I have to say that up to now just about everything has gone right for Team Wiggle Tandem. Our sponsors and crew have been phenomenally supportive and with a steady diet of training and the honing of our knowledge of records and each other as riders, it couldn’t have been too much more on song.

However neither of us is in the first flush of youth and inevitably injury has come upon us both as we have ramped up the intensity and the hours. In the space of 10 days the collective Team Wiggle Tandem medical sheet has racked up a knee injury, a slightly torn left Achilles and a crash resulting in heavily bruised chest and hip.

Specialist knowledge and treatment is absolutely key to both containment and eventual treatment of any problems that have cropped up during this project and Peta McSharry at Sports Massage Zone in conjunction with coach Colin Bachelor of Total Cycle Coach have swung into action to make sure that with only around a month to go until the Side to Side, everything humanly possible can be done to keep 2 aging bodies together and improving.

A switch to Speedplay pedal systems for Jez seems to have vastly diminished the strain on his right knee. The process of active pedalling analysis included video analysis on a static trainer and slow and careful adjustment of the cleat and stroke pattern until the pain began to easy, fascinating stuff.

The left Achilles tendon tear will prove more problematic but even so I have to say that I am not too disappointed in either what level of fitness I had exhibited last week in Snowdonia with two 8 hour rides and a 10 hour under our belts, even after a heavy crash into a stone wall that left me gasping for air.

Now in Nice on the Endura training camp, there are an awful lot or bike riders kicking their heels as huge storm waves batter the seafront and the walls of the Roche Marina Hotel, making long rides a waste of time for the boys, especially those desperate to avoid any situations that might lead to injury before tomorrow’s Tour du Haut Var race. Jez however, being the ‘wee hard man’ of Islay still put in 5 hours while I could appreciate the interior comforts of the hotel and a little remedial work on the ankle.

So what happens if injuries plague the team right up until the day of an attempt? Well such is the nature of record breaking that if 100% of the circumstances aren’t 100% right on any one day…you just don’t go. I am still slightly envious of the young bucks around us who tomorrow will line up to duel with the cream of French racing but the more professionals we come into contact with as Team Wiggle Tandem the more it’s apparent that there is still huge respect and regard for riders who train and ride for those old and well regarded records and playing the long game is all part of the romance and the science of record breaking.

Keep riding. Be safe

DH

The official launch party for Team Wiggle Tandem took place on Thursday 21st January 2010. The announcement for their series of World Record attempts was released to numerous sponsors and cycling press during a two hour press release at the Charlotte Street Hotel in London. We have an exclusive video report of the presentation for you to watch.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Follow Team Wiggle Tandem on the Wiggle Athlete‟s Diary www.wiggleblog.com, or at the team‟s website, www.teamwiggletandem.com alternatively find the team on Facebook and Twitter

With crunching reality 2010 is upon us and clearly Skadi, the Norse goddess of Winter is no great lover of tandem attempts as she’s made damn sure the country has received the very best arctic weather direct from Scandinavia. There comes a point when you just have to shrug your shoulders and accept that you are just not going to get out training on the roads much..if at all.

Thank goodness then that I am now fully aware of just how precious those training camps coming up in February and March are going to be to the success of Team Wiggle Tandem. They say that every mile on a bike during winter is like depositing a pound in the bank and all I can say is that after my recent ramp test with Marc Laithwaite at The Endurance Coach Ltd in St. Helens the balance sheet is looking a little light.

Dripping sweat and with heaving lungs I packed at just under 380 watts sustained for 2 minutes as my debt of carbon dioxide climbed above my intake of oxygen. Is it enough? I don’t know is the honest answer to that but it would be true to say that another 2 months will see a significant increase in power to weight ratio as kilos come off and miles pile on but what was far more interesting than my current condition was the insights into my metabolism the test highlighted.

Historically I had always trained early morning on just a dual shot of strong coffee and no food for either breakfast or on the ride. I have also always been a big gear masher. Both of these things seem not to be in favour in modern cycling but the fact that even during warm up I was burning almost exclusively carbs and no fats seems to confirm that the espresso preparation technique was probably right, I just turn excess carbs to fat and then don’t burn it off unless I force my body to do so.

Jez and I are also switching over from heart rate zone training to training based on power metres which for those of you who have never used is rather like riding a turbo on the road. If you set a target wattage you stick to it and there are none of those micro-recovery freewheeling moments on the road and that too should see a healthy effect on both weight and strength.

Next up is the launch in London at the end of the month followed immediately by our first dedicated week on the new Dolan Super Tandem. In London at least I’m sure we’ll let our hair down..well I will..even if Richard and Jez can’t!

Dave

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

Made to measure

Riding a tandem is a tricky thing. Riding one for upwards of 15 hours against the clock is not only tricky but specifically designed to test each part of your body until it screams to be allowed to vacate the unfeasibly hunched position you have crammed it into in order to gain maximum aero effect.

Training for long hours both on the road and on the turbo will certainly condition our minds, as well as bodies, to being tucked down, something that we intend to quantify and refine in the wind-tunnel before we make an assault on Britain’s long standing road records, but get the equipment wrong and you are finished as a serious record prospect. As the team structure comes together our Focus Cayo training and Mares Cross Expert bikes are being pressed into serious action and master frame builder Terry Dolan aims to have our record attempt tandem ready to ride by Christmas. .

When the rather bizarre idea to try breaking road records popped up last summer, other attempts by far more famous athletes than Jez and I hadn’t emerged, but, as the failure of multiple Olympic champions James Cracknell and Rebecca Romero to break the mixed tandem record from Land’s End to John O’Groats shows you just can’t do enough preparation for road records. Luckily for us the bike left over from the abandoned attempt has become the everyday workhorse for our dual training and a process of constant position refinement on this test bed machine has sped up the build process of what we hope will be the fast tandem machine ever constructed in the U.K. when it rolls out of Dolan’s Ormskirk facility.

Mind you the weather hasn’t helped much, neither the fact that my wife Jan dislocated her elbow eventing a horse in the course of the last month. The upside is that I have caught up on a lot of movies whilst sitting on the turbo trainer at ungodly hours of the day and night, a not so subtle mix of inspirational blockbusters and cycling offerings of such gruesome pain that they make you realise that actually, you’re not suffering at all…

When it’s not been blowing a gale here in Shropshire it’s been raining but one of the upsides of having a sponsor is the range of wet weather kit available. Honourable mention must go to the dhb Wickham eVENT waterproof jacket. Unpretentious and classically uncluttered, the Wickham has generous arm and back length, good close fitting tailored cut, breathable fabric and packs well for the rear pocket. These are all qualities you want wish to see in a top flight lightweight waterproof jacket but what makes the Wickham stand out is it’s exceptional waterproofing which is refreshed by washing and then cool ironing the garment…I have never come across this before in a jacket but believe me, it works.

Look out for a whole range of clothing and kit thoroughly long term tested by Project 7 Racing and Team Wiggle Tandem over the course of 2010 for all the features that matter to riders. Not just a magazine style day tests, or a week or even a fortnight but the punishment of day in day out riding, washing and yes, in some cases even ironing!

Ride safe

DH