Spotlight on - Ade Merckx

Name

Ade Merckx

Ok, ok, real name please

Alright it’s Coks really. But everyone knows that.

Who do you race for?

It’s official, I am now riding for London Dynamo. Nah I’m kidding, Addiscombe CC of course. The Dyno’s did try to poach me, but I love my ACC buddies too much (not that I ride much with them ha ha).

What type of races do you do?

Road races. What, is there anything else? Oh yeah I heard about BMX racing, with those tiny bikes and full-body armors. I’ll leave that to the loonies methinks! Oh no wait, my little bro does that!!! Can you edit this out?

Where do you race?

Regents Park exclusively – I am on first name basis with the giraffes - Elma is such a joker. Inner loop most days, outer loop if I’m feelin the flow. Oh and what’s that other one, Richmond Park - I love parks! But never for less than three laps.

Briefly describe a typical training session -

Well I’ll usually get onto Jordan (I changed the name as it wasn’t sexy enough) with some old skool hip hop tunes pumped up to the max and an old Benny Hill episode on the laptop – sounds odd but works really well for motivation – especially the sped up bits, which I use for my intervals. Then it’s 20 minutes of sweat and – dare I say it, sometimes tears, trying to “hold the watts” as we say in our circles. Then I’ll get off for 5 minutes, which is just enough time to blog about it, and wipe the sweat off the laptop. Then another 20 minutes of the same regime. After that I’m generally dead so sit on the sofa watching old Big Brother repeats and eating curly wurlys as a treat.

What are your Goals for this year?

My whole winter training has been aimed towards improving my LBP. Now I can say it, I originally did a test with Rob - I was one of the first few, the original believers - and it turned out my LBP was under 100bpm. What the! I asked Rob not to disclose the results, and in exchange I would work on the blasted thing. So I continued to play the part and have a go every time someone mentioned LBP on the forum, whilst secretly doing some long slow rides – I once sat on the turbo for eight hours – a bloody day’s work! (I was actually working at the same time). Well, I am glad to say the hard work proved itself, and my LBP is now a much more respectable ... no what did you think! I can’t tell you, it has got to remain a secret. But it's mucho improvo, if you see my drift.

What have been your best races so far?

There was this time in Regents Park (where else?), this dude on a hybrid pulls up right behind me without saying a word as I was doing my 5am 3h 20mph tempo ride in 53/17. No helmet no cycling shoes nothing, so I decide to have a laugh with him and increase the pace to 22. Look behind me and the dude’s still there, but he’s breathing heavily. I increase to 23-24, I can see him waving side to side from the corner of my eye. That’s it, I pull the final plug on the home straight – 29mph, a full 405w! I look back but the lights turn red. Bloke just rides through them and leaves me for dead, ungrateful bastard! I wouldn’t say this was my best race, but it was amongst the best.

Black is back

Let's try this youtube embed thing for a change:




It works!

A classic pop song from Ultra Vivid Scene and a Repérage on cult Swiss radio Couleur 3 back in 1990, not to be missed at the end of the video is guest vocalist Kim Deal kicking one-man band Kurt Ralske off his chair, then doing something he probably wasn't expecting.

I have been obsessing with, but am now nearly done with completing, 15 CDs worth of compilations of the best of those songs listed on the link above, mostly from 1989-92,the period when I started getting into "alternative" music, thanks to that radio (if you ever wondered where the choufflard moniker came from), so soon should be back writing about cycling matters ...







The real Patron Choufflard, Jacques Guillemin, middle behind Mathurin the bear, back together for a one-off broadcast 17 years after

Beastway 4th June

It was good to be back at Beastway even if the new (temporary) venue is not nearly as much fun as Eastway ... hopefully Hog Hill will live up to expectations next year. A good 1h15 ride to Hainault got me there nicely warmed up and just in time for the 7.30pm start.

It seems the new "bi-monthly" format is working well as there were 130+ riders altogether, well up on the previous year at Hainault. There were only three Experts though, so they got started at the same time as us Masters. I took the wheel of young Expert Michael Butler (2007 National Youth Champion) into the singletrack to see if I could keep up.

He was absolutely flying though and after finishing the first lap of the real short course (under 8 minutes) just 5 seconds behind him I had to give up chasing and contenting myself with keeping any Masters behind me at bay. Bill told us the previous week him and Billy-Joe Whenman were ripping around the course way faster than anyone else, whilst chatting to each other!

From only the second lap the course got crowded with riders, and it became more of an exercise in overtaking than a proper race. Not to worry, Beastway is more about having fun on a good course in a relaxed atmosphere. It certainly helps to hone your passing skills!

I was getting a bit lazy, but towards the end of the lap the course was backing itself up in a grass field so you could see who was behind you, I saw Matt Lewis who'd been in my wheel at the start at about 30 secs down so panicked a bit and pushed the pace, next time round I couldn't see him at all so finished the race focussing on trying ride as cleanly as possible around those loose soil tight bends.


Results:

1 exm 116 Michael Butler Activ Cycles 00:49:59 8 laps
2 exm 128 Gary Record 00:55:28 8 laps
3 exm 176 Steve Shaw Torq Kona 00:55:36 8 laps


1 mam 172 Sylvain Garde Addiscombe CC 00:53:29 8 laps
2 mam 132 Paul Delahunty London Dynamo 00:54:30 8 laps
3 mam 160 Matt Lewis xcracer.com2ter 00:55:15 8 laps
4 mam 6 Richard Craven Ford CC00:56:28 8 laps
5 mam 152 Nigel Ling Citihub 00:56:30 8 laps


1 ssm 111 Stuart Jones London Phoenix 00:52:39 8 laps
2 ssm 119 Stephen Mahon Epping 00:49:57 7 laps
3 ssm 58 Martin Backes 00:52:13 7 laps



First win of the year, Stuart was almost a minute faster than me on his singlespeed though (they started later), it would have been good to fight it out with him, but the ride to Hainault is just too long to be riding the SS.

Got a lift back with Grahame and part of the rest of the Structureless Tyranny (those who make Beastway happen since ... forever it seems - thanks to them) and managed two pub stops on the way.



















Memories of Eastway (can you spot Shaun "ratboy", and Grahame "Camelbelly"?)


More memories (can you spot ACC's Steve Dennis' write-up)

Marco's impromptu speech after the last race at Eastway (stiff neck warning)

Palace 24/06

Constantly fatigued and not having had a proper good day on the bike since the Crow Hill Southern XC over a month ago, I was only hoping to finish the race this week, but managed to get a placing for the first time in the E/1/2 which was a pleasant surprise.


Really enjoyed the race too which must mean I am done with the "fed up with racing" which thankfully only lasted a week or so. I'd ridden my race bike to work which I hadn't done since last summer (having to pop back home to swap bikes in previous Palace rounds, giving me a nice 1+ hour warmup), I like my "roadrunner" commuter mtb but riding the Look is so much more enjoyable, completely transforming that tired old route I take every day.

Was feeling reasonnably good for a change so looking forward to try and finish the race, I was the only ACC this week but we had a handful of riders in the 3/4. My computer is playing up and probably needs new batteries, so I am not sure about the average speed, but it did feel pretty fast. During the first half of the race the attacks fused, but even though some were allowed to get away for a while, they didn't come to anything. I managed to scrape both my pedals trying to pedal into the turns, and once had to ride on the grass at the bottom bend.

At one point when I was towards the back a handful of guys managed to slip away, I was behind Warrick Spence who was not attempting to chase, so I was happy to stay on his wheel, reassured by the thought that he probably knew what he was doing. The bunch got recomposed once again and now Warrick was pushing the pace, not attacking but just grinding up the climb every lap trying to shake off the weak - third time around I was thinking that any more and I might not be able to keep up - fortunately it was only one more lap before they eased off slightly on the uphill.


A Dynamo did a solo attack and he was let free - someone on the side was timing and giving us the gap, which grew to 17 seconds, we also had Chris and John Watts marshalling and giving encouragement. I think we caught the guy after a handful of laps, and then there were some big surges in speed and the bunch split in two - I just missed the break but was in the wheel of big Toby (I think) from Corridori, love being behind him as for me it is like drafting a lorry, he also never seems to need to get out of the saddle which makes it quite smooth - I was desperatly clinging to his wheel for 3/4 of a lap while he was digging deep to catch the break.

The two of us finally made contact after the hairpin which was a great relief - wow I was in a, well can't really call it break, but at least a group af about 9 that had gotten away. I thought that Toby would need a rest but soon enough he was at the front, I was still on his wheel so had to do the obligatory turn at the front, unlike earlier in the race though I made sure I was n't exhausting myself so as not to die on the climb - it was touch and go though as someone attacked there and I just about managed to take Chris Moore's (another rider who always seems to be working at the front) wheel with a huge out of the saddle effort.

Two riders did get away though unfortunately, including the eventual winner. 8 laps to go and the pace was still high in order not to get caught by the back group. Warrick attacked down the hill just before the bend and was swiftly followed by Matt Seaton, and you could tell he was sensing the opportunity.

With 3 to go people were now reluctant to come to the front, the strong guy in the Look kit getting annoyed to be left to drive the pace. He attacked with two to go and I was about two wheels down so had no choice but to follow, despite wanting to prepare for the sprint.

I am starting to get the hang of it and with one to go I was well placed, letting myself slip a couple places down the hill for some extra protection, then moving up to behind the Look guy who was leading up the hill. Ideally placed then in second place on the inside while another line was forming on the outside, I stayed on his wheel but could not come past.

Gave it all for the sprint but unfortunately lost two places in the final 5-10 metres, as can be seen on the photo. Came 5th of the group and 7th overall, matching Adam's effort of a few weeks back . Was really pleased with that (as well as getting my first points of the calendar year!!). Roll on next week to try and make it to the top 5!

E/1/2
1 Andy Fenn Dolan
2 Tom Hemnant London Dynamo @ 7 seconds
3 John Torres Finchely RT @ 12 seconds
4 Ban White Bike and Run
5 Chris Ansell Corridori
6 Chris Moores Norwood Paragon
7 Sylvain Garde Addiscombe CC
8 Matt Seaton Rapha Condor Recycling
9 Darren Barclay Artcic Premier
10 Iain Paine London Dynamo

3/4s1 Felix English Corridori
2 Mr Anne Boorsma Dulwich Paragon
3 Mark Neill Ride Beyond
4 Vick Chaudury Ride Beyond
5 Ben Moores Norwood Paragon
6 Paul troughton Wheelbase
7 David Reece Dulwich Paragon
8 Hal Bramsby Addiscombe CC
9 Ramiro Serna VC Elan
10 N/A

Women
1 Corrine Hall Twickenham CC
2 Lucy Mason Dolan
3 Karen Price Dulwich Paragon
4 Maria David Dulwich Paragon


Now let's have a look at those BC points ...

1 Andy Fenn Dolan 270
2 Tom Hemnant London Dynamo 159
3 John Torres Finchely RT 98
4 Ban White Bike and Run 67
5 Chris Ansell Corridori 35
6 Chris Moores Norwood Paragon 358
7 Sylvain Garde Addiscombe CC ... 10
8 Matt Seaton Rapha Condor Recycling 144
9 Darren Barclay Artcic Premier 120
10 Iain Paine London Dynamo 82

It's good to be hanging out with the gods!

Photo by Andy Waterman

Smithfield Nocturne

Photos from the Elite race in London a few weeks back, won by TdF rider Gerraint Thomas.

Canon 350d, Canon 18-55 f2.8, built-in flash. Full set and hi-res:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/patronchoufflard/sets/72157605496314462/

NPS # 3 Lake District 14/06

A weekend I would prefer to forget about really. I was feeling terrible and not in great spirits, but had previously agreed to share a lift with George Budd who races for Salsa, so was commited to go. A 5-6 drive through a few traffic jams got us to the beautiful venue of the race, a country park in Grizedale near Windermere.

In the evening we went for a practice lap, there were long draggy fireroad climbs (which I hate) but great downhill/flat singletrack where I got a flat in my latexed rear wheel, with no spares with me I had to walk down the best section of the course.

Saturday an hour before the start I went for a warmup lap and got another flat almost at the same place (there were dozens of punctures throughout the weekend, some upsetting race leaders, due to the very rocky nature of the course). I still didn't have any spares, it started to rain and I was almost relieved as I was too far to make it for the start of the race. So I spent the rest of the day sleeping in my tent.

Sunday was the marathon, a choice of 25, 50, 75 or 100km. I had yet to ride down that great singletrack, so although still feeling rubbish I went for the 50km. On top of the petrol bill my race entry was now up to £65. The course had been lengthened and had even more draggy climbs! I didn't treat it as a race, just a nice fast ride, taking it easy on the climbs and trying to enjoy the singletrack.

It started drizzling which made some sections interesting, but it soon dried out. Did four laps thankfully without flatting, and on my final descent slowed down to let Ian Wilkinson, national Marathon Champ go past - he still had two more laps to do for his 75km, yet I just couldn't keep up on the technical descent (I read since that he'd fitted real meaty tires after having punctured the previous day, small consolation for me ...). Ended up 13th but over 15 minutes down.

Ian Wilkinson

Photos by Joolze

Patron choufflard is burnt out and taking a wee break from racing and training
He is also computer-less at the moment
He will be back meaner, but probably not leaner, sometime in July
A bientôt ...

40.0km/h to Charlwood

Awesome clubrun this morning.

Was woken up at 5am by a weird stomach ache, it was quite bad and I wondering whether last night’s steaks might have been dodgy, if so they would have let themselves known earlier though. Half slept till 8 by when it was better but still an inconvenience, so the requisite 2-panini breakfast with coffee was not as enjoyable as usually. Thankfully the pain disappeared as I set off on the bike.

George had a 10-mile TT early morning, so he’d planned to train for the forthcoming 4-up on his time-trial bike (sans Boras) by following this by a few of us leaving after the last group from CSS and trying to catch up as many groups as possible. I think the idea was vetoed by the club captain, as a group of five of us eventually set off first as usual – George on his crazy-fast Planet-X, Toby back from Switzerland mountain riding, Stu with his aero bars and coming off a week of hard training/racing, newbie (to us, he is super strong) Andrew, Marek and myself on our white bikes.

The pace was pretty hot with hardly any wind and George and Stu’s aero position helping things, Marek was super-strong and benefited from an amber light at Redhill to keep a gap between him and the rest of us for a good moment. Everyone was taking good turns at the front with a few short attacks, I attacked from the back on the final hill before Rusper, but Toby was in my wheel and when I died halfway up flew by, shortly followed by the rest of the group. We regrouped and kept pushing down the hill left of Rusper, Andrew shot to the front, not even low on the drops, and we could barely keep up, I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw we’d averaged 39.4km/h to the start of the dual-carriageway through and off, the fastest ever I could remember by a good margin.

I was hoping we’d bump this up to the magic 40 by the sprint sign, and the number kept creeping up as we smoothly took turns at the front, until we reached the small rise at the carriageway exit, where we were only doing 32-35 for a bit . Once again Marek did a cheeky amber-light bye-bye but soon eased off to avoid killing himself in the run in for the sprint. I think the average was about 39.8 when things hotted up and I stopped looking at the computer. Plan was to try and stay in Marek’s wheel until as far as possible, and try pass him in the final meters. In second to last he attacked with 2-300m to go, I stayed with him but unfortunately could not go pass, I was expecting strong sprinter Toby to possibly come through both of us, but he settled for third.

More importantly though, we’d managed to average exactly 40km/h to the café, despite the traffic, junctions and red lights! Ride time was just under 1h10.

On the way back via Box Hill, Stu and myself were joined by Paul H (also on his TT bike) and a guy from St Ives (whose name I forget), who showed to be more than capable to ride with us. After stopping to wait for Stu to re-tighten his bar extensions, we kind of went back to the original catching-up plan as the other groups had now gone past us. We didn’t make contact with them until the start of Box Hill, where I didn’t even try and keep up with Paul, Stu and St Ives - I seem to have lost a bit of climbing ability, possibly caused by a few extra kilos put on since we’ve been having freshly cooked food in large quantities for lunch at work – on Tuesday I couldn’t believe how much cheese our expert cook poured in the lasagne’s béchamel, and on Friday the moussaka was literally swimming in an olive oil bath.

Despite this my computer was still showing 37km/h by the top of the hill, after a break we set off only for Stu to notice a puncture, so we then had to try and catch other groups again, alas we’d lost a bit too much time. At that point it dawned to me that the only food I’d had since breakfast was a small banana, but I’d swapped the usual diet Coke at the café for the full-sugar version, which seemed to have been effective as I didn’t bonk at all – soon I’ll be able to ride for three hours on just a date and a half like Huw. We rode our bikes like we’d stolen them all the way to Coulsdon, where we split and I joined Kasper for a 7km warm-down – still got home in 2h51 altogether for 101km, first time under 3-hour!

Photo of George the smiling assassin in a time-trial by Alex P

Newsflash: "2-up harder than 4-up"

(D'uh)

Note to self - never ever get involved in a 2-man breakaway - it will be way too painful - especially if your fellow escapee is stronger than you.

On Tuesday I had miraculously found my good legs again, in fact I was feeling pretty awesome and was looking forward to being part of the action at Crystal Palace in the evening. Unusually few ACCers were present, it turned out most were riding a time-trial - it was just me, Tamar, Phil and Steve B. We were all fired up and ready to go with our numbers pinned, when the annoucement was made that the senior races were cancelled - the dangerous bottom bend was still damp from the day's rain, and some of the juniors had veered off course there.

That was a blow but I couldn't be bothered to do a few solo laps as training, or to get on the turbo like Steve said he would. I would have liked to do something hard though. So the following day when, having been eating naan bread all afternoon, I remembered Stu's proposal of an evening chaingang, I decided to join him, partly to justify my gluttony. Never mind that the sky was heavy with big grey clouds and the air uncomfortably humid - in fact it started raining as I left work, and worse the wind has picked up and was blowing strongly against me.

So after almost an hour of wind-fighting I met Stu in Coulsdon, and he took me to the 3-mile race circuit which we were going to do a few laps of, starting on the normal clubrun then turning left at Merstham into narrow windy country lanes. It took us 40 minutes to get there and although still going into the wind we averaged 34.9km/h. I was feeling good but there were a few hills which I found to be hard work. We got onto the circuit and into 2-up time trial mode, no attacking but just constant speed with smooth changeovers, which was helped by the fact that there was a 3-lap TT on the course that evening, so we got to pass a few solo riders, some on full-on TT bikes.

I'd had a go at fitting my USE front lights on the road bike, because of the ergo bars' shape I couldn't mount the bracket on top of the bars, so had to fit it halfway down the drops - pretty nifty, but it meant I couldn't get on the drops, and that front ring shifting was a bit awkward.

The circuit was fairly flat which was a relief that evening, pretty fast altough partly wet so needed attention in the bends, but taking every other turn at the front was way harder than doing a bigger group chaingang - you'd tire off but then would have to dig deep to stay on the wheel of the other when he came to the front, then would have to recover enough for your next turn, etc ... I didn't have my glasses, so because of the flying water on the wettest sections couldn't stay right behind Stu, which wasn't helping.

We did three laps in I think 21 minutes, on the final flat stretch Stu really pushed hard (he said after he felt like he couldn't push down harder on the pedals) and, not only could I not come to the front, but I was struggling just to stay on his wheel - that desperate feeling when you know that if you just lose the wheel you will definitely get dropped. I was glad he slowed down to a stop as we passed the TT timekeepers, as I really needed a few seconds' break and a banana in me. We had increased the average speed to 36km/h, and it was actually brighter than when we'd left Coulsdon, the clouds having cleared.

On the way back I started suffering on the hills again, I tried hard but on a steep one I just blew and watched Stu get away as if nothing was, then he had to wait for me at the top of each climb. It's a familiar feeling when you still feel pretty fast on the flat, but as soon as you hit an incline your legs just seem to die - usually encountered towards the end of a long hard ride. I didn't really feel like I was bonking, but was pretty hungry as we approached the end of our ride, at 9pm - 3h20 of riding altogether today, not bad for a working day. My bike was totally filthy at the end, but with the help of a "secret cleaning method" it was shiny as new in about five minutes.

I guess I am probably not quite race-fit again yet though, as it did feel like I'd lost weeks worth of fitness when I was feeling fatigued recently, so maybe it wasn't such a good thing not to race on Tuesday. I was looking for some race to do at the weekend, but now will be taking it easy - well, if the clubrun training group can be called taking it easy ...



Photo from Paris-Roubaix