Tour Divide 2016

[voodoo_simon]

Cheers Greg and Mr storm

[GregMay]

Booked - Gatwick > Calgery 2nd August. Phoenix > Gatwick 12th October. Should be long enough for my weak old legs

Nice one centurion :)

[johnnystorm]

And so it begins.....

As I mooch down the M25 to Gatwick I now remember that my camelbak bladder is still in the freezer. Calgary shopping list of bear spray and a bladder then. D'oh.

[GregMay]

D'oh indeed.

[johnnystorm]

Off to a good start...

I'll have another Bacon roll then...

Screenshot_20160603-064116.jpg (25.74 KiB) Viewed 3930 times

[mountainbaker]

Get what you pay for I guess!

[GregMay]

Westjet were always vaguely exciting when I flew with them..but that was 15 years ago.

[johnnystorm]

Westjet were always vaguely exciting when I flew with them..but that was 15 years ago.

They only charged me 13 quid for the bike and check-in and security was over in seconds. So, I'll forgive them for now!

[GregMay]

£13 flip! That's great.

[whitestone]

£13 flip! That's great.

That's what the baggage handler's mate thought as well

£13 sounds seriously cheap - we were charged £26 per flight per bike to get to Peru in 2005.

[GregMay]

Working on some stats while I whittle away my last day in the lab. Having access to a DXA scanner has its perks. Sadly, no superpowers as of yet.

Lean mass changes over the past year - focused effort to get a correct balance of weight to muscle - I've an issue with either being too light and weak, or to heavy and fat. Unfortunately my genetics appear to like only these to forms. No changes in bone mineral content (BMC) which was nice, always a worry when you're focusing on trying to force a change in your physiology. Main aim was to drop fat mass with as minimal effect on lean mass - target, achieved.


Fat mass changes over the past year - Feb was when I started actually focusing on training, pushing harder, little to zero food on bike rides <3hrs and a lot of back to back evening/morning fasted rides. Hence the rapid slope of the total mass curve. Slight loss in muscle mass was addressed as the year went on, with a focus on muscle hypertrophy in the last two months, hence the total mass increas, but no increase in fat mass. Strong + as lean as I'm willing to go in.


Specifics for those who wonder how this data comes out:


Isn't science great.

[Richard G]

Nice. I do a fair amount of weight training and I find it hard to get the balance right for cycling. I've just accepted that if I don't want to look like a cyclist, I'll just have to live with going a bit slower... or training a LOT harder.

Where do you get your DEXA scans done?

[whitestone]

Greg, what's the RH y-axis in the second graph?

[Richard G]

Looks like body fat percentage to me.

[GregMay]

Where do you get your DEXA scans done?

About 5m from my desk

[GregMay]

Greg, what's the RH y-axis in the second graph?

Secondary axis for the lower values - ie the BF% , Fat Mass (kg) and bone mineral content (kg)

[Richard G]

Jealous now. lol

[GregMay]

Jealous now. lol

It's only useful for gross changes TBH, also, playing with X-rays all the time = not cool for your future.

I also have an MRI and pQCT within poking distance.

[Richard G]

Maybe some chance of superpowers though? I've seen the films... it's usually just a misconfiguration or accident away from awesomeness.

[GregMay]

Hopefully, I'm aiming for my ability to be that of eating a lot of crappy processed food and not getting intestinal issues.

[Richard G]

I find I've got that covered through years of practice.

[GregMay]

Trackleaders updated with riders names. 150 for the GD going SoBo.

[voodoo_simon]

Trackleaders updated with riders names. 150 for the GD going SoBo.

An impressive turnout!

Are you on Facebook so we/I can keep up to date with your race?

[GregMay]

Don't use Friendface, left it 5 years ago - on Twitter at greg_may_ and Instagram at gregory.c.may - probably won't be doing too much media TBH. Race innit'

[sean_iow]

Bit of an odd question and I'll understand why if noone answers, but is johnnystorm's real name Nigel? As there's not a johnnystorm on the start list. I don't know him in person and that's not just a random guess, but I did buy a frame off the johnnystorm from singletrackworld some years ago and he was Nigel on the emails so assume he's one and the same? There's too many riders to follow them all but would like to keep up with the progress of those of you from here who are competing.