I was quite fired up to go to the lecture at ECU as posted by Lorraine earlier in the blog. The title was a tantalising “MYTHS, SCIENCE AND PERFORMANCE IN CYCLING” and the promise of an international speaker in little old Perth was always a good endorsement.

My wife actually conceded to spend some “bike time” with me and come along as she has a passing interest in training and exercise physiology (we get entertained by that geeky stuff at home).

After rushing through the all day operating list to make the 7pm start (no patients were disadvantaged by trying to get out on time – only trainees) and gulping down a quick dinner we made our way to Joondalup ECU. My wife was co-piloting, and I have learned long ago that she always is right.

We progressed slowly up Thomas Street to be confronted with something not usually a hinderance on the bike – rush hour traffic. More tedious than doing a trackstand at the lights, I was secretly jealous as I saw rider after rider pass. It also gave me a chance to reflect on (appaling) Perth drivers’ behaviour. I think one problem is the attitude that every last spot needs to be fought over and cars left and right were revving up to beat the Yaris to the next lights. People simply cannot stand to “lose” position in the stream of cars, and the senseless swerving and lurching makes traffic less predictable and consequently less fluid.

That behaviour is carried over with merging, as it is not the done thing to let someone into the lane lest they actually drive in front of you. Some drivers couldn’t believe it when I wouldn’t contest the spot in front of myself and gave way. They seemed quite smug to be 3m ahead of me in a queue moving at 3kph. One day I’ll go for the spot, but preferably in an old beat up uninsured Valiant. Newer cars like Prados and polished HSV utes seem to shy away when a carefree old banger with no paint to lose muscles in.

Anyway we arrived at Joondalup ECU with most of our cool intact in plenty of time to find that the talk was titled “MYTHS, SCIENCE AND PERFORMANCE IN CYCLING“. Unfortunately we found out it was subtitled something like “the influence of crank lenght and pedal velocity”…….. Oh dear – we had left out eggheads at home and were not keen on a tedious dissertation (that is what we go to work for).

Anyhow as 7pm rolled up, the room filled with young cyclist types, older masters been cycling before you were born types, not sure if you are an exercise phsiologist or a cyclist or both types, two women who were somewhat patronised by the predominantly male crowd who looked like they were actually very fit riders themselves and demonstrated their seriousness by actually brining paper to take notes types, myself, fuming wife, Jerard, simmering Lorraine (spearate incident the night before).

James martin himself was actually quite good speaker, but had unfortunately lost some of the crowd in his esoteric talk. I will summarise:

Crank length does not seem to matter with MAX POWER (study of 16 with 3 crank lengths from 140-220mm at differnt cadences)

Crank length does not seem to affect fatigue due to the lever effect (as we have gears on our bikes). Fatigue occurs proportional to a pedalling harder, and more times (duh!!)

Pedal speed seems to be the buzzword with regard to making more power.

Pedal speed is proportional to metabolic cost (duh!)

No magic formulas or secret tricks – to go harder and faster you need to get stronger and fitter and more aero/reduce load.

All that stuff about making circles round the pedal stroke is likely to be fallacy – we have ample proof in Johnny and in the past Alistair who kick butt riding in tennis shoes and not doing an upstroke.

I actually suspected as much, although physiology reseach is seriously underpowered statistically when comparing to larger trials in medicine. There were other “highlights” of the night in some questions that came up, but even now I can feel the heat radiate from my wife as they came up. I must say however that it was quite worthwhile to see a scientific discussion although I probably owe my wife bigtime for indulging in my hobby.

Maybe she would like a new bike? Something in 48cm frame?

Le Kuan

Ride report by Jonny

Well firstly apologies to all those for the lateness of the blog. Not many volunteers this week and with many of the usual bloggers not on the ride I was the best they could come up with. ! Also apologies for not knowing everyone’s names but after a year and a half out with injury there has been a number of new faces to appear in the bunch.
Looking round the car park at 6.55 their was only four of us gathered around Lorraine’s car wondering if anybody else was going to turn up; but by 7am like lambs to the slaughter the herd had gathered.
After a gentle role round to Riverside drive the bunch seemed to have grown again back to the usual numbers we have come to expect. A tail wind meant no shortage of willing workers and a pleasant role down towards Nedlands. After the first drag up it was interesting to see that a small group of six had a little gap at the top and four of those were from our strong female division. The tail wind and a good effort from Anna and the Fleet mechanic guy (sorry names) had us continue at 40km/h and a break at the Stirling hwy lights was welcomed to get the heart rate down.
I thought it would be a good idea to stick pretty close to the front for the run down the dog leg and then not be too far back at the start of Mossman park hill. All those who have done the Great bike ride would know this hill but for quite a few this was their first time up and a bit of a shock to the system. Dan and his Milram twin decided being off the front is even better than being near the front and attacked before the dog leg to get a nice gap before the start of the climb. I’m not sure if they were still at the top by the water tower as the pace definitely picked up on the hill once certain riders were unleashed. John commented later that it would take him a while to get over the image of me going past him up the hill in my Nike trainers.
After a re-group at the water tower the bunch continued towards Fremantle. Now this wouldn’t be a ride write up without the incident with a car. This time it looked like while we were heading down Stirling Hwy a car moved into the lane in front of us then didn’t seem to pull away. I was at the back at the time so didn’t see exactly what happened but what I did see was some quick reactions by everybody in the bunch to avoid any crashing.
Heading up Preston point road we picked up Team Bic – Dr’s Paul and Wally in there matching kits; quite how these guys got ahead of us to this point without a boat I am not sure but I suspect they might well have avoided Mossman park hill. After a little work with Ryan on the front he suggested a role-through into the wind and I was very happy with this. By Burke Drive the pace was on and the bunch seemed to have created a new form of riding into the wind with an inside and outside lane moving forward and a middle lane coming backwards. We might see this being adopted in the Tour’s team time trials but I somehow doubt it. A few riders tried to get off the front here but with the winds it was never really going to happen in the strong wind.
After another re-group the bunch followed Canning Hwy back to Perth. I think the combination of a headwind and traffic lights meant the bunch fragmented quite a bit and a few times I looked back to see a bunch catching us up only to be caught at traffic lights or else someone in our group would drive the pace and they didn’t get on. The same thing was happening in our group with people riding off the front only to get caught at lights and us catching them up again. The only incident on the Canning Hwy was a motorbike that seemed to accelerate from the lights very slowly and then at the last minute put on his left indicator and slow right down. Seems it’s trendy now to hit a motorbike as Andre Griepel and Lance Armstrong have shown, but luckily none of the Rouleurs decided to follow this trend.
At the traffic lights coming onto the causeway a group of 12ish was together and as we re-started Ryan went off up the road. Myself, Bec, Anna and another gave chase with the wind behind us and although each time I checked my computer we were doing 50km/h we could not get across. Looks like lots fun was had at lights and in the wind as groups seemed to be coming in for a while afterwards.

ride report by mark

the river looked glassy as i rode in from home along the bikepath up the freeway, and i had a good feeling about todays ride. we started off with 21 riders on what was the most perfect morning i’ve had so far this year.

there was a good mix of new and familiar riders, young and more experienced (i’m starting to prefer that to “old”) and included two girls. with pete and a few of the big guns away, things looked a bit more open on the points chase. stu must have been happy when he saw that.

john b and i lead the way out, and after a little confusion up front, we headed off via douglas street towards albany highway. the traffic lights all seemed to be changing at the right time; more indications of a good ride ahead. i couldn’t help comparing it to last week, when we had a howling headwind along the same road, which made things very different.

all the way thru gosnells, past brookton highway, (some of the group took a short cut up brookton hwy) to the somewhat imposing climb of carrawatha rd. it’s short but it sure as hell ain’t sweet.

i took it easy as a salvo of eager guns roared past me as the hill kicked. i knew if i chased here i could spoil the rest of my morning, and with great weather and some hill points up for grabs (not something i’m usually interested in) i wasn’t about to do that. i watched my heart rate and kept it below 180 for the climb, and ended up at the top with moderately aching legs, but still content to carry on with one of my least favourite hills; carradine.

the positions at the top of carawatha were: 1 stu, 2 jerry, 3 jeff.

dr carl had to turn back at the top to attend to his overseas guest at home. the rest of us had a careful descent, knowing that the t-junction kinda sneaks up on you, and then turned left for the long steady climb up to the next t junction at canns rd. this time i tried; i really tried to stay with the front runners, but no luck. stu took off as usual, with jeff  and dr jerry on his wheel. i sat with them for about 500m, and then decided the heart rate was not good for me. dr mark came past me quickly, and i sat with him for a while, and even took a turn in front, but he was more determined, and i watched him go after the others in the last 500m. that gave him 3^rd place. jerry did well to pass jeff and take second place, with dr mark 4^th, me in 5^th. Stu took first.

a couple of the new lads looked tired at the regroups, but they were keen to press on, and so we did. we stuck together well enough to all remember the right turn at churchman brook road, and had a leisurely decent past the dams, safely around “scott’s corner” and on to the next regroup stop at brookton hwy. at this stage the weather was still pleasantly cool, although the humidity was unusually high for a clear blue-sky day. as we started to climb pete rd, i knew that i had to stay with the front boys to have any chance of points. after the steep bit of pete rd, it flattens out a lot, and if one has a bit of a break, two or three riders are hard to catch for a lone chaser. jerry made the mistake, and i hung onto stu and jeff for dear life, that is until stu got bored and went ahead to play on his own after the roundabout on raeburn rd. i sat on jeffs wheel till i thought i could outsprint him, which i did, to take second. jeff was third, followed by shao, and i think dr mark or jerry was next. john b told me over coffee that he chased like hell there, and overtook, thinking he was going for a point, only to find he had chased for 6^th. bummer, i’ve done that a couple of times.

we regrouped again at the servo, where some stocked up with various performance enhancing fizzy drinks and lollies. still the weather felt fresh, and there was hardly a breeze to speak of, as we coasted through pickering brooke. stu decided that he didn’t need any more points, so he went off to do the observatory; and he took two other suckers for punishment with him. we were suitably impressed.

we cruised round to the start of the last climb, with everyone pretty much together as we rounded the corner at the bottom of mundaring weir rd. my speedo wasn’t working by that stage, which was a good thing, as i didn’t really want to know my heart rate. the wind was slightly into us, which meant no record breaking speed, but still just as much effort. it’s fair to say that jeff did all the work up the hill – not even most of it. so jerry and i did feel a tiny bit bad when we dropped him at the last kick after the false flat. but only a tiny bit, and it didn’t diminish the joy we felt at getting first and second. i stayed with jerry on his first kick, and wasn’t sure how much it took out of him. i was disappointed to find out that the answer was “not enough” – he timed his second kick perfectly just before the last right hand bend, and had nothing to answer with. he took it by 50m or more. jeff got third, with bill and dr mark taking 4^th and 5^th.

the coffee was good, and it was great to see 15 of us there, including some first timers, herman & shun. on the home run, it was good to see everyone riding single file again along the canning rd, and i think the motorists appreciate it. jerry got a break as we crossed onto welshpool, and stayed away on the descent. john b and i caught him at the bottom and kept a good pace to the lights, where john took the sprint. as we approached albany hwy, anna let rip with a break, and no-one was quite sure what to do. then lisa jumped, and the two of them were away. the levels of testosterone in the pack went ballistic; gears ground and chains hopped as everyone tried to save face for the male species. it was close but i think we just made it. anna went again at the approach to macdonalds, but jerry was ready for it and eased past for the last spoils.

i came home the long way, along the river all the way. south perth, freeway bike path, and mt pleasant esplanade; and on a day like today, even though it was pretty warm by then, i realised why perth is such a fantastic place to live if you’re a cyclist. a total of 118 km for me for the day, which was just what the doctor ordered.

Please see the flyer regarding a free presentation on:

MYTHS, SCIENCE AND PERFORMANCE IN CYCLING

to be presented by Dr

James Martin from the University of Utah.

Presentation commences 7.00pm
Thursday, 19 February 2009
Lecture Hall 19.141
Building 19
School of Exercise, Biomedical and
Health Sciences
Edith Cowan University
270 Joondalup

Drive, Joondalup 6027

Everyone is welcome. You do not have to ride with Elite or ECU.

If anyone is interested in meeting up about 6’ish for a drink or bite to eat leave a message in the comments.

Lorraine

sorry, been without internet access for a couple of days. 

a nice ride around the river planned for saturday.  we will keep together as one group so make sure that you regroup at the standard places and keep the fast sections to just the hill at mosman, and burke drive.  the fast run home can start once the group passes the como hotel.  look after each other please.

sunday, just a nice climb up around mt nasura and roleystone.  good training if you are doing the pemberton classic in a few weeks time.

south perth rouleurs saturday ride 02 (river ride)

south perth rouleurs sunday ride 01 (carradine & peet)

Ride report by Brendan (VP ) 🙂

Well after checking my program before heading off it seemed I was meant to do all the hills at a “hard” pace hmmm well off to the usual start.
Once there it was nice to see a group of around 25 riders.
After Pete explained the days ride we set off towards them there hills..
A few usual guys n gals were up at NDCC crit at Osborne Park so also shows just how big our group(guess we can say club soon J) is. Great to see. let us know how you guys went….

Trip out was nothing unusual, plenty of laughs and general chit chat and how annoying the wind was getting, oh yeah we had a nasty puncture that sliced one of the guys tires like Pete’s the other week, alas ride was over and home he went, bugger(sorry didn’t catch the name but feel free to add a comment) .
Once out near our first turn towards the lovely Kahuna we turned straight into a rather nasty head wind that straight away made quite a few start thinking and talking of how today’s ride was going to hurt.

Onward and upward to the lower slopes of our first climb, with no one really willing to push to hard considering the wind I remembered my program of riding hard on the hills so I decided I may as well stretch the gang out and see who wanted to play (read hurt) today. I attacked pretty hard and gapped out to 100m (guessing) and rode to over half way before looking back to see the damage, guessing more from the wind than trying to chase me… As usual Stu and co were in a good rhythm up the hill so that allowed me to set the rhythm to match to ensure I scored max points for the climb.

kahuna
Brendan 10, Stu 7, Ben 5, Paul 3, Andrew 1

After our regroup Dr Paul and a few others headed off for a shorter ride and we threw around the motion of skipping Peet rd due to winds etc was going to make the ride approx 5km shorter which was approved so off we headed down the normally fast decent towards Peet rd but with the high Head wind the speeds weren’t so fast today. Once at Peet rd we re grouped just to make sure no one headed up the hill (as original map) and we headed towards soldiers climb. When free wheeling down Peet rd you realise how steep it actually is and with that nasty T intersection on the hwy it pays to have well adjusted brakes.

So onto the climb #2 a steady tempo was set which was pretty much maintained all the way up ensuring a sprint finish was on the cards, after a quick chat to confirm the finish line the pace crept up until we were over 40 with the tail wind and increasing, I had 3rd wheel and was in a prime position and launched about 200 or so meters out to take the win. With remainder at

Solidiers rd
Brendan 10, Stu 7, Ben 5, Paul 3, Peter 1

After re grouping at the T intersection and me getting the crap scared out of me turning around and being face to face with a bloody great horse we were off down to Bedfordale climb #3. Once on the climb a nice tempo was set with Pete and I in second wheel talking about when some attacks might happen and sure enough near the top Pete launched and quickly gained a gap which at first no one was too keen to chase so I eventually got out front the inside line and chased with just about everyone in tow. Once we caught up the last rise prior to the turn off/finish line to Canning Dam I launched hoping everyone was too tired to go again and time trialed to lead everyone else there with Gerry leading the gang into await a final regroup prior to heading over towards our second last climb up Gardiner rd.

Always nice to cruise along this rd when the weather is hotter as its usually quite fresh through there which anyone who has done it in winter will attest it gets frigging cold.
Once over the rough section and onto the nice smooth Bitumen we had the great decent in towards Araluen Park where we had another re group to ensure we had everyone before the nasty little climb back up Gardiner rd and to Karagulen servo for a quick food/drink stop as req’d. Back o the climb we set a reasonable tempo which I couldn’t resist a few surges to see who was feeling ok, once up the first main part of the climb and onto the sharp corner we accelerated again to pretty much force a split of Stu, Ben and I from the others but I was feeling pretty good so had a few accelerations on the last rolling climbs and only seeing 1 wheel behind me I kept upping the speed to dislodge who ever was there which took until the last rise before Brookton Hwy which I though was Stu and on turning around realised it was Ben so onwards to the servo for re group.

Gardiner rd
Brendan 10, Ben 7, Stu 5, Paul 3, Peter 1

Its really great to see everyone getting stronger as the time we wait for re group seems to be getting less and less and the top 5 of climbs always has a few different names in order over the last few months so good work peoples,

Once relieved and fuelled as req’d we headed over towards our last climb into Kalamunda with the only scare of the day coming from a big Redneck F250 ute driver straying onto our side lining us all up which raised a few heart rates and flurry of words towards him but gladly he ventured back onto his correct side of the road. When we had reached Pickering Brook Melvyn and Michael (new cervelo guy) decided to cruise straight into Kalamunda while we ventured down past Sanatarium factory down the quick decent with Mark using his downhill skills to lead us only to get rather friendly with a Harley Davidson bike on the corner which resulted in a rather close passing manoeuvre.

Over to Mundaring Weir rd and onto one of my favourite accents into Kalamunda.
Mark set the pace early only to come back to the group after the first bend and the pace started moving up, Stu was the first culprit so I went pretty hard to see who could push the pace, Stu got back up to me and surged as he went passed me which highlights how well he goes on his old bike (look out when the cervelo is back) but I was feeling good so got the wheel and sat tempo but Stu paid his price for closing the gap and went back a gear so I jumped again and as I was pushing my bike ring I rode hard up to the top and started thinking of a cold drink and food as I watched Stu come in for second.

Mundaring weir to Kalamunda
Brendan 10, Stu 7, Ben 5, Mark 3, Jerry 1

As the group rolled into the coffee shop we all re fuelled on an assortment of yummy food and hot n cold drinks. A few laughs and comparing different stories of the days ride we finally packed up and headed back to Welshpool road decent where I made sure I had Marks wheel as He always descends very well and a fast pace is ensured and with a new record (for me anyway) we hit 92.4 Kmphr and time trialled to he end for a re group at the school. Not long after we were on our way towards home, mainly uneventful trip home, the tail wind was nice and the pace stayed nice and high pretty much all the way through to Berwick and down to Bunnings for a quick chat and laugh before we all took our weary legs home for a well deserved break.

Total Kms for the day (my computer) 110kms and plenty of tough climbs and strong winds are sure to help those that are heading to Pemberton.

Geez reading back I waffled a bit so sorry to those that got bored reading this.
Take care and ride safe, Brendan