Giving up

That Garmin Vector ad had been haunting me for weeks on my FB front page (how did they know?). Yes, I had been following the power meters closely ever since a friend of mine purchased the Polar/Look pedals about a year a go. I’m generally pro measuring what really counts, and contra letting any sort of analyzing or testing get the upper hand of the exercise itself.

However, I understood that I live in a place with no mountains within a two hour flight, and not even a 10 minute uphill within a day’s car trip. So in order to be prepared for the mountains,

Haute Route Dolomites – seitsemän päivää satulassa

Perjantaikokin blogi

(Kuvat reissusta alempana. Video vielä ”työn alla” – tunnen aiheesta ison piston sydämessäni…)

Haute Route on brändi, jonka suojissa järjestetään kolme maantiepyöräkilpailua Keski-Euroopassa. Mainoslauseen mukaan kyseessä on korkein ja haastavin pyöräkilpailu, johon amatööri voi osallistua. Enpä ole muita vastaavia kokeillut, joten vertailukohtaa minulla ei ole, mutta voin silti allekirjoittaa korkeuden ja haastavuuden.

900 km, 20 km nousua

Otimme osaa tiimillämme Dolomites & Swiss Alps –kisaan, joka ajettiin elokuun kolmannella viikolla Venetsiasta Geneveen. Luvassa oli seitsemän päivää satulassa, noin 900 kilometriä matkaa ja viikon aikana fillarilla kiivettäisiin kahdesti merenpinnan tasosta Mount Everestin huipulle – ainakin nousumetreiksi muutettuna. Oman mittarini mukaan siirtymisineen matkaa tuli tosin yli 1000 kilometriä!

Kisan idea on tarjoilla parikymmentä legendaarista nousua, siis ”passia” sekä ammattilaiskilpailun tunnelma ja organisaatio amatööreille. Kisaan osallistui nelisensataa kuskia ympäri maailmaa. Ikähaitari venyi paristakympistä kahdeksaankymppiin ja tunnetuin Haute Route –kuski lienee yksijalkainen ja yksikätinen Christian. Suomesta meitä oli kuusi fillaristia ja muodostimme Team OK…

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Saarison rengastie polkupyörällä – kesällä ja marraskuussa

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Kesällä toteutin yhden haaveeni: ajoin Saariston Rengastien fillarilla. Viime vuonna poljimme Lyytiläisten kanssa Jäämereltä Turkuun kolmessa päivässä, joten 200 kilometrin lenkki saaristossa hoitui luonnollisesti yhdessä päivässä. Yhden päivän reissuun ei tarvitse anoa kotoa edes yövapaata.

Sain houkuteltua seuraksi neljä muuta polkijaa, joten vetoapuakin löytyi. Yhden polkijan, Team Rynkebyn kapteenin Heikki Lähteenmäen pyöräkaveri oli jopa laatinut excelin , jossa on kaikki reitin lautat ja osuudet. Voit ladata excelin käyttöösi tästä. Siinä voi jopa vaihtaa keskinopeutta, jolloin tiedät, mihin lauttaan ehdit omalla vauhdillasi. Huom! Aikataulu oli pätevä kesällä 2014. Tulevaisuudesta ei tiedä kukaan.

Porukkamme starttasi 5.8.2014 Turusta hieman aamuseitsemän jälkeen ja poimi minut sekä pk-seudun vahvistuksemme Ollin mukaan Kaarinasta. Taivas oli pilvetön ja ennuste lupasi kuumaa päivää. Garminin kello näytti 7.25, kun käynnistin ajanoton.

Kaikki porukassamme harrastavat maantiepyöräilyä, mutta olimme sopineet, että vedämme reitin ”kohtuullista” vauhtia. Vauhti olikin kohtuullista aina Nauvon lautalle saakka, sillä Kaarinasta Paraisille vievä pyörätie on niin…

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November done

At least for us living in the dark North, November can be a cruelsome month. This time November took off by me being properly ill for the first week, which accumulated quite a bit of work for the coming weeks – thus no blogging for a while. Things didn’t get any easier as I sold my flat, and was preparing for a move. Summing it up, however, it wasn’t all that bad.

– I got the Garmin Vector power pedals. They’ve been mostly good. The low output numbers are frustrating, but [they keep me pedalling/give me incentive]. Who needs Sufferfest when one has power output and left/right balance on one’s computer, right?

-We paid a quick visit to the Costa Blanca region in Spain, which was amazing from a cycling point of view.

-Finally got past the 10k mark. That came with some 115.000 vertical meters.

-Managed to squeeze in 41 hours of training – a tie with January as the lowest training volume this year.

-The Oltre was delivered, and thanks to the lack of snow, I actually had a go on it before parking it for the winter.

Will get back to the Vector, and some other gear related topics once we get past the move.

Le Tour 2014

The route for the 2014 Tour de France was published today. As already announced earlier, the first three days will be pedaled on UK soil. And as expected, having visited L’Alpe d’Huez twice this year, the Tour will not visit the Iseran ski resort next year. The often frequented cols nearby – Galibier, Glandon or Madeleine won’t see the peloton either. Instead, on stage 14 the riders will go straight through the roundabout in Bourg d’Oisans and head through La Grave on to the Lautaret, and from there onwards to the Izoard, finishing at Risoul that day.

Other interesting stages will be stage 10 from

Bike cases

As some of you may know, I had a very unfortunate incident with my beloved Colnago last summer. For years I have been using a hard case borrowed from a friend. With the past Haute Route project coming up, I thought it was to time invest in my own case. As I had previously done a little bit of flying with a bike, I was well aware of the problems resulting from having to take the steed in pieces (the more you disassemble it, the more likely something goes wrong).

So I did quite a bit

On Cycling Shoes

Dear friends, I need your help. My well served Sidi Ergo2’s are wearing out. I’ve had them fixed one or two times, but now the fabric at the heels seems to be giving up. Or someone might say  “they’re only fixable by duct tape” – something I’m not too keen to see either on my bike or boat.

When I acquired this pair in

Training camp #1 done

Contrary to my fears we managed to keep the matches in the jersey pockets, for most of the time anyway, and there was plenty of good old boyish banter and the occasional Limoncello. We stayed in Pienza, which is a nice little town nestled between Montepulciano and Montalcino, and provides easy access to Monte Amiata.

On the first day we headed, of course, for the 1700 meter Amiata. Unfortunately or not, for

Training camp #1

Decision made, goal set, time to start training! I was looking forward to the latter part of this week as relaxing rides on rolling South Tuscan hills with good friends, excellent food and hmm..  local wines. But as it happens, 4 out of 12 of our jolly riders have already registered for the Haute Route, so I’m afraid it will be bent towards burning matches on Monte Amiata. We will be staying in Pienza, and plan to ride around the local hills and villages for the end of the week. If you have any suggestions on what not to miss, please do let me know. Will report on how it went later, now off to do some packing. Hopefully no need for wet weather gear.

On another note, She decided to do it too. The Haute Route, not the Brunello. The reasoning

Setting a Goal

Now that the decision is made, is it time to start training?  No – first we have to set a goal!

For the 2013 edition I started training in January, 7 months prior to the event. At that time I stepped on a scale showing  95 kilos, and felt reasonably fit: I was excercising 5-10 hours per week.

7 months later I had accumulated 6500 km’s / 65.000 vertical meters cycling; close to a 1000 km’s cross country skiing plus a fair bit of gym and running, 395 hours of training altogether.  And the scale showed 87 kilos. On the Haute Route my goal was to get a final result, i.e. not end up