Paracycling | Nat Champs Scratch Race!

With how the Hill Climb season and the track season aligned this year, the first block of track cycling was only 3 weeks long - including the weekend of the race. The purpose of these two weeks were to have as much time on the track as possible ahead of the race. Having achieved my track accreditation and having done a few paracycling coached sessions, it was time to do a proper SQT - in fact two of them. 

Before that, I attempted to do a Zwift race, and while I entered the KISS100 before (in which I had no intention of finishing), this race was one that I thought I could do well in. However, the rollers didn’t work properly and I have no resistance meaning that anything above 450w was nearly impossible. So it turned into 2x ~10mins with 8minutes in the aero position between the efforts as seen below. I’m not going to pretend it wasn’t frustrating but I think I made the best of a bad situation. (Side note: The rollers were still connected to my phone to control resistance, not Zwift). 

Then it was time for my most intense weekend of training, yet, which was an Endurance SQT on Friday night on the track, Peterborough CycleHub group ride on the Saturday morning and then Sprint SQT on Sunday (again on the track). Having not done a SQT before, I didn’t really know what to expect. And one final thing, the power meter is now set up which means that I can record my sessions - this will hopefully help me better understand the impact of track sessions on my ankle the following day. That was the plan, until it didn’t connect. 

So how did the weekend go? I thought the Endurance SQT was amazing. There were a few different drills we did which included the warm up which gradually sped up as people dropped from the fast group to the slow group.

The second drill was two-up TT where you had to get a lap on the bunch. It’s an interesting dynamic where you both need to go hard, but you don’t know the limits of the other person especially as it was my first time doing the SQT. This was my first proper experience of being under geared with the mantra of spin-to-win being forced by the gear selection.

The second drill was a “Human Derny Points Race” which was really good fun. I had partnered with the same person and I was the lead rider for the majority of it. I placed us in an amazing position for the first sprint and I crossed the line 5th - but it was a 5 person breakaway. So I sat up and waited for my teammate and tried to tow him back into the break. I also had my first “scary” moment on the track which was being chopped up a bit and I unclipped instinctively. What I should have done is ride onto the cote and then ridden up the track later in the corner. I stayed up which is good, but it also showed that I need to get better at clipping in on the track bike on the move. 

By the time I got back onto the track which was only a few laps, the race was chaos - or more realistically, it already was. I then paced a lot of the race both in terms of our derny team but also the group. The idea being that this is about training and therefore it was a sensible option. The other reason is that due to gearing, I struggled to keep up in the wheel but could set a good tempo on the front.

All-in-all, it was a really fun evening and I’ll look to see if I can attend these in the future. Unfortunately, the majority of these sessions both in Derby and London happen on a weekday so I’ll likely be doing sprint/pursuit sessions (one of which I did on the Sunday).

Having got home after 11pm, I was back on the bike at 8:30 to do the local shop ride which had three main sections in it. Ride out (before someone punctured), up to the top of the main climb and the the ride back. The ride out was steady outside of the two climbs which weren’t flat out but hard enough. 

The ride didn’t exactly go to plan when my gearing cable frayed meaning that I didn’t really much much control of my gearing on the ride. 

Once we got going, then the few hard efforts started, I should say I was one of people pacing the climbs so I can’t complain. Pacing was quite difficult without the free range of gears and often felt like I was on my track bike where I just had to spin. While I’m very happy to spin, but anything over 100rpm is not my favourite thing to do. We actually rode up the main climb hard (before waiting at the top), but my gearing issues meant that I couldn’t contend for the “KOM” sprint - not that I think I had the legs anyway. 

The ride back was also interesting due to gearing - mainly because the lack of gears meant I got dropped at 110rpm. That said I do like that the hardest section of the ride is at the end as it’s good to practice for fatigue-resistance training. I still need to get better at kicking but I think that was more related to the previous night track ride than anything else as the ride wasn’t that intense.

The good thing about this ride is that if you want it to be hard, you can just sit on the front which I did near the end and if you want it to be easy, you can just sit in and follow the efforts.  

Sunday saw my first sprint SQT which means taking it in turns to do your efforts. I did 3x flying Kilo efforts which was an interesting experience. Unfortunately I was going to base my timed efforts on power durations but as the power meter disconnected, then I don’t have anything to base it off. That said I think the efforts were around 1min20seconds as shown by the first effort which had cadence of 102rpm and the power was nowhere near what I can do for that effort - again, demonstrating how much my gearing was a limiting factor. I also found out my gearing is even smaller than I thought with it being 94.5 rather than 96 and I’ll change it to 100.8 for my next track session.

With the offseason finishing, it is time to start increasing the hours on the bike. The idea is to start adding more endurance sessions to my schedule while on the track bike. The reason for the track bike is that it helps strengthen my ankle by the consistent pedalling required (even more so than Zwift already does), along with the different pedalling technique required. As well as given how the gearing works with the rollers, to do endurance work I have to pedal at 70-80rpm meaning that I benefit from more ankle/calf strengthening. Then I do this while on the drops meaning that I have a good core/arm workout in order to hold the position. The only downside to this is that as a result of all the strengthening it does, the time on the bike isn’t that long at the moment with the ankle hurting after around 45minutes so even forcing myself to continue for a fair bit means I’m not doing the full endurance time that others would do of 2-4 hours. That said, I see the benefits to it alongside the traditional long Z2 rides that endurance sessions tend to be. All of this is done with no fans to try and do heat simulation work. Part of racing on the track is being use to racing in dry-heat so there is a direct benefit to this alongside the general benefits of heat-related training.

With no sessions at Derby Velodrome on the 9th and 10th, the following weekend I did back-to-back endurance sessions - one outside and one on Zwift. My winter plan is to do the Peterborough Cycle Hub shop ride or track every Saturday so I joined them again.

The PCH shop rides tempo can be mixed depending on who turns up and what people feel like doing. This week seemed to be a really hard when the pace was on and really slow when the pace was off. There were 3 efforts, the first being when you get onto the first climbs, which weren’t actually too bad - almost giving a false sense of security. 

When I got to the front, I was happy setting a fairly high tempo, but no wanted to follow - until the first major attack occurred and I got onto their wheel. The “breakaway” race sim effort which was where we (two of us) went off the front ahead of the sprint point. The total effort was just under 20minutes with a “recovery” 300w up the climb to finish off - which is why I think I could have gone even harder. The total 20minute effort was 335w NP which included over 3minutes of recovery within it, which is why I think 350w for 20minutes is now possible on fresh legs. 

This was followed by a period of recovery in the ride before a final push back home. That final push being my 4th best ever 20min NP effort. 

To be able to do both efforts back-to-back shows the progress I’ve made. I think it was probably the best day I’ve ever had on the bike. There is still a long way to go, but I was feeling confident ahead of the following week’s Para National Champs Scratch Race. 

This was followed by an entry into the KISS100 on Sunday with the aim to finish in the main group - if that exists. However, the ankle didn’t recover as I had hoped and was already hurting before I started riding - not a great sign before doing a 100km Zwift race. I survived the first lap which was just under 48minutes at 287w NP (containing 40minutes at 300w NP), but the big thing was the stop-start nature of the course/race. In the end, I decided to limit my losses and call it quits. While I could have continued, the big target was the following weekend and I didn’t want to compromise that. 

The following weekend was the target race. I was probably overconfident in that I knew I am doing good power numbers, but this was my first race. The day before I tested out of the bike with put on a bigger gear (moving from 94.5 to 100.8), but I found that wasn’t actually big enough - not that my bad legs didn’t help. Xavier Disley went from the gun and I tried to follow and destroyed my legs and when I went up the track in a 3 man break, I found that no one wanted to work and I just committed to it. The numbers I knew I could do on a good day weren’t there, but I still went as hard as that - a rookie error. The power meter didn’t really work that well (as seen below) but it does show a few things. 

I did 2minutes at 480w NP which is my highest ever (oops). The next time it worked I was going at a steady 285-290w range in a solo TT which I probably did for the majority of the race (including the data not tracked) as I got dropped from not being able to kick. Which goes to why I’m going to use bigger gears for next time even if it slightly limits me. 

I had a quick chat with Xavier about our numbers and it showed me that I’m quite close to being competitive from a power perspective (or potentially already there). The big thing that I need to learn is how to race (and spend even more money on equipment)… 

The plan will be to do the revamped Track National League next year alongside the Welwyn Friday Night track league in order to learn how to race track better. In the short term, the next block finishes in Glasgow for the next round of the Para National Track Series where I’ll be doing my first ever timed Kilo, IP and have a chance to do another scratch race. The plan originally was to get the pursuit bars sorted but that will be worked on for National Champs.