Road Cycling Essentials

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ArmoVanBuuren said:
Just had another look at the rear wheel and its buckled quite bad so may not even be able to be trued and the spoke replaced. So looks like its a write off, front wheel is fine. Might speak to Planet X tomorrow to see if they can offer anything, though doubt they will as it's nearly a year since I bought them.



Yeah been looking at the Zondas and the reviews look very good - seem ideal for my cycling, so definitely considering them - just the price seems a little ouch to me at present :). With the Planet X AL30s how long did you have them before returning them for a full refund? Mine have been about a year so doubt I can return them.
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I'd say it's unlikely Planet X will offer anything. I had mine nearly 3 months but the spokes all went in quick succession to the point I had zero confidence in them any more. I'd done 1200 miles on them according to Strava and were great wheels until they started breaking.

I initially replaced them with Fulcrum Racing 5s last summer and they've been bombproof. Saw me through the whole of last summer, autumn and winter without a single issue and I'm still riding to work on them and using them on the winter bike for soggy rides. If you don't want to stretch to Zondas, maybe consider them instead? The Zondas are lovely though and a bit of a bargain.
 
ShiWarrior said:
Guys, I need your thoughts please


I have been reading up on Endurance training again, and 1 article says one thing, another article, says a different way

What do you guys do ?

Thanks
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What sort of endurance?

Having the endurance to ride for 8+ hours in a day?

Or having the endurance to maintain XXmph on a ride?

Either way, do whatever it is that you want the endurance for and build it up slowly over time.
 
grudas said:
about avarage in my case..

stock triban 3 wheels - 1.4k miles
shimano r501's - 2.4k
campy khamsin - 3.8k and still going strong.

I'd recommend getting a set of campy's to be honest!
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R0B75 said:
I'd say it's unlikely Planet X will offer anything. I had mine nearly 3 months but the spokes all went in quick succession to the point I had zero confidence in them any more. I'd done 1200 miles on them according to Strava and were great wheels until they started breaking.

I initially replaced them with Fulcrum Racing 5s last summer and they've been bombproof. Saw me through the whole of last summer, autumn and winter without a single issue and I'm still riding to work on them and using them on the winter bike for soggy rides. If you don't want to stretch to Zondas, maybe consider them instead? The Zondas are lovely though and a bit of a bargain.
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how do you guys workout the distances with Strava for specific date range?
 
R0B75 said:
I'd say it's unlikely Planet X will offer anything. I had mine nearly 3 months but the spokes all went in quick succession to the point I had zero confidence in them any more. I'd done 1200 miles on them according to Strava and were great wheels until they started breaking.

I initially replaced them with Fulcrum Racing 5s last summer and they've been bombproof. Saw me through the whole of last summer, autumn and winter without a single issue and I'm still riding to work on them and using them on the winter bike for soggy rides. If you don't want to stretch to Zondas, maybe consider them instead? The Zondas are lovely though and a bit of a bargain.
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Yeah falcrum/campy wheels seem to be the dogs bits ;) I'm one oh those people that break wheels like there's no tomorrow and I'm seriously impressed with khamsin set! And I've only paid £117 for them.
 
ArmoVanBuuren said:
Gah - 2 miles from home tonight I broke a spoke in my rear wheel (Planet X AL30), limped home and by the time I had got home the rear wheel was buckled and rubbing on the brake blocks. I had the wheels trued about 2 months ago and the LBS people were not that impressed with the wheels and said if anything happens to them again, replace them with something.

According to Strava I put them on 11th April 2013 and I have done 2,716.0miles on them, I don't commute so the miles have mostly been evening, weekend and holiday riding. Is nearly 3000 miles good wear for a set of wheels, I dont think so? Not sure whether to try and get the wheel repaired?

I have a jam packed cycling summer with London to Paris 24hr, JOGLE in 7 days and Tour du Mont Blanc so have been putting in the training miles recently and will have to continue as I have a lot of miles and climbing over the summer to cover.

Are there any good wheel deals about at the moment, suppose my absolute maximum is £300 for a pair but preferably £250 or lower? Need to be strong, lightweight for climbing and maintain a good rolling speed as going to be covering a lot of miles.

Thanks
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Armo, you in London? I have some basically fresh Ksyrium Elite S I need to get rid of.
 
R0B75 said:
I'd say it's unlikely Planet X will offer anything. I had mine nearly 3 months but the spokes all went in quick succession to the point I had zero confidence in them any more. I'd done 1200 miles on them according to Strava and were great wheels until they started breaking.

I initially replaced them with Fulcrum Racing 5s last summer and they've been bombproof. Saw me through the whole of last summer, autumn and winter without a single issue and I'm still riding to work on them and using them on the winter bike for soggy rides. If you don't want to stretch to Zondas, maybe consider them instead? The Zondas are lovely though and a bit of a bargain.
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Going to sleep on it, have the old heavy mavic wheels that I got with my bike that I can swap over for this week's rides but definitely keen on the Zondas!

divaboy said:
how do you guys workout the distances with Strava for specific date range?
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You can add lots of specific parts to your Strava profile.

chanjy said:
Armo, you in London? I have some basically fresh Ksyrium Elite S I need to get rid of.
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Yeah I'm in Ealing, London, feel free to drop me a email in trust with the details though looking at their RRP I guess even nearly new would be out my max price range?
 
ShiWarrior said:
I want to build up distance
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At the risk of sounding flippant.just ride your bike as often as you can. Once a week is no good. You can build up to 100 miles quite rapidly if you are moderately fit. I would also suggest that you join a club. Finding other people to ride with is also a good idea especially if they are better than you.

Interval training on a turbo also helps as it gets your legs used to recovering from big efforts. Really for endurance there's isn't much substitute for getting in the miles or on the road afaik.

If you fancy a ride out one day I could ride over your way. Oxford, ish right?
 
Now that my new bike is here, I've set about stripping my old one down so that I can give it a really deep clean and replace a bunch of knackered parts. As of now, the only bits left on the frame are the fork, the cranks and the mech hangers. I'll get the cranks off for sure, to give the chainrings and crank arms a good clean, and then it's a question of whether I go to the trouble of dismantling the headset and cleaning/greasing that, and whether I do the bottom bracket while I'm at it...

And then I'll be channeling my childhood years as a Lego fiend when it comes time to reassemble it all :eek:
 
Vonhelmet said:
Now that my new bike is here, I've set about stripping my old one down so that I can give it a really deep clean and replace a bunch of knackered parts. As of now, the only bits left on the frame are the fork, the cranks and the mech hangers. I'll get the cranks off for sure, to give the chainrings and crank arms a good clean, and then it's a question of whether I go to the trouble of dismantling the headset and cleaning/greasing that, and whether I do the bottom bracket while I'm at it...

And then I'll be channeling my childhood years as a Lego fiend when it comes time to reassemble it all :eek:
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I wouldn't touch the BB after my experience with my bike haha.. :) also head set should be easy
 
divaboy said:
how do you guys workout the distances with Strava for specific date range?
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You can add specific parts for your bikes on Strava which tracks how many miles you do on them between the data you add them to a bike and the date you stop using them om that bike.
 
I've had my P-X AL30's on for over 7k miles now and they've been fine, no issues at all.

Thinking about replacing them but then I'm also thinking about a new bike as mine is at the stage where a lot of components need replacing.

For endurance riding I second what Calpol said, if you want to ride longer distance just...ride longer.
 
100 miles is do-able. I did 100 miles in July last year for the first time after only a year of road cycling, with no serious training, just 10-20 milers in the week and 40 milers most weekends. I did one 60odd mile ride in the March and that was it. Just keep riding more and more. If you've got the time for rides of 50, 60, 70 miles, then go for it; I have a wife and young kids so that's not easy for me. I ended up doing the 100 mile ride on a really hot, sunny day, and I was ruined by about 80 miles, but I got there. Just make sure you have loads of drink and food. I could have done with another energy drink sachet for the last 20 miles, and some more cake to keep my stomach full - gels are all well and good for pure energy but they don't give your stomach anything to do. Also make sure your bike is in decent nick. I rode with a friend who had to give up because he bonked hard through lack of food, and I also suspect his gears weren't working right as he was always pushing in the big ring.

But yeah, in the short term, just ride and up your distance. If I did it with only a year of fairly relaxed "training" then you can definitely do it if you put some effort into it.
 
Just to second what vonhelmet said - it's amazing how quickly you can up your mileage. I managed it just with turbo sessions mixed up with longer weekend rides


Does anyone here have a stages power meter? Trying to work out the cheapest place to get one, all seem to be the same price. Annoyingly I need a ultegra one to match which is a £100 premium over the 105 :(
 
Same as others - Etape Caledonia in 5 weeks time for me. Managing a couple of 20/25 mile rides during the week and then 40/50 miler at the weekend.

Etape is 85 miles but I'm fairly confident that despite probably not actually riding 85 miles or more before the event, I should be ok.
 
touch said:
My plans are all in the training logs section. I am using my power meter for most of it, but i havnt put power figures in the plans.

I used my powermeter to pace a 10 mile TT for the first time on saturday - it was a disaster :(

My mate won the race in a time of 22:13 and avg power 329w
I did 23:52 with an avg power of 333w.
(he is heavier than me)

He sent me his garmin files so i could compare them. My power is fairly steady, stays around 310-350 most of the time whereas his varies quite a bit from 200-400.
I concluded that he is making better use of his power by pushing a bit harder on the slower sections and keeping his momentum much better than me.
Next TT (2 weeks time) i'm going to try and keep my momentum up by pushing harder up the climbs and resting a bit more on the descents.
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Your power is very constant there, maybe you FTP is actually higher than you think?

Surely the only way you would lose out riding a constant FTP rather than varying it is possibly by not going hard enough up a hill then pedalling down it when the wind resistance would limit any advantage from pedalling, but on a flat TT I can't see how not riding a constant threshold isn't the quickest method.

Here is my strava from our TT in Feb. My power goes up/down more than yours as I pushed harder up the undulations in the road and into the red a bit.
 
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