RACE REPORT: Three Peaks Cyclo-Cross Race, 2013

Camping by the River Ribble in Martin Hanson's field

Three Peaks Cyclo-Cross Race, 2013

The Pub at the centre of all the action

Difficult to describe this race, because it is an oddity, both within the British scene and the international one. The entire context of the event is actually fell-running, the peculiar British texture of this mad sport best described in Richard Askwith's loving portrayal Feet in the Clouds. The current race was founded by John Rawnsley in 1962, and it was really a super-imposition of bikes atop a fell running race. Fifty years later, in 2012, Rawnsley retired from managing it. By then it had attracted international attention. The best feature about the event and it's history was published in issue 34 (2012) of Rouleur, page 146ff. It's a brilliant feature.

The Start: Straining at the leash - and not only this Hungarian Vizsla

 

 

Rob Jebb leading on Pen-y-Gent (Credit: S.R. Hall)

Pen-y-Gent, which translates as 'winds'. And there are winds.

This year's event -depicted in a handful of photos here- represented a watershed in the history of the event, being the first run by a committee led by Mark Richmond. They did very well. It was also a watershed because the 51st edition of the race was won convincingly by Rob Jebb for his 10th victory, a simply incredible achievement.

I said in my previous blog post that I would briefly revisit my various decisions, strategic and technical, to see what worked and what didn't.

First of all, I was not 100% race fit having battled an unhappy left ham string since June - in fact throughout the four months of specific training for this event. I came 486th out of 544 starters, of which 40 retired. I had entered in a realistic but determined frame of mind: let's do this thing and learn about it. Then regroup for a possible return.

That's about right: I don't think any amount of forum chatting can really get you ready for this one. You need to do it respectfully the first time. This event stretches cycling beyond its normal parameters. It also takes you way out of the normal 'comfort zones' even of otherwise hard-core Cross racing. First there's the running/climbing aspect, obviously, but then there's the terrain, the gradients and the wind (the wind was diabolical despite the sunny conditions - and it made everything much harder). I spent a good portion of the event wondering whether you can 'enjoy' the Three Peaks: it is a very northern, very austere way of having fun, epitomised by an ethos that served up one 'feed station', a white plastic cup of water and nothing else. The subtext was abundantly clear. 'If you were a real man,' said in a thick Yorkshire accent, 'this is all you'd consume for the whole event.' No garish sports drinks, no ghastly Nestle sponsorships (whisper The Etape), no gels, nothing at all. I really thought that was brilliant. Fantastic. The Last Outpost against commercialisation (although it still costs £50 to enter).

Another thing: there were very few overweight competitors, and the fifty or so women competitors were all absolutely brilliant as far as I could tell. Many of them had fell running backgrounds because I snatched the odd conversation with one or two out on the course. On the male side, it was a bit like a National Cross Champs with a smattering of foreign entrants from Switzerland, Belgium (especially), Germany and the USA. I wonder what they made of it all. The quality of the overall field was very good indeed: it was not like a sportive. Every single entry is vetted by the committee, so there are no 'have a go Harries'. There was a palpable respect when you got to the top of the last peak, but in between the encouragement was of a disciplining type. 'C'mon, step it up lad, this is a bludy race.'

On the technical front here's what I found out. I think I made the absolute right decision to fit Panaracer Cinder X 700x35s. They weigh 350grams. This is a strong, MTB-heritage compound tyre with an aggressive block tread. At 90psi (which it is rated for) it rolls well enough on the road. I stand by what I said before about the Schwalbe Urban Cruisers. They are really sluggish and weigh too much at 600grams. Equally, I noted that lots of riders seemed to turn up on the same tyres (700x32, typically) that they'd use on a normal Cross race. This is an error. The average Cross tyre is not strong enough for this course. You need strength and volume of air and a high PSI rating. Clinchers beat tubs unless you are very brave, and happy to change one in the field. I was confident I wouldn't puncture and I didn't. Panaracer flataway kevlar stuff may have helped; in the end I had a disaster with the Joe's sealant and gave up. Not before it had gone everywhere. No comment.

Shoes: As predicted, it was a case of swings and roundabouts. I was way out on a limb deciding to wear Inov-8 Mudclaw 300 fell running shoes instead of clip in SPD MTB shoes. I was very content with this, and so it proved, partly: I had a ton more grip and felt much more confident every time we ran. What I didn't realise was that you need to mount/dismount/mount/dismount at the drop of a hat all the way round. A bit like the world champs in the sand dunes. This is not so easy with clips and straps and fell running shoes with rubber studded soles. I had practised, but on difficult terrain I undoubtedly lost time reachiong down to lift the clip and get the shoe in. The overall distance of 61kms was as far as I would want to ride in running shoes. If I could find the right, 'flexi' pair of MTB shoes I might try that next time. If it was very wet you might still want the Mudclaws. There were lots of sections where this year's dry conditions made the paths dusty/slippery and people in stiff MTB shoes were just struggling to get any grip at all. That's a big risk of injury; ditto the wet grass ascent of Ingleborough, the famous 'cliff' that always gets photographed each year, and often where the initial selection is made.

Tyres and shoes are the two most important decisions you'll make. The other one is gearing and I was right about that too, based on advice from Konrad Manning, something of a veteran of the event. You want 1:1 gearing so you can ride much of the initial path up Pen-y-Gent, the last climb. On 34x32 (my set-up), it's marginal. You are so wasted by then, you can only ride small sections and then have to dismount and walk/run. It would be much better to have 32x34. This is crazy stuff outside of the context of this event and takes you off into special kit and expensive prep. But that is what you would ideally have. I didn't have it, but then lots of riders had turned up with 46x36 / 12-25. Stock stuff for school playing field racing. I hope they enjoyed their running legs.

Summary
It would be strange to talk of enjoying this event. The technical demands are so steep that you cannot enjoy any descent as such; I crashed three times to prove that point, once heavily on the descent of Ingleborough. But it is mentally engrossing and by the end you are completely drained. I'd compare it to a bad weather fishing trip that yields little, but the little brown trout you finally catch using a pure method, say dry fly, is worth the wait. Or, a gold panning expedition where you have to pan for hours with nothing, but finally reveal a single, perfectly formed nugget of gold. This is not like an Etape where you get to play the Pro on a 20km descent at wild speeds, pure good fun. It's much harder and drier than that. But, you do have your wild off-road moments, or other moments of beauty; it is very authentic and there are no losers in this event. At the end of it all you're supposed to have a laugh and drink a pint, exactly as the fell runners do. And by then you know that you've done something much, much harder than the Arenberg Trench of Paris-Roubaix fame - which pales in comparison.

REVIEW: Schwalbe Ultremo DD Evolution tyre

The Schwalbe Double Defense -good but it has limits

REVIEW: Schwalbe Ultremo DD Evolution 700x25c tyres £35.19 (Wiggle)

This is not the tyre that most often crops up in the Schwalbe range - it's usually the Ultremo ZX, a pure road comp tyre, or the very popular Durano and friends.

I picked out the 700x25c for its relative light weight (260g) and widely touted puncture resistance (see below the many claims) - as a fast but commuter-savvy tyre capable of handling a rack and panniers laden up to about 10kgs in a commuting only situation. Fitted to my new Enigma Ethos on black Mavic Aksiums, they looked the part but I was always worried that the tyre was too light. For the spring and summer months I never had a problem, but when the rains came two weeks ago, I began to fear the worst - it just feels like a race tyre being stretched to capacity than operating well within its strengths.

Here's the highly persuasive marketing blurb from Schwalbe:

"Cuts by glass shards, or sharp flints are effectively repelled. Weight and rolling resistance remain low. Naturally with Triple Nano Compound. HD Ceramic Guard - This unique, high density fabric offers highly effective protection against penetration punctures. The additional coating of tiny ceramic particles blunts small shards of embedded glass, so that migration through the tyre is stalled. SnakeSkin. The addition of "snakeskin" protects the tyre shoulder and side wall against sharp rocks and broken glass. Although side wall defects are quite rare in road racing, it is still annoying when it happens. And worse, the tyre is often not just punctured by a cut, it is frequently completely destroyed. Double defense is the best prevention against this happening."

Here are the limits - don't know what caused this hole

Part of a winter, Paris-Roubaix and Tour of Flanders - now for commute

Well I'm sorry to say this but my back tyre ruptured big time the other day, riding across London in the wet. I never got to see what I hit but it was probably a shard of bottle glass. The cut, pictured, went right through the tyre and I had no shoulder with me so rode home on 50 psi, gingerly, thinking that any more pressure would likely force the tube out through the hole and leave me stranded.

My immediate thought was that this is a summer tyre or maybe a three season training tyre, but it's not really strong enough for commuting.

Turning to the winter then, I considered buying new Duranos, or even Pluses, or maybe a combo (Durano Plus at the rear, Durano at the front). But I had these last winter and I know they're great. The point here is to try something new.

So I dug out the Vittoria Open Paves that have already seen serious cobble action, and am going to fit the pair with Panaracer Flataway between tyre and tube, a sort of kevlar fuzzy band with adhesive. Make no mistake this is a totally different philosophy of puncture prevention, before we even get to the Panaracer stuff: the Open Paves reply on density (320 TPI =threads per square inch), and a kevlar component, and also a profile where there is more meat in the actual tread than the walls, more so than competitior tyres. Plus, they're 700x24c - an unusual size - and I have always liked their feeling of just being that bit stronger. I'll report back come the Spring. If I have to estimate the weakness, it will be from cuts that just slice the rubber irrespective of the TPI. But if so, it won't be any worse than the piece of glass that just went straight through Schwalbe's HD Ceramic Guard.

UPDATE: Prescription glasses for cycling - Rudy Project, RXSport, and why I hate Oakley

Original post: July 19th, 2013

This is a journalistically satisfying update. Back in July I posted about the very complex world of prescription glasses for cycling, and why Oakley is a dysfunctional giant within a monopolistic mega-group, Milan-based Luxottica. The happy ending of my purchase, via excellent 'minnow' provider www.rxsport.co.uk, of an expensive (£340.04) pair of Rudy Project Magsters turned out to be quite complex: here's what happened.

The projected delivery time was 2-3 weeks, with the glasses coming from the Shamir laboratory in Portugal. The date of the order, placed in person when I visited RXSport, was July 12th, 2013.

I returned from a trip a month later, with nothing awaiting me except a message from RX Sport to call. The glasses had been delayed.

Two weeks later, another call confirmed that they had arrived but were of poor quality, the naked lower edge of the lenses poorly finished.

Another week passed and I spoke to James Coakley, the founder of RX Sport.co.uk, who by now wss handling the matter.

Unbeknownst to me, but I guess typical for a web-savvy company, they'd all been reading my original blog post having performed a routine search for their own brand name. James agreed with my verdict on the industry but insisted that he doesn't make the profit margins I'd estimated. We had a perfectly amicable phone call. He also said that the defective quality of my glasses was "very unusual." They get a small handful of such instances each year, he claims, and my order, apparently, was pushing the available technology to the edge of the known universe, despite a weak, single prescription.

To re-cap: I'd ordered a pair of Rudy Project Magsters, directly glazed single prescription, with brown photochromic lenses, frozen ash frames, and the best available coating, called Shamir Glacier Plus. Until recently you could not obtain all this in a cycling-specific application.

James also rebated me about 12%, bringing the order down to £300, as recompense for the delay - which I thought was a decent (and fair) gesture.

He explained that Shamir has a small UK laboratory and they were starting from scratch to re-manufacture the lenses.

The glasses arrived yesterday, September 5th, eight weeks to the day since the order was orignally placed.

I like the glasses and they came (just) in time for the Cyclo-Cross season, when photo-chromic lenses make a ton of sense. During the very sunny recent weather, I've had a different pair of prescription shades to wear. So I am very happy with the outcome and pleased to have been partially rebated. RXSport handled the whole thing very well and I'd still recommend them - the problem was a third party problem.

I still think the whole industry is comically complex, with a vast array of retailers and a very small number of actual providers, and too many patented applications, all a bit oversold like software. Here's a list of the bits enclosed with my order:

1. Rudy Project sticker
2. IMPACT X Photochromic lens advert
3. Warranty booklet
4. Magster diagram
5. IMPACT X technical brochure
6. Shamir-branded micro cloth
7. Shamir-branded lens care guide
8. Promotional business card from www.transitions.com
9. Shamir 'credit card' 'Certificado de Qualidade'. Let me book my flight to Portugal!
10. Duplicate 'credit card' from Shamir UK Ltd

The micro cloth, at least, is USEFUL!

Three Peaks Cyclo-Cross Race 2013

This is roughly what I think you need -

It's been a long-term goal of mine to do the Three Peaks Cyclo-Cross Race. Long billed the hardest Cyclo-Cross Race in the world (in recent years the claim tempered somewhat to 'the hardest race in the UK' -) it is actually a very British oddity of a thing, to take a bike where no bike should go and then call it a race. Anyway, there's plenty about the history and geography of the race, which has run since 1961, here:

http://www.3peakscyclocross.org.uk/

The point of this post is instead to summarise what I have done for my first attempt. It's just three weeks away now and as I am writing this my pulse is soaring. After the event I'll re-post and we'll see what went right and what went wrong.

The first thing you need is to get on the start sheet. To do that you have to produce evidence of ability. For me this meant completing the previous 'Cross season, with a full roster of races and a final placing. I was ranked 20th Elite Vet out of 57 in the Elmy Eastern Cross League, 2012-13. http://www.easterncross.org.uk/

For the purposes of clarity, I am elite nothing; but in my League they bundle the youngest Vets (40-45) with the 'real' Elites to contain ever-swelling fields of entrants. Call it the advantage of being a younger-older rider.

My palmares was enough to get me accepted onto the start sheet for the Three Peaks, when I applied on Saturday June 1, the day entries opened (it is no longer an unseemly scramble: you have a couple of weeks, and then there is a committee decision. I did not pull any favours as a journalist).

I was then faced with the whole logistical thing: how am I going to get myself and my kit ready?

To cut to the end, I have placed almost my entire preparation down to the comment about this race that has stuck deep inside my head since I first read it some years ago. The most prolific winner, Rob Jebb, is conventionally described by the organisers, Bradford R.C.C, as "a fell runner and occasional cyclist."

So my whole approach has been to work on the stuff most cyclists hate. I began a whole new training plan, re-joined my gym and built in ramp running on a treadmill, upper body strengthening, core work and more actual walking and running and stair climbing to recruit those muscles. 

It's not been straightforward. I got symptoms of ITB on my right side; and combined with a big bout of cycling, almost over-training, I overloaded my anterior adductor which started to yelp. This has now passed across to an intermittently unhappy medio-hamstring. I have a masseuse (Timo Dahlstedt, London-based genius: timo@timomassagetherapy.co.uk) and a physiotherapist (Simon Gilchrist via www.marylebonephysio.com), and the physio does dry-needling with acupuncture needles. This is, let's put it this way, an interesting procedure. Luckily I am not injured, we are all agreed. It's more akin to an overuse symptom. This encourages me.

The rest of the prep will involve increased intensity and actually racing - my first 2013-14 'Cross race is tomorrow, Sept 7, and there is room for a second next weekend before the big trip north to the Yorkshire Dales.

TYRES
As for kit, the picture shown in this post is a rough guide. The special forum for the Three Peaks is very handy but it is not to be taken as gospel. You have to make your own decisions in the end. There is a consensus, for instance, that the best tyres are Schwalbe Land Cruisers, clinchers pumped up very hard to minimise pinch punctures. All well and good, but the first time I rode mine I didn't like them. At 615g each in the 700x35cc size, they feel sluggish. The centre line is nice for a turn of speed on the road, but seems to compromise grip off road. The merest dab of the back brake, and the bike stepped out. So I am selling those on eBay having replaced them with a more conventional 'Cross tyre, the Panaracer Cinder X. Once again 700x35cc (the maximum size permitted by the rules, and thus the maximum volume of air/ contact patch possible for this event), these weigh about 380g each and then I've added Panaracer Flat-Away, an adhesive kevlar fuzzy band that sits between tyre and tube.

For context, I notice in the photos from last year that Rob Jebb, contrary to what people have said on the forum, does not ride Land Cruisers. The photo shows him riding Schwalbe Racing Ralphs - beautiful light tubulars. But he has backers, spare bikes and immense experience. Strange - I have just fitted the same tubs to a pair of Zipp 303s for my normal racing, but for the Three Peaks, I do NOT want to be stranded on a moor with a wrecked tub and shivering hands. My sense is that it is an agicultural situation. Kit breaks. Do not go with the lightest thing money can buy, but err towards strength.

A week before the race, I'll inject sealant into the tubes as well. If I puncture, I'll have CO2, a pump, and two spare tubes. If I get through all that I have my legs left as the last engine.

SHOES
The other big debate is footwear. Oh yes. Now I was recently in the Canadian Rockies and my former marine father-in-law insisted that I take his steel framed bike to start running up and down the mountain with a bike on my shoulder, in cycling shoes. The main lesson was that Specialized S-Works MTB shoes are mentally stiff and simply don't work for running steep gradients. The limestone trails of the Three Peaks do not suit the twin studs at the toe either - I am told. This is why everyone gets screaming calves or blasted achilles tendons.

So here I'm out on my own limb: I've decided to do clips and straps mated to fell running shoes. I went off to this fantastic, family-owned specialist running shop/web retailer, http://www.runandbecome.com/Home, last week and bought a pair of Innov-8 Mudclaw 300s, the '300' referring to the weight in grams.
The tread looks like a nightmare for getting into clip and straps, but I tried it and with a wiggle, they go in OK. Yes, they are flexible where ideally you'd have stiffness, but I'm sticking to the original philosophy, that this is a fell running event with cycling thrown in, rather than the other way round. We'll see if I come to revise any of that.

GEARING
So finally to gearing. For normal racing, my Ridley X-Night is set up with Shimano Ultegra, 46-36 / 11-25. This is way too high for the Three Peaks, where as I was reminded by front runner & long time participant Konrad Manning, Nick Craig won it one year by ascending the final Pen-y-gent peak by riding out a 1:1 gear.
Well OK. But there's a budget here and going right over into bespoke chainrings and cranksets, is not something I'm willing to do yet. At 1:1 you can profitably run or walk too.
So as you see in the photo here, I've done the obvious by going as low as I can without departing the known universe or resorting to a triple: added a 34 tooth inner chainring and acquired a new set of sprockets, Shimano Tiagra 12-30. Even this hasn't been cheap. The Ultegra short cage derailleur can't go bigger than 29, and the chain as fitted was too short for 46-30. So add another £85 for a Shimano 105 long-mech and new chain.

COST
Well, I've eBayed myself half out of trouble, but the actual cost of Three Peaks-specific kit is so far £320. This includes the running shoes. It cost more than I thought it would but then I am the eternal optimist.