Cycling. It’s obviously a sport designed to tug on the heartstrings of men. Where else would you find so many technologies, gadgets, potions and bits to keep us entertained off (and indeed on) the bike?

I’m no stranger to this phenomenon, I love a good toy, so thought I’d write-up my experiences with new toys as/when I get them. This month sees an introduction of a new bonnet and my ongoing saga with sports drinks.

Catlike Whisper Plus Helmet

Firstly, a small rant, if I may?
I do not understand those who ride without a helmet. I adore my brain function, I use it to buy goods, keep the family around and generally be me. Why on earth I’d risk going out on the road without some form of protection on this large head, is beyond me and indeed should beyond anyone with basic cognitive abilities.  I get that marketing people think that a helmet looks stupid and I’ll be the first to admit this having a large noggin’, but it’s not giving kids the right impression when they see adverts of people riding bikes, looking cool and not wearing a helmet.

As mentioned above, I do have a large brain, so helmets look a bit spaz on me. I’ve gone through enough in my time and never really felt happy with the fit, the airflow or the general comfort of a helmet. Until now.

Enter the Catlike Whisper Plus. At first glances, it’s a bit different compared to the Giro I used to rock. On top of that, it’s bloody light (I’ll elaborate on that in a bit). Here’s a helmet that actually looks a bit different and that’s a good thing. I think the biggest struggle helmet manufacturers face is that of making it look cool. There’s a balance to be made between a helmet that protects your head/face in the event of an impact and also one that fits well, is aerodynamic and makes you look alright.

So at first glances, those Spaniards might be onto something here. A quick look at who’s rocking them in the pro world and Movistar are rocking them and looking good. Bonus. I first tried this out on a coolish day in Essex and the experience was pretty great. My old Giro didn’t keep my head that cool, the airflow was muffled and at high speeds, it had a tendency to move around. A lot.

The big test for this can would be Mallorca. Would it handle the heat and be comfortable after five hours in the saddle?

Well it was, in fact so much, I rarely realised I was wearing a helmet. It’s that light that on long rides, it felt like I wasn’t wearing one. No lid in my vision, no annoying straps cutting into my chin and neck and most importantly, no movement when descending at speed. The airflow was fantastic, my head was kept cool and sweat-free, something not experienced before with road helmets.

All in all, this single helmet has been one of my top purchases in a long while. It’s not the cheapest but to be honest, price doesn’t factor when choosing a helmet, for reasons mentioned above.

9/10 (sell it with a protective case and you’ll get a 10/10)

Torq Natural Vanilla Pod Energy Drink

Energy drinks are a personal choice. What appeals to some, most likely won’t appeal to others. For me, I find the sickly sweet taste of many of them unbearable, especially on longer rides. I’ve tried pretty much most of them and all found them to be lacking. Bike food’s offering are horrible, they could stick pieces of metal together i’m sure. The high5 suffer from the same fate, which is a pity.

Whilst reading the lastest Cycling Weekly, I saw the advert for Torq’s latest Vanilla flavour drink and ordered a tub. First impressions, wow! Easy to mix, a translucent drink that isn’t sticky and doesn’t taste like crap on long rides. Oh it also delivers the goods when needed and the flavour, there’s something about vanilla that works for me.

Often, as the ride goes on, the water temperature in your bottle increases and this can lead to a rather foul-tasting drink. I didn’t experience any of this with the vanilla and even after 5+ hours, it still tasted great.

6/10 (it’s an energy drink, you can’t get too excited about it)

Easter Sunday: [√]
Shitty overcast weather: [√]
Tarmac, gravè and mud?: [√]
Riding 100km around Hertfordshire: [√]

Other than gorging your own body weight on chocolate, there isn’t much else to do on an Easter Sunday. Rapha saw the plight of many and decided to offer a social ride with a gathering at the finish to watch Paris Roubaix 2012 and enjoy beer and frites. Their homage to one of the great monuments of the sport, Paris-Roubaix, promised to be an adventure along the lanes, bridleways and dirt roads of Hertfordshire.

The weather would play a key role in this social ride. Would it piss down like every other Bank holiday?, come on.. this is England and you’d be mad to think otherwise. Heading out to Central London early, the weather was showing its face and it was wet. The start saw myself and the rest of the London Phoenix riders take shelter under a shops awning until the start. Now, some clever sods had decided it would be more suitable to ride this on a cross bike. Wise choice you say, well I was beginning to think the same whilst looking at my Colnago Master’s rather skinny and indeed slick tires.

As we set off, the pace was good and we were hurtling through North London. All was going well until we hit that first bit of bridleway. It wasn’t romantic or classic, more like bone-jolting and sliding like you were on ice. Yes, the bike choice wasn’t a good one and this might hurt. Kilometer of kilometer went by and after the fourth bit of dirt road, I was feeling rather smug, HAH, no punctures yet Daniel!

What a dick, my Hell of the North was about to begin. Going down a particular rough bit (funny, a road bike isn’t meant to go over rocks, so I was amazed how far I’d gotten), I heard the dreaded bang and felt my arse shake like nothing else. Problem is, when you are sliding down a steep decline on thin wheels, it’s not exactly easy to stop quickly.

Puncture #1: split in the tube caused by a sharp piece of rock. Hmmm, notice my saddle bag is full of water, that sucks

All fixed and off I go, well for a kilometer or more and ssssssssssssssss, arse.

Puncture #2: split in tube, caused by another sharp piece of rock, this time the split is wide and the tube is trashed. Next!

Ok, new tube, let’s do this. Tarmac, gravel, tarmac, gravel and BANG.

Puncture #3: front decided it has had enough of the abuse. By now, I notice an alarming fact that the water has indeed stuffed all my inner tube patches. Cue loads of cursing and shaking of fists, I’m down to my last tube. Look I’ve had three punctures, surely the gods of cycling won’t punish me anymore?

Thankfully Rapha’s fuel stop was like an oasis. There, alongside the sweets, Bike Food bottles and bananas, were the heavenly sights of Specialized finest tubes. Yes please gentlemen, may I take two? Feeling all smug and with a mouth full of sweets, I was back on track and hurtling down bridleways. Hell of the North, pfft what are people on about? Oh how fate can be so fickle. BANG.

Puncture #4: fucking rocks, my rear tire now has a lovely split in it. Cue me using some of the now wet patches to act as a barrier, I soldier on.

Right near the end, we were supposed to make a loop over the highway and then turn back on ourselves to head to the pub. SSSSSSSSSST, are you fucking kidding me????

Puncture #5: Rear tire now has two gashes in, about 8mm long. I use a bit of plastic bag I find next to me and do a Macgyver (I’m rather happy with myself at this point, you have to laugh I guess). Whilst I’m busy repairing the problem, Rapha’s kind photographer is taking pictures. Then, as I look at the back of my seat, where the seat bag should be, I notice a void. It has decided to abandone ship too.

Five kilometers, 5000 meters is all I needed to ride to get back. I’ve got no tubes left, no patches and my multitool has now gone awol. Honestly, going over that last bit of gravel wasn’t the best part of the day, so when the sign for 1 Kilometer was seen, I was ecstatic.

A fistful of frites and beer was waiting, enough motivation for anyone. Whilst the punctures were a bit mad, it didn’t dampen my spirits at all, in fact it became more hilarious as they racked up. Seriously, 700cc road tires are not meant to bounce over rocks and gravel, no matter how good the tires are. The Colnago rode like a dream, steel is real and my god did it take a beating.

Rapha, hats off to you, you pulled off one of the best social rides I’ve ever done. Pure brilliance and a big thanks to all of the team involved.

Next year, it will be on a mountain bike!

Update:

Those kind folk at Rapha decided I was the winner of the most punctures prize. My prize, the weight of a small child in chocolate!

brilliant

As I sit here in the Mallorcan sunshine, legs feeling a bit tender, it’s been a great week to ponder about. The weather has been great, as you’d expect for this time of year in this region and this resulted in some truly epic rides being ridden.

Sure, it’s a training camp, so you ride hard and long and aren’t expected to take up much of the atmosphere whilst in the saddle. But the problem is, you do and you can’t escape from it. From the bastard climbs of the Colobra to the Puig Major range, you are bathed in some stunning landscapes.

I feel like my strength has increased, especially in the areas I felt I was weak in. That’s the benefit of riding/training in Mallorca, you have the three main areas of cycling available to you: Mountains, flats and descents.

In total for the six days, the tally is impressive:

720 kilometers ridden, 6242 meters climbed and a stupid amount of time spent in the saddle.

Riding with a great group of incredibly strong riders helped, as there’s nothing like a bit of competitive spirit to make you push yourself, even when you are knackered. So if you are thinking about doing a training camp, I can wholeheartedly recommend it.

The way the Spanish embrace cycling and indeed cyclists is nothing short of inspiring. It makes you want to ride and you feel safer doing so. If only that was the case for other countries.

Road’s getting harder, it’s getting warmer, keep the cadence above 80 Daniel…

This is all that was going through my head for sixty minutes as I attempted the infamous climb of the Puig Major in Mallorca. A charming climb which included the Soller to Tunel de Monnaber, a HC category climb of 14.2 km at 5.8% average gradient and Puig Major Alecarts, a category 1 climb of 13.6km at 5.8% average.

Yesterdays ride was tough, tackling the climbs after already boshing 70 km wasn’t for the faint-hearted and thankfully my legs held. It’s amazing how your body reacts to situations, especially when put under pressure. There was no other way around this lump of rock, and with the fast climbers in the group already making a serious dent in the task, it was left to myself and Stuart to crack on and take turns towing each other up.

Majorca is just such a brilliant training ground for weaknesses. I came here feeling nervous about climbing, and now feel I know how to handle the bigger climbs in my own manner. Working out which cadence, seating position and little quirks that allowed me to climb tough climbs. The decent on the other side of the mountain was nothing but legendary. Winding mountain roads with few cars and unbelievable corners, saw me reach a respectable 73km/hr at one point. Sure I could have gone faster, but the wimp in me prevented it.

In total, 150 kilometers ridden, 1944 meters climbed and a 5:30 hours in the saddle.

The previous day saw a relaxing rest ride, ok, anything but relaxing on this trip. A small 109 km ridden, with a few coffee stops here and there (well it would be rude not to!). The best part of the day was just the general banter between the group, sure there was a copious amount of kilometers in between but the banter kept it going.

I’m currently in Mallorca, on a training ‘holiday’. Now for those who haven’t been introduced into this sadomasochist fantasy world, it’s basically you and a group of likeminded weirdo’s, who feel that cycling hundreds of kilometers whilst pretending they are on holiday is the perfect way to spend a week.

Looking at the greats of cycling, it’s no secret that those Spaniards were pretty special and you can see why, when you ride over here.

The road is shared amongst motorists and cyclist. No common white van man trying to run you off the road, or the 50+ black cab who feels it’s his road and you are a mere annoyance. You are treated as an equal and cars respect your space. It’s such a pleasure to ride on roads like this, the UK and South Africa has a lot to learn.

In addition to the drivers, the quality of the roads is brilliant. 90% of the surface is smooth and free from pot holes. So no anger on the roads, a road surface thats perfect and hills, oh I forgot to mention the hills, but why else would you come here?

Arriving on the Saturday, the bikes were put together and a short, slow-paced ride was planned. Here’s where reality set in: they lied, there’s no such thing as slow-paced. We ended up doing a quick 50km ride at 31km/h. Not bad for being awake since 5am and in transit most of the day. After abusing the buffet, a 138 kilometer ride was planned. Scenery was out of this world and a quick climb to the top of San Salvador (Cat 2) to abuse a coffee and baguette.

Overall the legs felt good, averaging 14km/h. Look, I’m not built for climbing so i’m happy with that speed. The next day would be the real test as we were planning on hitting Sa Colabra (Cat 1) and Col de sa Batalla (Cat 2). Thing is, the sneaky shits didn’t tell me that whilst I was bombing down this most amazing mountain, for 12 kilometers, I’d actually have to turn around at the bottom and ride back up it.

What I don’t understand is why this road exists. There are no houses down from the peak to the ocean, and only a few shitty restaurants when you reach the end. To build a stunning road like this, is beyond me. After hitting the bottom and boshing two energy gels, it was time to head back up the snake and try and reach the summit.

This mountain was a bitch, winding roads and average gradients of 8% to 11%. To make matters harder, once you reach the viaduct, you aren’t finished sunshine, there’s still a shit load of more climbing to do. Thing is, when you do reach the end, it’s a great feeling knowing you’ve climbed a Cat 1 hill and done so without crying or sitting on the side of the road. Even better knowing you’ve earned that custard slice or five at dinner.

I’ve come to realise that whilst not my strongest area, climbing can be done and enjoyed.