Mountain Climbing… Slight Hill Really!

Today I cycled from home along to St Marys Church , along the cycle path a few times, I carried along to the far end to the Oxford Road where I turned left and went onto Hampton Poyle then up the very high mountainside to Bletchingdon, yes I am being ironic but this is the rather deadpan Oxfordshire. I just did a U-turn in the road and rode home via Gosford.

This maybe a very short ride, 10 miles or so, compared to what I used to do and I am much slower but this ride has given me a huge leap of confidence and last time I tried this ride I fell off!

 

 

Turbocharged…

I cycle trained on my Tacx turbo trainer today. Usual issues with the turbo’s are the Tacx ones that firmly fix the bike upright, apart from the front forks which are allowed to rotate, the bike is not  allowed to move in any other direction apart from the pedals and rear wheel obviously.

I decided to give my FES another try on this set up just so that I was only worried about pedalling not balance, traffic, or road hazards like I encounter on my Mountain Bike. Therefore I taped my FES heelswitch on the left side cycling shoe insole, foot side not under the insole, then sliced one of the vents in the side of the shoe allowing me to tape the transponding ariel to the top of the shoe.

Unfortunately it seemed in a easy gear ratio, 42 x 17, my technique was not good enough to make the FES work consistently I thought all hope was lost and would never be able to train my muscles to work effectively.  Once I had warmed up for five minutes in the easy gear, I then remembered that I had been told through VC Venta, Winchester cycling club, that to increase leg power, which I obviously want to do, I should try using a big gear. I changed up to 52 x 14 and tried pedalling 10 intervals of 6 seconds with a 54 second recovery. My FES worked really well even when I then changed back to the easier gear to warm down.

 

Cycling

Today I cycled 8 miles and it was very stop/start due to most of it being around Kidlington. I had to give way to oncoming traffic that was passing parked cars frequently also I had numerous junctions to stop at yet I didn’t fall off my bike. This was particularly good because I removed the stuck on car wheel weights from my wheels, making my mountain bike more nimble and lots easier to pedal up hills! I can’t wait to go out on it again.