20k Time Trial (warm up)

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And now in the spirit of odd bikes: :-)

7th August 2010. The Tour of Denmark (Post Danmark Rundt) came to Middelfart. Having studied the route we decided to park the car near the top of a long but fairly gentle hill on the route to the Old Bridge. The idea was to make photography easier if the riders were travelling more slowly. A number of the shots were taken out of the open car window. Where we had comfortable seats with grandstand views as the riders passed on the climb.

The lack of commentary did not aid understanding regarding who was riding at any particular time. The total time involved with a 18.15pm start and 100+ riders at 1 minute intervals meant that the last riders were leaving almost at dusk. My picture taking went from bright, hot sunshine to cooler and breezier with failing light.

Some of the kids had those awful plastic horns from the South African World Cup. Many others had red plastic hands which were thrown liberally from a Postal van. These clever devices clapped louder and faster than most of us can manage on our own. Which gave plenty of room for impromptu applause when an ordinary cyclist rode slowly up the hill pretending to be invisible.

I used the Panasonic Lumix TZ7 in automatic mode with an  image size setting of 10M. All of the pictures required heavy cropping to make the riders large enough to fill the frame. This also helped to remove much of the commercial junk and street furniture backgrounds as far as possible. Though at the cost of considerable loss of image sharpness. There really was nowhere else where there was a featureless background. This hill is riddled with cafés and ice cream parlours with no on-road parking. So we parked on the grass verge and were untroubled by the many police motor cyclists. 

"H-e-l-p! Where are my stabilisers?!?"

I started off by practising my panning technique on the riders checking out the route. I was on the opposite side of the wide road so this required quite a bit of telephoto zoom. Though this made matters more difficult because it was almost impossible to capture riders unless they were still coming towards me.  It proved impossible to pan as they passed due to the very long delay between shutter release and image capture. Camera reset also took several seconds. So a rider missed somewhere down the road could not be captured later when they were much nearer.

"You wouldn't be smiling either if you were sitting on this saddle!"

I have marked all of my pictures with my initials and the low resolution (due to heavy cropping and downsizing for the blog) probably makes them unworthy of  publication anyway. But it's still nice to be asked first if you want to use any of them for profit.

"Just act casual and nobody will ever notice us in these outfits."

"'Grr! I think they've given me Andy Schleck's gears!"

 "Well? Am I close enough now?"

"I'm just going for a spin around the block."

"Good grief! Is it really supposed to hurt this much?"

"Has anybody seen my hat?"

"Are you sure we do it clockwise?"

A Danish mountain bike in action.
This is a weak joke in reference to the relatively flat landscape found in much of Denmark. While Denmark certainly lacks any high hills it is rarely truly flat. 



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August diary 2010

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Sunday August 1  70F, very light winds, sunny periods, with all of the windmills standing still. A meandering loop out along the coastal lanes and back again further inland. Denmark really doesn't get much more rural than this area. Isolated palaces, farms and cottages. A few small villages. Fields, marshes, reeds, woods and hedges with only very light traffic on the lanes and minor roads. Puddles on the roads from overnight rain cooled my shins where I couldn't avoid the standing water.

The wildlife was queuing for my attention. I rode through a large flock of swallows who were sitting on the road until I came along. They flew and circled all around me as I slowed to a crawl  to avoid causing panic. Yet they seemed quite unafraid. There were huge numbers of other birds. Flocks of sparrows numbering at least one hundred. There were yellowhammers, greenfinches, martins, wagtails, rooks and jackdaws. All seem to be attracted to the quiet roads and lanes.

I passed a large lake where an almost flat, shallow coastal valley has been allowed to flood again. Denmark went through a period where every avilabel marsh was drained at taxpayer's expense and handed over for farming. I saw vast numbers of geese, ducks, swans, gulls and waders on the water or wheeling overhead with their eerie calls. On the other side of the road were salty inlets from the sea proper.

I had already seen a bloodbath where a mother cat and two well grown kittens had been flattened by a vehicle. Further on I a saw a large family of kittens outside a farmhouse. They scattered into cover as I arrived. Except for the skinny mother who stood complaining loudly in the middle of the road! A few hundred yards on I crested a short hill to find three beautiful young foxes just standing in the narrow road a hundred yards away. I wanted to take a picture but the moment I unclipped from the pedals they heard me and vanished into the crop! Grr.

Coming back on a main road  I overtook a couple of overweight cyclists out training at a fair dawdle on their posh racing bikes. Then I was overtaken myself by half a dozen young chaps bombing along in a tight group. They were riding at least five miles an hour faster than I could manage but made it look effortless. I was quite breathless trying to chase them as I have a bit of congestion at the moment. I am not sure whether it is a virus or being caught in spray drift. It took me a week to get over using a single squirt of WD40 down the inside of the steerer tube! Nasty stuff!

My legs are fine now and I was feeling much stronger again. Sailing uphill without too much effort and using the gears to maintain a high cadence. 45 miles in 4 hours including ages searching a couple of supermarkets for non-existent stock. Both GPS loggers agreed on 45 miles exactly and 12 mph overall. I haven't taken a photograph for days!

2nd 60-66F. Overcast, almost still. 19 mile shopping trip. Right knee feeling slightly tender so I didn't go out later. I am an idiot for trying too hard, too soon after an injury.

3rd 60-66F. Breezy. Sunny becoming cloudier. I can no longer trust my right knee. My right Achilles tendon is also hurting. I have never had a problem with my heel before. 25 miles taking it easy.

No longer in any hurry I discovered a rather charming cycle path running alongside the mainline railway between two rural villages. Almost too narrow for Mr Higgins, in places, the asphalted path was deserted and wonderfully peaceful. Only the sound of the birds and insects could be heard.

Eventually I came to disused backstreet workshop buildings and rusting, narrow gauge railway points from a bygone era. The village blacksmith and sawmill yard have no purpose in a world of DIY superstores. The small village shop is an anachronism in a world of high street supermarket chains and two car families. The impoverished pensioners have moved out of the ramshackle cottages to be replaced by the modernising middle classes with bottomless pots of easy credit.

The countless rickety, but productive, garden potting sheds and neat vegetable growing beds have been replaced by an expensive, glazed tiled roof, double garage. Or double carport feature surrounded by perfectly weed-free, manicured and poisoned grass deserts. With professionally installed, concrete block paths to keep posh town shoes dry from overnight dew on the way to the choice of immaculate, luxury cars standing in the drive for inspection by the neighbours. Appearance is everything. Local work is  no longer an option and commuting to the city is the name of  the game.

The shrill, excited voices from the village school playground are now but a very distant memory.  While the elderly villagers now doze under the influence of sleepy relaxing drugs in a sleepy old peoples home on the edge of the nearest city with shoestring, unskilled staff levels.

They never notice the thousand-plus kids and the countless people carriers congregating daily in the suburban school road. Delivering young ROM units to the centralised, lean production, factory education system. Churning out endless general purpose, computer literate work units for the countless, utterly pointless jobs in countless useless offices across the endlessly encroaching built-up areas across the region.

Few cycle to school any more. It is too dangerous weaving between the hordes of impatient people carriers. Chauffeuring the clinically obese, memory storage units straight to the door. Anything to avoid the virtual risk of an "accident" or paedophile grooming on the way to school. The amateur cabbies then racing off on the daily, two hour commute, in nose-to-tail traffic, in the echoing canyons of the rat runs to hell. (and back again later with the low sun still niggling at their designer sunglasses) :-)  

4th 64-70F, sunny periods, windy. The special cornflakes run.  Went really well on the way with a following wind but hard work coming back. Right knee still complaining slightly. The heel problem did not recur. I really should stop trying to go as fast as possible and just enjoy the scenery. 34 miles in an almost perfectly straight line. An hour to get there and 1:30 back. pm. Windy with showers. I had to race to a car spares shop before they closed. 17 more miles and my right knee is getting worse again.

5th  64-70F, breezy sunny periods. 24 mile loop. If I take it easy my knee doesn't complain. 12 more miles later and my knee is getting worse again. I'm going to have to become a tourist and stop pretending I can race about, flat out, everywhere I go. The weird thing is that the pain has moved to the top of the joint. Before this it felt as if it was below. It sounds daft but I just don't seem to be able to ride slowly or steadily no matter how hard I try. I seem driven to ride as fast as I can all the time.

6th 62-67F. Almost still, sunny periods. Despite keeping my speed below the tolerance level for my knee and visiting various supermarkets I sill managed 29 miles before coffee. I even found an archaeological dig on my travels and stopped to have a look. There was nobody about but a good view could be had from a mound of soil. The site dates back 5,500 years no less! A handy placard suggested a series of burial mounds laid on top of each other at very wide time intervals.  I should have taken a photograph, I suppose, but there wasn't much to see to the uneducated eye. A few, rough field stones laid on the ground in various places.

My knee problem has forced me to ease off instead of attacking every hill. I am (slowly) learning to roll along. Maintaining my speed as high as possible to reduce effort on the hills. Changing down early to avoid hard pedalling. 90+ pedal rpm (cadence) seems to work but revving too high uphill also puts a load on my knee.

Sometimes I can roll along effortlessly at 110rpm and 22mph. The next moment I am fighting to maintain 80rpm in bottom gear on quite a gentle slope. The hills are what catch me out. I am so used to going at them as hard as I can manage that I  have yet to find a happy medium. One which avoids sudden over-revving. Or pushing too hard at low revs due to a poor gear choice. I can no longer get out of the saddle and pound my way up using brute force.

I am still rather amazed how well it went today. I avoided pain but sensed my threshold was quite close at times. The question now is whether I am pedalling towards a slow recovery. Or towards an appointment with a surgeon and a new pair of knees!

7th  62-73F, sunny, very light winds. The trick seems to be to keep the pedal revs up. My knee gave me no trouble today.  I had a twinge when I unclipped awkwardly as a fly attacked me. I have already slacked off the pedal springs. It's as if my knees are waiting to pounce if I try too hard. Ready to  punish me with a sudden sharp pain. They are constantly just below the edge of my consciousness. I still managed 33 hilly miles before coffee.

My favourite hill. Here, looking back up through the oak tree avenue towards the direction of the motorway.

Now looking down the hill. Except that it's not down. It's an optical illusion. If I stop pedalling I eventually come to a stop.

For more than ten years I have been going up and down this hill (in the car) thinking it was a long, continuous slope. The top and bottom of the hill are indeed quite reasonable hills.  I have also been up and down here repeatedly on my trike. I have always assumed the resistance was caused by the incline. Often it may simply have been a head wind.

Tucking down to hide under the crossbar will never make me go any faster here.  I often tried and failed to catch a racing cyclist out training on this section. Today it was a big, fit young chap on a decent mountain bike. I crouched low over the handlebars and pedalled furiously but still he pulled away. Only further on, when I hit the real slope, was I able to get back on his wheel.

I have reduced the colour and contrast on the second picture because it was far too bright and contrasty. Getting a picture without any traffic at all probably took me quarter of an hour! It seemed to completely spoil the image to have a single car in shot.

8th 62-67F, light winds, overcast, light rain on and off. 26 miles.

Yesterday evening (7th) we went to the Danmark Rund time trial in Middelfart. I have made another chapter (or three) with some of my pictures.

9th 62-66F, winds light, sunny periods. 28 gentle miles trying to keep the revs high.

The archaeological dig at the 5.5k year old  site near Hårby. SW Fyn. The views out over the countryside are excellent. Though the terrain may well have been tree covered in the past. A hill rises behind the camera so this area was not a local high point. 

The other half of the dig. Now in its second, and probably final, year. The soil here is very sandy so preservation of organic materials would be poor in comparison with clay or peat. The shallow nature of the site is clearly shown by the profile rib deliberately left exposed across the dig.  Normal ploughing may well have reached deep enough to disorganise the area to some degree. Some decorated pottery and a flint knife and axe head were amongst the fascinating finds. The pottery was clearly incised with fine lines or circumferential rings.

The site blog is below. Google Toolbar translation may partially help in understanding the content.

Frydenlundsarup’s Blog

Nearby, I found an asphalt cycle path out in the middle of nowhere. Only a short section is shown here trapped between a field of ripe grain and a tall, overgrown hedge.  Though not very wide the asphalt surface is in excellent condition. The cycle path ends at the small village of Jordløse. One wonders at the original purpose of the path. There must surely have been far more foot or cycle traffic at some point in the past. If only to warrant the expense and investment in time and effort. The Hårby end of the path seems to start amidst the fields. Though the traffic carrying lanes are marked as a continuation of the same cycle path.

It may just be my romanticism but I find such paths unique in their atmosphere of peaceful nostalgia. The same could be said for the cycle paths built on old, disused railway tracks in Britain. The  ability  to relax completely away from the noise and constant danger of impatient motorised traffic makes it well worth seeking out such secluded paths. The cyclist enjoys the journey in its entirety for all its effort and occasional pain in climbing hills. The cyclist is exposed in every possible way to his surroundings and the environment. Wind, rain, noise and road surface are constantly at the forefront of their consciousness.

The motorist is merely going from A to B. Preferably with the minimum of effort and zero inconvenience. The journey is a test of patience with the goal being the ability to finally get out of the damned car. The manufacturers' efforts in turning modern cars into sensory deprivation tanks, on wheels, has actually made the car an unpleasant place to  be. Which is why so many drivers find alternative distractions so necessary while driving. Anything which actually drags the driver's attention back to the driving is to be avoided at all costs.

Drivers speed to get the journey over with ASAP. Or perhaps to help them stay awake. Nothing must hinder the driver's semi-comatose progress. No touch of  the indicators must intervene to wake the driver from his sleep. Corners must be cut to reduce G-forces which might wake the driver and make him or her aware of the serious consequences of bad driving. Even at normal road speeds.

The soundproofed shell, soft suspension and air bags remove all sense of external movement or danger. The psychopath's cell, in the high security lunatic asylum, has been given wings to fly. So that they may float away even further from reality. Only the inconvenience of damaged paintwork and increased insurance premiums stops them driving through red lights. Or over packed pedestrian crossings. Or cutting a swathe through gaggles of cyclists.    

The driver's lunacy is always bubbling away just below the surface. One only has to gesticulate or point out their criminally insane behaviour for them to go completely berserk. Road rage is  so commonplace that one wonders what proportion of the driving public should be placed permanently behind bars. Nowhere is murder and mayhem so easily carried out without the least consequence for the perpetrator.

Motoring has an incredibly poor relationship between action and consequence. The proof lies in the vast numbers of dead and dying on the roads around the globe despite all the modern safety features. Obscenely fat, middle aged men, wearing sports clothes, in overpowered sporting models of family saloons pretend they are driving at Le Mans.  Instead of which they are using the local rat run, past the local school, at 60mph just to fetch some cigarettes and bottles of sugared, fizzy water from the supermarket. Even the adverts sell cars entirely on styling and sporting performance in empty streets where the countless real victims are never shown.

Nowhere else in society is mass criminal behaviour so rewarded and so little sanctioned by the courts. These criminals will even complain that their behaviour is unfairly restricted by speed cameras and police patrol cars! They claim that cyclists get in their way! This despite the low impact of cyclists and all the health benefits of cycling. Not to mention the ease with which a motorist can quickly regain their insane and usually illegal speed once they have passed the poor sod. The one who is actually panting uphill, against a headwind, in the pouring rain, with their legs and lungs on fire. And always breathing in the raw petrol fumes from the screaming cars overtaking at full throttle to show their personal disgust at cyclists in general.

On the five mile (8km) stretch of road, on which I live, over 50 vehicles has literally left the road in the past few years. No day passes when I don't see drivers using their mobile telephones while taking bends so badly that they cross into the path of oncoming traffic. Every corner is cut, by most drivers, because they are too lazy to use only their own side of the road to stay on the tarmac. Speeding is so commonplace as to be hardly worth pointing out.

While Britain ponders on the use of speed indication boards (instead of cameras) Denmark has had them for years. These indicators affect driver behaviour not one iota. A total waste of money. The flashing orange lights caused by the vehicle which went past before them does not slow the following vehicle at all. Every single driver in a long chain of cars will make the lights flash due to excessive speed! Some drivers will actually accelerate to ensure they make the lights flash.

Perhaps the manufacturers should put flashing orange lights on the back of the speed indicator signs as well as on the front? So the criminal drivers, and the occupants of the village or town, can actually see them flash! Most drivers are travelling so fast that the lights flash long after they have passed on their way to a date with the death of a pedestrian. Action and consequence are, once again, safely divorced from reality in a road safety measure. Many of these speed indicator boards read low which makes drivers relaxed about their speeding. They think they can increase their speeds by the board's average reading error without consequence. Many boards read 4-5kph low. Surely they should read high to make drivers even more aware of their own foolish speed?

10th 62-72F. Very breezy with sunny periods. A good day. My knee behaved itself today provided I didn't push at low revs or go madly at the hills. Though did do 130+rpm for a couple of hundred yards up a long hill. 27 fairly quick miles at higher rpm,. I hit 135rpm on the flat this afternoon on a shorter run of only 15 miles. It's getting much easier to rev fast. Though I still prefer to be climbing to spin really fast. Because it gives me just enough resistance to avoid bouncing on the saddle. The Brooks has become almost comfortable enough to ignore. I have given up on the dried apricot snacks because of the nasty side effects. The forecast is for heavy rain over the next couple of days so I may finally get a proper rest day.

I passed a tractor spraying a ploughed field right up to the side of the road. The tip of the spray bar was only 3' from my elbow. The driver was welded to his mobile telephone, as usual, and hardly glanced at me. I have no idea what was being sprayed. Will I die? Read tomorrow's exciting episode!

 A Higgins lugless "Ultralite" trike frameset and rear wheels is being offered on eBay:

RARE VINTAGE HIGGINS ULTRALITE TRIKE FRAME AND WHEELS on eBay (end time 19-Aug-10 20:16:52 BST)

Though fixed wheel it looks as if the sprocket carrier is more like a compact differential. I could be completely wrong but I can't see why else it (the sprocket carrier) would  be festooned with large screw heads. 

An interesting brazed-on, rear bag carrier too. I haven't seen one like this until now. It should be interesting to see how much this trike makes in the auction. The seller is based in Clitheroe.


11th I'm still alive despite being sprayed yesterday. 60F, light winds and torrential rain showers. I headed off into overcast and was soon donning waterproof jackets. Fortunately it soon stopped raining for the rest of the ride. Only 18 miles so far today and the heavy showers are persisting. Wasn't this supposed to be a rest day, anyway? ;-)

I have rediscovered the difficulties of riding in the wet on the "wrong" side of the road for left side, one wheel drive. In the dry one can more easily get away with a low gear on steep hills. In the wet my front wheel was hopping to the right on every pedal stroke. All due to a lack of friction with the road camber. Attempting to accelerate to overcome the hopping only exaggerated the wheel skipping making me slog all the way up! 1 am forced to use a low gear to avoid hurting my knee.

Now I have even managed to wear through to the canvas on the drive side tyre! I'm not sure how long that tyre has been on there but I've done 5.6k miles since January. I'll check when Geoff Booker at Trykit sent me my new HP wheels. [Edit] Beginning of December 2009. So December's mileage has to be added to this year's  total. So roughly 6,000 miles from new.

Unlike a bicycle tyre a trike tyre is always upright on  the road surface. There is also quite a degree of tyre scrub on tight corners as the trike drifts quite a bit. The weight of the  rider is so far overboard countering centrifugal forces that the tyres are unloaded. There are no rear brakes on my trike which saves the treads to some degree compared with a bicycle. Interestingly (?) the black central stripe on the Bontrager Racelite tyres gets narrower with wear. Definitely time to place an order for a Trykit 2WD rear axle system before a wet autumn or a hard winter deprive me of traction again. I have been putting off ordering by my wonky knee. I have really been spoilt by a long, dry and warm summer this year following an incredibly long and hard winter. This had made me forget the different problems I faced when riding in the wet. 

12th 59F. Fairly still, sunny but getting overcast. Much cooler with autumnal overtones. Mist hanging in the lower fields. I'm still slightly congested but (strangely) my knees seem to be on the mend. I'm increasingly convinced that my knee problem may be with my tendons rather than joint pain. The pain seems to move about from side to side and top to bottom.  I was even able to get out of the saddle and pound up a hill in a high gear to save changing down. 33 miles in the morning plus 10 later. The forecast heavy rain  missed us apart from a little drizzle on and off.

Friday 13th 61-70F, breezy, sunny periods. Very odd, but my knee continues to mend. Inexplicable, but true. Despite this my legs feel rather tired today. Light winds forecast but I seemed to be working against a head wind wherever I went. Still managed to cruise above 20mph for quite a few miles. It's nice to  be able to get out of the saddle again when a hill needs to be crested in a higher gear. I'm still avoiding low revs and can sustain 110+ without too much effort some of the time.  Still prefer 90-100rpm but am often surprised how fast I am pedalling when I glance down at the cadence indicator.. I'm going to try another set of (recycled) indexed brake/gear levers. 30 miles so far. Plus nine more later to check some bearing adjustments.

14th 67F, breezy, overcast all day. It was supposed to be a rest day but I had to ride an errand. 8 miles.No pain at all from my knee. I snapped a spoke nipple leaving the drive. A loud bang and the 32 spoke front wheel took on a serious wobble. I was able to push the centre-pull brake over so it didn't drag until I came home home again. I swapped wheels for my next best 36 spoke winter wheel until I get around to removing the tyre. Then I can fit a new nipple and true the wheel up again.

The mess left behind by some picnicking retards on a quiet cycle path near Assens.

15th 64-73F.Warm,  humid and  breezy. Mostly overcast with occasional sunny periods. I wanted to restore my mileage after a rest day so set off for a fairly distant supermarket via the coastal lanes.  Not so much as a twinge from my right knee while I was out. 47 miles after visiting four supermarkets.

Mr Higgins admiring the coastal view at Sandager Næs, north of Assens, looking towards Weddelsborg peninsular. There is a popular camping and caravanning site just here in quiet countryside.

A farmer was spraying his harvested fields just on the other side of the hedge from the site. There was quite an onshore wind. Which must have coated the entire site in whatever was being sprayed.

11 miles later for 58 total today.

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Aftermath

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16th July 2010 77F, trees thrashing about in the wind, full sun. A 21 mile loop. My knee doesn't like hills but I'm still twiddling as much as possible. 10 more miles later on. 79F. Blowing a gale. Hot and sticky. Knee felt better but still not mended.

Mr Higgins buries himself in a verge of wild flowers near the Empty Quarter. These are chicory but the verges are resplendent with all sorts of wild flowers at the moment. I am not sure whether they are deliberately planted. Or simply take advantage of  passing traffic to waft their seeds further along the road.

I see more and more of a very worrying and highly invasive wild plant. The Japanese Knotweed is almost indestructible with deep runners and capable of growing through concrete and tarmac. When rough soil is imported to a new site the plant seems to spring up and spread like wildfire.

It was very common in Britain but the colder climate of Denmark seemed to have kept it under control until recently.Though it is reputed to be hardy to -35C! The warming Danish climate no longer seems able to contain it and the plant marches onwards in many half-wild places. Though not unattractive, I would hate for anybody to plant it in their garden out of ignorance! The owners of one garden I pass regularly cut down a lot of dense, foolishly overgrown conifers when they bought the house. It certainly let the light in but the Knotweed immediately took over the entire garden!

I remember a riverside, fishing club, car park in the UK which had tarmac over rough gravel. The club members had a constant, losing battle trying to get rid of the plant. They attacked it with poison, fire and brush cutters. Nothing worked! It started coming up right through the tarmac of the road beside the car park!

Another slight oddity at the moment is the very large number of dead moles lying beside the roadsides. They haven't been run over but just seem to have surfaced and died. Often lying on their backs. There is no obvious sign of the verges having been poisoned.  Certainly no sign of the usual "agent orange" herbicides which are so incredibly popular in Denmark. These dead moles are mostly rather small. Before the dead moles I saw lots of dead voles and shrews along the sides of the roads. None of them looked as if they had been run over. Very odd!

17th Cooler. 72F, slight breeze, mostly sunny. Rode a 30 mile loop. My knee pain keeps coming and going. Sometimes I can be on the big chainwheel bombing up a long hill without any pain at all. The next I am crawling up a short hill in bottom gear and trying not to use my right leg at all. Sometimes it feels as if I can clench my knee to stop the pain. Then pressure comes on my knee to climb another hill and the pain comes straight back. It isn't serious pain but it does slow me down. Last time the pain went away immediately when I dropped the saddle slightly. Not this time.

18th 62-67F, breezy, sunny. Much cooler than it has been lately. My knee didn't bother me very much at all today. That is until I was about to overtake a Michelin Man on a racing bike who was just dawdling along. He was completely unaware of my presence and suddenly started pedalling strongly just as I drew alongside him at twice his speed. After I got past him going uphill I had the occasional twinge in my knee but not too painful. Quite a few cyclists were out training and enjoying the sunshine. Smiles and waves all round. 25 miles so far. I'll probably go out again after lunch. I did 12 more miles later on. Knee showing definite signs of improvement.

19th 68-71F, sunny and breezy. Just a quick run to the shops and back. 18miles. I'm still trying to avoid overloading my knee though it is definitely on the mend. It still hurts off the trike which is an indication that all is not well. So riding as "aggressively" as usual is not possible. I have to go out again later so today's total should increase. By only 13 more, very sweaty miles.

My knee is still improving but I have to change down early for the hills. Despite this knee setback I am still (almost) matching last month's mileage. I keep trying to pedal fast but don't have the elasticity or fitness to maintain a high cadence for long enough to maintain my speed on hills. It's as if I hit an rev limiter whether on the flat or going uphill.. This is probably just a lack of practice. Until now I have been pushing as  hard as I can (all the time) but with relatively modest pedal rpm. (usually 75-85)

This  may be why my knees are proving so fragile when I try too  hard. I really ought to concentrate on a high cadence rather than trying to constantly ride as fast as possible for the conditions and within my still limited ability. If only I wasn't so competitive I probably wouldn't have the knee problem. Every time I see a cyclist ahead I have to try to catch and overtake them. It was my habit when I was young as an extra incentive to train hard. These days they call this "intervals". It is a habit I still haven't broken forty years on. I'm practically a pensioner and riding a trike of at least twice the weight of most modern racing bikes. And still chase anything that moves like a badly trained dog!

Now I have lowered the saddle I will have to adjust the handlebars downwards to match. Or I will be sitting too upright. I always felt remarkably comfortable on the Higgins until I lowered the saddle. It felt just right. I have discovered that the handlebar stem/extension won't go any lower. So I shall have to look at shortening the pipe section (with expander) which fits inside the fork steerer tube. Unless there is a blockage inside the steerer tube which prevents the stem from being lowered? There's something odd about the present situation which I haven't examined properly yet. It could be the expansion bolt is simply too long and hitting something on the inside of the fork crown.

The head bearings keep working loose too. Which causes violent (no-hands) steering shimmy. So I really must look into this. I also need to replace the handlebar tape. I bought some new tape ages ago but still haven't fitted it. Being completely isolated from other cyclists there isn't any pressure (at all)  to maintain the trike looking like new. So I tend to overlook the cosmetic problems as long as the trike is safe. Though I did take the sticky rubber, brake lever hoods off and gave them a good wash. They were so sweaty they were literally too horrible to touch. Like those nasty, little, silicone rubber, kid's toys but worse.

I was shocked to see Andy Schleck lose his chain on a Tour deFrance mountain stage today. Dreadfully bad luck or poor equipment, maintenance and/or adjustment? Why weren't we told which seriously overpriced equipment to avoid in future? The copycat, fashion victim, amateur cyclist always wants the latest gear even if they don't train enough to notice the difference. I remember, in my youth, going from the superb Campag Gran Sport rear changer to Campag Record only to discover it  was complete crap. Long and heavy, with a dreadful gear change. Amazingly I still have a Gran Sport in my gear changer storage box. It is not pretty though.

I wonder how many racing cyclists suffered in their careers from having to use substandard (but expensive) equipment just because the sponsor made the gear? Or insisted on a particular product? What do Schleck's bikes cost? £20k+? What an advert for the latest and most expensive cycling equipment!

Does anybody remember Bjarne Riis throwing his bike away when the gears went wrong? Had he grabbed any old bike from the roadside the gears would probably have worked better. In a recent series of UK road races one chap broke his carbon fibre frame when he pulled out of his pedal clip and sat heavily on the top tube! So much for longevity.

20th 72-78F, hot, bright sun, breezy. Late start from swapping head bearings. I discovered that the Higgins fork's steerer tube was only reamed half way down. It proved impossible to push anything beyond that point.  So the handlebars stayed as high as they were. I suppose I could have sawed the stem off at the same angle to allow it to go lower. Though there was just no way to hold it steady enough to saw with all four cables and computer wires still connected to the trike. I presume the thicker wall of the lower end of the steerer tube was to resist heavy side loads when cornering hard.

I was riding much more strongly today. I didn't really notice my knee except on one short steep hill at 22 miles. It doesn't hurt off the trike now, thank goodness. Nor when I get out of the saddle. Though I still have to be careful because it is easy to get a warning twinge. It will still pay me to take it fairly easy for a while to avoid aggravating the injury. 28 miles so far.

So much for resolve. I went out later for 22 fairly quick miles being buffeted by the warm wind regardless of my direction of travel. I was trying hard most of the time and (thankfully) my knee did not complain.

Both GPS loggers have been behaving themselves until today. Now the Ventus G730 is starting to wander about after I stop. The i-gotU GT-120 fell asleep half way round. The propriety plug on the GT-120 USB cable is wearing out and becoming unreliable!

My computer had to have a factory reset because Vista was locking up on start up. Brown screen of death?!?  I suppose it make a change from XP Blue. So I lost 180 recorded rides from the i-gotU. All thanks to the POS Vista OS and the POS Seagate Go external hard drive. The drive completely refused to Restore the files saved on it. I unplugged the drive while I did the Reset. Afterwards the Seagate listed the files but would not offer Reset as an option. The screen button was dead. May both companies burn in hell for believing their own shitty hype and foisting their crap on the consumer for empty profit!

At least my Specialised Tahoe shoes are continuing to be very comfortable indeed. Never feeling heavy or hot. I am usually completely unaware of wearing them. They still look like almost new despite zero maintenance and a few thousand miles. I have only made them really wet twice. The rainwater from the front wheel pours in at the top of the shoes and out at the bottom. The soles have not worn, as I feared they might, to leave the cleats foolishly exposed. Though I rarely walk very far in them except around the supermarket aisles. It's quite fun to see the struggle other cyclists have to walk in their "proper" racing shoes with their exposed cleats.

 Mr Higgins stops to stare at a field full of yellow daisies in the back lanes. Probably grown for the seeds but not sure why or what they are yet. Certainly not a common sight. They had gone over slightly in the heat so weren't quite as crisp as they might have been. My wife, The Head Gardener, thinks it is Yellow Camomile or Golden Marguerite. It was once used for dying fabric apparently. [Anthemis tinctoria]

21st  78F, windy and sunny. 24 mile shopping trip. My knee behaved itself until I was almost home and then started aching slightly on a big hill. I was twiddling/spinning quite well in a low gear at the time. I managed to find the last of the cheap bike computers, with cadence sensor, at another supermarket . For only £7 (equiv) it was worth a trial. Anything which will remind me not to push at lower revs is a good thing. On the way out I was cruising at 25 mph for a couple of miles without complaint from my knee. I was pedalling fast (for once) rather than using the highest gear I could push. A bad habit is seems.

The Ventus G730 crashed my computer on plug-in today. I thought I had the latest driver having downloaded the software direct from the Ventus website.

I fitted the new bike computer but the crank magnet was much too far away from the sensor. So I replaced the bottom bracket axle with a much shorter one. Interestingly (?) the thick wall adjustable cup left hardly any room for the crank to fit on the square taper. No such problem with the chainwheel side. The axle change also solved the lack of outward movement on the front (gear) changer. So now I will have easier changes at the front once I get used to the new lever positions.

Having my pedal rpm/cadence read out for me was fascinating after years of counting revs against my watch while trying to stay on the road and do mental multiplication at the same time. I have discovered that my idea of pushing was sub-85rpm. My most comfortable rpm range has been between 85-95. I found 110rpm was easy enough downhill, against no resistance, but required more conscious effort to maintain on the flat or uphill. I managed 125rpm for while but began to bounce on the saddle. I'm probably not supple enough yet. In my teens I was an admirer of the great climbers like Federico Bahamontes and Charly Gaul. I used to try and emulate their high pedal cadence on every hill I could find.

Thanks to the mew computer I found that I tend to drop back to 80rpm (or even lower) when riding uphill unless I force myself to drop a gear. The problem then was maintaining the rpm instead of lowering my speed to match the new gear ratio. BTW: I'm using the manufacturer's suggested setting of 2096 for 700 x23 tyres.

For mere pocket money I now have a wireless, front, speed sensor. Though the cadence sensor is still hard wired to the head. The complexity of the readouts available is mind-boggling. With all sorts of averages, changes in averages (tendency) with accelerations and decelerations shown. I would prefer larger numerals for ease of reading but that would require a much larger (or longer) screen. What an amazing improvement on the awful, mechanical speedometers and odometers of my youth!

I rode 12 very sweaty miles later on today to try out the new computer. I'm still only one day behind last month's mileages despite the knee problems. I keep reading about the necessity for rest days and wondering what to do about it. Would a day completely without riding reduce the risk of injury or allow me the chance to recover? Would it lead to improved performance? My last, true, rest day was the 16th of June. The day after that I did only 10 miles. Since then my daily minimum distance is 24 miles with two maximums of just 61 miles.

Would I be able to go further and faster if I had a rest day (say) once a week? My mileages are still paltry compared with many keen cyclists of my own age. They compete regularly at 100 miles,  at 12 hours and even at 24hours! I haven't even managed 100 miles distance at my own  miserable pace yet. It is more than 40 years since I rode over 100 miles in a day. (and the 120+ miles back again the next day) For twenty of those intervening years I was a heavy smoker.

It would take me all of 8 hours to cover that distance at my present, miserable, 13mph average. I ought to be doing it in half that to be remotely competitive at time trialling! Though having checked the results of 100 mile [trike] time trialling (on the TA website)  it seems somewhere around  6 hours would be more normal for my age. While I struggled to manage 10 miles only a year ago my progress still has some considerable way to go before I am remotely in that league.

I feel I should be doing much longer rides, at least once a week, by now. This would require my knee(s) to be working normally, completely without pain. The Brooks saddle problems seem to be behind me at last. :-) There are no limiting mechanical problems requiring my immediate attention. The only thing left is the time required to achieve the distance. If I start very early it would help. A circular  route would keep me safely within riding distance of home in case of disaster. It would preferably take place on a cooler day when the winds are light. (oh, and I'd need a nose bag full of food to keep me going)  Now my knee is on the mend I shall make this my next goal. Though still some way off.

22nd 73F, breezy, humid and mostly cloudy. Throwing caution to the winds I decided to test my legs with a slightly more distant goal while maintaining high pedal rpm. The two loggers agreed on 35.8 miles total but the new computer thought 40 miles exactly. This doesn't make sense considering I'm using the manufacturer's suggested setting.

I was really quite tired on the way home (into the breeze) with both knees aching slightly and my legs feeling heavy. I was using the rev counter (cadence) instead of my speed to guide my efforts. I was trying quite hard most of the time except for a rest halfway while wandering around several supermarkets. I found myself staying on the middle chairing (38T)  except for downhill runs to avoid my rpm dropping too low.

Normally I would spend most of my time on the 48T chainwheel probably pedalling in the 80's rpm.I just don't seem to be able to pedal fast and produce enough power to go fast at the same time. So I was definitely going more slowly than usual. Since the loggers agreed so closely I will have to reset the new bike computer to match the two loggers. I was using a setting of 2120 on my last computer. The new computer recommends 2096 in the instructions. Should I adjust the setting up or down? If it is counting revolutions the computer should multiply wheel circumference by rpm. A  bigger wheel will travel further but slower. A smaller wheel will whiz round but travel less distance. My head hurts. :-)

23rd 72F, breezy, sunny periods. I continued my training at higher pedal rpm. (cadence)  Damned hard work it is too! I seem to do a lot more gear changing than before. I'm also using the small chainwheel which was previously reserved for only the steepest hills when I was tired. It definitely feels as if I'm working much harder for slower speeds. Where before I would push the highest gear I could manage at 80-90rpm I'm now pedalling like mad and going nowhere fast.

My legs feel much more tired after a ride. Long hills are torture at 90-100rpm in a low gear. I vaguely remember club runs in my teens where older, more experienced riders told me to twiddle not to push. It seemed much easier back then but I would always revert to pushing if I wanted to go fast.  My legs are still aching three hours after today's ride. This feels like going backwards. My legs haven't ached as badly as this for a long time. I think the problem is the combination of trying to go as fast as usual and pedal really quickly at the same time.  My muscles haven't developed for this sort of exercise! 29 tiring miles.

24th 68F, breezy and mostly cloudy. I set off into a headwind using a high cadence again trying to maintain 100rpm. After loading the shopping bag to the gills from a couple of supermarkets I set off up one of the longest hills in the area. I expect I was carrying an extra 10lbs of shopping.

Despite the 50kph (30mph) speed limit most cars are usually averaging 50mph or more both up and down. Fortunately it was fairly quiet today as I rode up between the avenue of mature oak trees. Very few of the many hundreds of trees are completely unscathed from speeding, drunken and/or inadequate drivers. In fact there are several gaps where the motor car has taken a severe toll over the years. One saving grace is a fairly low railway bridge at the bottom of the hill. This blocks the largest of the lorry traffic from the motorway which crosses the top of the hill.

I started in too high a gear and was soon pushing the low-to-mid 80s rpm. Dropping onto the small chainwheel (28T) I began to spin more freely. Before long I was doing 16-18mph and spinning at 100+ rpm on the 38T chainring. I finally topped out at 115rpm and 20mph into a headwind as the trees finally fell away to the roar of the motorway. I suppose the hill is about two miles long with some sharp bends in the middle. I shall have to measure it one day. (if I remember to)

Just over 20 miles so far. My legs are really noticing the effort I'm putting into a higher cadence. They are more tired after 20 miles than if I'd just done a ride of 50 miles or more at much higher speeds. In fact it is like having a rest to pedal at only 80-90rpm. Now I know why serious cyclists need a rest day! To rest from having their legs flailing round at 100+rpm! I might take the whole week off! ;-)

I went out again in the late afternoon under a heavy sky though no rain was forecast. I caught the heaviest rain this year! Stair rods were falling for ages. It was still quite dry under the beech trees as I found my jacket but under the others it was wetter than out in the open. I kept going. The windproof  jacket was about as much use as a chocolate teapot! Except that it gave cars a clearer target for the pressure washer effect as they passed!

Soon I was as wet as I've ever been that didn't involve holding my breath! The water was running down my legs and straight through my shoes. My hands were so wrinkly they looked as if I'd spent far too long in the bath. I waited for a while under a garage awning but it was obvious the rain wasn't going off. So I had no choice but to ride home as fast as possible trying to dodge the raindrops. Of course it didn't work and every car that passed at high speed was giving me a free shower anyway. In places I was riding through patchy ground fog from the rain falling onto the sun-warmed road.

In other places the road was an inch deep in water and every drive entrance was a rushing stream crossing my path. Then there was the headwind. The spray disk off my front wheel was blowing straight back in my face! My wet clothes felt really quite cold in the gusts. Now you know why I only managed 11 miles! "Rain stopped play," as thy say in Cricketing circles.

Sunday 25th July 65F, windy, sunny periods.  I really need to relax my legs much more when I'm twiddling. I only realised today that I am clenching all my leg muscles as I spin. Which quickly leads to pain. I should just let my legs flop up and down without conscious effort. I was cruising comfortably downwind at 25mph at 110 rpm for a while. When I tried spinning on the hills I am often going slower than normal because I am turning too low a gear. Hopefully it will become natural to spin faster uphill over time. My habit has always been to push the highest gear I can manage. (normally at 80-90rpm) Only 25 miles so far.

There is a brazed-on, Longstaff trike conversion on eBay at the moment. Quite a bit of interest being shown. Item number: 220631434351

26th Much cooler, 64F, light breezes, overcast.  No longer trying to pedal as fast as possible all the time. Just avoiding low pedal revs to save my knees. 23 mile shopping trip. 12 more miles later on.


27th 70-72F, sunny, light winds. Mr Higgins had a puncture overnight so I was a bit late leaving.  23 miles again but another route in the opposite direction. Feeling a bit stronger today. 27 more miles late afternoon. 74F, sunny, more breezy. Going well until I turned into the wind and an uphill drag.

28th 70F, overcast, humid, light winds. Regaining my strength. 28 miles.

29th 64-67F. Grey, overcast, continuous light rain. I set off for a 40 mile ride but the front gear change cable broke at the bar-end lever only 1 mile from home. (the cable had been fraying for weeks but I was lazy and put off replacing it one day too many)  It didn't take long to ride home and fit a new cable but by then it was too late for a longer run. So I did a hilly shopping run for only 22 miles and back for coffee. It was warm and the rain too light to bother putting on a jacket.

My knee problems seem to be over and I was able to ride with my usual "enthusiasm".  The fast pedalling practice seems to be paying off and I am pushing far less and twiddling far more. The 48T chainwheel is getting much less use than before but I'm using smaller rear cogs on the 38T. I was averaging 18-20mph for quite a lot of the time today.

I saw a couple of pensioners on their bikes in town riding rather too rapidly uphill. Their secret was the remarkably compact, electric motor, front hubs fitted to their sit up-and-beg style roasters. A brilliant idea which must give them far greater mobility as well as greater range. The freedom to overcome the psychological block of struggling uphill must be worth every penny! The irony is that one can buy a complete motor scooter for far less money than a simple and heavy electric bike. This is from the same discount dealer chain! Profiteering at its best.

I just hope that the blind and corrupt political parasites don't start taxing electric bikes and kill a resurgence in cycling. Nor play the usual, dumb retards by insisting on helmets for all cyclists. Cyclists are only as safe as the psychos behind the wheels of motorised vehicles allow them to be. I doubt very many cyclists fall off without any extra help form the motorist. I do my best efforts not to impede the traffic. Yet the number of driving zombies who use the same roads as myself does not grow smaller.

The Ventus G730 GPS logger crashed my computer twice in succession, again today. This, despite having downloaded and reinstalled the  Prolific PL2303 driver. Even then I had to open the driver file and do a repair and computer restart before I could use the logger again. No wonder the Netto supermarkets were flogging these GPS loggers off for only £10 equiv. just to get rid of them!

A great toy with many more useful features than the i-GotU GT-120 (thanks to the better software) but still badly flawed. It still hasn't a clue about changes in altitude! The memory seems to be completely inadequate too. Unless cleared regularly it falls asleep in the middle of journeys. Yet ironically it goes on long wandering paths across the fields as soon as my speeds drops or I come to a complete halt. Yet after every download of the latest route it tells me there was no stop time! Despite knowing I have visited several supermarkets or stopped to take photographs. Dogh.

26 more miles in the afternoon. 68F, mostly overcast, squally showers.  I overtook (with some considerable difficulty) a lady dressed in racing shorts and jersey riding a racing bike.  The first mature, lady cyclist I have seen out training so far.  Though I did see a teenage girl out training some months ago. Despite the huge numbers of cyclists in Denmark few women seem to go in for race wear and racing bikes. Perhaps they go out training in the evenings when I am very rarely out myself? The last time I did a Thursday evening ride I saw lots of cyclists out training in the lanes.  Given the quiet routes I tend to follow during the daytime the chances of crossing paths with other keen cyclists is probably slight.
 
30th A thoroughly miserable, 58F, overcast with continuous rain and very windy. Some choose to take a rest day. Others have a rest day thrust upon them! ;-)  Unless it clears up later I'm not going anywhere in this! Not unless I can find a snorkel and mask!

It has been a hotter and drier July in Denmark than normal. So I have been very lucky not to have to battle with cold and rain this summer. My arms are tanned like mahogany and my knees and calves are distinctly rusty. With odd white stripes above the knee where cycling shorts reach much lower than normal shorts. I have spent so much time on the trike that I haven't walked anywhere. I never sunbathe either.

Despite my weight having increased slightly to 11.5 stone my wife still accuses me of looking like a POW.  I have no idea where the extra 4 oz in weight is coming from. Unless it's my newly bulky thigh muscles. I'm incredibly skinny all over! I look thinner now than I have been since I was an underweight teenager. It certainly can't be my increased brain mass because I'm rapidly becoming an airhead!

A link to an interesting website:  cargocycling.org | Archive | tricycles

The rest day ended with our hero doing a 12 mile ride for shopping. It was gusting so hard at times that I had to hide under the crossbar!  At least it didn't rain.

31st  70F, blustery winds, dry with sunny periods. A fairly relaxed 22 miles so far. Plus 8 later. I finished the month 5.5  miles per day short of last month's average. Equivalent to about three days of riding. Not bad, I suppose, given the poorly knee. If I hadn't lowered the saddle and taken it easier I might not be riding at all because of the pain. Another potential disaster averted. In retrospect the higher cadence is also helping to avoid knee problems. I have a brother and sister of my own age with replacement knees. It may be sheer luck that I have not been brought to a complete halt.

Overworking my shoulders, while landscaping my last garden by pick, shovel and wheelbarrow left me in considerable pain for many years. Eventually the pain wore off. I hope my knees aren't going to react the same way. I take a range of vitamins and fish oil and avoid red meat as much as possible. Lots of fruit, fish, veg and dairy products, organically grown where available, may be helping. A beer each day, at the weekends only, helps to keep me lubricated.

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