Road Cycling Essentials

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Saytan said:
An amateur UK tester by the name of Matt Bottrill is trying to get a bio passport together for a crack at it. He's a serious unit, came second to Alex dowsett in the 2013 national TT championships. He's past 40, but I reckon he could take it from Brandle....
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I did a TT with Matt. Well I say I did, got a puncture 4 miles in.
 
Roady said:
The monitoring/checking I did before lead me to conclude that Strava is much more of an estimate than anything else - it has to use GPS to gauge your speed. It has to use GPS to gauge when and where you stopped and for how long. It then has to use GPS to plot on it's map the route you took and then calculates everything together. There's a lot of calculating done on probably very vague data (ie how accurate GPS is from your device and how often it's read).

My rides taken with IpBike (on the same device) should have been using the same GPS data, but distance and speed were calculated from my Garmin GSC10 (speed and cadence) making it much more accurate for speed and for any movement/stopped times. I upload the data to Strava anyway and it changes (I'm guessing Strava do their own calculations on the data just the same). I found regular differences between the pure Strava recordings compared to the IpBike ones - my total distance was different, total time was different and I assume the stopped times also were. Same bike, same ride, same device, different sensors/calculations.

I'm the same, a ride is a ride! Times when I go to a shop on the way home I generally stop and then do a new ride when I leave. Although if stopping to post something I just pause...!

You're not a pain to follow on Strava, but I naturally filter (using my brain) peoples commutes and pickup the non-normal/regular/longer rides ;)

Felt strong this morning (woohoo a 3rd PB!) which is quite unusual for me at the end of a commuting week! (rest day on weds). Not sure about the temperature reading lol
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Looks like you're getting more used to the miles you're doing. Soon you'll need to work out a way to extend your routes in order to challenge yourself :p
 
FrenchTart said:
Looks like you're getting more used to the miles you're doing. Soon you'll need to work out a way to extend your routes in order to challenge yourself :p
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Maintaining the sub 20mins commute (so I can spend longer in bed) is more important to me! ;)

How's the knee holding up?

I noticed earlier this week that my belt felt looser so weighed myself last night after riding (before dinner)... 82.9kg (13 stone)! I had been 13.3/13.2 for 4 months the last time I weighed myself (probably back in August). Quite chuffed, weighed myself again this morning (after dinner & sleep) and I was under 13st! This is the first time I can remember being this low! When I started cycling I was close to 15st.

I've probably not been this low in 10 years+! :eek:

So a good long blast on the trainer this weekend is a MUST! Weather on sunday looks changeable and I'm at a wedding on saturday night but I want to do 20 miles+ :cool:
 
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Nice. What height are you?

My knees are okay. I messed around with the setup on the turbo trainer bike and it seems fine now :)

In other news, I just received this from a seller on Alliexpress (whom I had previously ordered some fairly normal bike clothing from). Why on earth would they think I want this? :confused:

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Well...that's my outfit for tonight sorted out :p

Roady said:
I'm 5'7" ish, but have short legs (30" or less), so no trousers legs fit me! :eek:

Yup! Nailed it. :D

Good to put a face to the name, some serious hair jealously! :o
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6'1'' here with slightly long legs for my height so I often have similar problems with clothes :)

My hair is sadly starting to give in to age. In a few years I may have to give up and cut it :/
 
Vonhelmet said:
Whee, payday. I've just ordered a Vittoria trainer tyre and some DHB Amberley II winter gloves. Only £25.65 - Gold discount, y0 - and they're apparently waterproof and pretty decent in the cold. Let's see how that turns out...
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I'd be interested to hear how they are. My Endura gloves from last year are still going strong but with my new jacket I could do with some gloves that will cover part of my forearms more.
 
Any short/tight recommendations? Currently, I have some cheap muddy fox padded shorts which I then hide by wearing baggy MBT shorts over the top of (For shame, I know).

Although winter is coming, I fancy switching to a single layer with comfy padding.
 
Itchytrigg said:
Any short/tight recommendations? Currently, I have some cheap muddy fox padded shorts which I then hide by wearing baggy MBT shorts over the top of (For shame, I know).

Although winter is coming, I fancy switching to a single layer with comfy padding.
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What's wrong with Muddy Fox shorts? I use them for my commutes everyday, I brought 20 of them about a month ago, they were £2.50 each :)
 
Nothing wrong with them, they are pretty good and were cheap. My comment on hiding them was more to do with hiding my shame of being a paid up lycra club member when I walk into the office ;) But I figure it's time I should just embrace that side of my life.
 
Anyone fancy doing this short, cheap ride :P

http://racetheworldcycling.com/

Leg 1: London, UK to Istanbul, Turkey
Leg 2: Tbilisi, Georgia to Almaty, Kazakhstan
Leg 3: Mandalay, Myanmar to Singapore
Leg 4: Perth, Western Australia to Melbourne, Victoria
Leg 5: LA, California to Miami, Florida

Total : 17.5k km
Cost : £25k

:p
 
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