HAha, miss me? (again)! Really not had time to jump on here as don't tend to visit forums from my mobile and really not got around to grabbing the laptop. I won't bore you with the riding I've been doing, but have been really enjoying the weather!
My riding had a bit of a slump for a few weeks before being furloughed at the start of April while working from home. No commute and missed a weekend or two. But I've more than recovered from that now. Am probably where I was last year after a couple of long/tough hilly sportives on less volume as have just been riding harder short sessions. I've had a couple of mostly 20mph flatter good rides around an hour as I've been doing local loops and restricting myself to an hour... With a couple of exceptions (still none of them the epics I've wanted to do). But I have also tried to make sure I ride most days to keep an upward curve of fitness, it doesn't always work out with daddy daycare and an other half annoyed from still having to work (from home) haha!
Although today being wet and noticing some choppy/sloppy/grindy cadence the last couple of rides I'm going to target some SS stuff on the turbo... Might be turbo all week looking at the weather now too. Not a problem, get some technique back and then smash out the long overdue FTP test. I should test well as many of these outside rides I've been riding good solid sustainable tempo 230-270w feeling good with threshold/surges 300w+ up climbs and not needing to ease for most of an hour. I don't feel I've got my climbing legs yet
but tackled this one exploring yesterday after a workmate said it was unrideable. Good solid 80-90% climb effort after a good 20 minute jaunt out to it (did as part of a loop another friend asked if I could do in an hour). What a joke, it was nowhere near the steepest around here!
What level chain are those Roady? I have always used SRAM and never had an issue, from PC1130 up to Red PC1190 iirc.
My next chains more likely to be Ultegra just because I heard they were quieter and a little better shifting.
That was a PC1130, they're the only chain I've used the past 2-3 years. Really rate them and have probably been through 10 of them. Got a PC1170 on there now (only SRAM the LBS had in stock to pickup) but have a PC1130 spare back on the shelf and even picked up an Ultegra chain to try as it's been a while since I had a Shimano. But I want to only ride it in summer to get 'perfect' measure of it rather than my winter abuse (which PC1130 have been 'best' for), so unless I have a massive summer here that won't be until next year.
I think you need a whole new bike Roady.
As if! Still gotta pay childcare until next Jan probably means unlikely it'll be this year... But with 2 holidays rescheduled, if either then gets cancelled from restrictions I may have some funds to do it this autumn. Although current furlough 80% wage, without the little man in Nursery we're actually a few quid better off per month lol
If anyone works for (or has a NHS person in their house), Endura are offering 50% discount of RRP. You need to e-mail proof (selfie with NHS ID) to in to Endura by the 21st April.
https://blog.endurasport.com/?BlogID=1003
That's great! Love it when companies do things like this, really showing support.
Aha, you're gonna open a can of worms here. Only triathletes wear sleeveless.
Haha totally my thinking when I read it! And don't forget the short/none socks. Criminals.
Me and a mate happened to both see a video about a guy who flew to France with a buddy and cycled back over a week. We've now got the idea we could do similar, but maybe a little smaller scale, so maybe get a train to Edinburgh and cycle back to London over 3 or 4 days. Anyone done anything like this? Any thoughts?
Cam Jeffers has done one of those, bought the cheapest flight he could find in europe and then cycled back.
You probably need to get some long rides (when it is 'safe'/recommended to do so) in the legs and then do a couple of them on consecutive days to judge how the accrued fatigue builds up and effects you. We're all different, so can have different effects on us, but also something you can train... But some riders are always naturally better at 1 day races, some at stage races and some at grand tours...
My mates got a Kickr core on order so will be giving me his vortex to use on Zwift so that will give me numbers to go on at some point.
It's fairly consistent numbers from them providing you're not tweaking setup (removing bike and re-tensioning) and always using the same PSI. But those are averages over more longer efforts, anything short it drastically under reads when cold, or over reads if you overpower it like I found. Good starter to base solo training on but for someone like you, you need a direct drive to get more accurate and trustworthy numbers for shorter efforts/races etc.
Finally got some bar tape on my Holdsworth after riding it nekkid for a month. Orange and blue is the order of the day. Really pleased with the bike though, excellent value for a nicer trainer and PX service was actually decent. The quality of finish isn’t great (the paint marks quite easily for example) but considering what it cost and what it’ll be used for, I’m not overly concerned.
Looks great! Really eye catching and looks far more special than it has any right to be! Although bar tape being a different shade of blue would bug me... Once it's a bit grubby it'll be fine!
Someone in my feed did 150 miles today....I can justify my distance so maybe he can too.
HAha, I did that a couple of weeks back... Had done around 60-70 miles in 3-4 days and after a couple of messages with a guy from work (to check out climb above) swung past his profile to see how he was getting on (expecting to see the same)... 191 miles. In 4 days. No wonder he couldn't climb.
Well, it looks like I wont be getting the bike fit any more as they've just announced they're
closing the Performance Centre!
Gutted! Sure hope someone picks this up as it really did stand a chance of being quite a focal point for cycling in the UK. Part of me thinks BC should be backing it, if they didn't already when they built the thing?!