This week's event came towards the end of a rather hot and humid spell - a strong and gusty wind blew up during the day, but had thankfully abated by the time I left work to ride over to Stony Stratford, where the evnt was being held on the F5u/10 course (actually about 11.4 miles in our configuration.  My new route over is to ride up V10 then across to Watling St on H3 and on to Stony.  This was pretty straightforward, and a good warmup.

For the event itself, I tried to keep the gears modest for the climb up to Nash, and by and large succeeded.  My HR quickly rose to respectable levels, and indeed (probably due to the warm conditions) rose over 190bpm for much of the event.

A week at residential school (seven 12 hour days indoors, with cafeteria food and too much beer) is not the best way to prepare for a 50 mile time trial.  On the morning, we were greeting with warm and humid conditions, with a little light wind (headwind northbound) and a few light showers.

I started late in the field, number 83, and found the first 4 or 5 miles pretty quick.  But then is truggled a bit to keep in a rhythm.  No traffic problems other than tractor overtaking me just before  a descent shortly before my second turn at the Buckden roundabout - this held me up until a sprinted past.  I was cheered on by Carol at the roadside, which always helps.  I finished in 1:58:58, which is I think my best '50' in the last three seasons (but is bizarrely slower than my first 50 miles in the NM&H CA '100' two weks ago, on the same section of road.  I was reasonably happy with this - I kept my HR above 180 for most of the race.  The event was won by Jason Gurney (Team MK) who improved by about 4 minutes to record a 1:46!

Life-history change in disease-ravaged Tasmanian devil populations

Jones et al (2008) PNAS July 22, 2008 vol. 105 no. 29 10023–10027

Full text (requires subscription); Abstract (free access)

Suicide - Dream Baby Dream

Back in 1978 I happened upon a HiFi magazine's review of the first Suicide album.  Being a HiFi magazine, it was pretty scathing about the record.  However, this being 1978, and in the white heat of the post-punk period, I was of course intrigued by this review, and bought the UK release of the LP (it has a slightly different track listing than the US version).  It's now availableon the Grey Area label (I think a sub-label of Mute).  The CD version I have has some early live recordings, including the infamous Brussels gig where they get driven off stage by an excessivley hostile crowd.

Grinderman's "No Pussy Blues" is for me one of the standout tracks from the band's eponymous first album.  This video clip was posted to youtube by Mute.

Well, I felt pretty good for this club event, had mysterious effects on my Polar 720i HRM bike computer, and ended up with a slightly lacklustre performance!

I didn't receive the startsheet for this event, due to local mail problems, though I managed to get a copy emailed to me by a fellow competitor.  The night before  the event, I really didn't sleep at all well - this seems to me ever more frequent.  I kept on waking and looking at the clock, though I had no chance of over-sleeping, as I'd set the alarm. Eventually I got up at about 4am.

Carol and I got to the race HQ in plenty of time.  However, I felt pretty nervous, not helped by the sensation of my breakfast sitting heavily in my stomach.  This version of the course was one I don't think I had ridden before.  It starts very close to Tempsford.  After a brief warmup, I lined up - the pusher off was the North Bucks' own Tony Farmborough.  The start is very close to the northbound lane A1, and I was quickly up to speed.  The first 57 or so miles (see course description below) are usually quite quick, and so it proved for this event - I did the first 50 miles in 1:58:38, which is actually my fastest 50 of 2008.  By the time I left the A1 I was feeling pretty good.  As expected, the section to Shefford and beyond to the Norton RAB was a bit harder - at times the road surface is rough, there are frequent roundabouts, and it undulates quite severely.  To add insult, one RAB we had to cross four times had road works by my least favourite company, EDF, which was holding riders up (I must say, however, that the guy controlling the traffic seemed to be trying to get the racers through as quickly as possible).

My strategy for the race was to keep the gears a notch lower than I'd use in shorter events, and to keep the HR 5-10 bpm lower than for a 25 or a 50.  This worked well to begin with.

Tony Parks and I made the decision some weeks ago to go for this evening '10'  on the fast F20/10 course based on the A10.  On the eveningid turned out to be mild, but very, very windy.  I had a reasonably early start at 19:27, but Tony didn't start until 20:12.  The outward leg was pretty tough, grovelling into a gale, but at least the return leg was pretty fast.

Tony ended up in 12= place with a fine 21:49.  I was slightly more than a minute down with 22:50, and in 27th place.

Slightly more than 12h after the Herts Wh 10, I lined up at the start of the Hemel Hempstead 25 on the F13/25 course, which runs from Launton to Aylesbury and back.  It's an undulating course, that I've always found a little hard. This event was no exception, while the wind had abated slightly from the previous evening, some horrible showers were passing through.

The publishers seem to be making changes at the Aging Cell web pages.  This has meant that the paper is not presently available on open access, for which which Lynne and I paid a significant amount.

In the meantime, I've placed a pdf on this website.

I am not a historian (as should be evident from these web pages), but I am fond of reading books on historical topics.  A few years ago, I read Orlando Figes' book on the Russian Revolution, A Peoples' Tragedy, whiach ably describes the events leading up to the revolution and its immediate aftermath.  The Whisperers, published in 2007, concerns Soviet citizens' private lives during the Stalin years.  The work results from a wide ranging research project (more details from the author's website) utilising Russian and Soviet public and private archives. Eight chapters cover the years from  the revolution to the death of Stalin, with a ninth covering the years 1953-2006.

In the first chapter, I felt as though I was setting up to read a book of lists: listsof people, lists of their privations, lists of instances of misused power.  However, as I mad my way through the book, I found the stories of families and individual being told progressed very clearly and accessibly.  The book doesn't deal with Stalin's personality and motives, but does occasionally deal with individuals with quite close association with Stalin.  What struck me as I read the book was firstly the privations that those not Party members had to endure, both in terms of their accommodation conditions but economically, and how they could cope with this in the belief that the Party was a force for good.  Intriguingly, people often chose to believe theit nearest and dearest must have been guilty when they fell victim to the apparently randomly applied purges.  

Overall, the book presents an important story, in an interesting and acccessible format.  This material is relevant in an era where our own personal freedoms are continually limited and eroded in the supposed war on terror.  Our government aims to be able to lock our citizens up on suspicion, and without charge for up to 42 days, riding roughshod over hard won civil rights and liberties.In the modern IT era, we see increased data collection by central government, and even private companies have the ability to pry into our web-sufing habits (see my articles on this site on BT and Phorm).  Yesterday,the Swedish Parliament voted for routine tapping of cross-border interception of communication.  One wonders how the Soviet system managed to so effectively monitor and thereby repress the population in a pre-electronic era, and quite how the impact of IT on surveillance will ultimately impact on our western democratic societies.

Not the most auspicious way to get to a club event - I returned from London at 7pm, discovered there was no electricity in Aspley Guise (it eventually came back on at 3am the next day),jumped into my skinsuit, pumped up the tyres, and dashed down to the start of the event.  A very windy evening, though sunny and warm, which made handling tricky at times for those of us with aero wheels.

Certainly not the best performance, by a long chalk.

Napoleon's Wars: An International History, by Charles Esdaile,

Trick or Treatment?: Alternative Medicine on Trial by Simon Singh & Edzard Ernst, published 2008, Bantam press.

At this time each year, we see the launch of the following year's cycling equipment - sometimes (all too rarely in my opinion) a hugely significant technical advance is made.  Shimano's development of STI shifters for road bikes, which seemed to stimulate parallel development at Campagnolo, is one of these cases.  Addition of more gears does not.  For example, cyclingnews.com has an article outlining the changes to Campagnolo's lineup for 2009, with the addition of an 11th cog to the cassette in the top three groupsets, among other things.

I have had absolutely no experience with SRAM equipment, so I have no worthwhile opinions on that.  The kit looks good, has had good reviews, and it is good to see a third player in the field. 

Good innovations

It was clear that this evening's event was going to be quite tough - when I set off from work to Stony Stratford, I roared up Brickhill Street at about 27mph with a stiff tailwind (of course when I went home it was the opposite!).

On the evening, we had a reduced turnout, presumably a combination of the strong wind, and impending summer holidays.  Dealing with my front trispoke in the crosswinds was a problem on the ride our, but at race speed, I had no difficulty.  The climb to the turn was pretty tough into the wind, especially in the approach to Nash, but roaring back down was nice - I reached at least 44.3mph at one point.

Cycle Tour 2008 - The Outer Hebrides, Skye, and Northwest Scotland

This event was the North Bucks Road Club's 10 mile championship, and was held in a week when the weather had varied between the dull, wind, damp and the frankly atrocious.  Following Sunday's grovel up and down the F1 in the NM&H '50', I had vague hopes for a reasonable evening, and in fact the weather during the day had not been too bad.  I rode down to the club room in pretty gloomy conditions, with no real enthusiasm for an evening '10'.

In the event, I was one of the later starters, and got a bit clobbered by the rain when it arrived.  I didn't have a clear runf through any of the roundabouts, other than the far turn, and I found the run up to the Stoke Hammond bypass a real struggle.  Coming back from the turn was pretty quick, and I especially noticed the benefits of the tailwind when on the false flat immediately before the finish.  I could tell from the off that I wasn't on a good ride this evening, and as it turned out I was pretty luck to take third place overall.  Still, we saw some excellent performances, notably Tim and Tony, who took first and second places with excellent times on a frankly rather crummy evening for a time trial, and on a not particularly quick course.  Gilbert pipped me again on vet's standard!

No more racing for a couple of weeks - I'm off cycle touring in the Hebrides, which will be a welcome change of pace!

As I seem to have acquired a bit of a reputation as a repeat offender in the puncture stakes (at least with my racing wheels), I have decided to log these events for the 2008 season. This year I decided to switch back to clinchers (on H3 wheels) as the expense of replacing all those tubulars was becoming prohibitive.

After last week's 50 mile event, I had hoped this time trial, held on the same course, might offer the possibility of a better result!  On Saturday afternoon, the wind strengthened, and in direct proportion, so did my apprehension as the forecast for Sunday morning was for rain.  True to the forecast, the rain was just starting when I got up at 4am (Tony was calling en route at 5.15am).

The rain strengthened and by the time we left for the event, it was heavy.  The event HQ was the entrance hall and kitchen of Moggerhanger village hall - the usual venues being booked up for weddings.  The F1/50 start was about 3 miles, and by the time I got to the start, my rear LED lamp had stopped working.

If anything, the wind was stronger than last week's event, but from roughly the same direction.  So the southbound legs were much faster than the northbound legs.  On the first north bound leg, I was just a fe miles north of the Black Cat RAB when I saw Tony ambling south shaking his head (he'd started 10 minutes before me), and it later transpired he had punctured , and lost his drink bottle at the first turn at the Sandy RAB.