Two Mango adventures for the price of one this week. On Saturday I raced in Germany, and on Monday I collected some more stock.
Rütenbrock 2011
Again a very enjoyable competition in Rütenbrock, for which I have to thank the Bentlage brothers who put a lot of work into organising it. It's a 55 km ride from here to their village, so I rode there first and back again afterwards. I made this film, starting on the way there. My intention had been to have a camera facing forwards as well as the one backwards, but unfortunately the forward camera stopped working:
Jan Eggens made a film from the side of the track:
I'm still waiting for official results at the moment (they'll appear here). All I know at present is that in the one hour race, Daniel Fenn won with an amazing 44.8 km/h average, Peter was 9th with just short of 38 km/h, and that I was (I think) 15th out of 37 competitors with an average of about 36 km/h. Lots of fun.
Today I went to collect some more racks for the shop. I thought a bit about this. Pulling the trailer behind the Mango obviously slows it down. It's not all that aerodynamic and a bit like pulling a parachute. This is difficult to calculate for. However, the effect of the extra weight on the return trip is also very easy to notice and the online calculator shows that the effect of the weight alone takes about 5 km/h off my speed or, if you like, makes the journey 15% "longer". However, the round-trip of 75 km still took well under three hours, which isn't so bad.
The European Junior Cycling Tour, or Jeugdtour, ends today in Assen. It's an annual event, the largest youth cycling race in Europe. This year there are 679 competitors.
It's rather wonderful to see. Lots of very quick young people from all around the world, some of whom we'll see in the Tour de France and other major races in a few years time.
We went to watch for a bit today, and also took photos and made a short film.
The races cover a lot of ground. They take place partly on closed roads (it's easier to close a road for a racing event here than in the UK), on Assen's cycle-racing track (cycle sport is popular and the result is that even small towns like Assen have such a facility) and on some paths through the woods which you'll see in the video.
This year, Cyclevision was held at FlevOnice in Biddinghuizen in Flevoland. The campsite was about 100 km from home, but there was a complication in that the first event was on Friday evening at a track another 20 odd km from the campsite. I wasn't sure for a long time if I'd go, because I wasn't sure I wanted to cycle there and then take part in an event the same day. It also seemed impractical to turn up on Thursday evening for a race which didn't take place until after 8 in the evening on Friday.
Eventually I decided I would go, and make the most of it. I do it for the fun. It doesn't really matter if I perform less well than usual because I'm never in contention for any prizes anyway.
Harry also decided to ride there on Friday, so we went together. However, because I had a meeting to go to on Monday morning I decided I must come back early, missing Sunday's events. That left only Friday and Saturday.
Friday's event was a one hour time trial, held on the same 2.8 km long high speed test track as Cyclevision had used at the 2002 and 2003 events which I also took part in. Therefore it was a chance to see if I could go faster than back then. Due to having a much faster bike, I was sure I would do so, and so it turned out. However, my speed wasn't particularly impressive. Perhaps 130 km of "warm up" is just too much.
Anyway, here's the video I made going to, during and after the race. Apart from the race itself, there's quite a bit showing the cycle paths I came home on afterwards:
I worked in Groningen yesterday. This meant I didn't get to watch the first stage of the Ronde van Drenthe as it took a winding path between Coevorden and Hoogeveen which included passing through Assen. I had the local radio station on at work and could at least listen to it - the coverage was punctuated by some of the the surprisingly large number of Dutch songs about cycling.
Judy and Alice both went to watch and take photos:
Here the peloton appears, riding at speed along the south side of the Vaart (canal).
Alice's view from the other side of the canal.
The riders turned and crossed the canal on this bridge
And they were followed by the many support vehicles. In this case, a Czech car from an American team, carries bikes named for a British cyclist drives through a Dutch city in support of a Dutch rider who came 4th yesterday (Boy van Poppel). Note that due to the speed of the racers, the car seems to be leaning to the left somewhat due to taking the corner faster than any normal person would drive around this corner,
The top three in the first stage were Kenny van Hummel, Sacha Modolo and Adam Blythe. You can see full results here and more photos in Judy's Picasaweb album.
There are also women's races, which didn't come through Assen this year. However, there are some nice photos here of the womens' race, including climbing a hill on the route.
Yesterday was the last competition of the summer season of races with the NVHPV - a time trial over 51 km, crossing 25.5 km of a dyke from Lelystad to Enkhuizen, and riding back again to the start place.
The start point is on the edge of Lelystad, a city established in 1967 as the capital of the province of Flevoland, which is the world's largest artificial island. Enkhuizen, in the province of North Holland at the other end of the dyke, is a smaller city, but also much older. It was given city rights in 1355.
The port of Enkhuizen used to open onto the sea, but now borders two huge artificial freshwater lakes, the Markermeer and the IJsselmeer. These are divided by the Houtribdijk - the dyke along which the time trial took place.
As you might expect in such an exposed place, the wind is very strong. Sailing is less important now for trade, but it remains a popular pass-time locally. There is also much evidence of electricity generation from the wind. On Sunday, the wind was coming from the North East, so there was a tailwind only for the very last stretch on the return run.
Having set the scene, here's the video, which due to my camera battery running out after a few minutes only includes edited highlights of the first few minutes of racing:
I didn't do all that well. 27th out of 39 competitors. I've had a pain down my right side for over a week now, and it's really not helpful for cycling, not that I'd be anywhere near the winners if I didn't have it. It took me nearly 80 minutes to ride the 51 km with an average of under 39 km/h, a long way behind the winner's speed of 59 km/h. However, it was a lot of fun.
A video made by Cees at the far side of the dyke, where help was on hand to turn people around. I'm in this video at 4:30, where you'll also see how I ended up cycling under a sailing ship at the start my return run.
At this point, I think thanks are in order to the many people in the NVHPV involved in organising these events. It's been a great year of racing, very enjoyable every time. The official story about the race, with more links, is here.
Relative to other places, there are several things notable about the cycle path along the dyke. First of all that the dyke was built with a cycle path at all. That would always be the case in NL. It's not classed as a "superhighway", or given any other fancy name. While it's an extraordinary facility compared with what is on offer in many other places, it's not been the subject of any hype at all. It's just a normal cycle path, joining up with other normal cycle paths to every other destination at either end of the dyke. Also note the wide demographics of people using it, not only those of us involved in sport, but both teenagers and pensioners were using the dyke cycle path. In this case, they were presumably making their journeys for pleasure given that it was a Sunday, but it's there for anyone to use at any time. Including, in our case, for a time-trial, with people riding in safety at high speed.
My Mango a day before the race, newly fitted with Continental Grand Prix tyres on the front, and an Avocet on the rear.
In October last year, when my new Mango was two days old, I raced it in Groningen. This Sunday was the time for the same race again, a few days earlier in October than last year.
I think there's some significance in that the lighter velomobiles did particularly well. In the timed lap, for instance, Ymte Sijbrandij and Hans Wessels took first and second place by both riding Ymte's 25 kg custom made light Quest. Harry was in third place in his (standard) Mango Sport (26 kg), Stefan van Duijvenboden was fourth in his old 20" rear wheel Quest (the internals are like a Mango with an intermediate drive, and these older Quests weighed around 32 kg), and Peter Haan was fifth in his 29 kg Mango Sport RE. In the overall rating, Harry Lieben came third in his Mango Sport. That's the highest result in the race for a standard machine that anyone can buy right now.
Of course, these are all also very strong riders.
A few of my photos can be seen below, including one of the car that someone had inconsiderately left parked part on the track for us to swerve around... (I rarely have complaints, but this was really not a clever thing to do)
Yesterday there was a race in Rütenbrock in Germany. Rütenbrock isn't too far away, it's 50 km between here and there. Last year, I rode over there with Harry to take part in the event. This time, Judy and I rode together. It made for a very enjoyable day out.
The cycle paths between here and the race are (mostly) rather wonderful. This one, for instance, which goes on for many kilometres, during which you can pretty much ignore the few cars on the road alongside.
It was great fun. The Rütenbrock circuit is quite unusual in that it twists and turns on roads through the village. The road is a bit rough in places, and the corners are very tight for a three wheeler, with speed bumps and posts to negotiate as well. It's quite common to end up on two wheels on some of the corners. This makes it fun. Also, there's a great atmosphere. The course goes through residential areas, and people sit in their gardens to watch and to cheer the contestants on. Fantastic.
I was right behind both Peter and Harry for the first few laps, but Peter got away quite quickly, and then Harry did too. In the end, Peter finished 10th, myself 16th, Harry 26th after getting a puncture in the last lap and Wilfred 28th. Full results can be found here.
Ymte won the race - he often does ! Daniel Fenn was perhaps best placed to beat him, but due to a mechanical problem he had to stop. It seems there was a bit too much weight shaving off a wheel hub...
After the race Judy and I rode back home again. Judy's computer recorded 111 km for the day's riding there and back (and once around the track to see what it was like), which is a new record for her in one day.
And for me, I'd done the two races as well so my computer said just over 160 km for the day. It's also ten months almost to the day since I got my own Mango and by the time we got home, the total recorded was just over 9100 km.
Today, Judy got a few nice photos of the European Junior Cycling Tour which is in Assen this week. This annual event in the city is the biggest youth cycle racing event in Europe. These photos show racing on the main ring road around Assen.
The competitors are of all age groups from 6 years upwards and over 700 competitors have arrived from Norway, Denmark, Germany, Lituania, Finland, Netherlands and Netherlands Antilles, United Kingdom, USA and Switzerland
This poor chap is being followed closely by the broom wagon.
We had a busy weekend again. On Saturday, some of us joined in the time trial at Nijeveen about 40 km south of here. Peter and I rode down there together to take part.
Peter made a video of his ride in the time trial:
My ride looked similar, but the scenery didn't go by quite so quickly... I have an excuse in that the tyres I've currently got fitted are terribly slippery in the wet, and it rained during the event. However, everyone who'd done this time trial before seemed to be slower this year than last - except for Peter who rode two minutes faster than last year with his new Mango. H@rry was the fastest of the three Mangoteers on this occasion.
Peter has the first of a new version of the Mango - the Mango Sport Red Edition. While the Mango Sport remains the lightest weight Mango, the Red Edition is a luxury version of the light weight version. The weight is a little higher than the more stripped down Mango, but it's still a very light weight velomobile and comes with everything built in - even including extra features such as USB outlets on the dashboard to run your MP3 player. There is more about the Red Edition including links to photos here.
While Saturday was all about riding quickly, Sunday was completely different. Judy and I met cycling holiday customers for a coffee in the morning, and in the evening we took Nipper (of the Bicycle and Ukulele blog and Taunton Tweed Cycle Chic) away from where he was staying with his wife and children to ride around for a bit and to visit a local cafe.
Nipper is a member of the Night Owls band from Taunton in the the South West of the UK. That's quite close to Burnham-on-Sea and Highbridge, where I lived for many years. He knows a lot about the sort of problems that cyclists have in the area.
Without his band, Nipper played and sang on his own at the cafe, using a compact ukelele which fitted easily into his Brompton's bag. He was terrific, and the local crowd showed their appreciation with much applause and free beer !
Sadly I didn't have a camera with me which could record sound, but together, the band sound like this:
Last weekend was Cyclevision. It's an event for recumbent cyclists, including an exhibition, social rides, racing and much talking over a weekend.
I worked on the Sinner stand on Saturday. We had Wilfred's spectacular Mango+ on the stand for customers to see, and it got a lot of attention. Also I got to see Peter racing.
On the Sunday I took part in the six hours race. As ever, the leaders were much quicker than I am. The winning rider, Ymte Sijbrandij, rode more than 322 km in six hours and averaged over 53 km/h. He's always very quick, but this time he also had a "secret weapon" - a super lightweight version of the Quest velomobile, differing markedly from those you can buy, with a custom carbon frame not adjustable for other riders, and fitted with a racing hood. Indeed, the first six places were taken by machines which were not standard or not road legal (that's perfectly OK - it's a race).
I took 21st place out of 54 participants, covering 235 km in six hours, in the same Mango as I ride to work. My average speed was 39.1 km/h.
I didn't come close to a podium place, but I'm still very pleased with my result. My first two hours went well, averaging over 42 km/h. I covered 100 miles (i.e. 161 km) in three hours and fifty four minutes, and still had an average above 40 km/h at the five hour mark (200 km covered before five hours). However, I really ran out of steam in the last hour. It became increasingly difficult to eat and drink, leading to low blood sugar and general grumpiness, and my average speed dropped a lot. You can see it in the graph of speed over time. At this time quite a few people I'd overtaken earlier took laps back from me.
I also took part in Cyclevision in 2002 and 2003 when the long race was three hours in length. In 2002 I covered 97 km and in 2003, 95 km. These are average speeds of just 32.3 km/h and 31.6 km/h. This year I was about 30% faster for the first three hours, and 20% faster over the entire six hours than I was when I was eight years younger, in a race which was half as long and on a track which didn't include a bridge.
A good part of the difference can of course be put down to the Mango's aerodynamics. It simply goes much faster for the same amount of effort. However, in this case the difference in speed is greater than you'd expect between the two bikes meaning that I'm somewhat fitter now than I was eight years ago. I put that down in large part to living in the Netherlands. I always thought I cycled a lot when I lived in the UK, but in this country the environment invites you to cycle more than you would otherwise.
Last year in the four hour race at Tilburg I had a puncture which took ages to fix because I had no spare parts with me. As a result, this time I carried a pump, spare tyre and inner tube. I also still had my trailer hook attached to the Mango, the basket I carry things in next to my seat, speakers and in fact almost all the stuff I usually have.
I didn't really do any training. I've heard that some trainers refer to cycle commuting as "junk miles", but I still think the 60 km round trip commute must count as something. Apart from that, just the occasional Sunday huneliggers ride, and the elfstedentocht.
Thanks to the organisers, time-keepers, marshalls and other volunteers who gave so much of their time to make the event go so well, and also to the other competitors who were such fun to race with.
This is what is called a quill stem. It's the "old fashioned" way of connecting the handlebars to a bicycle, out of favour amongst racers who prefer the slightly stiffer "aheadset" system, but still in use on virtually every utility bicycle. It's a very good system. You can adjust the height of the handlbars simply by undoing the bolt at the top, sliding the handlebars up or down a little, and doing it back up again. Much more straightforward than the process with an aheadset.
This particular quill stem is on a beautiful racing bike on which Hennie Kuiper won the 1983Paris-Roubaix race. Paris-Roubaix is known as probably the hardest race in the world, a major strain for both man and machine. "The Hell of the North" was immortalized in a fantastic film called "A Sunday in Hell".
Other features of this race winning bike include five speed non-indexed derailleur gears, single pivot brakes, and a steel frame.
So, why is the quill stem of significance ? Last year it was one of the points criticised by a clueless British newspaper reviewing a "the cheapest bicycle in the UK". There were many things wrong with that bike, but amongst the things picked out by the Guardian journalist was the quill stem, as if this was an actual problem. It's not. Quill stems work on millions of bikes every day and they simplify adjustment without extra expense. It's a shame that the newspaper decided to try to offer advice as it was not good advice. It's always better to get information about bikes from people who know about bikes, and of course most of the people who bought one of those Asda bikes would have been better off with something like this.
The bike is from the Velorama bicycle museum in Nijmegen. It was on display in Assen at the start of the Vuelta a Espana last year.
Paris-Roubaix is held annually on a Sunday in April. This year they'll be racing for 259 km on the 11th of April. Tomorrow. Well worth watching on the TV if you can't be there. I'll be recording it, as the ligfietsopstapdag is on the same day.
The wikipedia page about Hennie Kuiper says that "His serious introduction to the bicycle was to and from school". That's the case for virtually all Dutch children, of course, which probably goes some way to explaining why the Dutch have been so successful in cycle racing.
You can buy quill stems, threadless stems, and different shape handlebars in our webshop.
On the 6th of March, the 50th edition of the Ster van Zwolle race was held a few km south of here. 29 teams of 6 riders raced 170 km a few km south of here. I'm not sure what the temperature was on the day, but it certainly wasn't warm (it's -6 C now and it has snowed lightly over the last few days, though thankfully Saturday wasn't the coldest day).
Our local TV station put this clip on youtube, showing the 20 year old Assenaar Bert-Jan Lindeman winning the race at an average of 40.8 km/h. Fantastic. Well done !
Note that he's riding a Gazelle. This is a very famous Dutch bicycle manufacturer, who make a great variety of bikes, and not just the sit-up bicycles they're perhaps most famous for around the world these days.
I worked at the ligfietsgarage on Saturday, but really ought to make an effort to see more of the many racing events held around here each year. Cycle racing is incredibly popular here, both to take part in and as an event to watch.
I went racing again today, and a lot of fun it was too. The thing is, I have a new bike. With very much help (thanks once again) from my colleagues at Sinner, my Mango was finished at 10 pm on Friday night, which is when I rode it home. This makes my Mango, the 202nd, the newest in the world at the moment (but not for long as we're making more next week).
Today's race was in Groningen. When I raced there last year on the PDQ, I averaged 34.2 km/h. With the Mango today on the same track for the same length of race, my average was 40.9 km/h. That's nearly a 20% improvement. In order to have pushed the PDQ to the same speed I'd have to produce 60% more energy, which would be impossible. The Mango's aerodynamics make that large a difference.
It rained for the trip to Groningen and back (but not during the race) and of course the rain cover kept the rain off me. It's 30 km between here and Groningen, and I was very glad to be out of the rain for that journey.
Earlier in the year, I was a little faster riding a borrowed Mango, but we'd fitted faster tyres which were slightly worn at the time of the race, which helps them roll a bit better. My Mango is perhaps a bit too new at the moment for maximum performance. It's still only done a little over 160 km in total.
And next week ? I'll be commuting in the Mango, rain or no rain. I found with the borrowed test Mango that it takes 20 minutes per day off my 60 km round trip commute.
I borrowed the photo above from Wilfred's blog. He's got a lot more photos of the event. Here is a video and a couple of photos taken during construction of my Mango:
Peter Haan riding his Mango with racing hood. He says it gives him about 10% more speed at 40km/h and above, which isn't quite enough to explain why he's so much quicker than me.
Harry Lieben and Marjon van de Kraats with their back to back tandem. Ymte Sijbrandij, standing on the left, won the race with an average speed of 53 km/h, and Wilfred Ketelaar who has his own Mango on order after taking a test ride.
We went to see the second stage of the Vuelta in Assen yesterday. The 202 km stage started in the city and passed through twice more on the way to the finish in Emmen.
Yesterday was the first stage of the Vuelta, a time trial on the TT track in Assen. 40000 people turned up to watch, and 10000 took part in the "tour version" of the race on Saturday morning.
This Saturday, the 64th edition of La Vuelta a España, one of the big three Grand Tours, starts here in Assen. The city is ready and waiting, there are Spanish and cycling themed things everywhere.
The scan is of one of the few pages every week that the local government prints in the local paper about what is going on in the city. This week, it's largely about La Vuelta.
I hope to produce a better post about the racing when I've had a chance to see a little more. Unfortunately, I've been a bit busy lately and had no chance to get any photos but the ones of the additional street signs. There is a huge programme of activities which starts tonight with a team presentation at 17:00, but I know I'll miss that as it's the time when I'll be thinking about riding back from Groningen after work.
I will try to make the music tonight, and of course the racing itself. Thanks to a friend passing on tickets which he can't use, we've VIP tickets to the prologue on the TT track. We'll also be watching the riders racing in Assen on Sunday. They pass through the city three times, coming within 50 m of our home twice.
Anyway, I need to eat breakfast now and get myself to work...
Update a bit later in the day... This the team presentation which I missed today at 5pm. Apparently 10000 people turned up:
Yesterday we went racing in Germany again. This time it was in Rutenbrock, which is 50 km from Assen. I rode the Mango there with Harry and rode back with Peter. I'd done 157 km at the end of the day, including racing. Harry started from 30 km further away and continued to his girlfriend's house 140 km further on so he'll have ridden over 250 km in total.
Alain Hinzen won both the single lap time trial with 46 km/h and the hour long criterium at over 43 km/h. Peter took sixth place in the time trial with 43 km/h, but due to a crash ended up just behind me in the hour race. Harry came in 18th in the hour long race at 37.3 km/h and I was 23rd at 36.5 km/h. I've ridden my commute faster than that ! These speeds are all a lot slower than last week's races.
Of course, there is a reason for the relative slowness. Different courses suit different people, and this one was especially tricky for velomobiles, there being many tight corners around the residential area where it was difficult to exceed 30 km/h, and where you could be slowed down a lot if there were many other people at the corner at the same time. It takes time to get the speed back up again.
There was also a 12 lap (3/4 hour) race for uprights on the same course, and while the fastest results were from recumbent riders, the uprights did very well too. I think the course suited bunched racing on lighter bikes quite well. Full results here.
Update 19th August. Harry made a video while racing:
Another video, showing Pjotr on a practice lap taking the corners faster than I dared, can be seen here, and another from Harry of his time trial lap is here.
Last weekend a group of us from Sinner went to Leer in Germany for the European recumbent having championships.
Full results can be found here and more photos and videos are here.
The photo comes from Joachim's gallery and shows me in the Mango going over the line in the 100 km race. Someone is ringing the bell to indicate there is just one more lap. In this race I came 22nd out of 65 averaging just over 40 km/h. In the one hour race I managed 42.3 km/h, which was good enough for 30th place out of 56.
Children inspecting a variety of different coloured Mangos, two of them having just finished racing.
This week has seen the 45th Jeugdtour Assen. It's the largest youth cycling event in the world. This year it is being named "Junior la Vuelta" to tie in with the Vuelta a Espana, which is starting here in Assen later this month - the first time ever that it has started outside Spain.
Judy took the photo of cyclists in the criterium through the forest this morning. They're racing on one of the roughest surfaces in the area, which I'm beginning to think is maintained like this specifically to add a bit of "A Sunday in Hell" to racing events. I saw a little of the prologue on Monday, but unfortunately missed the rest. Our local TV station has a report from the prologue:
Well done to all the competitors. Results are appearing on the website.
In addition, I've learnt that the cycle racing track in Assen is to be improved. We've already got what I thought was a pretty good tarmac track for a town of 65000 (you can see some pictures in this video), but the existing 780 metre oval is to be extended and improved, and we'll gain a cyclo cross course, a national cyclo cross centre, a sportshall and a 200 metre wooden track. Excellent !
At 1:55 in the video there is an interview with a young cyclist from the UK (Cleveland Wheelers). I wonder if he realises he's been on TV over here ?
I returned yesterday from Cyclevision / Human Power World Championships in Tilburg. It was an excellent event, including racing, a trade show, lectures on various topics and of course lots of socialising.
The full race results reveal that Stephen Slade from the UK retained his Men's World Champion title this year, and that Barbara Buatois is the current Women's World Champion. Well done to both of them, and of course to all the other competitors. The people of Tilburg were great too. We raced on closed roads, and no doubt caused some inconvenience, but the people turned out to cheer us on and many volunteers helped with the organisation.
1 hour time trial video. I'm in this video briefly at 1:43, wearing a blue helmet and riding the white velomobile. As I enter the picture I only have two wheels on the ground, this being a problem with the corners on the course.
Compared with my own efforts, the winners were very fast indeed. My 39.6 km covered in an hour put me in 57th place of 157 competitors in the 1 hour time trial.
The four hour race course had some really nasty tight corners for those of us riding velomobiles. With such a machine you really want to keep your speed up, as these practical fully equipped every day / all weather use designs are inevitably heavier than the stripped down and comparatively fragile racing specific machines that we were competing with. Nevertheless, velomobile riders did very well in the race. If you watch the video you'll see that Steve Slade came unstuck on his two wheeler too.
My own attempt at the four hour race was unfortunately marred by a slow puncture which I failed to notice due to my inexperience in the Mango, and not realising there was a puncture due to the suspension masking the feeling. The puncture caused my speed to start dropping from about an hour in. I initially tried to pedal harder to compensate, drink more and eat more, as I thought it was simply exhaustion. This, of course, simply made myself yet more exhausted. It's strange how the mind works in such a situation. Eventually the tyre was flat enough that people could see the problem and started shouting to me about it. I stopped and was helped to fit a new tube and restart. Suddenly my speed was back again and I kept up just about a 35 km/h average for the last hour. This resulted in my covering only about 122 km in the four hours. Mind you, a few years back I wouldn't have thought that to be a bad average speed.
A great event, made more enjoyable by the company of Harry and Marjon with whom I went, and also by all the BHPC people I met again.
" to racing events. I saw a little of the prologue on Monday, but unfortunately missed the rest. Our local TV station has a report from the prologue: