No explanation requiredFrom the Cyclotoon website at http://www.nealskorpen.com/cyclotoon.html

Etape Caledonia Training Ride

Sunday 22nd August saw a mixed bag of weather on a warm and generally sunny day, but with some heavy showers thrown in to keep the riders on their toes.

The ride headed out of Pitlochry and along the south shores of Loch Tummel to Foss, before heading up over the shoulder of Schiehallion and joining the second half of the Etape Caledonia route at Loch Kinnardochy.

Lunch at Highland Safaris and then a fast run back to Pitlochry with a tail wind and finishing with a sports massage.

Sunday 8th August 2010 saw round 5 of the SXC series come to Kinnoul Hill in Perth. The weather was great and a large number of spectators and riders contributed to a great day out.

Provisional results from Round 5

Round 6 is at Laggan Wolftrax on 29.8.10.

Isle of Skye – Scottish Hebrides, 29th May 2010.

Watch the “Adventure Show” featuring Skinny Tyres on the BBC iplayer

Hands On Events’ Organiser Alasdair Lawton cannot be accused of staging average events in average locations, and an island built from hills and mountains rising straight out of the Atlantic is always going to provide a spectacular ride. This year (the third for the Skye Sportive) Alasdair was delighted to have doubled the entries from 2009, showing the popularity of these unique island routes.

The wet weather did not deter the 230 starters in Portree and they set off North towards Staffin, riding the first 18 miles in the shadow of the jagged Trotternish ridge. This escarpment, the longest in the UK, offers an eerie backdrop of collapsed mountains bristling with stacks, pinnacles and long cliff faces.

Riders on both the Beag and the Mor follow the same route round this remarkable coastline. The route sweeps around the Aird, the most northerly tip of the Island, before dropping down a steep descent into Uig Bay and the riding surfaces vary from newly laid sections of beautifully smooth tarmac to rougher sections broken up by the hard Atlantic weather.

The two routes split at Carbost with the Beag route heading back towards Portree and the Mor route turning right for another 50 miles of pleasure and pain. Those doing the shorter route may have been thinking themselves lucky at the prospect of the approaching finish line, but many were caught out in an almighty downpour in the last few miles. The Mor riders managed to avoid this and they crossed over the “Fairy Bridge” towards Dunvegan. From here the route hugs the coastline until it crosses the Island from West to East via Glen Drynoch. Back on the east coast again the only challenge remaining was a long drag up Glen Varragill and then an even longer descent down to Portree.

This year’s event was filmed and will be televised on 8th August at 6pm for BBC Scotland’s “The Adventure Show”. Watch again on the BBCiPlayer

Part 1: Setting targets

If you are new to cycling and have already entered the 2011 Etape Caledonia then well done! You are half way there. If you haven’t, then what are you waiting for!

Sportives, races, charity rides, and, in fact any cycling event that sets a challenge is an ideal way to improve your fitness and motivate you to train harder. Once you’ve booked, there is no going back and if you are raising money for charity then you have that extra motivation to push yourself that extra bit further.

But where do you start?

A good place to start is at the end. Get a diary and mark the date of the 2011 Etape Caledonia in it, then work backwards, counting the weeks until you reach present day. This will give you a defined period of time that can then be broken down into more manageable training blocks.

Each of these blocks should be focussed towards your ultimate goal, but can be stepping stones along the way, each with their own target. Write your ultimate goal for the event at the start of your training diary. This may be as general as “completing the event” or more specific, as in “completing the event under a certain time”. Once you have an overall goal then you should take some time working out what you will need to do to achieve it. If you have never cycled 81 miles before and your overall goal is just to complete the event, then a large focus of what you will need to do will be simply building endurance and gradually increasing the miles you cycle. If it is to complete the event in a specific time then you may want to consider where you can make the biggest improvements, such as group riding or improving hill climb speed. This process will allow you to manage your training in realistic chunks that can be less daunting than a larger timescale. Importantly, you should also factor in real life commitments such as holidays, family time and other foreseeable activities. If you plan ahead, then you will be able to fit your training around these things, rather than having them disrupting your training. For example a two week holiday could coincide with a rest period where you could maybe still get some sort of physical activity that complements your cycling, such as using the hotel pool.

An example may be that you start training on the 1^st October 2010 giving you six clear months of training. Your goal is to complete the event in less than 6 hours and you are aware that you lose time by not climbing as quickly as others and from being nervous about cycling in a group.

Your basic training plan may look something like this:

You will notice that there is a two week period prior to the event that has not yet been factored in. There is a reason for this and we will come to this in later instalments.

Once you have an overall plan you can then make this as detailed as you want from breaking each block down into individual training weeks, each with its individual goal. You may even want to break this down further into each day and plan ahead what each training day will achieve. This is very effective if you have very little time to put aside for training. By pre-planning you may be able to identify times where you could add a cycle commute in as part of your daily training.

Part two: Weekly training plans; coming soon

Skinny Tyres run a series of official training rides for the Etape Caledonia. You can view details and book a place here.

Scottish Cycling Road Race 11.7.10

The Eddie Morgan Road Race run annually by Perth United Cycling club was held on Sunday 11th July 2010 on 2 laps of the Glen Almond Circuit (46miles). The race is open to 3rd and 4th Cat riders including Ladies, Vet’s and Juniors.

A big thanks to all the helpers on the day from Marshalls and those who put out the event safety signage to commissaires and those who helped with the race convoy vehicles.

First Team Overall was the bicycleworks.com who took the prize by one point over East Kilbride.

Top ten results of the day:

And a few photos…

The picture above shows Matt Brammeier, Mark Cavendish and Geraint Thomas standing on the podium in 2003 after contesting the British Junior Road Race Championship hosted by Perth United CC.

Matt Brammeier who rode off the front with attacks back in 2003 to cross the line  rode for the Irish National Team and in 2010 was Irish Road Race Champion beating Nicholas Roche who finished 2nd. He now rides for HTC Columbia in 2011

Matt broke both legs in 2007 after an accident with a cement lorry in 2007 and was in fact born in Liverpool.

This month’s Scottish Enterprise Tourism Innovation Brochure featured the award winners for 2009. This included Skinny Tyres (featured on page 4).

• Scottish Enterprise Tourism Innovation in Action Brochure

This weekend saw Skinny Tyres take a short break up in the Isle of Skye for a bit of walking and hiking. We also discovered that it was not wise to cycle in Skye on a fixed wheel as you will spend a lot of time out of the saddle, muscles screaming as you fight to keep the pedals turning up another 15% gradient.

The weather was stunning and the riding great. Loads of newly surfaced roads made it all the more pleasurable.

If you manage to get across to Skye it’s also woth checking out Cafe Arriba, for some great mid/ post ride scran.

Looking forward to the Hands On Events Skye Sportive next week already

Cycling in Highland Perthshire doesn’t get much better than this

What a day the 16th May 2010 was! Judging by the amount of Twitter messages flying around for days after-wards we weren’t the only ones to feel this way.

The build up to the event in the week before saw Skinny Tyres providing skills coaching at Aberfeldy and Glen Lyon Schools. We also attended the ACRE press conference and managed to get ourselves in many newspapers and on the BBC Scotland and STV news programmes in support of the Etape Caledonia. You can visit our Facebook link to add your support to this event.

The day prior to the event was very busy with a journalists ride in the afternoon and lots of publicity work in Pitlochry and at the Big Day cycling festival in Aberfeldy. Pitlochry was buzzing with excitement as thousands of cyclists from around the world gathered for the event. We finished the day having dinner with journalists from the Guardian, Cycling Weekly, News of the World etc.

Up at 5.30am the next day, we headed out for the Etape Caledonia start. Already it was promising to be a cracker of a day weatherwise, although overcast it was warm. The thousands of cyclists lined the main street in Pitlochry with the first group setting off at 7am and it took until 7.45am before all 4500 cyclists had started.

Out on the route the support from locals was fantastic with people cheering from their gardens, pipers playing to spur the riders onwards and groups of children waving flags and rattles. The atmosphere was fantastic and was definitely the best I have ever experienced at a sportive. Strangely, at the previous acre press conference, they highlighted that there were never any spectators at this event. Acre, go and stand in the corner of the classroom and put on the tall pointed hat with the capital “D” on it. The event was a roaring success and showed Highland Perthshire at its finest. What better way to stimulate a local economy.

By mid afternoon, the majority of riders had now finished and the sun was blazing in Highland Perthshire. Hundreds upon hundreds of cyclists filled the cafes and bars and lay on any piece of grass they could find to recount their tales of the day.

Roll on the 2011 Etape Caledonia. We can’t wait.

• You Tube Video