Huw's big winter Blog - Part 1

[huw williams]

1) Winter
When does winter start? That’s always a major question for cyclists. It’s an important time of year. If you’ve been training, competing or just plain riding fast all summer, its suddenly a chance to slam on the anchors and go slow for a bit with the perfect excuse of “I’m just doing a bit of base endurance work at the moment.”

This of course is just another way of saying “I’m knackered” or “I can’t be bothered trying to stay with the training group any more and I’m just going to ride slow… if at all.”

For the many ACCers who dipped their toes in the novice race pool this year, liked what they saw and fancy doing it a bit more seriously next season, it’s also important. Winter marks the time when you want to be thinking about how to prepare for your first race. “But that’s bloody month’s away” I hear you cry. And you’re right, but I guarantee you that at least 75% of those finishing the summer with the best of intentions to race next season will find themselves next March, blundering headlong into the season feeling under-prepared because they didn’t do all the things they said they were going to do in winter. You have been warned. Winter takes for ever, then suddenly its over and you haven’t done any training.

I’m speaking from experience here of course – not because when I raced I was never prepared for the season, quite the opposite. I used to prepare so much that I’d overdo it in my excitement to get going, get knackered in February, get sick in March and not recover properly until late August. I was flying in late September when the season had finished.

Winter then, an important time of year when important decisions have to be made. But when does winter start? Global warming has made this a prickly subject. These days you can find yourself on the line in May absolutely freezing, trying to avoid the slush on the top bend at Hillingdon, then relaxing on the sun-lounger in the garden in mid October, dry Martini in your hand, season over, with the best form of your life and no races left to use it.

I was convinced winter started yesterday (October 24th). After 10 days off the bike (end of season break) I got the fixed-wheel bike out (a traditional winter roadman’s tool) and put on thin, full-length (winter) leggings. But what really clinched it was the yellow woolly hat. “It must be winter” said one of the Cycling Weekly subs as I headed out for a steady (winter) ride, “that’s the first woolly hat of the year.”
Of course ten minutes down the road I was badly overheating, my legs were knackered because they wewre too hot and I was riding a stiff gear after so much time off the bike. Off came the woolly hat and the arm warmers as I resigned myself to starting winter all over again at some later date. Let me know if you see any signs of it.

2) The mythical Coulsdon bypass
For ACC members living north of Coulsdon South the last 15 years (or so it seems) of riding to the start of the club run has meant enduring the growing ordeal of road works in the area around the café opposite the Toyota garage. Politicians have promised us that on opening, the mythical Coulsdon bypass will in fact make traffic conditions much easier for cyclists. Until it opens, traffic conditions have of course become much worse.

This puts me in mind of a fine argument against keeping troops in Iraq which is this. At what point does the loss of life, the bloodshed and the mayhem inherent with keeping troops in Iraq become more costly in terms of loss of life and collateral damage than the terrorism it’s designed to prevent? You might therefore consider that even when the mythical Coulsdon bypass finally opens (if it ever does) will it ever repay the chaos it has created over the years? I doubt it.

Happily I can report progress on this front and also claim to be (I think) the first cyclist to ride over it. Its true. Yesterday a bizarre occurance and a spur of the moment decision meant that I got to ride over the mythical Coulsdon bypass even before its open. This is what happened. Heading south and badly overheating (see above), I got to the point just about where the new flyover will join the existing main road (where all the heavy lifting gear and road-laying machines live on the left) to discover a new temporary roundabout installed and some massive new trenches accross the road. I vowed to remember this on my return as hitting said trenches at speed on a fixed would not be a very good idea, and carried on past CSS station up the usual club run outrun. On my return some time later I was approaching the other new roundabout on the downhill section before CSS where the mythical Coulsdon bypass entrance is coned off, only to see a 4x4 slip through a gap in the cones and embark on a trip down the pristine tarmac.

Some deep, sub-conscious part of me must have said “I’m having a piece of that” as I suddenly found myself making a turn in the same direction through the cones.

It was awesome. When I’d pinched myself and realised that I wasn’t dreaming and that this was in fact the mythical Coulsdon bypass, I started to enjoy the fact that I was on a completely new piece of tarmac with not a car in sight on either side of the carriageway. For the sheer hell of it I got out of the saddle and attacked the slight incline on the wrong side of the road (lets face it, when its properly open this won’t be an option so ‘what the hell’ I thought.) Over the top round a sweeping right-hander and onto the descent I went, at something approaching 30MPH. It was glorious.

Then reality came crashing down all around me as I saw the end of the tarmac getting closer (at something approaching 30MPH), there was also a lot of shouting going on (Irish and Polish accents seemed to register) and a fair bit of cheering too as I gradually slowed down, hit the unfinished section of the road and picked my way through a team of power-tool toting road workers. Just as I thought I might be facing an angry lynch mob and was considering how best to turn round at speed on a loose surface and leg it back up the mythical Coulsdon bypass in the direction I’d come, I recognized the temporary roundabout on the main road not 30 feet in front of me. With no fence separating us I simply rode on through, ignoring the calls for my head on a plate, rejoined the road to Purley and the rest, as they say is history.

The mythical Coulsdon bypass then. It exists, its not finished yet but I’ve ridden it.

Next week I’ll report on a race I’m doing at the proposed Eastway replacement site at Hog Hill. It’s not built yet but hey, I’m on a roll.

H

[huw williams]

Damn! Beaten to the line again. Well done Marco. What I did consider is that when its open, and we don't have to go round that little roundabout but go straight on - it'll make a fine sprint finish for the CR

[Gavin]

Huw,

are you still planning slow hilly rides on wednesdays?

Are 'we' that crazy?

Cheers

G

[huw williams]

Err yes but not THE hilly ride - after going down the descent on the falling leaves in the wet I've realised that in the dark, with cars coming up it would be suicide - I'll work on a route that's main roads or at least lit roads and get back to you soon

H

[Ian A4size]

“that’s the first woolly hat of the year.”- you have not been out of long fingered gloves all scorching year- get some pies down yer!
I am still in shorts at work.