Cycle

Le Tour de France & L’Etape du Tour 2024 : : Nice

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Never before in history….Why is the Tour de France finishing in Nice rather than Paris in 2024?

  • Why is Tour de France starting early in 2024?
  • What else?
  • What does it mean for L’Etape du Tour de France?

This year the Tour de France will finish in Nice on the 21st July for the first time in its 121 year history, outside the capital, Paris.

It also starts earlier than usual, on 29 June, to allow a week between the end of the race in Nice, and the Olympic Games opening ceremony in Paris. The reasons for this are the final preparations including logistics and security for the 2024 Olympic Games.

So what else?

  • The 2024 Tour de France will also feature a first ever Grand Départ from Florence in Italy
  • Mark Cavendish, who has postponed his retirement for one more year, will be in pursuit of a record-breaking 35th Tour stage win.
  • The finish in Nice won’t be a procession like we normally see in Paris either, instead the 2024 Tour will finish with a time-trial starting in Monaco and finishing at the Place Masséna, just off the Promenade des Anglais in Nice.

L’Etape du Tour de France?

Well apart from being super excited about all of the above I noticed the Etape du Tour destination has followed suit to Nice. The 32nd edition of L’Etape du Tour gran fondo will take place on July 7th 2024 between Nice and the Col de la Couille pass along the roads of the Alpes-Maritimes over a distance of 138km with 4,600m of climbing on closed roads. This will be the same route as the Tour de France peloton will take on July 20th the penultimate stage.

So I’m in, I’m registered and I’ll be reporting back on training and everything else related over the next few months.

Cycle : : Velo Birmingham

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I’m training to ride 100 miles in the Velo Birmingham on the 24th September to celebrate my fathers memory who passed away due to an unforeseen heart condition.  I will be raising money and riding on behalf of the British Heart Foundation who carry out brilliant research into inherited heart conditions.and even heart defects found in tiny babies.  Please donate whatever you can to this great cause.  Your support is awesome and always mega appreciated, thank you!

Just GivingJust Giving

route

 

 

Training : : Snow, Sheep and the Grazalema

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The opportunity came up to spend a few days road cycling in the mountains of the Parque Natural de Sierra Grazalema in southern Spain.  Ronda and Grazalema both represent a good base to cycle out from and the former only 1hr 30mins drive from Malaga airport.

Being the end of February sat well with training for the Cycle to MIPIM but as always at this time expectations on weather have to be managed.  As you may have seen from my trip to Mallorca at the end of February last year snow is always a possibility.  The weather in Grazalema was particular varied last weekend with sleet snow and brilliant sunshine.  Temperature ranging from 0-16 degrees Celsius.  Later that week skies cleared and the weather ramped back to 18-20 degrees.

You can see below the route of day one riding taking us up the The Peurto de Las Palomas at approx 1200m elevation.  There are fantastic views along much of the climb and the quality of the road surfaces is amazing (compared to UK).  The roads are usually very quiet and drivers

Also watch out for the sheep!

 



Food : : The Ultimate Granola

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When training on the bike bars and gels are convenient food but they can contain high levels of fructose which can upset stomachs – real foods such as bananas, raisins, fig rolls, sandwiches and my personal favorite homemade granola are just as good. Super tasty with the oats helping to regulate the sugar release of mostly slower burning sugars.  Pop in a small food-bag shove in your jersey and eat out on the bike.  You can mix and match the nuts and dried fruits below to your own ideal.  Enjoy!

Granola

Ingredients

  • 80g clear honey
  • 80g butter
  • 40g  apricot spread or marmalade
  • 40g golden syrup
  • 150g jumbo rolled oats
  • 80g brown/demerara sugar
  • 1 lemon
  • 1/2 tbsp natural vanilla extract
  • 1/2 tbsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp ground cloves
  • pinch of sea salt
  • 30g pumpkin seeds
  • 30g sunflower seeds
  • 30g linseeds
  • 30g whole almonds
  • 30g blanched hazelnuts
  • 30g walnut pieces
  • 40g dried apricots
  • 40g raisins or sultanas

(makes 1kg ish)

Methodolgy

  1. Preheat your oven to 180°C. Now line a baking tray with grease-proof baking paper and thinly smear butter on the inside of it.
  2. In a large saucepan melt the butter, honey, sugar, golden syrup and marmalade together on a medium heat, stirring until dissolved. Now bring it to the boil and cook for two minutes so that the sugar caramelises, making it a super sticky sauce.
  3. Throw in the jumbo oats and mix. Now pour in everything else and thoroughly mix.  Transfer into your baking tray and flatten down with a spatula. Pop the tray in the oven on the middle or lower shelf.
  4. Cook for 12 minutes until browning off until set. Leave to cool on a rack, then slice into wedges perfect rectangles – pizza slice works well.  Store in a lunchbox in a cool dry place.  Pop into a small sandwich or food bag for eating on the bike.

 

Training : : Stages Cycling power meter

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The opportunity has finally arrived to train with a power meter; a Stages Cycling Ultegra power meter which takes the form of the left hand crank arm replacing the original.  There are lots of options in the market place for training with power both more and less expensive than the Stages offering. Some are based in the rear wheel hub and others in the crank itself.  I am sure it won’t be too long before a company like Shimano actually builds it in as an integrated option.

The installation of the Stages power meter is straight forward and simply a case of removing the existing left crank arm and replacing it with the Stages power meter crank arm.  Note I have the Stages Ultegra 6800 as the colour matched my Ultegra 6770 groupset; there are no compatibility issues  The power meter includes a battery which requires a slip of plastic removing in order for it to make contact.  Note that there does seem to be an issue with clearance for some bikes so Stages offers a diagram which shows a 10mm hex wrench inserted between the crank arm and chain-stay as a check for clearance.

There has also been issues with the product and water penetration so it is clearly pointed out that the battery door must be correctly inserted and the o-ring type seal in the correct position.

After installing the crank I followed the set up instruction for pairing with a Garmin Edge 500 and ran through the calibration.  The Stages unit communicates with Garmin through Ant+  but also has Bluetooth to communicate with fitness apps on your phone such as Strava.  The first couple of rides out on the road the signal would continuously drop and the power reading would hit ‘0’ and then three dashes  (‘- – -‘)  would appear before a few seconds of nothing and then the reading would come back but only to drop off again.

Stages have a good list of potential fixes in their support section so after updating the firmware for the power meter via an app on my iPhone and updating the software on the Garmin I tried again.  Sadly no luck.

Finally I switched my Garmin ‘out front’ bracket which holds the Edge 500 in front of the handlebars to the standard bracket which holds it in place on top of the stem with rubber bands.  Hey presto no signal drop off between Garmin and the Stages and all is well with the power readings.  I would guess that due to the position of the Garmin unit with the out front bracket that the handlebar itself is attributing to interrupting the signal.

Now onto the fun bit which is to make good use of the data while training. Back soon….

Stages Cycling stages-shimano-ultegra-6800-power-meterPrint

Training : : Snow, Goats, Cannondale-Garmin

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Cannondale-Garmin Pro Cycle Team

I have been training out in Mallorca this week trying to avoid the snow and ice back home in the UK. Its early in the Mallorca cycling season with shops and restaurants just on the cusp of opening.
Some riders of the Cannondale-Garmin Pro Cycling Team are here and we’ve been lucky enough to spin our wheels in their draft.

The weather is unsettled with strong winds and rains hampering training.  It’s difficult to anticipate the mountains with temperatures plummeting as height is gained and snowfall within the last few days.  Care has to be taken cornering downhill on the wet Mallorca tarmac. Falling rocks and jumping goats add to the obstacles on the road.

Good coffee and beautiful sunsets.

Training : : Tour of The Villages

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Beautiful sunny winters day training ride. Route from Stratford-upon-Avon to Woburn Forest taking in these villages along the way. Very picturesque and lots of wildlife including a Kestrel and Heron. One of the most quiet routes for traffic I’ve done in Central England.  Lucky find Boycott Farm Shop which provided fantastic lunchtime fuelling and a sit in the sun.

Wellesbiurne-Walton-Kineton-Gaydon-Fenny Compton-Priors Marston-Hellidon-Badby-Preston Capes-Weedon Lois-Wappenham-Syresham-Raddive-Gawcott-Winslow-Swanbourne-Drayton Parslow-Stoke Hammond-Great Brickhill-Woburn Sands-Ridgmont-Steppingly-Woburn Forest.

Training ride Tour of The Villages

Training : : London to Brighton to London

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Long training ride yesterday in very cold temperatures.  London to Brighton and back to London.  Amazingly sunny day and great to get down to Brighton seaside for a coffee and cake.  A super fat flapjack rescued me on the return leg via Boxhill.  Fantastic group of riders and an epic day on the bike.  Its great to be able to put in this sort of mileage in the middle of December.

Ultegra electronic rear derailleur stopped working twice but came back to life both times after 15-20mins of super high cadence.  Intermittent problems like this are tricky but thankfully infrequent.

Training Ride

Training : : Yorkshire Dales Ribblehead Loop

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Yorkshire Dales Ribblehead

Training in Yorkshire is always challenging but pleasantly rewarding.  In the face of tough climbing the weather can turn at a moments notice a challenging ride into a seemingly impossible one.  This Yorkshire Dales Ribblehead Route is a good challenge and rewarding with epic scenery my favourite being the twisty down hills into Settle.

Wet and muddy with a puncture thrown in for good ‘getting mucky’ measure.