LondonSkaters Speed Team - Speed Skating & Rollerblading Club in London

Xia · Joined: 06 Apr 2004 Posts: 874 Location: Geneva (Suisse)

Due to my frustration of not doing london to cambridge last week end, I'd like to do a long distance skate next sunday.
Is there any one else interested injoining?

I would be leaving from somewhere in south London at 8.30 Am (Croydon?) and skate 40-60 miles toward the south. No fixed destination yet. Then once happy and tired take a train back to London.

I will only take small country roads. No route check as I don't have any clue of my destination.
Speed will be cruising speed not racing speed.
Alex

Rick · Joined: 25 Feb 2004 Posts: 5914

BIG hills to the south. I'm in Scotland but might otherwise join you with the bike for that direction.

Xia · Joined: 06 Apr 2004 Posts: 874 Location: Geneva (Suisse)

Ok more details,
Weather depending, I'll head south for a few hours, stop for a nice pub lunch then keep pushing toward the south enjoying the british country side.

Leaving early (around 8.30) is essential to get out of london built areas before traffic picks up. (this also why sunday is better than Saturday)

If I feel good, then I should reach the sea side in the mid-late afternoon.

I'll try to pre select a route (I have a good mapping software at home showing climbs) but might alter on the day based on visibility, traffic and road surface.

I'll talk to Cat (she is away at the moment) but there is a chance that she will join me on a push bike.

Alex

Mikey-two-Names · Joined: 24 Feb 2004 Posts: 4108

What mapping software do you have Alex?

Tim · Joined: 26 Jul 2004 Posts: 381 Location: leytonstone E11

looking forward to hearing more on this. where about's would you set off from alex ?

Xia · Joined: 06 Apr 2004 Posts: 874 Location: Geneva (Suisse)

still on at the moment, Go or no Go based only on weather forecast. Light random showers is ok, big rain is not. I will update Sat late afternoon.

If other are coming, then I will leave at 8.30 from East Croydon station (easy access from nearly everywhere in London).

use pm or emails if you want to contact me and to get my mobile number.

Alex

Hans · Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2005 11:39 pm Subject:

Going the other way Alex for a much shorter skate, from Camberley to London with Farhana, Natasha and Caroline.

Have a good ride out and i hope the weather is good for the both of us

Xia · Joined: 06 Apr 2004 Posts: 874 Location: Geneva (Suisse)

Finally I have recovered enough to post about sunday ride.

So my wife on a bike and me on skates started from croydon with one goal goes as far south as we could with EastBourne as our potential destination.

Let's be straight, we din't reached eastbourne, and settled for Uckfield. None the less we had a decent day out and learn a few things about the roads in the area and still managed 85 km. Go to next post to read about ideas and things I have learned on the skate.

So back to the start, to be right in the mood, getting out of croydon involves a nice 3-4 km steady climb. From map checking, I knew the first half the the route would be up and down.... and it was. The roads we took where a bit boring and not that interesting. Most had a bit of traffic and was wet everytime it was under trees. To be fair, at no time (except once, more later) did a car anoyed us or put us at risk to overtake us. 'cagers' were indeed well behaved and we had our fair share of smiles.

Early on, Cat and me used our now well drilled downhill technic that does involve Cat leading in the descents with me right behind her and controlling our speed. It does work a treat! At least most of the time. Before the M25 we hit an interesting feature, called the ridge. The ridge his a nice hill cuting west east alongside the M25. The road we took to go down was signed posted to be a 20% downhill yeah... so there we go me behind Cat, Cat braking heavily but failing to slow us down has our combined weight was ovehlming her brakes.... Fine untill we hit an hairpin... and the bike start slinding from the rear and we end up on the other side of the road. Luckily no cars were coming the other way! In that hill we maxed out at 45 km/h and that was with cat braking. Scary!

After that point, we settled on nicer country side roads and started to really enjoy our stroll. Speed wise I'm keeping an average of 14kph. Its a bit slower than my target, but then the hills are harder than expected.
At one point we encounter a small pack of road cyclist. The look at me with a friendly smile and coment on me having too many wheels. Good enough for me, I sprint to match their speed and start drafting them at 30km/h. the face of the guys was hillarious. I drafted them for 2km untill we reach a junction and didn't know where to go (that my excuse.... I also was out of breath) as Cat was left behind. One of the coment was "how the hell do you do that", lol.

Reaching the suburbs of east Grinstead, we are carried a bit off track as I missed to print 3km of the map. With a bit of guess work we manage to go around the town. Again we are in suburb built up areas, and climbing hard. Our next target is Forest row.

The forest is lovely, while the road are still wet, the views are so good that we forget (or maybe not) that we have to climb another 4 km to the top of the forest. At the top we rest a little bit to take in the views. (should have pictures tonight)
Coming down the forest, we hit paradise skating road. A long gentle downhill straigh smooth tarmac roads overlooking a valley on the side and not a single car! Sweet.
Once the down hill finished, it was lunch time and well timed it was. As as soon as I entered the pub, the rain pourred down! Cat was still locking her bike Smile

The pub was a nice meeting point for cyclist in the area and hence was overcharging.... Can't escape britiain ripp off...

Once again on the roads, but now they are all wet and slippery making our (my) progress hard especially in the uphills. Luckily we are now reaching the part where the route is flatter.
We are now north of Uckfield and we have to make a dreadfull decision. Uckfield is the last town before Eastbourn where we can catch a train. Its 15h30. We have done 70km but by avoiding the main roads, we have only done 40km toward Eastbourn. There is probably another 50km to go. With at least 40km to go without a possibility to catch a train... The choice is made, we will stop here. As not to feel to defeated we do a small loop of Uckfield by the south to enjoy the flat country roads.
After 85km, we finally reach the station and miss the train by 2 minutes, next one in one hour... In the end we made the good call to stop here as the heavens open again and the rain is here to stay for the evening.

As I said before we never had issues with traffic until the last 200 meters where an incoming car cut us to turn right while we were coming down a hill at 40kph. Cat skillfully steer us around him but that was way too close.

Xia · Joined: 06 Apr 2004 Posts: 874 Location: Geneva (Suisse)

Things I learned....
- I have to be more precise on the route we want to take and be really carefull with climb profiles
- The south of London is hilly and has to be avoided as its not that interesting
- Unless the course is flat, you must have one bike per skater to help speed control in downhills. In case of a bigger number of skaters, a car would be a welcomed addition.
- Country Road are mostly safe and in good condition to skate
- Bigger town must be avoided
- Wet roads are not a show stopper, you can still skate ableit at a slower speed.
- Good weather helps keeping moral high.
- 80km distance is not long if you are prepared to take your time.
- Once tired, you can keep speed on the flat but hills become a nightmare.
- I must upgrade Cats brake as they are not good enough to slow both of us down in big downhills.

Will I do it again....
Hell yes... but not next week!
Alex

Hans · Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 8:46 am Subject:

That sounds great... good report

Christophe · Joined: 26 Feb 2004 Posts: 1652

Well done to both of you!

I kinda miss the Teddington to Hyde Park via Richmond skates we used to do with skate patrol a couple of years ago... maybe now is the time to resurrect it! Or another destination skate...

Natasha · Joined: 09 Jul 2004 Posts: 2973 Location: Basingstoke

How about Hyde Park to Crystal Palace in a couple of weeks? It'll be nice and hilly...

Rick · Joined: 25 Feb 2004 Posts: 5914

Na Hills not needed any more for training. My next 3 or 4 races are going to be Cologne - almost flat, Berlin - completely flat, Hamburg - hardly many hills and maybe Frankfurt - nearly flat. So hill training can bugger of for the rest of the year...well until Sardinia.

What I need in training terms now is stamina, fat burning and average speed training, plus a little bit of pace line work.

I would like to drop about 5 kilos between now and Berlin (not fluids) so i will be doing quite a lot of long duration low intensity workouts. Mor long flat skates anyone? Preferably with people we don't have to keep stopping for this time. I will also be doing weekday daytime training (cos I can Very Happy

)

Mikey-two-Names · Joined: 24 Feb 2004 Posts: 4108

You may want to focus your training the other way around, i.e. more on intense intervals and less on long slow skates with so little time to go. Assuming you want to go faster that is.

Rick · Joined: 25 Feb 2004 Posts: 5914

Going faster for me is all about getting on and staying on the right lines. That means finding a line with big people who can skate fast enough. That means a lot of looking around at the start for the right people then sticking with them for as long as possible. I rarely sprint between lines. Unless my line breaks down I tend to stick with the one line for at least 10km and often 20km or more. After 15 marathons I have yet to race a perfect tactical race. Getting it right will get me a time around the 1:27 mark but if I got out trying and get that time I will probably blow up somewhere in the first half and slip to over 1:40. I have not had tired lungs in a race for a long time.

The limiting factors for me are:
Endurance is usually my back.
Top speed is limited by my inability to bend my knees without pain early on and the pain in my back later on.

Those are the two areas I will be working on and the only way they are going to be improved is through lots of practice. I really wish I had been able to do a marathon after the Holland Highlights Tour as that was the perfect training for me. 5 days of constant skating and I was super fit and ready to do more.