Road Cycling

Absolutely lovely day though a bit windy up in the hills. Took it pretty steady for the most part aside from a bit of Pyms where some beardy guy almost overtook me :p To be honest I'm sure his time up there was way quicker than me but not being overtaken is important...

Ended up being 90 miles with all the hills done in the first 40 or so. Actually not feeling too fatigued at all and didn't have much in the way of aches/pains so I'm pretty happy with that. Hopefully it bodes well for me being able to do more long distance stuff with my current setup and fitness.

https://www.strava.com/activities/933388859
 
BennyC said:
Should think it'll relate to the value the seller states on the package. (read: understates)
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I thought as much. I'm looking at buying some disc brakes and you can get them cheap on eBay, but if they gave the true value and they took a full hit of duty and vat they'd barely be cheaper than just buying the product in the uk with proper warranty and so on.
 
Vonhelmet said:
I thought as much. I'm looking at buying some disc brakes and you can get them cheap on eBay, but if they gave the true value and they took a full hit of duty and vat they'd barely be cheaper than just buying the product in the uk with proper warranty and so on.
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Ask the seller?

I've only bought things in USD through DHGate/AliExpress which are low in value $25 or less. Some cleats from Taiwan this week but that was a sterling listing on the bay. Neither had any fees or charges attached.
 
NooBish AbbZ said:
Well, today was a big one. https://www.strava.com/activities/933314249/

Largest ride i've done so far by 15 miles, and an absolutely huge amount climbed today in comparison to any other ride. One of my target's for this year was to complete a 50+ Mile ride. Completed :D
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One does not simply stop for such a delight as an ice-cream mid-ride. These are saved for reward on completion :p
 
Vonhelmet said:
I thought as much. I'm looking at buying some disc brakes and you can get them cheap on eBay, but if they gave the true value and they took a full hit of duty and vat they'd barely be cheaper than just buying the product in the uk with proper warranty and so on.
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If it's a physically small item and they mark it low value the chances of you not being charged are quite high. If it's a bit bulkier then you're almost certainly out of luck. Personally for something like disc brakes I'd buy locally - or at least from somewhere in Europe. Bike24 used to be quite cheap but that was before Brexit caused the value of the pound to tank.
 
Got out a fairly good 23 miles this morning. Just local towny roads so just the odd short climb, nothing major. Got a few PRs here and there. Saw lots of cyclists out and about and made a point of overtaking a few :cool:

I had hoped to get out on my single speed but the front tube has been a bit funny lately and when I went to close the valve after pumping it up the valve core snapped off and then it only took a little nudge for the whole thing to go flat. Good job that didn't happen while I was out on the road!
 
Best weekend of the year weather wise - strava feed showing everyone and their dog out and about - and I've spent it building 13m of fencing........yuck.......
 
Vonhelmet said:
I had hoped to get out on my single speed but the front tube has been a bit funny lately and when I went to close the valve after pumping it up the valve core snapped off and then it only took a little nudge for the whole thing to go flat. Good job that didn't happen while I was out on the road!
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So following on from this, I decided to replace the tube this afternoon. Easy enough, you might think, but noooo, I managed to end up herping the derp. I took the tyre off, got the valveless tube out and binned it. So far so good. I put a fresh (well, repaired) tube in, put the tyre back on and set about pumping it up. I got as far as 70psi when all of a sudden there's a big hiss and the tyre goes flat. Wut. I take the tyre off, wondering whether I'd pinched the tube or whether it had found something sharp in the tyre or whether a patch had simply given way. Nope. It turned out I'd left the valve nut on the valve inside the rim, so when I inflated the tube it tore the valve out of the tube itself. Brilliant. Two tubes written off in one day.
 
Absolutely blistering pace on todays RR (my first - and probably last) I did enjoy it, having the motorcycles whizz past and lead car & broom wagon etc, though probably not enough to pursue it more.

60 rider field, predominantly Cat 3, and I moved up from 8th place reserve to fly my 4th cat flag :p 6 loops of this which is actually quite a nice profile circuit but the surface in some areas is atrocious (holes, cracks, bumps, divots, general roughness) which made moving up difficult without coming out of the lane and even then there was plenty of concertina even on the straights.

We hadn't even made it from HQ to half way through the neutralised section when one rider was pulling over to the side of the road with his left crank arm dangling from his shoe :eek: A 15mph SW wind made for crosswind on the 1 mile drag just after the KOM (top right corner) and a headwind down the straight, descent and climb in to Wing. First lap was very fast for a lumpy circuit, just shy of 27mph.

Struggling to move up from the back of the bunch I hit a rough enough patch of road on the starting straight of the second lap to see my right foot unclip :eek: I faffed for 10-15s trying to clip back in. Cue a hard effort to latch back on... right in to the foot of the KOM, drag and crosswind. Shortly after getting stuck in to the drag I actually, rather sneakily, moved over to the right to start making my way up the outside when the wheel of a rider in front was caught & twisted in a crevice in the road causing a 4-5 man 'head over heels' mangle :( evaded it without too much difficulty but lost some speed and then just failed to bridge the gap back on to the bunch with the grade and cross wind. Finished the second lap and threw in the towel, riding it in reverse to deliver time gaps and encouragement. I would have liked to have finished in the bunch but the average was 25mph which is beyond my limit currently. My main goal was not to crash/die so one success there at least :D

There were two other crashes :/ one involving a few riders and a car, head on at a pinch point so low-ish speed from what I heard, another with a wing mirror being clipped and minor spill and one involving a verge and collarbone. There was one concussion in the ladies race as well. The marshals did do a very good job, had proper stop/go signs, radios and there were 2 lead/following vehicles & motorbikes. I guess these things are inevitable when not on closed roads.

A 3 man break escaped on the first lap, gaining 30 seconds and come the end of the race they had almost 3 minutes on the second bunch (who struggled to get organised and didn't seem to want to work) nudging a 26mph avg for the 50 miles. Turns out one had recently turned Cat 2 but I think was able to race due to still being Cat 3 when his application was accepted? Nevertheless they were absolutely flying.

I have my 2nd, 4th Cat Crit on the 20th which is probably more my cup of tea for now. Though TT's are really where I want to get stuck in, safer and more satisfying.

24 degrees during the race at 27 on the ride home!
 
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Got out for another 28 miles this evening. Dead windy, and dark by the time I got back. I climbed our local cat 3, veeeeery slowly, then scored some PRs descending off the back of it and then on another big descent back to the Bolton ring road. Takes me to 51 miles for the day, so that's something. Gets me up a bit for the week.

In other news, it looks like I'll be riding to my parents on Wednesday. Can get a metric out of that if I go round the houses a bit.
 
IndigoGorilla said:
Weather was pretty damn good today so managed to get out and do a metric 100. Mostly flat other than two attempts at Swiss Hill which is a short but steep cobbled climb. Good fun but a few teeth were slipping and my chain slipped a couple of times on the climb.

https://www.strava.com/activities/935068657
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Swiss Hill? Don't people claim that's like 45% or something absurd?
 
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