Viva - er...Vida Cycling
It's funny. I set myself a target - September 1, to begin a strict regimen of 6 workouts a week, so one day off a week, in order to get me ready for some triathlons I've signed up for, and to make an early start towards Ironman preparations. So what happens? I get sick almost from the get go, and then sick again. As I type this I am feeling very lightheaded (I have a touch of food poisoning); it's also the reason this column is a bit late.
Despite being sick I've had an awesome couple of weeks on the bike. Sun City was awesome; I averaged over 40km/h in the race a day after riding 170km on a pretty weak base of fitness.
The last 20 hours recorded by my heart rate monitor (attached to my handlebars) are in these five graphics below. The graphic immediately below is from a race in Bloem. The brown line represents altitude, blue speed and the red line at the top, HR. In Bloem I lost the bunch fairly early on and at the half way turn I got caught out by a cross wind and lost touch with the riders - meaning I rode the last 30km on my own. It was one of the toughest rides I've done in ages - my average heart rate was 162bpm.
Note the altitude is very consistent (out and back course) compared to the graphs following (all in Gauteng). It was also much flatter in reality than the graph suggests.
The graph below is of the Sun City race - also comparatively flat. For this race I used my ultra light, ultra aero Zipps (there was no way I was going to ride on normal heavy wheels with the previous day's 170km still sitting in them). Interesting to compare the stats with Bloem. In Bloem my heart rate was 162bpm and I average around 34km/h on a very flat but very windy course. At Sun City my heart rate was 149 and I averaged over 40km/h. What was the main difference? I rode in the A bunch; a very large group that rode consistently the whole way - we came in quicker than the VB guys. Also, not much wind.
The two graphs below represent the ride to Sun City. You can there are some major climbs in the beginning, but overall it is downhill. Sun City is around 1100m above sea level, around 500m lower than Johannesburg.
This is the ride I did on Friday after having the flu for about 10 days. Note my heart rate average is higher by 3 than for the Sun City race.
On Saturday I did a very hard 75km ride with the Illovo guys. Quite windy. Check out the climb at about 1/3rd of the way through. On and on and on. I think Gauteng based riders are at an advantage to other riders because we have the altitude benefit and there is so much climbing here. The only downside is you have to get up early to miss all the traffic, and some of that involves riding in the dark.
What was nice about Saturday's ride was stopping off at Vida E in Parkhurst - well, that area. Cyclists and coffee go together like strawberries and cream. I'm not a coffee-holic, but I do enjoy stopping off at a roadside cafe after a long session. In Bloem we usually stopped at a Wimpy along the highway. Vida E is definitely becoming synonymous with cyclists.
While sitting there in the September sun, seeing all these bikes, I couldn't help remarking that the world will be so much better off when more and more people, waves of them, migrate from cars to bikes. We need more bike lanes in SA, we need more people to commute to work on bikes. Cycling makes sense in so many ways - it's healthy, it's fun, it connects you to your environment (the car capsule disconnects you, and is an otherwise lethal energy inefficient projectile) and of course bicycling is the most energy efficient option available, and this by some margin.
Cycling in sociable, cooperative - one of its core values is trust. You trust the guy in front of you to show you a hole in the road (because he knows you're right behind him, saving energy in the slipstream). And of course, you do the same for everyone else. People relate to each other on their bikes in a way that never would off of them. On Saturday I was again chatting to big banking hot shots, and a lightie of about 16. If I was walking down the street do you think we'd feel we had anything in common to talk about?
The cooperation aspect is also a beautiful thing to behold in cycling. Where else do total strangers come together, and wordlessly (not always!) get on with the job of working together.
Jeremy Wakeford from ASPOSA (I am also a member) has said that 97% of South Africa's transport sector depends on petroleum-based energy, with just 3% of transport energy coming from electricity. 80% of freight is conveyed by road. When the impending oil supply crisis hits, South Africa will be particularly vulnerable.
You might think that cycling lanes and cycling communities are third world. Well, in very advanced Japan, in places like Osaka, there are probably more people on bicycles than pedestrians. Seoul's satellites in South Korea also make extensive use of bicycle lanes on and off pavements to try to tempt more people away from driving. Driving causes so many problems besides the congestion, stress, accidents etc. There's also the pollution.
The view from my bicycle is of future highways glittering with cyclists, not cars.
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