Road Cycling Essentials

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This morning I took my girls for a walk in one of the woods near where I cycle. I drove over the cat 3 that I climbed yesterday. I've not done that before. It's quite amazing how steep it looks when you see it in a different light, like from behind a steering wheel. I wasn't keen on throwing the car around going over the bumps in the same way I would my bike! I guess I'm getting to the point where I'm actually more confident on my bike than in a car. Weird.
 
VeloViewer Score: 97.33
From 100 of 1,410 segments.
Maximum possible score: 99.68

Whatever that all means? :confused:

It's a rank based on 10 or so of your highest ranked segments (rank is something to do with your segment position position compared to total number of contenders) which gives a total.

So if you have 3rd place on 10 segments with 1000 people on them, you'll have a higher score than someone who's got 10 KOMs on 5 person segments.

Or something like that.
 
****ging a Viking yet owns a B Twin.....


Tribans are also POS, its just that for the money they are not the worst POS

*cries in the corner with his T5A*

Hard to compare the viking peleton and the Triban 3 as the viking doesn't appear to say which components are used other than they are shimano, but I'd assume lower end than the triban if they aren't mentioned. Tribans also come with lifetime warranty on frame and forks, 2 years on everything else which is nice to have.

A triban may have been better value, but as long as he is happy with it and it gets him cycling.
 
VeloViewer Score: 97.33
From 100 of 1,410 segments.
Maximum possible score: 99.68

Whatever that all means? :confused:

It means you're pretty damn good at cycling.

My score is about 87.

I suppose it would probably be quite a good metric for putting together groups of comparable cyclists.
 
VeloViewer Score
96.50 ?
From 53 of 211 segments.
Maximum possible score: 99.72

I guess I'm pretty damn OK at cycling ;)

Your VeloViewer score is a way to compare yourself against your peers. It is the average segment position score from your top 25% (max 100) of non-downhill segment.

More detail:

Position score - Each of your completed segments comes with a score, between 0 and 100, that represents your relative position based on the number of other athletes that have also ridden the segment. The higher the score the better!
Why not use placing? - Being 1st of 2 athletes isn't the same value as being 1st of 1,000. Equally being last of 2 athletes isn't anywhere near as bad as last of 1,000. The position score reflects how you stack up against others much better than your actual placing.
25% - Only your top 25% of scores (to a maximum of 100) are taken into consideration as I'm guessing you haven't visited the pain cave for the majority of your segments so we only want to include those where you have.
But we've got local pro's taking the top spots - Seeing as the score isn't based on actual positions then this should well balance out as if the area is good enough for lots of pro's to ride there, chances are there are a lot more non-pro riders too so giving the potential for higher relative scores.
But I'm an awesome downhiller! - I feel your pain but to comply with STRAVA API usage rules, flat or uphill only.
Good ways to improve your score could be:

Go for segments you've not ridden before to get your worse scores out of your top 25%.
Check out your segments where you score below you VeloViewer score but still within the top 25% and try and improve your placing.
Ride segments that have a higher number of athletes as the potential for a higher score is better, but then so is the potential for a lower score.
Get fitter!
 
Right after I buy 4 x GP4000s tyres I find out theres a new Continental GP4000s II. :(

Regular 4000s obviously suck now they're completely obsolete and useless *rage throws in bin*

Cant seem to find anything online about them, any links/info?


It means you're pretty damn good at cycling.

My score is about 87.

I suppose it would probably be quite a good metric for putting together groups of comparable cyclists.

Mine was in the 98's.....need to rectify that situation! :D
 
*cries in the corner with his T5A*

Hard to compare the viking peleton and the Triban 3 as the viking doesn't appear to say which components are used other than they are shimano, but I'd assume lower end than the triban if they aren't mentioned. Tribans also come with lifetime warranty on frame and forks, 2 years on everything else which is nice to have.

A triban may have been better value, but as long as he is happy with it and it gets him cycling.

The Viking Peloton has 14 speeds. The only 7 speed Shimano groupset currently in production is the Tourney, which is their absolute bottom end groupset. There's some brief comments on it at Bikeradar. It's the new 2300, if you will.

The Viking Peloton has a slightly odd range of gears, though - 42/52 at the front and 14-28 at the back. That's quite high gearing for serious climbing. Most of us will be on 34x28 or 34x25 and 42x28 is higher than both of those by a fair way. At the top end 52x14 is lower gearing than the 50x12 or 50x11 that most of us will be using, but I think most of us would be less likely to need the range at this end of the gears than at the other.

I know it's a bit of a silly way of looking at things, but whenever people get to bitching about cheap, low end bikes, I think about the fact the Eddy Merckx won more races than any of us will ever manage on bikes with worse drivetrains than anything we will be using nowadays. His bikes would have been lighter, sure, but our gears are vastly better.
 
Cant seem to find anything online about them, any links/info?

Not much details yet, they come in 8 colour options and now include a 28mm tyre option.

11%20-%20Continental%20GP4000s%20II%20comes%20in%208%20colours%20in%2023mm%20width,%20and%20in%20up%20to%2028mm.JPG
 
112 miles planned for this weekend \o/. Looking forward to it, some gorgeous villages to cycle through.
Evening rides are getting harder now it's getting darker :(

We've not seen you for a few Saturdays - you'll have to come out next time you can. Or find a club or something...
Speaking of which, I'm up north for some cycling September 14th/15th. Fancy a cycle around Pendle or me coming along wherever it is you are?
 
My wet weather/winter bike (read my Dad's old bike he built up and doesnt use) has an old 9 speed Campagnolo Mirage/Veloce with a 52/42 and 13-26....was thinking if i could get a compact crank for it, anyone know?
 
My wet weather/winter bike (read my Dad's old bike he built up and doesnt use) has an old 9 speed Campagnolo Mirage/Veloce with a 52/42 and 13-26....was thinking if i could get a compact crank for it, anyone know?

It depends how old it is, and what the bottom bracket fittings are like. A guy I ride with has an old steel bike with Campagnolo kit on it. I think he started out with 52/42 and the best he could do was to get a 39t chainring for it, to get it to 52/39, because there wasn't a decent way to get a compact crankset on it. If that's the case, your best bet may be to get the biggest sprocket you can on the cassette, assuming the Italians made anything bigger than a 26 in those days...

Asprilla may be able to point you in the right direction of someone on Bikeradar or a dedicated retro bike site with a man with a beard who will tell you everything you need to know and more besides.
 
I think about the fact the Eddy Merckx won more races than any of us will ever manage on bikes with worse drivetrains than anything we will be using nowadays. His bikes would have been lighter, sure, but our gears are vastly better.

Applauds.

Not entirely sure his bikes would have been that much lighter.......

http://felixwong.com/2010/11/tour-de-france-bicycles-historical-bike-weights/

My wet weather/winter bike (read my Dad's old bike he built up and doesnt use) has an old 9 speed Campagnolo Mirage/Veloce with a 52/42 and 13-26....was thinking if i could get a compact crank for it, anyone know?

When you say 'old' how old are we talking?
 
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It depends how old it is, and what the bottom bracket fittings are like. A guy I ride with has an old steel bike with Campagnolo kit on it. I think he started out with 52/42 and the best he could do was to get a 39t chainring for it, to get it to 52/39, because there wasn't a decent way to get a compact crankset on it. If that's the case, your best bet may be to get the biggest sprocket you can on the cassette, assuming the Italians made anything bigger than a 26 in those days...

Asprilla may be able to point you in the right direction of someone on Bikeradar or a dedicated retro bike site with a man with a beard who will tell you everything you need to know and more besides.

A 39 chainring might be an easy and cheap way to get a bit lower gearing....good idea.
There is i think a 13-28 available cassette wise but spacing between gears will get bigger probably.
Was thinking of 34/50 and a 12-25 but cant seem to find Campag 9 speed (or Miche or BBB) in 12-25 in 9 speed.
 
Has anyone done 150mi in one ride before? I think I've got everything covered but I just wonder if there is something glaring I haven't considered. It should be fine, it's just a century + a half century :D

Route is sorted
Clothing is sorted
Food is sorted
Lights fitted in case it gets dark
Drink I can only carry 1L but I expect for a 10-12h ride I'll need to refill somehow
I need to bring a backpack which isn't ideal but it shouldn't be too heavy.

Will have 2 spare tubes, puncture kit, pump, mini tool, mobile phone and driving licence in case they need to ID my corpse.:D
 
Going to consider getting a higher geared rear wheel for the hills. Any suggestions for a good climbing wheel for 10 speed Ultegra/Dura ace mix groupset? Should really weigh my current one but obv as light as possible whilst not Zipp price.
 
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