2016 is the first year that I’ve had racing in mind from the get-got. Last year, I suddenly had the urge to race road, track and fixed gear crits sometime around June, which meant that I had already missed a large chunk of the season and I had to start from scratch really, fitness wise. I probably had a fairly reasonable base fitness as I’ve always ridden a lot but I’d never done any ‘proper’ training as I found it hard, annoying and boring.

After deciding to enter the Red Hook Crit, I began training with a coach and we worked together until around November last year, when I felt I needed some time to just ride my bikes for pleasure, particularly my mountain bike which was feeling very neglected. I did keep up some of the high intensity interval training and I made sure I squeezed in some good long road rides and continued with my gym routine but I didn’t fuss too much over what I was doing, because at the end of the day, I just race for fun and I don’t always want my entire life to be about that.

In January, I felt ready to attack the training with renewed vigour and I knew that the first race of the year, a women’s stage race in Exeter, would be a good test of my winter fitness. Doing well would be nice, and doing badly would be an incentive to train harder, so I couldn’t lose really!

I feel like now might be a good time to explain about road racing categories and licenses, as if you don’t race road bikes, you might not know this stuff and then nothing I say is going to make sense! So here we go:

In order to race road bikes in the UK at any official events, you need to buy a license from British Cycling, and though you can sometimes buy a temporary day license, they’re expensive and no good if you want to keep track of how you’re doing as you can’t claim any of the points awarded for winning races. Your experience and results dictate which category you are in – as a novice you’ll begin as a Cat4 , then by winning races/points you’ll progress through Cats 3, 2 and 1 until you become an Elite racer, or you will if you’re really, really good! Make sense?

Back to the race…

Last Sunday’s women’s race day at Westpoint included a Cat 4 only race and a stage race, which is a series of three races for E, 1, 2, 3, and 4 riders. I’ve only done a handful of races so I’m a Cat 4 myself, but I decided to enter the stage race rather than the Cat 4 as I feel there aren’t enough races for women and I wanted to make the most of the opportunity to race three times! It did mean I’d be in with some of the more experienced riders (lots of Cat 2s!) rather than just the other Cat4 newbies and that I most likely wouldn’t win any points but I’ve never done a stage race before and thought it might be fun.

It was!

We began with a points race, the first time I’ve ever done one. Around 22 of us lined up at the start and the commissaire explained to us how things should go – points races are more often run on the track/velodrome so I imagine I wasn’t alone in not knowing how it worked. It turned out that the aim of the game was to ride around together in a bunch, and then sprint for the line every 4 (or was it 5th?) lap, the goal being to place 1st, 2nd or 3rd and thereby grab some points. Naturally, the person with the most points would win.

It turned out to be a fairly relaxed pace for the 3 (or 4!) laps preceding the sprint and we all stuck in a tight bunch trying to shelter from the terrible wind that so often plagues Westpoint Arena. The lap before the sprint, a whistle was blown to remind those of us snoozing (me!) that the next time we crossed the line we could win points.

About half way around the points lap there would be a tremendous amount of hustling and moving around as everyone tried to get themselves into a good position to go for the sprint and having no clue at all what to do really, I found it pretty tough and was nearly always in the wrong place. The more experienced riders were not only better versed in what to do, they were also far, far more confident and as a relative newbie I found myself repeatedly boxed in and slightly intimidated really. The toughest thing about the points race turned out to be not fitness, but tactics and and remaining confident. It took quite a lot of nerve. In the end, I only found myself in a decent enough position to really contest the sprint once or twice.

Immediately following the points race, we lined up again for the start of the Elimination race, a race I’ve ridden once or twice on the track. On every lap, the last two riders over the line are eliminated, so of course  the aim of the game is to stay in until the end!

The pace wasn’t crazily fast or anything but again, it was the hustle that you had to pay attention to – everyone would be riding round the course fairly spread out but at the very last minute they would squeeze together and surge over the line so that they weren’t last. I managed to stay in for a while but again, it was hard to get the tactics quite right – I’d be riding around with heaps of people behind me then we’d near the finishing line and everyone would suddenly move and I’d get stuck or boxed in and find myself near the back! In the end, I was eliminated without even realising I was one of the last two – I could have sworn I was further forwards but I got caught snoozing or was the victim of my shoddy race tactics I guess. It’s all good practice though!

The final race was a straight up Scratch race or criterium – the first over the line wins. Having done a few crits before, I felt more at home with this one but still found myself stuck at the back fairly regularly when I know that’s a crap place to be, not through being tired or unfit but through not really getting my placement quite right. I don’t think bullying is the right word as it makes it sound like other racers were doing something untoward and they absolutely 100% weren’t, but it was pretty tough to be assertive and I felt I got a bit pushed around. There were also some pretty sketchy riders in the race that I had to try and avoid, so that didn’t help with my confidence at all!

In the end, I managed a 6th in the crit, which is decent enough, all things being considered! I can’t wait for the next race and I’m looking forward to getting more and more experience.

Photos: Dave Noakes. I’m having trouble uploading many at the moment as the internet is bad here is Spain!

If you follow Dave’s blog Ride Everything, you might realise that the pair of us are feeling very lazy and ill today, so therefore this post comes at you straight from bed, with very little wit, humour or forethought! Annoyingly, I’ve been getting ill far too frequently and it’s really been eating in to my training time but I’ve had to prioritise my health over riding! Three weeks of really bad, full on proper flu last winter (totally bedridden, psychedelic hallucinations etc) may well have affected my immune system to such an extent that it’s never really recovered. But that’s another post for another time.

Anyway, as essentially what I’m trying to do with this is direct you towards my latest post for Brooks England, why beat about the bush anyway? So, click this here link and head over to the Brooks website to read about my love of night trail riding.

Any keen cyclist will tell you that food plays a big part in what they do. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve started meticulously fantasising about incredible meals as I near the end of a ride, my energy stores  completely diminished. Generally, the idea is not to get to the point where you can hardly turn the pedals through lack of sustenance, but hey, it’s happened to us all.

Obviously, the best way to avoid running out of gas on a ride is to eat regularly on the bike, or if you can’t do that, stopping and eating a large wedge of cake is another nice option. These days, I tend to limit my cake rides to once a week when I head out with Mid Devon Cycling Club, although even then, I’ll take a snack just to be sure – I’ve been riding long enough to know that I ride far better if I’m really well fuelled. When I’m not out with the club, I’m usually training on my road bike and if I’m riding for over an hour and a half I’ll stick a snack in my jersey pocket. When out on the trails riding my mountain bike, my backpack is always well stocked. You get the point, I’m sure.

I take care never to be too far from food!

Though some energy bars are very nice indeed (Clif Bars, I’m talking about you!), eating a lot of commercially produced energy bars isn’t really ideal as they can contain quite a lot of sugar. It may be brown rice syrup or something else masquerading as healthy, but the body can’t actually distinguish between ‘good’ sugar and ‘bad’ sugar, so it’s best not to rely on sweetened energy bars all of the time, particularly if you also consume energy gels.

An alternative is to bake your own bars at home, and there are plenty of recipes all over the web showing you how to do that, but honestly, sometimes (often) I just can’t be bothered, so I was intrigued by Wlydsson’s new Bake At Home bar mix. It looked like it could be a nice compromise – not full of rubbish, but not a faff.

The bar mix comes in a pouch in one of three flavours. It’s £3.49 for the bar mix itself which makes about ten bars; pretty good value considering one sports energy bar can be about two quid. All you do is mash a couple of bananas in a bowl, add the mix, an egg and some nut butter, then stir and pop into a baking tray. It takes no longer than a minute from pouch to tray and twenty minutes later, you’ve got fresh energy bars with no nasties, ready to wrap and use.

So what are they like?

The bars are oaty, fairly soft and totally ram-jammed with lovely seeds and berries. They’re not overly sweet and they taste vaguely of banana. I’m fairly ambivalent about the taste – I wouldn’t eat them for a treat, but I’d use them as fuel. My husband absolutely loved them.

I preferred Wyldsson’s Pro Mix Snack Tubes – these are pretty awesome! There’s no faffing, no syrupy binding agents, just a whole tube of nuts, seeds, fruits and sometimes chocolate to pour down your throat. The flavour combinations are brilliant (cherries, cashews and dark chocolate, anyone?) and they’re clean, hygienic and fit easily into a jersey pocket. My only gripe would be that it’s hard to get the lid on and off with gloves on when you’re riding a bike, so some kind of squeeze tube system with an integrated lid would be better. It’s £15.99 for a sample pack of ten, or you can buy a refill pack which works out a fair bit cheaper. Yum.

If you fancy trying any of these products, use the voucher code bikes to give you 20% off till Friday.

Does anyone like Turbo Training? I mean, actually enjoy doing it? I get a real buzz after a session on the turbo and I really dig the results, but as for finding pleasure in the activity itself, well, I’m not a sadist!

But in my mind, turbo training in winter is a necessary evil – there’s not enough daylight to complete the training I like to do outdoors and frequently the weather is so goddam awful that I don’t want to leave my house on a road bike. I don’t mind getting totally filthy on my mountain bike, but having just noticed the extent of the damage I’ve done to my rims, hubs and groupset over the last 12 months by riding in gritty, grimy weather, I’m reconsidering riding a road bike in all weather. It’s news to me that a brand new set of wheels can only last a year…. bah! It’s too late for those hoops, but I’m certainly going to need to be more selective about what/when I ride in future – I’m not made of money!

Anyway, back to Turbo Training. It’s horrid but awesome. And if you’re in need of some turbo training ideas, or some High Intensity Interval Training, you’re in luck as I’ve just shared some of my best workouts over on the Velovixen site.

Check it out here.

The next Assos Equipe ride takes place this Saturday, the 12th March. Come and join myself and the Assos team (and Dave!) for a ride co-hosted by Sigma Sport. The rides are open to everyone and are free to join, simply email assosequipe@assos.com to register your interest. Details below:

Date: Saturday 12th March 2016 
Time: 8:30am for coffees, pastries and briefing. 8:45am roll out
Where: Sigma Sport, Hampton Wick

The route will be just over 83 kilometres (52 miles) in length and will total around 1058 metres (3471 feet) of elevation. We’ll be rolling out in two groups:

Group 2 – A more social paced group aiming to average around 15/17mph. This ride will endeavour not to drop anyone.

Group 1 – This group is ideal for our more experienced riders and will aim to average between 18/20mph. This is an average speed so speeds can be in excess of20mph in places. You should be able to ride safely in a group and will need a good level of fitness.

The faster group will leave from the Hampton Wick store at 8:40AM, with the slower group leaving at 8:45AM, with both groups aiming to be back around 1PM. We’ll stop at the Foresters pub outside the store at the end of the ride for some well earned “recovery” drinks.

Hope to see you there.

Red Bull are putting on a fixed gear pursuit race in Vienna this April, and I’ll be there to race, host a women’s fixed gear workshop and take part in a Friday night ride. The race, Red Bull Fuxjagd, sees two riders start on opposing sides of a course and then try to close the gap and catch their opponent.

Curious about which of my bikes I’d be bringing along to the event, the team asked me to send them a bit of info on why I’d chosen this particular machine. I duly sent over some words and snaps, but now I’m not even sure that IS the bike I’ll be taking… I also have a rather lovely Titanium Charge Plug with slightly different geometry and I’m now wondering whether to take that instead.

But anyway, if you’re interested in finding out more about my custom Charge Plug track bike or what elements of your set up you should consider tweaking if you’re entering the race, head over to the Red Bull site to have a look. And whilst you’re there, why not sign up for the race?

Photos: Dave Noakes

A few weeks ago I headed up to the big smoke to go for a ride and dispense a few cycling tips for the Guardian. It was a really ridiculously, crazily, outrageously cold day and we started at the absolute crack of dawn so that our camera crew had plenty of time to film some beautiful shots aboard their complicated rigging.

Got my own personal film crew for the day!

A photo posted by Juliet Elliott (@julietelliott) on Feb 17, 2016 at 6:01am PST

Riding out of London we headed down to Surrey and up to Box Hill, which Dave and I rather rudely call Box Slope, because it’s really not that much of a hill. I remember a couple of years back when we rode London Revolution we were nervously anticipating Box Hill on the second day and very much hoping we’d have enough legs left to get up it, such was its infamy. When we got there we had a real giggle – it was over very quickly and not that steep. Still, it’s a very beautiful and enjoyable climb.

Speaking of hill climbing, I’m reminded of the time I was taken out for breakfast in London by my ex, and we had to ride up a very, very slight incline about 100 metres long when we took a detour through Finsbury Park. Extremely hungover, I complained that he hadn’t told me there were going to be hills.. Oh, how I’ve changed!!!

Anyhow, here’s my video which includes a few hill climbing tips, though of course we all know that the only way to get better at climbing hills is by climbing them.

A couple of weeks ago I headed to Spain with my mountain bike for the second time this year. This time the destination was just outside Madrid, so a little further north than my previous trip to Malaga.

I was a guest of Marin Bikes, who’d chosen the little known (in the UK at least) Sierra de Guadarrama to film the new Marin-Stans No Tubes Enduro team edit, and as all my jobs/roles and work/leisure tends to be virtually indistinguishable, I was there to write articles for Wideopen Magazine and MBR Magazine as well as to get myself some photos and whatnot. And never keen to pass up an opportunity, I was also there to an Enduro race, my second as it happens.

For some reason, despite checking the forecast multiple times before leaving, I absolutely refused to believe that it would be cold and snowy so I packed really badly and spent the week feeling VERY cold. What classic British narrow-mindedness to believe Spain is all beaches and sunshine. DOH!

As I don’t want to spoil my upcoming articles I’ll leave it at that for now and just direct you to Wideopen Magazine to read all about Enduro Fun Festival and how I got on with racing in snow. Or if you want the short version of that piece, here it is: It snowed, one of the stages was closed, we raced two of them instead, I kept slipping and sliding all over the place, I came third in my category.

The MBR piece will include details of where I stayed, where I rode and with whom, why it’s such an amazing place and how you can replicate the trip, so look out for that one in a future issue.

Thanks for the lovely race day photos Violeta Beral!

I don’t know whether you’ve read one of my previous posts on Bikes n’ Stuff or whether I’d going over old ground here, but Red Bull have kindly invited me as a special guest to their fixed gear bike race, Red Bull Fuxjagd in Vienna at the beginning of April.

The first thing I asked when they invited me was whether they would have a separate women’s category, because we all know that having to race against guys is a huge deterrent to women, many of whom feel nervous about trying bike racing in the first place. I’m happy to report that the women’s race is now on!

In order to promote the women’s race and help those of you who need a little help, encouragement or assistance, we’ve also planned in a Meet and Greet, Workshop and Ride on the Friday, where I’ll be on hand to answer all your questions and give you race specific advice or tips about how to set up your bike. I’ll also be talking about my own fixed gear journey and how I’ve progressed from messing about doing tricks on my bike to racing all over the world.

In preparation for the workshop and race, Red Bull sent over a bunch of questions so they could prepare a press release about what we’ve got going on. One of the questions was ‘why women should dare to enter the Red Bull Fuxjagd.’ I thought you guys might like to read my answer to that question, so here it is:

Convinced?To sign up to Red Bull Fuxjagd, click here.

I’ve been riding with MET Helmet’s Parachute full face helmet for a long old time now and I’m always being asked about it, so I thought it about time I gave it a little love here on Bikes n’ Stuff. As I used to be Global Marketing and Communications coordinator at Met Helmets and I’m currently sponsored by them, I know an awful lot about this lid, hell, I even wrote the press release back in the day.

So what makes it different to other full faces? Well, the idea with the Parachute was always to offer the maximum level of safety and conform to stringent international certification standards but to do that without the resulting product being hot, clumsy and heavy. In order to do that, MET designed something radically different to a traditional full face lid.

The Parachute feels more like a trail lid than a full face when it’s on your head – it’s super light and airy and rather than being stuffed full of padding that muffles your hearing, it’s held in place with a retention system with an adjustment dial at the back, much like your XC or road helmet. But of course it’s much more than that as it has a built-in fixed chin guard to protect your face, jaw and teeth. I find it great for Enduro, where you’re pedalling as well as pinning it down steep stuff.

The adjustment dial can be turned using one hand for on the go fine-tuning. There are a cheek pads that keep things snug; these come in two sizes so the helmet fits more than one head size. The fastening system uses a double D ring and popper.

At the front, there’s gel padding across the brow which feels cool and comfortable. It’s removable, washable and doesn’t fill up with sweat like normal padding. Round the back, a goggle clip keeps your goggle strap in place and prevents them pinging off. And speaking of goggles, I’ve tried it with quite a few different styles and it’s fitted all of them.

At 700grams, it’s the lightest fully certified (according to ASTM F1952-2032) full face helmet on the market and with huge air flow inlets, it’s surely the best ventilated.

www.met-helmets.com

On Easter Sunday I went to Tavistock to enter the Round 3 of the Woodland Riders Winter Series Downhill mountain bike race.

It was a random encounter that led me to even enter in the first place – I’d been chatting on Facebook with a local rider, Laura Griffiths, we’d arranged to go for a ride over at Tavi and I’d ended up having such a fun day riding that when she mentioned she was entering the race herself, I thought I’d give it a go too.

I have to confess, I woke up feeling a little unenthusiastic on the morning of the race. I opened the curtain to horrific looking weather and rain and hurricanes were forecast for the whole day. To make matters worse, my sleep had been disturbed all night as I ate too much pizza and banoffee pie and shared a bottle of wine with Dave the night before. We also had all four cats sharing our bed and Dave was snoring like a hurricane, so not so great.

Luckily, I’d entered in advance and didn’t want to waste my £25 so I got my stuff together, jumped in the car and headed over Dartmoor to the race.

I made a video diary of the day which you can check out on my YouTube channel or below. And speaking of YouTube I really am intending on keeping that promise of making more videos, so please subscribe to my channel and let me know what kind of thing you’d like to see!

After just a few days at home in Devon where I frantically tried to get some work done, do some training and spend lots of time stroking our four cats, last Thursday I jumped back on a plane and headed off to another European country. This time the destination was Vienna, Austria, a beautiful city on the Danube and the location of Red Bull Fuxjagd.

Having a rad time in Vienna at Red Bull Fuxjagd, thanks for inviting me @redbullaustria. And thanks for my new shirt @chargebikes, feeling chuffed #chargebikes#fuxjagd#trackbike#fixedgear#fixiegirl#cycling#womenracebikes

A photo posted by Juliet Elliott (@julietelliott) on Apr 2, 2016 at 10:56am PDT

I kicked off the weekend by popping into the FM4 offices for a live radio chat about women’s cycling and the weekend’s event, a head-to-head fixed gear battle that sees participants pinning through a hunting themed course replete with hay bales and a lederhosen wearing, bugle toting master of ceremonies. Myself and the organisers were very much hoping that we could tempt a few more women to give this informal and fun filled race a go and went all out trying to get more sign ups, right up until the moment the race began.  

On Saturday morning, the riders assembled for some practice laps on the course, a 200m circuit with chicanes, a couple of bumps and banked turns at each end. It was anybody’s guess whether springing flat out and then skidding to slow before the technical parts was best, or if keeping a smooth cadence was preferable. One thing was for sure, confidence and skill were the best tools for success, but after that came the need for physical fitness – the course took it out of you way quicker than I expected. The atmosphere was super relaxed, the fun format putting everyone at ease. Yes, it was a race so ultimately we all wanted to do well but it reminded me of the kind of races my friends and I used to enjoy before things got so serious at fixed gear crits and the silliness reminded me why I really do need to book a ticket to Paris for the ECMC this summer!

After an evening spent hanging out with new friends and eating Sushi (joy!), on Sunday morning we pottered back down to the venue. Myself and Addison Zawada were taking over Red Bull’s Snapchat account so I quickly had it explained to me as I’ve never actually used it before – all the other social media stuff is time consuming enough!  

Follow me and @addisonzawada taking over @redbull’s Snapchat today! The Red Bull #fuxjagd heats are about to start here in Vienna @assosofswitzerland @met_helmets @chargebikes A photo posted by Juliet Elliott (@julietelliott) on Apr 3, 2016 at 3:07am PDT

It turned out to be pretty fun, so maybe I’ve found a new way to waste time…

Myself and three of the other ladies set fast enough qualifying times to make the cut for the main race, so the next day so we lined up in the Rathausplatz for our chance to knock out a few of the guys. There were a lot of super strong riders and I tried hard to copy their lines in and out of the berms but in the end I was eliminated after a tough match against a guy who was clearly faster than I am. My fella Dave Noakes (who has posted a superb write up and some lovely photos on his blog) was eventually knocked out too and joined me and Austin Horse in cheering Addison Zawada and Stefan Schott in the men’s finals. In the end, Addison took the win In the ladies finals, I grabbed the third spot on the podium, joining fellow champs Alice Kralikova and Sami Moreno. Check out my video diary from the weekend and subscribe on YouTube for more.

2016 has been a super busy year for me so far! After spending heaps of time focusing on training on my track bike last year, as the race season drew to an end last Autumn I had a moment to reassess. I resolved to make more time for the other kinds of riding that I love; alongside riding fixed gear bikes, my other big passion is mountain biking and I felt that I’d missed out on too much trail time by getting tunnel vision about crit racing.

I’m lucky enough to work with some great brands and publications, including Fox, Marin, Wideopen Magazine and so with a slightly more relaxed approach to training, I’ve been able to say ‘yes’ to lots of exciting trips and explore some new trails in this country and beyond.

Back in January I had a taste of the hot, sunny Spain we all recognise when I headed off to Malaga for Wideopen Magazine with Dave on official camera duties. The most recent trip was also to Spain but this time the weather played a dirty trick and I ended up riding in snow!

Whilst I was over there I entered an Enduro race that turned out to be a great laugh!

Check out the full write up on the Wideopen Mag site.

I was delighted to help create, promote and host Fred Perry‘s My Patch Ride-Out in London last year and as the event was such a great success, we’re now rolling the rides (geddit?) out to other UK locations.This Sunday, April 17th, Fred Perry’s My Patch Ride-Outs make their Nottingham debut.

In keeping with the Fred Perry Ride-Out ethos, the ride will be friendly and easy-going with a ‘no-drop’ policy – we won’t leave anyone behind. I envisage that most of the ride will be spent chatting and getting to know one and other and to cement those new friendships we’ll be finishing the Ride-Out with coffees and pizzas at Suede Bar in Hockley.

Suitable for all levels of cyclists, our 14-mile ride begins at Fred Perry’s Nottingham store on Bridlesmith Gate before heading out past Lady Bay towards Cropwell Bishop and Langer Hall. Testing our legs on some gentle climbs, we’ll return via the National Watersports Centre and Trent Bridge Cricket Ground before we head to Suede bar for the all important pizza party.

Tickets are free but you must sign up if you would like to come along. You can do so here.

Hope to see you Sunday!

It seems like three is my magic number this year – I took this third spot on the podium at Round 4 of the Welsh Gravity Enduro series last Sunday meaning I’ve grabbed third places in the last three races I’ve done and in three different disciplines to boot – Downhill, Fixed Gear and Enduro.

The event took an unusual format for a Gravity Enduro – rather than having one chance to set your fastest time on a variety of tracks and in a set order, the ‘Mash-Up’ format meant that you could try as many times as you liked to record your fastest time and that you could ride all the tracks in whatever order you felt like.

On the morning of the race I randomly chose to begin on Track 3, partly because it looked further away from the race HQ than the other tracks and so I thought there might be a bit less of a queue. I’d decided that I’d ride each track once to recce it then go straight back up to try a fast run whilst I vaguely remembered the course. I’d then move onto the next track and do the same until I’d recced and raced each track. After that, I could go back and try some of them again if I needed/wanted to.

In the end, it didn’t work out like that at all..

It all began easily enough – I slowly climbed up to Track 3 in order to give my legs time to warm up – I’d ridden for four hours at Newport Velodrome the day before so they were feeling a little stiff. The track was very pedaly and tiring but an awful lot of fun, so after my recce I headed straight back to the top to do my race run. Unfortunately I caught up another rider half way down and they didn’t move to one side and let me past despite asking repeatedly, so I was really held up. I decided to go straight back up again and give it another go.

Once I’d set a reasonable time on Track 3 (the fastest time on that track) I grabbed some lunch and chatted to some of the other riders. It was then that I found out that Track 2 was actually the longest of all and became a bit worried that I’d spent so much time and most of my energy riding Track 3. I decided to check out Track 2/aka Zig Zags but went the wrong way and ended up at Track 1, which was a Bike Park track.

As I was over there, I rolled down it to check it out that I headed over to Track 2 as I’d originally planned – I wanted to have a recce then a race run on it before I got way too tired. I had a run down Traxk 2/Zig Zags to scope it out then headed back up to HQ to check out all the times and do my fast runs on Tracks 1 and 2.

As it turned out, I had to stick with the times I’d recorded on my practice laps – by trying WAY too hard on my Track 2 race run I crashed really badly. It’s never nice to crash, and naturally, it’s always unexpected but boy, did I hit the ground fast. One minute I was riding along, the next minute – splat. I drilled my face into the floor and smashed my hand pretty nastily. I was in a fair bit of pain but rolled down the rest of the Track then pushed back up to HQ. A medic had a cursory look at my hand and told me the paw wasn’t broken, so that was that.

In the end, the combined time of the practice runs on Tracks 1 and 2 and my race run on Track 3 were enough to get me third place, so I was happy with that!

What I wasn’t so happy about was discovering two days later that in fact I have broken my thumb in multiple places and that the bones fragments are not aligned. I’m back at the fracture clinic next week for more info, but it looks like the next six weeks will be spent in plaster. Doh.

Photos: Dave Noakes

Pro or am, fast, fit or fat, cycling training camps are big news. Every year around April time, my Instagram feed is filled with images of friends and strangers away for a week on the bike with no distractions, and although I’m by no means hard done by, every year I get just a touch envious.

With Crit season looming and a lot of races on our schedules,  Dave and I felt that if we could ever justify a training camp, it would be in 2016, but no being made of money we couldn’t just sign up and whack one on the credit card. I also felt somewhat outraged by the prices I saw advertised for Mallorca and Lanzarote – it seems like the words ‘training camp’ (like ‘wedding’) are license to hike up the price of everything.

Creating our own bespoke training camp seemed to be a good idea financially – it would give us control how we spent our money. It also meant we could squeeze a training camp into our tight schedules. Girona, being so close to the airport and budget flights was a natural choice, not least because I fell in love with Catalonia last autumn.

Fancy doing something similar? Check out the Total Women’s Cycling website for my feature on how to create your own DIY training camp, either in Girona or elsewhere

www.totalwomenscycling.com

As I mentioned in my previous post, Dave and I recently went to Girona to do some training on our bikes, hoping a few days away would give our fitness a little boost. So for my latest Vlog, I take you though our trip, explaining where we rode, how we did our threshold training, why Bike Breaks Girona is a rad shop and the best place to hire road bikes from and why you should go to Girona for a cycling training camp.

Chek out the video below and if you like, subscribe to my channel!

My lovely sponsors Assos have some very exciting things in the pipeline this year and I’m super excited to be a part of them. Stay tuned for some news on their new London store, a women’s specific event we’re working on together and all manner and awesome stuff. But in the meantime, here’s their latest video, which just so happens to feature yours truly riding in the new Women’s S7 laaLalai bibshorts in Switzerland.

I’ve been meaning to write this review forever, but now that I’m OUT OF SODDING ACTION thanks to this cast on my arm, I’ve finally found the time to sit down and begin typing up my thoughts on Lake Cycling’ CX331 women’s shoes.

(actually, I’ve had the cast removed since I wrote this piece – I just forgot to publish it)

My intention was always to write a longterm review, just not quite this long…I was originally sent the shoes well over two years ago. In those two plus years, the shoes have spun through gazillions of pedal rotations, been up and down numerous mountains and raced in fixed gear and road crits, so I’ve certainly given them a good thrashing. I’m happy to say, they’re still going strong, but with a price tag of £249.99, you’d damn well expect longevity!

The shoes make use of a female specific mould, as believe it or not, women tend to have a different foot shape to men. They are also thermo-moudable, which means you can pop them in the oven, soften them up and mould them to to exact shape of your feet. Dave is absolutely incredulous that I haven’t made use of this feature, but I just haven’t needed to – the CX331s felt great out of the box.

The thermo-moulding allows customisation of two sections of the shoes – around the heel and around the instep. Lake claim that you can mould the shoes as many times as you want, so maybe I should give it a go? Either way, I’ve never had any problems with ‘hot spots’ on the soles of my feet and two years down the line, they feel as good as when I was sent them. And I’ve always felt my heel was well anchored.

A carbon sole means these shoes are super stiff and transfer power very well.  A teeny tiny heel piece doesn’t make walking particularly easy, but they’re bike shoes, so whatever!

The upper feels light and soft, yet that doesn’t seem to mean any loss of power. Perforations allow moisture to escape. I’ve worn these shoes throughout the winter and the summer, and I’ve found they feel good in both seasons – they’re neither overly vented nor too warm. The gently padded tongue is comfortable. After two years of riding, the soft leather upper hasn’t stretched, though the mesh area is starting to look very slightly saggy.

The shoes use a BOA adjustment systems which makes adjustment very easy – you simply turn a dial to crank up the tightness or loosen it off. At first, I was concerned that the BOA system would mean I couldn’t fine tune the fit in different areas of my foot like I do with shoes with laces or straps, but as they fit so well that’s not been an issue.

My conclusion? Well I can’t help at baulk at the price, but these are a damn fine pair of women’s specific carbon soled road cycling shoes and it’s looking likely they’ll last at least a few more years.

Over the last couple of years I’ve been quietly collecting British Cycling qualifications and awards as I’m really keen on working with the local community, providing quality training and coaching and delivering fun, quality sessions for all kinds of riders.

I’m already a qualified coach but seeing as I’m still partway through the training pathway, I’ve yet to specialise in any one discipline. I was initially hoping to tackle a track coaching qualification after I passed level two, but that was before they shelved the idea of building a velodrome in Torbay and scuppered my plans, bah! So as it stands, the next qualification I’ll be training for is a Mountain Bike Coaching qualification, in autumn – due to my schedule I can’t fit it in any sooner.

As there’s so much amazing mountain biking right on my doorstep here in Devon, I’ve also taken the opportunity to gain a Mountain Bike Leader qualification. It’s different to a coaching award as it’s more about how to create and deliver enjoyable excursions for groups of riders safely, with an emphasis on route planning, navigation, group leadership and emergency procedures rather than developing riders’ skills.

The guys at British Cycling have just featured me on their website, where I explain what the course entails, why I did it and what I hope to do with the qualification. If you’re interested in finding out more about training for a job in the saddle or just fancy taking your pals or local cycling club out for a well planned, safe ride, have a look at the site and see if a Mountain Bike Leader award might be what you’re after.

I wrote a detailed overview of what I experienced on my first training day, so click here if you’d like to know what to expect when you turn up to your course.