Team Wiggle Tandem : New Years Blog
Mynddoedd Bendigedig
364 days of the year I spend time telling myself to clean my bike and get inside, showered and changed in the quest to keep healthy after a ride. Maybe it’s just the way I was brought up, taught by old clubbies and ex-pros, but the idea of just ‘hanging about’ outside on a cold midwinter’s afternoon would normally be anathema to me. But what the hell, it’s the last day of the year and nobody, not even my friend and colleague Sean Kelly, known for his dislike of ‘hanging about’ could have denied me the 10 minutes of sheer joy at watching the snow covered slopes of Snowdon light up in the setting sun with a brilliance and beauty that defies adequate description.
New Year in North Wales has become a welcome fixture in my life since I met my wife Jan 5 years ago. Raised in the shadow of the Snowdon Horseshoe, her parents still live a short bike ride from the mountain and I am constantly amazed that more riders don’t come here for training. Flat on the coast and valleys and as gruelling as you want elsewhere, the roads are about as well surfaced and quiet as you could wish and nowhere in the country could have claimed to have been more satisfying or more stunning to ride through on the last trip out of the decade.
It couldn’t have come a better time for me in all honesty as self doubt, poor weather, lack of focus and the usual problems of accommodating the busy festive season have eaten so heavily into training that at the end of each week that I’ve pretty much torn up Colin’s feedback log and sat back marvelling at how former record breakers ever had enough hours in the day to do any meaningful training.
The midwinter moment of crisis came during a trip to Marc Laithwaite of The Endurance Coach Ltd who, having wired me up for my very first ramp test, exposed to me just how far I still have to go if I am going to become an effective engine for the tandem, or as Marc diplomatically had it: ‘I’ve provided an accurate baseline to measure your performance improvements against’ 350 watts sustained power is simply not going to me enough, especially when you consider you can probably knock off 80 or so over such long distances in the saddle.
Despite the inevitable doubts that play on your mind when you undertake a project like this neither Jez or I could have got anywhere near where we are now without the dedications and support of family friends and sponsors since we first mooted the idea in the summer of last year. A huge thank you to; Wiggle, Dolan, Bioracer, SIS, Rotor, Sports Massage Zone, Power Tap, Hope Technology, Madison, and of course Richard Gorman and P7 Racing Ltd.
2010 stretches before us now and that aspiration to become the fastest ever tandem pairing across the length and breadth of Britain has suddenly taken on a frightening solidity. So, it’s back to the training plan, redouble my efforts to make up for lost time and lost focus, turn attention back to being a proper bike rider and the good news is, it’s just one month until Team Wiggle Tandem’s 1st training camp of the year right back here in inspirational Snowdonia.
Byddwch yn Ofalus
Dave H
View the route here