New start?

[guest18]

Talking of new starts, just finished my first turbo session of the new year 
For Steve L's benefit... (because he will understand the pain involved lol) ;

6min 30 warm up

10 mins of over/under intervals (ie over sustainable heartrate then under and repeat)

3 minutes of "rest" (ie continuous light effort)

3 x 8 minute "climbs" (with frequent short sprints inside the 8 min period) along with 4 minutes recovery riding after each, increased effort level on each culminating in a max effort 30sec sprint at the end of the last "climb".

4 min warm down

That's flushed out a fair bit of christmas eating and drinking! 

[guest7]

I hope you put a towel over the top tube... it's amazing what sweat can do to a steel bike.

GC

[guest18]

My roadbike is alloy 


which is just as well  (drip...drip...drip...)

But yes, I did 

[Steve Lake]

completely and utterly impressed smudge!!.... not been near bike/turbo since the '10' on nyd.... probably won't be 'til the weekend...well done mate... keep it up

[guest18]

Thanks  but really no need to be impressed, I just had to grit my teeth and do what the video told me to. I was following the Sufferfest training video "angels". I think I'm going to get some more of their vids, they're a hammering (I'm feeling muscles I didn't know I had just now lol) but max benefit for the time invested 
The video list is here btw:
http://www.thesufferfest.com/video-sufferfests/
But I wouldn't download them over a wireless connection, they're *big* lol
(damhikijkok  )

[guest7]

What curious metals your roadster seems to be made of...

Oh no, it's a very rare 1938 Hurley Pugh 'Featherlite'

From (made up in my head) Wikipedia
"...Hurley Pugh were very early adopters of aluminium as a frame material, initially using it for their trademark umbrella rack on all gents models from 1927. The firm was impressed with the results and, emboldened by the favourable pulic response, they decided to instigate a development project to assess the feasibility of making the bicycle frame entirely of aluminium.

"The first difficulty was to obtain aluminium in suitable grades and tube diameters. However, during a trade meeting at the German Embassy in late 1933, Lionel Hurley had a chance meeting with the head the Dornier aircraft construction company, Gunter Schmidt. Due to strict restrictions on German aircraft manufacture after the first world war Dornier found themselves with a massive surplus of aluminium wing struts of exactly the dimensions required for the bicycle project. The one drawback was that each had been stamped with a symbol that Herr Schmidt assured Lionel was a Hindu good luck charm.

"In June 1934 Hurley Pugh unveiled the revolutionary 'Featherlight' model at a joint launch in London and Berlin. Although the British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald had declined an invitation to attend the launch at the Crystal Palace, the German Chancellor, Herr Hitler, was photographed riding the new bicycle under the Brandenburg Gate. This image came to haunt Frederick Pugh, but Lionel Hurley was reputed to have a framed copy of the picture in his bedroom until his death in 1953.

"Sales of the new model were initially very slow, but some early racing successes helped allay public distrust of the new material and by 1937 the Featherlight sports bicycle was on the brink of outselling the company's more mundane ride-to-work models. In fact, at the 1937 Earls Court Bicycle Show, Hurley Pugh announced a new aluminium model as their flagship sports touring machine, the 'Gossamer'. But the company's optimism was misplaced. On August 28th 1939 the Times carried the banner headline "Nazi aggressors poised to invade Poland on English bicycles". In a reciprocal arrangement HP had been supplying bikes to be resold under the Dornier brand in Germany and Dornier had indeed secured a contract to supply bicycles to German army reconnaissance units. This deal had been helped by the fact that each tube of the HP Featherlight was stamped with the swastika that Gunter Schnidt had, in 1933, assured Lionel Hurley was a good luck symbol.
With the coming of war, sales of the Featherlight and Gossamer crashed and by 1941 it was estimated that over 95% of the models already made and sold had been sent off as scrap metal to make spitfires.

"The company seemed on the brink of collapse until another of Lionel Hurley's famed chance meetings, at a party in the Savoy Hotel's bomb shelter in June 1940. A General regaled the party with an account of a recent visit to a regiment housed at a distant barracks at Ty Croes, Anglesey. He had been horrified to find that his intended transport around the base was a spartan open-topped Bren Gun carrier. He turned to Lionel and said "The bally thing didn't even have an umbrella holder". Within three weeks Lionel had lobbied the MOD and been awarded a contract to make the first 1,000 umbrella holders for army staff cars. By 1945 over 2 million umbrella holders had been produced. This contract, along with a fortunate sale of the brand names 'Featherlite' and 'Gossamer' to the London Rubber Company, secured the company's future."