thesecretcyclist.com

It’s been a long time since my last post and there have been quite a few rides and experiences in the interim.

First thing is a summary of 2015

I failed to hit my 6,000km target for the full year 2015 by 235km.  Pretty gutted with that – must try harder in 2016.

My highest climb was at Showkah through the hills.  This was also my longest ride at 115km.  This my most enjoyable ride – a real challenge that I managed to get through, good fun and with some great new friends.

My worst experience was my second Spinney’s Dubai 92 – a very well organised event let down by some of the people on hire bikes who had obviously never ridden before, let alone in a group ride, and who were definitely not supposed to be setting off as part of group B…!

2016 so far….

I’ve set myself a target of 8,000km for this year – a bit ambitious given that I missed out on my 2015 target but I’ve been bitten by the bug and my kms per month increased significantly at the end of 2015 and if I continue at that level 8k should be easy… Let’s see.

Last week’s Friday morning ride was an interesting one.  After a quick blast along the Stick and Loop and a coffee at Zad’s it was time to head back down the Stick to the car park.  Here is where the fun started with two cars driving down the cycle track at full speed until one had to swerve to miss on coming riders.  I wasn’t close enough to see what happened – thankfully no one appeared to be was hurt but quite a few people were pretty angry!!  This isn’t the first time I’ve seen a near miss and the new coming together of cyclists and cars as they head out to the Al Qudra Lakes is a bit of a concern.

Best ride so far this year has been the climb up Jabal Al Jais – I’ve done this twice already and it has been great fun and a real group ride experience, making sure that we all look after each other to get to the top.

What’s next?

I need to keep the focus on my 250km per week target (I know this is more than 8k for the year but I will be taking some time off at some stage).

I am sure there will be some upgrades to my bike this year.  I keep being advised to get a set of new wheels with everyone telling me how these would make a massive difference to my riding.  I’ve been advised that a pair of Zipp 404 wheels will do the trick.  Any recommendations would be very welcome.

I also think that 2016 will be the year that I jazz up my sock collection…  very sad!  There are some great socks out there, especially Sako7socks, and I think I will be joining the craze albeit a little late…  A great pair of socks will also help me show off my new Fizik R1B Uomo shoes that arrived last week.  These things are stunning in terms of how they feel, perform and look.  I will send a full update after a few 100km+ rides.

It’s a holiday today in Dubai for Islamic New Year.  I therefore decided to take it easy and set my alarm for a 4:00am start in order to wake up and head out to Shawka (near Fujairah) for an 85km cycle in the hills.

This was great fun and my first experience of riding on the roads, in such a large and friendly group and with support vehicles front and back to help keep us all moving and safe.

We climbed a total of 1,028m which is about 900m more than I have ever done in Dubai before.  The weather was a little chilly when we started but as we headed back to the car park next to the Sharjah-Kalba Road the sun was on our backs and the temperature was heating up nicely.

Great fun, great scenery and a really nice change to do some climbing – my legs still hurt!

This week I headed out to the cycle track at Nad Al Sheba for a few Kms on Monday evening straight after work. This is a great facility and demonstrates just how fortunate we are in Dubai to have dedicated tracks that allow us to cycle in a safe environment away from the open roads.

Those who live here will know that at this time of year sunset is around 6:00pm in Dubai and it gets pretty dark pretty quickly. At Nad Al Sheba as the sun sets the solar lights around the track turn on. Whilst these are great they are certainly not floodlights and there are still some very dark stretches and here is where the fun starts.  As I mentioned above these dedicated facilities are here to help keep cyclists safe. So why do so many cyclists choose to make things so difficult? On Monday there were many people without any lights on their bikes, many wearing all black, two people riding the wrong way round (clockwise), and one group riding four abreast with no lights.

Cycling the wrong way round is thoughtless and four abreast is pretty poor form. I understand wearing black and I do this myself on some rides – the black bib shorts and jersey combo helps to hide the many extra kilos that I am carrying. No lights is pretty dangerous and especially as you approach the three vehicle crossing points at Nad Al Sheba and the very helpful security guards struggle in the darkness to see you. Let’s try to make it easier for them.

Above and beyond all of these, the biggest issue for me is those riders who choose not to wear helmets. I appreciate in other parts of the world there is freedom of choice and many debates exist regarding the pros and cons of cycle helmets. But here in Dubai on all tracks the wearing of a helmet is compulsory. Not wearing a helmet appears to be a growing issue and I have started to notice this more and more and there looks to be two main categories, 1) those that are new to the sport and don’t know that they need to wear a helmet and 2) those not new to the sport who are aiming for the cool retro bereretta look of their cycling heroes.

The facilities provided are here to keep us all safe, I therefore don’t understand why some cyclists are going out of their way to make these facilities less safe. If there was to be a serious accident we could all lose access to all of these facilities, so please wear a helmet and when you are out there and you see someone not wearing a helmet a loud but polite reminder to ‘where a helmet!’ should be the responsibility of all of us.