CycleFit - Jules and Phil Etape di Tour Blog

Brompton Aerobatics - Phil's Story

I have to discuss something very controversial. I dread to raise it really but if I don't my lack of training will seem like the slothful laziness of a middle-aged man. To discuss it is to invite a clattering of antagonism from partisan quarters and worse.
Here we go.

I am sitting writing this wincing with my 2nd bout of cracked ribs in three years and a peach of a black-eye that has members of the public openly staring at my wife's strong Welsh hands.

I have just had my fifth accident on my Brompton in just four years. Whilst I let that sentence hang-out there like trouble brewing I should also say that I have not fallen off any other bike – cyclo-x, road, mtb..etc in all that time. And that sentence is a surest curse if ever I uttered one.

Brompton Lowsides
The first two were classic Brompton low-siders– taken down onto a new Edwin-denimed knee by camber and road-surface alone – both wheels taken from underneath me as I JRA'd (Just Rode Along).

Fosbury Flops
The last two have been much more serious and each has involved unscheduled Fosbury Flops over the upswept Brompton bars – not an insignificant hurdle to clear.
The first ‘Fosbury' occurred outside Russell Square tube station about eighteen months ago. The lengthy bus-queue audience, will jointly and severally testify that the hand of god was almost certainly present. I had pulled away from the traffic lights at smart lick and was accelerating out of the saddle trying to pass a parked car without being nurfed aside by the revving cars behind, when it happened. A brief period of weightlessness and perplexity followed by a jolt of pain and vague post-crash depression and fug.
A & E took their time pronouncing a couple of cracked ribs. Being an expert in this particular field ( I once passed out in a break from the effort and rode into a chain link fence unconscious at 25-30mph) I knew it meant: one week of agony, another two in major pain and lack of sleep, followed by another three weeks feeling gradually better. I have no more idea now what caused that crash, than I did snotting, huffing and puffing from one foot to another when I first picked myself up off the tarmac.

And now this one. I have a suspicion that this one was part due to mechanical failure – I found the front brake calliper embedded in the spokes post crash - almost certainly a maintenance issue. Nevertheless the same balletic bar-clearance was inexorably tailed up by a dead fall onto a hard concrete road, with if anything more force than my last flight. I sat winded, dejected and confused about the cause. The idea came into my head that there must conceivably be a less dramatic dismount routine from a Brompton in a crises?

One thing is clear that me and Bromptons just don't fit and this one is going in the bin. What remains are questions. Are Bromptons inherently unstable? Is it a Brompton/Cavell interface issue? i.e just the way I ride them? Has anyone else had any similar experiences?
Yes I had a crashing reputation as a racer but that was probably because I had the confidence (and so I thought at the time skill) to live on the ragged edge for my whole career. And yes I had a couple of truly spectacular tumbles but I also raced thousands of miles in the heat of competition without incident. No lesser a man than Warrick ‘Speedy' Spence – himself not shy of a lean-angle or two – once commented that I was one of the few people he had ever raced with who he struggled to follow around a corner (and god the sound of that sentence that makes me proud).

And here I need to be careful. Brompton is now the UK 's most prolific manufacturer of bicycles, and they are still made by a highly skilled workforce in a factory in Brentford, London . Moreover I honestly and openly respect the ingenuity and passion that has made the company the success they are. The core folding design of the Brompton is astonishing – school kids on day trips and fellow commuters are endlessly delighted by any skilled Bromptoneers slight-of-hand reverse-tardis routine. They still fold more elegantly and faster than anything else available. Ad-break over.

But I do have a few questions about the way I feel when I ride them.

Firstly 16” wheels seem to leave very little contact patch with the ground (the larger the wheel the larger the turning circumference and consequently larger contact patch). This necessarily means less traction and grip for any given situation – important to note if you ride and corner hard. And a 16” wheel will also unavoidably be more sensitive to bumps and irregularities in the road – a bump that disappears under a 700c wheel can become a meaningful obstacle on a smaller wheel – this in turn will have a further effect on traction and grip as the wheel will be more unsettled for more of the time and more so the rougher the road-surface gets.
Furthermore I have always found the ride twitchy and nervous compared to a regular (well fitted) bike – I am not sure if it is a weight distribution issue? Probably this is all just personal perception and not a problem to the majority of Brommies – it isn't like you see them hanging from lamp-posts or trees on your morning commute is it? So it must be if you are used to riding on the rapid side and try and take your normal momentum onto your folder? Allegedly.

But for now I am on the bus/tube/walk everyday until the ribs heal enough to ride again. I tried half an hour on a turbo-trainer last week but everything is way to tender at the moment. But even though the whole xmas/jan period was slow for me on the training front and yes I did eat rather a lot. I actually feel more relaxed than this time last year. It may be self-delusion but I don't feel like I will be digging myself out of the same hole I was last year? The 2008 Etape, although hideous in every way, did leave me in quite good condition (for me) and I managed to ride 4-6 hours most weeks until the beginning of December and our first CycleFit School

For his part Jules is is already in shape and just has to polish his form for the big day – it seems he hasn't really stopped building since the day after the 2008 Etape? I think Gold is a racing certainty for him for '09.

Oh yes the fifth Brompton incident for the more observant reader - I rode flat out (14 mph) into an unseen barrier in Hyde Park in October. A morning in A&E later and two doctors dsagreed in front of me as to whether my wrist (s) were in fact broken. A charming consultant had the final say and I was sent away to get on with it. Which was totally right as my Popeye wrists shrank back to girlie normal in short time.

We're All Belgian Now - Jules' Story

Well my plans for the Xmas cross race were spoilt by a sort of chesty cough/ cold thing that never really materialized into anything, I ended up having four weeks off the bike with the Christams hols and whatnot, which wasn't really the plan.

With the Tour of Flanders looming at the beginning of April I started my regular commute on the 6 th January, clocking up a 6, 9 and then a 12 hour week before an easier week last week. It's my first period of structured training that I have had in years and the low intensity riding seems to be working, I'm not too tired by the end of the week and have been putting in an effort up the Mur de Blackheath on the last ride home before the weekend as a bit of a tester.

The cold weather is proving to be a bit of a drag and the snow has made riding in a bit of a stressful experience this week, hopefully I will get in about seven hours by Sunday if the weather holds. I have even resorted to fitting a cheapo mudguard to keep the icey water off my backside.

Seeing as I missed the cross season again (I won't mention it anymore) I thought I would treat the family to a trip to the UCI World Cyclo-cross Champs in Holland at the weekend. The trade-off was a bit of shopping in Antwerp which would have been very pleasant but for the kids moaning and a wind chill of about -20!

The riders were very impressive and Jody Crawforth produced an awesome ride, having been gridded close to 60 th at the start he battled throughout the race and managed to catch a group in front on his last lap (which also was the fastest recorded by any rider) and made up several places. It would be nice to see him spend a season riding in Belgium he is a talent.

So there we were at 10:30am in the morning with 30,000 already pissed Dutch and Belgian fans one of whom decided to start rocking the portaloo while my wife and daughter were in it, bellowing at the top of his voice. My wife could just make out his stupid red and yellow hat through the air vent. Fortunately for him he understood my wife's two word instruction and left them in peace although my daughter will probably never go in a portaloo again.

The beer tents were belting out techno from the loudspeakers and I'm sure we saw as we left after the race we saw someone crowd surfing naked.

I spent an hour and a half in sub zero temperatures guarding our spot on the barrier and by the start of the race was firmly hemmed in with the kids having to squeeze past fans to get a look.

Behind us was an old man in a tree who had a great view, unfortunately a lot of fans found it great entertainment as they walked by to give the tree a shake to see if they could remove him and get his space.

After a great race it all went downhill from there…..

It took an hour and a half to get out of the car park and then after dropping Kimberly off the sat nav kept taking me back to the train station in the middle of the town and not back to Calais, after 5 attempts at escaping and some shouting, an hour later we swapped drivers and reprogrammed the computer.

It said straight on but the road was making us turn right until I spotted a gap in the barrier.

“Go straight”. I said to Penny, “I can't” she said “there are trams and footpaths and pedestrians, people on bikes even”.

“You must” I said, “I cant”, she said.

“You must, you must, you must”!

We did, we escaped Antwerp; thank God the kids were watching ‘Babe' in the back with their headphones on they would have been scarred for life.

Already behind schedule we headed to the terminal, missed our train, waited on standby for another hour and eventually set off at 11:00pm. Arrived in Folkestone but never managed to get off for another half hour due to a car breaking down in front of us.

Lest I forget on the way out our train was stuck for an hour in the tunnel with the light dimmed (I tried not to think about all that water above us)

So much for popping over to the Continent for a weekend break, I'm still getting chest pains when I think about it.

Phil 's done it again poor fella, over the handlebars of his Brompton. He's got a massive black eye and bruised ribs and is in a lot of pain….its going to set him back a bit for Flanders bless him.

He will get back on his bike again, he's not sure why, but he will.

Now is your last chance, you have to tell her.

Those vague references about Provence in July, a week in Mallorca in the spring, they have to be put in the calendar, right next to Sports Day and Parents Evening. …..

“A family holiday darling?”

“No babe, just me”.

You can't avoid it any longer and the more notice you give the better, just get it over with, you'll feel better for getting it out in the open….it's all about communication.

Links:

CycleFit/Balance Physio Clinic
Warrick Climbs Ventoux

Link to January Blog ..more
Link to February Blog ..more
Link to March Blog ..more
Link to April Blog ..more
Link to May/June Blog .. more
Link to July Blog ..more
Link to Etape Aftermath Blog ..more

info@cyclefit.co.uk

www.cyclefit.co.uk



	2009 Here we come! See below. Or maybe not? God he looks like shit... Phil's preferred Brompton dismount routine So now he travels to work like this. Happy? Is he intending a ceremonial burning? 2008 Etape start - note the clean bar-tape... Jules fixes Nat Cross Champ Helen's cleats in Belgium Kimbers, Mrs Wall, Elsa and Frites and mayonnaise - it's what you do in Belgium? Jules dragged his family to Belgium to watch people run with their bikes???? Jules travelled to Belgium to do this. Jules commutes on an Ottrott. Doesn't everyone? Soon be time to get GPM car revved up!!! 2008 - Jules training in those famous Kent mountains. 2008 Etape Finish	JULES AND PHIL'S ETAPE BLOG - FEBRUARY ISSUE Brompton Aerobatics - Phil's Story I have to discuss something very controversial. I dread to raise it really but if I don't my lack of training will seem like the slothful laziness of a middle-aged man. To discuss it is to invite a clattering of antagonism from partisan quarters and worse. Here we go. I am sitting writing this wincing with my 2nd bout of cracked ribs in three years and a peach of a black-eye that has members of the public openly staring at my wife's strong Welsh hands. I have just had my fifth accident on my Brompton in just four years. Whilst I let that sentence hang-out there like trouble brewing I should also say that I have not fallen off any other bike – cyclo-x, road, mtb..etc in all that time. And that sentence is a surest curse if ever I uttered one. Brompton Lowsides The first two were classic Brompton low-siders– taken down onto a new Edwin-denimed knee by camber and road-surface alone – both wheels taken from underneath me as I JRA'd (Just Rode Along). Fosbury Flops The last two have been much more serious and each has involved unscheduled Fosbury Flops over the upswept Brompton bars – not an insignificant hurdle to clear. The first ‘Fosbury' occurred outside Russell Square tube station about eighteen months ago. The lengthy bus-queue audience, will jointly and severally testify that the hand of god was almost certainly present. I had pulled away from the traffic lights at smart lick and was accelerating out of the saddle trying to pass a parked car without being nurfed aside by the revving cars behind, when it happened. A brief period of weightlessness and perplexity followed by a jolt of pain and vague post-crash depression and fug. A & E took their time pronouncing a couple of cracked ribs. Being an expert in this particular field ( I once passed out in a break from the effort and rode into a chain link fence unconscious at 25-30mph) I knew it meant: one week of agony, another two in major pain and lack of sleep, followed by another three weeks feeling gradually better. I have no more idea now what caused that crash, than I did snotting, huffing and puffing from one foot to another when I first picked myself up off the tarmac. And now this one. I have a suspicion that this one was part due to mechanical failure – I found the front brake calliper embedded in the spokes post crash - almost certainly a maintenance issue. Nevertheless the same balletic bar-clearance was inexorably tailed up by a dead fall onto a hard concrete road, with if anything more force than my last flight. I sat winded, dejected and confused about the cause. The idea came into my head that there must conceivably be a less dramatic dismount routine from a Brompton in a crises? One thing is clear that me and Bromptons just don't fit and this one is going in the bin. What remains are questions. Are Bromptons inherently unstable? Is it a Brompton/Cavell interface issue? i.e just the way I ride them? Has anyone else had any similar experiences? Yes I had a crashing reputation as a racer but that was probably because I had the confidence (and so I thought at the time skill) to live on the ragged edge for my whole career. And yes I had a couple of truly spectacular tumbles but I also raced thousands of miles in the heat of competition without incident. No lesser a man than Warrick ‘Speedy' Spence – himself not shy of a lean-angle or two – once commented that I was one of the few people he had ever raced with who he struggled to follow around a corner (and god the sound of that sentence that makes me proud). And here I need to be careful. Brompton is now the UK 's most prolific manufacturer of bicycles, and they are still made by a highly skilled workforce in a factory in Brentford, London . Moreover I honestly and openly respect the ingenuity and passion that has made the company the success they are. The core folding design of the Brompton is astonishing – school kids on day trips and fellow commuters are endlessly delighted by any skilled Bromptoneers slight-of-hand reverse-tardis routine. They still fold more elegantly and faster than anything else available. Ad-break over. But I do have a few questions about the way I feel when I ride them. Firstly 16” wheels seem to leave very little contact patch with the ground (the larger the wheel the larger the turning circumference and consequently larger contact patch). This necessarily means less traction and grip for any given situation – important to note if you ride and corner hard. And a 16” wheel will also unavoidably be more sensitive to bumps and irregularities in the road – a bump that disappears under a 700c wheel can become a meaningful obstacle on a smaller wheel – this in turn will have a further effect on traction and grip as the wheel will be more unsettled for more of the time and more so the rougher the road-surface gets. Furthermore I have always found the ride twitchy and nervous compared to a regular (well fitted) bike – I am not sure if it is a weight distribution issue? Probably this is all just personal perception and not a problem to the majority of Brommies – it isn't like you see them hanging from lamp-posts or trees on your morning commute is it? So it must be if you are used to riding on the rapid side and try and take your normal momentum onto your folder? Allegedly. But for now I am on the bus/tube/walk everyday until the ribs heal enough to ride again. I tried half an hour on a turbo-trainer last week but everything is way to tender at the moment. But even though the whole xmas/jan period was slow for me on the training front and yes I did eat rather a lot. I actually feel more relaxed than this time last year. It may be self-delusion but I don't feel like I will be digging myself out of the same hole I was last year? The 2008 Etape, although hideous in every way, did leave me in quite good condition (for me) and I managed to ride 4-6 hours most weeks until the beginning of December and our first CycleFit School For his part Jules is is already in shape and just has to polish his form for the big day – it seems he hasn't really stopped building since the day after the 2008 Etape? I think Gold is a racing certainty for him for '09. Oh yes the fifth Brompton incident for the more observant reader - I rode flat out (14 mph) into an unseen barrier in Hyde Park in October. A morning in A&E later and two doctors dsagreed in front of me as to whether my wrist (s) were in fact broken. A charming consultant had the final say and I was sent away to get on with it. Which was totally right as my Popeye wrists shrank back to girlie normal in short time. We're All Belgian Now - Jules' Story Well my plans for the Xmas cross race were spoilt by a sort of chesty cough/ cold thing that never really materialized into anything, I ended up having four weeks off the bike with the Christams hols and whatnot, which wasn't really the plan. With the Tour of Flanders looming at the beginning of April I started my regular commute on the 6 th January, clocking up a 6, 9 and then a 12 hour week before an easier week last week. It's my first period of structured training that I have had in years and the low intensity riding seems to be working, I'm not too tired by the end of the week and have been putting in an effort up the Mur de Blackheath on the last ride home before the weekend as a bit of a tester. The cold weather is proving to be a bit of a drag and the snow has made riding in a bit of a stressful experience this week, hopefully I will get in about seven hours by Sunday if the weather holds. I have even resorted to fitting a cheapo mudguard to keep the icey water off my backside. Seeing as I missed the cross season again (I won't mention it anymore) I thought I would treat the family to a trip to the UCI World Cyclo-cross Champs in Holland at the weekend. The trade-off was a bit of shopping in Antwerp which would have been very pleasant but for the kids moaning and a wind chill of about -20! The riders were very impressive and Jody Crawforth produced an awesome ride, having been gridded close to 60 th at the start he battled throughout the race and managed to catch a group in front on his last lap (which also was the fastest recorded by any rider) and made up several places. It would be nice to see him spend a season riding in Belgium he is a talent. So there we were at 10:30am in the morning with 30,000 already pissed Dutch and Belgian fans one of whom decided to start rocking the portaloo while my wife and daughter were in it, bellowing at the top of his voice. My wife could just make out his stupid red and yellow hat through the air vent. Fortunately for him he understood my wife's two word instruction and left them in peace although my daughter will probably never go in a portaloo again. The beer tents were belting out techno from the loudspeakers and I'm sure we saw as we left after the race we saw someone crowd surfing naked. I spent an hour and a half in sub zero temperatures guarding our spot on the barrier and by the start of the race was firmly hemmed in with the kids having to squeeze past fans to get a look. Behind us was an old man in a tree who had a great view, unfortunately a lot of fans found it great entertainment as they walked by to give the tree a shake to see if they could remove him and get his space. After a great race it all went downhill from there….. It took an hour and a half to get out of the car park and then after dropping Kimberly off the sat nav kept taking me back to the train station in the middle of the town and not back to Calais, after 5 attempts at escaping and some shouting, an hour later we swapped drivers and reprogrammed the computer. It said straight on but the road was making us turn right until I spotted a gap in the barrier. “Go straight”. I said to Penny, “I can't” she said “there are trams and footpaths and pedestrians, people on bikes even”. “You must” I said, “I cant”, she said. “You must, you must, you must”! We did, we escaped Antwerp; thank God the kids were watching ‘Babe' in the back with their headphones on they would have been scarred for life. Already behind schedule we headed to the terminal, missed our train, waited on standby for another hour and eventually set off at 11:00pm. Arrived in Folkestone but never managed to get off for another half hour due to a car breaking down in front of us. Lest I forget on the way out our train was stuck for an hour in the tunnel with the light dimmed (I tried not to think about all that water above us) So much for popping over to the Continent for a weekend break, I'm still getting chest pains when I think about it. Phil 's done it again poor fella, over the handlebars of his Brompton. He's got a massive black eye and bruised ribs and is in a lot of pain….its going to set him back a bit for Flanders bless him. He will get back on his bike again, he's not sure why, but he will. Now is your last chance, you have to tell her. Those vague references about Provence in July, a week in Mallorca in the spring, they have to be put in the calendar, right next to Sports Day and Parents Evening. ….. “A family holiday darling?” “No babe, just me”. You can't avoid it any longer and the more notice you give the better, just get it over with, you'll feel better for getting it out in the open….it's all about communication. Links: CycleFit/Balance Physio Clinic Warrick Climbs Ventoux Link to January Blog ..more Link to February Blog ..more Link to March Blog ..more Link to April Blog ..more Link to May/June Blog .. more Link to July Blog ..more Link to Etape Aftermath Blog ..more info@cyclefit.co.uk www.cyclefit.co.uk