I was pleased to be invited to a small but very select group of Rouvy members to form a virtual racing league. Running over 7 weekly stages points were given for Strava segment placings, each stage had at least one and some had up to four.
I placed tenth, which I was happy with.
Getting my excuses in quickly, I was the oldest contender at aged 67. However if you take a look at the results below it might be apparent that the top two were only a few years younger than me and I was around an hour behind them overall.
At this time of the year I like to focus on my objectives for the years cycling. I do like to have something to push for otherwise I get rather lazy and aimless. Therefore I have set myelf two main objectives – which go hand in hand.
I want to ascend 100,000 metres on my bike, whether indoor or outdoor. In parallel with that I want to climb all the routes I can find virtually from the book Mountain High – Europe’s Greatest Cycle Climbs by Daniel Friebe and Pete Goding
Another year complete and another Rapha 500 complete (despite declaring that I would not do one again).
I went into the Rapha very uncommitted and with the thought that I might do a couple of big days of downhill rides only – it was only for my own benefit anyway.
In the end I found it quite easy, and I ended up with very similar stats to the previous years. Of course, doing 100K on the 24th and then another one on the 27th helped.
I also managed 15 new Fulgaz rides, which was a bonus. Everything on Fulgaz bar the final ride which was a Rouvy race. That was something new to me but I enjoyed it.
I have mentioned before that I really like the challenges set up by Graham Love on the Virtual Brevet website.
There is a good variety, although they all involve serious distances and are to be done virtually. A quick look at the page gives an indication of the type of rides available. Specific routes are available in both Rouvy and Kinomap (and also Big Ring VR as I understand it). However many of the distance challenges can be undertaken in Fulgaz as well as the platforms mentioned above.
As we move into the winter period (UK) I start to think about my challenges over the next 6 months or so. Many are driven by the Facebook group Virtual Randonneuring, of which I have been a member for about 18 months and I have posted on the Fulgaz site saying how motivating I found it.
Randonneuring is a long-distance cycling sport with its origins in Brevet cycling. (also known as Audax in the UK, NZ, Australia and Brazil). This group is for indoor rides only. Graham, who manages the site has developed it well and runs a number of challenges which can all be seen on the Virtual Brevet website.
Based in the UK, I had never heard of Beach Road in Melbourne as a cycling hotspot. I was introduced to it by riding the Fulgaz video Beach Road complete. This is a cracking ride, very flat with great scenery. It is an out and back route from Mordialloc to St Kilda’s along the coastal road and there are many hundreds of cyclists in the video. This gives it a real feeling of livelivness and vitality with lots of interest along the way. It is a route ridden by thousands of cyclists every week
Then I was idling away one day cycling to a YouTube video which was filmed around Melbourne and I recognised the clock tower shown in the image above and knew where I was. The videos, which are quite good workouts are filmed by CTXS Videos and are well worth checking out.
In 2021 Fulgaz released a re-filmed version of the Beach Road ride, this time in 4K, with no traffic lights stops. It is fine as a video but it was filmed during lockdown and the roads are empty, almost completely devoid of cyclists. In itself it is a good video but to my mind it lacks the engagement of the original video.
Nominally this was intended to be one every month but I missed out in August and had a spurt in October when I did 4 (so far).4 were outside rides and the other 8 were virtual, using either Fulgaz or Rouvy.
The 8/4 split between indoor and outdoor is a poor representation of my overall cycling as so far I have done 6926k on my Wattbike and 299k outdoors on a couple of bikes. So only 5% outdoors. I always aim to go outside but I do find the convenience and efficiency of cycling much easier when only going into the garage.
Keen readers of this blog might notice that I am using the metric system now rather than Imperial. The metric century always the case as 62 miles is much easier to manage monthly than 100 miles, whether virtual or not. However in recent months I have been graduating to that and have now changed my settings in Strava, Rouvy, Fulgaz and Training Peaks to show kilometres.
I have not, as yet, amended my Garmin but I am sure that will follow.
One might wonder at my upsurge in activity in October and that is down to a few factors, the influence of virtual Randonneuring, annual mileage numbers and a move to base until January.
I have been a member of the Facebook group Virtual Randonneuring for 6 months or more and I have posted on the Fulgaz site saying how motivating I found it. Originally the group was set up for Rouvy rides only with various challenges following the randonneuring principles, but has now been expanded to cover any app.
Randonneuring is a long-distance cycling sport with its origins in Brevet cycling. (also known as Audax in the UK, NZ, Australia and Brazil). This group is for indoor rides only
Graham, who manages the site has developed it well and runs a number of challenges which can all be seen on the Virtual Brevet website. The image below shows the challenges and times allowed for each distance
I am inspired by the 8 * 100km before the end of January 2023 and I am participating in the 2022 Brevet challenge which is a series of 10 rides ranging from 60k to 600k. Currently I have completed all up to a 130k ride and my next objectives are 160k and 200k.
One the list of challenges the other one I am looking at is an Everesting attempt. Well to be honest, a half Everest first (base camp) then the full 8084m of climbing. I would never attempt this outside as I expect it to take me about 16 hours and I have been looking for a hill to use. The problem is that I am not a great climber and would need a reasonable low incline hill of about 3-4% and even if I found one it would mean too big a mileage.
The other issue for an IRL Everest is the logistics as I would be doing it on my own and I don’t really like descending, especially when it is dark and I am tired !!!
I originally had targeted a mileage of 6000 miles (9656k), which last month I reduced to 9000k when I realised that I was going to be way short. However a good October (901k so far) has got me to only 172k behind pace (courtesy of Strava calculations) and I had a big December last year when I did over 1200k including the Rapha 500. So I could still be on for the original target. Not the end of the world if I do not hit it though. I could cheat and do downhill rides only but that would not sit comfortably with me at all.
So I hope that has been useful as a bit of a catch-up
Into the second quarter of the year I thought I would review progress on my objectives.
I have completed one , having broken the hour on Alpe De Zwift. I did post about that and I am unlikely to try to improve my time as I have no clear objective and I do not particularly like using Zwift.
I am on track with 12 metric centuries having now completed five. Two were outdoors (62,70 miles) and three were indoors (62,62,81).
The indoor 81 miler was done on Rouvy, a platform I have been using a lot more. I was offered a free trial for two weeks and I really enjoyed it. At that time (and ever since) Fulgaz has been very problematic and indeed quite unreliable. I have never had any sort of issue with Rouvy and that is worth a lot.
In the screenshot below you can see my latest activities. One being the 81 miler and another being a race.
There were 400+ names down for the race but only just over 200 started. It was a quick start but not like Zwift races where you need to push 600w+ for at least 2 minutes or you get dropped from the group. I fell in with a small group and we moved around quite a lot over the 25 miles with me finishing 88th out of 202. It was a good workout and I really enjoyed it, much more than I have ever done with a Zwift race.
The other aspect I like about Rouvy is the challenges and in particular the Randonneuring with Rouvy FB group. In fact, spotting this was my main reason for taking out an annual subscription. Here is a summary of the aims of the group
The master spreadsheet, read-only shows progress with the yellow squiggle showing my record. It looks like I need to do a 200km ride next – I will rise to that challenge in the next few weeks.
Rouvy seems to place a lot of emphasis on coins, which are achieved by riding more (and harder) as they are related to your FTP. That doesn’t particularly interest me, but I am now up to level 14 out of 50 (I think) – but still in the rookie stage.
What I do need to do is to get more into the idea of Randonneuring by way of taking my time more. The 81 miler was done without stopping in 4:23 and from the timescales allowed, a 200km ride could take up to 13.5 hours. I intend breaking the 200km into at least 2 parts with a proper food stop in the middle rather than just eating a bar on the bike. That will apply even more if I gravitate to anything longer, which is my ambition. Clearly that takes more planning and an overall much longer time but it is something I will work towards.
In the meantime I will do my first ever sportive (as we call fondo type rides in the UK) in early June when I do a 103 mile event.
I tend to post multiple blogs close together and then nothing for a few weeks. My next blog will describe a surgical procedure to have a heart monitor implanted into my chest. Coming soon.