Road Cycling Essentials

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6th in the all in handicap race today. Some excellent handicapping, the guy off limit ended up winning by only a few seconds, we just couldn't catch him in time.

The group off after mine and the block caught us with 1km to go, so ended up with a small sprint for the minor placings.

Felt like I rode well, started to tire towards the end, skipped a couple of turns as I knew there was a big effort coming on a pinch so I wasn't dropped. Rode a reasonable race that I'm happy with, not the fastest time I've done, but its weather and rider dependant more than anything.


The club has three riders in the men's tour of Canberra at the moment and one in the ladies. They are all going pretty well with chances of a couple of top ten finishes. The ladies time trial had to be neutralised yesterday due to a truck driving onto the course so they all got the ST!
 
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Built up my new pair of winter wheels today. the rear was within 1mm of being true straight out of the build. I'm feeling pretty ninja right now.
 
Thomas. PLease. said:
Took the afternoon off work yesterday and did an FTP training session. Felt strong throughout. Stopped the timer after the FTP session was done but rode the 11 odd miles home so just over 45 in total. 40 miles @ near 20mph average felt pretty good considering the recovery between FTP efforts.

http://www.strava.com/activities/83665147#
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I need (re: want) a power meter. Looking @ Stages or Vector's atm. Not sure the vectors are worth the extra. Also think w/ Garmin's hardware history waiting for a second revision would be wise.
 
uniQ said:
I need (re: want) a power meter. Looking @ Stages or Vector's atm. Not sure the vectors are worth the extra. Also think w/ Garmin's hardware history waiting for a second revision would be wise.
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I use a power2max which has been great for me, and nowhere near as expensive as vectors.

Training with power is amazing, it's transformed my riding completely. Already made FTP improvement from around 220 to 250 since having it. Hoping to get nearer to 300w eventually.
 
I'm currently looking to get into road cycling. I've been looking at the Boardman bikes as they seem to get decent reviews and I only have about 1k to spend. Looking at the sizes I was surprised to see the XL(biggest size) is only 57cm. Anyone know if this will be big enough for someone 6'3"?
 
Thomas. PLease. said:
I use a power2max which has been great for me, and nowhere near as expensive as vectors.

Training with power is amazing, it's transformed my riding completely. Already made FTP improvement from around 220 to 250 since having it. Hoping to get nearer to 300w eventually.
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My friend raves about his P2M, theres a new model in Feb '14 I think. A power meter would probably be a better investment to me than a new bike.

There's a guy in the club with a powertap we're of similar ability and when we go up hills you get a few guys race off but he keeps it steady obviously using his power to gage effort and 90% of the time when I keep on his wheel by the time were at the top we've reeled everyone back in and put on a bit of distance too.

Where as riding solo I sometimes go too hard to early by the time your heart rate catches up it's often to late.
 
spengos said:
I'm currently looking to get into road cycling. I've been looking at the Boardman bikes as they seem to get decent reviews and I only have about 1k to spend. Looking at the sizes I was surprised to see the XL(biggest size) is only 57cm. Anyone know if this will be big enough for someone 6'3"?
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The boardmans use a sloping geometry. the effective top tube on the XL is 585mm which ought to be alright.

One of the best things about boardmans though is that Halfords sell them. get down to Halfords and sit on one
 
Can anyone recommend a forum or a company where I can sell my old Specialized mountain bike, some SPD-SL pedals and Shimano shoes?

Thanks.
 
So - bike fit done!

Ended up taking 5hrs!

Really interesting session. It started off chatting about the kind of riding i do, what my goals are, past problems/injuries and history of training/sports. We then moved on to looking at how I'm put together, starting at my feet and looking at cleat fit. I had Speedplay pedals/cleats fitted whilst I was there as well as I'm fed up of single sided pedals.

Next we went over my mobility/core with various excercises, looking at flexibility of hips/hamstrings/glutes. Finally I got on my bike using my current setup and checked various things like knee alignment and looked at additional cleat adjustment. Then we looked at the shoe fit and added new insoles to get better support.

We finally went over the seat setup and tilt. My seat ended up going forwards and up, not dramatically, and the saddled tilted an extra 1degree (so the rear shifted up). A few more checks were done afterwards to ensure that the setup worked whilst riding at threshold and that was basically done!

It was a really interesting day - I learnt a lot about various aspects of bike setup, maintenence, training and so on and Scherrit is a really interesting and knowledgeable guy. At £230 it may seem like a lot, but when you take into account the fact that you're spending so much time there it really is money well spent IMO

More info here:
http://www.thebikewhisperer.co.uk
 
Thomas. PLease. said:
No warnings, it just won't detect it, no data will be recorded HR wise and will show as n/a on screen if you have the metric displayed.

With regards to the polar strap and garmin transmitter, I'm not sure you can buy the garmin transmitter on its own, so its probably best just to buy the garmin softstrap and then get the polar strap once the garmin one breaks which I'm sure it will.

I went through two garmin straps in a year, the start going by showing stupid blips of 200+bpm, then eventually thats all they record. I've had my polar one for longer than that its been perfect, never once shown any kind of anomaly.
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which type of garmin strap did you have?
ive had mine a year, still ok for me, sometimes when I turn my HRM on, it takes a while to settle down to the correct BPM
ive got the premium strap

I might give a polar a go
 
uniQ said:
My friend raves about his P2M, theres a new model in Feb '14 I think. A power meter would probably be a better investment to me than a new bike.

There's a guy in the club with a powertap we're of similar ability and when we go up hills you get a few guys race off but he keeps it steady obviously using his power to gage effort and 90% of the time when I keep on his wheel by the time were at the top we've reeled everyone back in and put on a bit of distance too.

Where as riding solo I sometimes go too hard to early by the time your heart rate catches up it's often to late.
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Yeah easily a more beneficial investment in my eyes. Yeah that's the other major benefit is pacing. I've always been really optimistic so used to go out on rides way too hard at the beginning as I ride solo the majority of time. Then after an hour or so I'd be struggling. Now I can just ride to set power the whole ride.

ShiWarrior said:
which type of garmin strap did you have?
ive had mine a year, still ok for me, sometimes when I turn my HRM on, it takes a while to settle down to the correct BPM
ive got the premium strap

I might give a polar a go
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Yeah it was the premium strap I had.
 
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