Meadowbank Track League

All of us at Vortex RT will be involved in racing at the track league for 2011, the olden days of sitting in the car in the rain, outside the velodrome, staring at the sky for a break in the clouds are thankfully just a nasty memory of ‘days gone by’. They now harness modern technology with online weather forecasts, text messages & emails to make sure nobody make the journey without knowing the conditions.
For those of you who are not familiar with the track, it’s located at Meadowbank stadium in Edinburgh, just East of the athletics track. It’s an outdoor wooden 250m velodrome, it was originally built for the 1970 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh, then rebuilt for the Commonwealth Games in 1986. As you’d expect, an outdoor wooden track of that age in Scotland needs a load of work to keep it in an order that you can still race on it, can’t imagine what will need done after the winter we’ve just had/are having.



I first rode the track league in 1989 or 1990 (it was a long time ago, I can’t remember exactly), riders racing on Tuesday night around that time included Olympian Anthony Stirrat, British sprint champ Stuart Brydon & a couple of youthful and incredibly talented riders called Craig MacLean & Chris Hoy. Having been around the UK for a few year, last year I started racing (well, turning up without training more like) at Meadowbank again, really enjoyed it, loads of the old faces still riding, brought back a load of memories.
So it’s back on the boards again, stronger, lighter and faster than 2010, with some km’s in my legs, things should be different with my old track legs back. I’ve heard loads of bad stories floating about, “riders from the West are not made welcome” etc, total nonsense, we’ve had no such bother, in the 90’s or now. So if you have an interest in track racing and want to be up and running for the new velodrome next year, get ourselves across, there are a few routes in which avoid the bulk of the traffic, but it’s worth the trip. You’ll all have to get used to track racing soon enough, it’s going to become a staple of the Scottish riders competitive diet in the next few years, even winter track leagues will proved very popular, year round racing is about to hit hard.
If you want to use public transport, you can get a train across from Glasgow Central station, it’s much cheaper than the Queen Street commuter line. Get the 17:50, takes over an hour, then you’ve got 20 mins to get to the track before the racing starts, that train even has an area that takes about 12 bikes, ideal! See map below.


Track at top right of map.

As for how it’s run, everybody involved in the organisation knows the job they’re doing, most have doing it for some time. In the commentators hotseat is The Old Man of Hoy himself, David Hoy. The first thing you’ll do is a flying lap, where generally your time will determine which category you’ll race in, A, B or C. If you’re new they’ll most likely stick you in with the C group, obviously if you lap the field you’ll be moved up. The events vary week to week, so there’s always something different, for different types of riders, culminating in a scratch race (mass group, first over the line is the winner) at the end of the night.
Conditions at the track are often the same, head wind down the back straight, tailwind down the home straight and a chill in the air. Meadowbank sometimes appears to be the coldest place in Scotland, so wrap up warm between races, a blanket is a popular accessory for the seasoned Meadowbank track leaguer, a habit worth considering. Occasionally you’ll get that incredible sunny and windless evening, the night legends are made of, the last one in 1997 is still talked about, you never know, if you get yourselves through there in 2011 you may be lucky enough to witness another.

The DHL track league has a website with a weekly programme and results.
http://www.esca.uk.com/mtl/index.html

The first event of 2011 is on Tuesday 19th April.
http://new.britishcycling.org.uk/events/details/52872/DHL/Meadowbank-National-Track-Series

We'll be updating the weather on our twitter feed, you can see it on our website, see you there.
Colin.

Thoughts from the Turbo – VORTEST the appliance of science

The Vortest, probably the single most dreaded day of every Vortex RT rider in the month of the training schedule. Why? Simply because it hurts, no that doesn’t do it justice, it is so painful that no matter what I write it could not possibly describe what your body goes through in attempting track your training progress.



What is the VORTEST?

The rig itself consists of one static bike with powertap connected to a laptop loaded with a programme cunningly designed to measure your output. Dependant on your needs the tests can measure several different significant areas that you want to train. Each programme has its own particular pain inducing speciality. Sprint, threshold and anaerobic ability attack the body in every way possible and with every passing training day the inevitable date with reality moves closer.

Each member of the team knows what to expect we’ve all subjected ourselves to it so that the files can be collated and individual programmes can be designed. Now into my third term of the torture it still fills me with dread, the build up always begins the same, you’ve finished your month of hard work and your recovery days have lulled you into a state of false relaxation. It’s there though, lurking in the background of your mind, the spectre of knowing that for around an hour and a half at the end of the week your tormentor I mean coach will be there, waiting for you to arrive so he can strap you onto the rig to make sure you’ve been a good boy and not told him porkys about what training you’ve done. A little light hearted banter with him to try and settle your nerves is the preamble. It’s akin to the childish, giggling bravado with your mates prior to a teenage date, you know what they expect of you but will your performance meet with approval or will you look at the end result with embarrassment and despair?

The warm up, the final few kilometres of Alpe D’Huez on the I-Magic this time, spinning a low gear and getting the heart rate going has the desired effect, warm enough now for the cooling fan to be required, it’s welcome breeze taking the edge from the perspiration tumbling from the pores. Warm up completed and the first of the tests is set on the screen, sprints.

A full on, no holds barred effort timed to evaluate your ability to push out as many watts as you can for as long as you can. The tone starts you and bang off you go hitting it as hard as possible the first seconds see the readout shoot up and then all to quickly you realise that you aren’t Sir Chris or Cav, it’s January and you’ve lost what ever ability you had to hold at any reasonable wattage for more than a few seconds. Someone appears and is pouring lactate into your thighs from a water jug and there is nothing your body can do to empty them. Your head tell your legs to keep the cadence high, but it’s just not happening then suddenly the tone tells you it’s time to stop and recover. That’s not though as you are now expected to have a short recovery and do it all again, just to make sure that there’s some consistency! The second effort is just as painful but this time the lungs start to burn too and the sting of acid starts to build in the throat as you finish your effort. It’s at that point you’re asked “How did that feel?” Even if you could speak there haven’t yet been words invented to describe “how you feel”.

Recover and on to the next sadistically designed test, threshold, a period of time between three and five minutes where you ride at pursuit tempo to establish your endurance abilities. Once again the tone indicates the beginning of the self inflicted torture. No matter how much you tell yourself to pace it you always start too fast, the wattage of Bradley Wiggins is not the place for mere mortals to be, reality sets in (or more accurately forced upon you) and a more realistic output ensues, it still hurts and you become more aware of your breathing and pedalling action, “keep it smooth and rhythmic” repeats in your head, try not to think of the time passing concentrate on cadence, but there is no escape from nature or physiology. It’s different this time, the pain that is. It’s there don’t get me wrong, the lactic build up isn’t so immediate, it’s more intense and you can feel it building, loading your muscle tissue, weighing it down so that every pedal stroke becomes battle between your brain, your lungs and your legs. It’s as if strong elastic has been attached to your feet to pull them in the opposite direction that you are telling them to go, the resultant compromise being a wattage you can sustain for the whole effort. A white dot appears from somewhere floating about infront of your eyes and as the pain tightens it turns yellow, grows larger and starts flashing closing your eyes doesn't help the psychedelic show just intensifies. Eventually the tone sounds and welcome relief as the programme releases you from its grip, temporarily. No questions, the look last time must have said it all. It isn’t over by any stretch of the imagination the final and most devious test is yet to come. The ramp test awaits.

Simple in design the ramp test is sneaky, it creeps up on you allowing you to believe that you are actually mastering it, of course that just isn’t going to happen. The beauty of this test is no matter how fit you are it will always, always, always beat you. The test starts with all the venom of a Sunday club run actually that’s an exaggeration it’s more like the effort required to sit in a café on the Sunday club run, surely this can’t be part of the test? You sit there as every thirty seconds the programme requires you to up the wattage, it’s almost sedate and you look at the screen thinking I could sit here for hours spinning away, but as the wattage climbs the requirements demanded of you change and you wish you were sitting in that café supping on an expresso and chewing down on some calorie laden sugary delight. As you move inexorably through discomfort to effort to pain your heart rate lifts, slowly at first but it’s having to work now, you breathe harder the earlier tests have chipped away at the energy reserves and once again the lactate beast decides its feeding time. The wattage demands are relentless creeping up ten at a time as your heart has to work harder to get those red blood cells moving towards your lungs for oxygen. Your head sees the steps on the ramp, just ten watts more you tell yourself, again and again, break it into little chunks it can’t be that bad surely? But it is, you can’t escape it, mouth gasping, lung crushing, it feels as though you are sucking searing hot dry air that is not compatible with your lungs and in less than a minute your body says enough the watts just can’t be sustained any more as your anaerobic frailty is exposed to the world. Finally it’s over and as the programme is switched off you try to warm down and pedal with legs that feel as though your femurs have been surgically removed.

It really doesn’t get any worse than that, pure unadulterated torture, forget water boarding if you want a confession threaten them with a VORTEST.

The really crazy thing though is that we do this so that once the analysis is done and the “needing work” areas are identified, the training schedule is adapted to strengthen the bits that hurt the most and next month we’ll see if it worked………

Sneak preview, the London velodrome.

There's a growing buzz in Scottish clubs about having a world class indoor velodrome, the London velodrome looks to be just about ready to go.

We have some exclusive photos from inside that velodrome, looks incredible. Very similar to what we expect the Chris Hoy Velodrome in Glasgow to look like. Exciting stuff.

View from the turbo

I shouldn't really be blogging this, I should be photocopying it and posting it up and down all the closes in my block of tenement flats as an apology. Because for the past few months here in G20, Glasgow I have been spending a considerable amount of time gurning and pulling faces from my spot on the turbo in the kitchen from where I look out onto the back green and into several dozen flats. It must look hideous, hour after hour of my sweaty self plunging through all kinds of mind games and facial expressions just to keep the legs spinning, just to stop from ballooning into overweight middle-age, just to have a good crack at the new seasons racing. I occasionally catch sight of them, pulling the curtains or putting the kettle on only to see that that moustachioed, sweatbanded nutter is there again, spinning away on his bike goin' naewhere. They must wonder about me (and so do I sometimes). Very often I'm watching a film on the laptop so that might perplex them. What's he watching as he sweats the night away? Its not...it can't be...it might be... well let me tell you. Last night it was Liege-Bastogne-Liege 2002, monday night was Sissako's 'Bamako', Fellini's 'Camarcord' occupied my eyes if not my mind on sunday evening and most of the holidays turbo sessions were spent checking Werner Herzog's amazing movies. I find that it is just about possible to watch a film with subtitles whilst churning away in Zone 2. Anything more strenuous than that and I'm gone, I can't concentrate and I just need to stare at the clock, but a long steady ride and a good foreign language movie is a good mix for me. Frankly anything that gets me on the turbo is great - I've tried so many tricks and deceptions to get myself spinning indoors as i don't find it difficult to find reasons not to do the drills. On the road the motivation to ride is there, always there, whereas even when the weathers just too bad or the days light is over I'm often a hard guy to convince onto the turbo - even when it is that or zilch. So aye, a good film works as does music at the correct BPM. Peer pressure can be good, that can definitely work! There is nothing like imagining you riders on other teams training when I am swithering to get me in the static saddle. Food rewards are a motivation too - thinking of the tasty snack, the literal carrot at the end of the effort, that can do the trick.
But the main reason why I've been able to rack up an acceptable amount of time on the turbo this winter is my great squad and my fine team-mates and our mindset of being collectively a great team and individually exactly the riders we can be and want to be in 2011. That works best of all.
Tom

Thoughts from the Turbo - Coaches

As yet another turbo session takes its toll on my brain, I try to focus on what I’m going to be doing during the session, that’s when it dawns on me that in years past I simply did what I thought was best during the winter, endless hours spent meandering around with no real purpose or direction. “Get out and do some hard miles” was what they all said and generally that’s what I did as a kid. You still see it now guys out thrashing round on long hard fast winter rides at almost the same pace they achieve during the summer months and taking three days to recover from it, that may work for some but certainly not me. Things for me have thankfully have moved on, which kind of brings me to my opening point. On each day through the winter I know exactly what I’m setting out to achieve during the training session. How? I hear you ask. Well it’s quite simple my coach told me.

If I could offer one piece of advice to aspiring cyclists it would be this, get yourself a coach. It sounds such a simple concept, but there are a few pitfalls

Things to avoid are

1. Someone picked at random from the internet.
2. Someone who will charge you an arm and a leg.
3. Someone who only contacts you once in a blue moon.
4. Someone who has a stable of cyclists.

I’m sure there are many, many more. Things to look for are

1. Someone who is qualified
2. Someone local.
3. Someone who will spend time listening to you.
4. Someone who you trust.

Your coach can make the difference between being a talented bike rider who never quite fulfils their potential, to being a winning talented bike rider. It is as simple as that, they identify what you are good at and probably more importantly not so good at and show you how to improve it. A good coach not only plans training schedules but offers advice on bike position, nutrition and can tell you when to slow down and avoid overtraining. They can boost your confidence and show you how you are improving. All of the above are things that I have fallen foul of in the past, but with the benefit of a second set of eyes watching over you and stopping the rot before it sets in all the negatives can be avoided and your goals achieved.

There are many different thoughts on training available on the internet and I like many of you reading this will have read over them and not really made head nor tail of the finer points of the articles. There is a reason for that and it’s simply that the author has not published them as they want you to sign up to their program which I think I covered in points 1-4 on my things to avoid list. I can’t advocate any particular type of training as things that work for me may not work for someone else, we are all different.

Good coaches are worth more than any piece of lightweight kit you can buy. If you are prepared to explain your goals, take on board their training plan, work hard and have an honest working relationship with them, you will realise your potential.

That’s enough from me I don’t want to give everything away!

Scottish Event dates for 2011

The calendar's about to be released, but there appears to be a few problems with the British Cycling calendar. So here's a summary of what we know so far with a good bit of help from the Braveheart Fund forum.

Scottish Championships
22nd May 2011: Road Race Champs (Men & Women). Vortex RT in Balfron. Initial details here.
29th May 2011: Scottish 16km TT. Ythan CC, Laurencekirk.
12th June 2011: 40km TT. Fife.
26th June 2011: 80km TT. Fife CA.
31st July 2011: Team Time Trial Championship.
5th, 6th & 7th August 2011: Scottish Track Championships Weekend. I got this date wrong originally, this is correct
21st August 2011: Scottish Criterium Championships & Youth RR Champs. Johnstone Wheelers.
28th August 2011: Vets Road Race Championship. Granite City RT, Alford.
4th September 2011: Team Road Race. Falkirk BC, Grangemouth.
9th October 2011: Scottish Hill Climb Champs. Kennoway RC, Freuchie

More important dates coming.....

Thoughts from the Turbo

With the winter weather appearing to have decided to actually be proper winter weather again this year my turbo has once again taken a battering and looks like it will continue to do so over the foreseeable future, which leads me to the question, what goes through your mind as you while away the hours on your turbo? (or as my eloquent coach likes to call it “the turdo”)

The irony of it is that the majority of racing cyclists probably spend more time riding the bike in the winter in preparation for the summer and therefore the hours spent sitting going nowhere give your mind time to wander to some incredibly strange places.

Firstly there is the immediate surroundings, for me that means the initial battle with the boss for the right to claim the kitchen for a couple of hours, this delicate negotiation requires a certain strategy, I usually get two options pre or post evening meal dependant a number of factors, these being whether the kids have friends round, I get home from work on time, what the boss is cooking and how long the planned session is supposed to take. Once this calculation has been made out comes the mat to collect the sweat, the obligatory fan to minimise the sweat, the turbo to create the sweat, bottles to replenish the sweat and the portable DVD player to try and take my mind off the sweat.

All set up, but know the difficult decision. Which one of the DVD’s will I choose to watch, again. I have several options here there are the recordings of the 2008 or 2009 Tour, which if I ever get onto Mastermind would be my specialist subject. However the orchestrated daily escape, chase down by Columbia HTC, Cavandish sprint win can become slightly tedious after the fifth or sixth watch. Alternatively there are the “giveaway” DVD’s from various cycling magazines that have been collected over the years exalting the triumphs of now disgraced/tainted former greats of the sport or an option I find myself exploring more often lately boxed sets of classic TV series (not so subtle hint for Xmas present there!) I opt for the 2009 Tour.

So into the saddle, switch on the Garmin and the designated session commences. That’s when it starts, what do I look at? The Garmin has numerous functions to consider which can be confusing, the DVD with the dulcet tones of Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen confusing each other in an attempt to fill the many tepid moments of ITV4’s live coverage or the fact that I really should consider re-decorating those walls. I tell myself to concentrate on the session and with that in mind I focus on the Garmin and try to match the cadence, heart rate and power output to what is after all a carefully structured training session, put together by the coach. I remind myself that this is all part of a master plan which is intended to deliver me to a peak of fitness at the right time in around six months time, six months! That seems an absolute lifetime away…….

The first fifteen minutes normally result in sitting perfectly in the correct zone set for the session, but that’s only a temporary state, it normally coincides with the first advert break and a bloke telling me that some guy called “Iron Jim” can get me the perfect body by hanging from my door frame or Gloria Hunniford saying if I drink some friendly bacteria I can lower my cholesterol to acceptable limits and by the time I’ve mentally checked to see if the door frame could actually take my weight and considered the value of Gloria’s advice, I’ve dropped right out of the zone.

I manage to get myself back to where I should be for a while but the screen can only hold my attention for so long, I start to look down at my bike which I really should clean as it hasn’t even been on the road for about a month, how did it get that dirty? It’s at that point when I notice the forming of the inevitable bead of perspiration. It usually starts somewhere in my scalp, trundles down over my furrowed brow until it reaches decision time. Will it take the direct route straight down my nose or divert via the eyebrows into the corner of my eye and thereby cause the gritty salt laden sting which will annoy me for the rest of the session. Result! Today it decides on the former and I can amuse myself with that well known turbo pastime of blowing the sweat drip from your nose. With a bottom lip that Bubba Buford from the Forest Gump movie would be proud of I begin to disperse the droplets with increasing skill just before gravity takes its inevitable course, it is only after about a dozen shots that I realise I have caused what would appear to be a small cloud burst on the screen of the DVD player just as Team Columbia are within striking distance of the hapless Frenchie’s that have spent four and a half hours of futile escapism from the peleton.

I’m still churning out the revs and somehow have arrived in a subliminal state where I’m actually beginning to enjoy the feeling of spinning away on the spot. I start to focus in on what my body is doing and every now and again can sense each component part working to a point where I can mentally isolate each individual muscle. This state of mind is abruptly shattered as Iron Jim’s mate exalts the brilliance of the paint restorer and free micro fibre cloth available at all good stockists. I wonder if would clean my filthy frame?

Not long to go now, Cav has long since romped to another stage win, annoyed the commisaires by having a bit of imagination with his victory salutes and being insolent enough to tell everyone the basic truth that he is by far the quickest sprinter in the world in his post race interview with Ned Boulting. I meanwhile am still at least four months away from riding a bike in anger, probably just as well as I remove myself from the saddle with jelly legs, there is a long, long way to go, oh well at least that’s one more training session completed.

My final task is to return the kitchen to it’s proper, use stash the turbo and grab a shower before stretching out and analysing the data file. That’s when it sinks in that tomorrow I’ve got to do it all again! Brilliant I just can’t wait.