Looks much harder than last year! Demon stage 3, followed by a time trial up Alpe d’Huez the day after. I fear the Tuesday will be a ‘sandbagging’ day.

Heart rate was noticeably higher for a given effort, but looking at the stats in WKO the drift wasn’t substantial – fitness not totally down the pan then.

The plan was, is, to start bagging the steady stuff now, October, to be in a race ready state much earlier next year.

Just got back from a smashing holiday in Italy with the wife – no riding, just a chilled out week reading, eating, and drinking.

And that’s where I got it wrong.

I have a cold. Haven’t been ill since my epic run of lurgies earlier this year – think I’ve managed to get from February until now without catching anything. It tried to start last week whilst we were away, but didn’t really brew. Then it came back again after the flight home. And now it’s a full on miserable cold.

Oh well. Training will have to start next week now.

After all, who wouldn’t want to do a seven day sportive in the Alps? (one could also probably ask, who would want to do it). To be honest, the only reason I didn’t enter this year was because all the premium accommodation had already been sold. Sorry, I’m not being snobbish here, but seven days, in the mountains, and shared sleeping arrangements?! I’ll confess to being a wee bit precious about my sleep, and sometimes feel like my cycling performance can be drained by a bad night’s sleep.

No, for me, it’s got to be a comfy bed.

So when the organisers tweeted a competition for entry to the 2012 event, I, of course, entered.

A few days ago I found out I’d won!

I like the way they think I’m training already. Ha! The only training I’m doing at the moment is drinking and eating cake.

Can’t wait for the 2012 event details to be published, this will really motivate me to get some good training in over the winter.

This year I’ve experienced a couple of ‘niggles’ with my beloved bicycle, which have required help from Parlee themselves to sort out. One can always moan and whine about problems, but I find the mark of a company is how it deals with issues – I can stay perfectly calm when things are going wrong, as long as the party at fault deals with the issue well.

Earlier in the year I was experiencing some poor gear shifting on my bike. As a capable spanner man I’d built the machine myself, and subsequently managed to keep the gear shifting perfectly smooth. I struggled to get it working right this time, but had to get on it and go anyway as I was late for a group ride.

Once the ride was finished, I asked the organisers of the trip (we were in Majorca, on a training camp) if they had a bit of oil I could borrow. “What’s the problem?” asks Mark. “Gear shift, awful, can’t get it to play ball at all”. “Want us to take a look over night?”. “Sure”, says me, “that’d be fantastic”.

Next morning, Mark finds me at breakfast.

“You want the bad news or the good news first?”

“Go on then, give me the good news”

“Nowt wrong with your gears”

“Oh, really? What’s the bad news then?”

“Your frame is coming unglued”.

It turned out the seat stays were indeed pulling out of the Ti dropouts.

I emailed Parlee and Bespoke, the UK distributor. This was a Sunday afternoon. Barry from Bespoke replied within 10 minutes. Tom Rodi from Parlee responded by early evening.

Tom was, as ever, calm and helpful in his reply. He accepted that this was a very rare occurrence, but occur it could. He accepted full responsibility and said the issue would be dealt with under warranty at no cost to me.

The Z2 went back to the US on my return, was duly repaired, and even came back with fresh lacquer on the chainstay where an off had scratched it. Superb service – I was pleased with the way the issue was handled.

Fast forward six months, and I’m preparing the bike for another sojourn. The front mech hanger is a band of carbon, and can be prone to gentle stretching over time – which causes the mech to drift down towards the chainrings. This had been happening increasingly, and it was getting difficult to get the mech to stay in place.

I was busy trying to get it fixed and aligned, which meant doing up the bolt and undoing again to move the band alignment. A task I repeated three times, only for the hellish scenario of the bolt head shearing off on the third attempt.

After swearing, quite a bit, I vented a little frustration to twitter. Within a couple of hours Parlee (Tom Rodi, again) had sent me a message asking for an email first thing on the following Monday with the story of what had happened.

Monday came around, on my holiday with another bike. I mailed Tom, explaining what had occurred, and asked if he had any advice for removing the sheared bolt from my Super Record mech.

Tom replied, almost immediately, and [I'm sure he won't mind me quoting this] opened his mail with “Aww man, that sucks“. He then went on to say the supplied bolt should handle more torque than I was applying, and offered to send me a new mech hanger band and a new mech!

Two weeks later and a parcel arrives from Parlee – one new hanger, and one brand new Campagnolo Super Record mech.

Shit happens in life, that’s a fact we can’t change. But the way things are dealt with is important. I don’t begrudge Parlee for the problems I’ve experienced – in fact, my brand loyalty is stronger than ever. Tom Rodi is one of the nicest and most helpful people I know.

If you’re considering buying a bespoke, carbon, bicycle frame then I can still give no higher praise to Parlee Cycles – for pre sales, and post sales service.

Lincoln GP 2011 – Rapha Condor Sharp – Chasing the Team from Condor Cycles on Vimeo.

Bloody hell that was hard.

I’d not raced at Hog Hill before. I’ve ridden around the top portion of the circuit when I was testing a Parlee and a Viner, but didn’t get to check out the bottom portion of the track or try out the infamous ‘Hoggenberg’ climb.

I’d heard the climb was short but steep – 10% at it’s worst – and generally in a one hour race you hit this 20 times. Pretty nasty interval training.

The first lap was pretty steady, not at all like the ballistic-from-the-off start of racing Palace. But lap two soon saw the pace lift, and lap three was the fastest of the whole race.

Making the effort to keep my nose out of the wind (it was really windy there tonight!) but stay in the top 10-20 riders I found pretty easy, but hitting nearly 600w every time up the climb was a killer. About half way through I did wonder if I was going to be able to tolerate it – then, just like Palace, it calmed a little as everyone started to tire just like I was.

On the last lap I had to really hit the downhill hard to get my placing back, as I’d slipped quite a bit after the climb. Around the right hander at the bottom I took a lot of places back on the outside, and shouting at the man in front that I was on his left didn’t seem to make a lot of difference to the line he took (that’s racing, isn’t it?) and I was forced off the track. Cue a 55kph bit of cyclocross racing. Back onto the track, having lost a fair few places, with adrenaline surging I sprinted to gain my placing again.

By the time we reached the climb for the final time I was in the middle of the pack – now a twitchy blob of knackered racers. Shouting. A few swerves. The sprint started. I got out of the saddle and started to pick my way through the mêlée but by the time I could see space on the tarmac I could also see the top ten was decided. I gave up pushing through and sat back down for the finish.

29th. Happy to finish, but recognise I’ve still a lot of work to do on my fitness.

There was plenty of talk this week that Palace was going to be busy, and that the 100 riders limit was to be enforced. All the talk suggested turning up early.

I got there at 18:45 for the 19:15 3/4 start. It’d been full for some time by that point.

Dammit.

I really don’t know why anybody enjoys this race, it’s ridiculously hard. I had a bash at the 3/4 race a couple of times last summer – when I had, what I considered for myself, forme. And both times I packed a little over half way through. I got a stitch that I couldn’t control and ended up not being able to breathe; rather fundamental to Palace as you never get a chance to stop doing it at a rate that would make an onlooker assume you were about to die.

Last night was the start of Palace season, and I’d decided that I wanted to give it a proper go. I know my form is down on last summer’s peak, but figured I’d give it the best effort I could and if I got shelled, I got shelled.

One thing I learned last year was it always starts manically. From the whistle it’s full bore into the 180º hairpin, short sprint to the first right hander, down the hill breathing like somebody removed the oxygen from the air surrounding you and your life depends on grabbing whatever small amount of air you can, tip it into Dead Man’s Corner (a 90º left hander, blind, with a large amount of shrubbery on the inside, and an off camber trajectory right into the trees) with – if you’re in the right position – no brakes, else a small feather, boost along the small straight, left, left again, onto the hill. Max it. Even staying mid pack at this point is a gigantic effort – on the odd occasion I dared to peek at the power meter I was well over 400 watts (to put that into perspective I go anaerobic around 320 watts), around the left hander at the top of the circuit after 40 seconds of unimaginable pain, pace lifts rapidly, over the start line and it starts all over again.

Two minutes. It’s just two minutes a lap, and given that 40 seconds of that is done ‘inside out’ you can get the picture that you don’t ever, really, recover during a lap of Palace. It’s not like Hillingdon where you can sit in with your heart rate somewhere around the same level as it would be on the sofa during a slightly racy advert.

At nine laps to go I got the stitch coming on again. I immediately started to think ‘oh no! race over!‘ but managed to contain it to a level that didn’t stop me breathing [like a mad man]. I tried to keep my cool, and slotted in to the pack around 15th position – I didn’t want to lose sight of the leaders. On the uphill section I even backed off the amount of effort I put in, letting myself slide back a good 10 places or so, only to fly past again on the straight and regain position by the 180 hairpin.

As the bell went I realised I was going to finish. This felt rather pleasing, to say the least. A fellow Dynamo clipped off the front for the downhill section, and for a moment I really thought he’d get the win – which would’ve been great to see from the excellent vantage point I had on the chasing wheel. “Top ten!” rushed through my mind. As we shot up the hill, I could see Dave dying ahead, I knew his win was going down the toilet.

Then all of sudden so did my placing. I blew; couldn’t sustain the pace and let the pack swarm around me.

Think I probably got something in the 20s. But actually I was pleased with that. I was sure, on the way there, I wouldn’t even have the form to hang in, let alone finish in the main group. At no point did I feel I was ever going out the back too, which makes me feel even better about the season ahead.

I pored over the stats for quite a while after I got home. Analysing the numbers and effort on that final climb. Average heart rate was 170bpm, with most of the race spent between 170 and 175 bpm. Madness.

Positives: Form better than expected, race calms by half way, Love Dead Man’s Corner

Negatives: Stitch, nearly puked, felt like dying, hate the hill

I love racing Palace.