Road Cycling

Vonhelmet · 25 May 2016 at 11:19

Lethal` said:
snip re: sportives

I've only taken part in one sportive, on two occasions, which is the Liverpool Chester Liverpool ride, the big selling point being that you get to cycle through the Liverpool tunnel in the daytime and they close it to cars. One year I did the 25 mile ride, one year I did the 100. I am hoping to do the 100 again this year. I'm not convinced it's worth it, though. It's like £30 and with the exception of the tunnel it's all open roads. You don't get free food or anything. The atmosphere counts for something, to some extent, but to be honest once you get past the 50 miles mark things are so strung out that you don't see that many other cyclists. I didn't have too much bother with bad riding, apart from hordes of cyclists in the early stages of the ride jumping lights and not giving a toss. That irked me. Hills weren't too much of a problem, apart from having to overtake people who were pushing bikes four times as expensive as mine up them :rolleyes:

Shamrock · 25 May 2016 at 11:20

Lethal` said:
Hmm have to decide today by 5pm if I'm doing this...

How much is it costing? Is it closed roads?

Unless you can get out with the front group and smash it like a TT I wouldn't bother. Also, sounds like it's not for the people wanting to go fast.

Lethal` · 25 May 2016 at 11:31

Vonhelmet said:
Hills weren't too much of a problem, apart from having to overtake people who were pushing bikes four times as expensive as mine up them

Aha! I did have a bit of a chuckle seeing 15+ bike doctor riders go flying past in the first 40km shouting at people to move out the way then about 20km later passing individual riders from that group that had got dropped. Tailwind start can lull people into a false sense of security!

Shamrock said:
How much is it costing? Is it closed roads?

Unless you can get out with the front group and smash it like a TT I wouldn't bother. Also, sounds like it's not for the people wanting to go fast.

Closed roads.. £39 so 84p a mile or so! A bit much really... It starts just after the last wave of RideLondon 100 go off... so in theory would be able to chase and latch onto their ride but I doubt they'd be too happy with 46 riders joining the 100

I think you've hit the nail on the head. I don't think I'll go for it... trekking to the other side of London to ride around a bunch of families on a flat route doesn't sound that exciting. I'd definitely give the 100 a go though... maybe next year!

Shamrock · 25 May 2016 at 11:38

Even if you joined on to the back of the 100 ride, I think you'd still be stuck in heavy traffic and bottlenecks.

Lethal` · 25 May 2016 at 11:39

True. 8800 riders in the Velothon was bad enough... can't imagine 25000. I don't think any of the roads were as narrow as Leith/Box is either. Next year!

madindehead · 25 May 2016 at 11:57

I'm kind of looking forward to the Ride100. Doing it for charity, a good cause. I might pop my sponsorship link in here (if that sort of thing is ok).

I am a bit worried about the amount of people though. The start is fairly flat, so perhaps I can power through that and hit the climbs with less people. Even them, Box Hill and Leith Hill aren't that much harder than the stuff around me in the Chilterns.

Liefrich · 25 May 2016 at 11:59

I rode the Velothon and although it was a bit manic/frustrating around some of the narrow roads and climbs there is not much the organisers could really do to prevent that as it is a sportive and not a race. In a perfect world people would stick to their line and keep to the left but one of the event’s main goals is to encourage participation in cycling so it doesn’t help the perceived elitist nature of the sport if people moan about the slower cyclists riding etiquette. In fact my only real bug bear with the event was the amount of litter that was dropped by the front cyclists as there is absolutely no need not to keep the empty gel wrapper in your pocket!

Ultimately if you want to smash through the ride (which is great) you should set off in one of the earlier pens as there were some top amateur cyclists in those.

Berger · 25 May 2016 at 12:02

slipd said:
Right, I'm getting an incredibly annoying 'click' on almost every revolution when I pedal... it's not chain rub/noise, my gears are running sweet-as at the moment, it's definitely coming from my shoe/cleat/pedal although there's no obvious signs of where from once I've dismounted

I'm using a road spd setup with the yellow cleats. I was going to mess about with the float adjustment later but I didn't know if there was any point? Interestingly, it only sounds like its coming from one side!

Any ideas?

The cable for the front derailleur is bent over at a slight angle after it is clamped.

Then the metal end piece which stops the cable from fraying hits the crank arm or shoe once every rotation.

Vonhelmet · 25 May 2016 at 12:06

Berger said:
The cable for the front derailleur is bent over at a slight angle after it is clamped.

Then the metal end piece which stops the cable from fraying hits the crank arm or shoe once every rotation.

Haha, that's happened to me before now. Took me ages to figure out!

The worst was the velcro on my overshoes creaking, mainly because it stopped happening when the bike was in the stands!

FrenchTart · 25 May 2016 at 12:33

Lethal` said:
Wow. That sounds really tough

Don't they have exams at this kinda time?

Yup... they chose the timings for most impact I guess.

My team might be responsible for online exams at our University.... Should be interesting

Weather sucked today (though I did get a random KOM..guess there was a tale wind as I wasn't going for it). Tomorrow looks nicer.

edit: Actually, it doesn't any more. Bah.

Lethal` · 25 May 2016 at 12:54

madindehead said:
I'm kind of looking forward to the Ride100. Doing it for charity, a good cause. I might pop my sponsorship link in here (if that sort of thing is ok).

I am a bit worried about the amount of people though. The start is fairly flat, so perhaps I can power through that and hit the climbs with less people. Even them, Box Hill and Leith Hill aren't that much harder than the stuff around me in the Chilterns.

Nice. Enjoy it! What was the minimum sponsorship for your charity? Most of them seemed pretty steep.

Liefrich said:
I rode the Velothon and although it was a bit manic/frustrating around some of the narrow roads and climbs there is not much the organisers could really do to prevent that as it is a sportive and not a race. In a perfect world people would stick to their line and keep to the left but one of the event’s main goals is to encourage participation in cycling so it doesn’t help the perceived elitist nature of the sport if people moan about the slower cyclists riding etiquette. In fact my only real bug bear with the event was the amount of litter that was dropped by the front cyclists as there is absolutely no need not to keep the empty gel wrapper in your pocket!

Ultimately if you want to smash through the ride (which is great) you should set off in one of the earlier pens as there were some top amateur cyclists in those.

I wasn't too fussed by the slower riders just it would have been nice to be able to maintain a good cadence on the climbs especially Caerphilly where I was grinding 50rpm on my 28 cog wishing for the 32 cog. Though reading a few comments it seems some people and teams that estimated fast times were put in some of the last pens... when there is a team challenge on that's not exactly wise as of course they're going to take risks to try and win the challenge.

There was certainly an insane amount of gel wrappers... especially up Caerphilly Mountain.. which I didn't get... bit late to have the gel if you're already on the climb surely.

madindehead · 25 May 2016 at 12:56

Lethal` said:
Nice. Enjoy it! What was the minimum sponsorship for your charity? Most of them seemed pretty steep.

A group of us are riding for a charity, so it's £400 each. Which is pretty reasonable. The charity is United Response, who support people with severe learning difficulties, and mental health conditions. I wanted to ride it for Parkinson's UK (my dad has Parkinson's) but they were already full.

FrenchTart · 25 May 2016 at 13:03

madindehead said:
A group of us are riding for a charity, so it's £400 each. Which is pretty reasonable. The charity is United Response, who support people with severe learning difficulties, and mental health conditions. I wanted to ride it for Parkinson's UK (my dad has Parkinson's) but they were already full.

Charity link is fine - as long as you don't get more donations then me

madindehead · 25 May 2016 at 13:07

FrenchTart said:
Charity link is fine - as long as you don't get more donations then me

Here is the link for anyone who is interested in donating. Please, don't feel under any obligation to!

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fun...serProfilePage.action?userUrl=PThomsonRide100

Shamrock · 25 May 2016 at 13:09

Damn, I wanted people to donate for my full Ironman!

jpaul · 25 May 2016 at 14:00

A large part of the Sportives admission fee goes to the charity so that is not too bad.
The company gave us a a rather nice advertising jersey and payed the admission, the best part was we cycled down to London at dawn from Cambridge the 50miles to get to the start for the organised return.

Not sure if a reasonable 1 day fully comp bike insurance can be had somewhere, otherwise i would consider not taking my nearest and dearest (and reminding me of delta performance/rejuvination a carbon frame gave - probably took 10 years off?)

SoliD · 25 May 2016 at 22:13

Don't know what's going on with my Garmin, but today is the 4th time in the last 4 days that the files have had dodgy time stamps on them. Think it needs a proper reset.

FrenchTart · 25 May 2016 at 22:37

Weather really looks like it could go either way tomorrow. Can't decide between going out for a fast metric or forcing myself on to the turbo. The route I want to do will be horrendous if it's at all wet.

Lethal` · 25 May 2016 at 23:05

Bah. Pretty sure I almost got a KOM today but the guy in 1st place appears to have been in a vehicle for this part of his 'ride'. I flagged the ride but I guess he unflagged it. 0 cadence for 8 miles or so, and 34.5mph avg in the segment yet a 13mph overall ride avg and 79 hours elapsed time with a solid 138bpm heart rate throughout.

GSVBagpuss · 26 May 2016 at 07:24

Click hunting - argh! It sounds like it's from the BB (don't they all) and generally only under load. I recently changed my cleats and chain but have retightened cleats, checked chain path / re-indexed and tightened chainring bolts. Will try more obscure stuff like seat post today

Also, argh for a cold 4 days before Everesting

I'm probably 6-7/10 and am stuffing sudafed in but doesn't help me calmly prepare!