Tag Archives: cycling

Trans Pyrenees 2016 – The Kit

In one week already, we are doing our first 1st-category climb in the Pyrenees during our self-supported duo-ride from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic coast (see the route in the previous post). Besides having a good route, with hotels booked for every night and transportation arranged for the first and last day, riding with a carefully assembled kit is the most crucial ingredient to our plan. So what do we need? Mostly clothes on and off the bike, tools and spares to repair a flat or replace a worn component, etc. Since we are going to bike through the Pyrenees (for dummies: a mountain range between France and Spain containing mountain passes over an altitude of 2000 metres, and weather that might change from sunshine to hailstorm over the course of five minutes), we need to be prepared for bad weather too even in June, which again calls for a few extra pieces of gear. Moreover, living in the 21st century, we ‘need’ some electronics, chargers, etc., mainly to recored our epic adventures. And on top of everything, we have to carry everything ourselves, since we don’t have a follow-car, or an organisation transporting all our crap from one stage to another for 9 days. Then come the aesthetics: we are not taking trekking bikes with massive racks filled with a ton of gear, because we want to keep it light and because racing bikes themselves are light, fast, and most importantly, pretty to look at. So we really only take what is absolutely necessary, this way sitting on the bike will still feel like just being out on a normal ride with a race bike. All in all, the following picture contains every piece of gear I will have with me during the ride.

Does not seem so much, right? We are using the regular size saddle pack from Apidura to carry our equipment, which adds an extra 3.6 kg to the bike with all our kit packed inside. We will have one set of normal clothes for going to a restaurant on the evenings, and two sets of cycling kit, so if we wash one after a ride and it does not get dry by the next morning, we still have something to wear (or if we crash and tear one bib, we have a backup…). Here is a full overview of the whole kit (obviously, the bike and the saddle bag is not on the picture):

And a detailed list of everything that we are taking:

– 1 bike (Canyon Ultimate CF SL 9.0 Di2, with fully charged Di2 battery)
– 1 pair of cycling shoes (Sidi Wire)
– 2 pairs of cycling socks (Rapha; one Lightweight one ‘Data Print’)
– 2 bibs (Rapha; one Classic, one Lightweight)
– 2 base layers (Rapha; one Pro Team, one Merino)
– 2 jerseys (Rapha; one Team Sky Training Jersey, one Lightweight)
– 1 pair of gloves (Rapha Pro Team Mitts)
– 1 set of normal clothes (light sweater, shorts, T-shirt, 2 boxers, socks, light shoes)
– cycling cap (Castelli)
– cycling glasses (Oakley Jawbreaker)
– helmet (Giro Ionos)
– HR strap (Garmin)
– arm warmers (Rapha Merino)
– knee warmers (Rapha Merino)
– rain jacket (Rapha)
– gilet (Rapha Brevet)
– waterproof overshoes (GripGrab RaceAqua)
– contact lenses
– chamois creme (Assos, but in a smaller container)
– sunscreen
– 2 bottles (Rapha)
– saddle bag (Apidura)
– small front and rear lights (Bontrager Glo Headlight and Lezyne Led Zecto Drive)
– compact bike lock (BBB Cycling MicroSafe)
– 2 dry bags (Lezyne Caddy Sack; one for phone+IDs in jersey pocket, one for electronics)
– 2 inner tubes (Continental)
– outer tire (Continental Grand Prix 4000 S II 23 mm)
– mini pump (Topeak HybridRocket RX + two CO2 cartridges)
– tube patch kit (Park Tool Super Patch)
– multi tool (Lezyne, with chain tool)
– custom spoke key for my wheels (Mavic)
– 2 quick links (KMC Missing Link)
– spare rear derailleur hanger (specific for my bike)
– 2 spare brake pads (Shimano R55C4)
– spare cleat (Garmin Vector)
– chain oil (Muc-Off Hydrodynamic Lube)
– IDs, insurance cards, VISA
– toothbrush and toothpaste
– Flexium gel + some general pain killers (not on the picture)
– iPhone 6S + charger cable + USB adapter (with data roaming plan)
– Garmin Edge 520 + charger cable (with daily routes, empty memory, map of Pyrenees)
– GoPro HERO4 Silver + K-Edge mount + charger cable + 2 batteries + SD cards (64+32 GB)
– all booking documents and so in an electronic form on my phone

Besides these, we will have with us, but leave it in the car before the start:

– floor pump (nice to start with good pressure)
– a fresh set of clothes to change into for the ride home
– glasses
– bars, gels, and drink powder for the first (or first two) days, then we buy what we need
– shaving equipment (because after 9 days of not shaving, I will look like a hipster/hobo)

We are pretty much ready to go. I have already installed a new chain, a new cassette, cleaned the bike, and before we leave, I will still put in new batteries to everything that needs batteries (power meter, HR strap, speed sensor, front light), charge the Di2, install new cleats, and brake pads. I also need to take some cash out so we can pay at tiny shops along the road. I will sync the clock in the GoPro to the GPS time, so editing videos with metrics overlaid gets a bit easier. And some minor things like, cutting toe nails, putting the map and routes in my Garmin, and not forgetting our train ticket for the transport before the first stage. We will most likely not blog from the Pyrenees, but we will upload our rides to Strava, and most likely at least a few pictures to Instagram too. T-5 days and counting!

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Trans Pyrenees 2016 – The Route

So here we go, it is less than a month till the cycling highlight of this year, an epic, self-supported duo-ride across the Pyrenees from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic coast. The idea came up on a training ride with Willem the past summer, more-or-less simultaneously, but I think Willem was the one who said it out loud first (I will make sure to remind him if necessary while we both suffer pedalling up on one of the numerous steep climbs).

This post is about the planned route itself. I have designed the trajectory of the different stages mostly using the Global Heatmap of Strava and Google Street View on RouteYou (since the Route builder in Strava itself is horrible, it does not have Street View integrated into it, and the elevation gain is typically overestimated). Then I have used the exported .gpx files to make my own overview maps and elevation profiles with my custom-made python scripts ;) The main challenge of the planning was finding a balance between different factors, such as: crossing the Pyrenees over the highest number of epic climbs and cols, but without making unnecessary loops to keep the total distance (and the number of necessary days) at a reasonable level, plus preferably take low-traffic roads, and start and finish the day at locations where we can get a proper hotel for the night. This resulted in a preliminary plan, that was changed slightly when we booked all the hotels (a few start/finish villages were moved up/down along the route). This is how the final route was born before the end of January.

This is a total of 9 stages, 924 km, and 17635 metres of elevation gain over 22 cols (or 23, depending on how you count it). An overview of the elevation profile of the whole route can be seen below. (The climb categories were calculated following the discussion presented here.)

Now here is a detailed overview of the planned stages with distances, elevation gains, maps, profiles, and a list of cols for each day:

June 3: Driving to Toulouse.
June 4: On the morning we bike to the train station from the hotel, and take the train to Narbonne, where it all begins.
Stage 1) Narbonne – Perpignan: 91 km | 518 m+ (Map / Profile)
– Col de Feuilla [250 m] Cat 4
June 5:
Stage 2) Perpignan – Campdevanol: 122 km | 1757 m+ (Map / Profile)
– Coll de Llauro [380 m] Cat 4
– Col d’Ares [1513 m] Cat 1
June 6:
Stage 3) Campdevanol – La Seu d’Urgell: 110 km | 1854 m+ (Map / Profile)
– Coll de Merolla [1090 m] Cat 3
– Coll de Josa [1620 m] Cat 2
– Coll de la Trava [1480 m] Cat 3
June 7:
Stage 4) La Seu d’Urgell – Vielha: 124 km | 2499 m+ (Map / Profile)
– El Canto [1720 m] Cat 1
– Port de la Bonaigua [2072 m] Cat 1
June 8:
Stage 5) Vielha – Cadéac: 82 km | 2190 m+ (Map / Profile)
– Col du Portillon [1293 m] Cat 2
– Col de Peyresourde [1569 m] Cat 1
– Col de Val Louron-Azet [1580 m] Cat 1
June 9:
Stage 6) Cadéac – Argelès-Gazost: 82 km | 2034 m+ (Map / Profile)
– Col d’Aspin [1489 m] Cat 1
– Col du Tourmalet [2115 m] HC
June 10:
Stage 7) Argelès-Gazost – Arette: 92 km | 2248 m+ (Map / Profile)
– Col du Soulor [1474 m] & Col d’Aubisque [1709 m] Cat 1 (small downhill in between)
– Col de Marie-Blanque [1035 m] Cat 2
June 11:
Stage 8) Arette – Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port ♛: 134 km | 3412 m+ (Map / Profile)
– Col de la Pierre St Martin [1766 m] HC
– Laza [1129 m] Cat 3
– Port de Larrau [1578 m] Cat 1
– Col de Bagargi [1327 m] Cat 1
– Col de Burdincurucheta [1135 m] Cat 3
June 12:
Stage 9) Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port – Biarritz: 87 km | 1123 m+ (Map / Profile)
– Col d’Ispeguy [672 m] Cat 2
– Col d’Otxondo [602 m] Cat 3
After the ride, we drive with a rental car to Toulouse, then bike or walk to the hotel where we left our car (as the drop-off for the rental car will be at the airport too), and drive to another hotel for the night.
June 13: Driving home from Toulouse.

That is it for now. In the next post I will go over the gear we are taking with us, with a detailed description of each piece we will/might need on the road.

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The year (2015) in cycling (and other sports)

2015 was quite an amazing year on the bike. I have never ridden so much, so far, so long, and with so much elevation gain before. The main themes of the year were definitely epic (solo) rides and new roads. I have ridden also much more alone, because this year I did not join WTCOOL anymore. This is likely to change again next year as I have recently joined Squadra Tornado, a more racing oriented team. The past two months I have already ridden with them on Saturdays. Besides these trainings, I did most of my rides solo in this year’s interbellum, or with Willem, who joined me quite a few times.

Memorable events from 2015 (before we jump into the raw numbers and figures):

I spent February working and cycling in Santa Barbara (Southern California, USA), and thanks to the warm and dry weather (similar to an average May/June in Belgium, but without the rain), in just 3 weeks I biked enough to make this month my 2nd best month ever on the bike (and my best month in sports if you add the three 10k runs I did before and after all the cycling).
I bought a new road bike, a Canyon Ultimate CF SL 9.0 Di2. Since the beginning of March, I have ridden almost 9500 km with it, and I am extremely happy with the purchase. It’s a beautiful machine.
I started to use a power meter on the bike, and although I would not go for the same Garmin Vector system again (because now there are better options in this fast evolving and still very young sector), I am happy to learn from all the data I record with it. (So now I know that I sprint quite good but my functional threshold power kinda sucks.)
I did many epic rides, some alone, some with a few other guys, and one in a larger group to the coast and back just like last year. This Heverlee – Knokke – Heverlee ride was my longest ride ever with 333 km thanks to the small extra I did at the end (which made some people question my sanity). Other memorable epic days mostly on new roads include: a solo century around Santa Barbara with summer temperatures, an epic climb, and 5 bottles of water; a 223 km ride to Geraardsbergen in a company of six; 173 km of climbing through the Province of Namur with Willem over 2500 metres of elevation gain, a masterpiece of route-planning; Catching the Tour de France in Namur with Willem, not an extreme long ride, but very nice route, and just a day after coming home from observing on La Palma, so I totally died by the end; a 202 km solo over the Mur of Huy and the Citadel of Namur (a ride of total mental madness); and nicely fitting into the list of epic rides to epic climbs, a 210 km solo to Valkenburg (Cauberg) and back. In total I had 5 rides over 200 km, and 11 rides that qualify as at least a century (100+ miles).
I have finished one very special challenge on Strava, the Rapha Festive 500, that challenges participants to ride 500 km on the eight days between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. Normally we go to Hungary for Christmas, but this year we stayed in Belgium, so I thought I would give it a try. Although I got soaked twice, and almost blown off the road by the crazy wind a few times, I managed to complete the challenge with 6 rides in 7 days. The fact that the average temperature was more typical for April than December helped a lot of course ;) Thanks to the weather conditions and this challenge, I closed off December with 1095 km on the bike. That’s insane for a winter month (in Belgium, not in Southern California), and it is more than I biked in the previous 5 Decembers, combined.

And then the raw numbers for my cycling – without the daily commutes of course – in 2015:

Total distance: 11326 km
Total elevation gain: 70307 m
Total time: 400h 17m
Activity count: 140
Average speed: 28.3 km/h
Average heart rate: 152.6 bpm (max: 193 bpm)
Average cadence: 91 rpm

And here are the figures, coming up first the maps of cycling in Belgium, with a zoom in to the area around Leuven to show my most taken loops more clearly, and also a map of the biking I did around Santa Barbara.

Then here are the charts of the yearly progress in terms of distance and elevation gain, followed by – in both cases – a calendar view of the same metrics. (Figures from VeloViewer.)

Then here is a figure from Golden Cheetah showing my Performance Management Chart since I have a power meter.

Then here I my statistics grouped by the 4 bikes I have ridden this year.

Concerning the social aspects, as I have already mentioned, this year I did many more solo rides compared to 2014. Out of the 140 activities, only 29 were not solo rides, and out of these only 19 were rides where I was riding with more than one person. When I was not alone I rode most often with Willem, on a total of 24 rides (a sum of 79 hours).

I did not want to put it on the list of memorable events, but this year I started using Rapha products. They are on the more expensive side, but the quality and the service is so good, the bibs are so comfortable, and the design is so clean and stylish, that it is totally worth it. I even tested their free repair service and it has exceeded my expectations (big time). So, if anyone needs a present idea for me, Rapha vouchers are always highly appreciated ;)

I have also ran 401 km this year (with quite some trail running on La Palma), and did some hiking with Clio, so at the end I had a total activity time of 451 hours (up from 350 hours in 2014). I am fully satisfied with that, and I am happy with all the achievements (see list of Strava challenges completed below) along the way.

I always wanted to have one year when I bike more than 10000 km, so now that I have achieved that, my goal for 2016 is more about quality, and not about quantity. I hope that in 2016 I will have even more self-supported epic rides, some good structured trainings, and maybe even a few races. The most important goal is to have fun on the bike :)

Panning photography: Eneco Tour 2015 – Stage 4 (ITT)

There are only two (not one day) UCI WorldTour-races (the highest level cycling events) between the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España, first the Tour de Pologne, then the Eneco Tour. The latter goes through Belgium and the Netherlands, so it is not too difficult to go and watch a stage. The last time I took pictures on a cycling race was back in 2010 during the first stages of the Tour de France, so I was happy to go along with Nadia to watch the individual time trial (ITT) of this year’s Eneco Tour just over the border in Hoogerheide, and try my luck in panning photography.

We parked in the neighbouring village towards the southern sections of the 13.9 km long course, so we had no problem with the crowds around the start and finish area in Hoogerheide, and after a short walk, we managed to find a nice section to watch the race. From a photographer’s point of view, we had to be standing on the right side of the cyclists, so the pictures show the chainrings and the derailleurs, and also preferably in the shade, since colours are nicer there when the Sun is high up in the sky. After finding a suitable spot, we just had to wait for the 152 cyclists to pass one-by-one, which took three hours.

I was typically using a focal length of 105 mm (to isolate the cyclists from the background better, and to achieve a sense of speed without the need for too long exposure times), f/7.1 (not wide open at f/4, so a slight focusing error will not produce a totally out-of-focus image), an exposure time of 1/200 seconds, while the ISO was left at auto. Since I always use RAW, white balance and other settings were not taken care of on the spot, only during post-processing. I was shooting in burst mode, which is 4.5 frames/second on the Canon EOS 6D (compared to my more sport-photography oriented old 7D with 8 frames/seconds), using the central autofocus point only, and AI Servo tracking autofocus. The idea of panning photography is to follow the subject while shooting, this way even with relatively longer exposure times, you can keep the subject more-or-less sharp, while the background gets blurred from the motion of the tracked subject in the foreground. The difficulty is tracking the subject: 1) the tracking speed during the approach of the cyclist changes as the subject gets closer to you (think of standing at the side of a road and looking towards a car approaching towards you, while the car is still far, you don’t have to turn your head much, but while it passes in front of you, you will need to turn your head very quickly to follow through). 2) The cyclists were riding at 50 km/h, and I was standing only 5-10 metres away, so the tracking speed was really high when they passed. Even with an exposure time of 1/200 seconds, the cyclists have covered 7 cm during one exposure. For the image to be sharp, you need to track this movement with a half pixel accuracy. 3) The focus distance changes also very quickly as the cyclist approaches, which is very difficult to deal with for the autofocus system. I have taken more than 400 pictures during the stage, and almost 100 of these turned out to be technically all right (acceptably sharp). I would say that 65% of the bad pictures resulted from the tracking autofocus loosing the cyclist, while 35% from me not being able to track the movement precisely enough. Below you can find a small selection of the nicer images. It was a very nice experience, I am glad Nadia (and Clio) convinced me to go.

Just as an example (or a technology demo), here is one shot with a longer exposure time of 1/60 of a second (so the cyclist travelled 23 cm during the exposure). It is borderline impossible to follow such fast and extensive movement with a much better precision, so I am quite happy with this image too, even though I only tried one series with this setting, because the success rate was clearly lower compared to 1/200 seconds… Actually, you can see that a few cogs towards the top of the front chainring are perfectly sharp, meaning that I followed the movement of that part precisely.

February in California

Being an astronomer means that I get to travel far away from home for work at least on a few occasions every year. It might be an observing run (working during the night in the control room of a huge telescope, most likely on a deserted mountain far from civilisation, under the bright Milky Way), a conference (where I present my work and mingle), or a collaboration. This time I spent a full month in the USA participating in the Galactic Archaeology and Precision Stellar Astrophysics program at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (University of California, Santa Barbara). Since I planned this month to be half work, half cycling, I did not take a camera with me, so I don’t have any quality pictures to show, only a collage of photos taken with my phone. My sincere apologies for that…

I arrived in Santa Barbara (or more precisely, Goleta, right in between the city and the campus) after 1+11 hours of flying (with Air New Zealand across the Atlantic Ocean, spent mostly catching up with editing my pictures from our holidays, and watching a few movies), an overnight stay in an airport hotel in Los Angeles, and a 2.5 hour bus ride. It was the afternoon of the Super Bowl (so later I could go shopping to an empty supermarket), a beautiful sunny day with 21°C. Also, I turned 30 on that day. I rented a quite spacious house with two other scientists, where I had my private room and bathroom. Two hours after my arrival I already had a rental beach cruiser bicycle (delivered to my door), I had filled up my cereal supplies for the mornings, and I had everything unpacked. For the rest of the afternoon my only goal was to stay awake until as late as possible, which was not so easy since I had moved 9 time zones to the West earlier. Any case, I had to adjust fast, as the next day was already a working day…

During the first week of my stay I attended the conference The Milky Way and its Stars: Stellar Astrophysics, Galactic Archaeology, and Stellar Populations. My daily commute was a 20 minute bike ride in the sunshine (or morning fog), passing by a nature reserve with lots of birds right before the last kilometre, which led under huge palm trees along the coast. The conference was a mix of stellar and galactic talks, much broader than the ones I had attended before, which helped to see the importance of seismic studies from yet another angle. I also gave a talk with the title Calibrating the stellar structure and evolution models of massive stars with asteroseismology.

I spent the next three weeks with training on a rental racing bike in the mornings and the weekends, and working at the KITP during the day. I have to say that at least partly thanks to the nice weather and the amount of cycling I managed to do, I was also very motivated at work, so even though I had not so much time left after all the different meeting and working group discussions, I got lots of things done. I did my first refereeing, I wrote and submitted a paper (which is almost accepted by now) and a proposal, etc. So I was very productive :)

And now about that cycling. Besides the cruiser that I used for commuting, I also rented a racing bike for three weeks starting from the Saturday after the conference. It was a Trek Domane 5.9 equipped with Shimano Ultega Di2. My initial goal for these three weeks was to bike 1000 km, but it became clear to me quite quickly that I could easily go beyond this, thus I adjusted my goal and aimed to complete all Strava challenges for February (1250 km cycling, at least 150 km in one ride, and 28000 feet of climbing).

I rode every day except for Mondays (as a rest day was definitely necessary), typically for two hours in the mornings (getting up every day at 6, biking 7-9), then I did longer rides over the weekends. I have ridden through the morning fog and in the heat of the afternoon sun, in 4°C and 29°C, from sea level to 1200 metres, along the coast and around the small valleys. The list of rides also includes a real epic Century (a ride of 100 miles). Both the roads and the view were really great, and the car drivers payed attention to the cyclists (I was only pissed off once by someone passing by me way too close).

Not counting the two training weeks on Mallorca, the week of the 16th of February with its 512.9 km was my best week on the bike. In total, February with 1361 km was my 4th best month, but since I had quite some elevation gain (14885 m), and all my rides were solo rides, I was a bit slower than usual, which means that looking at the duration, this month was my 2nd best with 53h 21m, and if you add the time I spent running to this (three 10k runs, on the last day of my stay almost breaking my 5k and 10k PR), then it turns out that February was my most sporty month ever with 55h 53m. That’s not bad (ok, that’s simply awesome), especially given that all this cycling was done in 3 weeks instead of a full month.

I was very tired at the end, but also very happy that my stay in California worked out so well, both for science and my fitness level. I also lost ~2 kg thanks to the amount of exercise (even with all the pizza and pasta I ate), so I am now at a very good 70.5 kg. I would be surprised if I managed to have a more hardcore month of training after this in 2015, but you never know ;)

My new power meter tells me that I still ‘suck’ (although on the first rides that was partly due to the massive jet lag I had), so there is plenty of room for improvement… But again, it’s only the beginning of the cycling season. And for that, I am doing better than before. And the new bike is also perfect :)