I posted this picture on Facebook a few days ago. It’s me and my good friend Barry Goodyear on the Long Mynd in Shropshire in June 1995. I suppose it was foolish of me to expect anything other than a reaction characterised by comments like ‘who’s the mincer in the yellow T shirt?’ and ‘Christ, that looks like a thin you. Only with some (bad) hair’ but no matter…

I found the picture when I was searching for some stuff about my liver transplant in 1993 but I posted it because it brought back some great memories of riding in what we subsequently agreed were simpler times. We talked about it when Baz poled up at my house for a cup of tea and a bacon butty on his full suspension Commencal – a far cry from the second hand Alpinestars you can see him on in the picture. The bikes were certainly simpler with rigid forks and cantilever brakes with my nod to safety and comfort at that time being fingerless weight training gloves.

I came across another slightly fatter, sorry, I mean later, picture of me and a couple of riding buddies (Mark Nelson and Rich Pay) where we had advanced to suspension forks and V- brakes but it was still the innocent days of mountain biking.

I wrote about these seemingly simpler and more carefree times (along with many other things) in ReCycled should you wish to come with me on the journey although the main subject of that book was road cycling following my transplant. Unearthing the pictures made me think a little more about why I ride bikes. Some 18 years after that picture was taken, I'm now a Level 3 Road and Time Trial coach, a road racer (of sorts) a time triallist (of even strangers sorts) and I'm about to launch into riding the track later this season. 46 isn’t too old to take on a new cycling challenge is it? :) I’ve won British, European and World titles in transplant cycling but frankly, it’s all a bit bloody serious sometimes. It struck me recently when on a routine visit to the Queen Elizabeth hospital to look at my blood levels for signs of rejection following a change in immunosuppressant drugs, that I was more concerned about my haemoglobin and haematocrit levels than anything else. See, it’s all about oxygen uptake when racing the bike isn't it? Don’t get me wrong, I love the competition and the training – I'm constantly strapped to a heart rate monitor and worrying about mine or somebody else’s cadence, pacing or power output but there is more to riding a bike than that. There is, dare I say it, fun and possibly even, enjoyment?

Sure, it’s a great outlet for one’s competitive angst but sometimes a ‘trees and flowers’ ride is needed to ground you: to remind you about why you do it in the first place. Because the weather has been so lousy, the last few weeks have been all about turbo and roller training sessions in the garage – heart rate monitor on, iPod in, water to hand, freezing cold to start with, sweating like Lance in front of the FBI the next. Not that much fun really.

The wild and reckless me thought ‘sod this’, I’ll dust off the mountain bike and get out for an hour in the snow. So, I dislodged the nesting wildlife from the Orange and got out for a ride on a bike designed to have fun on rather than race. 5 minutes later I was in the lanes looking for patches of snow and ice to ride through, bouncing on the suspension forks and murmuring ‘weeeee…’ (under my breath of course) as I went down hills.

It’s something I need to do more often. It was fun. In fact, it was so much fun that I almost forgot to switch my heart rate monitor off and log the data when I got home. New habits die hard.

See you out there.  Rich ... 


I’m fund raising for the GB Transplant Cycling team going to the World Transplant Games in South Africa in 2013. Please support us if you can. 

http://www.justgiving.com/GBtransplantcyclingteam

Yesterday evening I was reminded of one of my favourite films, The Blues Brothers. Jake and Elwood are sitting in their car when a police patrol vehicle pulls up behind them…

Elwood: Shit

Jake:   What?

Elwood: Rollers

Jake:   No

Elwood: Yeah

Jake:   Shit

The reason for this thought is marginally less random than in might seem at first glance because I was in my garage spinning my little legs as fast as they would go on an unsupported, unbalanced death trap of a training device known as ‘rollers’. Okay, I wasn’t about to get arrested by the Chicago State Police but the level of stress was pretty similar.

For those of you unfamiliar with these infernal things here is a picture of them. You just put your bike on them, get on and ride until you fall off. For me, this normally within the first few seconds. With practice, perseverance, some Band Aids and a towel to mop up the blood, you gradually develop the balance to stay on them long enough for your heart rate to respond to the exercise rather than the abject terror.   

I wrote about these and other indoor training tortures in ReCycled. I was dismissive of rollers then – mainly because I was terrified of them (I still am) and probably because the people I was training with over-advocated their use as a miracle cure for all cycling ills. They lack the resistance of a turbo trainer but they do make you spin the legs faster and eventually relax the top of your body – this is a good thing for souplesse or pedalling fluidity.

You learn this the hard way. To stay on these things it is essential to relax, accelerate your legs and look towards the horizon. The natural reaction of looking downwards, slowing the legs and tensing up as soon as you wobble will simply bring forward the inevitable. I know this is true because I recently rode off the side of mine and ended up under next door’s Mini. In fact, a mate of mine uses them in his garage with a chair/wall combo on one side and a mattress on the other. It works for him…

So why bother? Why take the risk? Fair question.  Well, I hate indoor winter training with a passion but it’s a necessary evil for the British racing cyclist faced with dark winter nights and crap weather. Unless you are fortunate enough not to have to work or can spend big chunks of time training abroad, you are going to have to make your way to the garage or kitchen and sit on some kind of training device pretty regularly at this time of year.

I find using a turbo trainer soul-sappingly, mind-buggeringly boring so riding rollers is still a challenge for me: a new learning experience. I have to concentrate on what I’m doing to avoid falling off to the extent I wouldn’t dream of using an iPod when I’m on them. I need all my senses available or I’ll be extracting myself from the tool box and spare wheels pile. Again.

This means, critically, time passes quickly – you are engaged with the experience because the consequence of not being means some kind of physical injury will result. Lose concentration for a few seconds, tense up, slow the legs and it’s hello the underside next doors Mini…

Enjoy. 


As hard to believe as it may be, Rich Smith is a Level 3 British Cycling coach and is currently banging on incessantly about how he had a liver transplant 20 years ago. He is fund raising for the GB Transplant Cycling team going to the World Transplant Games in South Africa in 2013. Please support them via Just Giving. 

It’s that time of year again. The Shropshire and (and surrounds) reliability rides have been announced by the ever efficient Shropshire Cycling Clubs Association (SCCA) and the dates are below.

For those who don’t know, reliability rides are either the transition from winter training to something closer to race pace, a cheap winter sportive without any frills, a big club run or an unlicenced road race – you decide. What they are in more prosaic terms is a series of Sunday group rides organised by the local clubs over set distances with 2 or 3 differently paced groups. Normally there is somewhere to get a cup of tea and a bun at the end. They tend to be over familiar routes and there is usually some form of map or directions for those new to the game.

Don’t expect to be molly-coddled or picked up by race support if it all goes pear shaped – the emphasis is on reliability so make sure you are equipped for the conditions and the normal eventualities of riding your bike in the winter.

The first reliability on the 20th January is being organised by the Bridgnorth Cycling Club. This the second time the guys have organised this being a new club to the scene. They have risen quickly to being well represented by local riders and have been seen in strength at the Mamil Cycling Shropshire Hills sportive (get your entries in for this years edition on the 7th July) over the past two years. I was present on the inaugural club run of BCC in it’s modern format and they have worked really hard to generate a good club ethos so please support their event and the others on the calendar.

If anybody fancies forming a ‘wheezers’ group to bring up the rear, look out for me won’t you...? 

If you are a consumer of cycling literature you may well have read the excellent books by Jeremy Whittle, in particular Bad Blood, or the Death of Marco Pantani by Matt Rendell. If you haven't, you really should. Whilst there are a host of other books out there these two go into some detail about the importance of a cyclist’s blood chemistry. The recent outing of Lance Armstrong as a drugs cheat has shone a long over due light on the massive impact blood manipulation by performance enhancing drugs (PED’s) or blood doping by transfusions can have on performance.

For those who don’t know, the concentration and efficacy of a persons red blood cells goes a long way to determine how successful an athlete can be in endurance sports like cycling, cross country skiing and long distance running. It’s not the only determinant factor of course but the guy who can efficiently shift the greatest amount of oxygenated red blood cells is likely to win – especially if he can do this repeatedly over the 3 week period of a grand tour. The drug of choice used to produce this effect artificially from the early 1990’s until, well, now, has been Erythropoietin (EPO). Anecdotally this improves performance by 15-20%  and bearing in mind the difference between a decent amateur and a top pro is probably less than 3%, you can see the impact and indeed the temptation to dabble with a little ‘go-fast’.

Top professional cyclists are usually looked after by a team doctor (that’s another story) and their blood will be checked on a regular basis. This is almost unheard of for amateurs – it’s not necessary because they are not training hard enough to do serious damage. More importantly, they are unlikely to be taking PED’s and therefore need a quick litre of orange juice and a saline drip because the drug testers are walking up the garden path. However, because of my chequered medical history (I had a liver transplant 20 years ago) my blood has been monitored and I have access to a full blood count at a maximum of 6 month intervals for the last 20 years. By happenstance, I suspect I am one of the few amateur (capital A) cyclists with a detailed blood passport.  Deep joy.

Leaving aside a discourse on the concentration of red blood cells (hematocrit), the capacity of blood to carry oxygen is determined by the haemoglobin levels in the red blood cells. In normal adult males the level this ranges between 13-18 (g/dl). If you measure under 13 you are officially anaemic. Congratulations and welcome to the club. My last test showed a count of 11 which was a marked improvement over the previous months 10.2. Looking back at my results over the years, during 2005/7 I was routinely at 15 (g/dl) reducing to 13.8 (g/dl) later in the decade so at least I had a benchmark to work with.

I’m sure you’re fascinated, but what does this translate to in the real world? Good question. Well, 10.2 (g/dl) represents a decrease of approximately 20% over my normal haemoglobin level and blimey didn’t I feel the difference when I went out for a ride along one of my usual ‘lanes’ type routes. Technically speaking, I felt like crap. My heart rate was much higher than it should have been: standing over the cross bar before I started to pedal my HR was 115bpm, normally it’s 90bpm in this position. A very gentle rise of the road after 5 minutes riding, hardly noticeable under normal circumstances, saw me struggle to get to the ‘top’ with my heart rate exceeding my 10 mile time trial threshold pace of 176bpm. I was experiencing something my fellow racers will be familiar with, that ‘leg burning, might be sick, might lose control of my bowls’ feeling you get during a sprint at the end of a race or when climbing hard to stay with a disappearing pack. Only this time I was doing 4mph and being overtaken by elderly runners and women pushing prams. I turned back and rode home very gently feeling exhausted. And worried.    

Anaemia is the antithesis of blood doping or EPO infusion. At my decreased haemoglobin levels I couldn’t hold club run pace for more than a couple of minutes before blowing. Translating the decrease in my performance to what an increase of 20% in performance would feel like I reckon I might have a shot a riding the Tour! It certainly gave me a better appreciation of what the clean riders in the pro peloton must have felt like when there juiced up colleagues rode away from them chatting whilst they were maxed out. I could not have responded to any kind of change in pace for more than a few seconds, it must have been soul destroying for them to ride with people boosted by 20%.

So, the obvious question, is there anything you can do to boost your red blood cell count or haemoglobin levels legally to make you go loads faster, you know, like eating spinach or taking ginseng? Not really, is the simple answer. Hyperbaric tents, altitude training etc might have an impact but for us, the amateur, asking to have your desk moved to the top floor and sitting in a tent isn’t really going to cut it is it? You can’t safely boost your intake of iron (the principle constituent of RBC’s) because your clever body has a way of regulating absorption to prevent you overdosing (unless you completely overdo it and kill yourself). A little bit of research indicated that spinach was a waste of time as it contains iron but it’s difficult for the body to absorb it from this source, secondly, and more disappointingly, you’d have to drink 15 pints of Guinness to get as much iron as you would from one egg yolk. Again, wobbling back to the office after a 15 pint lunch time session is going to be tricky although I suppose I could always eat an egg instead...   

Sadly, unless you want to cheat, going fast is all about the boring things like training hard, and resting harder. Eating properly and staying hydrated and, if you think something is wrong with you, not being too much of a ‘bloke’ to get to the quack and get it sorted.     

With the underlying cause of my anaemia hopefully diagnosed and treated I’m looking forward to a return to my pitiful normal level of 13.8. It’s going to take a while as the chronic anaemia has reduced my body’s iron to a level where it can’t restore itself to normal by diet alone so I’m on iron tablets. This also is the only sure fire way of increasing my magnetism... 

Rich Smith is the author of ReCycled. A book inspired by transplant cycling and available via Amazon in paperback or as a download.   

I’m fund raising for the GB Transplant Cycling team going to the World Transplant Games in South Africa in 2013. Please support us.
http://www.justgiving.com/GBtransplantcyclingteam