Road Cycling Essentials

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As planned, I got out and did a ride circumnavigating Manchester. It rained for the first hour or so, so I was pretty well soaked after that. The first half of the route wasn't terribly inspiring - lots of suburban roads with endless traffic lights, which slowed me down. Fortunately no truly horrible junctions, so I made it round without too much bother, though I did have a couple of close encounters in Stockport with people who seemingly can't drive, or at least can't use their mirrors. Strava reckons the ride was 61.3 miles, my Garmin and RidewithGPS give a slightly lower figure. I was planning to get to 62 or so for the metric century, but I hadn't been eating enough so I was knackered by the end, and all wet, and running a bit late, so I cut off a couple of corners towards the end. Still, quite a good run all told, 15.4mph, which isn't bad (for me) given the stop-start nature of the ride and the minging conditions.

Those who were interested in the route - Frenchtart and OMS, as I recall - as said, much of it isn't much fun. It might be the sort of ride that would benefit from coming out just a bit further from town in order to hit some quieter, less built up areas, particularly on the North and East sides. West was fine, and South was OK once I got past Stockport.

Something is creaking/squeaking around my cranks/bottom bracket. I'm not sure whether it's just a result of everything being wet, or whether there's something more serious afoot. I might have to look at taking it apart and cleaning it, which will be a new adventure for me, as I've not dismantled an HT2 crankset before.
 
FishFluff said:
Dumb question alert.

Why do you guys all have winter bikes? Is it just due to Winter road sludge wearing components faster?
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Yep. Keep the nice bike for dry summer days. Use an old hack in the winter when it's wet and there is a lot of salt on the roads.
Not many carbon frames have mudguard mounts (or clearance for mudguards at all).
You also get a little boost of speed when you train all winter on a heavy bike with big tyres then switch to the lightweight bike for racing.
 
Hmmm not sure I can justify having a winter specific bike just yet. The mrs would kill me. Fortunately mine does have mudguard mounts so at least that problem is taken care of (Boardman Team Carbon). Although it would be terrible if the harsh winter conditions wore my groupset out and I had to upgrade just in time for the Summer... ;)
 
B0814-SUD-S_0041%20v2.jpg


Top of Mont Ventoux on 14/8/14. :)

I never stopped once and in places like this at the top I was out of seat sprinting in the drops as much as I could to keep cadence up. Think slowest speed was 6mph and it was 1st time I'd gone up Mont Ventoux (65 mile ride from Mont Brun) and 2nd ever mountain - went up Montagne De Lure couple of days earlier(85 mile ride from Mont Brun).

Sports massage today and legs are aching like hell and it hurt a lot a lot but already feeling better. :)
 
touch said:
Yep. Keep the nice bike for dry summer days. Use an old hack in the winter when it's wet and there is a lot of salt on the roads.
Not many carbon frames have mudguard mounts (or clearance for mudguards at all).
You also get a little boost of speed when you train all winter on a heavy bike with big tyres then switch to the lightweight bike for racing.
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Yup. Mine doesn't :/ My ghetto attachment works well enough, though requires readjustment now and again.
 
Decided to do a longer route today to try to find some elevation as was suggested in an earlier post of mine.
Not easy where I live near Lincoln.

This ride is my 4th and more than double what I normally do

http://www.strava.com/activities/184145732/

That climb totally b******** me.

1/4 way up i tried changing gear whilst standing(first time ever), the chain had major slippage and due to my very slow speed I fell over. Of course it normally wouldn't have been a problem but as I am still getting used to wearing cleats..........
No damage to the bike luckily, just to my elbow and pride(yes I did the looking around thing to see if anyone was looking).

The decent was pretty cool, had to use my brakes for that. 30mph is hellishly fast on a bike :eek:

The rest of the journey was a lot slower, legs were struggling and had to lift up regularly to let the blood flow.

Sitting down now I'm chuffed to bits i managed it. :)

Also, looking at the segments at the bottom, the last one has 4 in a red box. Could someone tell me what that is please.

Jb
 
4 in a red circle means it's a categorised climb. There's uncategorised climbs, then categorised climbs which run 4 to 1, 4 being easier than 3 and so on, then there's "hors categorie" climbs, which is French for "are you having a giraffe". A climb is categorised based on the product of it's average gradient and it's length, so you might have a long shallow cat 4 or a short, stupidly steep one and so on. Cat 4s are pretty common, cat 3s less so, and I've only ridden 2, maybe 3 cat 2s in two years. Of course, if you head to the alps like platypus, then your front drive is usually a cat 2 at least.
 
I commute year round on my winter bike cos it takes a rack. I've also used it for credit card touring. It's lovely and versatile in ways my summer bike isnt.
 
helpimcrap said:
B0814-SUD-S_0041%20v2.jpg


Top of Mont Ventoux on 14/8/14. :)

I never stopped once and in places like this at the top I was out of seat sprinting in the drops as much as I could to keep cadence up. Think slowest speed was 6mph and it was 1st time I'd gone up Mont Ventoux (65 mile ride from Mont Brun) and 2nd ever mountain - went up Montagne De Lure couple of days earlier(85 mile ride from Mont Brun).

Sports massage today and legs are aching like hell and it hurt a lot a lot but already feeling better. :)
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Brilliant. Well jel.
 
FrenchTart said:
The Plug 4 is good (I have two friends with them) but it's not a very racey geometry. Plus the discs are basically BB5s so you'll probably want to swap them out after not too long. They're still a ton better than rimjob brakes though :)
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yeah and it seems to be hard to find one for sale anyway.. I Think I'll wait for evans new pinnacle arkose's.. :)

http://road.cc/content/news/127425-pinnacle-launch-updated-arkose-and-dolomite-2015

the arkose 3 looks like the bike for me.. :o
 
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