yeee haa I'm racing bikes again!

My first love affair with cycling...

I first fell in love with bicycle racing almost 25 years ago. I had a couple of friends who were mad cyclists and eventually I decided to give it a go. Right from the first minute I loved it! I loved that it was a individual sport. I loved the training, the camaraderie between the cyclists and above all I loved the racing; the tactics, the pain, the sprint for the line. I very quickly became obsessed.

Two years later I was progressing fast through the cycling ranks in New Zealand when I badly injured my back. This was before the days of MRI scans and I was never able to get a diagnosis; the most likely explanation was a herniated disc caused by a bad neck and head trauma I'd suffered the previous year in a cycling accident.

It was 1991 and I just turned 17 and through my back injury I was forced to stop cycling. On one hand I was gutted. But as I had progressed through the ranks the pressure to perform and the seriousness of the sport had also increased. I missed the care-free days that were the norm when I first began cycling so, subconsciously at least, I was relieved to have a break.


Rekindling the love..

4 years went by without racing. I got right into swimming as therapy for my back and later, as my back healed, I began to dabble in running and triathlons. I always struggled in the swim and run leg of a triathlon and always blitzed the cycling. One day I made a decision to get back into cycling and give it my all. I missed it. From then on it was clear to me what my direction was and I thrived on the training.

For the next few months I trained hard (largely by myself) and loved it. I was rediscovering cycling all over again. There was no pressure, no expectation, just the joys of riding and getting fitter. When you cycle everything is amplified; the surface of the road, the different smells, the birdsong, the way the setting sun lights up a nearby paddock. Each of these things that pass by unnoticed in a car are sources of joy for the cyclist. I began to rediscover and love the simple pleasures of cycling.

After training hard by myself for a few months I entered my first cycling race, the Palmerston North to Wellington classic in New Zealand. The field contained many of my cycling heroes. I had never seen these guys before in the flesh and now I was lining up to race with them!

The first hour of the race went well and, just before arriving into my home town, I managed to get into a breakaway with two of my cycling heroes; one of them was an olympic medalist, the other a professional cyclist who'd ridden in the Tour de France. I had a grin from ear to ear!

Just before beginning the big climb of the day (see photo) I suffered a puncture which put an end to my chances of getting a top result. I still chased hard and ended up getting 8th which I was super pleased with.





That race was an awesome experience and after that I decided to get right into cycling. It became my life for the next two years and I enjoyed some good results. However I was impatient to win big races and become a professional cyclist.

I put far too much pressure on myself. Physically I was able to compete with the best guys in the races I entered but mentally I was really missing those 4 years out of competition. I didn't have the race 'smarts' and I used to get far too nervous and worked up before races, even ones that were fairly insignificant.

Eventually this pressure, coupled with having no money and no life outside of cycling, got too much and I gave the sport away for a 2nd time. I moved to the big smoke of Auckland, New Zealand and stopped cycling altogether.


the big smoke of Auckand, New Zealand


The next 15 years went by fast. There were a lot of great times: I travelled a lot, lived in 4 different countries, returned to university, carved out a career, bought a house, got married and had two kids. There were also negatives: I put on 25kg (55 lbs), my back injury returned (this time it was confirmed as a herniated disc), and I became very sick with late stage Lyme disease.

Eventually I was able to overcome both the Lyme disease and my bad back. This involved a lot of changes to my diet and lifestyle to ensure that my body had the best chance possible to recover. A positive side effect of these lifestyle and dietary changes was that I began to have much more energy and began to have the mental space to think about doing fun, exciting and physically demanding adventures again!

And so in September 2012 I decided to do a race again. I decided to enter Lelystad-Enkhuizen-Lelystad which is a 51km time trial in the Netherlands for recumbent cyclists. It was a super hard experience but I loved it and ended up getting 5th.

It's been 5 months since then and I've been training hard and lost 10kg (22lbs) and am much fitter than I was.

I'm really loving my cycling and am planning on doing some more races this year. I've learn't my lesson from my previous two love affairs with cycling so am approaching things differently this time around.

This time I'm cycling pure for the love and joy of the sport and for health and fitness. I have no desire to be a professional cyclist. Each time I line up on the start line of a race I'm going to try and remember to reflect on where I've come from and what I've overcome to be there. I'm going to focus on cycling purely for the joy of cycling, for the joy of being in that moment.

I'm just super happy to be healthy and fit again and to have energy for cycling and other fun adventures!

14 hours (400km) cycling in a day!

Last friday I had a day completely to myself as my wife and kids were in Scotland visiting 'granny'.

In a moment of madness a couple of days earlier I had decided to try and cycle the 'rondje ijsselmeer' which involves cycling a loop of the ijsselmeer, the largest lake in western europe. The course (see map below) was 280km (174 miles). I had never cycled that far in my life and in the past 12 years I had only cycled more than 100k once so it was definitely a step into the unknown!


I bought a Netherlands GPS cycling card for my Garmin and then spent Thursday evening planning a course and getting my food, drink and bike ready for the next day. I packed a few bottles of cheap supermarket bought energy drink, some bananas and an energy bar. I figured this would be enough to last the distance (oh how wrong I was!!).

Thursday evening I went to bed relatively early, very excited about the following day. I had my alarm set for 4:45am and woke up a bit earlier feeling full of energy and ready to go.

I gulped down a couple of large fruit smoothies, some energy drink, took the dog for a walk and by 5:30 I was on the bike and off.

My strategy was to break the ride down into 3 sections (marked on the map above). Up until point 1 on the map I planned on taking it super easy, keeping my heart rate under 115 beats per minute and conserving my energy.

It was quite a brisk headwind on the first section of the journey. It was dark and cold when I began but after an hour or so the sun began to rise. The most amazing sight I saw along this stretch of the journey was a small herd of wild deer who ran alongside me for a short while.

The only problem on this first section was that the course I had mapped out on my GPS device didn't work. Even though I knew I was following the right road the device still told me I was off course. I had never used a bike GPS device for navigation before so it was probably something wrong with my preparation rather than the device itself.

About 3 hours after setting off I arrived at my first checkpoint. This was really the go or no-go point. At this stage I had the option of turning back or taking a shorter route back through Amsterdam. If I kept going there was no turning back. My mind, body and bike were all working fine and I didn't even consider turning back.

However with my GPS device playing up I wasn't sure of the route I should take in order to get to Den Oever. On the map above it looks straight forward but in reality I was slightly inland, unable to see the lake and had no idea where to go (lesson = take a map!). I programmed in Den Oever into my GPS and set off. After following an extremely indirect and narrow cycle path I eventually made it to Den Oever. I was still feeling fine although I was starting to worry about my GPS which was getting pretty low on battery life.

I hadn't even considered running out of batteries and I hadn't taken a map as a back-up. So I switched off my GPS and began the approx 32km crossing of the Afsluitdijk that links Noord-Holland with Freisland.

The crossing of the dijk was awesome. The bike path was smooth, fast and as I'd been cycling 5 or 6 hours I started to get into quite an awesome zone. I was sitting on 40km/h with a heart rate of about 125 beats per minute and felt great.

Once I reached the other side of the dijk that's where my difficulties began. I had no idea what roads to take and got completely lost in the maze of water ways below Sneek. I tried to use the GPS again but it was taking me on bike paths which required ferry crossings. Unbeknownst to me, the ferry's only run from April to October so I had to retrace my steps a number of times.




Eventually I found my way to a town and managed to get directions on how I could get to my 3rd milestone and beyond. At that point it was getting late, I was out of food and drink and I was under a fair bit of time pressure as I'd promised to meet my family at the airport later that evening.

It was a matter of putting my head down and going for it. On the plus side I felt remarkably good, the bike was running like a dream, and I had a beautiful strong tail wind helping me.

The last couple of hours flew past. Although I was woefully underprepared in terms of food and drink I never once 'bonked' and over the last hour I was able to cycle easily above 40km/h. My GPS had run out of batteries by then but I was on familiar roads and going for it!

I arrived back home at 19:30. I had just cycled pretty much non-stop for 14 hours. As my GPS had died I'm not sure of the distance but I reckon it was at least 400km.

I grabbed a bit to eat, jumped in the shower and then the dog and I rushed off to the airport. I got there just in time to buy some balloons for my girls and then there they were coming out of the arrival gates.

What a day!

As I'm writing this it's now Sunday, 2 days later and I'm still very tired from my adventure. My muscles are sore but sore in a good way. I have no concerning knee or back pain, just a bit of muscle soreness.



Here a few observations and learning points from the ride:

1) I loved it!!!
I totally loved it. It was an awesome adventure and I definitely want to do more long distance cycling. I'm harbouring a desire to ride Paris-Brest-Paris in 2015 (it's a 1200km cycle event) and after this ride I'm really motivated to pursue that dream.

2) I felt fit and strong the whole way
The distance and time on the bike was a real step into the unknown but I felt good the whole ride.

3) Plan the course and take a map!!!!!!
Next time I need to be better prepared in terms of understanding how to better use the GPS navigation and knowing in advance the route I want to take. And I need to take a map!

4) Take more food and drink
I should have taken twice as much. I was riding my quest velomobile so I had plenty of room. There were not many opportunities to buy food along the way so next time I need to take at least twice as much.

Can Lyme disease increase your (sports) pain threshold??

I'm currently training for some recumbent bike races in 2013. Up until today I've been focusing on building endurance and aerobic capacity, primarily through steady, fairly low intensity rides.

But with my first race just over 4 weeks away it's time to start mixing in a bit of speed work and interval training. Today I did my first serious interval training session in years. Actually decades! The last time I did a session like this was back in 1997 and I can still remember dreading it.

Today's session was not easy. Two 5 minute intervals at a heart rate of between 168 - 172 bpm. I had a good breakfast, a good warm-up, psyched myself up and then let it rip... and it was surprisingly easy!

I accelerated until just over 50 km/h (30 m/ph) and then just held it there. My heart rate was in the right zone so I was definitely working hard, but it didn't really feel hard. My form was good, my breathing was fine. In The last couple of minutes of the interval I ramped it up even more, pushing towards 175 bpm. At the 5 minute mark I eased off, but I felt like I could have kept on going. I rode easy for a while to recovery and then repeated the interval with the same results.

I was very happy and curious after the session. Why had it seemed so easy and how will that translate into racing performance when I start racing later in the year?

One good training session doesn't make a season and it could just be that I was having a great day. In any case it was a great session and I'm amping to get out there in a few days and try it again!