Road Cycling

Soldato
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Well to make it more simple. Larger guy has say 4/10 fitness and skinny guys have 6/10 fitness.

He can produce more overall watts as he’s bigger but as his fitness is lower he can’t produce this power after 90 minutes of riding.

If you all had HR/power and tracked the details, he is likely working harder and his ride would have a higher TSS, so riding together will help him improve faster all things being well.

Looking at relatively low levels of fitness (compared to elite athletes) it’s important to not read into body shapes/sizes and “types” too much.

Overall fitness based on how much riding and how structured any training you are doing will make the majority of the difference.

For the most part people will be relatively equal and specialities will only begin to show more at the real top end.
 
Soldato
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Do you mean 2 hours is a short duration or are you referring to the segments? I guess my point is more about, a 3 minute uphill segment right at the beginning would be won by the power, but then 1 hour 30 in, is won by the guy with the lungs, as the legs don't have that power any more. I guess the lungs and other factors determine how quickly energy can be put back in the legs?

Two hours is a short ride to me. There's a lot of parameters but one question that comes to my mind is was everyone fuelling (eating) during the ride? IIRC, an average person has enough carb based energy stored to last 60 to 90 minutes of exercise. So it's feasible if the person wasn't eating much, they could be running out of steam towards the end of a two hour ride.
 
Soldato
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New Trek Emonda out today.

It’s a nice bike, but I’m not 100% on the integrated front end with the bars/stem and routing, looks awkward to service and not sure what you do if you **** up your fit and need a longer stem.

Threaded BB is good. Disc brake only.

Getting towards the end of being able to buy new rim brake bikes now! Strange when it is still the choice of a lot of people, but I am sure they have run the numbers on number sold and it made sense.

I do like Treks product launches, worldwide simultaneously in all the media.
 
Soldato
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Threaded BB is good. Disc brake only.

Threaded BB = relevant to my interests.

i suspect a lot of the people who are aggressively pro rim-brake already have a fairly recent, fairly high end, rim brake bike.

Personally i dont think think discs are necessary on a road bike, but i wouldnt buy one over about £1k without now...
 
Soldato
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On the Amiga500
My ride partner is much bigger than me, in that he's carrying more body fat. I'm bigger in muscular physique. He can power up the hills very easily where as I find myself bogging down early. Over distance, we're similar and I think it's down to stamina there.

I'll always take a few sugar hits for the duration.

E: apologies for the cruddy phone photo. I'm quite chuffed with my bang4buck steed. I want to add some more blue like the bottles somewhere... Thoughts?

View attachment oxWcHEw.jpg
 
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Soldato
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Barnet, London
Two hours is a short ride to me.

Yeah, obviously a 'short' or 'long' ride is different from person to person. Last year it was a long ride to me, this year it's average. We all ate about an hour 1:10 in.

He can produce more overall watts as he’s bigger but as his fitness is lower he can’t produce this power after 90 minutes of riding.

Yeah, it's this bit that I'm finding interesting. When it slides from legs to lungs and how you delay that slide... I think by just getting used to longer rides, I guess your body becomes more efficient at replacing the power/energy.

My ride partner is much bigger than me, in that he's carrying more body fat. I'm bigger in muscular physique. He can power up the hills very easily where as I find myself bogging down early.

I guess then you've also got fast twitch vs slow twitch muscle fibres. Given your description, you would think you would be quicker up gradients, but if he's more fast twitch and you're more slow, then even when he's heavier, I guess he has advantages on hills? I guess an hour or so in though, you start doing better on hills against him?
 
Soldato
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Hereford
I'm the same as you mate, I just lather it on myself rather than the pad. Have a customer refer to his gooch as his isny as it isny your balls and isny his ********.

I don't shave so do have to keep it in check too or else it's like sandpaper.
Haha I was so cautious about posting that as it's a bit personal but thought sod it. Glad to hear I'm not a weirdo, even though I don't shave my legs, that still doing some 'personal grooming' is expected/required/encouraged. Mine has really been through trial and error though.

BMI of about 22 and early thirties!
No idea what BMI is sorry, quick google says that's a fairly low-average and I understand the term so means you're not carrying much excess. But as with any of these things, the initial curve of muscle building/structure you get when starting out means you trim quite a bit of fat & build muscle without really much change in weight. Get it 'just right' and you can even gain weight while 'losing size'. Think many of us have expereinced that, I see it still now at different parts of the year when volumes and types of riding can change and fluctuate.

To those riding discs (ultegra in particular) how common is it for rubbing to occur if at all. As in, bike is setup as it should be and out of nowhere you can hear a slight rub? Aware of the fixes etc
Common especially in any changes, not even new bits of equipment. As mentioned the wet and dirty weather can cause it, so much so you can get 'immune' to the disk brake 'hoooooon' in the wet winters when coming to a stop, while scaring old neighbours/cats/small children.

I went out for a ride with my mate yesterday. I'm quite the novice and he has been cycling years. Imagine the hate when I beat him on several of his segments :D #StravaSegmentsIsAllThatMatter
#Strava4lifebro

Doesn't always work for me, I get a sheet of paper to help look through the caliper and also look up through the bottom to a light on the ceiling. It can look centre's from the top but be miles odd at the bottom.

Just keep one bolt slightly right and push the opposite side of the caliper, nip that up a little and undo the side to slide that. Bit repetitive but works great to make sure both pads touch at the same time.
Not sure I follow the same method (or fully understand that) but one trick I've found, especially with pads a little worn in the wet weather/winter and you're topping up fluid... Use some thick paper (business card) either side of the disc, do the centre caliper and piston trick then a slight bleed and top up with them still in there. It'll put a bit less fluid in and the pads will be wider a miniscule amount more so less noisy and rub less in the wet. Just make sure you have plenty of lever travel so you can still lock them with ease if required... Unsure of the technicalities of this but works for me. I also did it when I replaced my cracked caliper in the spring as the new one was just causing rubbing on my old pads. Did that trick, hey presto quietness returned.

Looking at relatively low levels of fitness (compared to elite athletes) it’s important to not read into body shapes/sizes and “types” too much.

Overall fitness based on how much riding and how structured any training you are doing will make the majority of the difference.

For the most part people will be relatively equal and specialities will only begin to show more at the real top end.
This. But I do slightly disagree with the latter part. Not huge differences, granted, but at least enough to notice on longer/harder/faster rides.

Also 'everyone is different', quite a bit of natural ability to 'suffer', like pain levels and willpower at times can come into it. But I would also say the different physical makeup of us as individuals comes into things, not body shape but more towards the way we rest and recover, some of us are just better at it than others, on and off the bike. You can train lots but some people can just push themselves harder, recover faster, not feel uncomfortable several hours in doing the various things required. Different people stress at different levels too. Some fatiguing more, some less, some active recovering far more while even at high tempo/threshold, while others are not. Throw bodyweight, FTP, fast & slow twitch makeup of muscle fibres, what everyone had for dinner the night before, what amounts of quality sleep they've had over the preceding night/nights and not to mention what other activities they've been doing the previous weeks. It's an impossible 'soup' really of us general populace riders (read: not professional athletes) even with mixtures of trained ability, training levels, fitness and natural ability. Even with riders the same size/type and same 'FTP' measurement (or whatever else you're using to compare), some will 'naturally' be better at riding certain routes/circuits/climbs than others on certain days. We all have good and bad days, but also we have some 'better' and some 'not quite there' days too...

New Trek Emonda out today.

It’s a nice bike, but I’m not 100% on the integrated front end with the bars/stem and routing, looks awkward to service and not sure what you do if you **** up your fit and need a longer stem.
I like the look of it too and I usually am not a fan of the look of Treks... The newer ones are looking better, but then so many of the newer bikes across all brands are looking similar/familiar.

Bar/stem is nice. Supposed to be lots of sizes available and knowing Trek will be easy to get ahold of. A few months back I saw a neat 'combo' type bar/stem with an outfront mount of theirs on a bike in the LBS workshop. Was impressed, but forgot to note it's name/model!

Yeah, it's this bit that I'm finding interesting. When it slides from legs to lungs and how you delay that slide... I think by just getting used to longer rides, I guess your body becomes more efficient at replacing the power/energy.
Legs and lungs I think you're really determining too much into, but also think you're meaning the difference between good cardio/stamina and those using more power to ride. Cadence and riders ability to 'tempo' can be a good judge - high or good constant cadence is generally good cardio - less impact/muscle strain. Souplesse. Lower cadence - more power riders and strain, needs more fuelling else fatigue comes quicker. Grinding.

We're not generally massively built power based TT'ers here so spinning is winning. Get that cadence up, sweetspot is life. Grinding is for noobs. :cool:
 
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Soldato
Joined
25 Feb 2004
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Hampshire
My ride partner is much bigger than me, in that he's carrying more body fat. I'm bigger in muscular physique. He can power up the hills very easily where as I find myself bogging down early. Over distance, we're similar and I think it's down to stamina there.

I'll always take a few sugar hits for the duration.

E: apologies for the cruddy phone photo. I'm quite chuffed with my bang4buck steed. I want to add some more blue like the bottles somewhere... Thoughts?

View attachment oxWcHEw.jpg

Cable outers, disc rotors, bolts, hockey wheels, bar tape.

I need to take a photo of my super xto show you what can be done. :D:p
 
Soldato
Joined
9 Nov 2005
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Southampton
We're not generally massively built power based TT'ers here so spinning is winning. Get that cadence up, sweetspot is life. Grinding is for noobs. :cool:

Bit extreme even for me (I normally average something in the approx 90-105rpm ballpark), but I did a short event last month averaging 123rpm for just over 21mins https://www.strava.com/activities/3450549479/analysis :p

Anyone completed the 200Km ride challenge yet? https://www.strava.com/challenges/pas-normal-midsommer It's been ~25 months since my one and only 100-miler to date, a silly part of me wants to give this a shot, a more sensible part says I'm in no shape to tackle something this long, when I've only done two 50-65 mile rides this year and I'm still down on my power and fitness numbers before catching COVID-19 three months ago.
 
Soldato
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12 Mar 2008
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West sussex
talking about disks making noise.. my old setup on my commuter was LOUD in wet. Disk pads usually do touch a teeny bit anyway but there's so little friction that you would probably never notice.

I have a video of the noise it made..


as you can imagine that would upset a few people :D
 
Soldato
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22 May 2003
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10,855
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Wigan
Anyone completed the 200Km ride challenge yet? https://www.strava.com/challenges/pas-normal-midsommer It's been ~25 months since my one and only 100-miler to date, a silly part of me wants to give this a shot, a more sensible part says I'm in no shape to tackle something this long, when I've only done two 50-65 mile rides this year and I'm still down on my power and fitness numbers before catching COVID-19 three months ago.
Yeah but nah.

I’ll be giving that a miss. Need a bunch of guys to make it approach being enjoyable and even then it’s too long sat on a bike for me.

Need a day of great weather and low wind. Plus don’t pick the hilliest route.
 
Associate
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I'm in need of some more cycling jerseys as I've only really got one, are there any recommended brands to look at? Been looking at Castelli and Le Col, but didn't know if there were others to consider?
 
Soldato
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Barnet, London
Further to my talk about lungs and legs etc, I had Thursday off and rode yesterday, only 25 miles, so not a big one but my legs went after about an hour. Had nothing in them. Felt totally wiped out for the rest of the day. Rather odd and unexpected.
 
Soldato
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12 Mar 2008
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West sussex
Further to my talk about lungs and legs etc, I had Thursday off and rode yesterday, only 25 miles, so not a big one but my legs went after about an hour. Had nothing in them. Felt totally wiped out for the rest of the day. Rather odd and unexpected.
I used to ride 5-6 days a week for weeks straight and got that sometimes. Just bad nights sleep, bad breakfast etc and that was it. Nothing you can do either chill and rest or push through it.
 
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