Grain of Sand

Wow! I never thought that snow could be such a pain in the ass! Usually it is very exciting because it means a Snow day at school, but as I'm no longer at school, that can't happen. It just makes me feel guilty. I haven't made it easy by being in Scotland though (family Christmas). It was -8 on the car thermometer today. All it means is a lot of turbo training! I won't expand too much, as I am sure everyone knows how bad these things are, even with a TV, radio and ipod to entertain you. At least there is some consolation that everyone else has it the same. It seems to be the only topic on Facebook at the moment. My training was going really good a few weeks ago. I hooked up with my new Coach, Nic Tilling, did a power test, and got a perfectly crafted training plan complete with power ranges and everything. Then my power meter broke, and the weather got bad. From then it has been an uphill struggle (excuse the pun). Hopefully it will all be kick-started by a training cam...

Hi Everyone, Me and Stu were wondering if anyone had any constructive advice about our ideas. We had a long dicussion while trudging through the snow in Edinburgh. Have a read, hopefully you can stay awake: 1. This invention is to overcome some of the shortcomings of the mid arch cleat position (reduced sprint power). Your shoes would have two sets of cleats on them, one in the the mid arch and the other in the standard position. This way you could switch to mid arch for long climbs or solo efforts, and revert back to a more powerful sprint position for the accelerations and sprints (used in grand tours perhaps). The change in saddle height would have to be addressed. A prototype seat post could use a similar system to height adjustable crutches, with two settings (one standard one low). Later stages could use a handlebar triggered height change, but that would be complicated at the moment. The change in position may cause concern, but under consideration, the muscles used when climbi...

I have recently followed a few links to other Blogs, and was amazed by the amount of people doing exactly the same as me. Writing about their training and racing in the same way. So I am thinking of changing my posts a bit to alleviate the boredom of any readers I do have. From now on it will be more focused on Entertainment than information, but they may overlap at times. When reading magazines, the race reports are fairly boring, but the best parts are the stats, gossip, quotes, and nitty gritty detail of bike racing, so I will try and incorporate that a little too. Since my last blog I have been fairly busy. I travelled up to Edinburgh by train to meet up with the Endura team. It was pretty cool and there was lots of cool stuff, but I am worried about how much I am allowed to tell! The team are doing a training and racing block around Nice in February. We are staying in Stephen Roche's hotel and doing the Tour of Medditiranean, Tour de Haut Var, 3 Days of Vaucluse, and Tour of M...