Road Cycling
- Thread starter FrenchTart
- Start date
Soldato
I pay for VV, is it like £10 a year? I use it a lot though as it's great for filtering activities, filtering routes etc.
For example, maybe I'm thinking 'I fancy a 100km route today' I can filter all past activities to just the 100-110km ones, even see them on the map and click one that goes to an area I fancy. You can even see the strava photos overlayed on the route if you need reminders. I find all that very handy.
TBF there probably isn't that many aha. I can just do that.
Urgh. Accidentally ordered standard Shimano road gear cable (I think it's SP40). Stupid spiral wound stuff that is proper hard to cut straight. Ended up finding some no-name SP41-like stuff in my toolbox and used that in the end.
Had another gear cable tear up in my shifter but I think since I changed my BB cable guide in ~August it's lasted much longer. Possibly didn't even change gear cable since then.
Edit:
Went here https://www.strava.com/athlete/training then filtered by Virtual Ride and just ran some sketchy javascript in dev console on each page to get a sum of each page. 631 miles rode virtually last year. Surprised it's that much!
Code:
Array.from(document.querySelectorAll("td.col-dist")).map(d => parseFloat(d.outerText.substring(0, d.outerText.length - 3))).reduce((a,b) => a+b, 0)
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Just to re-iterate what others have said, don't compare yourself to others. Only yourself and with that said, take it easy, it's so easy to over reach and burn out - listen to your body.Jeez I wish I didn't come into this thread! Makes the question I'm about to ask look beyond pitiful.
I got my road bike in August and if I'm honest, I'm loving it even more than I thought I would and did 730 miles from then until now.
I had set myself a goal on Strava to do at least 2500milesnextthis year (Though seeing a some of you post 6K and 9K miles makes me feel pretty pathetic) and my reward for completing that was going to be an upgrade on my bike.
I figured either a power-meter or a set of carbon wheels would be a nice way to end the year and doing more than 3x the amount of cycling I did this year. What would be a better option to work towards? PM or Carbon Wheels?
Maybe 2500 is a bit of a pathetic goal and I'll set it as 3000 instead.
Some of you are ****** monsters. Jesus Christ
With regards to upgrades, bear in mind that most of them are so you look good at the cafe. The best upgrade is in your fitness, it'll make you stronger and you'll enjoy the bike more.
If you wanted to do some structured training then you could do a lot worse then riding to power and see how you like it. If you're a numbers person you'll love it. You can always sell it and recoup most of your money.
Yeah at the moment I'm just mostly looking at my own times on Strava. I do also compare myself to my friends as we all started at the same time and I do like a healthy bit of competition but it's mostly encouraging to see myself improve. There is a segment on Strava that last year took me 42 minutes to complete. I can now do it in 32 minutes (9.72 miles of mostly flat cycle path) and seeing the time tick down slowly is quite fun.
Aha I'll never look good at the cafe and there is always someone with something nicer than yourself. I really don't think I'd notice the difference a set of carbon wheels would make but I do love looking at numbers which is why I think a powermeter would be worth while. I've no experience of any form of structured training but I'm keen to try it. I've got to do the miles first though, until I'm doing decent miles, comparatively speaking, any upgrade I'll get will just be for show and I'll look like a total helmet who just wants to have everything without even requiring it.
The main reason I'm even trying to use my bike as much as I am is because considering I'm a beginner and my last bike was a fixed gear track bike I feel like a bit of fraud on a carbon fibre ultegra bike when I could've spent half of that and still had a blast.
Yeah, I don't remember a wetter year in my cycling history (~5 years properly). I seem to have gone through a headset bearing in less than 6 months too.
Soldato
You know Strava's summary of the year? One of the pages is your hottest ride... well mine was in September! What does that tell you about this years summer!?
Soldato
Yesterday I learnt 2 important lessons.
1. There’s a reason cyclists wear clear glasses in hail. That stuff hurts when you’re riding head on into it!
2. When leaving the gym. Don’t forget to put gloves on!
1. There’s a reason cyclists wear clear glasses in hail. That stuff hurts when you’re riding head on into it!
2. When leaving the gym. Don’t forget to put gloves on!
Soldato
Bizarely mine was a paddleboarding session in the UK.
I’m pretty sure it was hotter when I was in Spain at the end of August!
Hi all, just checking in - to say Happy New Year!
2021 was an ok year for me, far less commuting and as mentioned the typically British weather really did cut down the outdoor miles. Working based from Home is going well, but I've had to keep up a fairly consistent Zwifting presence this year to keep the miles ticking away. I give myself a goal on Strava of 5000 miles, which I roughly what our car does between MOT's. So a nice figure to compare and aim towards. Although I get close to it most years, I don't beat it too often, so probably a good goal?!?! Also a 'soft' target of 100 miles a week which is nothing for some of you - but when my commute isn't even 2.5 miles it takes a while to tick them off even if I feel like I've 'ridden every day' I still need 2-3 other rides to get there. I've had a couple of illnesses which hampered my riding this year, thankfully not the dreaded one (yet), but still things which wiped me out for a week or two.
Without Zwift and my commuting I didn't even do 1000 other miles!
2021 was an ok year for me, far less commuting and as mentioned the typically British weather really did cut down the outdoor miles. Working based from Home is going well, but I've had to keep up a fairly consistent Zwifting presence this year to keep the miles ticking away. I give myself a goal on Strava of 5000 miles, which I roughly what our car does between MOT's. So a nice figure to compare and aim towards. Although I get close to it most years, I don't beat it too often, so probably a good goal?!?! Also a 'soft' target of 100 miles a week which is nothing for some of you - but when my commute isn't even 2.5 miles it takes a while to tick them off even if I feel like I've 'ridden every day' I still need 2-3 other rides to get there. I've had a couple of illnesses which hampered my riding this year, thankfully not the dreaded one (yet), but still things which wiped me out for a week or two.
Without Zwift and my commuting I didn't even do 1000 other miles!
Never had an issue myself. I was surprised how easy my Giant tubeless tyres came off. Easier than many GP4000/5000s.
Are you making sure the bead is in the centre of the rim? Try more tyre levers?
Fairy liquid apparently helps to get a tyre on sometimes... not sure if that would just make it harder to remove though.
Are you making sure the bead is in the centre of the rim? Try more tyre levers?
Fairy liquid apparently helps to get a tyre on sometimes... not sure if that would just make it harder to remove though.
No amount of pushing, pulling or twisting is getting the bead from the edge of the rim, let alone into the centre!
Soldato
I seen some mechanics using talc when putting them on. Not sure if that would be much use getting them off months later! 
I think I see why this tyre system didn't take off. https://old.reddit.com/r/bikewrench/comments/o6lh7g/any_tips_for_removing_this_ust_tyre_thats_fused/
To think I foolishly carried a spare tube all this time.
To think I foolishly carried a spare tube all this time.
Soldato
What HRM straps do people use?
I have the Garmin HRM Tri, bought it in February 2020, it broke around a year ago and just stopped being picked up by my watch. Then during a run on Saturday it just dropped connection mid run and has refused to connect since. Battery was changed in October following some low battery alerts and i've tried another one just in case but no success.
I'm *just* within warranty as i think it has a 2 year warranty. However i'm thinking of picking up another as a backup as it's annoying being without it for a few weeks whilst it's being repaired.
I have the Garmin HRM Tri, bought it in February 2020, it broke around a year ago and just stopped being picked up by my watch. Then during a run on Saturday it just dropped connection mid run and has refused to connect since. Battery was changed in October following some low battery alerts and i've tried another one just in case but no success.
I'm *just* within warranty as i think it has a 2 year warranty. However i'm thinking of picking up another as a backup as it's annoying being without it for a few weeks whilst it's being repaired.