Road Cycling Essentials

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Cheers guys. It's got the standard Reynolds 501 fork that came with the bike which is quite heavy in comparison but it rides really nicely. I really want to swap it to a 531 fork but I'd want to ensure the dimensions are identical to preserve the handling and I haven't found one yet. Groupset is a mixture of mid 90's Shimano Exage and, as I find it at a sensible price, I'm slowly swapping it to 300EX/SLR/105. Biopace rings up front on the Exage cranks which will stay, NOS 14-19 6-speed Uniglide at the back with a new freehub and SLR brakes. It's actually just the brake calipers and rear derailleur that I need to find. Both the BB and headset are modern sealed cartridge instead of loose bearings for no maintenance. Wheels are very early aero section with 36 spokes. I haven't decided on tyres or saddle yet but it'll probably be tanwall tyres. The Brooks will look a bit out of place on this bike so not sure yet.
 
Pug said:
Have popped in here as i bought some bikes over Christmas, a road Mekk Pinarelo 1.5 (Tiagra 10 speed) and a Trek 4700.
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How are you finding the Mekk?

I've been looking at replacing my Scott Sportster (but will keep it for use in bad weather) and have narrowed my choice down to either the Mekk Pinerelo AL1.5 or a Felt F85. Both from Wiggle.

I was originally looking at the Cannondale Caad8 Tiagra but the Mekk and Felt seem to match the spec without that hefty price tag. I do prefer the look of the Mekk over the Felt, it also has the bonus of being £50 cheaper.
 
Quick A grade scratch race today, glad to just hang on, big field of riders, maybe 15 in total. Dropped a couple, but everyone else made it to the killer hill finish. I just rolled wide on the turn onto the climb and waved everyone through as I had no chance then, my legs were popped. Rode up at 300w constant and watched them in the distance attacking each other.

Got back home at 2am after going to the rugby in Sydney, up early to race. Had a redbull and cornflakes for breakfast, then got totally smashed, it was pretty windy today which made it extra hard, nowhere to hide at the back of the group as you run out of road when the bunch spreads out so you have to ride partially in the wind and do some work.

Average power of 293w, weighted average 310w, and a max of 1017w. Average of 39.1kmh. Looking at strava and all the attacks, loads of times the power just spikes up massively, way over the average. It felt like we were either trundling along at low speed 32-34kmh or going crazy with attacks, whenever I looked at the Garmin it showed more than 300w so I just stopped looking.
 
Set out to cycle Glasgow - Perth yesterday and opted for a back road I'd never tried before. This road was the devil's work, a farm track with field runoff, stones and potholes everywhere. Negotiated it fine until the end of the road where I encountered a sneaky pothole abyss disguised as a puddle. Double puncture, one spare tube, and stuck behind the campsies about as far from a train station as I could be. Also the one bloody morning no cyclists seemed to be out so I couldn't even cadge a second tube. Penguin walked in my clips to the nearest village pub and drowned my sorrows to wait for the 'team car'.
 
Vonhelmet said:
1017W :eek:
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Somewhere around 750w for 20-30 seconds of power, but it's still not enough to be competitive. I can just hang onto the bunch now. Need to practice hard efforts and recovery, as well as looking to improve 1 and 5 minute power!

On the climb to the finish where I cruised up as I was totally blown up, the top few guys went up a whole minute quicker than me, on a 800m length climb!

Average of 8% gradient at over 26kmh! :eek:



Next week is a 100km race, not sure if it's scratch or handicap yet. I think I'll drop back to B grade where things are more civilised. Should be a good training ride then as B tends to swap off turns at pace in a bunch rather than go flat out and attack constantly, I'll get spat out the back of A grade after 40-50km and have a long ride back alone.

Getting to the point where I am almost stuck between the grades, I'll ride A where I can on the shorter scratch races I think as it definitely improves your racing. A was 3kmh faster than B grade today so a big jump, no doubt helped by the larger than normal field.
 
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nydryl said:
Set out to cycle Glasgow - Perth yesterday and opted for a back road I'd never tried before. This road was the devil's work, a farm track with field runoff, stones and potholes everywhere. Negotiated it fine until the end of the road where I encountered a sneaky pothole abyss disguised as a puddle. Double puncture, one spare tube, and stuck behind the campsies about as far from a train station as I could be. Also the one bloody morning no cyclists seemed to be out so I couldn't even cadge a second tube. Penguin walked in my clips to the nearest village pub and drowned my sorrows to wait for the 'team car'.
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That sucks. I decided after the last couple of winters that this year I was sticking to main roads only for all my riding. Been caught out too many times before on back roads or ones I don't know well by ice, floods, poorly maintained roads etc. So far it's kept me in good stead this year. Sure enough, the one time I broke my own rule back in Nov, I came off on ice and broke both me and the bike.

I'll save the epic days exploring unknown back roads until the spring arrives. When it's been really bad I've forced myself to stick to the turbo this winter as well.

I am contemplating getting a cross bike or something like a Genesis cdf for next winter though. Something a bit more robust I can take up trails etc.
 
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