A tale of two rides

Two training runs this weekend:

27.4 Miles, 700m ascent, ave 13.5mph, HR 140bpm
49 Miles, 1422m ascent, ave 13.1mph, HR 150bpm

This was a new ride that I'd worked out in the Lammermuir hills, starting from Gifford.  The ride itself is perfect for the training I'm doing; quiet roads, and steep hills.  Lovely!

The first ride on Saturday was with Helen.  The first part of the ride was fine, but after nearly 14 miles, my saddle fell off.  Actually, that's not quite fair; my saddle seemed to be angled back a bit, so I tried to adjust it and the bolt sheared.  That's the second time that this particular seatpost has managed to eat the fixing bolt.  Maybe it's trying a make a comment about my weight?  Anyway, we turned around, and cycled back, with me standing up all the way.  And Helen carrying my saddle.

I felt really strong for the whole ride, and rather regretted that we hadn't simply carried on with the planned route despite the handicap.

After replacing the seatpost(*) on Saturday night, I returned alone on the Sunday.  The fist part of the ride went swimmingly despite slightly tired legs, and 17miles in my average speed was up at 14.8mph.  But then it all went a bit wrong - my bum was aching, I seemed to have no power, and the second half of the ride was a full 2mph slower that the first.  I cut the route short and returned to the car quite demoralised; how the hell am I going to manage the Fred Whitton if I had so much trouble with that?


(*) Oh yes, the seatpost!  The one fitted to my bike was the original carbon fibre affair that came with the Tricross.  It's got the traditional arrangement for the clamp, with a single bolt holding the parts together.  These are always a challenge to adjust, because the seat angle invariably changes as you tighten the bolt.  Plus, you can understand the bolt shearing, because the whole construction conspires to use your body weight to lever the bolt apart as effectively as possible.

The replacement seatpost that I had lying around looked like carbon fibre too, but proved to be well-disguised aluminium.  However, the clamp was designed with bolts fore and aft, so you adjust seat angle by tightening one bolt and loosening another.  Why aren't all seatposts made like this?  [Stop-press: I just checked Wiggle, and it seems that many seat-posts are made like this!  So why have I never seen one before?]