyclists and overtook without drafting. Energy was lacking and half way through I was really feeling the presence of the invisible enemy, the clock on my back and thought I wasn’t going to make it. Speeded up in the second half of the race of truth and come the last 10 mins was in full time trial mode. Although I am now too fat to comfortably maintain a position on the drops I was taking no prisoners at Airmyn rounderbout and arrived at Warlde Services petrol station to stop the clock at 49:25. What was supposed to be a measured effort within a longer ride turned into an intermediate sprint but there was a deal of satisfaction and later sunburn (see pic) in knowing that I am more than half as good ad Eddy Mercx. I completed the 200km in 11 hrs.

That’s 2 of 2 events successfully completed (I can’t swim so claim exemption from month 1) Whats next I wonder?

July’s Challenge – The Time Trial

July, summer, the Tour de France… What else could it be other than cycling for this month!

There are quite a few cycling events at the Olympics, but cycling is a strange sport, full of tactics and teamwork. It’s hard to ride, for example, a stage of the Tour de France or the Olympic Road Race and match the speed achieved by a group of professional cyclists. Mainly because they’re super fit and have phenomenally strong legs and high power output, but also because travelling in a large group of cyclists is actually a lot less effort than doing it on your own.

There are track events which are a single endeavour against the clock, but the Olympic track events require a velodrome track (!), and also an incredibly expensive bike which you wouldn’t ride down to the shops on.

The Cycling Time Trial, or ‘The Race of Truth’ as it often gets called, is the most straightforward Olympic cycling event. The course is pretty flat – yes, there were some hills in the London course, but nobody had to get off and push! The distance for the men’s course was 44km and the winning time, from Bradley Wiggins was 50mins and 40secs which meant that he averaged 52km/hr for nearly an hour, on the road.

Which brings me to one of the most prestigious cycling events which is not in the Olympics. The hour record. I’m mentioning this for a couple of reasons. The main one is that the pure hour record has to be done on a traditional bike. No aero wheels, not even 3 spoke carbon wheels; no time trial bars; no odd shaped frames; not even special helmets. Technology hasn’t interfered with this record and it has barely changed since the incredible ride by Eddy Merckx in 1972 (who – take note! – in a fit of enthusiasm set off too fast and wasted energy on the first few laps before settling down!). The second reason that I mention it is… Even though this record is attempted in a velodrome, on a smooth banked track, the record is way slower (well, shorter, as you ride as far as you can for the set hour) that the road race time. The current official hour record is 49.7km in the hour, but it was set by a rider who has been discredited in other rides by drug use. Chris Boardman, back in 1984 (?) set a high speed on a full on carbon aerodynamic bike, but also did the challenge on a regular bike to prove that he could! He trained for years just for the hour record and managed to get 10 meters further than Merckx! The gold standard has to be Merckx. On a steel frame with no special preparation, in the latter days of his career, he managed 49.43km in the hour.

It’s fair to say that Wiggins rode the time trial so that he hit the finish exhausted, and couldn’t have done another 10 minutes at the same speed, but it’s also fair to say that he could have managed to break 50km within an hour. With special gear, on a road, with climbs and some tight bends, it is still faster than on the track on a traditional bike. Aerodynamics make a massive difference.

So; here’s the challenge. On a road bike, with thin tyres, but no time-trial bars…. You have 50 minutes and 40 seconds to cycle 22km. An average of 26km/hr. Women, you have 37 minutes and 35 seconds to cycle 14.5km. An average of 23.2km/hr.

If you have a hybrid bike, mountain bike, children’s tricycle… Then you have an hour exactly to do more than 24.7km. Women, in the same time, you’re aiming for a distance of 23km.

If you have a penny farthing, then the hour record was first set in 1876 by Frank Dodds at Cambridge University with a distance of 26.5km. If you can get half as good as that on a penny farthing, then I’m seriously impressed!

Pick somewhere flat, somewhere quiet, and somewhere without too many junctions! Remember, near the end you’ll be struggling to concentrate, so steer clear of busy roads!

Good luck Team Half as Good!