onionbagblog

A rare midweek roll out on Wednesday evening to burn away the bacon and booze from the morning after. Or was it the night before? Either way, the wheel that turns is the wheel that burns. Especially so when you have a new all in one lycra body suit to ponce around in.

Oh Lordy.

Midsummer evenings are made for cycling. A cheeky post-work roll out, and then back at base in time for Le Tour highlights.

Chapeau!

This wasn’t so much a time trial Race of Truth, but ARSE - I’de only forgotten to record Le Tour highlights. Pedals down, last man (or woman) left sweeping up in the broom wagon gets to miss the Marseille stage.

There is no hiding in the pelaton; there is no hiding on the mean streets of the Tendring border when your every pedal stroke is being mapped by the mean little app that is Strava.

A simple pressing of the big red button at Le Grand Depart and your every energy expenditure, speed and cadence is stored in the back of your pocket for in-depth analysis later. Failing that then it at least pads out a blog post and provides a nice little map in which to embed.

The Comrades back at Brixton Cycles probably provide the best advice when it comes to on board tech and bicycles. The Co-operative will sell you a cycling computer, but they probably rather wouldn’t.

An obsession with performance and improvement is an unhealthy trait for any amateur cyclist. It removes the pure joy of the pedal stroke and having no other aim than to explore and observe new surroundings.

I prefer a halfway house approach myself. Which means that if the ride is going well then I will obsess over the data until I’m dreaming about cadence levels until sunrise. If I’m bonking over the Tendring border then there’s always the delete button.

And so the roll out on Wednesday evening was roughly my winter running route. Oh the shame of uploading the data later in the evening, only to find that pounding the mean streets of the Peninsular is almost on par with my cycling speed.

Whoops.

I haven’t had the time yet to analyse in detail the double dips that characterise many parts of the map. A steep learning curve can be seen towards the peak of Ten Penny Hill. As is customary, I confess to playing the Lance poker face card halfway up, only to give my riding companion the race face glare before I fucked off over the peak.

Childish, but yeah - Chapeau!

A map malfunction can also probably be found around the more technical aspects of the route around, um, Great Bentley. A wrong turn, and then a stationary track stop whilst I waited for my route reading riding companion and a race face apology.

With the clock counting down to Le Tour highlights, sadly there wasn’t time to take in the splendour of the sun struggling to burn away the daytime gloom hanging over the Colne Valley. With a strained squint through the race specs and you could *almost* be halfway up Alpe d’Huez as the sun attempts to add some energy to the Grand Tour.

I was caught short with the sight of the water sprinklers in a field just outside of Aingers Green. The all in one lycra bodysuit was too much of a faff to find the Old Man in a field and add to a little extra sprinkling of my own.

Never mind. It will all come out in the wash.

Elsewhere around the ride and there wasn’t a great deal of other lycra action to be seen. The race face boys were probably all better organised and catching up with Le Tour.

Ultimately the app never lies, even if the blog post possibly might. The Race of Truth soon became the Race of Strewth, when I realsied that a mild midweek roll out clocked some pretty impressive speeds.

I’m told that it’s possible to add a little data manipulation to the app. Unhealthy obsessions and cyclists go together like lycra and piss stains.

Chapeau!