Road Cycling Essentials

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Never realise how 'back breaking' gardening is. Tidied my front forest of a garden yesterday - 4 hours of manual labour and this morning, with the intention of riding a few more miles for this month challenge, I fell off my bed from a stiff back and aching thighs.

That is why I avoid house chores and choose to go out cycling, at least cycling don't incapacitate me like plucking some weeds do!
 
Evil head / side wind in places this morning. I was trying to catch a chicken chaser on a long, sweeping down downhill. Got up to 55kmh but had to come off the drops as I was getting blown all over the shop.
 
Just finished the Great Manchester Cycle. Thoroughly enjoyable. :)

Edit: 84th place out of however many did the 52mile one. I'm well happy with that! :D

7k people in total turned up over the 3 distances according to the tannoy guy but I've no idea how many of those did the 52.
 
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This morning has been equal parts epic and epic fail.

I knew I needed 103km to finish the June challenge so mapped out a 65 mile ride last night. It was actually only 64.8 but that still should have been enough. However, strava is trolling me and has left me stuck on 999km! :mad: :D

To make matters worse I was also visited by the puncture fairy during the ride.

Apart from that, the ride was great, if a little windy in places.

http://app.strava.com/activities/63758169

Edit: Went out and rode a mile on my MTB to reach my 1000k target. http://app.strava.com/activities/63866072 :p
 
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Hi guys,

I posted in here a while back about possibly getting a road bike to ride to uni every day from this coming September. The Triban 3 was kindly recommended to me by somebody here as a good budget bike as I was looking at spending no more than about £300.

Anyway, I'm still looking at bikes and have discovered firstly I can buy my bike through cycle to work scheme to scrimp of the VAT and also have generously been given a bigger bonus than expected this year. So I've got a little, but not a tonne, more money to play with.

So now I've been looking at the Specialized Allez for c.£550 and have found the compact version on Evans site and the regular version on Rutlands. With Rutlands I can get an extra 10% off if I spend over £500 which if I get some half decent pedals as well should bring me back over that £500 mark. I'm led to believe I'll almost certainly want to upgrade the pedals so I think this is the best bet for me.

Has anyone had any experience with this bike? Or has anyone got any comments on it generally? All help and opinions much appreciated.

http://www.evanscycles.com/products/specialized/allez-compact-2013-road-bike-ec040963#features

http://www.rutlandcycling.com/43470/Specialized-Allez-Road-Bike---2013.html
 
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Vonhelmet said:
Looks like it goes over Belmont as well. Out towards Burnley, too - not been out that way.

Smithills school is local enough to cycle to, so no fannying about looking for lifts at least.
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Yeah, definitely. You should enter it. You're not going to get much more local than that and it's plenty of notice.


[Damien];24537596 said:
Just finished the Great Manchester Cycle. Thoroughly enjoyable. :)

Edit: 84th place out of however many did the 52mile one. I'm well happy with that! :D

7k people in total turned up over the 3 distances according to the tannoy guy but I've no idea how many of those did the 52.
Click to expand...

2261 people did the 52 mile Manchester thing. Just worked it out.

Also, quoting yourself is awesome. :D
 
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J-FRO said:
Hi guys,

I posted in here a while back about possibly getting a road bike to ride to uni every day from this coming September. The Triban 3 was kindly recommended to me by somebody here as a good budget bike as I was looking at spending no more than about £300.

Anyway, I'm still looking at bikes and have discovered firstly I can buy my bike through cycle to work scheme to scrimp of the VAT and also have generously been given a bigger bonus than expected this year. So I've got a little, but not a tonne, more money to play with.

So now I've been looking at the Specialized Allez for c.£550 and have found the compact version on Evans site and the regular version on Rutlands. With Rutlands I can get an extra 10% off if I spend over £500 which if I get some half decent pedals as well should bring me back over that £500 mark. I'm led to believe I'll almost certainly want to upgrade the pedals so I think this is the best bet for me.

Has anyone had any experience with this bike? Or has anyone got any comments on it generally? All help and opinions much appreciated.

http://www.evanscycles.com/products/specialized/allez-compact-2013-road-bike-ec040963#features

http://www.rutlandcycling.com/43470/Specialized-Allez-Road-Bike---2013.html
Click to expand...

very good bike, yes
mate has one, I have the Roubaix
 
Bit of a mixed bag cycling this w/end.

Set out early yesterday morning with the intention of doing a 100 mile round trip over to Sanquhar and then back over the Mennock Pass, via the highest village in scotland, and taking in a couple of other longer climbs along the way.

Got to Sanquhar and went up the climb to the transmitter on the hill above the town - was a good climb and probably the only one i've been up round here that stays pretty much constant all the way up. The minute you turn onto it the gradient hits 6% and then just sits on it for the next 7km winding up to the top. Was a bit overcast but nice all the same:

fw6p3p.jpg


Then about 2 mins into the descent at about 45kph there was a loud bang and a clank of stone off of wheel rim. Managed to hold it and pulled up to see the damage. Of course, it immediately started to rain. The rim looked ok, so i got a new tube out and fitted it and blew the tyre back up. But as i'm descending things don't feel right - there's a noise with each wheel rotation and it all feels a bit 'bumpy'. So i pull up again and can see a big bulge in the side of the tyre and it's split with the tube pushing through. :( Wheeled it back into town and tried to find somewhere to get it sorted with no luck, and ended up having to call the cavalry to come get me. :o

http://app.strava.com/activities/63575040

So that was all i managed.

Anyway, back out today and got another 80km or so in, but the weather was brutal. Like November rather than the height of summer. The wind was unbelievable. I did the first leg into Muirkirk yesterday at around 30kph, today i was barely hitting 23kph! Then i turned off to Douglas and it was like being fired out of a cannon for 20k! :D

http://app.strava.com/activities/63784473

Anyway, that managed to tick me over the Junedoggle target as well, so quite please with that:

the-junedoggle-cycling-v1-100.png
 
[Damien];24538196 said:
Hey you N West lot, Bolton sportive coming up in september. Takes in the ever so gentle and not at all terrifying climbs of The Rake & Anglezarke.

http://www.epicevents.co.uk/cycle-sportives/the-bolton-bash-cycle-sportive-september-22nd-2013.html
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1. It'll Be Reet (35 miles)
2. Ecky Thump (60 miles)

Love it. What route are people doing? If I can get some hills in between now and then I'm tempted to join you (albeit whilst lagging miles behind I'm sure!).
 
zophiel said:
Yea it is a nice climb ;) i am from around those parts so know a few of them :)
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Ah, fair enough. I've done the rake 5 times so far and it still nearly kills me every time.

minty said:
Had a look at the that the other day. didnt realise it went up the rake :eek:
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Do it minty. That gives you 3ish months to practice climbing. ;)
In my case it's 3mths to drop as much extra padding as possible...
I'm a proud member of the <190lb crew as of this week so hopefully I can drop a bit more before then.

platypus said:
1. It'll Be Reet (35 miles)
2. Ecky Thump (60 miles)

Love it. What route are people doing? If I can get some hills in between now and then I'm tempted to join you (albeit whilst lagging miles behind I'm sure!).
Click to expand...

60 miles or bust.

Anyone here doing the Cheshire Cat next Sun?
 
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I've been looking to get a bike for a while and now actually able to - I had a look at a couple of Giant's and Cube's today but the Specialized Allez's are also an option. Which bike would you guys get from the list below? Any specific reasons why? Will be used for general fitness type riding than commuting for work.

Giant Defy 3
http://www.cyclesurgery.com/giant-defy-3-2013/road-bikes/bikes-components-bikewear/fcp-product/46465

Specialized Allez Sport
http://www.cyclesurgery.com/special...s/bikes-components-bikewear/fcp-product/45365

Cube Peloton Compact
http://www.cyclesurgery.com/cube-pe...s/bikes-components-bikewear/fcp-product/46860

For a cheaper option - Specialized Allez
http://www.cyclesurgery.com/special...s/bikes-components-bikewear/fcp-product/45367

No particular reason for CycleSurgery, just had the window open for them all after having a look at them today.

Cheers!
 
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