Wattclub

What is Wattclub?

Wattclub is a special place, a group more secretive than the Free masons. A guild of middle aged men who, for a multitude of reasons, have acquired a power meter for their biclismo obsession.
It is a place where guys sit around in their lycra and talk in codes of NP, TSS, W/KG with some added chat about CTL, ATL and PMC's added on for effect.

For me, it all started when I was still getting smashed at the start of every single XC race, despite kidding myself that I had been training for the intensity and mayhem of an Ulster Senior 3 race start. I soon realised after moving up to S2 that I could no longer rely on my aerobic fitness to drag me back into a race that I had let slip off into the distance in the first minute every week.

So I started doing some real hard intervals. Except I would go so hard I couldnt last more than 20 seconds of a 1 minute effort without collapsing over the bars exhausted. So I tried to pace the interval a little more controlled but would get to the end of the minute and feel ok - where I was aiming to have the over the bars collapsed feeling. I decided I needed help. I became the proud and secretive owner of a powertap. Secretive until I finally decided I was keeping it and had the courage to tell the wife I owned it.

What is the first rule of Wattclub?

In my best Tyler Durden voice... "You do NOT talk about Wattclub".
Unless to a fellow member.
Nobody outside the ring wants to know how many watts you averaged in the inter-club 10 mile TT to the turn, or what your normalized power was for your latest A4 smash-a-thon road race. Honestly. Their eyes will glaze over and you will get labelled as another WATTMAN. A stem Starer. A person obsessed with numbers rather than the ability to actually race.
Just Don't Do It. OK!?

What Can Wattclub do for you?

Nothing but inflate or crush your ego.
No longer will you wonder if you were quick because of the wind, or whether you are suddenly superman. You should already know anyway, if you KOM'd it on strava, it was a tailwind.
You can compare your W/Kg with the pro's and realise just how useless you actually are in the grand scale of things.
On the positive side of the coin... The Powermeter is the ultimate training tool. Once your time is limited you can stop wasting time on training rides and make the most of the limited bike time granted by your other half. Those vouchers don't last long. Make them count.

Of course nobody "needs" a powermeter. But in my opinion, it will have a greater impact on the average Joe than the average Pro. The man who is prepared to learn and actually use it rather than learn and use excuses for the rest of their life is the man who can move from being a nobody to an S4 contender!

Man I love talking about watts... You better be in the club...

It's 2014 race season?

The epic Maxbo blog has been somewhat neglected. I get so many people contacting me wondering if I am alright. Ok, I don't. I just cannot be arsed boring anyone who stumbles in here.

But Bored you must be, if you are actually reading this.

Quick XC Career recap.
Season 1 - S3. Deadly season, few podiums and decent NPS position. Top 10 at Nationals

Season 2 - S2. Stroked badly in every NPS round, got it together for a late push and took UXC S2 title and Ulster Masters Champs medal. 7th I think at Nationals, more by default of everyone else breaking their bike Down in Djouce wonderland.

Season 3 - S2. Late 2012 form carried on thanks to a season of CX, Hit the ground running, Podiumed every NPS round with 3 wins and won the National masters title. Go Me. Should have just quit then. But No, I went in and did another full winter of CX after a few months downtime.

Season 4 - S1. Senior 1? WTF? How did this happen? From Baggies and Trailbadger jerseys and racing on a Commencal Meta 5, to racing XC Elites, EPO and A national champs jersey to disgrace. All a bit of a blur. Race one is over, managed 4th in round 1 of the Ulster XC. I have another wee bundle of joy due in August. Expecting full time retirement or total career transformation to Enduro or Downhill, or some other format where I dont have to spend time training in between sh*tty bums.

I suppose I will update again when said baba is heading off to school. Primary or secondary..? anyones guess.

Wise Words from Wise men

I love talking crap about bikes to whoever is interested and especially to whoever rides. Two snippets that made me smirk in the last few weeks, firstly on the current hot topic of singlespeeding:

It’s brilliant racing single speed.  Everyone thinks you’re hard, yet it’s actually not that much of a disadvantage if any (depending on the course), and it doesn’t matter how you actually do – anything will seem impressive on one gear.  So, in short, you’re just a big attention seeker like me!

 And on a harsher note:

You can't perform above your capabilities - you can only under perform

For sale

For sale. Race winning pedals as used by U16 legend David Montgomery. Grab yourself a priceless (well everything has its price) piece of mountain bike history right here. Undoubtedly a real collectors item sure to be worth an obscene amount in a few years time. Dried on muck that has touched the soles of Davids famous shoes also included.

A lap of Belfast

The Plan was to set off from Cairnshill park and ride and complete a lap from carryduff down to the towpath, onto Colin Glen, up Divis and Black mountain, across to cavehill, down to the shore and along the cycle path back into town and the starting point.

What actually happened was somewhat different.
Before setting off, some new handlebars had to be cut down as the bike wouldn't fit through the entrance to the park and ride as it was with bars 8 feet wide.

How wides yer bars mister?

The sun was shining and a great ride down from the back of Purdysburn hospital on some super single track ensued. A quick dash into some uncharted territory lead to some Benny Hill style chasing from a less than friendly Security Guard in his trackies.

Some South Belfast Singletrack

Malone House

After a quick spin around the Giants ring and ending up in the back garden of some boys house in Edenderry, the noises from the Tango bike became more and more worrying. The noises from the rider became more and more unbearable. A quick investigation revealed that the Tango bikes cassette was only on thumb tight. Thanks to the guys at Slane cycles for the lend of a wrench!

The Tango bike has had enough

Team management suspended Team Maxbo's lead mechanic while investigations were ongoing which subsequently lead to him being sacked. He is said to be very relieved to be out of such a dead end job

Now running well behind schedule, there was just enough time to pick up a stray dog who would lead us up Colin Glen. It turns out the dog is either blind or lives in a landfill site. After finding our way out of the dump, we finally made it up to the Divis Car park and thought we were well on our way. Some bog trotting later the decision was made to abandon and get back to civilization as quickly as possible. Unfortunately we still had to pedal through a lot of Belfast before achieving this.

Well groomed trails were the order of the day up on Divis

A good solid 38 miles of riding, should have been more and the percentage off road should have been higher, but then we wouldn't have had as much time to blame each other for everything about the day then.

The Caustic bike

Take one discarded and once much loved On-One Inbred with a seized seat post. Apply some A'Level chemistry grade knowledge. Remove the last bit of stumpy post with a big screw driver. Build it up and ride!



Chemical warfare wins.



For anyone interested in the specifics. The frame is steel and had an aluminium seat post left in it for a very long time. Steel and Alu will bond over time. Normally brute force can free the bond and the frame can be saved but occasionally it just won't shift. The previous owner had cut the seat post about 1/4" above the top of the seat tube with the intention of sawing down the length of it down the clamp gap on the seat tube, then grabbing and squeezing the protruding post with a vice before twisting and pulling. The theory is that the post will collapse in on itself and come free. Unfortunately it did not.

However, Caustic soda will dissolve pretty much anything, including your hands if you are silly enough to handle it. It does not react with steel though. Very handy. Stick a plug of blu tac up inside the bottom bracket shell to seal the seat tube up as a glorified container. Mix your caustic soda to the water, never the other way around. Pour it in the top of the seat tube and stand back. The reaction is impressively violent and will go on for many hours. But at the start be ready to rinse down the volcano of liquid from the frames paint work if you want it to make it through the ordeal. Also, do this outside if you can, a lot of nitrogen is produced. Better to let it away rather than collect it inside in a nice big bubble.

Use Protection kids and dont do anything stupid!