Dartmoor at 25 Degrees

Dartmoor can be one of those places where the weather can be predictably very wet, windy and during the winter months, rather cool with sub zero temperatures the norm. This August bank holiday weekend we were treated to the exact opposite; it was a day to be spent by the beach rather than astride a bicycle!

The ride had been planned for some months as our annual 100mi/100km club ride, with the intent to follow the route of Mid Devon CC's Dartmoor Classic, so not one for the novice rider. Indeed, I for one would not have used it for my first 100, some 4 years ago!

Andy and I drove over in the Yeti and met up with a crowd of Pedallers at 8:00 am in Chudleigh. At the depart we had a great cross-section of pedallers, old and new, boys and girls and even a couple of Sid Valley cycle club guests. Despite the gruelling climbs ahead, it had that feeling of going to be a real social affair; quite different from the Classic Sportives I've ridden in the past.

Signing in

At the outset, Clive, the professional ride leader he is, got us to sign in with emergency contact details, little knowing then that sadly he'd not be seeing the ride out himself! More on that later.

The plan was going well'ish as we rode to Princetown to refuel at a popular cycling favourite, the Fox tor cafe http://www.foxtorcafe.com/cafe/. Here, we arrived in waves and sought shelter from the mid day sun, mingling with other lycra clad riders from Mid Devon and Plymouth cycle clubs. Mark also got us chatting to the director(s) of Primal, the Devon cycling apparel company, who adorned in smart looking kit jumped into a polished sales patter .. who'd be a kit master (all applications c/o TdF)! I mention the ride having gone well'ish as there had been two close shaves: a sudden stop to avoid cattle may have given my a rear tyre a flat spot (check out the video at 9:40 am) and a little later my chain bounced off the big ring and wrapped itself around every sprocket it could find! Luckily, I could continue but I've not yet done a full damage check nor ascertained what could have actually caused it.

The AVP Peloton passes near Haytor

It was at Princetown that Clive, who'd been poorly the previous day, had to call an end to his ride and get a cab back to Chudleigh. I had thought of posting an APB on our club's FB page but being at the furthest point from base camp, close to a 90 minute drive, it would have been a miracle to have found a Pedaller out and about near by. So, in the absence of a support car, and still another 2 hours cycling to be done, a local taxi was the only option. Clive later reported that it was the best value £50 taxi ride he'd had!

From Princetown, a handful of Pedallers continued on their extended 100 mile route while the larger peloton, myself included, chilled a little more in the cafe before taking the return loop back to Chudleigh, with the obligatory stop for ice cream refreshments at one of the many tempting vans strategically positioned along the route!

Ice cream stop on the return to Chudleigh

In addition to a number of stills, I pulled together a short video of the day's ride. This one has a Krafwerk'esk backing track which I recently commissioned from my musically talented brother-in-law, aka SunDog, which includes sampling from my Tarmac's SRAM eTap chainset and FFWD free hub .. I hope you like it.

100km (60 miles) over 1800m (6000ft) of climb, in temps exceeding 25 degrees, made for quite an epic ride and one which was definitely a great social ride, as billed. My new year's resolution is holding firm.

How Are Your New Year's Resolutions Going?

At the turn of the year I made the resolution that I'd forgo all sportives this year in favour of doing a few epic club and social rides.

It took a bit of time to get going as it was May before my first epic ride, the Rapha 100 Ride which satisfied both of my passions, the title saying it all! July's investment in wireless gear change triggered the second, a ride on Dartmoor with club mates.

Seaton on the South Coast

This weekend, I joined one of my best buddies, a bit of a last minute thing, on a Coast to Coast 100 mile Ride. We did something similar with the club 3 years ago when we were still doing the all comers' 100 milers, bit this was a much quicker and less formal affair. It was perhaps a little bad form to skip my usual Coffee Club Ride, which as default ride leader (for reasons that are still a mystery to me) caused a bit of a stir, but sometimes one just has to do these things! It was a top ride, we had 2 coffee stops in Taunton at the 25 and 75 mile points and a tasty lunch overlooking Blue Ancor Bay on the north coast and on the return to took time out to watch a local steam train. It was a real boys' own adventure!

Watchet on the North Coast

Our next epic club ride will be a return to Dartmoor on 27th August to do the Classic's 100 km route.

Run Like Froome

July 1st this year marked the start of 2 key cycling events, the Seaton Cycle Fest and the Tour de France and how better to celebrate such an occasion than with a run. Yes, OK, not the first thing that would come to mind for a cyclist but was perhaps a precedent set for this on last year's TdF.

The idea for a run to mark the start of the CycleFest was one hatched by fellow club cyclist, press officer for British Athletics and Event Director for our 5km Seaton Park Run, who thought it would be good for existing runners who were also cycle club members, to wear their cycling jerseys for that Saturday's Park Run. Then a few weeks prior to the day, I happened to be unwrapping my TdF programme and the page fell open to a picture of Chris Froome running up Mont Ventoux, having just had his bike written off by a camera motor cycle during last year's race. Three words came to my mind 'Moves Like Jagger"? .. no but close, it was "Run Like Froome" .. and from this tag line I started a social media frenzy which galvanised my Cycling Club to do something that most would never normally do, and this was to enter a running event!

I mention Social Media, as I got two very impressive mentions .. Artist and author Mark Fairhurst tweeted me a picture of Roadrunner in lycra with the words Va Va Froome ...

And Froome himself 'Liked' a picture I then posted of our 'Friday Flyers' group out on a training run!

On the day itself we had an amazing turnout .. here are some snaps and yes, I'll probably be back to do it again sometime, but new shoes will be required as the soles on my 10 year old trainers self destructed after the first few metres running on cobbles! 

The AVP Runners

I think I'm happy to have finished! 

And the route .. 

An Update in the eTAP

Getting dangerously close to doing a product review, I thought having been asked by fellow blogger The Book Munchin, that I would do an update on my dramatic move to going wireless!

It's been 3 weeks now since I set to work, in the back of my local cycle shop, stripping out all the Shimano cables, wires etc to replace them with, well, air! Yes, I took the brave leap into the world of SRAM's wireless gear change.

Before I go on to share my experience of this leap into the brave new world of wireless cycling, it won't surprise you to learn, that my evenings are currently devoted to catching up on the goings on of that little cycle race taking place over there in France. Interspaced between the racing and ads, one of the presenters, cycling star Chris Boardman, will take to his bike to share a mountain climb, descent or sprint section and to cover a magazine slot looking at a piece of cycling technology. It was during one of his spins along a sprint finish that I spotted the tell tale battery blister packs on his derailures that could mean only one thing, he was running the same SRAM eTAP as I now have. It surprised me then to hear him say,  in his later magazine pitch about the evolution gears, that he did not see the point of electronic gear change .. until, that is, I let him finish his sentence when he added ".. until SRAM released their eTAP"! Like me, he agreed that getting rid of wires and cumbersome batteries in down tubes was revolutionary. I felt vindicated in making my leap. Since then, I've seen that in addition to Boardman Bikes, many frame manufacturers have quickly taken to adopting eTAP.

The Tarmac eTAP en route to Dartmoor

Anyway, back to my experiences on the Specialized Tarmac, has eTAP lived up to expectation. Well yes and no. Firstly, the not so much: I've had a couple of times when the chain has dropped off the outside of the chainset. To be honest, I think this is just the way things are and it's probably both user error and a some slight adjustment that's still required. My Roubaix does this quite a bit too, but with a bit of quick thinking it's easy enough to get it back on the small ring while keeping the pedals going.

The other disappointment is that it is not 100% silent in all gears, there is still a little chatter in the mid range, particularly on the big ring.

But, on the plus side, there is no chatter either side of this, and in the small ring which I can stay in for much of the time, it's smooth and quiet. Also the move between gears with the flick of a finger is awesome, as too are the glowing gear numbers on my Garmin, letting me know just how many teeth I have left on my gears during a climb, avoiding that embarrassing moment of going for the next gear only to find I'm already there! Yes, I love my SRAM eTAP.

The Venge .. must remember it's not eTAP 

There is one other challenge I've come across. When out on the Venge the other day, it was a blue sky day, so definitely a day for the orange Venge, and it was a Team Time Trial ride, so definitely a day for the aero speed machine. I got on the wheel of my mate in front and then proceeded to forget how to change gear! I got dropped in my failed attempts to shift to the big ring and had to put in a mammoth effort to catch them back up. There's only one answer, I'm going to have to fit eTAB to the rest of my fleet! "Dear Bank Manger ... "

I've Gone Wireless

I didn't write about this last year, but I've had an absolute mare of a time with my 2013 Tarmac gears, pretty much since I got the bike. Although running one of Shimano's top of the range sets, they have always been difficult to tune, suffer from frequent chatter, stiff gear change and chain drop. Last year I tried replacing all the cables; no small deal as they are integral and my local bike shop were less than pleased with how long this took. I even had to return it to them to do it all again! Still the problems persisted.

One option considered was to scrap the whole thing and get a new bike. A bit rash may be? Well, I thought so too, so I've taken the plunge and invested in a wireless electronic groupset running SRAM eTap. Although still pretty revolutionary, I preferred this over Shimano's Di2, as the latter would have had bulky cables and battery packs to thread through those dreaded down and cross tubes, and wireless seemed so much more forward thinking.

I went for the SRAM Red eTAP with the WiFli rear mech to handle cassettes up to 32 teeth. This enabled me to reinstall the Tarmac's original semi-compact chainset (52x36) which I replaced with a compact back in 2015 to handle the Devon hills; the reason being that I would be able to have more teeth on the rear due to both moving from 11-28 to 11-32 and from 10 to 11 speed. Trust me, this is the perfect setup for this area. This will allow me to spin on a climb and still pedal on even the steepest descents.

I set up in the corner of my friendly bike shop; more for moral support and having access to all the right tools. I felt the real bike mechanic! I had booked 2 days off work to complete the installation; I'm a project manager by profession, so knowing my mechanical capabilities, having plenty of contingency was key! As it was, the removal of old and the fitting of new bar tape, leavers, cassette, chainring and derailures, including tuning, took around 5 hours, so I was done and dusted before closing time.

I still have a little bit of fine tuning to do, but the change is dramatic. No more sore wrists pushing on cables and no clunking, rattling, missed gears to contend with. Yes, I'm going to have to keep an eye on battery levels so as to avoid returning from rides on a fixie and walking up hills, and I'm a little lighter in the pocket; but I now have the equivalent of a £6k bike for a fraction of the cost and one that works, looks great and should at least last me another year!

Hottest Ride of the Year

'Twas an epic Coffee Club Ride today in so many ways .. definitely the hottest ride to date, with Andy's Garmin recording 28 degrees in the shade! It was also the longest, as we broke with Coffee Club tradition and headed out to Honiton via Sidmouth on a 50+ mile pedal. We also added in 2 additional feed stops .. ice creams in Sidmouth and coffee in Honiton.

The plan had been to stop at Escott (a superb Country House coffee shop) as it was rumoured Dawn's ladies may have been calling in on their ride; as it was, we arrived just as they were leaving and so agreed to delay our next stop 'till Honiton. It was amazing to see so many ladies out today, the peloton seemed to stretch on for miles!

After Honiton we climbed up to the Stockland 7 mile straight via the Tue TT (Time Trial Club) route and an added narrow hill climb; which it's unlikely I'll ever find again. It was then a dash to the A35 and the most direct routes home for all.

A top ride, incredible weather and proud to see so many Pedallers crisscrossing the Devon lanes today

2017 AVP Treasure Hunt

Last week I held my 3rd Treasure Hunt for the AVP, you know the crowd, the Axe Valley Pedallers, my cycling club. Before writing up this report, I checked back to last year's event and saw that we had 22 participants forming themselves into 9 teams. For this year's event, we had 20, making 5 full teams of 4; it couldn't have been planned better.

This year, we also had a change to the format, with a minimum £5 donation per team going to my club's charity, DAAT - Devon Air Ambulance Trust. Before continuing with the ride report, let me digress onto a related topic of charity donations. The AVP has always been a supporter of DAAT, indeed, I understand this dated back to the formation of the club in 2005. In recent years, however, the DAAT logo on all our jerseys has not necessarily reflected the level of financial support we've given to this great organisation. Last year, we agreed to increase our subs by £1 so that we could guarantee a flow of at least £100 of donations to them. This was certainly a step in the right direction, but it had the effect of removing any further incentive to raise more. So, in this year's AGM I fought to remove the sub levy while still committing to guarantee we'd donate at least £1 per member by the year end. So, what difference has this made? From all the events we've so fare run this year, we've already raised 2x our 2016 achievement, with £45 coming from the Treasure Hunt!

Back to hunt .. the route was mostly a well pedalled one for us pedallers; from Seaton, via Seaton Hole, to Beer, up past the caves and down to Branscombe beach. From here we climbed collecting treasure all the way to the observatory returning to the famous Donkey Sanctuary in Branscombe for refreshments and the debrief!

Our treasure hunters went on safari through the seasons in search of sculptures, counted petrified fungi, made calls from green telephone boxes, stared at skulls and journeyed back in time to when St Winifreds School Choir sung Grandma! Yes, it was a surreal adventure for our brave Pedallers! And if you're interested to know if our champions, Roger & Becca, walked away with the yellow jersey again, the answer is, no, we have new victors for 2017. I think teaming up with a fellow pedaller to devise the fiendishly challenging clues, threw all, just, I guess happens when the Times crossword changes its question setter!

I guess with the continuing success for this event, I'll be back again next year to do it all again.