Road Cycling Essentials

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First puncture tonight, 34 mph I was doing as well! Scary when it just goes bang! Managed to inflate with co2 and limp to a mates house for a track pump.

Anyway need some co2 canisters and some new inner tubes, all much of a muchness??
 
booyaka said:
First puncture tonight, 34 mph I was doing as well! Scary when it just goes bang! Managed to inflate with co2 and limp to a mates house for a track pump.

Anyway need some co2 canisters and some new inner tubes, all much of a muchness??
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Inner tubes, certainly, unless you're a weight weenie and want super light latex ones. Can't comment on co2.

Ps if I punctured at 34mph I think I'd poop in my bib shorts.
 
Vonhelmet said:
Inner tubes, certainly, unless you're a weight weenie and want super light latex ones. Can't comment on co2.

Ps if I punctured at 34mph I think I'd poop in my bib shorts.
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Luckily me and my mate were sprinting down a quiet country road on the way home, I was tucked in and just about to pass him and it went bang. Did crap myself but managed to slow without too much issues. But it was bloody loud. Checked my garmin when I got home and you can see 33.8 mph as my max speed right at the point of the blow out and went to zero pretty quickly!
 
I had a high speed brown trousers moment in Wales. Given the bright sunlight and the camouflage type shadows made by the bushes and trees on the road it was nigh on impossible to spot potholes of gravel, hit a gravel patch at around 30 mph whilst descending and felt the back wheel step out a little bit. I didn't have a change of shorts with me but fortunately they weren't required this time. Scary.
 
I see. I've always wondered what the benefit of CO2 is besides being quicker. I mean if you fudge it up surely you want a mini-pump as a backup anyway?

I'd recommend a Lezyne Road Drive + some elbow grease personally!
 
Shamrock said:
I see. I've always wondered what the benefit of CO2 is besides being quicker. I mean if you fudge it up surely you want a mini-pump as a backup anyway?

I'd recommend a Lezyne Road Drive + some elbow grease personally!
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Should be fine next time - will actually read the instructions before using - probably a wise idea!

Ordered some continental tubes and some spare co2's from wiggle.
 
Shamrock said:
I see. I've always wondered what the benefit of CO2 is besides being quicker. I mean if you fudge it up surely you want a mini-pump as a backup anyway?

I'd recommend a Lezyne Road Drive + some elbow grease personally!
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That road drive really is great. Not sure there's any point carrying around CO2 with that!
 
touch said:
There will be plenty of great riding from there. Maybe a little bit busier than the north end of the island with all of the traffic around Palma.
The roads along the North-West coast are great. Good surfaces (like 90% of the island), great views and good fun flowing twisty descents.
I'v done the road from Valdemossa > Deia > Soller along the coast, it's probably my fav road on the island.

The 3 big climbs i guess are:
Sa Colabre - realistically, it's too far away from Santa Ponza to ride there.
Puig Major (Starts at Soller heading North-East) - You could ride up this from Soller then turn at the top and ride back, it would be too far to get any sort of loop in.
Coll de Soller - Easily within riding distance. Would make a nice loop Esporles > Deia > Soller > Coll de Soller > Palmanyola (or the reverse)

I'm not sure how easy it would be to get round Palma, but Llucmajor and Randa would be worth a visit. Nice climb up to the monastery at Randa with a great view over the island.
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Nice one! Some good info there. I'll plan out some routes and save them to my Garmin for when I arrive.
 
Chaps,

When I remove the pump from my bicycle wheels, there's some air escaping. But I lose like 3-5PSI. Does anyone know of valves I can put on the wheels so when I pump the tyres up there's no chance of losing pressure?

Don't know if this is the right place for this.
 
Monkeynut said:
Chaps,

When I remove the pump from my bicycle wheels, there's some air escaping. But I lose like 3-5PSI. Does anyone know of valves I can put on the wheels so when I pump the tyres up there's no chance of losing pressure?

Don't know if this is the right place for this.
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That air is escaping from the pump hose, not the tyre. Don't worry about it.
 
I could do with a bit of advice regarding a singlespeed conversion I'm doing (yes, I'll be bearded and sipping real ale whilst skipping traffic lights in my tweed onesie). I have an old 531 frame that I'd stripped the derailleurs off and was just running on the small 42t chainring and middle of the 6 speed freewheel at the back - 16t or thereabouts I guess, but I haven't actually checked. It was a half arsed job and the whole bike needed a bit of a seeing to. Now that I'm at my parents and have a wealth of tools available I've decided to do a proper conversion. What's done so far:

Serviced the old weimann brakes - actually seem okay stopping power now
Lightly sanded the old rust away from the frame
Taken off the cranks and and ordered small chainring bolts for the single chainring
Taken out the bottom bracket and ordered new bottom bracket

If I've missed anything obvious let me know. What I'm struggling with is the rear wheel. The frame only has 120mm clearance at the back. The old rear has a 6 speed freewheel, nice condition cogs, and I had hoped to just use one of the old cogs in the interest of keeping things cheap and cheerful. However it's well off being true, has a couple of spokes that look bent, and a fair few that have no tension at all. Looking for advice on how I should best go about setting this up? Try and get the old wheel fixed up? Buy a new wheel - something like this ? What else would I need to run singlespeed on that and not fixed? Would it need redished (this confuses me massively)? Getting bogged down in information online so I'd appreciate any help. I'll post pictures in return!

edit: has anyone had experience/bothered to treat rust before - another thing I wasn't sure about.
 
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