The season
Last year the aim was to peak for Early May. This year I have a nearly 3 week holiday in April and a University course to complete (alongside a job and being a parent) so it was fairly clear something was going to have to go.

Fortunately the local crit series has obligingly put on a series of Cat 4 race nights starting mid May. This has meant that my base training started in January and is running through till April with the ‘top end stuff’ coming post holiday and the racing starting when the University work is coming to an end.

The training plan
I have been struck by Graeme Obree’s ideas about how to develop and maintain good training habits alongside enjoying your cycling.

He suggests that the only training you need is 2 sessions a week; one short and very (very) intense and one longer (up to 2 1/2 hours) and just below very hard. He suggests if you are not recovered you should not attempt them. Given that we have some longer rides in March (The Tour of Flanders being one of them!) and again in May (La Squadra Fondo) I have maintained endurance rides. Initially I was doing 3 hours, this month 4 – 5 hours and next month 6 hour rides.

I am enjoying having 2 hard sessions a week and focus on them intensely. Everything else is just ‘fun’.

Training partner
Adam is back cycling and as his goal is also to do some Mallory racing then we have a timescale in common. Going out with chain gangs, in my experience, means that you have you compromise in some way. Obree suggests your training sessions should be done solo. I have found the training ride done with Adam pushes me beyond the effort I would put in. He is faster than me (even though he is returning) and so it’s an interesting dynamic. He also pushes the longer rides at a pace I wouldn’t normally attain.

Kit
I have dispensed with the training bike and now have a single speed for commuting and my race bike which is now dual purpose. This is achieved with a set of training wheels and the racing wheels carefully packed away. I couldn’t see the point of having my best/favourite bike locked up and gradually descending into a load of retro parts with little use. I’ll be prepared to be proved wrong on this if I turn up to race and something is worn out. Also the racing bike, as a weekend longer ride bike, has no proper mudguards.

Obree talks about using SPD pedals. I have these on my commuting bike so that, for those times when I get double punctures, I can still walk to work. On my race bike I have some Look pedals and carbon soled shoes; I am not convinced I need this complication of 2 sets of shoes, especially as now I am using my race shoes at the weekend the carbon is getting a lot of scratching/dents etc!

Both Adam and I have coincidentally bought Mavic Infinity H2O jackets . SO far I can report they are great. Good waterproofing, white and visible, lots of vents AND they need no reproofing just a quick wash in the machine. I am intrigued to see how they wear.

So sleep for me now; I have a 1 1/2 hour ‘fasted’ hard ride to cope with!

Moderation isn’t as simple as just allowing club officials to edit/delete comments. To provide an effective system it will also cope need to cope with disputes that arise. We need to be able to preserve the change history of Posts, Rides, their associated comments and indeed every item that a user can create and edit within the system. Complaints and disputes over moderation can then be dealt with with a full view of the facts available to all.

As I’m sure you can imagine this is not a simple task but at the same time it’s not a huge change and does fit with some of the behind-the-scenes changes we were planning to make to the system. We’ve just had to bring that
work forward. So, this will delay features we were working on but the whole system will be better for it.

Most of all it will provide all of you an effective means of ensuring your members are communicating with each other and representing the club in an appropriate fashion.

This also coincides nicely with a recent change in my working arrangements. I’ll now be able to devote some proper daylight hours to developing the app and turning it into the first class organisation and communication tool it can be.

Adrian and Adam discuss The Obree Way, pubs and racing plans.

It’s not something we want to do but we were approached directly by a member of the said club to do something about comments made on the site which, the user felt, contravened his rights to use a bunch website without messages deemed ‘hateful’ or ‘discriminatory’ affecting him, as quoted from our terms and conditions of use.

We were very concerned about these comments. The first suggested that an ethnic group should be gassed and the second that being a gay man equals a lack of athletic ability.

The writer may not know that the ‘Roma’ are an ethnic group that suffered horrifically at the hands of the Nazis in World War II and, alongside Jews, many thousands were executed.

It is hard to believe though, in 2012, that there is no understanding of the pernicious and damaging effects of homophobic comments. Graeme Obree’s life story and his battle with suicide and sexuality must be known to someone who is a cyclist, surely?

There has been a link made between internet comments, suicide and young men struggling to come to terms with their sexuality. The subsequent comments added to our concern regarding the potential for this ‘humour’ to cause upset or worse.

We had thought that the user had been previously warned and unknown to us the club executive were considering how to deal with this issue but given the direct request and our concern we warned the user about making this type of comment, publicly. Harsh, hurtful? Maybe, but the comments were equal to that response in our view.

One of the advantages of the bunch system is that it turns the club discussion into the front page of the club’s website; a fantastic advert for clubs when discussions are filled with humour, multi-media and the promise of excellent cycling. It can’t be a good advert to prospective (Gay? Romany? Liberal thinking?) members or to funding bodies to see comments such as those discussed.

This is a free country that believes that everybody has the right to hold whatever opinion they want; it doesn’t mean that it can be aired in whichever way individuals with prejudicial views might see fit.

We don’t want the job of teaching people how to write in a public space and in the future when there are thousands of bunch websites (of course there will be!) we won’t be able to personally ensure that users adhere to sensible guidelines .

Hopefully though, by then, people won’t be contacting us directly about concerns so we won’t have to intervene and it will be down to the clubs’ executive committees and for that reason we advocate a clear policy and system on moderation and we are going to make the editing of members comments by club leaders one of the development priorities.

Bunch are really pleased to be working with Shawn from Poppy and Pint Velo and Tim from VC Bread and Bitter on ‘La Squadra’.

This 100 mile ‘Big Team Day out’ (at least we have some Italians telling us it means that!) will be, like the Giro, a crazy blend of mad hills and strada bianchi. The route will be a 100 mile loop around Nottingham starting and ending at The Poppy and Pint Public House in West Bridgford. Winning isn’t just about getting your 4th rider from a team of 6 over the line. Time bonuses will be awarded for those riding with a style and attitude that will appeal to the tifosi. Think steel, white kit, crocheted gloves, casquettes and anything else along these lines you might come up with. Riding fixed may  be deemed stylish but it will be hard to know until the identity of the style cognoscenti are announced. We do know that time will not be deducted for drinking coffee/peroni/grappa at the designated check in points.

There will be a small entry fee to cover the cost of coffee to begin and food at the end of the ride at The P n P.

Entry will be by invite only because of  restrictions on the envisaged route and space at The Poppy and Pint.

Club Email Address

You can now setup a club email address from which emails will come from. There is a verification process that requires you to confirm you have control over that email address. We’re using Amazon Web Services for our email sending currently so the verification email will come from then.

Just go to Club Details, enter your desired email address and follow the instructions.

Club Profile Name

While I’m sure you all loved remembering your unique club number, we felt that your club url should at least be able to have your club name in it. Or indeed any other name your have for your club.

Again go to Club Details to set this up.

and the new url becomes

This will automatically be used in all links, to your club going forward. Much easier to remember and share.

I ride to work when I can (3 or 4 days a week) . I cycle to my office and have a shower and then get on with work.

My ‘other job’ (at Bunch) suddenly turned into something other than testing Adam’s coding creations when we scheduled a meeting with VC Bread and Bitter, one of our invited clubs. I am au fait with city riding, I think, but suddenly being tail end Charlie to Adam, who rides the Nottingham roads every day, made me think that even race training was not going to get me through the kind of gaps he was squeezing through.

He does have several more broken bones than me though.

In a kind of fakenger meets Richard Briers routine and after a looooong climb we arrived in the party city that is Mapperley Top. Behind the pubs chugging along to the sounds of 80s disco we found the Bread and Bitter. A pleasant ‘boozer’ with exposed brick walls, friendly staff and clientele and a good choice of beers.

Sadly, strangely or steadfastly I was not drinking as I was out riding the next day. Adam was also riding but he didn’t seem to care about that or the 10 minute fast descent that would follow his pintage.

We met some of the key figures in this club; Tim ‘Belgian by marriage’ Bladon, Steve ‘never on a school night’ Jones, and Adam ‘Style’ Tranter (our pseudonyms not theirs) and learned how this is a club made for a group of like minded people riding their bikes for fun. They seem to also ride them very fast at points as well when they join with local TTs and training rides.

Tim explained how conversations about cycling at the bar drew certain people and, when they realised they all rode bikes, they decided to ride together. Their club’s inaugural ride involved 5 pints. They have a hard hill night throughout the winter, club holidays over to the hills of Wales via Shropshire and regularly go to Tour de Flandres. This along with their pub HQ and ‘no drop’ Sunday ride means it is a nice club to be in!

The latest in Pub Hi Jinks as VC B and B raise money for our 'Heroes'

They have used a variety of methods to organize the club; Facebook, email, text and the pub noticeboard but, as Tim said, the Bunch app ‘just does it’. We learned that we need to allow people to log in via Facebook and this is on the agenda.

Sober I rolled down the hill and prayed that I wouldn’t be in A and E with another Adam broken bone.

Club Rides

When we built the system we did it from the point of view of everyone being in a club but early feedback has told us this isn’t always the case. People were wanting to sign up to find a club or just ride with their friends.

So now, rather than working out the club a ride is for based on the user’s membership, you create a club ride from within a club. It will still appear in lists outside the club (future development) but is very much part of the club in the way Discussions are.

This has the added benefit of allowing us to apply any club branding to ride pages.

Club Colours

One of the club features is to make Rides and Discussions official and thus stand out from the rest. In the standard system these show as green (rides) and yellow (discussions).

Now, those clubs with the full package can now specify the colours to make it a little more personal. Club admins can use the Theme section Club Details page to set these.

Profiles

More fun this one. You can now create a profile so people can learn a little more about you. They can also see what rides you have coming up. We’ll be adding more to the profile going forward and would welcome any suggestions.