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		<?xml version="1.0"?><rss version="2.0"><channel><title>Route planning - Tri247</title><link>http://www.tri247.com/index.html</link><description>Latest route planning articles from Tri247</description><item><title><![CDATA[Spring training on Cyprus]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_206.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[Tri247&#039;s Editor isn&#039;t the only one to have been enjoying a bit of sunshine - Stelios Marcou has been out in Cyprus getting in some solid training for his Ironman campaign this year. Here&#039;s his report from Cyprus on cycling one of the island&#039;s best-kept secrets.



Over the last few years, I have travelled to Cyprus a number of times purely for either racing or training. These days my holidays differ wildly from when I used to go to Cyprus in my late teens; gone are the days when I used to spend my days bumming around on the beach for weeks on end and consuming copious amounts of alcohol during those long summer nights. So, it comes in stark contrast that I banked a mouth watering 25 hours of training in last week, but I am about to enter into the unknown, what with racing IM France in June and, for some reason, also signing up for IM Florida in November. My thinking behind this crazy plan is that seeing as though I am busting a gut to get fit for one Ironman, I might as well make it a brace and do another. I am also planning to race Antwerp 70.3 in August as a mid-season race, as well as a few other events for fun. To help me in this mammoth feat, this year I have taken on a coach to add structure and real focus to my training sessions. After attending some of his excellent training camps and knowing him for a few years now, I knew that there could only be one man for the job, and that is, the legend that is Steve Trew!

The facilities on Europe&rsquo;s largest island are surprisingly good. There are an abundance of decent 25m pools as well as a few 50m open air pools found in each of the four main cities. If the pool is not your flavour when on the continent, then a short drive in most directions will find you faced with miles of endless coastline, which will provide warm, clear waters, fantastic to swim in and, even in early April, a wetsuit wasn&rsquo;t really needed. I took mine with me because I knew I would be swimming alone for a few sessions, and after a winter of speedo only pool swimming, I needed the wetsuit swimming practise.

Triathlon is also on the up in Cyprus and the Cyprus Triathlon Federation are doing a fantastic job in promoting the sport on the island. There is a national triathlon series which comprises of about ten races and it is worth mentioning that international athletes are always welcomed. I have raced at a few of these events now and although small in size, the average field comprises of about 60 athletes, it makes for a friendly intimate affair. The races are professionally organised, Bambos Spanoudes (Head of Cytrifed) certainly has attention to detail at the top of his list. More info can be found at www.cytrifed.org

The K1 Triathlon club is run by British servicemen out of the Episkopi Garrison. It&rsquo;s a fantastic club, everyone is very friendly and they also have a race series. Nick Kemp, who is the captain, has always been very inviting whenever I have wanted to race or train with them. More info on K1 can be found on their website www.k1triathlonclub.org

Cyprus&#039; best kept secret for cycling is in its interior. There are naturally lots of coastal routes one could follow, but the Troodos Mountain range with its peak, Mount Olympus, is certainly not for the faint hearted. I have ridden some of the Tour&#039;s toughest climbs; the Jou Plan and the Alpe, to name drop two. I have also ridden in Italy on routes that the Giro follows. I&rsquo;ll put my hand on heart and say that the Troodos climb will rival any one of these. It&rsquo;s an unrelenting 0m to 1,800m straight up in 30 long miles, winding through quaint little villages on a beautiful big backdrop, which if you have time to take any of it in, you aren&rsquo;t working hard enough.

On the subject of my new Garmin Forerunner 305 I cannot stress what a fantastic piece of kit this little beauty is. Not only has it not let me down yet... the accuracy and the reliability is second to none. I was a bit skeptical about switching from my Suunto T6, which I have been using for a few years now. The advanced physiological capabilities of the T6 are hard to beat, the basic stuff though, like speed, heart and distance I did find to be sometimes unreliable. The Garmin obviously does so much more than these three basic functions and, unlike its competitors; Suunto, Polar, Timex, etc, the Garmin is a one stop shop. There are no pods to fix onto your shoes or your arms. The built in GPS function works surprisingly well, both in and out of urban areas; hell it even seems to work in my living room. To add, and this was the decider for me being a mutipsort athlete, it has cadence, something that Suunto just hasn&rsquo;t got and from what I understand is some way from developing.

The days started early with sun being high up in the blue sky. Temperature at sea level at 10am was a lovely 18 degrees. Although I knew I wouldn&rsquo;t be needing them until much later on in the day, I used up one of the rear pockets on my jersey for arm and leg warmers. After a very short warm up (my parents live at the foot of the climb I was about to embark on) the fun began after only five minutes as I took a right turn at Erimi village a few miles outside of Limassol. The first section is eight miles long with gradients ranging between 8% and 12%. There is some relief after these eight miles, but only for a slight decent and flat section for about a mile, enough to take on some fluids and spin the lactate out of your legs. The next stage is half the first, but in the same vain, straight up! Again after a leg busting four miles you are rewarded with a short descent  and a chance to get onto to the drops and spin out for a mile and a half or so. This once again is short lived and the road kicks up again all too quickly for another five miles of ascent. The mountain range has now opened up as the valley has now been crossed and it is here where you see  breathtaking views.
  
It is probably worth mentioning at this stage that, during the week, these mountain roads are very quiet. Drive in the cities and you ride at your own peril, I guess not too unlike most cities around the globe. To add; the Cypriots over the years seem to have mellowed behind the wheel, and although you still get the odd nutter in a Nissan pickup truck running a red light and driving like there is no tomorrow with his hair on fire, on the whole the motorists seem very considerate to the cyclist.

I didn&rsquo;t see many cars at all that day and the ones I did see where mostly hire cars (very obvious as they have a red number plate that begins with the letter Z), a few locals who looked at me through their windscreens with amused bewilderment that this man is actually on a bike, cycling up a mountain. On a few occasions I think they must have felt so humbled that they gave me an extra wide berth and nearly caused a head on collision. Then there are the coaches crammed full of day trippers. These coaches have a similar climbing speed as a Tour Category cyclist (which is slow, considering we are talking about a motorized vehicle) and snail pace cornering speeds on the switchbacks. So it was much to my glee that into half of my ride I came across one of these coaches, this provided me with a bit of company for about 10km. Although it felt like a game of cat and mouse, the time certainly passed quickly. I don&rsquo;t think the driver had expected me to stay with him for so long and the passengers certainly seemed quite distracted from the views of the lush pine forests. Our party only ended when the coach pulled into one of the many vineyards which line the route for its passengers to sample some local wine, and to have a spot of lunch, no doubt.

Arriving into Platres at 1250m, there was a noticeable drop in temperature and although the sun was still shining, the last two hours and 30 minutes had been tough. I was fatigued, but the last few months of heavy training had paid off and I knew that I had loads in reserve (I was in a much better state than the last time I had attempted the climb). I was almost at my destination, but I knew that the last 14km would be the toughest of the day. The average gradient for this last section is over 10% and having ridden this road once before, it was good to know just how tough it was going to be. After all was said and done it passed surprisingly swiftly.

I rolled in to the Troodos square with a ride time of just under three hours and I was still in good shape. I stopped for a well deserved BBQ lunch (with chips!) a coke and quite shortly after the arm and leg warmers came out in preparation for the descent. And what a decent I was about to embark on, 30 miles of pure adrenaline. After my crash at the Nove Colli in Italy last year, I knew I wasn&rsquo;t going to see 103kph on my speedo (this is the fastest I have ever clocked). I needed to get my bottle back and this was going to be the perfect opportunity to lay a few demons to rest. For the first few kilometers I was riding those brakes to the point where I could feel the heat coming off my Fulcrum&#039;s, then it suddenly fell into place and I eased off and let gravity take over. Needless to say, I was grinning from ear to ear by the time I got back down to sea level!

]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Creating portable workouts]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_3041.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[How many times have you gone out on a training ride (or run) with a programme in your mind and then been unable to remember just what the heck it was you were supposed to be doing? I mean, it&#039;s bad enough in the pool when the coach has put the programme up on the board for you but out there in the great wide open... I do know people who take little cards out with them and clip them on their aero bars to remind them what&#039;s supposed to be going on but a little wind and rain soon sorts that out! No, what you need is to be able to take the coach along with you to remind you that the next two minutes are at 90% or the next five miles should be at 90rpm and 20mph.

If you are lucky enough to own a Garmin Forerunner or Edge then you can, with just a little bit of effort, load your sessions up into the device and have that tell you what to do. They actually come with built-in sessions provided by Training Peaks (hands up those who actually realised that...) and there are even commercial services out there which will provide both programmes and analysis for you, see New Leaf for examples. What I&#039;m going to do is show you how to create your own so you can take advantage of the training programmes that Tri247 has been publishing.

In order to build and upload any workout to your Garmin device you&#039;ll need to have a copy of TrainingCenter installed on your PC or Mac - but I&#039;ll make the bold assumption that you&#039;ve already done that because if you haven&#039;t you&#039;ll be missing out on so much already. It is actually possible to create workouts on the device itself but, to be honest, it&#039;s just so much simpler to build them in TrainingCenter that I&#039;m only going to cover that. TrainingCenter also allows you to build complex workouts that involve more than one sport, you can&#039;t do that on the device itself.

Understanding Workout Mode
To work with existing Workouts, or to program your own, you&#039;ll need to be in Workout Mode so click the Workouts icon on the toolbar in Training Center. The left side of the Workout Mode screen shows a list of folders for organizing your workouts while the right side of the screen contains a calendar for scheduling your workouts. You can create your own folders to organize your workouts; for example, you can create subfolders under the Running folder to organize your running workouts (interval training, distance runs, etc) or create subfolders under the Other folder for additional sports (kayaking, cross country skiing, etc).

If you want to create a new folder click the folder you want to create the new folder in (Running, Biking, Other, or MultiSport) and then select New Folder from the Edit menu. A new folder will appear that you can then name as you wish, I&#039;ve created one under Running to hold the sample programme we&#039;ll create a little later. If you need to move a folder, click the folder and drag it to its new home under any of the other folders in the window.



Creating a new Workout
In Workout Mode you can create advanced workouts that include multiple steps with varied distances, rest laps, and training goals. Each step of a workout consists of two main elements: a duration and a target. The duration can be a time, a distance or a number of calories burned. You can also create a step that lasts until you press the lap button on your device.

The target is your goal for the step which will typically be to keep your speed or your heart rate in a specific zone for the duration of the step. Alternatively you can create a step that does not have a specific goal.

Your workout can also contain steps with repetitions and we&#039;ll get to that in a moment.

To create a new workout you first need to select the folder that it will live in so click the appropriate folder on the left-hand side. Now click the New Workout icon which will open the New Workout screen with step 1 of the workout ready for you to customize.



The first thing to do is type a name for the workout in the Name field. You can also enter a description or some notes into the Notes field. Now select the duration of this step from the When will this step end? drop-down list. If you select a duration based on time, distance, heart rate, or calories, additional fields will appear for you to complete.

Select the target for this step from the What is your target for this step? drop-down list. If you select a target based on speed zone or heart rate zone, additional fields appear for you to complete. 

If you want this step to be a resting step, select Yes from the Is this a resting step? drop-down list.

To name this step (as opposed to the whole Workout, which you already named above), select Yes from the appropriate drop-down list. The Custom Name field appears and you can type the step name.

Create the next step in the workout by clicking the New Step icon and repeat the process until you have created all the steps for your workout. If you need to delete a step, click the step and click the Delete icon.

Once you have added all the necessary steps you can click OK to save your workout.



Useful tip: When building a workout, it is important to create transition steps that allow you to build up speed, reduce your heart rate, etc. For example, if you are transitioning from a walking step to a running step, you can create a short step (ten seconds or so) with no specific target speed, which gives you some time to speed up. If you are transitioning from a step with a fast heart rate to a step with a slower heart rate, you can create a rest step that gives your heart rate time to slow down.



Creating repeating steps

You can add steps with repetition to your workout and set the number of times you want to repeat them. Steps with repetition can include any number of sub-steps you want to repeat. To create a step with repetition:

From the New Workout screen, click the New Step with Repetition icon. A new step and sub-step are created. For example, Step 2 is created with Step 2.1 underneath it. Enter the information for the sub-step. in exactly the same way as you would for a regular workout step. If you want to create additional sub-steps, click the New Step icon. Repeat this process until all the sub-steps are created.

Click the Repeat the steps below X times icon which will cause the Selected Repetition field to appear. You can now enter the number of times you want to repeat the step.

To create new steps that are not included in the repetition, click the first step in the workout and click the New Step icon. Enter information for the step and click the Move Down icon to move the step to the appropriate position in the workout.

Editing a Workout

You can edit the steps of an existing workout, including renaming the workout, creating new steps, changing existing steps, and changing the order of the steps.

To edit a workout, double-click the workout in the folder list or on the calendar. You can now edit any of the fields in any of the steps just by clicking on them and making your changes. To add a new step or a new step with repetition, click a step in the workout and click the New Step icon or the New Step with Repetition icon. To change the order of the steps, click the step and click the  Move Up or  Move Down icon.

Once you have made your changes remember to click OK to save the workout.

Scheduling a Workout

After you have created your workouts, you can schedule them on the calendar. You can schedule the same workout on multiple days, and you can schedule multiple workouts on the same day.

NOTE: You do not have to schedule a workout in order to send it to your device.

To schedule a workout: In Workout Mode, scroll the calendar on the right side of the screen to select a month. Click the workout in the folder list and drag it to the appropriate day(s) on the calendar. An alternative method is to click on a workout in the folder list and then click the Edit menu and click Schedule Workout. A small calendar appears from which you can select the month and day that you want to schedule the workout for. Clicking OK then assigns the workout to that date.

Sending Workouts to your device

You can send scheduled and unscheduled workouts to your device. You can also receive workouts from your device and open them in Garmin Training Center.

NOTE: Sending workouts from Garmin Training Center to your device replaces the existing workout database on your device. If you have created workouts on your device which you want to keep, you must transfer them to Garmin Training Center before you upload new ones or they will be deleted.

To send workouts: Connect your device to the computer (we&#039;re assuming that you already know how to do this!!). In Workout Mode, click the Send Workouts and Courses icon. If your device contains workouts that are not in Garmin Training Center, a message appears asking if you want to transfer the workouts to Garmin Training Center before you overwrite the device. Click Yes or No as appropriate.

If you have created more workouts in Garmin Training Center than your device can hold, the Send Workouts screen appears which will allow you to select the workouts you want to send to your device. Click OK to start the transfer and a message will appear telling you that your workouts have been sent.

NOTE: If you send both scheduled and unscheduled workouts to your device, unscheduled workouts are saved as &#039;Favorites&#039; in your device.

Worked example
We have picked a classic Fartlek run session and coded this for a Forerunner 305 which you can download here and pick apart in Training Center to see how we put it together. This is what the coach wrote down:


Warm-up with a 10 minute easy to moderate jog and then stretch for a couple of minutes.
Continue the warm-up with a further 10 minute easy jog.
The main set is 36 minutes done as three repeats of:
1 minute on/1 minute off, 3 minutes on/1 minute off, 5 minutes on/1 minute off.
On should be in zone 2-3 at half marathon pace, Off is zone 1.
Cool down with a 15 minute easy jog.




We translated this into the following steps to build the Tri247 Fartlek Workout and, yes, I know we didn&#039;t include any extra steps to allow you to build up speed and slow down but this is just an example for you to play with - so why not add them for yourself?

10 minutes in HR zone #1
Pause until lap button is pressed (so you can stretch)
10 minutes in HR zone #2
Repeat these next steps 3 times

1 minute at HR zone #3
1 minute at HR zone #1
3 minutes at HR zone #3
1 minute at HR zone #1
5 minutes at HR zone #3
1 minute at HR zone #1

15 minutes at HR zone #1
]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Madison maps out the route]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_2981.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[In the week leading up to its in-house trade show, iceBike, Madison have announced a couple of key distribution deals they have signed up; Garmin and MemoryMap. Although at first glance having a new distributor might not seem to have much of an impact on your daily life it does mean that you&#039;ll be able to get products from these two companies through your local bike shop much easier than in the past - pretty much any decent bike shop in the land has a Madison account.

The two product lines are also very compatible - both deal with route planning; MemoryMap is great for figuring out routes and then you can upload the result into your Garmin and, because of that system&#039;s GPS capabilities, you&#039;ll always know exactly where you are. Madison will be concentrating on the bike products, especially the new Edge 605 and 705 which are due any day.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Route of the Month: Box Hill]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_2525.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[This month we&#039;ve decided to revisit the route of the famous Ballbuster duathlon around Box Hill in Surrey. We haven&#039;t just re-used the one we did back in March, we went back round the whole route to check the information on the Garmin trace and we have updated the description and added some key images as well.
Box Hill is used by countless cyclists every weekend as a training ground and while there is nothing too taxing about a circuit of the hill, it&amp;rsquo;s actually much harder to ride clockwise than in the anti-clockwise direction we describe here, it does provide for all the basic skills in using your gears, developing good bike control in a fast descent and learning to &#039;read the road&#039; to prepare yourself for some of the sudden turns. As an added bonus, there&amp;rsquo;s a superb tea shop at the top of the Zig Zag section!
There&#039;s plenty of parking at the top of the hill opposite the tea shop, &amp;pound;3 buys you a whole day, and once you&#039;ve done the loop described here there&#039;s a whole world of climbing in the Surrey Hills right on your doorstep with White Down, Ranmoor and Leith Hill all within just a few minutes ride.
The Garmin traces for the article were taken from two units that we put into the field for  Spring Ballbuster back in April; an Edge 305 to give us the bike course that we&amp;rsquo;ll be discussing here, and a Forerunner 305 to capture the whole event for posterity. Because the Ballbuster run course duplicates the bike course, we are using the data from the Edge 305 to provide the commentary as that gives a clearer picture  -- the extra run laps come before and after the three bike laps. We should also point out that the first 100m or so of the trace shows a marked deviation from the road - this is because the bikes are racked in a field behind the main car park and the athletes have to run across this to get to the road! We would normally suggest that you start from the car park opposite the tea shop and gift shop, there&#039;s also a toilet block here which can be useful! 
Although the route starts at the top of the Zig Zag section, this is not the top of Box Hill itself and so the route rises through the village of Box Hill and goes past the numerous mobile home sites before turning downhill to a very sharp left-hand junction, where the road joins the Headley Common Road. The junction has a hidden slip road to the left which is the turn you&#039;ll take but you must be prepared to stop very quickly or you&#039;ll find yourself into the road and almost certainly on the wrong side of the white line! Although the sigh says &#039;Give Way&#039; treat this as a STOP! You cannot see both ways clearly; it is dark under the trees to the left and the traffic from your right will be coming out of another dark area. 


The junction at Headley Common Road









From the junction  it&amp;rsquo;s a slight rise across the Common before making another left-hand turn down into Headley. You&#039;ll see a car park on the left with a permanent burger van and on the right is the close-cropped grass of the cricket club and then you get the sign shown here for the B2033 to Leatherhead. The finger board pointing to Headley itself is actually labelled Leatherhead and Dorking and you can just see it opposite the turning on the right of the picture. 


The junction to Headley village






Once through the village the road drops sharply away on a reverse camber into a left then right turn and entices you to descend. Unfortunately, you now need to make a sharp left-hand turn to pick up Lodge Bottom Road and this is where the bike handling skills come into play! This junction is probably the trickiest one on the course and you&#039;re always faced with the dilemma of indicating to go left at the point where you want both hands on the bars...


The descent through Headley village










You&amp;rsquo;ll get your maximum speed going down Lodge Bottom Road, but you need to be aware that this is a fairly narrow lane and there can be both oncoming traffic and, depending on the weather, a significant amount of debris from the trees that line the route as well as grit and gravel that wash in off the fields. There&#039;s also one of those sneaky little bumps where down suddenly turns to up for 50 metres or so about half way down. As inclines go it&#039;s hardly anything but it will catch you unawares and break your rhythm. At the bottom of the hill where the lane joins the Old London Road you make a left turn, be aware that there is almost always loose gravel here. This used to be the start and finish of the Ballbuster until the race outgrew the space available at the Juniper Hall Field Centre which is located on the left as you turn.


The left turn by the Juniper Hall Field Centre






The road now goes straight into a short climb which brings you to another left turn by a cottage where you start the famous Zig Zag itself.


The turn onto the Zig Zag





The first section of the Zig Zag is the steepest and climbs, first between high banks and then under trees, to the first hairpin. From here you work your way up the side of the hill, going first to the left and then the right, on a fairly constant gradient. The middle corner is the hardest and you need to keep as wide as possible to even out the change in gradient. The third section takes you up into the woods, with a clear view below you of other riders working their way up the slope, and then kicks up slightly to bring you out in front of the National Trust buildings. The climb is all about keeping the momentum up and you should find that, after the first section, you should be able to build a steady rhythm and even begin to accelerate towards the final corner. 



The Zig Zag climb










The loop is almost exactly eight miles and the Ballbuster race does it a total of five times; twice round on foot - once before and once after the three times round on the bike. The secret to a successful race is not to go too hard on the first run or the first lap of the bike -- it&amp;rsquo;s all too easy to over-do it and blow up on the final run lap. Consistent and efficient climbing and good handling skills are the secret -- plus a considerable degree of nerve to make up time on the descent!


The final stages






If you look at the three bike loops ridden by Mick Barnes and compare the heart rate traces you&amp;rsquo;ll see that each time up the Zig Zag the maximum rate he recorded is lower than the one before -- remember that he had run the eight mile loop before starting to do the bike and had another one to do after! 
Bike loop only ridden by Mick Barnes


Complete race by Gary Blesson 
]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Route of the Month: Richmond Park]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_2393.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[This month&#039;s Route of the Month is a classic Richmond Park ride based on the London Duathlon course. Richmond Park has always been a mecca for cyclists and runners - in fact the only bit of a triathlon you can&#039;t do inside the Park&#039;s walls is swim - even though Pen Ponds would seem to be a potential venue, were it not for all the wildlife... 

Because of the up-coming London Duathlon on September 9th - the only day in the year that the Park is ever closed completely to traffic - we rode the route as though we were doing the duathlon so you get to almost all the hills in both directions. There has been much debate over the years as to which is the fastest way around - if you feel adventurous why don&#039;t you do it both ways and let us know!

Lap 1 - the first run 
All the action starts at the Golf Club next to Roehampton Gate with the first loop (used as a run loop for the Duathlon) taking you from the roundabout straight up through the middle of the Park towards Richmond Gate. This is a long drag of a climb with a short respite as you hit the crossroads and then build into the second section which always seems to be much harder than it ought to be for such a little hill! From the top of the climb there&#039;s a short section of rollers to the roundabout where you turn left and continue up to the highest point just by the Pembroke Lodge car park.

There&#039;s now a great downhill section towards the Ham Gate crossroads where you&#039;ll make a left turn onto the road that leads towards Pen Ponds. This section is a bit narrower than the rest of the roads in the Park and on normal days you&#039;ll need to be aware of walkers and in-line skaters. At the Pen Ponds car park junction you make a right and drop down the hill to the roundabout at Robin Hood Gate where you rejoin the main road round the Park and turn left towards Roehampton Gate. This section is mostly flat with a small drag up in the middle but you can ride it without changing gear as long as you maintain your momentum.

Lap 2 and 3 - the bike 
Once back to the Roehampton Gate roundabout you can loop 360 degrees and retrace your steps to the Robin Hood Gate roundabout as the first section of the two-lap main loop. At  the roundabout go straight across and start the drag up to the beginning of the main climb at Broomfield Hill. As hills go this is not in the same league as those you&#039;ll find in the nearby Surrey countryside but it&#039;s still a big lump and you&#039;ll needs to work at the gears to maintain any kind of rhythm up it. It also has the characteristic of constantly increasing the slope as you progress so if you get the gears wrong at the bottom you&#039;ll be paying for it by the time you reach the left-hand bend half-way up... ...which is where it all starts to tighten up!

Once over the top you&#039;ll get a short recovery section heading into a little dip just after the car park and then another flat section across the top before you drop down the back of Test Hill to Kingston Gate. This is a fast descent and you need to remember that at the bottom is a roundabout where you make a right turn  so do keep the speed in control and keep the inside pedal &#039;up&#039; to avoid grounding it through the turn. Get this right and you&#039;ll shave seconds, get it wrong and you&#039;ll lose lots more!

The road now climbs towards Richmond Gate but with a big dip in the middle as you approach the Ham Gate roundabout. Your momentum should carry you through this, don&#039;t stop pedaling on the downhill because you&#039;ll be hitting the bottom of the long drag back up to Richmond Gate with no starting speed and that&#039;s definitely not the way to get a good time.

From Richmond Gate back down to Roehampton Gate is the fastest bit of the course and it&#039;s basically in a dead straight line so you can really let it rip. Cyclists have been known to be caught by the Parks Police radar traps down this section - although we hope that they won&#039;t be hiding in the trees on the left when you ride it.!

Once you are back at the  Roehampton Gate roundabout you turn right and repeat this whole lap to complete the bike section.

Lap 4 - the second run
The second time you get back down to the Roehampton Gate roundabout you do a complete 360 degree turn and head back up the slope towards Richmond Gate, just as you did for the first run lap. This time. however, you make a left turn at the mini roundabout and head up towards White Lodge and Pen Ponds. There are some speed humps on this section and it does climb as well until you are through the trees when the road drops back down, first to the Pen Ponds car park and then again down to Robin Hood gate where you turn left for the last time and head back to the Roehampton Gate roundabout and the finish line. 

Afterwards
There&#039;s no shortage of wonderful little coffee shops along the Upper Richmond Road and in Richmond itself - if you feel like trekking back up the long slope again! One great little addition to this ride is to exit through the Richmond Gate, turn left and drop down towards Ham making a right turn at the lights to bring you back to the foot of Richmond Hill. If you take the first right turn, by a big pub, there&#039;s a monster of a short, sharp climb back up to the top of the hill which brings you out by Mick Jagger&#039;s and Eric Clapton&#039;s houses - not that you&#039;ll be in any state to spend the time trying to work out which is which!! You can turn right and go back into the Park through Richmond Gate and carry on with the rest of the loop as before -- or just collapse into the little coffee shop just round the corner!

Alternatively, there&#039;s a gravel track that runs the whole way round the outside of the Park which is great for both a long run or an off-road circuit as long as your tyres are up to it. You don&#039;t need an MTB but we wouldn&#039;t suggest you took your best racer, it&#039;s more suited to a commuter bike or hybrid than a skinny tyred race machine. 

The London Duathlon route was ridden for Tri247 by Annie Emmerson

]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Route of the Month: XTERRA UK]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_2283.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[With XTERRA UK looming ever closer we wanted to take a look at the bike course and see just what delights the organisers had in store for us. We despatched Sam Gardner and Julie Dibens along with Harry Wiltshire to take a ride round the loop with our trusty Garmin Edge and a camera and this is what they came back with. The Garmin profile looks like this:



Because there are so many photographs in this report we have uploaded the whole album to our Picasa site and it&#039;s probably best to have that open in a second window or you can watch them here as a slideshow. All the photographs are numbered and refer to the (n) in the text.



XTERRA UK has a split transition so we won&#039;t end up back where we started. Coming out of T1 (1,2) you will get a little warm-up on the only bit of tarmac on the whole course which is the access road to the lake. Let&rsquo;s break those roadies in gently! After about 300m this gives way to a cinder towpath, still nice and easy but don&rsquo;t worry -- it doesn&rsquo;t last long! Overtaking slower riders here is no problem at all.

Very soon the course goes upwards on a forest road (3,4), the sides of the valley loom high above you and you wonder just how nasty Gareth (the organiser) was feeling... Depending on your fitness, this climb could be ridden in the inner or middle chain ring. The surface is loose but relatively smooth and is best ridden in the saddle. Multiple hairpins make you feel like a Tour de France star. Just when you&rsquo;re finding your climbing rhythm the gradient increases and you go up a steeper narrower track (5) where overtaking is tricky or impossible. Luckily this doesn&rsquo;t last too long and soon goes into a short but tricky off-camber narrow descent (6) with three deep ruts running down it, which are difficult to get out of. Getting the correct rut will require pre-riding. I took the right rut and was hitting my pedals on the sides, it was also very wet the day we rode it and extremely slippery. Be careful if it&rsquo;s like this in the race, don&rsquo;t take risks overtaking as it&rsquo;s a short section and there&rsquo;s plenty more climbing soon.

At the bottom (7) you turn right up another loose fire road climb (8), which when we rode it went ominously off into the mist (9,10). I can imagine the views are great from this track if the visibility is good. Keep those gears small and turning fast, these climbs go on and on (11)! Pacing and a good rhythm are vital, don&rsquo;t go anaerobic or you&rsquo;ll regret it! After ten minutes or more climbing on this wide track you turn off right onto a narrower track (12,13) still going uphill! There are a couple of obvious lines to take and if you&rsquo;re not on these you will struggle with very loose stones and big rocks (14,15). Overtaking here could well be a problem and the track narrows further into a singletrack where passing is impossible.

As you crest the climb the singletrack is cutting through a lot of vegetation, it becomes quite technical and twisty (16,17,18) and was very over grown when we rode it. This should all be cut back by race. The path twists along the flat for 300 metres, then starts to descend (19,20,21) staying very narrow and the undergrowth obscures a lot of the bumps you&rsquo;re riding over. Luckily it&rsquo;s fairly straight and your speed will depend on your bottle, there are no major obstacles.

At the bottom of this track you turn left onto another wide fire road, the junction is obvious but the surface is loose as you turn. This track gives your pumped up arms a few minutes respite. Use it to recover, slipstream other riders if you can because all too soon you turn sharp left into &lsquo;the impossible climb&rsquo; (22,23). We all tried it and failed miserably! (24) With a rutted surface of differing size rocks and branches and a gradient that increases gradually, it disappears into the distance with the summit in sight but a demoralising way off. It is best to admit failure before you lose all momentum and jump off and start running with the bike (24). Something to practice in training?

At the top (25), leave a little energy because there&rsquo;s no downhill to reward you quite yet. A relatively flat hard pack track, generally two bikes wide but narrow in places (26,27) takes you to another loose fire road (28). This in turn is rolling (29) and leads you to a sharp high speed right hand turn (32) marked with a burnt out car (30,31) into a serious off-road section. It starts with a short climb with loose exposed rocks (33-36). Then a narrow path (37-39) runs on the left hand side of a grassy cutting through the forest, but the path was very muddy with deep puddles (40,41), and some better lines were available to the right. I&rsquo;ll certainly be pre-riding this section several times.

As the path starts descending it joins a track that has obviously been used by 4WDs and winds down the hill, through a small stream and turns left onto a wide gravel road. This leads up a hill past a working quarry (42), watch out when pre-riding as the lorries use this access road. You then pass an ancient pagan tree circle (43,44) which we christened &lsquo;Welsh Stonehenge&rsquo;; we sacrificed a virgin quickly and carried on climbing.

Soon enough you turn right onto another slightly narrower gravel track (45). This is flat initially but then starts to descend (46) and get a little more over-grown (48). You then turn right off this track, into the highlight of the course for most people, a great purpose made trail called &lsquo;Skyline&rsquo; (49-55). Considering the rain we&rsquo;d had, it had drained pretty well, and looped in and out of the forest, gradually traversing the mountain, the surface was pretty good and encouraged you to let the brakes off a bit. There are a few tight corners, so be careful, and one very tight right hand hairpin, but this can be seen well in advance. At the end of the trail you go through a permanent wooden barrier (57) and turn left onto another fire road descent (56).

This smooth descent gives your pumped up arms a chance to relax slightly for a minute or two until you turn right onto the miners track (58,59). With two ruts running down it, it can be difficult to change lines. Generally the right rut seemed better. Watch out, you will need to brake as some of the middle corners tighten up mid bend. 

The last few kilometres of the course have several small climbs (60) and some short technical descents, but beware after three hours of racing, and the big climbs earlier on in the lap, they do sap the energy. Concentration is essential on the descents because there are endless rocks that jump out at you waiting to knock you off.

Most of the descents are very rocky and loose, one in particular is off camber and very tricky (62,63,64) and followed by a steep single track climb (66,67). Look at where you want to go on the sections and not the obstacles you are trying to avoid! The few flat sections (61,68) in between offer small chances to rest, but even these have a few hazards like fallen trees (69,70,71) and slippery bridges (65).

All of a sudden you are in the valley floor again (72). You pass around a couple of murky ponds (73,74) and join a track parallel to the railway (75). This where the run comes out so you may see other athletes. T2 is in a different location to T1 and, being Wales, it had to be in the local rugby club (76).

All in all it is a great race course. Lots of different terrain, lots of climbing, Skyline is a great trail. I am very interested to see how long the laps will take at race pace. It could be an epic race! A good biker will win XTERRA UK, that is for sure, but most people should be able to get round it if they pace themselves. In XTERRA the challenge in conquering the course is as important as winning the race.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Route of the Month: Bournemouth]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_2149.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[There&#039;s a definite &#039;speed&#039; theme to the website this month and so we&#039;ve picked an event that&#039;s a favourite mid-season blaster: Concept Sport&#039;s Bournemouth Triathlon. This is a bike course that has just about everything from a lung-busting climb out of T1 through a steaming dual carriageway mid-section and then some technical bits thrown in as well.
Wil Newberry rode the course for us a few weeks back and logged it into his Garmin Forerunner 305. Images from the race are courtesy of Dave Tyrrell.



Section 1: the town 
There&#039;s an object lesson here - select the right gear! As soon as you leave the transition area on the seafront you are running uphill with the bike and the immediate temptation is to try to mount as soon as you cross the line. This is probably a mistake! It&#039;s far better to run the extra few yards to the bus stop and mount on the slightly flatter ground there before starting the climb to the first roundabout. You will already be in oxygen debt after the swim and T1, you need to be in an easy gear - and on the small chainring too.

Once you are mounted it&#039;s a short rise up past the BIC (Bournemouth International Centre) on your left and then you hit the roundabout which leads into Priory Road.






If the uphill mount and then the first rise to the roundabout wasn&#039;t enough to get the heart rate up a notch or two then what you see when you get to Priory Road will certainly make it jump! The climb is only around 800m in total but you go up 43m in that time -- see what we meant about gear choice? Most people will do this section in the small chainring and use a 23 or 25 sprocket, anything bigger and you&#039;re going to hurt.






Section 2: the A35 
The road now flattens out and there are two roundabouts (second exit at both, follow signs for Ringwood) and you then drop down a short section of dual carriageway to pick up the main A35. From here it&#039;s classic time trial: stay left but be aware that there are several exits in the urban stretch and cars have been known to pass and then turn in... Once you reach Littledown you&#039;re into the countryside and heading gently up to the Ringwood area. Get nice and aero and get the legs going. The course isn&amp;rsquo;t dead flat, but it&#039;s definitely not hilly. There is one small climb which is about two miles long and rises a hundred meters. Stay low and push through it. There are patches of road here which have just been re-laid, but not all of the dual carriage way. Watch out for road kill and stray twigs.






When you get to the end of the dual carriageway there&#039;s a big roundabout over the top of the A31 and you take the third (right) exit for Ringwood. About 50 metres down the road is a bus stop and a big green road sign showing a slip road for Verwood and Matchams, you need to stay left and exit on this slip road. The T junction at the bottom comes up quickly and you may not see the sign until it is right in front of you. You are going to make a right turn here - it will be marshalled for the race but obviously if this is a practice ride you&#039;ll need to take care.
Don&#039;t make the mistake of going back up the slip road onto the A31 again - you need to go through the tunnel and as soon as you are in the daylight you&#039;ll need to make another right hand turn. The traffic coming down off the A31 may be moving quite fast so take care and also be aware of the small car park here as this can shed loose gravel onto the road. There is a finger post for Matchams on the turn itself.
NOTE: sometimes the bike route does go down to the next exit (Ringwood proper) and loop through the roundabout there but the Matchams variant, despite the two right turns, is a quieter option and avoids the heavy A31 traffic. 






You now go up a small rise back onto the dual carriage way and stay left to filter back onto the Wessex Way (A35) at the big roundabout. From this point it&#039;s pretty much downhill all the way back to Bournemouth. The simple route is to retrace your steps (the exit you want is the one AFTER the Standard Life building) but on race day the route will be determined by which bit of road the council wants the return traffic on - you don&#039;t normally come back down Priory Road! You will, however, end up at that roundabout and then drow back down towards the seafront. The dismount line is set up at the green gates which you can see just after the bus stop. This is exactly opposite the place where you got on - don&#039;t even think about trying to cross the road!! There&#039;s always a bit of a scramble here because, as soon as you are off the bike you have to run back down a ramp to T2. Shoes off is the best advice...
Apr&amp;eacute;s ride
Bournemouth&#039;s seafront is littered with fast food outlets but there are a couple of nicer coffee shops set back in the gardens behind the overpass and there are some passable caf&amp;eacute;s up the hill opposite the BIC (which is also probably the best place to park). 
]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Route of the Month: Windsor]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_1998.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[This month we take in a classic ride round the Berkshire countryside: the Windsor Triathlon bike course. Starting and finishing at the foot of Windsor Castle, it seems a deceptively easy ride but there&#039;s over 900 feet of elevation to be gained along the way which can put a dent in those legs before you tackle the run up Castle Hill three times!

The route was ridden for us by regular columnist John Levison along with Hillingdon Triathletes club mates Dave Wardle and Steve Gardner. Because the event has both a full distance and a sprint distance race they broke the bike route down into three sections using the Garmin&#039;s lap function so while the standard distance course is all three &#039;laps&#039;,  the sprint distance is only lap 1 plus lap 3.



A full map of the course is available on the Human Race website as a downloadable PDF and we have also processed the Garmin route into a KML file that you can load into Google Earth for a full &amp;quot;fly through&amp;quot;.

Section 1 (all) 
The bike route starts on a mount line in Goswell Road, immediately outside the main gates to Alexandra Gardens and goes under the Slough to Windsor railway bridge to the King Edward Court roundabout. During the race riders returning from the course will be coming across the roundabout as well so you will need to watch the other approach for oncoming bikes. Turn right at the roundabout heading away from the town down Arthur Road. There are two sets of lights along here, both will be controlled on race day, before you reach the Windsor Relief Road. Go across the roundabout and pick up the A308 Maidenhead Road.

100 yards into the road, just past the petrol station, there is a mini roundabout with a raised kerb which needs to be taken sensibly.

Once past this you can put the hammer down and head out past the Windsor Racecourse, the Squires garden centre roundabout and then on past Bray Studios towards the M4 and Maidenhead. This section is slightly up hill all the way and is fairly open and exposed -- you are heading into any prevailing wind. Once through Bray there is a mini roundabout under the M4 and then you come to the roundabout at the end of the A303M spur. Take the first exit which is the A330 Ascot Road. On race day the roundabout is often coned to allow bikes a clear run through but obviously traffic coming from the right does have priority!!

The road rises at this point to cross back over the M4 and then drops down into Holyport. The road is fairly narrow here and there are several bends where you might be tempted to pass using the &amp;quot;wrong&amp;quot; side of the road - remember that the course is open to traffic and if you can&#039;t see what&#039;s coming then it&#039;s foolish to be tempted. Leaving Holyport behind the road climbs gently through Stud Green and then crosses the ridge to drop back down to the end of the section at the Drift Road roundabout.

Section 2 (full only) 
Full distance athletes will go straight across here on the A330 while the sprint distance course turns left into Drift Road and heads for home. If you look left during the race you will see other bikes approaching the roundabout coming up Drift Road but you have about 7&amp;frac12; miles to go before you get to that point!

The full distance course is now heading to the top of the hill and, although it&#039;s hardly a climb in any real sense, there&#039;s a definite feeling that Windsor&#039;s course is nowhere near as flat as you may have first thought. After the first climb there&#039;s a great downhill section with an &#039;S&#039; bend at the bottom and then it&#039;s straight into a second short climb before dropping down into Maidens Green. This section is like a roller coaster and you want to be carrying momentum rather than struggling so keep the cadence going rather than backing off on the two descents.

As soon as you see the Maidens Green sign on the left-hand verge get ready to turn hard left into Winkfield Lane. If the road conditions allow, you will benefit from being as near the centre line as is safely possible to open up the turn but do remember that you need to stay on the left-hand side of the road after the turn -- ending up as a hood ornament on an oncoming car won&#039;t be any fun...

Winkfield Lane winds through more countryside and has the interesting quirk of not having a central white line for much of its length - however, with numerous properties and small turnings on either side it&#039;s best to keep clearly on the left. Like much of the road around the area it has suffered over the winter and a recent programme of maintenance has left a patchwork of repairs and different surfaces. At the end of Winkfield Lane you will come to a T junction with bikes passing from left to right in front of you. They are on their way home, you will be turned left to head into the infamous Drift Road section.

  
    
    
  

&amp;nbsp;
Drift Road gets its infamy from the fact that, if groups are going to form then this is where it will happen! The road is now generally descending and it&#039;s easy to pick up free speed -- although there are a couple of nasty tight bends -- and, because there are bikes now coming towards you on the other side of the road groups tend to form and then disperse down this section. Because of this, the referees often set up static draftbusters along the road and will catch you both coming and going -- the penalty boards are usually well populated at Windsor!

As you reach the bottom of the slope it becomes very obvious that you&#039;re going to have to pay back that free speed as the road now climbs in a series of small humps before flattening out on the approach to the roundabout that you passed just over 7 miles ago. About 50 metres before the roundabout there is a small layby and here you will be turned through 180&amp;deg; and sent on your way back down Drift Road.

Section 3 (all) 
Anyone doing the sprint distance course and all the full distance riders are now on the same route heading back first down the humps and then  up the steady drag towards the end of Drift Road. At the T junction you will make a left and about 100m later you will enter a roundabout. The sight lines here are not brilliant and although the whole roundabout is marshalled you need to be aware that the major traffic will becoming from your right and has the right of way. Taking care not to cut too close to the central island (that will put you on completely the wrong line for the exit and you&#039;ll clip that nasty little kerb) you take the second exit and head up the last climb of the day, Mount Hill. Once again, this really isn&#039;t much of a climb in real terms but. once it&#039;s done you know that it is, literally, all downhill from here to the end of the bike section.

  
    
    
  
  
    
    
  

Taking the first exit from the roundabout the road slowly opens out into the Great Park and, if you have the time or the inclination, you can see right across to the Castle, Heathrow, Slough and, on a clear day, pretty much into Central London. The road starts to drop away and you can build up an impressive speed down this section. There is a set of traffic lights here for horses to cross the road so don&#039;t assume you&#039;ll have the right of way if they go red! The road does kick up slightly but you should be going fast enough that you don&#039;t even notice and then it flattens out heading stright into the town with the Castle dead ahead. At the &#039;kidney shaped&#039; roundabout you keep to the left, sweeping past Princess Margaret&#039;s Hospital before entering the tricky one way section. As soon as it&#039;s safe you need to move to the right-hand lane as it curves up and round the flats and through another set of lights before dropping back to the Alma Road roundabout.

  
    
    
  

Take the second exit off the roundabout into Alma Road and go past the Police station to the traffic lights where you will be directed right into Clarence Street and then left into Charles Street. You are now approaching the King Edwards Court roundabout and will have other cyclists on the roundabout going right to left in front of you. You need to effectively go straight across and back under the railway arch in Goswell Road.
The bike course doesn&#039;t end on the road, however, as on race day you will turn hard left into Alexandra Gardens on the pavement (there is a ramped entrance) and then follow the tarmac path round the outside of transition to the dismount point at the far end.

Aftermath
Windsor has loads of nice little coffee shops to revive you after the ride; Barry&#039;s Caf&amp;eacute; in Barry Avenue by the River Thames on the other side of Alexandra Gardens is also a traditional meeting place for people doing the route.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Route of the Month: Wimbleball]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_1839.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[This month&amp;rsquo;s Route of the Month is the UK Ironman 70.3 course at Wimbleball in Somerset. The course was ridden for us as a training exercise by Mat Cowdrey and Richard Merry who kindly carried the Garmin Edge 305 unit to get the route data for us.

Matthew is an experienced triathlete at both Ironman and ITU Long Course (the good old fashioned Nice-distance type) and is currently sponsored by Tri-UK. Richard is a member of East Grinstead Tri Club who is making his first step up to Ironman 70.3 from a number of years at Standard distance. Neither had ridden the course before and the following gives their account of the route. Matthew was riding a Giant TCR Trinity with Reynolds DV UK wheels, Oval A900 Upgrade tri bars and an Ultegra 53:39 and 11:25 setup. Richard was riding an Argon 18 Helium with Ultegra 53:39 and 12:27 setup.
The numbers in square brackets [x] refer to locations on the map and represent the major identification points on the route map. You can match these very easily to the map on the MotionBased system which we have included below. Because both riders were wearing their own HRM units we did not record a heart rate trace on the Edge. 
 

Transition [1]

M: As soon as you come out of transition you start going uphill. This sets the scene for the next 20 minutes of riding so make sure you&amp;rsquo;re in a nice small gear and just spin up the first couple of hundred metres. As you hang a right at the end of the lane you start to descend and you&amp;rsquo;re able to pick up a fair bit of speed as you cross the lake. Immediately you&amp;rsquo;re across the lake you start your first sharp climb of the day. I was able to spin this reasonably well in 39/25 and although I stayed seated, the HR did rise a little. From here the road rolls up and down for the next two miles until you get to the junction with the B3190.
R: The initial climb proved a little harder for me although I did remain seated and tried to spin my 27 (a very suitable addition for the weekend!) We did gain over 300ft in this opening section.
Turn left [2]
M: You turn left and have a short hop to the A3224. The road is a little bumpy in places, but nothing out of the ordinary. Just as the road flattens out you take a very sharp turn left [3].
R: An uneventful opportunity to put some air back in my lungs after the first couple of miles.
Left turn [3]
M: After this left turn you can just get it in the big ring and work. Even the uphill pieces feel quite smooth and the rolling nature of the road means that you can maintain good speed as you climb. I spent this entire stretch of road on the tri-bars
As you approach the last piece of this top road you can stay in the big ring and work the bike out of the saddle to the top of the slope before you do a sharp left turn.
R: Overall a pretty flat leg of the loop, no real time lost by not being on a TT bike set-up here and a chance to catch your breath after the initial climb and get some food and drink onboard.

Turn left towards Dulverton/Tiverton [4]

M: After the turn you have a good half a mile of downhill where you can pick up speed nicely, whilst at the same time keeping an eye out for some uneven road surface. You face three short climbs on this stretch of road that it&amp;rsquo;s perfectly possible to take in the big ring although I&amp;rsquo;d probably err on the side of caution and spin up them. You can let the bike go on all of this stretch of road giving you a good lead into the uphills as the road continues to open up in front of you.
R: This 9 mile stretch of the route drops the best part of 1000ft, there are some short, sharp hills but the speed gained means they are just a &amp;ldquo;spoiler&amp;rdquo; to what would be a fantastic descent.

M: The end of this stretch of road is met with a very sharp and descent where you just bleed speed as you have no choice but to be on the brakes. You&amp;rsquo;ll see the descent coming to your right as you ride through some heavy tree cover so you should have fair warning. At the bottom of this descent you take a 90-degree left turn.
R: This downhill and the turns to negotiate at the bottom mean you have no choice but to cover the brakes, any speed gained on the drop down will have been lost by the time you reach the turn onto the A396 so sit back and enjoy.
Steep downhill then sharp left [5]

M: Once on the A396 you get to enjoy what is probably the only truly flat piece of road on the course. Enjoy it while it lasts.
As you come in to Exbridge you approach a very small village with a pink/orange sided house on the other side of the road. As you get level with the house you have a blind left hand turn to make at Wilson&amp;rsquo;s farm.

Sharp, hidden left turn [6]

M: Ahead of you is the first of the real climbs. You can see the hedge line ahead of you as you start to climb and it&amp;rsquo;s the pylons at the top that you&amp;rsquo;re aiming for. I was able to spin this one to start with but was soon out of the saddle with a 39/25. Although steep it&amp;rsquo;s over pretty much as soon as it started and you&amp;rsquo;re on the downhill.

R: The first real shock to the system, I was spinning away happily under the crackling power cables when the road kicked up a little more, maybe for only 4-500m but enough to get me up out of the saddle and my heart rate up to 180bpm, about 90% HR max.
The first real climb of the day.
M: After what is a very short downhill you get to a T-junction where you turn left. You&amp;rsquo;re soon into a slight incline that goes on for half a mile or so and again I was able to spin this out with a 39/21.
Left towards Morebath [7]
 
M: As the road progress round to the right you pass a driveway with two birds of prey at the end. This is a good place to take in some nutrition as you have about two minutes to the main climb of the day. The road bends left and then left again and over to your right you get to see the 14% hill that everyone&amp;rsquo;s told you about.
Time for a quick feed
M: It starts out pretty steady, and as you go past the 14% sign there&amp;rsquo;s a short piece of out the saddle work before you&amp;rsquo;re back seated again and spinning it out. Then the road bends left and the real hill starts. The steep bit comes in two waves with the second part being slightly less severe than the first, but as it naturally comes after the first it doesn&amp;rsquo;t feel a lot better. My max HR on the bike is 179 and I hit 175 and 176 respectively on my two laps. Once the steep stuff&amp;rsquo;s over you continue to climb, but now you&amp;rsquo;re just spinning away.
R: The mere sight of the 14% sign had my HR climbing however it&amp;rsquo;s the pitch that kicks up that is that steep I am guessing, more time out of the saddle on the 27 got me hauled up to the top. With a highest HR recorded of 189 (95% MHR) 500ft of altitude has been gained back. Like the first main climb it&amp;rsquo;s the steep pitches that catch you out.
That climb

M: Once on the downhill you can pick up speed quite quickly and again the road just opens up in front of you, but as soon as the road starts to climb, get in the small ring and start spinning or you&amp;rsquo;ll get caught out (as I did on the first lap). You get to the top of this incline at Haddon Cross and then you&amp;rsquo;ve got a nice long downhill piece coming up. The worst is over.
The downhill gets as steep as 17% and unfortunately you don&amp;rsquo;t get to take full advantage of it due to the narrow nature of the bends and poor road surface. Then you&amp;rsquo;re left with about a 3km climb to the end of the lap. There&amp;rsquo;s nothing nasty about this last climb, it just comes at the end of the lap after a lot of hard climbing and you&amp;rsquo;ll need to get spinning again.
At the end of the second lap you turn back down the road to the lake. You obviously already know this piece of road from the other direction, but it&amp;rsquo;s a lot more fun on the way home. The lake road was a little unstable at speed as there was a bit of a crosswind, then there&amp;rsquo;s a short climb and you&amp;rsquo;re back at the entrance to transition.
R: Make the most of the downhill run into the lake (you drop around 500ft again) Enjoy the views, get a drink, but don&amp;rsquo;t however switch off. There is one final climb before transition, which will shake you from your revelry.

Left turn [8]

M: In all I found the course quite good. The road surface was poor in places, but the majority was OK. The first two thirds of the lap are pretty quick and I was able to stay in the big ring for a very long time that came as a nice surprise. The last third is hilly and nasty and needs to be taken gently the first time round. The hills are definitely steep, but with the exception of the 14% climb they&amp;rsquo;re all pretty short. Oh, and if you get the chance to look, the scenery&amp;rsquo;s wonderful.
R: I finally realised I had not bitten off more than I can chew! I will get round this course, lumpy though it is. The road conditions are no worse than those around the Surrey Hills lanes and the scenery is stunning. Be prepared to work hard on the second half of the lap and if, like me it&amp;rsquo;s your first attempt at a 70.3 maybe pack a 27, or even a compact. They won&amp;rsquo;t suffer from lack of use!.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Route of the Month: Box Hill]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_1771.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[This month&amp;rsquo;s route is the famous Ballbuster bike course around Box Hill in Surrey. Traditionally home to a season-closer duathlon in November organised by Human Race, the hill is used by countless cyclists every weekend as a training ground. While there is nothing too taxing about a circuit of the hill, it&amp;rsquo;s actually much harder to ride clockwise than in the anti-clockwise direction we describe here, it does provide for all the basic skills in using your gears, developing good bike control in a fast descent and, as an added bonus, there&amp;rsquo;s a superb tea shop at the top of the Zig Zag section! Plus, as it&amp;rsquo;s a circular route, it&amp;rsquo;s pretty much impossible to get lost so you won&amp;rsquo;t be needing the Garmin&amp;rsquo;s navigation functions!
We put  two Garmin units into the field for the first ever Spring Ballbuster; an Edge 305 to give us the bike course that we&amp;rsquo;ll be discussing here, and a Forerunner 305 to capture the whole event for posterity. Both traces have been uploaded to MotionBased and you can see the results at the end of this article.
Because the run course duplicates the bike course we are using the data from the Edge 305 to provide the commentary as that gives a clearer picture  -- the extra run laps come before and after the three bike laps. We should also point out that the first 100m or so of the trace shows a marked deviation from the road - this is because the bikes are racked in a field behind the main car park and the atheletes have to run across this to get to the road!
Although the route starts at the top of the Zig Zag section, this is not the top of Box Hill itself and so the route rises through the village of Box Hill and the numerous mobile home sites before turning downhill to a very sharp left-hand junction, where the road joins the Headley Common Road. From here it&amp;rsquo;s a slight rise across the Common before making another left-hand turn down into Headley. Once through the village the road drops sharply away on a reverse camber into a left then right turn and entices you to descend. Unfortunately, you now need to make a sharp left-hand turn to pick up Lodge Bottom Road and this is where the bike handling skills come into play!
You&amp;rsquo;ll get your maximum speed on this section, but you need to be aware that this is a fairly narrow lane and there can be both oncoming traffic and, depending on the weather, a significant amount of debris from the trees that line the route. At the bottom of the hill where the lane joins the Old London Road you make a left turn, be aware that there is almost always loose gravel here. The road now goes straight into a short climb which brings you to another left turn by a cottage where you start the famous  Zig Zag itself.
The first section of the Zig Zag is the steepest and climbs, first between high banks and then under trees, to the first hairpin. From here you work your way up the side of the hill, going first to the left and then the right, on a fairly constant gradient. The middle corner is the hardest and you need to keep as wide as possible to even out the change in gradient. The third section takes you up into the woods, with a clear view below you of other riders working their way up the slope, and then kicks up slightly to bring you out in front of the National Trust buildings. The climb is all about keeping the momentum up and you should find that, after the first section, you should be able to build a steady rhythm and even begin to accellerate towards the final corner.
The loop is almost exactly 8 miles, the Ballbuster race does it twice round on foot - once before and once after the three times round on the bike. The secret to a successful race is not to go too hard on the first run or the first lap of the bike -- it&amp;rsquo;s all too easy to over-do it and blow up on the final run lap. Consistent and efficient climbing and good handling skills are the secret -- plus a considerable degree of nerve to make up time on the descent!
If you look at the three bike loops ridden by Mick Barnes and compare the heart rate traces you&amp;rsquo;ll see that each time up the Zig Zag the maximum rate recorded is lower than the one before -- remember that he had run the 8 mile loop before starting to do the bike! 
Bike loop only ridden by Mick Barnes


Complete race by Gary Blesson
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