Road Cycling

Caporegime
Joined
28 Jun 2005
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On the hoods
Went out on the cross bike to try my like in the frost. Found some ice and fell off. No harm done though I expect I’ll get a decent bruise on my hip. Better put my studded tyres on for tomorrow’s commute...
 
Soldato
Joined
25 Sep 2006
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14,349
Tfw cleaning a years worth of snot-rockets of the inside of the garage personnel door... thankfully they all just wiped off. Target practise continues :p
 
Soldato
Joined
29 Dec 2004
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16,984
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Shepley
I've done four 100 mile sportives now and I'm not in a great rush to do another if I'm honest so I'm tempted to try out an Audax or two. From my limited reading up on it they sound like a smaller scale sportive where you tend to fend for yourself a bit more, are required to navigate rather than rely on marked routes and are cheap as chips to enter. Anything else I need to know before I take the plunge?

When audaxes say they’re not a race they actually mean it. :D
 
Permabanned
Joined
12 Feb 2011
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2,546
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Middle Earth
Had my first taster session at the Manchester Velodrome today. Really good fun and had a good session, found going upto the blue line fairly easy, put a few decent laps together and held my own. Past the blue line though, managed a few laps but it takes so much more effort to get round the bend at that height!!

Booked on for another in two weeks time but can see me doing it again and possibly going through the next stages.
 
Soldato
Joined
25 Feb 2004
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18,139
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Hampshire
Just over 500 miles in 15 days all in the lovely glorious british climate! :D Legs are going to love me when I actually give them a break in a weeks time :D

Proper cold out today, had 4 layers on my top half and was in the problem area of overheating/catching a cold from sweating. Definitely need to get myself some new boots after this winter. 3 years in my Northwaves now and they're starting to show. Definitely not as warm as they used to be.
 
Soldato
Joined
17 Sep 2006
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4,121
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Gloucestershire
I hear that! Today took me to about 680 miles in the last two weeks, still working off my end of year travelling and xmas weight gain!

Still have to commute to work, so no full rest for me. I'll have to try to stick to Z1 power for those rides!
 
Soldato
Joined
25 Feb 2004
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18,139
Location
Hampshire
I hear that! Today took me to about 680 miles in the last two weeks, still working off my end of year travelling and xmas weight gain!

Still have to commute to work, so no full rest for me. I'll have to try to stick to Z1 power for those rides!
How many actually outside with the real men though?:D:D
 
Caporegime
Joined
28 Jun 2005
Posts
48,104
Location
On the hoods
Hmm.

I have two sets of wheels for my cross bike. Both are mavic aksiums, both have the same ten speed SRAM cassettes. This morning I rode one set - cross tyres. This evening I rode the other - ice tyres. This evening the indexing was off. Surely they should be functionally identical? The only thing I can think of is that the spacers behind the cassettes are different?

Presumably unless I can find two identical spacers I’m going to have to fiddle with the indexing each time I switch wheelsets?
 
Soldato
Joined
9 Nov 2005
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8,618
Location
Southampton
Hmm.

I have two sets of wheels for my cross bike. Both are mavic aksiums, both have the same ten speed SRAM cassettes. This morning I rode one set - cross tyres. This evening I rode the other - ice tyres. This evening the indexing was off. Surely they should be functionally identical? The only thing I can think of is that the spacers behind the cassettes are different?

Presumably unless I can find two identical spacers I’m going to have to fiddle with the indexing each time I switch wheelsets?

The ice wheelset's cassette is far less worn than the CX wheelset?
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
4,617
Hmm.

I have two sets of wheels for my cross bike. Both are mavic aksiums, both have the same ten speed SRAM cassettes. This morning I rode one set - cross tyres. This evening I rode the other - ice tyres. This evening the indexing was off. Surely they should be functionally identical? The only thing I can think of is that the spacers behind the cassettes are different?

Presumably unless I can find two identical spacers I’m going to have to fiddle with the indexing each time I switch wheelsets?


could be all the parts in one wheel are at one end of the production tolerance, and the other one's at the other.
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
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8,420
Location
Hereford
Haven't decided on the new bike yet but picked some new gutties up.

So boring but they fit awesome with the large arch support in.

WTF is a guttie hahaa :D

Good choice, I really rate the Giro's (Treble II) I bought in a Wiggle deal. For a £50 shoe (it was a great deal!) they're superb. They've taken loads of abuse as my 'bad weather' & commuting shoes, but dare I say it - they're wearing better than the Sidi's I bought for over triple the price...!

Bold target set by Veloviewer for the year...:p
Lol, bit optimistic! :o

I've done four 100 mile sportives now and I'm not in a great rush to do another if I'm honest so I'm tempted to try out an Audax or two. From my limited reading up on it they sound like a smaller scale sportive where you tend to fend for yourself a bit more, are required to navigate rather than rely on marked routes and are cheap as chips to enter. Anything else I need to know before I take the plunge?
The classic is having a Brevet card you have to get stamped at different points. Some are more modern now and you take pictures of yourself at certain signs and landscapes to prove you located them. My understanding is there's lots of differing rules, so worth checking what the specifics are with something like aukweb. Some have specific routes, some have 'checkpoints' and you'll have to navigate between them yourself, some you gain different 'points' for different checkpoints and have to accrue a certain amount to 'finish' so you can almost choose where and what you're riding. You'll have to choose some long checkpoints to make your veloviewer target! ;)

@touch could give you some pointers as he's done some pretty remote riding!

Went out on the cross bike to try my like in the frost. Found some ice and fell off. No harm done though I expect I’ll get a decent bruise on my hip. Better put my studded tyres on for tomorrow’s commute...
Ouch! Hope it heals up ok & nothing worse. It was bitter cold here this morning, the wind was a real killer! Proper windchill. There where frozen puddles around and some frosty parts of tarmac but not ice on the roads so don't think it froze that hard overnight.

Went out saturday with the usual guys on the social ride, 5 of us. I had to be back at 11:30 and the planned route was quite a hilly one so I turned back for home at 10:15 figuring I should get home in an hour from there. Cue the rain and almost constant headwinds! I utterly emptied myself to get back and made it for 11:29. Was in bad books as she'd already packed the little one into the car and was just leaving as I needed to be 5 minutes earlier... Ooops! :o
 
Soldato
Joined
28 Oct 2006
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12,456
Location
Sufferlandria
@touch could give you some pointers as he's done some pretty remote riding!

I've only done 1 audax and it was a fixed-route with a brevet card to fill in on the way round. I think there were some route marker signs but not 100% sure - certainly a printed cue sheet to carry so not a lot of self-navigation required.
Some checkpoints were a stamp in the card, others were questions like "what is the milage to [placename] on the signpost at this junction" or "what colour is the door on the house opposite this junction".

From my experience, an audax is more of a distance challenge whereas a sportife is more of a speed challenge. We had a couple of cafe stops on the way round and it was a much more relaxed event than a sportife. There was a 400k audax nearby last year but I cant see it on the calendar for this year. I'd like to give that a go if it's run again.
 
Soldato
Joined
24 Mar 2006
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9,069
Well my ride yesterday was eventful. Temperature was fine once we got up and running. The road were also surprisingly good, just hints of ice down the edges. Then, at the 15mi point it all changed. The roads got much worse,

A Range Rover behind, goes for an overtake, not in the best of positions, just on a bend, on a narrow road. A Mini comes the opposite direction, the Range Rover stops the overtake but the Mini is going too fast, hits ice and bang, smashes into the Range Rover. Pretty lucky the car wasn't full on overtaking! I gave my details and we carried on.

Later on in the ride, descending, I thought to myself, "This doesn't look good here". Yes, the whole of the road was iced over and inevitably, bang. I hit the deck. Sliding down the road I spun around to see my father following me on his arse also. The sliding meant there there wasn't too much damage. I put a hole in my overshoes and have a bruise, but that's all.

Then finally, 1 mi from home we have a flat. Tyre half off, tube out, thorn removed we replaced the tube and exhausted a co2 canister on inflating it. Just to see the tyre go flat again as quickly as it has inflated. Yes, we have put the same tube back in! DOH!

Very eventful all around.
 
Soldato
Joined
17 Sep 2006
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4,121
Location
Gloucestershire
Eventful indeed! Stupid Mini for getting in the Range Rover's way!!How dare he be on the same road in fact! Typical RR driving attitude tbf, not to start a cyclist vs driver argument, but from my experience, 4x4 drivers, and I mean the pointless 4x4s like X5s, RR, Q7s, Cayennes etc, are usually nobs. Not all, but most are.

We were lucky with ice here, only a few bits on the edges, and some more major bits on the sheltered roads.
 
Soldato
Joined
25 Oct 2006
Posts
5,386
I got some grief from a passenger for not using a cycle footpath (shared use thing). He told me "there's a cycle path over there!" while gesturing at said footpath and I told him "there's a motorway over there" while gesturing at the M3 50 metres away. He responded with a confused look. Presumably his wife/Mum/Sister driving didn't agree with his ranting as she carried on at normal speed and didn't allow for any conversation.

His rage face:
vKnQMpg.png
 
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