My Second time riding with the WOMGIE group (2nd time to Norton Summit)

I almost did not write about this event as I was not sure it had anything of interest. I then thought about the last time I rode with this group, back in August 2012 and realized that that ride had been a celebration of 12 months from when I started riding a bike as an adult. You can checkout the WOMGiE group to see who rides with them and where they ride. On that occasion I got up at 3:50 am so that I could ride to the start but had decided I was not going to today. Today I got up at a more sane 4:50 am and drove out the driveway at 5:10, after having a coffee and some breakfast. Today, six months later, I have made several changes. These consist of reducing the volume of riding and the volume I carry around my waist. I have been riding shorter but more intense rides including small amounts of climbing and have lost, as of today 9.8 kg’s.

Please note that  WOMGiE is not about PR’s or competitive spirit but more about social riding so I am failing to comply with their spirit at this stage. Because I am relatively slow there are plenty of riders that complete this quicker while still sticking to the WOMGiE spirit.

What Difference does 6 Months Make

Its difficult to know what actually contributes to a result when there are so many elements contributing to it! So what are these elements?

Elements Contributing to this result:

• Loosing 9.8 kg’s of body weight
• Riding for an extra 6 months (total of 18 months riding)
• Focused riding/training
• Excessive riding to the ride last time and not even a warm up for this one

I have place these in the order I think may have the biggest impact on the results but I can not be sure of this!

 Before I Compare Riding Data

Before I get caught up with the technicality of the ride I would like to briefly talk about the meeting and ride itself and how it felt. I arrived at the Tower Motel with 5 mins to spare so was able to get my bike out of the back seat and assembled ready to ride without a problem. There was already the majority of riders gathered for the ride as I moved down to join 13 others.  I was able to say hello to a few people I recognized. I did get a name or 2 wrong and with my memory its good if I recognize a person as someone I have met before so if I get a name right then that’s a bonus!

6am struck and Angus said to get under way. I was in the wrong place and ended up leading the group away! It was a clear and mild morning unlike the foggy morning of the last ride.  I was an early casualty last time with the bulk of the riders disappearing into the fog within the first couple of km’s. I was determined to make a stronger start this time and in fact did. I made sure I did not push myself to hard but did run out of a little speed before reaching the first hairpin. I think this was because I had not performed a short warmup ride beforehand. A large contingent of the group passed me with Tim B stating that he would not stay with me and chat this time after I mentioned him in my last blog post.

There were groups of riders behind me and the main group in front of me and somehow I ended up in no-mans land making most of the climb solo.  I kept a good cadence and reasonable heart rate from what I can tell and allowed my body to recover from the lack of warm-up. I was then able to bring my pace back up again allowing me to pass a few people that had passed me earlier. A couple of times I dropped a gear or two to spin just a little while allowing for a little more recovery and then upped the speed as the road leveled at points. Finally pushing through to the post office at the summit to a group of 6 or so riders. The last time I reached this point I think I was drooling like a rabid dog while this time I was breathing heavy but definitely felt much better. When asked how much time had I knocked off my previous time I said I had no idea but suggested I would like to knock of around 5 mins. Someone suggested 7 mins but I knew that was unlikely. It turned out I knocked of just over 3 mins for the “Norton Summit Rd (full length)” Strava segment.

Norton Post Office at Dawn

It was a little while later that Gus and Lorraine arrived with the trailing group who had been riding at a more casual pace.

If I had not organised other things to do this morning I would have ridden on with the group to make it a decent length ride however this was not to be so I rode back down Norton to the Tower Motel while chatting with someone on a Canondale for most of the descent. Sorry, names are not one of my strong points! I find it difficult to believe that this short ride has 35 segments on Strava created for it with 24 of them hidden as insignificant. Still, 11 defined segments is still a little crazy!  It does look good that I was awarded 11 PR gold medal’s for a 16 km ride!

Now To The Data

Comparison of my 2 rides

To give a better comparison I can compare my two rides by each km of the Strava segment “Norton Summit Rd (full length)” for the total distance of 7.3 km’s with an average grade of 4.1%.

Apparently the measure considered core to this ride is the Strava segment “Norton Summit” which is the 1st 5.5 km’s of the above measured distances which I completed in 21m22s this time compared to 24m11s the 1st time, some 2m49s quicker.

I actually enjoyed riding with this group and hope that next time I will be able to ride actually with someone and will have the time to go further.

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