Cycling up a hill

Cycled up Leith Hill in Surrey in the Kingston Wheelers Hill Climb TT. Did it in 4:51 minutes and came 17th. Hurray.

If it is too good to be true, it probably is

If you watched the Giro, you might remember Sella's mountain top victories, well in light of the news from a few weeks back may be he was on something. Likewise, there was the cobra, Ricco's, drug habits at the Tour.

Maybe some of the recent olympic results have been too good to be true? After all, EPO doping is very hard to catch and is not exclusive to cyclists. Eight golds and how many world records? No tying your shoe laces and dancing over the line. Missing dope tests and then wining a gold medal...

The Paris to Roubaix Sportive

My hands, arms and shoulders were by now aching. Ed was cycling in a strange low slung position, his seat too low, stretched across his bike. We did not talk, grim determination had set in.

For the last seven hours we had been on the road and cobbles of North France. The cobbled sections of road are known as pavé. With great enthusiasm, Ed and myself had entered the Paris to Roubaix sportive, a sort of race across the pavé and roads leading north to the small town of Roubaix, near Lille. I was attracted to the race by images of a glorious entry to the velodrome in Roubaix, my face splattered with mud after a long hundred miles in the saddle. The pavé little more than a few bumpy streets. Little did I know about the pain I had signed up for.

Undaunted, we set off from Lille at 6.30 in the morning, with Enzo, Aurora and Lidia, our bikes resting in the back of the car. We drove down through sleepy northern France, still resting under the mist. The shutters were down as we drifted through the small towns.

I had never thought of riding a road bike until a few years back, when my father in law, Enzo, saw my home built single speed bike. This beautiful machine shows it's age, being a rough steal bike, not a Specialissima. In Italy, there is no such term as a road bike. As Enzo recalled to Ed and I the night before the race, there are bikes and then there are Specialissimas. My single speed is no Specialissima. So I was gifted Enzo's beloved but old Giant Cadex. A classic early carbon fibre Specialissima. I have been speeding around the hills of the South Coast for two years now, and it was time to take the old Specialissima on a real journey.

My Paris-Roubaix began in the small town of Bohain. We drove in, confronted by Lycra men zipping by in bunches, in stages of half dress perched by the back of open cars, talking to their wives, or setting off to the start line. After a few grumpy early morning moans to my wife Lidia, Ed and I were on the road, plowing past groups of mostly yellow clad Lycra men. The pace was fast, we did not know about the pavé.

Pavé, it is nice sounding word, softly spoken. It takes on another meaning when a Belgian come clattering past you, yelling, "Pavé!". It hit us hard. It slams the front wheel viciously. My fifteen year old Specialissima was in tears, this is not what she was built for. She cried from the headset, the chain set, the seat post. This was not smooth tarmac. Instead, the pavé drilled up through the handle bars into my thin arms. This is Paris-Roubaix. My perception narrowed down to the few feet in front of my wheels. My only thoughts were of the smooth hugs of tarmac at the end of the cobbles.

After thirty kilometers or so we rolled into the first of four check points to be greeted by Enzo, Lidia and Aurora. Bikes were lovingly fixed by Enzo, we ate and were soon off. The pavé became better, we became used to the feeling of being in control of a pneumatic drill, rather than a racing machine. The speed went up. Then wham.

Ed drifted of the the left and fell onto uncompromising tarmac. Scraping along sideways he slammed into the kerb and glided to a stop against a wall.

He was up fast, but it was not good. I have not seen anyone come off a bike before, and I don't wish to see it again. Perhaps it was not that bad, a regular spill you see on the tele during the Giro or Tour de France. Well, I now know that they hurt. Specialissimas and Eds are tough though, and were both up and on the road soon. After a bit of effort we pulled out of the French towns, pushed through the most ridiculous pavé in the Forest of Arenburg and rested in the small village of Wallers.

It was around five in the evening, the sun casting shadows across the mud and stones. Ed and I were grimly pedalling on. Yet, because of the pavé, and despite Ed's falls, this race was still something else. Bouncing through the lush fields, being cheered on at the end of a gruelling section of pavé and taking on chubby Belgians on the flat made this a beautiful race. Ed and I flew into the velodrome after ten hours in the saddle, seven of which were racing. I was splattered in mud. Ed has scars to display with pride. The Specialissima was glowing under the layers of mud. This race may be pain and pavé, but it is also glorious.



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Photos, scars and all are here and here. Ed wrote about our adventures on his blog, One More Cup of Coffee.

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I am a Dr

Passed my viva! You can now call me Dr John.

Check out my work here.

My favourite track right now

Jay Electronica, down load it, Eternal Sunshine...

Dodging cars, or not...

I grumpy Mercedes driver drove into me as he pulled away from the traffic lights today. I was furious, so I chased after him and gave him a piece of my mind. I just could not believe that he drove into me, I mean all I did was stop at the lights close to him. He was on his horn at the general mess of bikers in front of him, and was so busy being angry at them perhaps he never saw me... or maybe he wanted to drive into me. Although I think I scared him a bit afterwards, poor posh old man.

Now I have a broken spoke on my back wheel and will have to ride the fixie into work. This may be good training for the Paris-Roubaix sportive that I am doing in two weeks. But, it is exhausting.

Anyways, this is the second time I have been driven into. The last time I was just crossing the road, and the car that had stopped for the people in front of me rolled into my knee. It hurt, but I was so shocked that the driver drove into me I did not know what to say...

After my run in with Mr Mercedes today I slowly cycled home. It is nice to take your foot off the gas on the way home and watch the manic cyclist burning their lungs to beat the fellow commuters. Tomorrow I will join them once more, a mini manic Giro every day!

100 miles in Suffolk

Ed and I cycled around the rolling Belgian like hills of Suffolk. We rode together for 109 miles, Ed doing an incredible extra 40 miles fuelled initially by a tail wind, and on his way home a diminishing supply of dried apricots. This was all in preperation for Paris-Roubaix, which we will be doing in 3 weeks, hopefully joined by Enzo (my father in law) and Hedley (who thought the whole thing up).

Anyways, my knees ache now. The ride was an epic push though sunshine and wind. We first set of for a coffee in Wickham Market after a fast 50 miles into the head wind. We were cruelly denied, as the shop was shut. Ed was then angry, and dragged me off at an angry speed to Snape, where I had a brick of cake and a coffee. Ed thought that one coffee would not be enough, so ordered a double espresso and a cupachino.

With 60 miles to go, we did not hang about too much, and soon we were zipping into Felixtowe to say hello to Ed's cousin and fill up the water bottles. Chatted about bikes and stuff, and the off once more. We arrived back in Colchester, where it began after 5 and a bit hours of pedal fury.

Ed eating dried apricots, which powered him home:



Me having a recovery apricot:



My left knee aches now...

Daily Commute

11 miles or so.

Midnight

This band is not early 90's, which I have reacently got into, but they are sweet. Check'em out, Midnight Juggernaughts. All for now, have a job now, should be working.



Oh, one more thing Uber Frisbee rocks...

Conclusions

The thesis is nearly done, here are the conclusions of three and a half years work:

1. The major and rare-earth element composition of melt generated during the extension and rifting of the continents has been successfully predicted within a geodynamic model of rifting. The melt composition calculations are modular, and can be incorporated within most models of rifting where the fraction of melt generated is calculated.

2. It has been shown that the strengthening of the mantle when small fractions of melt are generated is of fundamental importance to the evolution of rifted margins. It acts to dampen small-scale convection and reduce the volume of melt generated at slow spreading rates and mantle temperatures greater than 1300 C. I have shown that to match the global igneous crustal thickness variations, the mantle must be between 1300 and 1325 C, which is in agreement with the latest estimates from heat flux calculations (McKenzie et al, 2005).

3. Around the coast of the North Atlantic there are regions of very thickened igneous crust known as the North Atlantic Igneous Province. At the Southeast Greenland margin, the igneous thickness is up to 18 km (Hopper et al, 2003). The melt generated at the time of rifting is picritic with very high concentrations, 18 %, of MgO (Thy et al, 1998) and depleted in rare-earth elements such as TiO and La. To reproduce such volumes of melt with this chemical signature requires three processes:

Firstly, the presence of a layer of hotter mantle beneath the lithosphere. This layer is ~ 200 C hotter than the mantle, which has a potential temperature of 1325 C. Such a thermal anomaly is consistent with the lateral movement of a thermal plume based under Iceland (Holbrook et al, 2001; Chapter 4).

Secondly, rifting occurred initially at a faster rate of spreading, ~ 40mm/yr (Chapter 4). This is in agreement with observational evidence for increased spreading rates off shore Southeast Greenland (Larsen and Saunders, 1998; Smallwood and White, 2002; Hopper et al, 2003). Such increased spreading rates are essential as it increases the amount of mantle welling up and so increasing the flax of material through the solidus.

Finally, extension events prior to the rifting are crucial to the generation of excessive melt upon breakup. Passive far field extension of 125 km thick lithosphere above a thermal anomaly, even at the faster spreading rates of ~ 40 mm/yr, does not produce sufficient melt to match the 18 km thick crust observed off Southeast Greenland. The combined effect of the extension that gave the Hatton-Rockall Basin and a prior extensional basin off Southeast Greenland provides enough extension to thin the lithosphere sufficiently to enhance the upwelling of material to generate the volumes and chemistry of the igneous material observed at the Southeast Greenland margin (Chapter 5).

4. Melting at the Southeast Greenland margin began at depths close to 150 km. This deep melting was slightly damp, yet is within the garnet peridotite stability field as the the temperatures are too hot for amphibole peridotites. Given the deep damp melting, only a slight reduction in the Dy/Yb rare-earth ratio, which is a proxy for the amount of melt generated in the garnet stability field, is observed as rifting becomes sea floor spreading at the Southeast Greenland margin (Chapter 6).

5. The variation of seismic velocity within the underplate off Southeast Greenland with the igneous thickness is reproduced by the breakup scenario outlined above. The reduction in observed seismic velocities corresponds with the reduction in spreading rates and exhaustion of the thermal anomaly (Chapter 6). The geodynamic model of the extension and rifting of the continents has proven to be a successful tool for understanding the processes at the Southeast Greenland margin.

Act I

If anyone ever reads this waste of interweb space then do one thing today, go and download the Gilles Peterson podcast interview with Jay Electronica. It was broadcast on the 10th of this month. Listen and enjoy.

Anyways, back to the thesis.

Hell of Ashdown

Cycled this sportive last weekend, 65 miles in the winter sun in Kent.



I have the lycra with yellow stips up my bum. It was great, but I look far too serious. So I need to smile more next time. Anyways, would say more but need to complete my thesis.

Steal Bike

I want one, one made in Italy, from Naples.

That's all.